Peter Pišt'anek - Rivers of Babylon

“Good, wasn’t it?” Ribana asks. “You can do it with me any time you fancy,” Ribana smiles, showing a mouth missing half its teeth. She knows that Rácz is a big boss now and has two women for every finger. But anyway, if need be, just ask for Ribana from the dishwashing room.

When they leave the kitchen and walk over crunchy snow in the yard, Ďula says, “Don’t be cross, boss, but could you tell me what we were actually doing down in the boiler-room?”

Rácz stops and gives Ďula a look. “We’ve just begun celebrating New Year, you fool!” Ďula does not understand, but says nothing. “What do you think?” Rácz asks. “Why did we have dinner in the kitchen and not in the restaurant?”

“No idea,” the driver admits.

“Well go and take a look,” says Rácz, “I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”

Ďula is back almost at once, with a grin from ear to ear. “Boss, they’ve got an arctic night in there! The restaurant is empty. Any guest who comes turns round and leaves. The waiters are keeping warm in the kitchen. Did we do that with the valve down there, boss?” Ďula is amazed.

Rácz does not answer. He sits in an armchair by the reception desk, relishing his feeling of victory.

“And what now, boss?” Ďula asks.

“Nothing yet,” says the stoker. “Now we wait for the restaurant manager to tell us that the lounge is available.”

* * *

Mozoň (alias Silent), Šolik (alias Livid), and Tupý (alias Bear) are living it up. They’ve bought a video player and a computer for the safe house and aren’t bored any more. They keep playing “Bomb Moscow” all day long. Mozoň does not need any more porno magazines; somebody always brings a new film on video. Their wives are happy. There’s plenty of money. If they need some more, Šolik and Tupý take a walk around the Hotel Ambassador or some other hotel, spot a young novice currency dealer and shove their warrant card IDs in his face. The money changes ownership. There’s always lots, though they’ll never again get such a fat catch as their very first one. Lately, they’ve been getting tired of sitting in the villa overlooking the city. They meet in the morning, watch videos for a while and play a video game. Then they get bored. Mozoň looks out of the window, Šolik sleeps with a newspaper over his head. Tupý is now tired of drawing up lists of people he will personally arrest when things change: he now just sits there, looking vacantly ahead. Whenever saliva appears on his lower lip, he automatically wipes it off with the back of his hand.

“Why don’t we go out for a coffee?” Mozoň suggests. His subordinates are startled. “Yes,” says Mozoň. “We’ll go out and have a coffee. Attention!” He gets up himself, as an example to the other two.

“And where to, chief?” asks Šolik.

“Where to?” Mozoň repeats ironically. “We’ll go where we might get some money: we’re going for a coffee, but we’ll be, so to speak, on duty. To the Ambassador!”

Mozoň, Šolik, and Tupý don’t have a car. They’re glad they managed to save just the villa. They take a trolley bus into town. They don’t need tickets. If an inspector gets on, they show him their police IDs.

The Ambassador lounge is not very busy. Mozoň, Šolik, and Tupý sit down and order coffee. They observe the room quietly and inconspicuously. The waiter moves noiselessly. In the corner sits a short, frowning man in an expensive, flashy leather jacket. Opposite him sits another very well dressed young man of Balkan origin, carefully counting out banknotes. Then he pushes them over to the frowning man. The latter just puts the banknotes into his pocket without counting them. The Balkan man says goodbye and quickly leaves the lounge. The frowning man stays for a while, then finishes his drink and moves towards to the exit, too.

Mozoň nods to Šolik and Tupý. “Go after him,” he orders them in a muffled voice. “And don’t come back without the money!”

Rácz comes out of the lavatory, buttoning up his fly, when he finds himself confronted with two police warrant cards.

“Well, so what’s this all about?” he asks, puzzled by the two smiling men with ID cards in their outstretched hands.

“Come with us and no funny stuff!” Rácz is ordered quietly, but firmly by one of them.

“And why?” asks Rácz.

Both the very ordinary-looking young men ponder the stoker’s question. “Show us your ID,” the other one says.

Rácz takes out his ID card, but won’t let them have it. “I work here,” he declares.

“Really?” the second undercover policeman asks menacingly.

“And what do you do here?” the more polite one asks.

“I’m the stoker,” Rácz says. “Here’s the stamp: ‘Hotel Ambassador’, you see?” The ID card disappears into Rácz’s inside pocket.

“Show us the contents of your pockets!” the less polite one orders him.

“Are you fucking nuts?” Rácz stares at him. “Don’t I pay you enough not to cause trouble here? What department are you from? Are you new?”

“Will you empty your pockets, or not?” the angry one shouts at Rácz, winking at the polite one. In an instant the polite one grabs the stoker by the arms from behind. The angry one unzips the jacket and reaches for the pocket.

Rácz, red in the face, makes a jerking movement. His bulging eyes watch the cop as he slowly frees his hands. Like a vice, his right hand grabs the angry one’s hand, pulls it out of his pocket and twists it back. Then he clenches his fist and punches the pushy undercover cop in the mouth. The blow is so violent that both cops fall to the ground. They lie on the floor and can’t understand what is going on. This has never happened to them before. Worse, the angry one’s mouth is full of blood and broken fillings and crowns. Rácz doesn’t wait for the cops to come round. He beats it fast to the exit. Tupý struggles to his feet. His head is swimming from the blow. He spits out blood, fillings, and crowns. A big hand-gun appears in his hand. Holding it with both hands, he wavers as he aims at the stoker’s silhouette.

“No!” Šolik shouts from the floor. “Don’t shoot!”

It’s too late. The shot booms out and the hall fills with acrid smoke. The glass door through which the stoker has disappeared noisily smashes into shards. The bullet whistles into the lobby and buries itself in the wall above Torontál, who grabs the mahogany reception desk in fear. The old man wakes up from his apathy, realises what has happened, and faints. But his desire to be the centre of attention is frustrated. Nobody takes any notice of him; they all run to see what has happened in the lounge. They scream and retreat when a confused Tupý runs in, pointing at them a smoking gun that he holds in both hands. He runs out of the hotel and his partner follows him.

“Are you crazy?” Šolik yells at Tupý. “Let’s get out of here!” Both cops run round the corner. Tupý puts the pistol in the holster and zips up his windcheater. They wait at the trolleybus stop, leaving their superior to his fate in the Ambassador lounge.

“I’ll have hith gutth one day!” Tupý mutters, spitting blood and saliva into the snow. “I’ll get him and put a hole in hith belly thith big!” Tupý uses his thumbs and index fingers to show the size of the hole.

Mozoň didn’t get up after Tupý fired. In the general chaos that reigned afterwards he kept his cool.

“You were sitting with them,” a waiter standing above him accused him sharply.

“Me?” Mozoň asked. “Yes, I was, but I don’t know them.” Mozoň was just sitting at their table. He doesn’t know who they were.

The waiter eyes him suspiciously. “Wait here,” he orders him. “Soon the assistant manager will come and decide what to do with you.” He goes to the bar.