Dubrovnik

[Steven Hunley]

Dubrovnik
by
Steven Hunley

There was a perpetual pile of unpaid bills on Eddie's table. Eddie was perpetually broke was the excuse. "I'm always a day late and a dollar short," he reported, in his typically cliched manner. "I don't know how to keep money around."

"That's right, Eddie. No truer words were ever said," replied a silky voice from the kitchen, which in Eddie's parlance was, "Music to my ears."

It's no surprise Eddie wanted a hustle. Richard Burton once told Marlon Brando Eddie needed a hustle as bad as Anthony needed Cleopatra. We were sitting on the red couch near the big coffee table, sipping expensive Java from Jakarta out of cheap Chinese cups. Eddie never possessed a sense of proportion. You remember the couch, Pamela gave it to him on Valentine's day. And right when I put the cup down, she marched in and ordered,

"Hey watch it, Alex! That's my favorite table," slipped a bamboo and cork coaster under the coffee cups, and landed her butt between us on the couch as soft as an angel landing her celestial derrier on a cloud. " Of course, you're my favorite guy. Next to Eddie, that is."

That Pamela anyway. She had a way of ordering you around like George S. Patton and buttering you up like a sweet English muffin with the same mouthful. A woman like that always gets her way. Eddie admitted she had class, made good coffee, and defininitely had the skill to whip up a tasty breakfast burrito. That's when I noticed a coffee stain on an envelope with a stamp marked Republika Hrvatska. I slipped it out of the gigantic pile of AT&T bills and gas and electric shut-off notices. After reading the return address I asked Eddie,

"Dubrovnik? Your brother is in Dubrovnik?"

"Yeah, he's been there two years teaching the Croations how to farm with western scientific methods. Since nineteen sixty-eight. In the Peace Corps and all. Behind the Iron Curtain and all. Say, ain't your mother in Europe somewhere? Read it to me will ya, while I roll us a joint."

"My mother's still in Zagreb. That's why I asked. I'll read it, no problemo. So roll away."

©Steven Hunley 2012

To be continued...

[Steven Hunley]

Dubrovnik
by
Steven Hunley

There was a perpetual pile of unpaid bills on Eddie's table. Eddie was perpetually broke was the excuse. "I'm always a day late and a dollar short," he reported, in his typically clichéd manner. "I don't know how to keep money around."

"That's right, Eddie. No truer words were ever said," replied a silky voice from the kitchen, which in Eddie's parlance was, "Music to my ears."

It's no surprise Eddie wanted a hustle. Richard Burton once told Marlon Brando Eddie needed a hustle as bad as Anthony needed Cleopatra. We were sitting on the red couch near the big coffee table, sipping expensive Java from Jakarta out of cheap Chinese cups. Eddie never possessed a sense of proportion. You remember the couch; Pamela gave it to him on Valentine's Day. And right when I put the cup down, she marched in and ordered,

"Hey watch it Alex! That's my favorite table," slipped a bamboo and cork coaster under the coffee cups, and landed her butt between us on the couch as soft as an angel landing her celestial derriere on a cloud. “Of course, you're my favorite guy. Next to Eddie, that is."

That Pamela anyway. She had a way of ordering you around like George S. Patton and buttering you up like a sweet English muffin with the same mouthful. A woman like that always gets her way. Eddie admitted she had class, made good coffee, and definitely had the skill to whip up a tasty breakfast burrito. That's when I noticed a coffee stain on an envelope with a stamp marked Republika Hrvatska. I slipped it out of the gigantic pile of AT&T bills and gas and electric shut-off notices. After reading the return address I asked Eddie,

"Dubrovnik? Your brother is in Dubrovnik?"

"Yeah, he's been there two years teaching the Croatians how to farm with western scientific methods. Since nineteen sixty eight. In the Peace Corps and all. Behind the Iron Curtain and all. Say, ain't your mother in Europe somewhere? Read it to me will ya, while I roll us a joint."

"My mother's still in Zagreb. That's why I asked. I'll read it, no problemo. So roll away."

