There’s an ancient superstition that a man’s life passes in review when he’s drowning. It could be, because I reviewed my own life at that moment and I couldn’t dredge up any remembrance of ever having set eyes on Anna Orlovska. The Europeski Hotel in Warsaw in 1939? Paris, Berlin, Rome? Budapest in 1941?
Orlovska couldn’t have been on the Orient Express from Vienna. Hadn’t Strakhov said she’d come to Hegyshalom with him from Budapest? She hadn’t seen me on the train to Budapest, unless Strakhov had lied.
Maybe she thought me Marcel Blaye. But that was ridiculous. Maria had known I wasn’t Blaye and if Or-lovska had been his mistress she wouldn’t be fooled.
But there was recognition on her face. First disbelief, then open-mouthed amazement. Then she started to say something, swayed a little, and fainted dead away. Maybe she had hurt herself when she’d first hit the floor. Maybe that was it and my imagination was playing tricks on me.
If I hadn’t grabbed for her arm and caught it, she’d have hit the floor again because Lavrentiev, having called his orderly, was no longer interested. He was already back at his table, pouring a drink.
Hiram Carr had sent me to the Arizona to meet Anna Orlovska. I’d accomplished that part with dispatch. There I was, standing in the middle of the dance floor, surrounded by gaping customers, waiters, and chorus girls, holding the limp body of the countess in my arms. Ilonka was standing beside me, trembling like a leaf. The befuddled Colonel Lavrentiev was tossing half a glass of whisky down his tree-trunk throat, the only unconcerned person in the joint.
I had to do something so I yelled, “Föpincér,” and the headwaiter wiped the glassy look from his bloodshot eyes and came running. My yell galvanized everyone into action. The whole place burst into loud conversation, the bandleader started an encore of “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” the headwaiter and one of his minions relieved me of Orlovska, and Colonel Lavrentiev’s orderly slapped his paw on my shoulder and propelled me toward the exit.
I managed to turn my head before we reached the door and I saw that Ilonka was right behind us. I pulled a wad of bills from my pocket and threw them to her. “Pay the bar bill,” I said, “and keep what’s left for yourself.”
She grabbed my arm, but Lavrentiev’s orderly told her to beat it.
“I’m sorry,” Ilonka said. “I guess you just aren’t a very good dancer.”
It was a hell of a time to tell me that, but she dropped something in my pocket, then turned on her heel and went off to the bar without looking back.
We stopped at the checkroom for my hat and coat. There was a short flight of glass steps leading to the main entrance. There were lights under the glass, and when you walked on the steps a music box was set in action. It had played the first few bars of the “Rakoczi March” when I first visited Budapest; now it sounded suspiciously like the beginning of the “Internationale.”
When we went down the stairs, the orderly still clutching my shoulder, I could see on the sidewalk the gendarmes that Ilonka had mentioned. They were lined up facing the entrance, parallel to the street, as if waiting for inspection. Two big military cars were across the street. I suppose I ought to have been flattered at such an armed turnout in my honor.
I automatically started out the door to be handed over to the gendarmes, but Lavrentiev’s orderly steered me into the doorkeeper’s room, hard by the exit. He sat me down in a chair.
“Let’s see your passport,” he said.
I handed him the Jean Stodder-Geneva document. He read the statistics out loud.
“You’ve got plenty of nerve,” he said, laughing. He threw the passport into my lap.
I could have told him I was frightened stiff. Why didn’t he hand me over to the gendarmes? The Russians must have known who I was the moment I first stepped into the Arizona.
“Do you get drunk in Switzerland and knock down colonels on the dance floor?”
I could have told him I wasn’t drunk, that I hadn’t intended to crash into the colonel and Anna Orlovska. But there wasn’t much use of saying anything. He was having his kind of fun before he sent me off to 60 Stalin ut.
“You’re lucky Colonel Lavrentiev didn’t pull a gun on you,” the orderly said. “He’s got a quick temper. He’s a dignified man.”
I didn’t say anything. I wondered why he hadn’t searched me for the gun. I was sure he could see the bulge in my coat. He must have thought I wouldn’t dare try anything, not with half a hundred gendarmes with carbines a few feet away. Of course, they’d take the gun the minute he handed me over.
I think I could have snapped the gun from the shoulder holster quickly enough to beat him to the draw. But it wouldn’t have done me a bit of good. The minute I fired, those gendarmes would have filled that little room and me full of lead. I think I’ve got as much guts as the next man, but that sort of death has never had any attraction. Anyway, I’m a follower of Grigori and his monkey.
“Well, come on, Herr Stodder,” the orderly said. “It’s time you were getting to bed.”
This time I laughed. I knew enough about 60 Stalin ut to make his remark very funny. A lot of things would happen to me but not bed.
The orderly stuck his head out the door and called, “Jozsef, Jozsef.” But instead of one of the gendarmes, the grubby doorman appeared.
“A taxi, Jozsef, for Herr Stodder.” I didn’t know who the orderly thought he was kidding, me or Jozsef, but I didn’t miss the wink he gave the doorman.
“I thought you’d rather leave in a taxi, Herr Stodder,” the orderly said.
“Very considerate of you,” I said. “I appreciate the courtesy.”
Well, the doorman returned and the orderly showed me out the door and there was a taxi drawn up at the curb. The ranks of the gendarmes had parted to let me through. I got into the cab and moved over, but the orderly slammed the door after me, touched his cap, and said, “Hotel Bristol,” to the driver.
It was my turn to faint and I damned near did. But I knew I had to get that driver to move his antique cab before Anna Orlovska had time to tell her story. He had hopped out and was spinning the crank, it was that old a car.
“Hurry up,” I said. “I’ve got to get to the Bristol in a hurry.” I spoke Hungarian and I didn’t care who heard me.
I ought to have realized what had been going on. I should have known it from the minute Colonel Lavrentiev turned his back on me on the dance floor. I was being kicked out of the Arizona as a foreign drunk who had had the ill manners to upset the chief of the MVD and his partner, I was a harmless drunk as far as they were concerned. They were looking for someone in the Arizona all right. They knew I was there. But they hadn’t put two and two together. What man in my position, the presumed murderer of Major Ivan Strakhov, would have the stupidity to come to the Arizona in the first place, then crash into the head of the secret police in the second?
Anna Orlovska was the only one who’d recognized me and she’d passed out before she’d had a chance to say a word. My only hope was to get that taxi out of there before she came to and blabbed to the police. Hiram Carr had sent me to meet her but he hadn’t foreseen what would happen. I’d failed and now I had the right to save my own life.
“What’s the matter?” I yelled to the driver. “Let’s get out of here.”
He was spinning the crank for all he was worth and blasting the night air with Hungarian oaths, the choicest on earth. I hopped out and got in the front seat but the ignition key was turned on. I moved the spark back and forth but still nothing happened.
There wasn’t another cab in sight. The only vehicles were the two Hungarian police cars.