I snorted. "Don'tfool yourself. It's an insult to one of us." I took another look at the clock on the wall. "Let me guess. You work for British intelligence.
What do they need with me?"
"No one needs anything, not from you, anyway, friend. We're not even sure who you are. I couldn't care if you float away on the Vltava with the rest of the trash. In case you've forgotten, you set up this meeting. You're here. So the question is, what do you want?"
"I didn't set up anything. I just made a phone call to a friend."
"Maybe your friend got in touch with us."
"I don't think so. I think you're listening in on conversations that don't concern you."
"You're here. We're here. Maybe a mathematical improbability. Two bodies on different vectors in the same place at the same time."
"I'd call that a collision."
"That would be up to you, wouldn't it?"
"You know what? Your problem is you think you've got a real live North Korean on the hook. But you don't know why. You're thinking to yourself, maybe the guys wants to defect, maybe he has the crown jewels."
The Irishman looked me over very deliberately, like a man about to buy a piece of used furniture. Finally, he said, "No, I don't think you have the crown jewels. Because if I did, you'd already be out the back door and into a car. Maybe I was interested when you walked in. Now, I'm not so interested.
"
"What do you want?"
"Like I told you, we don't want anything from you. Not a thing."
"So, enjoy your night." I started to turn away.
"Someone said they thought you knew something. About somebody.
Do you?"
I almost left right then. Maybe I should have. Instead, I turned back toward the Irishman. "Why do I keep having the feeling you're listening in on conversations that are none of your business?"
"I'll tell you how this is going to go. Every time I ask a question and you change the subject, I get a point, alright? If you answer, you get a point. As of now, you're behind. Want to get back in the game? Let's try it again. Do you know something about somebody?"
I didn't say anything.
The Irishman bit the inside of his lip, barely enough to notice, but I saw it. You just lost a point, I thought, whether you know it or not. "Another thing." His Russian was so bad I was getting annoyed. "Silence is like running over the referee. Be careful, you might do it once too often. Let me try this a different way. You said you knew about Kang."
"You're interested in Kang?"
"Cut the crap."
"He's dead."
Not a lot of noise, suddenly, except for a bus in the distance and a bicycle bell ringing nearby. "Really?" He was speaking carefully. "We hadn't heard. We heard he was here, in Prague."
"Not likely. Last time I saw Kang, he was slumped against a tree, staring into space, a little hole right there." I walked over and put my finger between those red eyebrows.
He looked up, daring me to leave my finger where it was. I shook my head, but I didn't move away. Finally, he leaned back slightly. "Why should we believe you?"
"Maybe you shouldn't. Maybe you're not really interested." I took a step backward, toward the door. "Wasting your time, maybe."
"My name is Molloy. You can call me Richie." He pulled out a pack of cigarettes. "Smoke?"
"No. Thanks." I backed the rest of the way to the door and stood there, looking bored.
"A drink, then. Vodka?"
"No."
"Christ, a bloody nun." He pointed to a round table in the middle of the room, with a tin coffeepot on it. "Alright, pour yourself a cup. Maybe it will make this less of a battle. Sort of friendly, like."
"Tell me what you want, or I'm out the door. If this isn't going to lead anywhere productive, I've got better things to do."
"Like what?"
"Like finding something to eat, then going to bed."
"Why are you people always so difficult?"
"Difficult? I think I've heard that before, somewhere. You'll accept my deep apologies, won't you? Must be a lack of breeding. Or civilization, maybe. Yes, probably that, lack of civilization on our part. You are the civilized ones. Obviously, we must learn from you."
He moved his head from side to side, as if he had fixed the problem with his neck but now his shoulders were sore. "Go ahead, leave if you want. Makes no difference to me."
"Will you be going out the front or the back after I'm gone? The front of the building is being watched. We always thought it was yours but weren't sure. Now we are."
His head stopped moving. I could tell he didn't know I had been watching the building for the past few days. Simple surveillance, straight from the Ministry's training manual. I'd seen the technicians come in to get ready for the meeting. I decided to push him a little. "We have a list of every license plate of every car you and your friends have in this city. And when you change plates, which you do from time to time, we know the numbers of the new plates before you receive them."
He was sweating, not much, but the light from the lamp picked it up. I didn't have any list, but it was worth the bluff.
"Piss off." He kept his voice low.
"Tell me, are there any mountains in Ireland?"
This relaxed him some because he suddenly realized what I was doing.
Getting ready to dance. The decision was his: He could tell me to leave, or he could join in. "Hills, yes, finer than girls on a sunny day." Good, he was in. Then he seemed to reconsider. He looked thoughtful, rubbed his chin. I thought I'd lost him. "Though I couldn't say if any of our hills look like an Irish woman lying on her side. An odd thought, that." He laughed gently, barely a laugh, more at a memory than at anything I'd said, but that was alright. I knew we were past the first barrier.
"Ever been to Finland?"
The big face cracked a smile, but the green eyes were steady, eyes like I'd seen once on a cat. "So, we're back to Kang. A long way around to get to the subject at hand, but here we are. You really did know him?"
"I did. I didn't kill him, though I should have. Anyway, he's dead."
"And you? What are you doing in Prague?"
"Nothing. I just happened to get off the train. There was a message for me at the hotel from my friend. I gave him a call. He talked to me, I talked to him, and your transcribers wrote it all down. How did you know I'd be in town, by the way? My orders are for Budapest."
"Not my concern, figuring out how we know what we know, or why we do what we do. I don't guess about such things. Big man like me, I just show up where they tell me to. I take notes, listen real close when people talk. You never know what they mean until you hear what they don't say.
Simple guy, that's what people call me. You, you're more complicated."
His cell phone rang. He answered it, softly. "Right. Right." He turned off the phone and gave me a long look. "Right." He walked past me to the window, moved the curtains aside, and peered outside. "You're wrong, but you knew that." He turned to me. "The front of this place isn't covered."
"Does this mean you throw me back into the Vltava?"
"Yourfriends would yank you out and put a bullet in your eye."
"Don't worry yourself No one knows I'm here, though they may be curious by now where I went."
"No one is trolling you?"
"No, nothing so crude or well planned."
"Excuse me, but I'm not convinced. You're out of your country, rolling around Eastern Europe like a billiard ball, and no one knows where you are? Sorry. I'm not in the market for a story like that. And you know what? If I don't believe you, we don't have a meeting. You go your way, I go mine. Good-bye, see you in a ditch."
"You want the truth? They don't care who I meet."
"You don't get it, do you?" He closed the briefcase that was beside him on the floor. "I'm only going to give you one more chance. Then I'm gone."