Darrell Schweitzer - Full MoonCity

“Ovid Badelescu got called to a murder site.”

“Do tell!”

I proceeded to, but didn’t inform Max about the concealed doors at the back of the lift-I might want to use that detail some day myself. I also excluded Adriana’s notion that a werewolf was responsible. Or a weredog, hiding out among the multitude of anonymous mongrels.

Shortly before Silviu arrived, a long cry and a chorus of yapping from outside drew me to the window. The cry was like that of a muezzin calling worshippers to prayer. A middle-aged woman wearing a baggy multicoloured dress and headscarf was driving her horse and cart loaded with scrap metal and other rubbish that might be worth something. Her cry had excited the dogs. As I watched, she halted beside the humble cottage, dismounted, and rattled the picket gate with a stick. And waited.

Presently, a black-clad shape emerged from the cottage, cradling what I identified as a broken old clock of some bulk. With a surprisingly sprightly step, the old cottager bustled to her gate and handed over the relic, to receive in return, after humming and hawing, some scrap of paper, which might have been a banknote-if so, here in Romania it would have been thin plastic that looked like paper.

As the horse and cart and the scrap-woman’s outcry proceeded onward, the strangest thing happened. Half a dozen strays sidled from different directions toward that garden gate. The black-garbed cottager glanced about, as though to ensure that no one was observing her-she wouldn’t spot me at the window high up-then she offered her hand over the gate. Was she about to feed the strays with scraps? But she was holding nothing that I could see.

One by one those desolate dogs proceeded to lick, or slobber on, her palm-I was put in mind of nothing so much as movies of Italian gangsters kissing the hand of their Mafia godfather! This done, the cottager withdrew her hand, and then herself quickly back into her home.

Travelers in unfamiliar countries often misinterpret things and leap to the wrong conclusions, but I’ve always had a strong sense of intuition, a belief in quasi-magical linkages that others call coincidences. In my novels, such is the way that a dark crime is often solved. There’s a logical sequence of circumstances, yet this is only revealed-illuminated, if you like-by illogical means, by an illogical route. That Ovid should have driven me directly to that blood-stained lift in the former Securitate building, then that I should come to Max’s and overlook that cottage, cast adrift while time and town planning advanced, and that I should glimpse the owner, queen of canines, whom Max had never seen… this spoke to me inwardly, compellingly.

Silviu proved to be a tall, wispy person, wearing a somewhat soiled lightweight cream suit. His eyes seemed to me very blue, and his English was quite good. What an honour to be meeting a famous colleague of famous Max.

We descended to the street, to climb into an elderly white Dacia that had suffered bumps and scrapes through the years. Although it was early evening by now, the air was still sultry and cloying. I felt a strange mixture of reinvigoration due to my sighting of the crone of the cottage, and languor, as though I was surrendering to whatever the night might contain.

First, we went to an open-air restaurant to drink beer called Ursus and eat rolls of minced meat and salad, and spend, or rather, squander, some time. Time seemed to have a way of melting in this city. Apparently we were to meet a mad genius. But after an hour the man phoned, depressed-his father had a sudden brain tumour. Maybe an excuse, maybe true or half-true. And that was the last I heard of the genius. Silviu went off and brought back a newspaper, and the murder did feature. Silviu translated the story, but already I knew more than the reporter had discovered.

Then Ovid phoned my mobile.

“Paul, where are you?”

I consulted with Max, who took the phone and said, “We’re at the meech”-I think-“place on,” and he named a street. “But we’re going to Herastrau afterwards.”

They talked for a while, then Max ended the call and handed my phone back.

“He’ll try and join us.” Then, surveying our surroundings, he remarked that under Communism people went to restaurants for show, not for the food-to be seen in such a place, rich enough to buy a meal, of which they would then eat every morsel, instinctively, even if it burst them. Silviu listened politely and nodded. He had cleaned his plate, and I guessed that Max would be footing the bill, unless he and I shared it. I wondered if the crone of the cottage had ever been near a restaurant during her entire life. I thought of an appetite so voracious that a person would ravage a body bloody in a lift.

***

Herastrau proved to be a sizeable lake within a park. By now evening had arrived. We halted on a tree-lined roadway inside the park, behind a line of cars far more luxurious and up-to-date than Silviu’s. Silviu seemed edgy. Dogs lay round in the gloom like mounds of earth. On a bench a shaven-headed man, dressed in a leather jacket, was lounging.

“It’s all right, Silviu,” said Max. “I’ll give him a little money. Car insurance,” he told me. “Even though Silviu’s car is an old wreck, best to be on the safe side.”

Evidently Max knew how much, or how little, to give. I felt a double sense of mild menace at Max’s casual determination to show me how au fait he was with life here, and at the implications of my not knowing the ropes. My host, full of bonhomie, was also my rival. Which would explain, in retrospect, this particular outing tonight.

Scarcely had Max returned from paying Leather Jacket to keep an eye on the car than Ovid drew up behind us in his BMW. Getting out, Ovid waved casually at Leather Jacket, but Ovid certainly didn’t bother to cross the road to say anything to the man. So probably Max had wasted his money, seeing that we were now associated with an Inspector of police. It struck me as only mildly sinister that Ovid should turn up immediately after us, almost as though we were back in Securitate times when everyone’s exact whereabouts were monitored.

A short walk brought us to a big, though modestly lit, building on the shore of the lake. Two suited bouncers stood outside, smoking.

Inside, a few men sat at tables with beautiful girls, and a little crowd of likewise lovely tall girls were shuffling round in a slow dance to the background music. A trio of the Bleached Boys sporting gold looked like pimps in this setting.

“The girls aren’t in their underwear here,” Max pointed out. “They can wear casual clothes, so there’s no pole dancing, if you’re disappointed. This is classy sleaze.”

We sat and ordered beers, the cheapest option.

“Anything new about the lift murder?” I asked Ovid.

“Autopsy,” he said. “Terrible claw-like injuries and animal-like bites. The Turk may have worn specially adapted gauntlets and not had his own teeth anymore but special false fanged ones. If he needs false teeth, maybe he’s fifty or sixty years old, though very strong.” After saying which, he winked at me. Was he teasing me? Or satirizing himself? And avoiding confiding whatever the police now knew?

When our beers arrived, girls came to sit with us. One plumped herself on my lap and wiggled about.

“You can talk free for ten minutes,” whispered Max, “then she’ll ask you to buy her a drink. That’s only about ten dollars, so you decide.”

“What’s your name?” I asked my sexy burden, whose face was unusually broad, her eyes wide-spaced, though her figure was impeccable.

“Luciana. And what do they call you?”

Quite soon I said, “Where did you learn such good English?”

“In school, of course. I also speak German and Italian. A lot of Italians live in Romania, and Germans visit.”