Dan Fesperman - Lie in the Dark

“Tell me, then, if this word was such common knowledge, don’t you suppose a man with the contacts Vitas had would have heard it, too, and would have taken steps to either stop it or fight back? And surely he wouldn’t have been foolish enough to meet someone down by the Miljacka alone and after dark.”

“I suppose you would know these things better than me, being from the Interior Ministry’s special police,” Hrnic said. He said it with a hint of a sneer, as if Vlado was himself damaged goods by having come from the same ship that until yesterday had such a corrupt captain at the helm.

Vlado took a moment to explain his position, and the ministry’s promise of his independence. None of it seemed to inspire anything but further scorn.

“So then you don’t even have good ministry contacts,” Hrnic said.

Vlado was feeling pushed toward a dead end. “No. No ministry contacts to speak of. But we’re here to talk about your contacts. Where does your meat come from?”

“Igman,” he said proudly, like a winemaker who had just mentioned his grapes came from Bordeaux.

“Mount Igman? A dangerous place, by all accounts.”

“Yes. We like to say that depending on which way a lamb falls when he is slaughtered he could end up on the platter of one side or another.”

“In fact, any sort of steady supply from such an unsteady source as Igman would seem to indicate a certain of cooperation with, what should we call it-unfriendly sources? Tell me, do you agree to this cooperation, or does your source do that? Or maybe it’s both of you.”

The smile drained from Hrnic’s face. He looked back toward his meat counter, pretending to check on business, although Vlado saw there were no customers at the moment.

“I cannot tell you for sure of course,” Hrnic continued in a lowered voice. “I only know that my supplier says that Igman is the source. All other arrangements are left to him. I am the last man in a very long chain, so who am I to say where this chain really leads.”

“Unless we decided that for this investigation we should pull in the links of this chain, one by one, which we can do, you know.”

“I was given strict assurances that this would not happen in this case. Strict assurances that my security would be protected,” Hrnic said, his voice rising again, his face reddening.

“Your security” Vlado said, feeling tired. “What good is your security when you have information that the chief of the Interior police is about to be killed and you don’t bother to share it until he is dead. How valuable can it be to ensure the protection of a source such as that?”

“And I am telling you, I’ve been ensured I will be protected.”

“Ensured by who?”

“The Ministry. By the people you don’t really work for, because you are so ‘independent.’ They told me to cooperate with you, but that I was not to jeopardize either my connections or my operation.”

“Yes, your operation,” Vlado said, and a vision came to mind of a rattling contraption with worn belts and pulleys, wheezing and smoking. He looked over at Hrnic’s counter, at its tough husks of cured meat and the stringy lamb, which may have been mutton or even goat for all Vlado knew, and he contemplated the meager profit possibilities at this level of what passed for organized crime.

He sighed, then asked in a weary but pleasant tone, “You can at least disclose the next link up from you. Your supplier. One name only.”

Hrnic said nothing.

“So this is our fine network of undercover men,” Vlado said. “Tell me, having met two of you so far today, are all of you so reluctant to ask questions of your sources, so timid about repeating names of anyone except the recently dead? Are you always rewarded for finding out so little so late?”

“The only way to learn things is to stay quiet,” Hrnic said sternly. “To not ask questions. That’s when things begin to spill out, only when they think you couldn’t care less.”

“And I guess it’s only when they want to grumble about something trivial like the chief of the Interior police being marked for death when they decide to tell you and everyone else about it.”

Hrnic set his mouth in a hard, firm line. Vlado snapped up the white bundle of meat from the counter and dropped it into his zippered briefcase.

“Thanks for the meat,” he said breezily, then strolled away.

He’d walked about thirty feet when the butcher called out.

“Wait,” Hrnic shouted.

Vlado stopped, turning slowly. Perhaps Hrnic was going to ask for the meat back, but Vlado would be damned if he’d return it. There had to be some price for insolence to the police. Besides, he was hungry.

But Hrnic seemed anything but angry. He was grinning, almost wildly, a leering banner of malicious joy.

“You wish to be introduced to the next step up in my ‘chain of command?’ Very well, then. You shall meet him.” He pulled off his grimy apron and tossed it onto a scale. “Mind the counter,” he snapped to his daughter; then he strode past Vlado with the resolve of a man on a mission.

“Follow me,” he said, not turning his head as he passed. “You’ll have your meeting, all right.”

They walked two blocks up a steep hill at a brisk pace, Hrnic panting like an old steam engine that had suddenly found its rhythm after years of disuse. Then they headed down a narrow side street where three young boys kicked a scuffed soccer ball across the cobbles through melting patches of ice. A toothless beggar kneeling in a doorway rose uncertainly to his feet. Seeming to recognize Hrnic, he held out a hand beseechingly.

Hrnic ignored him, striding briskly on without a word until they reached a dented steel doorway halfway up the block. “Wait here,” he said over his shoulder before disappearing inside.

A few moments later he reappeared, calmer now, almost smug in the way he looked Vlado squarely in the eye, as if daring him to turn back now, as if he’d had this scene dreamed up from the very beginning.

“He will see you now,” Hrnic announced with the flourish of a concierge.

Vlado followed him through the door, where a raw, elemental stench nearly knocked him to the floor. This must be their slaughterhouse, for the air reeked of fresh blood. It was the smell of life draining away by the drop, of fluids already rotting as they fall, the essence of animal panic lingering in the air like a ghost. This must be what made the animals bleat before they even saw the glint of a blade, or felt the first jab of metal sliding into their flesh.

They climbed two flights of stairs in the dark, the smell growing stronger as they rose. Then Hrnic shoved Vlado through an open doorway, where two bearded men in faded camouflage jackets frisked him roughly.

“Sit behind the desk and turn your chair to the wall,” one ordered gruffly, and when Vlado hesitated the man picked up a Kalashnikov from a chair and poked it in Vlado’s side.

“Get moving.”

Vlado sat in a creaking office chair, swiveling himself around to face the wall. What had this place once been? A hole for bureaucrats? The business office of some sweatshop? The whole scene seemed mildly absurd, given what he’d seen so far of the two so-called undercover men. He felt more like an errant schoolboy awaiting punishment than someone in trouble with the mob. He wondered just how far they would choose to push their authority with a policeman. Perhaps even they’d be angrier at Hrnic, for bringing him here at all.

Vlado looked over his shoulder, trying to get a better feel for the room.

“You are not to turn your head unless told to do so,” the man with the gun said. Vlado did as he was told without replying, and for a minute or so everyone was still, obviously waiting for someone to arrive. Vlado didn’t know whether Hrnic had left or not, but as the seconds passed he grew fidgety, already impatient with this low-budget attempt at intimidation.