“So I’d be cutting into business hours.”
“Yes. And I’ve no way to repay you.”
“That’s all right. I suppose I owe you one anyway. You’re the man who got me started in business.” This time she said it playfully, without the earlier hint of bitterness. He joined in her smile.
“So what’s the message, then? And who am I to see?”
“Toby Perkins, room four thirty-four. Tell him to meet me here. He should bring a blanket with him and come in his Land Rover. Tell him to make sure no one follows him. I’ll need him to drive me somewhere.”
“And if he asks where?”
“Just tell him I’ve broken the case, and if this works out then he’ll have the story of a lifetime.”
It got him, of course.
Four hours later, with darkness complete, Toby come thumping and wheezing up the steps behind Amira. He entered red-faced, his bulging sack dragging at his feet, but he was clearly excited.
“So, where are we going, Mr. Homicide Detective. To solve another one of your individual murders?”
“A lot more than that, I hope. But we’ll have to wait until after curfew.”
“Well, aren’t we the sly and cagy one these days. Secret faxes to Belgrade. Unofficial trips to Dobrinja. Now you’re hiding out in a west side apartment while your office says you’re ’unavailable for comment’ then asks curious questions about when was the last time I saw you and who else has Mr. Petric been in touch with, et cetera. They wanted me to come in for a few questions so I gave them the brushoff, told them they’d have to speak to my editor. I get the idea you must be up to something they don’t exactly approve of. I like it more all the time.”
So, they were checking everywhere now. Vlado was glad he’d never told Amira’s name to Damir, nor was it written anywhere at the office.
“I’ll make us some coffee,” Amira said.
“Allow me,” Toby responded, stooping with a grunt to his bag and its seemingly bottomless supply of Nescafe. Out came another jar.
She nodded briskly, as if expecting it all along. Toby seemed a bit taken aback by such a routine reaction to his routine generosity.
They spent the next three hours talking, an odd three-way conversation about life alternating between English and Serbo-Croatian with Vlado interpreting when necessary. At one point, as Toby rattled on about his previous days covering African revolutions, Vlado considered the unlikely combination of events that had brought together this trio. At its root was mostly one form or another of stubbornness-the ethnic stubbornness that had begun the war, the world’s stubborn refusal to do anything but nurture along a deadly siege, Vlado’s stubborn clinging to a city that had died beneath his feet, Toby’s stubborn pursuit of a story, and Amira’s stubborn fight for her children’s future.
Amira made dinner, half a chicken divided among them, then put her children to bed. Half an hour after the nine o’clock curfew Vlado rose to his feet.
“It’s time,” he said.
“Yes, but time for what,” Toby said.
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
Vlado turned to Amira. “The authorities will probably be looking for you on the job. If you can afford it, you had better stay away for a night or two. Once they do catch up to you, be especially wary of my partner, Damir Begovic, or one of his bosses, Juso Kasic. And don’t admit to anyone that I was ever in your apartment. Just tell them the story you told me, except leave out anything about ever knowing the colonel’s first name, or knowing that he was an officer, or even knowing that he was French. That should satisfy them.”
“And where will you be all this time?” she asked. Toby waited just as eagerly for the answer.
“That depends on how lucky we are.”
At Vlado’s direction, they drove the armored Land Rover west down Sniper Alley. Vlado was poised to climb quickly into the back beneath the blanket in case any new checkpoints had been posted. Along the way he reached into his satchel and tore open the plastic taped around the U.N. shipping invoice and scanned the document by the green glow of the dashboard lights, while Toby glanced over in curiosity.
“Where to now?” Toby asked.
“Pull over for a minute. We’re almost there. A few hundred yards up on the right.”
“U.N. headquarters?”
“Yes.”
“I thought that’s where we might be heading. And who do we ask to see once we’re at the gate?”
“No one. We’ll be driving around back to the loading dock to see what we might find.”
“And how do you propose for us to get through the main gate, short of ramming it open in a hail of gunfire.”
“With this.”
He held out the invoice as Toby pulled the Rover onto the curb.
“Impressive,” Toby said. “Looks like it might even be the real thing. But that still leaves you. I’ve got U.N. press credentials, so no problem. You don’t.”
“I’ll be in the back, under the blanket. You’ll point to the lump I’m making and tell the guard you’re making a delivery, as stated on the invoice. Just hope he doesn’t ask to inspect the parcel, or notice that the shipping date is a few months old. But you can probably avoid most of the questions by directing his attention right away to Colonel Chevard’s signature at the bottom. They should be used to this kind of delivery by now, and in trucks that look a lot shadier than yours. Oh, and tell him you might need a few minutes to do a little hammering, to shore up the crate for shipment. That should give us the time we need.”
Toby sighed, seeming to reconsider the venture as Vlado climbed into the back and pulled the blanket over his head.
“This better be a hell of a story,” he muttered, throwing the car into gear.
It went just as Vlado had predicted. The sentry seemed bored, little interested in anything but Toby’s U.N. credentials and Colonel Chevard’s signature at the bottom of the invoice.
“Around to your right, sir,” the soldier said. “Docks are on the far end at the back, behind the sandbags. Take care in your business, though. Sniper was working that side of the building earlier tonight.”
They drove in, Vlado warm beneath the blanket. He felt the Rover stop. He heard Toby pull up the handbrake and say, “Last stop, everybody out.”
Vlado sat up, relieved to see they were well out of sight of the sentry, and probably out of earshot as well. He was even more relieved to see a large wooden crate standing on the loading dock. The usual invoice was attached to the side, covered in plastic. The crate was roughly the same size as the one in Vitas’s mother’s basement, though perhaps a little smaller.
“Come on,” he said to Toby. “Let’s see what’s inside. The quicker we’re finished back here, the better.” He let the better nourished Toby do the prying and pulling with the hammer, while Vlado loosened nails with a screwdriver.
They pulled one side of the crate free, the nails groaning, and Vlado tugged away the bubbled plastic that had been wrapped around the contents.”
“Jesus,” Toby explained. “It’s a painting.”
“Worth about one hundred twelve thousand U.S.,” Vlado said.
“How the hell’d you know that so quick?” Toby asked.
“It belonged to Milan Glavas. That’s whose apartment we were in the other day.”
“They killed him for it?”
“Partly for that. But mostly for telling the truth.”
“So. It’s like I thought the other day. An art smuggling operation,” Toby glanced at the names on the invoice. “And with some very big fish involved, it seems. How much do you figure they’ve made this way?”
“Millions. Minimum.”
Toby smiled broadly. He slapped Vlado on the back.
“No wonder everyone’s looking for you. But don’t worry, from now on I’m your personal escort and bodyguard, courtesy of the Evening Standard, all expenses gladly paid. So, where to from here? And we should probably round up my photographer on the way. He can get a few snaps of this. The invoice, too.”