Under Budapest (24 page)

“And this letter written more than fifty years ago magically clears you of murder?” This is from Detective Roth, and Rev visibly stiffens, irritated with his less subtle colleague who thinks he's funny when he's bullying. My lawyer's just staying out of it. Nothing ever shows on that guy's face. Same face, no matter what. Useful for his profession, but I wonder if it changes when his wife is blowing him. Probably not. A little “umph” and that's it, is what I think. Umph and then ah. And then, thank you, my dear.

I see no reason to give them the whole background—I'm a modest guy, why flash my tits, right?—so I tell them, “Gyula ‘Gombas' Farkas. Can you believe it? I'd been trying to get a meeting with him for months, but no way am I in his league and no way is he doing me any favours. So I sent him an email. I told him about the cellar, and the five-page letter I'd found there—to him from Zsofika. Within the hour—within the fucking hour, boys—I get a call. It's Farkas. He wants the letter and not only that, he's coming over to my house to get it. Tonight. Nine p.m. It's now two p.m. So I say, ‘Of course, Mr. Farkas.'

“And I figure Farkas knows I'm angling for his favour. He knows it, but he wants the letter. I figured he'd want it, but he
really
wants it. Wants it so bad he's willing to come to my house, so bad it won't wait until morning. I will be honest with you now. I will tell you what I was thinking. I was thinking Gyula Farkas is going to be grateful to Laci Bekes. He's going to be grateful and munificent and all I had to do was the decent thing.”

If Rev is smart, he might have a question or two about all this. Isn't it coincidental that I buy Gyula Farkas's family home, and isn't it handy that I find that room. Honest to God, I bought the house from my buddy—private sale—and he gave me a good deal on it. The room and the letter, well, that was just God giving me a break for once. Doesn't everyone deserve a lucky break?

“So I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself. It's afternoon, a few hours to kill before my goose lays the egg, so to speak. I could go back to work or I could do other things. My wife hates dust, noise, and construction workers, so she's up in the bedroom with a designer friend planning paint colours, no idea what's going on underneath her. ‘I thought you weren't going to be home 'til after dinner.' ‘Guys downstairs had some questions for me.' ‘I don't know what I've even got in the fridge.' ‘No, no I'm going out again. But I've got a guy coming over after dinner. At nine.'

“I didn't tell her who it was. She gets all worried when she has to meet important-type people. I love my wife. She's great. But she's not used to having money, and sometimes she says she wishes she was back in that shitty panel in the Eleventh District where we started. I don't really believe her, but she likes to say it and I let her. So I'm on my way out the door, and my phone rings, and I answer it. Nothing important, just business. And then I think kifli and salami would be good right now and maybe a beer, so I'm on the phone and I'm making myself a snack, and then I remember I left something on my desk, so I'm back in my office. I know. Details. Whatever. They matter. I finally leave the house, I go to Maria's, we fuck like teenagers, I go to my favourite csarda for a bowl of goulash. Belly's full, balls empty. It's about seven and I figure I might as well head home, get prepared for this meeting. Not that I had much to prepare. Hand the guy a letter rolled in an old ribbon, show him some hospitality, give him a tour of the old house if he wants it, listen while he tells his old man stories. How hard can it be?”

Rev is looking bored. A practised bored, spinning his pen, doodling. Roth is getting interested. Can't help himself. There's a man who should never commit a crime. Gives it all away and doesn't even know he's doing it.

“I'd left the letter on my desk before going out. Positively, I had. No doubt in my mind, I had left that ancient goddamn letter rolled up in that dusty old ribbon, right there next to the computer keyboard. And there was the ribbon to prove it. ‘Kato? Kato, cica?' I'm calling her, and I'm scrambling through piles of paperwork, opening every drawer in my desk. ‘Did you do something with that letter on my desk?'

