Skin Trade (26 page)

Where was Zhaba?

Later, at the hotel, I went upstairs, switched on the TV. While I changed my shirt, I watched Austrian kids whack each other around; half were anti-government, half pro. Jorge Haider appeared on the screen. He was a good looking man and I knew what Lily would say: political beefcake, she'd say, and oozing charm. This was
a country that was a sucker for charm. God, I missed her. I missed her in bed, I missed her brains, her nutty political views, her curiosity. Lily is interested in the world and it makes everything, even the most mundane, alluring. She gives it all a buzz. Like Martha Burnham said, she turns your head. She had turned mine. Poor Martha.

Around nine, I went to the lobby and talked on the phone to my machine in New York. I talked loud. I talked about the locals. Then I cracked jokes about Nazis and Freud with the bartender who didn't understand any of it, or maybe he was pretending.

Where the fuck was Zhaba? A four-year-old could have found me. The guy at the hotel never heard of the Black and Blue Club, or he wasn't saying; neither had the kid at the American Bar.

It was bitter cold in the street. Outside the opera house, big white lights lit up the night like day. A group of men and women in eighteenth-century costumes strolled by, everyone in wigs, the men in knee-pants and stockings. One was smoking. Another skirted some cables. The movie crew in heavy jackets messed with tracks and lights on the icy street.

There was a bar nearby and I went inside. Two actresses, their huge blue silk skirts hitched up over their knees, sat at the far end of the bar eating sandwiches and drinking beer. It was warm inside and I climbed on a bar stool.

On the bar was a copy of
Hustler.
There were also copies of some local rag in English. The pleasures of Vienna. I got a beer, took out a pack of cigarettes and
glanced up at the TV over the bar where CNN played. The bartender watched me drink. He was young, handsome and bald; when I took out a smoke, he held out his lighter.

I said, “You're from Vienna?”

“I'm from Vienna. You're American?” I nodded.

It was still early. The bar wasn't crowded, he was in a talkative mood and I wanted his confidence, so I asked for another beer, told him my name, held out my hand.

“I am Walter,” he said.

I glanced at the copy of
Hustler.
He saw me do it and snorted. “For customers,” he said.

“But not for you.”

“No.”

“How come?”

He smiled. Behind the bar he had a catalogue from a New York gallery propped up.

I said, “You're an artist.”

He looked happy. “You are perceptive,” he said.

“Thanks. You weren't always a bartender?”

“Very good.”

“For an American, you mean.” I kept the tone light.

“I am an artist, but no one comes to Vienna for this, only for the past. For the nostalgia. Or for sex.” He looked up. “So, you too?” Walter added, practically crackling with irony when he said it.

CNN droned on. The screen was filled with images of people stranded by snow. “Bad weather.” Walter smiled as if it somehow pleased him. “Nothing moves. Not even the garbage.”

Walter had his own conversational agenda. I said, “What kind of art?”

“Art that no one buys. The rich want old stuff, even gangsters want ancestral portraits.” He lit up and sucked in the smoke. “I'm sorry. This is stupid talk. What can I do for you?”

I went carefully. “Maybe some nightclubs?”

He fumbled behind the bar and took out a newspaper. It was eight sheets of listings.

“It's English,” he said. “Excuse me one minute.” He tossed me the paper and went to the end of the bar where the two women in big skirts were gesturing at him.

While he was gone, I glanced at the paper. There was plenty here (‘This guide shall help you to find your preferred girls without making bad experiences'). There were sections for “Street Prostitution”, “Call Girls”, “Escort Services”, “Bars”, “Peep Shows”. There were price codes: “Oral sex in the car”, “Oral sex and intercourse in the hotel”.

Walter returned and tossed a couple more papers at me, a Vienna newspaper named
Kurier
where he marked the section labeled “Hostessen”, and a magazine,
S.O.Z,
advertising prostitutes in Vienna, complete with phone numbers, pictures and the services on offer. Most of the girls were in the Gurtel district.