While Eddie fired it up I started to read aloud.

"Big Brother,
It's really a trip here. None of the communal farms are producing anything other than bulgar wheat. All the farm machines are dinosaurian and out of date. Even the cities are medieval and the streets are narrow and twisted and addresses are impossible to find. If it wasn't for the Croation we were taught by the Peace Corps, we wouldn't be able to communicate, as only a few people know English. I'd like you to send me a pair of Levi's jeans. Prices for jeans here are sky high due to import duties on anything they care to label "luxury goods." It's outrageous! One pair goes for over a hundred and twenty-five bucks. I'd like a pair with a 34 inch waist and 32 inches long, boot cut. If you can send them, I'll double whatever they cost plus shipping. Big Bro, swear to God, I'm a stranger in a strange land. It's crazy as all get-out. Say hi to Mom, Pop, and give Pamela a hug for me.
Volim te Bro,
Tom"

"Wow, that's crazy about the Levis," remarked Eddie, passing the joint to Pamela, "They must be mad about them."

"That's five or six times the price in the States," she said. "Don't they have any jeans?"

She passed it to me. While Eddie played The Best of the Animals softly in the background on the turntable, lazy blue circles of smoke corkscrewed in the air and were illuminated by a dozen bars of golden light. I figured they were created by the partially open blinds and late afternoon sun. It all seemed a little too idyllic. Maybe it was the smoke.

"Nothing like Levi's in quality," I replied. “And another thing too. They're a sign of the West and capitalism. It's a rebellion against a repressive society thing, a Slavic Yuppie kind of fashion statement. It shows an outward lack of respect for the current administration and the way things are now that the Russians are in charge. My mom sends me letters all the time."

I passed the joint to Eddie.

"It sounds like a backwards country to me," said Eddie, took a hit, and passed the joint back to Pamela. She took a puff and held her breath, pressing her hit. So I spoke again.

"They're so far behind the times it's not funny. That's what the Iron Curtain is designed to do, keep them in, and everything and everyone else out. People, ideas, you name it. Out."

Pam passed me what was left of the joint using an award-winning roach pass with fingers that could be described as slender and artistic if they were described in a short story by Maupassant. She was deft with her hands and would have taken a gold medal in the Dope Passer's Olympics with the way she handled a roach.

"This stuff is pretty good," said Eddie, "I've already copped a buzz."

"It's Alcalpulco Gold," reported Pamela, "It ought to be good."

"Wish I had a boatload," I said, "and the money that goes along with it. The regular Mexican commercial smoke we usually get tastes like wet cardboard."

"I agree, like sh*t, but Reynaldo, my connection, isn't so well off, money-wise," said Eddie.

"That's because he's only a middle man," Pamela observed, "Not an importer."

"Smugglers always make good dough. That's where the real money is," I said.

"That's where all the risk is too," replied Eddie, thoughtfully, which was out of character. His wheels were turning for a change. God only knew where they would stop.

"Yeah," I agreed. "That's it. The risk is where the big money is, and the real mark-up too."

The next hour or so we listened to music and ate cherry-vanilla ice cream like, as Eddie put it, "It was going out of style." Then we watched the Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason and after that I took my leave. Pamela decided to go to bed early. Eddie couldn't sleep, something was bothering him. It gave him a look she read like a book. She couldn't see that look on his mug for long and not respond.

"It's true what he said, Eddie, That's where the cash is, not on your end of it. The consumer end of it only costs money."

"I wouldn't know much about that."

"That's because you're a consumer, Eddie. You've got no imagination."

"That's a cruel remark. I've got plenty of imagination."

"Eddie, let's get real. I love ya'. But whatever imagination you have comes from the smoke."

She fluffed her pillow, turned towards the wall, and went to sleep.

Later that night, Eddie listened to the rest of the album. He sat in the kitchen, looking out the window at nothing, troubled and out of sorts. To remedy the situation he decided to dig the roach out of the ashtray. The rice paper Zigzag was stained with her Revlon Hot Kiss. The refrigerator hummed and sputtered on and off. Other than the place was quiet, so Eddie, to provide a little amusement, turned the turntable and amp back on. It was the Animal's song Don't Bring me Down. It hit him right in the stomach.