“I'm getting more than a little worried, right. I mean, I had Gyula fucking Farkas to face. This was my chance. This was my fucking shot at the big game, or at least a
ticket
to the game. Finally, Kato hears me. She appears at the door to my office, looking worried, wearing red. Woman dyes her hair cherry and then she wears bloody scarlet. This is what I mean. What kind of woman makes that mistake? And that look on her face. Not helping, not doing anything, just standing there. Dumb as a cunt. I mean, drive me up the fucking wall. ‘What did you do with it, Kato? That letter. It was right here.' ‘I don't know what you're talking about.' And then she looks scared. Why does she look scared? I treat her good. I don't beat on her. What have I ever done, to make her give me that face? Makes me fucking lose it every time. ‘I left it here. Right here. Here is the ribbon.' I wave it at her. ‘Which means that somebody took the paper out of the ribbon and moved it. And I don't see anyone else here, do you? So where did you put it?' ‘I swear, Laci. Laci, I swear I didn't touch it. I didn't even come in here. I never come—.' ‘Well, it didn't get up and walk away. Don't just stand there, you stupid cunt. Help me find it.' We looked for that letter for an hour. I swear to God I thought I was going to lose my mind. I retraced my steps through the entire house. I even checked the fridge, the drawer where the salami goes. I mean, what the fuck? It was supernatural the way that letter disappeared into thin air.”

Detective Roth snorts. Rev just keeps his eyes on me. I don't know about this one. He's thinking. And I don't know what he's thinking. And that's unusual, I have to say.

“By eight-fifteen, I said fuckit. Fuckit, I don't have it. But I told Gombas I have it. And I need this break. And what the hell, I read it. I remember what it said, basically, which is not very much. And so I said to my wife, who was on her knees pulling files out of the filing cabinet and crying, I said, ‘Get me your diary.' ‘What?' ‘JUST GET IT.' She started keeping a diary when she was sixteen. It was a gift from her grandmother. Kato wrote in it a little, but she never filled it. Women and their diaries, right. They always think they have secrets to spill into it, and then it turns out they don't. It was old paper. Not that old, but old. That rough, cheap paper and brittle. It would do. I sat her down in my chair at my desk, and I gave her a pencil and I told her to write. ‘November 8, 1956. Dear Gyula.' And I told her to keep the writing really small and tight together, like you know you're going to run out of paper. ‘When you put your arms around my waist that day you jumped from the tank, I knew it was love. I knew it was you that I loved, my sweet rebel.'

“I talked and my wife wrote until her wrist hurt. We had to cover five pages, one page for each day, which brought us to November 15, and to be honest I couldn't say I read it so carefully to know what each page said exactly. Not exactly. But this Zsofi woman, she complained about the cold, and she complained about her leg, and she said she didn't feel so good, and she missed him, and whatever. Love. Love, love. And do you really love me, or did you leave me here to die? I embellished to fill in the gaps with some ‘I want you, Gyula. I want you to hold me like you used to, to fill me, to call me your Zsofika.' I mean, it's a love letter. They're all the same. We rolled it up, tied that ribbon around it.

“I will be honest with you now. I was nervous. I mean, this is Gyula Farkas we're talking about here. But I got debts to pay, and if I could do Farkas a favour—well, money flows a lot easier when you're connected, right? He shows up at nine on the dot. I offer him a drink. No, thank you. A glass of water? Coffee? No and no. Anything? Just the letter. We're standing in the living room. Kato offers him a chair, but he doesn't sit. So she has to stand up again. The whole time standing there, he doesn't look around the room, doesn't look anywhere, just straight ahead to the patio doors, but at this time of night, they're just mirrors so really, he's only seeing himself and the room. Kato's getting uncomfortable, the way she does. I go to my office to get the letter. I hear her trying to make small talk about the house, and how he must have loved growing up here, so pretty, such a pretty neighbourhood, the house is pretty too, and the garden is pretty, and that tree outside is big and pretty. I get back with the letter. He hasn't even taken his overcoat off. Well, and Kato didn't ask to take it. Damn that woman. I give him the letter, all rolled up and tied exactly like the first one. He notices the ribbon. I notice him noticing, but he says nothing. He slides the letter into the breast pocket of his overcoat like it's a cigar. He touches a handkerchief to his lip.

“‘And you said you found it in the cellar,' he says. He's so courteous. I don't know why I didn't expect that—tall, skinny, and courteous. When you see his photos in the paper, they don't show how tall he is. And soft-spoken, that was the other surprising thing. ‘If it's all right with you, I'd like to take a look.'

“He knows the way downstairs, obviously, but he lets me lead the way. My guys had taken down the door, so from the foot of the stairs, he can see right through to the rock fall, the pushed-aside table, the pile of old cans.

“‘It was in there,' I point and respectfully stand aside. ‘By the table.'

