“What’s more,” adds Mozoň, after putting the box back, “we could get ransom money out of the stoker, beside the hundred thousand. That would gives us extra to tide us over the bad times. The situation will change very soon,” Mozoň is sure. “Power will be restored to the working masses. Until then, we have to keep the faith,” he says resolutely. “Victory is near. We mustn’t let our guard down, comrades.”
Tupý and Šolik clap enthusiastically. They are looking forward to the money they’ll get out of the lawyer and the stoker. The lawyer is happy, too. What’s a hundred thousand compared to the fortune he’ll make out of the hotel when Rácz is out of his way?
“Time’s up!” Šolik suddenly says, after a look at his watch. It’s already three thirty-five. The secret policemen quickly change their clothes and pack their briefcases.
“Don’t you worry, doctor of law,” Mozoň tells the lawyer, as he locks up the safe house. “We won’t leave you in the lurch! We’ll help you.”
It’s slowly getting dark. The men amble to the bus stop.
* * *
Rácz’s face is inscrutable and expressionless. Not a muscle moves on his dark face, where a bluish shadow appears a few hours after shaving. He does everything with his eyes. They bulge with anger, or are sternly immovable, and sometimes proud and half-closed with contentment. Somebody gave him dark sunglasses: since then he’s never gone anywhere without them. His face seems cast in steel alloy. There are moments when he takes his glasses off and gives those around him a momentary look into his firm grey-blue eyes, only theatrically to hide them again behind the opaque black lenses. Few people can stand Rácz’s direct gaze. The wrinkles fanning around his eyes on an otherwise stone-smooth face give him an almost intellectual expression.
The coal dust has long been washed out of the pores of Rácz’s skin and the corns from his work boots have been massaged away by soft Italian moccasins, or crocodile or snake-skin cowboy boots. Rácz prefers to drape his angular body in Miami Vice-style loose-fitting jackets and trousers. Even his leather jackets — black, grey, brown, and burgundy — are a few sizes too big. He has prominent shoulders. His hair has grown longer and begun to curl. He had it cut, in the front and mostly on the sides, around his big ears. He has an Italian soccer player’s hairstyle. Sometimes he combs his hair back with gel in a sleek, shiny style. He has an earring with a tiny diamond in his left ear. Silvia chose it. She pierced his ear with special pincers; it didn’t hurt. In time Rácz found he liked it. It’s not too striking, but it discreetly suggests his financial status.
To a practised eye Rácz looks a bit less well-groomed since Silvia ran away. Fortunately, he’s hit on a few reliable combinations of clothes that he alternates and which can’t spoil his style. For example, he’d never wear his black double-breasted suit with high lace-up Adidas boots.
* * *
The dog is small, thin and mangy. Its big ears listen for sounds. Any suspicious noise terrifies it. The night is clear. The snow in the yard of the Hotel Ambassador reflects the moonlight, but the manager stands motionless in the dark, holding his breath. The dog approaches the bait: a huge bone from the stockpot. A pointed muzzle (the dog’s a spitz) sniffs it. The manager is even more motionless. Only his eyes shine in the dark. The dog greedily grabs the bone. In an instant it is writhing in the manager’s noose. It wheezes and splutters as the rope strangles its neck. The manager darts out of his hiding place with the rope wrapped round his wrist. The dog realises that the more it fights the rope, the tighter the noose gets. It watches the approaching manager out of the corner of its eye.
The manager squats down. He reaches for his catch with a hand in a thick glove. The spitz sinks its teeth into the manager’s fingers. That instant, the dog finds itself dangling. It is a few inches above the ground, helplessly paddling its legs. Only when it begins to lose consciousness and stops struggling, the manager lowers it. The dog begins to grovel. It recognizes a superior opponent. It had been only recently kicked out into the street. It still remembers how to deal with people. The manager offers it a bit of dried meat. The dog takes it; it’s starving. The manager waits for the dog to swallow the meat and then firmly jerks the rope. The dog gets to its feet and trustingly follows its new master.
Getting to the Hotel Ambassador without alerting the receptionist, who is reading his paper behind the counter, is difficult, but not impossible. He noiselessly crosses the dark lobby with the dog, hugging the walls and taking cover in dark corners. Only when he’s in his office in the administrative wing does the manager breathe a sigh of relief and relax. He’s welcomed by the happy barking and whining of a pack of dogs. There are all sorts: big and small, pedigree, mongrel, various colours and sizes. There is a mastiff with a gigantic wise head, and a terrier, whining and scratching the floor with its thin legs because of the cold. The manager releases his newest catch into the pack. The dogs get to know each other, they yap and bare their teeth. The manager watches them for a while. He realises that he has to begin carrying out his brilliant plan: soon the dry meat will run out and the dogs will starve to death. He spends a moment by the embers in the centre of the office, feeding the fire with a chair leg. The hotel has recently taken a delivery of new chairs. They burn very well. The flames come to life and light up the whole room: the sitting manager and fascinated dogs.
The rest period does not last long. When the manager’s head begins to droop, he is startled and gets up. He goes into the dark corridor and down the stairs. He gets out of the hotel unobserved and sets out on a long journey. It is a march through enemy territory, as the manager fully realises.
Only when the stars begin to pale and the sky turns light blue, will the manager get far beyond the city boundaries, to the foothills of the mountains whose snowy peaks shine on the horizon during his trek. Dawn breaks. The manager walks and observes the snow. He knows he is in the right place: the hills are marked by hundreds of ski and sledge trails. The manager is no amateur: during his hunting trips in the yards around the Ambassador, he has learned well to read footprints and trails. He has also learned to stay motionless in his hiding place, waiting patiently for hours, blending into the background. He watches the area from the bushes. Crows fly over an overcast sky. A sleepy village rests in the valley under the mountains. Acrid smoke comes out of the chimneys. Hours pass. Soon the cold air fills with children’s voices distant, but getting nearer. The manager, invisible in the branches, stiffens.
The children are sledging and the manager, squatting in his hiding place, makes his choice. Yes, he decides: the girl in a yellow windcheater over there. She comes down on a long but lightweight sledge. The sledge flies down and the girl laughs. The children yell. The manager makes his decision. Now! He pushes the branches apart and comes out of the bushes. The children are scared. The manager is hairy, dirty, wearing a home-made fur coat. He hollers like a madman and the children are terrified. The manager with his arms spread wide begins to run towards the girl in the yellow windcheater: “ER-R-R-R!” he roars again. The children abandon their sledges. The strange sight of the manager and his roars panic and horrify the innocent little creatures. Crying and yelling, they run in all directions. The manager pursues them for a while, waving his arms wildly, hollering and grimacing. When the children vanish round a bend in the road leading down to the village, the manager stops. He goes back. He grabs his chosen sledge and runs off, pulling it behind him. He takes the road and for a while runs along the salty and slushy asphalt. When he hears a car in the distance, he jumps over the ditch and hides in the thin bushes on the other side. He runs toward a brook, steps into the shallow but shockingly freezing dirty water, fording it against the current for a few dozen yards with the sledge on his back. Then he gets out of the water. He climbs a tall tree, a spreading chestnut, pulling the sledge with him. There he squats on a thick branch and decides to wait until dark.