Well you complain and criticize
I feel I'm nothing in your eyes
It makes me feel like giving up
Because my best just ain't good enough....

Eddie had one of those strange connections to music and the notion it guided his life. This was the example, his lesson for today. He was nothing, he was nobody, and could never hope to please his woman. If Eddie wasn't exactly blue, he was azure to the extreme. The weed only magnified his problems and fed his exaggerated inner insecurities. Poor stoned Eddie had, in his own way, too much imagination for his own good. Inevitably, it would lead the both of them across the Atlantic, far from things they knew, on a dangerous risk-filled scam, behind an Iron Curtain where nothing and no one is allowed to slip through. And not on a search for the Holy Grail mind you, but on a quest for the Root of all Evil.

***
The night, the music, and the events of the day, all gave Eddie’s brain a push-start. His wheels now spun like the Mighty Midnight Express. It was time to be, as Jethro Tull once put it, a man of action.

“The first thing I have to consider is what the stuff will be. Something with a good mark-up. Weed? Well, it’s bulky and smelly and a million other smugglers have done it and got caught. There is a lot of competition. So weed’s no good. And getting anything past U.S. Customs is a pain in the butt.”

Eddie looked through the bedroom door at Pamela’s figure outlined by the sheet. She was still facing the wall, asleep on her side. The symmetry of her hips and length of her legs were apparent under the tattered Egyptian cotton sheets. Eddie was so poor; the thread count embarrassed him. The sheets were as holy as she was angelic.

“Cocaine is no good. I don’t speak Spanish and never want to end up in a third-world-country jail with only cockroaches for amigos. Forgettin’ how to speak the King’s English and all. Besides, some customer always goes too far and loses his or her nose and will want to charge me for a rhinoplasty. That’s no good for my Karma, no good at all.”

Pamela stirred slightly, and placed her hand on her hip. Her jeans, at that very moment, slid off one of the bedposts and onto the floor, making hardly a sound. By this time the turntable was off. Sucking on the short roach nearly set Eddie's stash on fire, but that didn't deter him.

“And, as much as I’d like to see Angkor Watt, heroin is definitely out for the same reason. Nobody’s death is ever going to be on my hands, even if they do have an immortal soul.”

Eddie, almost singing his fingertips, made a mad dash to the ashtray. Just before he reached the rim the cherry fell off, and dropped on the letter from Dubrovnik. Immediately he brushed it off and turned it over to inspect the damage. You could still read every word.

Again, Eddie was drawn to Pamela’s figure framed by the door. She was comfortably on her back now and breathing with a consistent rhythm. The pillow-top mattress was hers and softened to her personal specifications. Moonlight falling through the open shades draped her features in blue velvet. Eddie felt he was witnessing something natural, like watching cloud shadows racing over a meadowed landscape from a high-up hill. His mind went blank. And then, in a flash, in one tiny cosmic event of typically enormous proportions, everything added up.

Like a phoenix, a scheme arose from the ashes.



©Steven Hunley 2012

To be continued...

http://youtu.be/0FZU4JVOmro Original Animals

[Steven Hunley]

Kipling, in his story Kim, refers to intelligence and counter-intelligence as ‘The Great Game’. To initiate the next stage of ‘the great game’ Eddie needed somewhere to hide a large cache of undeclared goods. He needed to stash or disguise it. But by this time the Evil Weed with Roots that Grow in Hell had worn off and Eddie decided to crash. He checked the door and threw the lock, then snapped off the light. After tripping over Pamela’s jeans on the floor, he hung them back on the corner of the four-poster. It was remarkable, how soft and supple they felt.

“That’s what she always says,” he whispered to himself, lifting the blanket. “She loves them because they’re comfortable and they fit her just right.”

