"They didn't know me," Castillo said.
"So aside from corrupting my dog, what brings you to Budapest, Karlchen?"
"That's Herr Oberstleutnant Karlchen," Gorner said.
"God, the Herr Oberst must be spinning in his grave!"
"If he is, it's from pride," Gorner said, sharply.
Kocian considered that and nodded.
"I shouldn't have said that. The Herr Oberst would have been proud of his grandson being Oberstleutnant, Karlchen."
"Thank you," Castillo said.
"You were about to tell me what brings you to Budapest," Kocian said.
"I'll tell you if you tell me-the truth-about what happened to you."
"Okay," Kocian said after a moment. "You first."
"I want to be released from my promise to keep the list of names you gave me to myself."
Kocian didn't reply directly. Instead, he asked, "By now, I assume you've heard that they got to your man Lorimer? In Uruguay, of all places?"
"I was there when he was shot," Castillo said.
Kocian pursed his lips thoughtfully, then asked, "Who done it?"
"One of the six guys in dark blue coveralls who went to Lorimer's estancia to do it."
"How come they didn't get you, too, if you were there?"
"I couldn't ask them. They were all dead."
"Not identifiable?"
"No."
"Sounds like the people who got me," Kocian said. "Max and I were taking a midnight stroll on the Franz Josef Bridge-"
"The where?" Gorner asked.
"They now call it the Szabadsag hid, Freedom Bridge. I don't. Freedom has many meanings. Franz Josef means Franz Josef. I remain one of his admirers."
"Going off at a tangent," Castillo said. "There's a country club called Mayerling outside Buenos Aires."
"Really?" Kocian asked.
"Yeah, really."
"Well, I'll have to have a look at it when I go to Argentina," Kocian said.
"What are you two talking about? What's Mayerling?" Gorner asked. "What do you mean, when you go to Argentina?"
"Mayerling was the Imperial Hunting Lodge outside Vienna," Castillo said, "where Crown Prince Rudolph, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, on being told he had to give up his sixteen-year-old tootsie, shot her and then shot himself."
"According to my father, it's where Franz Josef had him shot on learning he had been talking to people about becoming king of Hungary," Kocian said.
"My aunt Olga told me that version, too," Castillo said.
"A great lady," Kocian said. "And you remember? I'm impressed. You were only a kid-seven, eight, maybe nine-when she died."
"And what do you mean, when you go to Argentina?" Castillo said.
"Don't interrupt me when I'm telling you what happened to me," Kocian said. "Max and I were coming back from taking a midnight snack across the river. We were about halfway across the Franz Josef Bridge when I sensed there were people approaching us from behind. That happens often. You'd be surprised how many young Hungarians think robbing old men out walking late at night is a lot more fun than getting a job. Max loves it. He gets to growl a little, show them his teeth, and after they wet their pants, drop their knives or whatever they had planned to hit me in the head with, he gets to chase them off the bridge."
Castillo chuckled.
"This time, it wasn't young men. This time, it's two full-grown men, with a third man driving a Mercedes. And the guy who got pretty close before Max grabbed him wasn't carrying a knife. He had a hypodermic needle in his slimy little hand. Had had. By the time I saw it, Max was chewing on his arm and he'd dropped it."
"My God!" Gorner exclaimed.
"The second thug pulled out a pistol and started beating Max on the head with it. I jumped on him and then the Mercedes pulled up and the second guy got away from me and got in it. Off they drove. They stopped ten meters away, maybe a little more, and started shooting at me through an open window. And then they drove off for good. The license plates, it turned out, they'd stolen off a Ford Taurus."
"What happened to the guy with the hypo?" Castillo asked.
"He was begging-in German-for me to get Max off him."
"What happened to the needle?" Castillo asked.
"The cops have it."
"By any wild coincidence was it loaded with bupivacaine? Or something similar?"
"This one was loaded with phenothiazine," Kocian said. "I have been told they use it on lunatics. What's the wild coincidence you were hoping to find?"
"When Masterson's wife-"
"Masterson being your murdered diplomat in Buenos Aires?" Kocian interrupted.
Castillo nodded. He went on: "When she was kidnapped in a restaurant parking lot, they jabbed her in the buttocks with a hypo full of bupivacaine."
"Very interesting," Kocian said. "But, sorry. No match."
"What about the guy this adorable puppy almost ate?"
"He's in jail. His story, which I think he may get away with, is that he's a vacationing housepainter from Dresden who was walking on the bridge when I made an indecent proposal to him, attempted to fondle his private parts, and when he resisted and pushed me away my dog attacked him."
"How did he explain the hypo?"
"He never saw it before; therefore, it probably belongs to the old pervert." He paused and looked at Otto. "That's why I told you I fell over Max, Otto. I knew you'd be delighted to accept the old pervert story."
"My God, Eric!"
"What's going to happen to this guy?"
"I told the cops-in particular, the police commissioner, who is an old pal of mine-to see if he can connect him with Stasi…"
"They're out of business, aren't they?"
"You can ask a question like that and still get promoted as an intelligence officer?"
"You have all the answers, you tell me," Castillo said.
"Did you ever think about it, Karlchen?" the old man asked and Castillo had a sudden insight: From now on, when he calls me Karlchen it will be because he has decided I am either impossibly ignorant or have done something monumentally stupid.
"Think about what?"
"What happened to the better agents of the Ministry for State Security of the German Democratic Republic, commonly known as Stasi, when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down and peace and loving-kindness descended on our beloved Germany?"
"Frankly, I never gave it much thought."
"Maybe you should have, Karlchen," Kocian said. "Well, I'll tell you this, very few of them became bakers, cobblers, or took Holy Orders."
"Okay, so what are they doing? For whom? Who's paying them?"
"If you have to ask that, you must believe that once democracy came to the former Soviet Union, Russia really became the 'friendly bear' your President Roosevelt always thought it was. While you're here in Budapest you should go over to Andrassy Ut 60. Broaden your professional horizons."
"I'll bite. What's at Andrassy Ut 60?"
"Now it's a museum. It used to be the headquarters of the AVO, and then the AVH. The Allamvedelmi Osztaly and the Allamvedelmi Hatosag. I don't suppose you have any idea what that means."
"I didn't know the address," Castillo said, "or that they had turned it into amuseum."
"Great museum. They not only have a ZIS-110 in the lobby…"
"What's a ZIS-110?" Gorner asked.
"…Formerly the limousine of the head of the AVH…" Kocian continued, only to be interrupted again.
"A Russian copy of the 1942 Packard Super Eight," Castillo said. "Stalin showed up in Yalta in one. Reserved for really big shots."
"Maybe the plagiarist isn't as ignorant as he sometimes sounds," Kocian said. "And the walls are covered with pictures of people the bastards garroted in the basement. The garrote gallows is also in the basement."
"Now, that's interesting," Castillo said. "I'd forgotten that."
"You forgot what?" Gorner asked.
"The NKVD's preferred method of execution was a pistol bullet in the back of the head," Castillo explained. "The People's Court found you guilty and then they marched you straight into a room in the basement and shot you in the base of the skull. Stasi and the Hungarian State Security Bureau-AVO and AVH-weren't that nice. They…"