Budapest Noir (17 page)

“Hope dies last, huh?” Gordon remarked.

“What was that, sir?”

“Never mind.”

Kovách put away his merchandise in no time, then opened the door to let Gordon back out onto the square. In the time he’d been inside the tobacconist’s shop, the square had awoken, too. Trams came and went, a few odd hikers were setting out for the hills even though it was Monday. Newsboys were vying to outshout each other. Women were on their way to the nearby market. Gordon hurried on. He didn’t like being in Buda. For some reason Pest was closer to his heart; there, at least, he felt at home, insofar as this was possible at all.

Having jostled his way through the crowd on Széna Square, he walked into the Buda Castle Coffeehouse. There was quite a hubbub there, too, but this was the one place that Vécsey was willing to have his morning coffee. Gordon was not the only one who knew where to find Leo Vécsey—if not behind a desk in the newsroom of
Hungarian Police News
, then he sat here in the Buda Castle Coffeehouse writing and translating away. Ever since he was appointed editor of the newspaper two years earlier, he hadn’t written crime news. He’d had enough of that and much preferred editing, which left him time to translate and even write poetry. Despite this, however, he knew more about the city’s crime scene than anyone. He knew all there was to know about con artists, cardsharpers, swindlers, and the cops chasing them down.

Not that they were friends, but they knew each other well, and whenever they’d crossed paths while working on a story, they’d always felt obliged to help each other out. Vécsey respected Gordon for the years he’d spent in America. Gordon couldn’t understand why, but he knew better than to ask. Whenever the question occurred to him, he heard Vécsey’s common refrain: “Zsigmond, what goes on in this country of ours isn’t crime, it’s comedy. You get burglars with names like Duck-Billed Bill, hookers called Danube Doozy. These folks aren’t criminals, they’re dilettantes. It’s a waste of time, really, even to give my opinion when you ask.” He repeated such words often to Gordon, but then invariably proceeded to detail how many people had been shot to death that week in Chicago and how many millions of dollars had been embezzled in New York. Vécsey was always putting down America, which led Gordon to conclude that he would have much preferred to have been a crime reporter for a Chicago newspaper.

“Zsigmond, you sure did step on someone’s toes,” said Vécsey, fixing his deep blue, almost embarrassingly penetrating gaze on Gordon.

“It’s nothing,” said Gordon with a wave of his hand—his left hand. “But, hey, I heard that one of your books was bought in Hollywood.”

“
Life Is a Circus
,” said Vécsey.

“Well, then you’ll be rich and famous.”

“Or not.”

“Did you get a lot of money?”

“Not so much that I don’t have to work.”

“And what are you writing now?”

“A poetry collection.”

“What’s the title?”

“
The Exiled Heart
.”

“Does it say whose heart has been exiled, and why?”

“Now that you say so . . .” Vécsey smiled. “Do you want a coffee?”

Gordon nodded. Vécsey signaled to the waiter, then crossed his arms. “You didn’t drop in by chance.”

“No,” Gordon acknowledged. “Something happened that outdoes the usual doings of the Downtown Association of Amateur Evildoers.”

“I’m listening.”

“A dead Jewish girl was found on . . .”

“Nagy Diófa Street,” said Vécsey, finishing Gordon’s sentence. “One of Csuli’s men filled me in.”

“Then you’ve heard of Skublics, too.”

“Of course,” said Vécsey, leaning back in his chair. He unbuttoned the coat of his superbly tailored suit and reached for his coffee with a sinewy hand. “He disappeared so fast that he left everything in his studio. As if he just went up in smoke.”

“In a manner of speaking,” said Gordon.

“I get you. But there’s one question, Zsigmond. What do you want to do? You can’t write an article about it.”

“I know that perfectly well,” said Gordon, raising the cup of coffee to his mouth and putting it back down at once. The hot liquid nearly burned his mouth. “But I do have a plan.”

“That’s helpful,” said Vécsey approvingly. “A plan is always useful. Just don’t go telling me this is where I come into the picture. Because I’m not interested in any sort of plan. Especially not this sort.”

“I need information. Nothing else, Leo. Information.”

“That, you can ask for. Maybe I can serve up a bit.”

Gordon took out a cigarette. He’d quite gotten the hang of using his left hand. Vécsey gave him a light. “What sort of information?” he asked as his brow darkened.

“Politicians and prostitutes.”

Leo raised a hand with dramatic flair and gave a soft whistle. “Both have a price.”

“Leo, I’m asking seriously.”

“I know you asked seriously, but I don’t want to answer seriously. You won’t write an article, anyway. There’s just no way you can write this.”

