Here was DiPalma shuffling across the street, pausing to take some cellphone photos of the busy stalls, then to examine a vendor’s array of handmade scarves and woollen caps. He finally presented himself, nonchalantly lighting a cigarette and ordering chicken with a side of cabbage.
Arthur took him aside. “I suggest we scrub Mr. Bejko. It’s well after nine o’clock.”
“Whoa, this town stays up late, that’s when the important business is done. This is the best time, not so many people about.” Contradicting himself, still in rut, his mind clouded.
Djon called: “Is done to perfection. Two for one, only fifty leks.” Less than a dollar. “Anything else, I am faithful servant. Contacts in hotel industry, Adriatic resorts? I got. Djon Bajramovic has answer for every need. Can be dangerous here, maybe you need bodyguard.”
DiPalma ate on the go as they strolled across the plaza, toward the old town. “One of your more engaging Albanian street swindlers,” he said, his mouth full of cabbage. “I’m planning to meet Ledjina’s parents tomorrow, if that’s okay with you. She told them I’m head of Apex International Getaways — I gave her a copy of the brochure. I feel a little sneaky about it, but I’ll straighten it out later.”
Arthur was becoming impatient with his easily sidetracked companion. “You located Hanife Bejko’s house?”
“A two-storey duplex. Nicely restored, balcony overhanging the street. I took pictures there this afternoon.”
He pulled out his cellphone. The screen showed the last photo taken, Ledjina, bra askew, a breast bared, miming a puckered kiss. “Never mind.” He stuffed the incriminating device back in his pocket, embarrassed, talking fast. “Anyway, his digs are across from an antique store. You might want to rummage in there — they’ve got some great carved furniture, some copperware Margaret might like, some handcrafted jewellery, but watch out, a lot of collectables here are fake.”
“Any sign of activity at Bejko’s house?”
“Yeah, his wife, I guess it was, a short, hefty woman, nice smile, she took a jaunt to a deli down the street, picked up some sausages.”
A short walk took them to an area under restoration, scaffolding everywhere, tarps on windows. Some bars and tea rooms were busy, but the streets weren’t. The several rectangular windows of Bejko’s residence were curtained, upstairs and down, as was the glass in the front door. But lights were on within, and a bulb was burning outside, as if in welcome.
DiPalma drew Arthur into the shadows and whispered: “If something fouls up, we make like jackrabbits for that tavern over there.”
This was unexpected and unnerving. “If what fouls up?”
“If this turns out to be a trick of some kind.”
Arthur had no time to weigh that consideration because DiPalma was already at the door, poking a button that produced the unlikely sound of distant cowbells. No immediate answer, no other sounds from within.
“The good news is they’ve got no guard dog.” DiPalma sounded the cowbells again, and after several seconds the curtain opened to reveal a sturdy, middle-aged woman, presumably Mrs. Bejko. DiPalma put on his politest face and showed her his passport. She looked confused until he laid a copy of Bejko’s handwritten note flat against the glass.
She nodded, raised a finger: one minute. Soon a bony, greying man took his place behind the glass, his outstanding feature a bristle moustache that extended two inches from either cheek. DiPalma showed the note, then urged Arthur to the glass with passport, business card, a photo of Erzhan, another of his wife and children — if Bejko owned a television he ought to have seen, on CNN and elsewhere, some coverage of them.
The door opened. “I am Hanife. Come quick inside.”
Arthur hadn’t taken five steps into the house before it was confirmed that Bejko indeed owned a TV — in fact about a dozen of them, stacked around the living room, some boxed, some not, mostly high-end flat sets — along with several stereos and DVD players, a home theatre sticking from a crate, and a shiny new BMW motorcycle.
“Hanife the thief,” DiPalma whispered.
Arthur, a connoisseur of thieves and receivers, was impressed. Bejko hurried them up a staircase, to an office that looked out over a clump of pine trees behind the house. More electronic goods here, smaller items: laptops, Blackberrys, cellphones. No telfon here — meaning, presumably, don’t telephone me here.
Bejko waved them to a couple of plush armchairs and sat behind his carved walnut desk. Arthur introduced himself as Erzhan’s lawyer, DiPalma as his assistant. All this in crude Albanian, an effort that caused Bejko’s moustache tips to wiggle as he suppressed a smile.
“I sorry Pomeroy not come. Abzal, he very much love Mr. Pomeroy. He is the best.”
“Mr. Pomeroy sent Mr. Beauchamp,” DiPalma said. “He is second best.”
“I am hoping honest lawyer, if so, first in history in Albania. They sell you for song. Abzal, he not do this thing, he is, how you say …”
“Scapegoat,” Arthur ventured.
“Exactly. But I say nothing to no one, wait for you. I am in jail two months but meet Abzal only three days. Was drugged and put on plane, he says, and this I believe, so after I pay off warden to get back on street, I mail note to Mr. Pomeroy.”
“Excellent,” Arthur said. “And in business again so quickly. You put to shame my most valued clients.”
Bejko beamed, threw an arm out expansively. “This? It is nothing. You should see in warehouse the cars, Lexus, Mercedes, Porsche, new, right off ship. But too many middlemen, too much overhead. Bribes alone eat half of profit. Is why I get arrest, not pay enough to police chief.”
A bottle was produced, unlabelled, but when uncorked it smelled of a powerful brandy. Arthur said simply, unapologetically: “I don’t drink.”
“Bad luck. You, my friend, Mr. Ray, must make up for second-best lawyer.” Bejko filled a glass and passed it to DiPalma, who choked on the first sip.
“Warms stomach, yes?” Bejko found a ginger ale for Arthur, and clicked glasses with them. “To freedom for Abzal.” A second toast: “To great country you belonging, Canada.” Bejko expanded on this tribute, extolling the Canadian military for emptying the Bhashyistan jail. “Smart move.”
Bejko topped up DiPalma’s brandy, then accepted a cigarette from him. DiPalma’s hand trembled as he held his lighter, a typical Parkinson’s effect. Increasingly often, Arthur had observed, DiPalma would keep his hands in his pockets or otherwise out of view.
Bejko blew out a gust of smoke, then described how he’d spent two months of a three-year term in an institution known simply as Prison 303. Half a day’s drive from here, into the mountains between Korca and the Macedonian border.
Three days before Bejko’s release, Erzhan had been thrown into an adjoining cell. “He looked like drugged. He demand, why am I here, I am simple teacher, Canadian citizen, and they beat him, but only use rubber cables.”
He’d seen no Western agents, nor had Erzhan been taken away for questioning. The police laid into Abzal for two days, though to what purpose Bejko couldn’t explain, other than, “Is standard procedure.” By the third day, they’d tired of the sport. “No one is knowing this Erzhan, or why he in jail. No criminal charge, no lawyer, no nothing. Everyone confuse, even police, guards. No one have much English for talking him.”
Black and blue but finally left in peace, Erzhan was able to tell his neighbour what he remembered of his abduction. A grey sedan pulled up and a front-seat passenger leaned out to ask directions to the nearest liquor store. Without waiting for an answer, that passenger got out of the car and another from the back. A sudden blow to the back of his neck, as if from the edge of a hand, paralyzed him. He fought for consciousness but all went blank as he was bundled into the vehicle.
This was in finer detail than Iqbal Zandoo’s account, but despite losses in translation and Zandoo’s distant perspective, the two versions meshed well. Arthur asked if Erzhan had described any of the three men.