“Has this place got a back entrance?” I said.
He nodded. “It leads to an alley.”
“Are you still under surveillance?”
He nodded again.
“How long before they’ll notice anything?”
“Perhaps a quarter of an hour. Even more. I usually drop by here every evening.”
“This late?”
“No, not this late, but it’s not that unusual.”
“All right,” I said as I rose. “Let’s go.”
The Café Nemoguće was more crowded than it had been during my last visit, the sign of an approaching weekend. Most of the customers were over thirty, possibly because the café offered no entertainment other than conversation, not even a jukebox. We brushed past waiters as we headed toward the rear of the café, but none of them seemed to pay us any attention.
Tavro turned to me. “We have to go through the kitchen,” he said.
I nodded and motioned him to go ahead. He pushed through some swinging doors into the kitchen which was at least twenty degrees hotter than the café itself. Nobody even looked up as we went through another door and out into an alley.
“Now?” he said.
“Now we look for a cab.”
We walked for fifteen minutes looking for one and all that Tavro did was grouse about there not being more time and worry about who would look after his roses. We finally caught a taxi in front of the Hotel Majestic on Obilicev Venae and I told Tavro to give the driver the directions.
The taxi was an old diesel Mercedes that chugged and gasped as it crept down the almost empty streets. The night had grown colder and the taxi’s heater wasn’t working and our breaths frosted against the windows.
“There should have been more time,” Tavro said, his tone petulant, almost a whine.
“There wasn’t any.”
“Where do we go now?”
“We meet some people.”
“People?”
“Persons.”
“You did not say that there would be anyone else.”
“No,” I said, “I didn’t.”
“Who are they?”
“Friends.”
“I do not like it. I should have been consulted.”
“See whether the driver can go a little faster,” I said.
Tavro spoke to the driver and the car sped up to twenty-three or twenty-four miles an hour. I looked back several times, but there seemed to be no one following. As we drove more deeply into the blocks of apartments and flats, the traffic became almost nonexistent. Belgrade is not known for its night life.
The driver said something over his shoulder to Tavro who replied briefly.
“What did he say?” I said.
“That we are almost there.”
A new blue or black Mercedes sedan was parked at a corner and the taxi drew up behind it. I paid the driver and we got out. Wisdom left the driver’s seat of the new Mercedes and walked back toward us. He held his hands out as if apologizing and when he got closer he said, “We couldn’t help it, Phil. We tried but we honest to God couldn’t help it.”
“Help what?” I said.
The rear door of the new Mercedes opened.
“Help what?” I said again.
“Me,” Arrie Tonzi said as she stood by the car’s open door, smiling prettily at Jovan Tavro.
19
The wind whipped around the corner, billowing out the long skirt of Arrie’s brown suede coat. It picked up the strands of her blond hair and played with them for a moment before replacing them in a careless coiffure that she brushed out of her eyes with the gloved fingers of her left hand. The look she gave me was one of begging defiance, if there is such a thing. I glared at her and turned to Wisdom. “Get him in the car,” I said, indicating Jovan Tavro who huddled into his dark overcoat. “The backseat.”
“Who is the woman?” Tavro demanded.
“Just get in the car,” I said and walked over to Arrie. I closed the door of the Mercedes, took her by the elbow, and led her unprotestingly to the shelter of an apartment building entrance.
“Wisdom says he couldn’t help bringing you,” I said. “Why not?”
She tried for her go to hell grin, but failed to manage it. “I threatened that I’d tell Lehmann.”
“The embassy’s press guy?”
She nodded.
“Tell him what?”
“That the exchange is on and that he can release it to the press.”
I shook my head. “It took more than that.”
She looked away and then looked back again. “I went up to your room and you weren’t there. Henry and Park were, so I figured it out.”
“Just like that?” I said.
“We got some new information today.”
“Who’s we?”
She made a small gesture. “My boss.”
“What kind of information?”
“That something’s gone wrong with the exchange.”
“What?”
“That’s all we got, Phil, I swear it.”
“That still doesn’t explain how you got Wisdom and Knight to bring you along.”
She looked away again. “I told them that I’d learned something and that if I didn’t get it to you, it would blow everything.”
“They believed you?”
“I had to prove to them who I work for.”
“Jesus,” I said. “Okay. What else?”
“I don’t know what my boss learned or heard, but he did hear something and he’s having it checked out. It’s about the kidnapping. If they find out what they suspect, they’re going to move in whether State likes it or not.”
“And that’s your hot information?”
“I’ve got another item.”
“What?”
“Somebody else is mixed up in the kidnapping.”
“Who?”
She looked at me steadily this time. “Jovan Tavro,” she said. “The man who’s in the back of your car.”
I took her by the elbow again and we moved back to the car. If the CIA was edging its way in, then Arrie Tonzi was its one link to me — unless she was lying about everything. Or they could have manufactured the story and then told her to peddle it around, just to see who’d buy. But if the CIA had somehow connected Jovan Tavro with the kidnapping, then they knew something that Hamilton Coors very much hadn’t wanted them to know. No matter how I shook the puzzle, it refused to give a clear picture — except that I was stuck with Arrie Tonzi who, I decided, would have to earn her keep.
I knocked on the window of the Mercedes’ front door. Henry Knight rolled it down. “You have what you need?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Let’s go,” I said. “Park, you stay with our guest.”
“I insist on being told what is happening,” Tavro said from the backseat.
“What’ll I tell him?” Wisdom said.
“A story.”
“What about Arrie?” he asked.
“She goes with me and Knight. If we need any translating, she can tend to it.”
Knight got out of the car. “You happy?” he said to Arrie.
“I’m here anyway,” she said.
“Let’s go,” I said. We walked around the corner toward the building that contained the Pernik apartment. Through a glass door that led to the vestibule I could see two plainclothesmen seated in chairs. Both were nodding. I knocked on the door and one of the men stirred and looked around. I beckoned to him and he rose reluctantly. I turned to Arrie. “Tell him that we want to see Anton Pernik,” I said.
She nodded. The man opened the door and Arrie began talking to him in Serbo-Croatian. He shook his head at first, but then I heard her mention Bartak’s name and he began to look less surly. Finally, he held the door open and we went through.
“He wants to see our passports,” she said.
Knight and I handed ours to her and she handed them to the plainclothesman along with her own. He glanced at them and then tucked them away in his pocket. He said something to Arrie and she turned to me.