Peter Pišťanek - The End of Freddy

“Thank you, Mr Rácz,” he says.

“Oh, drop the ‘Mr Rácz’!” smiles the hotelier. “My friends call me boss. And sit down, Freddy. I can call you Freddy, can’t I?”

“Yes, boss,” says Piggybank and again takes his place on the chair.

“For my friends, Freddy,” says Rácz, “I’m always ready to do anything. And I will for you, too. As I said, I may need something from you, too. So I’m listening. If I understood you well, you want me to get rid of your wife’s lover.”

Freddy is stunned, because, even though he understood his status of betrayed husband very well, he never dared to call a spade a spade.

“Yes, boss,” says Freddy.

“Should I have him killed?” asks Rácz clearly.

Freddy thoughtfully shakes his head.

“No,” he says.

“So what should I do to him?” Rácz asks wondering.

“I want him to suffer more,” says Freddy and blushes.

“To suffer?” Rácz laughs and puffs at his cigar. “We can let him suffer. If he gets it in the belly, like Steinecker the Mushroom, he’ll suffer for hours.”

“No,” objects Freddy. “I want him to suffer much longer.”

“I see,” says Rácz and, intrigued, nestles down in his armchair. “Any suggestions, Freddy?”

Freddy gets up, goes round the desk and bends down to the hotelier, whispering something in his ear.

The men in the armchairs become more attentive: their hands slip under their jackets. Rácz calms them down with an offhand gesture and listens with interest to Piggybank.

When the porn king has finished, Rácz begins to laugh.

“That’s a magnificent idea!” he shouts. “Magnificent idea! Damn it all,” he swears in Hungarian, “Rácz loves tricks like that.”

“Of course, all the expenses are on me,” adds Freddy Piggybank, flattered by the hotelier’s praise.

“That does simplify things,” the hotelier nods his assent. “The point is that no one will have suffered so much since the world was created.”

The mood in the room has improved. Rácz is smiling with contentment and slaps Freddy’s back.

A bottle of whisky and a box of cigars are conjured up on the table.

Rácz pours out personally.

“ Heevash Reygahl ,” he says meaningfully and raises the glass for a toast. “Rácz’s favourite brand.”

Freddy takes a sip and takes a cigar. Rácz lights it up for him. Freddy takes a drag and almost shits himself.

“A real Havana,” says Rácz.

He sends his underlings away and sits on the desk right opposite Piggybank. Rácz, he starts, doesn’t like to see such a little cunt mess with a man like Piggybank. How come Piggybank hadn’t yet beaten the shit out of her and that prick? Rácz checks his notes: “Zongora hasn’t had his balls cut off yet?”

Freddy says he has a calm temperament and disagrees with violence.

Rácz nods: Piggybank’s just a plain shitty coward, a useless jerk.

“Yes,” says Freddy and lowers his gaze. “Something like that.”

“You weren’t in the army, were you?” asks Rácz with understanding.

Freddy shakes his head. He wasn’t. He had a blue-book exemption. When he was a child, a vein burst in his head after he found out that his parents had taken the money he’d saved by sweating blood to buy a rubber dinghy, and spent it on a sweater for him.”

“Just as I thought,” says Rácz. “A spoiled city boy.”

Rácz can tell at first sight who hasn’t been in the army. He did his service. He spent two years there, for heaven’s sakes! In Bohemia, near Prague, in an artillery regiment. But he didn’t complain. He did what he had to and had peace and quiet. He could go out every evening; he always got a pass. They even wanted to make him lance-corporal, but he wasn’t having it. He didn’t want to order his friends around. He was happy to be uncrowned king on the floor where they had their rooms.

Freddy can’t quite make sense of all this, but says nothing. Rácz interprets his expression as the need for a drink. He feels a hospitable instinct and pours Freddy a glass of whisky.

If Freddy wants to have a special adventurous experience, Rácz has something to offer him. People of Rácz’s and Freddy’s social class have various ways of having fun. Some like tennis, some squash, others golf. There are people who do bungee jumping. Rácz has a hobby, too.

“What kind of hobby?” Freddy is curious.

“There are a lot of us,” says Rácz mysteriously. “We’re all businessmen, managers, even a famous football player. We have a club. Very secret. We call it the Adrenalin Club. We accept a new member if a permanent member recommends him.”

“And what do you do there?” asks Piggybank, his spirit soaking up the excitement of mystery.

“Various special things,” says Rácz. “High-risk things.”

“Dangerous?” Freddy enquires.

“Very dangerous,” agrees Rácz. “You could get killed at any time. But ordinary bungee jumping is nothing compared to it. Have you ever thrown yourself head first down a thousand-metre deep mine shaft, tied to a four-hundred-metre rope? Rácz enjoys that, because he wants to stay fit. You know, spending days in the office, managing a company, does your head in. I need to relax now and again. But fuck golf or squash! That’s for queers. Rácz needs real thrills. And we do other things, too!”

“Like what?” Freddy says eagerly.

“We model ourselves on the Lord of Terror, Fantômas,” says Rácz, lowering his voice. “For example, we put on masks and attack international trains. We get on at a stop and, when the train’s moving, we rob everyone in the first class, and then we jump out when it’s still moving. But no violence: we’re gentlemen robbers. ‘Sorry, dear lady, but I need to take your purse.’ ‘Excuse me, sir, but your watch is of vital importance to me.’ No, Rácz doesn’t invent these lines, but one of us gets a real kick out of saying them. You wouldn’t believe how much money people take on trips. Sometimes we jump a goods train and rob it. Electronics, car parts. It all comes in handy. It’s exciting and it brings in lots of money, too. This isn’t for the shit-scared. Well, interested in joining?”

Freddy reflects. He’s always yearned for good friends, for a gang. As a boy he badly wanted to make friends with the children from the brickyard where he grew up. But they didn’t want him. He was fat, clumsy, and didn’t own a bike. When he decided to build himself a bicycle, boys of his age stopped being a bike gang; instead, they began to smoke their first cigarettes, secretly drink beer from the factory snack bar, touch up girls from the brickyard settlement and meet them in the acacia woods surrounding the nearby kiln pit. Freddy had always dreamed of friendship, but nobody ever wanted to be friends with him.

But Rácz’s offer gives him pleasure, consolation and excitement.

“Look,” says Rácz. “Right now you’re a shithead. But Rácz will make a man of you. Because he believes in you, fuck it!”

Freddy blushes and modestly, though pleased, lowers his eyes.

Rácz nods. Freddy can’t grass on Rácz, because then it will come out who put away Zongora. No dirt ever sticks to Rácz, as he employs a whole bunch of lawyers who do nothing but spend entire days clearing Rácz’s path. But Piggybank would get twenty years, because he’d take the rap for everything. No, Rácz isn’t threatening him. He’s only explaining why he’s such a friend as to offer Freddy a chance to become a man: a real man. After two or three such jobs he’ll be a hard enough man to stop any woman pushing him about him ever again. Is it a deal?

Freddy clears his throat. He needs time to think it over.

Rácz nods tolerantly. He quite understands. Nothing should be done without thinking it over. But Freddy had better not think for too long. He must realise what an honour and opportunity it is for him. And he needn’t worry about Zongora. Rácz has his channels.