I went back to the English paper, which included “a small dictionary with sexual terms”. I drank my beer and got up to speed with terms such as
Algierfranzosich,
“the girl licks your ass-hole”;
bis zur Vollendung/mitSchlucken,
“the girl will give you a blow job until you cum(!) into her mouth and swallow your sperm”.

Walter glanced at me. “Something is funny?”

“Nothing,” I said and looked out of the window; there wasn't much traffic, but cabs passed from time to time.

Walter spread out the papers on the bar and picked up a felt-tip pen.

“You're looking for something special? Girls? Boys? Good club for boys is name Vienna Boys' Choir.” He chuckled.

“Sure,” I said. “Girls. Good-looking. Expensive. From Bosnia, maybe.”

I pushed the magazine across the bar. Walter flipped the pages, marked a few entries, gave it back to me. “The girls are OK here,” he said. “Clean, but expensive. They charge double for the Champagne.”

I said “Thanks”, put some money on the bar and added, “You ever hear of a place named the Black and Blue Club?”

He shrugged. “Not so much for tourists like you.”

“Who for?”

He looked at my clothes. “For big money.”

“I'm not that kind of tourist.”

“Everyone is this kind of tourist. All forms of human exchange are corrupt: sex, money, death, irony. This is my belief.” Walter laughed. “Too much irony, bad for the soul. You are going to Black and Blue?”

“Maybe.”

“To other clubs?”

“Sure.”

“You should be careful.”

“Why's that?”

He glanced at the door where an old man entered, his arm around a young boy. “In Vienna, everyone is whores,” Walter said.

The Bee Gees singing “Staying Alive' blasted my ear-drums when the doorman pulled open the heavy padded door of the Black and Blue Club. On my way here I'd seen plenty of women, even in the cold, working the streets. Once you started looking, you saw them. Girls, too. Little girls, twelve, thirteen, some pretty. They were everywhere.

Maurice Gibb always sounds like someone just stepped on his balls. The doorman who doubled as a bouncer took the money I gave him and I was ushered in out of the ghostly street where the snow was ankle deep.

The club was a black lacquer box with mirrored walls. On the long black bar and little tables were lamps with blue glass shades. Women sat with men at the tables drinking Austrian champagne. At a corner banquette were men who took their style cues from
The Sopranos;
there were plenty of leather jackets, big rings, silk suits, loud shirts.

The smoke was thick. We were underground and the
signal on my cell phone was dead. I found a phone and tried Momo's station house, got through and was instantly cut off. I checked my messages. Nothing from Momo. At the bar I got a drink and looked around. Zhaba wasn't there. Not yet.

Disco music thumped relentlessly. On a crowded dance floor, topless girls danced with customers to the Bee Gees and Donna Summer. It was Seventies Night at the Black and Blue. I scanned the place for Zhaba
,
and while I was watching, I saw Walter arrive.

The bartender I'd met earlier was wearing tight black jeans, black tee shirt, a pin-striped double-breasted jacket. He saw me. “Any luck?” he said.

I bought Walter a vodka and tonic, then another.

He said, “You're looking for someone?”

I picked up my beer. “Maybe.”

Where was he? Where was the blonde hair, the sloping shoulders, the smell of rotten-apple aftershave?

In the gloom, my eyes darted all over the place. Once I thought I saw him, but it was someone else. And everywhere there were girls. Hookers. Dancing. Drinking.

I thought about Finn again, the guy on the border.
SEXDOLLS.COM
. Happy Poking. “You can haggle. You must say two times out loud how long is your time period.” He went to the border once a month, sometimes more, and there were a million Finns. Tens of millions. The women only lasted a few years. There was plenty of turnover and I began to see the edges of the industry and how many women it consumed, how lucrative, how big it was.

You'd have to turn the girls over constantly if you wanted them fresh, like Finn wanted them, if you wanted them like the girls on the dance floor in the Black and Blue. It was bigger than drugs.

“You come to this kind of place a lot.”

Walter snorted. “When I'm invited.” He added, “For the art, of course. This is special art form.”

“Tell me you're here accidentally tonight.”

“No.”

“What?” “Let's sit.”