“We’ve already agreed on that. There’s a flat on Báthory Street, which is where the girls are. And there’s a book, or let’s call it a catalog, from which the politicians can pick and choose. Skublics took the pictures of the girls. The whole thing is led by a woman called Red Margo, who works for a certain gentleman by the name of Zsámbéki.”

Vécsey watched Gordon through narrowed eyes. Again he crossed his arms, leaned back, and for a little while he rocked back and forth on the two rear legs of the chair. When he came to, he said, softly, “Not just them. Not just our politicians—members of the lower house and the upper house. But foreign politicians have also seen that . . . as you put it, catalog.”

“Are the police in on it, too?”

“Not actively,” said Vécsey. “Those who need to know, know, and of course they don’t do a thing.”

“I get it.”

“No, you don’t get it. You don’t get it at all. Not only can’t you write about it, but you can’t even talk about it with anyone. For example, we didn’t even meet today.”

“Let’s not get carried away, Leo.”

Vécsey leaned over the table.

“Have you heard about Schweinitzer’s state security commando unit?” he asked in a muffled voice.

Gordon shook his head.

“You don’t want to hear about them, either. And you certainly don’t want to meet up with them.”

“What is it they do?”

“You don’t want to know. Believe me, Zsigmond, it’s better if you don’t know. If you don’t keep that tongue of yours in check, Bárczy will give Schweinitzer the order.”

“That Bárczy? István Bárcziházi Bárczy?”

“How many do you know?”

“The undersecretary in the prime minister’s office?”

“That’s right, and don’t play dumb with me. What are you out for?”

Gordon pulled his bandaged hand from his pocket and placed it on the table. “At first the dead girl was a professional labor of love. Maybe it would make a nice little article, I figured. The story seemed interesting. But everywhere I turned, I ran up against brick walls. That just piqued my interest. On Saturday night I was all but beaten to death. Early this morning someone left a broken-necked chicken in front of Krisztina’s flat—with a note saying that if I don’t stop, they’ll wring her neck next. I can’t stop now.”

“But you should.”

“And where will I get doing that?”

Vécsey paused to reflect. “Nowhere,” he finally replied, and leaned back. “They won’t believe that you’ve quit. No matter who’s behind it all. You were right—this isn’t Budapest, it’s Chicago. Not every gangster needs a weapon.”

“So you see. Even if I could just get over them beating me up, threatening me, and setting their sights on Krisztina, and even if I could just wave a hand to get that dead girl off my mind, not even then could I just call it quits. But I haven’t gotten over it, and I haven’t waved that hand. I’ve got to do something, because if I don’t, then . . .”

“Don’t say any more,” Vécsey interjected. “I understand.”

“But there is one thing I still don’t understand,” said Gordon, crushing his cigarette. “The day before Gömbös’s funeral, I was there at the wake. I saw Interior Minister Kozma, and you know who he was talking with?”

“No.”

“Well, not with Schweinitzer. Not with the head of the state security police but with Vladimir Gellért.”

“It’s not that surprising,” replied Vécsey.

“No?”

“Both Kozma and Gellért are military academy graduates. They were in the same class.”

“Bárcziházi went there, too,” observed Gordon.

“That’s right, but he was several years ahead of them.”

Gordon nodded, stood, and threw a pengő on the table. “All the best with Hollywood. And thanks.”

“No thanks needed.”

“Tell me just one more thing,” said Gordon, leaning against the chair.

“What would that be?”

“What do you know about Szőllősy, the coffee merchant?”

“The owner of Arabia Coffee?”

“Him.”

Vécsey scrutinized Gordon’s eyes. “Aside from the fact that in 1933 he bought himself an official certificate giving him the title of Valiant Knight?”

“Does that sort of thing cost a lot?”

“Why, do you want to buy one, too?”

“No, I’m just curious.”

“Well, if you ask me, the title of Valiant Knight is worth every cent to a Jew who converted to Christianity.”

G
ordon got back to the newsroom well after eleven. Gyula Turcsányi was sitting in his office, a red pencil in his hand, with which he was struggling to edit a small pile of articles.

“I’ll say!” he shouted on casting a furious glance at Gordon. “Eleven o’clock, and you’ve seen fit to show up at work. Maybe back in America this was in vogue, but in case you haven’t noticed, you’re working in Budapest. We’re fussy about work hours, you see. A reporter is at his desk by nine and writing an article, or else he’s rolling the article out of his typewriter one moment and delivering it to my desk the next. Or haven’t I told you this before? Well?”

