"Without leaving home, you mean?" I said. "Rather hard to do. Wouldn't it be more logical to assume that her mother, or Cybil, bought her new clothes to try to entice her to go out?"
"I'm just saying she may have been dishonest. For sure she was crazy."
I thought about that for a minute. Anna, it had to be said, had been a little manic in college. Her pranks could be, at times, annoying. But dishonest? I didn't think so. Stark raving bonkers? I simply couldn't agree. I decided, however, that there was no point in saying so to Frank.
"So why did you go to visit her?" I said. "If you thought she was so crazy."
"I guess I felt sorry for her," he said. "More to the point, Cybil asked me to."
"I suppose it doesn't much matter now," I said.
"It does, if Cybil is saying those kinds of things about Karoly," Frank said.
"I'm sure she'll get over it," I said. "She's upset, and casting about for a reason for what Anna did, when there isn't one, not a logical one, that is."
"What could he possibly have said to Anna to make her jump off a bridge?" Frank said.
"I have no idea. But why let it bother you? As you have pointed out, life is improving for Karoly. You, too, I expect. Both of you have rather benefited from the Venus, haven't you?"
"No question about it," he said. "While Karoly was breaking up with his wife and getting offed from the Bramley, I was going broke. The large chains had completely revolutionized bookselling, and I couldn't make a living on their terms. I couldn't even find a buyer for the tattered remains of my company. And then Karoly walks into my office and I get the book deal, plus I'm going to do a catalog for the Cottingham, and I'm here to do a deal for the catalog for a special touring exhibit. Not bad for the kid of immigrants. I'm not rich by any means, but I'm not broke anymore, either. I don't live as high off the hog as Karoly, but then I don't have his huge debts."
Huge debts? I wanted to say, but I didn't. Perhaps this was Frank being byzantine again, trying to talk me into leaving Karoly. "You weren't entirely truthful when you told me at lunch a week or so ago that you had to remind Karoly that he and I had been an item in college, were you?" I said instead.
"No," he said. "I should not have said that. He was very distracted that evening, but he remembered you all by himself. I have to admit you're good for Karoly, even if he doesn't think it will last. He thinks there are things you aren't telling him."
"The two of you seem to discuss me a fair amount," I said.
"Not really," he said. "I'm surmising really. You're thinking it's none of my business, and you're right."
"No, I'm thinking I'd better be on my way," I said. "The Divas will be wondering where I am. I'm hoping you won't tell them, by the way. Not even your mole."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Frank said.
In the taxi on the way back to my own hotel, I decided that I wanted to spend the day with the Divas even less than I'd wanted to talk to Karoly that morning. I'd been thinking about heading out of the city and into the Biikk Mountains, just to get a sense of the place, and see, once again, if the diaries reflected reality. I'd even bought myself some lovely old binoculars in one of the antique shops on Falk Miksa to help me find the caves. This, I decided, just might be the day to do it.
This course of action was confirmed when I got back to the hotel, because sitting in a cafe across from the hotel entrance I spotted Mihaly Kovacs. He must have followed me back to the hotel that day, after I'd seen him in the restaurant. I made a dash for the door from the taxi in hopes that he hadn't seen me. It was definitely a good time to get out of town.
The people at the desk told me that they could have a rental car for me by eleven, so it was back to my room to pack, and to work on the day's assignment for the Divas. I took a small bag, in case I needed to stay overnight, with some reasonably sturdy walking shoes and a waterproof shell, a change of clothes, and then I pulled on jeans and a warm sweater.
By the time the Divas were down for breakfast, I was ready to go. "So what's our assignment for today, Chief?" Cybil said. She was obviously raring to go, with her fanny pack at her side, jeans and a sweatshirt, and her white and red walking shoes on. "I think we served with distinction yesterday."
"Yesterday was the easy part," I said. "Today will almost certainly be more difficult. Today, you are going to try to find Piper's apartment."
"How on earth would we do that?" Diana said. "Unless there's an address or at least a street name."
"Sorry," I said. "There are clues, however, and I've written them out for you. According to the diaries, it's in an area called Lipotvaros, named for Leopold, who would have been one of the Hapsburgs. It's near Leopold korut."
"What's a korut?" Cybil said.
"I think korut is another name for a type of street. We have streets, avenues, lanes, roads. They have koruts, uts, utcas, which would probably be little uts. A korut would be a major street, I think. Now Lipotvaros is an area that still exists. It's part of the fifth district, I think, right here," I said, spreading the map out on the table and pointing. "It is, as the diaries point out, near the Danube. In fact it goes right down to the Danube. It's one of the oldest parts of the city. The rest of the clues are as follows: close to Parliament, a little bit north and west of the Basilica. There may be an old coffee house nearby. It's a four-story building, neoclassical in style—think four columns, straight lines. It has some interesting porcelain tiles around the entranceway, a large staircase inside. It has a courtyard in the middle, which you may or may not be able to see. It's across from an art nouveau-style building of five stories. And if you got the corner apartment on the fourth floor, and if you stood just so, you can see the both the Parliament and the Danube, at least you could in 1900."
"I don't see a Leopold korut," Morgan said.
"Get out the book about Budapest in 1900," I said. "If I knew exactly where it was, I wouldn't be asking you to find it."
"How do you know it will still be there?" Diana demanded.
"I don't," I said.
"Even if it is, it might not have the porcelain tiles in the entranceway," Cybil said.
"That's right," I said.
"There isn't even a street name," Grace said.
"Exactly," I said.
"Let's get going, girls," Morgan said. "We have our assignment. We can talk all day about what we don't know about it, or we can go look for it. I, for one, intend to find this place, if it exists, and pin it down very closely if it doesn't."
"The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer," Cybil said. "I expect to have buns of steel after all this walking."
"What are you going to do?" Diana said.
"I'm going to move a little farther afield," I said. She looked at me suspiciously. I wondered how suspicious she would be if she knew about my previous evening's activities. I didn't think I wanted to be nearby if she ever found out.
THE CAR WAS at the front door as promised. I'd seen the Divas off on their assignment, had left a note for them at the desk to say I might not be back that evening, had done the same at the Hilton for Karoly, and was ready to roll. I looked around after the man from the rental agency and I had concluded the formalities, amazingly uncomplicated, much to my surprise, but there was no sign of Kovacs.
I pulled the car, a little teal-colored Opel hatchback with animal hairs all over the seats, out on to Andrassy ut and headed east, past the city park, before hitting the M3. Driving in Budapest, no matter for how short a time, seemed a foolish and life-threatening thing to do, but I managed it. I'd been warned by the rental company that I would have to get a permit for the tolls, which somehow I also managed to do at a station on the side of the highway just out of Budapest. Once on the highway, the driving wasn't bad, flat at first, but then, as I got farther out, some rolling hills, and farmland, vines, and little towns with orange-tiled roofs. It was very pretty. There wasn't too much traffic on the well-maintained four-lane road, so I made good time, stopping once for the permit, and a second time just for a stretch, and a check of the map. Piper had referred to the town of Lil-lafured in the Biikks, had stayed there, in fact, and I could find it on the map. But it seemed just a little bit too far to drive at that time of day, so I opted to go instead to Eger, on the western edge of the Biikks, rather than Lillafured, farther east. Either place, I reasoned, would give me a feel for the diaries' contents.