“I'm happy like this.”

We leaned against the bar. Again, once or twice, I thought I saw Zhaba, but it was always someone else, some other guy with sloping shoulders and fine blonde hair. Walter turned his back to the room, leaned on the bar and said, “Why is it you wanted girls from Bosnia?”

“I have strange tastes.”

“I can go away if you want.”

“I'm sorry.” I signaled for more drinks.

“I know some refugees. From the war.”

“What kind?”

“Women. Friends.”

“Here?”

“Here, there.”

“OK.” I slipped the picture of Zhaba out of my pocket and showed it to Walter.

In the dim light, he squinted at me. “What are you?” “A tourist. What about you?”

“I told you, I'm an artist, and I think you're a cop.”

“So I'm a cop. What about this guy.”

Walter peered harder. “Sure, he's a pimp. I've seen him lots of places.”

“Here?”

“Here,” he said. “Yes.”

“What other places?”

“You should ask him,” Walter said.

“How can I find him?”

Walter shrugged.

“You want money?”

“I don't mind money.”

I gave him some of what I had left from Tolya's cash. He put it in his pocket and said, “Wait here.”

I waited. I watched the men and women. My shoulder hurt, I worried about Lily. In the distance, halfway across the floor, I watched Walter talk to some women, head down, laughing with them.

He came back over. “OK,” he said, “I can tell you something.”

“What?”

“Let's have another drink.”

“No. First tell me.” I didn't know what his game was. “You want more money?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I prefer you get this bastard.” “So where the fuck is he?”

Walter said, “I don't know, but I know his town.” “What town?”

“In Bosnia.”

“What's it called?”

“He comes from the town named Visno.”

“She was from Bosnia,” Momo said as soon as he saw me in the coffee shop.

“How the hell did you get here?”

“The girl behind the billboard, the one you figured for Albanian?”

“Yes?”

“She wasn't Albanian. The town is called Visno.”

“Like I thought.”

“Yes.”

“Him, too. Zhaba.”

“How do you know?”

I thought about Walter. “I met someone. I'm fucking glad to see you.”

It was the next day. I'd spent all day running down false leads in Vienna, looking for Zhaba, coming up empty. I went back to the bar to look for Walter, but it was his day off. The Black and Blue Club was shut until late. The weather was still lousy and I couldn't get a plane.

Around five I went into the hotel coffee shop and
ordered a ham sandwich. On the counter was a bowl of Mozart candies for sale, chocolate balls with marzipan in the middle, wrapped in gold foil, with a picture of the man himself in a wig. On the wall was a bad mural that I guessed was
The Merry Widow.
Otherwise, it was all brass and glass, shiny green plants and waitresses in dirndls and blouses with puffy sleeves. And then Momo, right there, in the coffee shop.

It was after six when Momo Gourad slipped into the seat opposite me, picked up the menu and ordered a schnitzel with a fried egg and anchovies on it, boiled potatoes, rye bread and hot chocolate with whipped cream. “Some fucking trip,” he said.

“You got my message.”

“You think I'm an idiot? You practically broadcast it by satellite that you were here. I've been on four trains today.”

“He's here.”

“Who?”

“Zhaba.”

“Where?”

“I don't know, but he's been following me from the German border. He was there. Now he's here, I think. I can't find him. How the hell did you get here?”

“I had help. There's nothing else moving except a few trains on this miserable continent.”

“So what are you, Momo? You're connected. You're not exactly my idea of a bumbling Paris street cop with a taste for American movies.” I played with my cigarettes. “Are you?”

The waitress brought his veal. He picked up two slabs
of rye bread, made a sandwich and then chomped on it for a minute. He sat back and sipped his hot chocolate.

“I was really hungry,” he said. He took off his good tweed jacket and folded it carefully, put it beside him and fooled with his shirt collar.

I said, “Talk to me.”

“Just let me go to the toilet. I'm going to burst.”

Momo ambled away. I reached into his jacket pocket and helped myself to a couple of his business cards. Maybe I could pose as a French cop if I needed ID; I had nothing else.