Olen Steinhauer - Victory Square

In the corridor, some uniforms winked at me knowingly, and others made jokes about me not getting killed before my last day. I told them I’d make a solid effort. For the last two weeks, Katja had been making arrangements for my retirement party Friday; she thought it was a secret, but she’d made the mistake of bringing Bernard in on the deception, and I’d seen the guest list he’d left on his desk.

As expected, he was in the lounge, sipping acorn coffee with one of the receptionists, a pretty girl from Vranov named Margit. “Bernard.”

The big captain was surprised to see me. Surprised and embarrassed. Embarrassment looked funny on a man his size. He stood up, mustache twitching. “Chief.”

“Come on,” I said. “We’ve got a corpse to look at.”

“Oh!” said Margit.

I led Bernard down a pea-colored stairwell to the second underground level, where I signed out an unmarked Militia Karpat and took the wheel. Once we’d turned onto Lenin Avenue, I broke the silence by asking about his wife: “How’s Agi?”

“Good.”

“The portrait’s today, isn’t it?”

All he did was nod at that, which annoyed me. Today was the most important commission of Agota’s career-a large-format photograph of our Great Leader. He said, “She’s taking Sanja to Ti-sakarad this afternoon. Doesn’t want to wait for me.””Surprising,” I said, without a hint of surprise.

Bernard Kovar was married to, and had a baby with, Agota, the daughter of my oldest friend, Ferenc Kolyeszar. Famous Ferenc. For the last thirty years, due largely to his literary career, Ferenc had been living in internal exile, first in Pocspetri, then in Tisakarad, forty-five minutes from Sarospatak. By now Ferenc was internationally famous; even the French had praised his “dissident” works.

Agota moved to the Capital five years ago and, as her symbolic guardians, neither Lena nor I really approved when Bernard and she became an item. To us, he was still too young, at thirty-seven, to have an adult relationship with a woman ten years his senior. Despite that, they married, and nearly every day I found him flirting with another receptionist.

We turned onto the roundabout at Victory Square. To the right, the high columns of the Central Committee Building rose up. In front of it, a bronze Vladimir Ilyich, jacket raised in a permanent breeze, pointed to the gray sky.

I suppose Vladimir’s gone by now.

“You’ve got a nice family,” I told him.

“Christ, Emil. Can’t a man flirt?”

I turned up Yalta Boulevard, then passed the high glass tower of the Hotel Metropol. Ahead, at number 36, two uniformed Ministry guards stood on the right side of the road, outside Ministry headquarters, waving pedestrians to the opposite sidewalk. “Just watch out,” I said. “It’s not only me you’ll have to answer to.” No?

“Lena will have your balls.”

Bernard groaned.

When we climbed out, a guard waved at us, saying, “Nothing to see.”

I flashed my Militia certificate. “Comrade Colonel Romek called me.” I said it as if the colonel and I were very old friends, then noticed the corpse. It was lying on the cracked sidewalk, covered by a simple white sheet. “Why’s the body out here?”

The guard shrugged. “Orders.”

Unbelievable. I approached Yuri Kolev’s body; his shroud rippled in the frigid breeze. “Go ahead,” I said to Bernard. “Let’s see him.”

He crouched and pulled back the sheet, and when I saw the dead, gray-bearded face it came back to me: a loud, drunken old man from Brano Sev’s retirement party, who ogled Agota all night. I even remembered the man’s bitterness when Agota walked over to Bernard Kovar and asked him to dance.

“Do I know this guy?” said Bernard, crossing his arms over his chest. “I think I know him.”

“I hope you do,” said a calloused voice. We turned to find a small man in his fifties, with a thin gray mustache and brown suit, smiling. He stuck out a hand. “Nikolai Romek. Remember now?”

I did. Yet another Agota-admirer from that party. Lena and I had had our hands busy keeping these men off of her, only to fail with Bernard. “Good to see you again, Comrade Romek. Meet Captain Bernard Kovar.”

Romek smiled but didn’t offer his hand. “Of course. I remember.”

“You going to explain this?” I said.

“Explain what?”

“You’ve taken Kolev out of his office and left him here. My foren-sics man is going to explode.”

“Forensics?” said Romek, smiling involuntarily. “Emil, the man died of a heart attack. I’m just dumping the paperwork on you.”

“Because your men are too busy to fill out a three-page form.”

Romek nodded-he didn’t care whether I believed him or not.

I said, “Could this be related to his work?”

“Why are you obsessed with making this into a murder?”

“I meant stress, Comrade Colonel.”

He paused, then shook his head. “No. We weren’t burdening him with anything tougher than photocopying. He was retiring soon.” Romek looked down at Kolev’s flaccid, pale face. “A damned shame.”

“When?”

“When, what?”

“His retirement.”

“Next month.”

“Medical records?”

“Send a request to Pasha Medical if you like.”

I knew about file requests sent to the Ministry’s private hospital. I’d be retired by the time it showed up. “We should at least have a look at his office.”

“Why do you think we brought out the body?” He squinted at me. “It’s a hectic time. We don’t want militiamen crawling about.”

Bernard, silent, watched the two of us stare at each another and exhale clouds of condensation.

“Look,” said Romek, as if he were preparing to do me a great service against his better judgment, “I’ve already sent someone to clear out his home of classified documents. And just for you, I’ll have my people go through his office. We’ll let you know if there’s anything suspicious. All right?”

“Don’t have a choice, do I?”

Romek grunted a half-laugh and stuck his hands into his pockets.

“Was he married?” I asked.

“We’re all married, Comrade Chief. To the Ministry.” Romek nodded at Kolev’s body. “He did have himself a pretty Saxon girl for a while, but that ended long ago.”

“No one now?”

He shook his head again and began to step away. “I’ve got a desk full of work. Are we done?”

“For now,” I said, and Bernard and I watched Romek climb the steps to where another uniformed guard opened the door of Yalta 36 for him.

Markus Feder arrived in a white Karpat hearse with spots of rust along its edges. He climbed out slowly, brushing his white lab coat straight, then his white hair, which still held on to a few flakes of red. After looking at the body for five seconds, he said, “Don’t know why you need me on this, Emil. Look at those eyes-the man’s had a coronary.” He opened a pale hand. “That’ll be eight hundred thousand korona.”

I wasn’t in the mood for his jokes. “Take him back with you. Do a full exam.”

“Suspect something more devious?”

“Just do it, will you?”

Feder lowered his voice. “What’s the story?”

“Just what you see.”

“But why us?”

“They say they’ve got manpower problems.”

He didn’t believe it either. “I’ll get you something in a few hours.”

“Thanks, Markus.”

Bernard was standing over by a kolach shop, answering a pretty shopkeeper’s questions, but I ignored him and went to the Ministry guard. Now that the body was being loaded onto a gurney, he was sneaking a cigarette in the next doorway. “Can I get one?”

He tapped one out and lit it for me. “It’s not murder, is it?”