Only now did Turcsányi finally look up and see Gordon’s unshaven face, wounded lips, the bandage sticking out from under his hat, and his limp right hand just hanging there.

“What in blazing hell happened to you?”

“An accident.”

“You were in a fight?”

“Not for fun.”

“Was it at least with a reporter at a rival paper? Over which one of you should write about the latest girl to do herself in by swallowing match heads?”

“I’ve got to rest my right hand. The doctor told me not to use it until Friday.”

From behind his desk Turcsányi took stock of him.

“I can’t type, either. And I certainly can’t write.”

The section editor slammed his red pencil on the pile of articles before him and gave a deep sigh. “Then go on home, and by Friday learn how to write with your left hand. Or to type. Or both.” He then took a typed sheet of paper from the pile and resumed reading.

Gordon went down to the archives. As usual, the door was shut. Once inside, Gordon saw that Strasser was busy putting one pack of bound newspapers after another on a pile on a desk by the wall. He was utterly immersed in the task. Sometimes he’d take the pencil from behind his ear, write a note, page through one of the packs, put the pack aside, resume searching, consult his catalog, and scratch his head. Gordon knew full well that the archivist must not be disturbed at such a time.

Naturally, even now, a cigarette hung from his mouth. Gordon sat down in the visitor’s chair and he, too, lit a cigarette. It was a couple of minutes past noon. Strasser took the packs of newspapers and returned them one after another to the shelves. Once finished, he plopped down behind his desk, read over his notes, and stared at the ceiling for quite a while. Then, all at once, he sprang up, rushing headlong to a particular shelf. Grabbing a pack of papers, he paged through them, taking the pencil from behind his ear to write something down. “I thought so,” he grumbled, then returned to his desk. Adjusting his elbow guard, he spoke.

“I’m done, Gordon.”

“Wonderful.”

The archivist set his notes down in front of himself and looked at the reporter. “You didn’t ask for this in writing, so I didn’t write down the sources. Maybe I’ll remember if it’s important, but don’t bet your life.”

“I don’t need to know when and where the articles were published, Strasser, much less by whom. Your word is enough.”

“So then,” said Strasser, craning his neck. Gordon was on pins and needles and would gladly have given Strasser a good shake to get him to start talking. But he knew it was worth waiting. He knew full well that if he’d hired a private investigator, the man would have found out ten times less in twice as much time, and he would not have kept as tight-lipped about what he was up to. “So then,” repeated the archivist, “Valiant Knight András Szőllőshegyi Szőllősy was born in Budapest in 1876. His father was already officially called Tamás Szőllősy, or more precisely, Tamás Rotenau Szőllősy. He arrived in Buda as an Ashkenazi Jew after the 1848–49 revolution and there opened a general store. Just when he converted to Christianity is hard to say exactly, but it was sometime in the late 1850s. And so he didn’t have his son christened with the foreign-sounding name Andreas, but under the Hungarian name András. His wife also took the Roman Catholic faith. Szőllősy’s father became really well-to-do when he moved his business across the river to Pest in 1867. András was the only child, so he was sent abroad for schooling. First he studied in Antwerp, then Berlin. In 1902 he returned to Budapest and immediately went to work for his father, who, however, died in 1905. A year later, in 1906, András got married; his wife’s name is Irma Petneházy. They had a daughter in 1914 who was christened Fanny. During the first two years of the Great War he traveled a lot, mainly to Africa. He was among the first to make business ties in Abyssinia. By 1919 he already had five stores in Pest, but their proceeds paled in comparison with that of his coffee imports. For a while he was the main supplier for stores in Vienna and Belgrade. It was from there that, in 1920, he entered the German market. He was deft at maneuvering his way around the touchy political situation of the time, managing to avoid the storm clouds at every turn, and before long he’d opened several stores in Germany that also operated as wholesale outlets. One in Berlin, one in Munich, one in Bremen, and one in Nuremberg. In 1933, our country’s leader, Miklós Horthy, made him a Valiant Knight and simultaneously named him his confidential advisor. Since the start of the year, the bulk of his coffee exports have gone to Germany, where he is one of the biggest suppliers. He lives in the Buda hills, more precisely, at 48 Pasaréti Street. His office is in Pest, on Kaiser Wilhelm Road. He drives a Maybach DS8 Zeppelin sedan, license plate MA 110. He’s known to be reserved, and spends a lot of time in Germany seeing to business affairs. He doesn’t go to the theater, and he has almost no social life to speak of. His wife, Irma, is much more active, belonging to various women’s associations. The greatest disappointment in Szőllősy’s life is that he didn’t have more children, and so he doesn’t have an heir for his business.”