Lawrence Block - The Canceled Czech

“Then you ought to take me to Paris.”

“Can’t you find anything in Prague?”

“I will see. Why? What is this all about?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

I found that I could squeeze into the groom’s clothes, but most of them did not seem worth the bother. I put on fresh socks and underwear but kept my own shirt and pants and sweater and cap. We closed the suitcases and left them in the closet.

As we left, Klaus shook hands warmly with each of us in turn. “Be very careful,” he said. And, smiling, “Don’t fall off!”

We left the house. Greta said, “Do you know what he meant by that? ‘Don’t fall off’?”

“Yes.”

“He meant don’t fall off the end of the world.”

“I know.”

“He believes the world is flat. Like a great big pancake, he said, only he said that the pancake was too simple, that it was more complicated but that I probably could not grasp it. Do you know what he was talking about?”

“Yes.”

“He thinks the earth is flat. He says he is a member of something, and that you are, too. I forget the name.”

“The Flat Earth Society.”

“Yes. Are you?”

“Yes.”

I finally persuaded her to change the subject. I told her I had been to the castle, and that I had figured out a way to rescue Kotacek. “It may be very difficult,” I said. “I met some men who will help us. They are Israelis. Zionists.”

She gasped. “They will kill us!”

“No, they’ll help us.”

“But-”

“It’s very complicated,” I said. “You’ll have to play a very important role in the proceedings. It may be dangerous.”

“No danger is too great for the glory of the Fatherland.”

We stopped at a café, ordered cups of coffee with cream. I went over the plan with her from beginning to end. Her eyes flashed as she took it all in. Twice she started to giggle.

“It is a wonderful plan, darling.”

“Do you think you can do your part?”

“Yes. I like my part. Tell me. These four boys – what are their names again?”

“Ari and Gershon and Haim and Zvi.”

“Such beautiful names. Like music, do you know? What do they think I am? A Jew?”

“No. A sympathizer.”

“Ah. What are they like? Are they handsome?”

I described them. Her eyes went that gas-flame blue again. “I should like to meet them now,” she said.

“Later. First we’ll have to buy a dress for you, something to fit the part.”

“And then I’ll meet your Stern Gang friends?”

“Yes.”

“I can hardly wait.”

The fence wasnot electrified. Gershon had determined as much that afternoon by giving a young boy a few copper coins to run up and touch it. The urchin raced to the fence while Gershon stood watching him, waiting to see if the lad would be electrocuted. He touched the fence, turned, waved to us, and darted away. Gershon was not entirely satisfied; he thought it likely that they might turn on the electricity only at night. So before we went over the fence he padded up to it carrying a gray and white alley cat in a sack. He unbagged the cat and tossed it gently at the fence. The cat bounced off, miaowed, looked hatefully at us, and took off hell for leather in the opposite direction.

So much for that. Haim had brought a stepladder from our basement. He set it up alongside the fence. Greta, her pure Nordic beauty resplendent in the sexiest dress available in Prague, kissed each of us in turn. One by one we ascended the ladder, cleared the ominous spikes, and dropped more or less soundlessly to the ground below. When the five of us had made the trip, Greta folded the ladder and carried it off out of sight.

We waited silent in the darkness. I crawled toward the front of the castle to keep an eye on things. After an eternity, I heard the tapping of Greta’s new high heels on the sidewalk. She walked to the entrance at the front gate. She spoke with the lead guard and told him what she wanted. He said something, she said something, she leaned forward, his eyes crawled down the front of her dress, and he spun around and walked back quickly to confer with his two comrades at the castle door. The three of them whispered furiously to one another.

The lead guard returned to Greta. She pressed up against him, kissed him. He looked around vacantly, and Greta took her arm and pointed to where the five of us lay in waiting. He patted her bottom. She giggled appreciatively.

“I won’t be long,” he assured the other guards.

“That’s your problem,” one answered him, and the other laughed.

They approached us, walking quickly and purposefully across the thick carpet of grass. Twice the buffoon stopped to take her in his arms and kiss her. “Hurry,” she panted gloriously. “I can’t wait.”

They reached us. She turned her back to him, and he unhooked her dress. She stepped out of it. “Now take off your clothes, my darling,” she suggested.

He peeled off his uniform in great haste. They embraced, kissed. “Ah, heaven,” the guard said, and Zvi dented his skull with a length of lead pipe. The naked Czech collapsed in Greta’s arms. She drew reluctantly away from him and he slipped gently to the ground.

“You might have let him finish,” she whispered.

“No time,” I whispered back.

She shrugged philosophically, and her bare breasts bobbed in disappointment. Ari stripped off his clothes in the darkness and put on the uniform which the guard had so considerately taken off. It was a good touch, that; it saved us the trouble of undressing an unconscious man, which as every drunkard’s wife will attest, is no mean task. Zvi and I tied up the guard, bound hands and feet, fastened gag in mouth.

Ari looked good in uniform. He was an inch or two shorter than the guard, but that was minor. He skirted the castle door as widely as possible, took up his position near the front gates, and talked to the other guards over his shoulder, to keep his face as well hidden as possible.

We had taught him two Czech expressions, and he delivered the first one now. “She’s waiting for you.”

And the inevitable question, “How was she?”

And Ari’s second Czech phrase, one not to be found in the Berlitz guide book. “Best piece of ass I ever had!”

The guard at the left of the door came next. He first looked around comically, as if to make sure that Big Brother was not watching. Then he set his rifle on the doorstep and slipped around the side of the building to where Greta was waiting. She met him almost halfway and rubbed her flesh against him. It was a chore getting him to undress. He couldn’t keep his hands off her, and when he did attempt to strip he was desperately clumsy about it. His tunic buttons gave him worlds of trouble. But Greta helped him, and finally he got his clothes off, and he touched her and she touched him and they kissed and Zvi swung.

The blow was a little off, landing on the top of the head. A few inches further back would have done the job better. As it was, the guard staggered but didn’t go down. He started to cry out, and Greta wrapped her arms possessively about him and stopped his mouth with a kiss, and Zvi’s second shot was in the right place, and out he went.

We waited a few moments, both for the sake of naturalism and to render the third guard so nervous and lustful that he would not notice how little Haim, who was donning the fallen guard’s uniform, resembled his own comrade. Haim didn’t return to his post. Instead he trotted straight to Ari, at the front gate, and called back to the remaining guard.

He, too, had learned a phrase or two of Czech. “Your turn. She could take on an army!” And then a description of some of Greta’s natural assets, quite accurate, actually.