Оливер Блик - Protocol for a Kidnapping

“Where’d you get the name?” I said, finishing the last of my soup.

“You do not like it?” he said.

“I think it’s fine. Ritz Hotel. Nothing wrong with that.”

“There was much debate,” he said. “I wanted to call it the Hotel Uzice. I lost.”

“Who wanted Ritz, your wife?”

“No,” he said, “the chairman of the Socialist Alliance of Working People.”

I didn’t awake until nearly ten when the management of the Ritz Hotel sent a smiling daughter-in-law up to our room with coffee. Arrie was still in bed, her mop of blond hair barely visible above the covers. She peeked out at me with one eye.

“Who the Christ was that?” she said.

“Room service with coffee.”

“What time did we get to sleep?”

“I don’t know; around five.”

“Screwing’s the best tranquilizer there is.”

“They’ve been trying to package it in one way or another for years.”

She propped herself up in bed and I handed her a cup of coffee. “Takes two though,” she said.

“Or three.”

“You like that?” she said.

“What?”

“Threesies and foursies and whole rooms full, I guess.”

“Three is better than one, but two is better than three.”

“You’re conventional.”

“Backward,” I said.

“Hey, we tried that too last night, didn’t we? I like that.”

She was sitting up in bed now, her knees up to her chin. “I’m going to have to try the other some time.”

“What?”

“A threesome. You want to play?”

“Sure.”

“You’d want another girl, wouldn’t you?”

“I’m selfish.”

“Who?” she said.

“Who what?”

“Who’d you want?”

“I’ll let you send the invitation.”

“How about Gordana?”

“That’s a possibility.”

“Huh.”

“Huh what?”

“I was just thinking,” she said. “About Gordana. She wouldn’t be bad at all, would she?”

“Not bad,” I agreed.

“I never thought about it before. I mean not just like that, not imagining one particular person. What do you think she’d say?”

“Yes or no,” I said.

“How do you ask someone? I mean do you just say, ‘How’d you like to join us in bed tonight because we think you’re pretty sexy-looking?’”

“That’s one way.”

“What’s she going to do now that her grandfather is dead?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Is she still going to become a nun?”

“I think that’s postponed.”

“But she wants to go to the States?”

“Yes.”

“That shouldn’t be any problem for her now. Passports aren’t hard to get. Why doesn’t she just get one and go? Why does she have to go through all this kidnapping exchange thing? They aren’t after her.”

“I’m trying to get the ambassador back, remember?” I said. “They’re expecting Gordana.”

“What about Tavro?”

“If he’s lucky, he can use her grandfather’s exit permit to get out of the country. Permits aren’t easy for people like him to come by.”

“How’d you get mixed up with Tavro?” she said.

“Just curious?”

She shook her head. “My boss can’t figure out how he got involved in the kidnapping. Tavro was very bad news at one time.”

“When?”

“When The Reform started. You know what The Reform is?”

“The decentralization of power, both political and economic,” I said, droning the words. “It’s been going on for years.”

“Tavro was one of those old-timers who tried to stop it. He got bounced for his trouble. Now there’re others who think it’s gone too far. My boss heard that Tavro is peddling information.”

“What kind?”

“The kind that can get him in trouble.”

“Maybe that’s why he wants to leave the country,” I said.

“You don’t talk much in the morning, do you?”

“Get dressed,” I said. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

“Shit,” she said and kicked back the covers.

“At the end of the hall,” I said. “Last door on your left.”

Gordana, Knight, and Wisdom were in the dining room having breakfast. I joined them and asked where Tavro was.

“He went out,” Wisdom said. “About thirty minutes ago.”

“For what?”

“To buy a razor,” he said. “I told him to buy four of them.”

“Did you have a nice sleep?” Gordana asked me.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Miss Tonzi did not keep you awake?”

“Not so that I noticed.”

“That is very good,” she said and smiled sweetly while Knight and Wisdom followed the conversation with deepening interest. “I was worried that you would not get enough sleep.”

“Nobody worried about how much I got,” Knight said.

“I did,” Wisdom said. “I worried so much I couldn’t sleep myself.” He turned to Gordana. “I even thought of coming by your room so that you could worry about St. Ives and I could worry about Knight.”

She smiled at him. It was a lovely smile and Wisdom basked in it. “You should have,” she said. “Perhaps we could have comforted each other in some fashion.” She patted him on the cheek and he smiled and I sipped the coffee that one of management’s daughters-in-law had brought.

“Maybe we could console each other tonight,” Wisdom said.

“I am not sure where we will be tonight,” Gordana said. “Mr. St. Ives has not told us.” She smiled again at Wisdom. “But it is an interesting thought.”

“With luck, you’ll be in either Venice or Vienna,” I said.

“And with no luck where will we be?” she said.

“I have no idea.”

“When do we start?” Knight asked.

“As soon as Tavro comes back.”

He came into the dining room then, bundled up in his dark overcoat, his carplike face pink with cold. He beckoned me to join him and Wisdom said, “Make sure he got some blades.”

Tavro drew me out into the lobby and then looked around carefully. “I have been making inquiries,” he said.

“About what?”

“Transport.”

“You mean trains and buses?”

He nodded. “They are being watched.”

“Looking for you?”

“I am not sure,” he said. “There has been a murder.”

“Jones?”

He shook his head this time. “The radio,” he said.

“What about it?”

“It identified the murdered man.”

“Who was he?”

“The news report that I heard said that it was an American.”

“Not Jones though?”

“No. It said that the man was Philip St. Ives.”

The dead man had to be my look-alike, Arso Stepinac. I tried to digest the report of my death, but it wasn’t much use, so I asked Tavro, “Who identified the body?”

“Someone from the American embassy. Its press attaché, I think. I do not remember if they gave his name.”

“Lehmann,” I said. I kept on trying to think, to sort it all out, and I thought I was almost getting somewhere when Tavro said, “How will this affect your plans?”

“How the hell should I know?” I said.

“That is why I was making inquiries about transport.”

“You’d better stick with us,” I said.

His normally glum look changed into one of despondency. “I apparently have little choice.”

“Did you buy the razors?” I said.

He nodded and produced four plastic-handled safety razors from his pocket. “They come with blades,” he said.

“Give me one and tell the others to shave and get ready. We’re going to leave within the next twenty minutes.”

Arrie was pulling on her pantyhose when I entered the room.

“Any hot water?” I said.

“You’ll have to use the cork.”

I ran some water into the basin and used a thin bar of soap on my face. While I stroked off the whiskers, I said, “You said your boss was thinking of moving in on the kidnapping. Your real CIA-type boss, I mean.”