“The suitcase is not here,” I said. “Now hurry up.”
“Then I will sit down,” he said, and sat in my chair. “I very much need this suitcase. What do you want for it?”
“I don’t want anything for it. Prove that you have a right to it, and it’s yours.”
Luarvik L. Luarvik shook his head and said,
“No. I am not going to prove it. The briefcase is not mine. At first I didn’t understand. But I thought a lot, and now I understand. Olaf stole the suitcase. I was ordered to find Olaf and tell him, ‘Return what you took, Commandant two twenty-four.’ I don’t know what this means. I don’t know what he took. And you keep saying ‘suitcase’. This fools me. It is not a suitcase. It is a casing. Inside is a device. Before, I didn’t know this. When I saw Olaf, I figured it out. Now I know: Olaf was not killed. Olaf died. From the device. The device is very dangerous. Its threat is to everyone. Everyone will become like Olaf, or perhaps an explosion will happen. Then it will be even worse. Do you understand why we need it quickly? Olaf was a fool, he died. We are smart, we won’t die. Give me the suitcase quickly.”
He babbled along in his flat tone, looking at me out of his right eye and then left eye in turn, tugging relentlessly at his empty sleeve. His face remained motionless, except that from time to time his thin eyebrows rose or fell. I watched him, thinking that his manners and grammar were the same as they had been before, but that his vocabulary had increased significantly. Luarvik had gotten better at speaking.
“Who are you anyway?” I asked.
“I’m an emigrant, a foreign specialist. Exile. Political refugee.”
Yes, Luarvik had gotten better at talking. But who could have expected all this?
“An emigrant from where?”
“No need for such questions. I can’t tell. I promised. It is not an enemy to your country.”
“But you already told me that you’re a Swede.”
“A Swede? I never said that. I’m an emigrant, a political exile.”
“Excuse me,” I said. “An hour ago you told me you were a Swede. That you were a Swede for the most part. And now you deny it?”
“I don’t know… I don’t remember…” he muttered. “I don’t feel good. I’m afraid. I must have the suitcase soon.”
The more he urged me on, the less inclined I was to hurry. It was all clear to me: he was lying, and lying very badly. “Where do you live?” I asked.
“I can’t say.”
“How did you get here?”
“Car.”
“What model of car?”
“Model?… Black, large.”
“You don’t know the model of your own car?”
“I don’t know, it’s not mine.”
“But you’re a mechanic,” I said gleefully. “How the hell can you be a mechanic—not to mention a driver—without knowing anything about cars?”
“Give me the suitcase, otherwise it will be bad.”
“And what are you going to do with this suitcase?”
“Take it quickly away.”
“To where? You know that an avalanche has blocked the road.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll take it away. I will try to discharge it. If I can’t I’ll run away. Leave it there.”
“Excellent,” I said, springing up from the table.
“Let’s go.”
“What?”
“In my car. I have a good car, a Moskvitch. We’ll take the suitcase. We’ll take it away, have a look at it.”
He didn’t move.
“It’s no need for you. It’s very dangerous.”
“That’s okay. I’ll risk it… Ready?”
He sat without moving a muscle or saying a thing.
“Well, don’t just sit there,” I said. “If it’s dangerous then we need to hurry.”
“This won’t do,” he said finally. “Let’s try another. If you won’t give me the suitcase, then maybe you’ll sell it. Ah?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, sitting down again at the table.
“I give you money, a lot of money. You give me the suitcase. No one will know, everyone is satisfied. You found a suitcase, I bought it. That’s all.”
“And how much will you give me?” I asked.
“A lot. As much as you want. Here.”
He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a plump packet of bills. I had seen such a packet of notes only once in real life: at the state bank, where I had been working on a forgery case.
“How much is that?” I asked.
“Not enough? There’s more.”
He reached into his side pocket and pulled out another packet just like the other one and tossed it on the table in front of me.
“How much money is this?” I asked.
“What does it matter?” he asked, surprised. “It’s all yours.”
“It matters a lot. Do you know how much money this is?”
He kept quiet, his eyes focusing, then drifting apart.
“No. You don’t. And where did you get it?”
“It’s mine.”
“Give it a rest, Luarvik. Who gave it to you? You came here with your pockets empty. It must have been Moses: no one else has that kind of money. Am I right?”
“You don’t want the money?”
“Look here,” I said. “I am going to confiscate this money, and then I’m going to charge you with attempting to bribe a government official. This is going to be a very bad thing for you, Luarvik… The only thing left for you to do is tell me the truth. Who are you?”
“You are taking the money?” Luarvik asked.
“I’m confiscating it.”
“Confiscating… Excellent,” he said. “Now where is the suitcase?”
“You don’t understand what ‘confiscating’ means?” I asked. “Ask Moses… Come on, who are you?”
Without saying a word, he stood up and headed for the door. I grabbed the money and went after him. We walked through the hallway and then down the staircase.
“It’s no use not giving me the suitcase,” Luarvik said. “It won’t be good for you.”
“Don’t threaten me,” I reminded him.
“You will cause great misfortune.”
“Stop lying,” I said. “If you don’t want to tell the truth that’s your business. But you’re already in it up to your ears, Luarvik, and now you’ve dragged the Moseses in with you. There’s no easy way out anymore. The police will be here any minute, and when they are, you’ll have no choice except to tell the truth… Stop! Not that way. Come with me.”
I took him by the empty sleeve and led him to the owner’s office. Then I called the owner and in his presence counted the money and wrote out a statement. The owner counted the money too—it was more than eighty thousand: what I would make over eight years of impeccable service—and signed the report.
All this time Luarvik stood off to one side, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. He looked like a man who wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.
“Sign it,” I said, handing him a pen.
He took the pen, looked at it intently and then laid it carefully on the table.
“No,” he said. “I am leaving.”
“As you wish,” I said. “That won’t change your situation.”
He turned around immediately and left, banging his shoulder against the doorframe. The owner and I looked at one another.
“Why did he try to bribe you?” the owner asked. “What did he want?”
“The suitcase,” I said.
“What suitcase?”
“Olaf’s suitcase, the one that you have in your safe…” I took the key out and opened the safe. “This one.”
“That’s worth eighty thousand?” the owner asked with respect.
“Probably it’s worth much more. This is turning out to be some murky business, Alek.” I put the money in the safe, locked the heavy door again, and put the report in my pocket.
“Who is this Luarvik?” the owner asked thoughtfully. “Where did he get that kind of money?”