"That sounds like him," Tor said, chuckling.
"Well, he kept the job and now he's the oldest employee of Gossinger, G.m.b.H. Further, I learned that when the colonel and his brother were killed it was Eric who went to the colonel's daughter and got her to give me the job of running the business. So I think I owe him."
"I understand."
"I realize you don't owe him a thing-"
Tor held up his hand.
"When my wife was dying, he held my hand, and, later, he got me off the bottle," Tor said. "Okay, until I can get somebody he can live with, and vice versa-but only until then, understand-I'll keep an eye on him."
Somebody Eric Kocian could live with had never appeared. And Tor learned some what to his surprise that he actually had time to both serve as director of security for the Tages Zeitung and keep an eye on the old man.
The job now was more than keeping Kocian from behind the wheel of his Mercedes. A year before, Kocian had begun investigating Hungarian/ Czech/German involvement in the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal. It personally outraged him.
And when those who had been engaged in it learned of Kocian's interest in them, they were enraged. There had been a number of threats by e-mail, postal mail, and telephone. Eric Kocian grandly dismissed them.
"Only a fool would kill a journalist," he said. "The slime of the world need darkness. Killing a journalist would turn a spotlight into their holes and they know it."
Sandor Tor didn't believe this for a minute, but he knew that arguing with the old man would be futile. Instead, he had gone to Otto Gorner with his fears.
Tor had said, "I think we had better have someone keeping an eye on him around the clock."
"Do it," Gorner had replied.
"That's going to be expensive, Ur Gorner. I'm talking about at least one man-probably two-in addition to myself, plus cars, around the clock."
"The cost be damned, Tor. And, for God's sake, don't let the old man know he's being protected. Otherwise, we'll have to find him to protect him." I'm pleased to meet you," Castillo said, in Hungarian, as he offered his hand. "And you should consider that Ur Gorner is even more fond of Billy Kocian than I know you are and is therefore even more upset than you or I about what's happened."
"Before God, no one is more sorry than me," Sandor Tor said. "I love that old man."
Now I know I like you. [TWO] Room 24 Telki Private Hospital 2089 Telki Korhaz Fasor 1 Budapest, Hungary 1730 6 August 2005 There was a heavyset man in his fifties sitting in a heavy well-worn captain's chair in the corridor beside the closed door to room 24. He watched as Gorner and Castillo walked down the corridor, and then, when it became clear that Castillo was going to knock at the door, announced, "No visitors."
That's a cop, Castillo thought, or my name really is Ignatz Glutz.
"It's all right," Otto said. "We're from the Tages Zeitung."
He took a business card from the breast pocket of his suit and handed it to the man. The man read it.
"He said, 'No visitors,' Ur Gorner."
"Why don't I tell him I'm here?" Gorner said and reached for the door handle.
"He's got his dog in there," the man said.
Gorner opened the door just a crack and called, "Eric, get your goddamned dog under control. It's Otto."
"Go away, Otto Gorner!" Kocian called out.
"Not a chance!" Otto called back. "Put that Gottverdammthund on a chain. I'm coming in."
The response to that was animal-a deep, not too loud but nevertheless frightening growl.
"Got a little cough, have you, Oncle Erik?" Castillo called.
"Goddamn, the plagiarist!" Kocian said.
Gorner pushed open the door to room 24.
Eric Kocian was sitting against the raised back of a hospital bed. A large, long black cigar was clamped in his jaw. A roll-up tray was in front of him. It held a laptop computer, a large ashtray, several newspapers, a cellular telephone, a pot of coffee, and a heavy mug. Kocian's some what florid face, topped with a luxuriant head of naturally curling silver hair, made him at first look younger than he was, but his body-he was naked above the waist-gave him away.
What could be seen of his arms and chest-his left arm was bandaged and in a sling and there was another bloodstained bandage on his upper right chest-was all sagging flesh. There were angry old scars on his upper shoulder and on his abdomen.
Gorner had two thoughts, one after the other, in the few seconds before Max, now growling a mouthful of teeth, caught his attention.
My God, he's nearly eighty-two.
God, even the damned dog is bandaged.
Gorner, who usually liked dogs, hated this one and was afraid of him.
Castillo was not.
He squatted just inside the door, smiled, and said, conversationally in Hungarian, "You're an ugly old bastard, aren't you? Stop that growling. Not only don't you scare me but that old man in the bed is really glad to see us."
The dog stopped growling, sat on its haunches, and cocked his head.
"Come here, Fatso, and I'll scratch your ears."
"His name is Max," Kocian said.
"Come, Max," Castillo said.
Max got off his haunches and, head still cocked, looked at Castillo.
"Watch out for him, Karl!" Gorner exclaimed.
"Come, dammit!" Castillo ordered.
Max took five tentative steps toward Castillo.
Castillo held out his left hand to him.
Max sniffed it, then licked it.
Castillo scratched Max's ears, close to the bandage. Max sat down again, pressing his massive head against Castillo's leg, and licked his hand again.
"Max, you sonofabitch," Kocian said. "You're supposed to take his hand off, not lick it like a Kartnerstrasse whore!"
"He knows who his friends are," Castillo said. "So who shot you, Eric? More important, who shot Max?"
"He wasn't shot," Kocian said. "One of the bastards clipped him with his pistol."
"One of your readers, disgruntled with your pro-American editorials?"
"That from a shameless plagiarist?" Kocian asked.
"Am I never to be forgiven?" Castillo asked.
The reference was to Castillo's habit-to lend authenticity to his alter ego, Karl W. von and zu Gossinger, Washington correspondent for the Tages Zeitung newspapers-of paraphrasing articles from The American Conservative magazine and sending them to Fulda to be published under his byline in the Tages Zeitung newspapers. Kocian had caught him at it.
"Not in this life," Kocian said, looking incredulously at Castillo and Max, who was now on his back getting his chest scratched.
"Where did you come from, Max?" Castillo asked. "An illicit dalliance between a boar and a really horny dachshund?"
"That's a Bouvier des Flandres," Kocian said.
"'Bouvier' was Jacqueline Kennedy's maiden name," Castillo said.
"I don't think so! Jesus Christ!" Kocian said.
"I could be wrong," Castillo said.
"One Bouvier des Flandres bit Corporal Adolf Schickelgruber when he was in Flanders," Kocian said.
"I told you, he's a marvelous judge of character," Castillo said. "What do you mean, one of them bit Hitler?"
"One of them bit Hitler in Flanders in the First World War," Kocian repeated. "I've always wondered if that's what really happened to Der Fuhrer's missing testicle. Anyway, Adolf was really annoyed. When the Germans took Belgium in 1940, one of the first things he did was order the breed wiped out."
"Why do I believe that?" Castillo asked.
"Because I'm telling you," Kocian said. "I'm not a plagiarist. I can be trusted."
"Particularly when you're telling me how you came to be in hospital," Gorner said. "Falling over the dog and down the stairs! Jesus, Eric!"
"It was the best I could think of at the time," Kocian said, completely un-embarrassed, and then returned to the subject at hand. "I heard the story of the Bouvier taking a piece out of Adolf in Russia and, when I had the chance, I checked it out and I knew I had to have one. So I went to Belgium and bought one. That's Max VI. Maxes I through V never betrayed me the way that one's doing."