He slid in beside her and scooted nearer, attempting to be as close as possible without waking her. She stirred lightly. He was with her. It was a fine state of affairs. As much as he loved her he never relished their situation.

“But this bed of hers, it’s so comfortable. Soft…and…comfortable… and...” fell into dream-filled sleep.

The next morning, Eddie Man of Action took over. Breakfast for Eddie was Hawaiian sweet bread toast and Sumatran coffee strong enough to ‘wake the dead’ and any other island man. Pamela was sipping Earl Grey and reading supermarket ads.

“Honey,” he ordered like a five-star general. “Apply for a passport and a yellow health card. Get a suitcase, a Serbo-Croatian dictionary, and some sun screen. Have Alex come over to feed Willy and buy plenty of cat food. Write a letter to my brother telling him we’re on our way. Don’t tell your mom anything and not a word to our friends, none of ‘em. I wouldn’t trust the lot. Don’t worry, Kiddo, I’m not ‘losing my marbles.’

“Oh my God,” thought Pam. “He is losing his marbles.”

When Eddie used an expression like ‘wouldn’t trust the lot’ she knew he was about to do something dashing, or something foolish, something Errol Flynn or Sean Connery-style, and his Robin Hood/James Bond antics made her worry. The Bogart ‘Kiddo’ clenched it. This much she knew. What she didn’t know was that he’d written a check for all the money left in their joint account, most of which was hers.

“OK Eddie, I’ll make a list. Is this our vacation?” The innocent tone of her voice was touching.

“It’s a working vacation, Honey, a business and pleasure trip. Then go downtown to Crazy Gideon’s Denim Paradise and give him this check.”

Two weeks later they were on a tramp freighter, with a Liberian registry, pounding their way across the Atlantic, then the Mediterranean, then north into the Adriatic. It was all the same water to Eddie. Pamela has been unable to sleep for a week. The sea air did absolutely nothing to cure her condition. She was weak, and unsure of her footing, as fragile as Botticeli’s Venus balancing on a seashell. As Eddie put it, “She’s worn to a frazzle.”

They were on the sunny side of the deck reclining in deck chairs. As calm as it was, and warm with hardly a breeze, she still didn’t have any peace.

“I’m tired, Eddie. My nerves are a wreck, with all this secrecy stuff. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a week.”

Eddie was worried. Pam did look, as he phrased it, ‘worn and haggard.’ He decided to ‘throw in the towel.’

“Let’s go to our cabin and grab our down pillows.”

‘Uh-oh,’ she concluded. ‘There goes another marble.’

They went to their cabin and fetched two pillows from home off the bed. From there, Eddie led her down stairway after stairway and in and out so many hatches she lost count. Finally they found their way to the forward cargo hold. It was damp and oppressive and as black as Eddie remarked, “The Ace of Spades.”

“I know why you’re losing sleep, Honey. You’re missing the comfort of your pillow-topped mattress. I intended to keep this a secret, even from you. But you were going to find out when we went through customs anyway. So why wait?”

He flicked on a wall-switch.

There were pallets and stacks of cargo shipping containers from all over the world. One was painted red white and blue. Eddie took Pamela’s hand and they walked down the aisles and stopped near the door of the patriotic steel box. He took a key from his pocket. It opened with a resonating creak.

Inside was hard to make out until their eyes adjusted. A large object was shrouded in opaque shrink-wrap. Eddie took out a pocket knife and pealed it like a plastic banana. Pamela’s eyes dilated like crazy.

“It’s my bed! What have you done to my bed? What’s it doing here?”

“Honey, don’t worry, it’s suffered no harm. I’ve improved it. Changed the stuffing and all. Made it more valuable and all. Now instead of plain cotton, it’s stuffed by Levi Strauss. Johnny Fabrics, the guy who did our car upholstery came over one day when you were gone shopping, and did one hell of a job.”

He patted the mattress proudly.

“None of the crew ever comes down here, and they won’t have to until we get into port. By then, we can re-wrap it. We’ll use your hair dryer!”