“Gyula Farkas picks his way past me over construction rubble and, gripping what was left of the door frame, steps inside. I watch from where I'm standing at the foot of the stairs and then, as I'm watching, Gyula Farkas drops to his knees. Just drops. At first I think maybe he's having a heart attack or something, and I go to help him, but then I realize he's not. In his fine suit and overcoat, he's on the dirt floor and he's bending forward, putting his hands to the rock fall almost like he's a Muslim, praying into it.

“I think to myself, I shouldn't be here. My house, why shouldn't I, right? But that's what I think, and before I know it, I'm turning away so I'm surprised when he says, ‘Was this rubble here? When you opened the door, I mean. Was it already here?'”

“‘Sure. Yes. That door there led to a tunnel, right? Well, the tunnel must've caved in. Could've happened any time, but I think it happened a long time ago. Look there.' And I pointed to the table. ‘See how it was pushed by the rock. See how dusty it all is. If it was new, the dust would look disturbed. The letter too. It hasn't moved in…well, years.'

“As I'm talking, he's nodding. We're like two construction professionals down here, just talking business.

“‘And this door, was it locked from the outside?'

“‘If it was open, my men wouldn't have had to drill it out.'

“He's still facing the spill of earth and rock while he's talking to me. It takes him a while to stand, and when he does, he comes back through the door and right past me to a cellar wall we already cleared. He runs his hands over the brick, looking for something I guess, but seems he doesn't find it because then he's heading up the stairs, leaning pretty heavy on the banister.

“He says thank you as he leaves. He says this has meant a lot, seeing this place again, and the letter. He says, ‘I may have misjudged you, Mr. Bekes.' He says, ‘I know you'll keep this private matter between us.' He says, ‘I'll be in touch.'

“And really, that's all I wanted, was a ‘be in touch' with Gyula ‘Gombas' Farkas. That's all I wanted, and I got it. I fuck­ing got it. The car's pulling out of the driveway, headlights swoop white over the entrance hall, and I'm just about busting. ‘Did you hear that?' I say to Kato. ‘Did you
hear
that?'

“Kato doesn't really understand about these things, or why her husband is suddenly doing some kind of crazy dance around the house, but she's happy, you know. For me. Time to celebrate. So I tell her, don't wait up, and I call a buddy of mine, and I say, ‘Drinks are on me,' and I'm out the door.”

Rev says, “Could you excuse us for a minute, please?” And they leave me with my lawyer. Is he trying to make me nervous? Trying to throw me somehow? Hard to say, but I haven't even got to the best part, the part that clears me, so they better come back.

INTERROGATION
, Scene Three.

Everyone takes his position as before.

“Do I keep talking?”

“Sure. Keep talking.”

They switch the machine on again.

“So did I party? Yes, I did. From one club to the next. And I smoked a little dope and I drank a lot of beer. I was at it hard for must've been four hours and then I'm sitting with these gorgeous blondes from Sweden when my phone buzzes in my pants. It's my buddy, on his way home. Poor asshole doesn't have my stamina and he's got a wife who'll hang him by the balls from a Christmas tree. And he says to me ‘Laci, I don't know what you did, but Gombas is looking for you. Two dudes. At least one is packing. They're on their way to Akacfa.'

“Jesus fuck.

“Jesus fucking Christ, fucking Kato, why did I trust her to write it, Jesus fuck, probably spelled it all wrong.

“So I'm standing up now, getting ready to sprint, and then I thought, No. No, then what? Then they keep coming after me. Better to just tell the truth. I lost the fucking letter. I remember what was in it, but I lost it. I'll find it, but you have to give me a day or two. And I was thinking, There goes my favour from Gombas. If I could just delay them. And then it hits me. I must have taken the letter to Maria's. Did I do that? Sure. Sure I must have. Which means it likely fell out of my coat pocket when we were fucking. Sure, I fuck with my coat on. Don't you when you're in a hurry? So if I call Maria, tell her to find the letter . . . No, no time. All this, I'm thinking to myself at lightning speed, detectives. Because if those boys are on the hunt, then I'm the fucking duck and there's no time to lose. And then I thought, I need a decoy. And
then
I had my idea: Janos. That's my brother's Canadian friend, Janos Hagy. That's right, the guy who owns this incriminating Toronto Maple Leafs jacket. Can you see where this is going now? Okay, so the thing about Janos is that he's a
little
smarter than Csaba, and he thinks I walk on water. He is ambitious, though, I give him that. Wants to be my right-hand man, so he'd do anything for me. People always say we look alike. Like twins, almost. So I call him up. I say, ‘How fast can you be here?' Like I figured, he was just happy to be asked.”