Оливер Блик - Protocol for a Kidnapping

“Which border?” Pernik asked.

“Either into Italy or Austria. You will be accompanied by Mr. Knight and Mr. Wisdom.”

He nodded and muttered, “Good.”

“They will not harm Mr. Killingsworth, will they?” Gordana asked.

“What bothers me,” the old man interrupted, thumping the arm of his chair, “is who these idiots could be. I can understand them asking for a million dollars. That’s simple economics. You kidnap an ambassador and make sure that the ransom is in good hard currency. But who’d want an old, forgotten poet?” He brightened. “But perhaps it’s not me. Perhaps it’s Gordana whom they want.” He turned toward his granddaughter and smiled. “If I did not know that you were already spoken for, Gordana, I might think you had a secret lover.”

She blushed again and smiled, a little shyly.

“Spoken for?” I said.

“Since she was sixteen,” the old man said, nodding happily.

“I thought she wasn’t engaged.”

“To the Church, Mr. St. Ives,” he said proudly. “She’s to be the bride of Him who is greater than us all.”

“We were not to speak of it,” Gordana said, even more shyly than before.

“She’s just been waiting for me to die,” he said, “before entering the sisterhood. Now she will do it in America.”

“What a waste,” Wisdom muttered.

Gordana said something to Pernik in Serbo-Croatian and the old man nodded vigorously. “My granddaughter reminds me that we have forgotten our hospitality. You will join us in a glass of brandy,” he said. There was no question in his tone.

After the plum brandy was served, Gordana looked at me curiously and then once again spoke rapidly to her grandfather in Serbo-Croatian. The old man pulled his glasses down his nose and gazed at me over the rims. Then he pushed them back into place and gave me another hard stare.

“Forgive my rudeness, Mr. St. Ives, but Gordana just brought something to my attention.” He took another sip of his brandy and stared at me some more, this time nodding his head affirmatively. “You remember asking if we knew a man called — uh—”

“Bjelo,” his granddaughter said.

“Yes, if we knew a Bjelo who looked something like you. I know no one by that name but there was a young man who resembles you strongly whom we did once see quite often. Almost daily, in fact.”

“The resemblance is really remarkable,” Gordana said. “Except for the eyes. You have much kinder eyes.”

“Who was he?” I said.

“His name was Stepinac. Arso Stepinac. He was about ten years younger than you, Mt. St. Ives. The fellow became quite boring with all of his questions.”

“Questions?” I said.

“Yes,” the old man said. “That was his job, to ask me questions.”

“About what?”

Pernik made a broad gesture. “About life and love, of course, what else does one question a poet about, even a forgotten poet?”

“He asked my grandfather about politics and about his old friends,” Gordana said. “The questioning went on almost daily for several weeks.”

“When was this?” I said.

“A month or so ago,” the old man said. “I haven’t been questioned like that in years. And then one day, without any notice, Stepinac came no longer.”

“Did you ever find out who he was or who he was with?” I said.

Pernik looked at me curiously. “Find out? There was nothing to find out. He told me. It was the first thing he told me. I don’t answer just anyone’s questions, not day after day.”

I sighed. “All right,” I said. “Who was he?”

“Stepinac was younger than you, all right,” the old man said, “but I don’t know about the eyes. His seemed — well — steadier. Who was he? There’s no secret. He was Arso Stepinac and he said he was an official or something with the UDBA, the State Security Police. I never did learn why he was questioning me.”

They came for me at three o’clock in the morning. There was the knock at the door, loud enough for me to hear, but not so loud as to disturb the neighbors. Still, it disturbed Arrie Tonzi who rolled over in the bed and sleepily asked, “What time is it?”

“Three o’clock,” I said, fumbling for my trousers. “Go back to sleep.”

I still like to think that Arrie was in my bed at three o’clock that morning because my virtues were admirable, my personality engaging, and my charms irresistible. But it was probably because of the wine that we’d begun dinner with the night before. We had dined together alone in my room because I wanted to stay by the phone in case the kidnappers called and when I’d invited Arrie to join me, she accepted. Wisdom and Knight had gone off to explore Belgrade.

The wine had led to talk and the talk had led to shared intimacies which had led to that first, tentative embrace, the one where two lonely persons know they can stop if they want to, but neither of us had wanted to, so we had made love to each other pleasurably, fondly, tenderly, even humorously, and that had led to me groping for my trousers at three o’clock in the morning.

There were two of them at the door, but only one of them had a gun, an automatic whose make I didn’t recognize. They were both young, in their mid-twenties, and the one with the automatic motioned me back into the room. I backed into it and they came in, closing the door behind them. The one without the gun said something in Serbo-Croatian and when it was apparent that I didn’t understand him, he started making motions with his hands.

“He wants you to get dressed,” Arrie said.

They turned toward the bed where she was sitting and the one with the gun grinned at her. She hadn’t bothered to pull the sheet up any higher than her lap, but it seemed to concern the two young men more than it did her.

“I’ve figured out that he wants me to get dressed,” I said. “Why don’t you ask him what happens after I do?”

She said several sentences or a long paragraph in Serbo-Croatian to the pair and the one with the gun answered her briefly. “You’re to go with them,” she said. “They’ll bring you back.”

“Ask them why the gun,” I said and before she could, I said, “Never mind, it’s obvious. Ask when I’ll be back.”

I was putting on my shoes and socks when she said, “They say that you’ll be back by four thirty.”

“If I’m not,” I said, “call the cops.”

“You want me to call them anyway?”

“Tell those two that you will if I’m not back by four thirty.”

She told them and I watched their reaction. The blond one with the gun shrugged, but kept it pointed carelessly at me. The other one, who had brown hair, grinned at Arrie who drew the sheet up around her shoulders. Probably because she was cold.

“You don’t seem very excited,” she said to me in an accusing tone as I shrugged into my topcoat.

“Neither do you,” I said.

“Maybe they’re the kidnappers,” she said.

“Ask them.”

She asked them and they both looked puzzled and the one with the gun waved it at me. I nodded and smiled at him and said, “Excuse me.” I crossed over to the bed and tilted Arrie’s face up to mine and kissed her gently.

“I can call down to the desk and—” I interrupted her with another kiss.

“I think they speak English,” I said, “and I don’t think we’re going near the desk.”

“Why?”

“It snowed late last night, remember?”

“Yes.”

I kissed her again and one of them grunted impatiently. I gave him a backhanded wave without turning. “Look at their boots,” I said. “They’re bone-dry.”

She peered around my shoulder. “By Jove, Holmes, you’re right.”

“As usual,” I said and turned toward the door. The one without the gun opened it and all three of us went through it and turned left toward the stairs rather than right toward the elevator. We went up two flights of stairs, down the corridor, and stopped in front of a door. The man without the gun knocked twice and then pushed the door open. He gestured for me to go through and when I did, the first thing I saw was the man who couldn’t make up his mind whether his name was Artur Bjelo or Arso Stepinac.