Eddie was so simple Pamela wanted to abandon ship. She calculated each position of every lifeboat in her head. It was unnecessary. Two days later they sealed it back up and shrink-wrapped the pillows on the mattress like two forlorn lumps. They’d dropped anchor in Dubrovnik harbor. By then they were both ‘bright-eyed and bushy-tailed’ according to Eddie, and had plenty of sleep.

“Two hundred pairs of Levis makes a guy feel downright comfortable,” said Eddie, patting her behind. He may have been talking about denim’s supple feel, or its soft comforting fit, or the calming blue Indigo color.

‘Or is he just patting his investment?’ Pamela couldn’t tell. Either way she was nervous. The hardest part was yet to come. Communist-flavored Customs would be the soup du jour.


***

The ship’s horn sounded the call warning the passengers to debark.

Carrying their baggage out into the sun blinded them both. Looking over the side they remarked how small the boat was. They scrambled like rats into the small launch and sped ashore. The harbor was shallow and the bottom white sand which made it remarkably clear. Somehow Pamela and Eddie felt quite small. The launch was tiny compared to the freighter. The launch felt like a decoration, a tiny bit of silver pinned to a blue velvet skirt. Calm waves were wrinkles, and where it was ironed by lack of wind, the surface was flat. White foam decorated the sea’s edge when waves crashed against the stoney foundations of what was once Fortress Europe.

They rounded the point. Complete with turreted towers, the walls shined like chalk in the mid-day sun. It was a living illustration of the thirteen-hundreds, and a defensive wall protected the city, enclosing it with three sides of stone and a fourth of sea. Churches poked their lofty heads heavenwards and gleamed with burnished copper spires topped with crosses. Dozens of roofs were shaded by uncountable numbers of rust-colored tiles. Here and there, chimneys were graced with stork nests according to season. It was a scene from the past, a medieval illustration, an illuminated manuscript on precious velum. Small splashes of ink grew animate as the launch drew closer.

“And the people, just look at them,” Pam said. “Most of them are dressed just like you and I.”

A crowd on the dock swarmed around a fish market. The men and women selling looked like fishermen/women anywhere, hats and scarves to protect them from the weather. Slickers. Lots of boots on working feet. But the young crowd buying their breakfast, lunch, and dinner, dressed as cool and hip as the law would allow, no matter what the commissars back in Zagreb said. Dubrovnikers had a mind of their own.

“That’s why we’re here, Honey. And that’s why you and I and Levi Strauss are gonna’ ‘ clean up’.”

The Dalmatian Coast...

Only a few steps back from the pier, the customs house sat. Like the rest of the city its architecture reminded one of earlier times, when Venice and Dubrovnik and other members of the Republic of Ragusa grew rich with trade to the east. What deals must have been made, what cross-deals and double-dealings. Another could transpire any minute, as the ancient maritime port had a history so extensive that vibrations of buying and selling seeped their way into the stones centuries ago. Energy never disappears it merely transforms.

“Might as well get this over,” said Eddie, hitched up his pants and strode in, dragging Pam behind.

Inside was darker and damper than expected, but in the corner a wood and glass partition stood, and you could see a figure bent over a desk, his head silhouetted by the glare of a goose-neck lamp. An open book lay before him, and a brass plate over the threshold said Customs Inspector. Goran obtained the job as customs inspector when he got out of the army. But Dubrovik wasn’t a big port, and most of the larger ports up north did all the business. Now it was a backwater, and the Soviets shipped everything by rail.

That was alright with Goran. It gave him plenty time to read. He was an independent thinker, a student of history, and liked to do things the way he wanted. He was reading Tagore’s ‘Talks in China’.

‘This age to which we belong. Does it not still represent night in the human world, a world sleeping while individual races are shut up within their own limits, calling themselves nations, barricading themselves, as these sleeping cottages were barricaded, with closed doors, bolts and bars, and prohibitions of all kinds?’

Tagore echoed Goran’s thoughts. His own country was in the same predicament. Hearing the two approach, he stood up.

"My God,” whispered Eddie. “Just look at that guy. He’s a tall as John Wayne.”

“Oh yes! They certainly grow them big around here. But big as the Duke?”

The man stepped directly in the doorway, and backlit by the lamp, looked quite cinematic.

“Yes, I am as tall as your John Wayne, and with his cowboy hat! I have an excellent sense of hearing too. You’re bringing something into Dubrovnik. I say that, because you have no packages or bags with you.”

They said nothing and just stared. His smile turned in a frown. He examined them sternly, and took a more direct approach. “You have something to declare, is that it?”

“We’re here to p-pick up some furniture,” Eddie stammered. “They’re unloading it right n-now.”

Pamela smiled blankly and twisted the declarations form in her hands.

“Let’s see your paperwork. It isn’t narcotics is it? Many corrupt Americans try to bring narcotics into our country and spoil the future of our youth with dope.”

Goran reached over and snatched the declarations paper from Pamela. When he scanned the form left to right, his eyebrows nearly jumped off his forehead.

“It is furniture? A bed? You bring a bed with you here? All the way from the United States? Why is that?”

Eddie was frozen. Whatever speech he’d practiced slipped his mind. Pamela had to speak up. “It’s a sleep disorder. The doctor prescribed I sleep in my own bed. It’s custom made. No other bed will do.”

“That’s it,” said Eddie, making a twirling motion with his finger and pointing at her head. “She’s in therapy.”

Pamela’s face looked as haggard and sheepish as she could possibly manage.

Two burly assistants rolled in the bed on a palette jack, then stood very still, like soldiers awaiting orders.

“We’ll see about that,” said Goran, and instructed the men to open it up. They took out box cutters and began to slice through the shrink-wrap. The loading dock was usually cold, but now the heat was on. With every pulse of Eddie’s veins, with every beat of Pamela’s heart, the heat was certainly on.

To be continued….

©Steven Hunley 2012


See Botticelli- Venus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_Venus_(Botticelli)

http://youtu.be/OfDMSHcmMW4 The Heat is On Glen Fry

***
Goran began pacing around the bed. If it had been a suitcase, he would have run his hands over the contents and watched their eyes. Since it was large, he was forced to walk the circumference of the bed, pushing down on the mattress here and there. It was an expensive item, so he didn’t want to get the wire and start probing, not yet. And there were always the dependable dogs if things got tough. He was at the first corner.

“So you intend on taking this bed back with you when you return?”

“Yes, it goes with us everywhere,” replied Eddie, “It’s been on the east and west coasts in its day.”

“New York and California?”

“Yes, that’s it,” said Pamela.

“Everybody I meet from your United States is from New York or California.”

“Folks from Kansas and Missouri don’t get out much,” said Eddie.

Voices rang out from the far side of the warehouse.

“I’ve been a citizen of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia before you were sucking on a bottle, and I tell you it’s a gift!”

“Well, now it’s the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. That’s not what this is about. Tell me the truth. Is that Vicuna or isn’t it?”

“Very interesting,” said Goran, returned to his work and patted his way to the next corner.

“And these pillows. You realize that goose down is a luxury item. You can’t get rid of these; you’ll have to have them when you leave too. No selling of corrupting luxury goods, giving our people a taste of something they can’t have. It’s the law.”

Then his demeanor softened. “My sister, you know, is quite spoiled. She would assassinate a Czarina for one of these.”

He gave the pillow an affectionate squeeze.

“It’s a gift. What does it matter what it’s made of?” A female voice bellowed between the containers and boxes.

Goran shook his head, and was at the next corner. The voices were so loud now they were annoying. The shouting grew louder yet.

“You want to confiscate it! That’s it! You want it for your wife!”

“Hold on one second,” said Goran, “I have to take care of a pressing matter.”

He headed down the aisle towards the commotion.

“Holly s*it, that was close,” whispered Eddie.

“I know,” Pam replied, “But he’s not done yet. Wait. I hear him coming back.”

“You must forgive me. The Countess Aleska has just returned from a trip to Peru. She is sixty-seven and full of her years. She’s wearing a stylish vicuna coat, and nervous, not from the cocaine she did in her stateroom before debarking, but from suspecting we officials might notice the worth of her coat. That, and the fact the Count thinks she went camping in the Carpathians, rather than met with her lover in Lima, which is the real problem. It would give the coup de grace to her marriage. She’s been drinking to take off the edge. I’ve dealt with her before. She quite a gadabout and we’ve known her for years. She always hands us a cornucopia of false facts and red herrings.

“Facts are many but the truth is one,” quoted Pamela. Goran gave her a look.

“Not like you, a clean-cut young American couple,” said Goran, and thought, ‘Whatever it is you’re doing.’

He opened a drawer on his desk and took out a piece of chalk and marked a huge X on what wrapper was left and in the corner he wrote a G.
“Take it out of the same door it came in. Two of my men will assist you. But remember, I want to see the bed, and the pillows, and the paperwork, before you leave.”

The sun in all its intensity was never sunnier than their innocent smiles. Eddie and Pamela felt an incomparable rush. Suddenly the day was clear, mapped out, and full of promise. Off they went in search of a bed and breakfast.



To be continued….
©Steven Hunley 2012

[Steven Hunley]

Dubrovnik part Two

The two burly men put the bed in the back of a truck and looked at the paper Pamela handed them for the address. She’d picked it out of Frommer’s Behind the Iron Curtain for Five Dollars a Day, when opening the book at random. Although the streets were narrow and winding, the path was as plain as Eddie put it, ‘The nose on your face’. The bed and breakfast, named the Miro was on a square surrounded with Jacaranda trees, and built over a restaurant. It resembled a quiet cozy nest.

Their rooms were up the steepest and narrowest stairs they’d ever climbed. The door was solid and substantial. There was a sitting room, a bedroom and a bath. The sitting room faced the street, with French doors that opened onto a balcony with a wrought-iron railing and gargoyles on the roof.

“OH, this is picturesque as all get-out,” gushed Pamela.

“Seriously, Honey, it does kinda take your breath away,” said Eddie, “And look, there’s no bed in the bedroom! How’d they know?”

“I telephoned, Eddie. This place isn’t as old as it looks.”

Eddie opened the French doors and peered down the street. It looked, well, if not absolutely medieval, definitely renaissance. Incredible to imagine that many had phones.

“I’ll go downstairs and have the men bring up the bed while you're unpacking.”

As it turned out, the bed couldn’t be brought up the narrow stairs. Instead, it was hooked to a block and tackle and hoisted to the balcony and in through the French windows. Eddie tipped the assistants and they left. He helped Pam scoot a cedar chest bound with brass hinges to the foot of her bed. They made the bed and neatly tucked in the paisley sheets.

While Eddie hung clothes in the armoire, Pam opened the chest. Inside smelled like Patchouli.

“You know, Eddie? Queen Victoria used Patchouli to protect her dresses from moths. I adore it.”

“Honey, I like it too. I think we’re gonna be comfortable here. It’s quiet.”

It was one in the afternoon. By one in the morning the restaurant had transformed to a Dubrovnik-style disco pounding slightly aged western music. It woke them up.

“Hear that, Eddie? That’s our clientele.”

“How could I miss it? It’s like money to my ears. But try to go back to sleep, there’s no rush and besides… we have to advertise first.”

Under the new regime many businesses did double duty. And as it turned out, this policy was good for the restaurant business, and would be for their business too. They barely had to leave their comfy nest.

Over tea and Strudla with apple the next morning, the plan, according to Eddie, “was hatched.”

“Pull out your best-fitting Levi’s, Honey, and tomorrow night we’ll go dancing.”

There’s one aspect of Pamela not mentioned, Pamela’s Portuguese butt. It was sure to draw attention, the same way it did in the States. The combination of her voluptuous twin curves and Strauss’s indigo denim would prove fatal to the pocketbook of any flesh-eating consumer. Selling and sex go together like goober butter and jelly. It’s the American way. Although Eddie didn’t have much of a butt himself, he would try to do his best.

That afternoon they took a nap while across town scores of comrade workers scurried back to work after lunch to earn another Kuna. At the customs house, a brown paper package wrapped with sturdy hemp twine appeared on Goran’s desk. It seemed to manifest itself out of nothing, and no comrade workers saw anyone come or go. When he opened it, he was pleased to find a down pillow.

That night, Pamela and Eddie stood before their bathroom mirrored door and primped. From their middles up they were styling it individually, but as a pair. His raw silk shirt’s texture contrasted purposely with her smooth cherry silk blouse embroidered with gold-threaded dragons. But from the middle down they were casual twins. Straus’ Levis enhanced their bottom line's performance. He buckled his belt and she applied her mascara. He tied his shoes as she brushed rouge on her cheeks with sable and finesse. They could hear the music start up.

“Are you ready… Eddie?” She sang out in rhyme.

“I was born ready, Babygirl, and that’s a fact.”

They took each other’s hand and boldly descended the staircase like a king and queen. And all while Pamela was suffering an acute attack of stage fright, while Eddie was busy trying to unknot his stomach. It was their premiere night in Babylon. And Babylon... was as strange a disco as ever there was.

They crossed the square holding hands. The night turned cool and foggy, and the square itself, lit by a single feeble streetlight in each corner, grew dark and forbidding. Nothing was familiar to the two strangers. Men stood in shadows whispering incomprehensible words, making unreadable gestures with their faces and fingers.

The disco, emanating warmth, light, and sound, would provide sanctuary. Once they walked through the door, past the guard, and down the stairs to the cellar, they felt the beat press their skin. The room smelled like stale perfume, cigarette smoke, sex and sweat. There was a bar at one end, a dance floor, and tables at the other. A deejay with headphones was bent over a console of shiny knobs with wires running away like twisted coils of black snakes. The ceiling was blue with smoke and in the center dangled a mirrored ball like in the 30’s with a spotlight beamed straight at it.

The crowd on the dance floor was one writhing body with dozens of hands like an exotic Nataraja. Its arms and hands and fingers extended in obeisance to Rhythm and Dance. Heads nodded and bobbed with dilated eyes like a cadre of cannibals anticipating a feast. Eddie's brain went electric the moment he saw money flashing in hands, both giving and getting, everywhere he looked. In the Babylon, bling bobbed on the surface of gritty reality like great gobs of fat on a restless ocean, suspended by greed and avarice, fueled by constant craving for acceptance. With an unlimited desire for flesh and more flesh, they defined themselves as fine young cannibals, easily drunk on a small jigger of sweet success. They couldn't take the harder stuff, and left that to the commissars and politicians in Zagreb.

Many of the female gay young things from the country wore vanilla extract behind their ears like their mothers. A few of the young bucks, imitating their fathers, had been smoking corn-silk behind the barn, or attempting to distill Slivovitz from plums and sugar stolen from their mother’s pantries, poisoning their little brothers in the process. Now that they were old enough to drink at a club, their problems had grown like mutated spider’s webs.

Pamela took deeper note of faces and expressions. Since the music was upbeat, she expected more smiles. But these faces were seriously busy at work. Some on the hunt. Still others were studied and posing. Many resembled copies of Barbie dolls dancing with copies of Ken. Their identities under the make-up and clothing could not be revealed by cursory examination alone. That would take talk, and with only a few weeks of Serbo-Croatian under their belts, talk was sure to provide a challenge, and language a thorny barrier.

And yet the barrier in their minds was Bangalore-torpedoed the moment it was erected by a gum-chewing waitress that stormed their table with determination. “What’ll you have?” she said in plain English.

Her fishnet stocking were pocked with holes and her hair was tri-colored and frizzed by too much experimentation, and it was painfully obvious one of her high-heels was about to work lose any minute.

“Two rum and cokes,” was Eddie’s answer.

The spotlight attended to the twirling glass ball and flooded the corners of the room with various qualities of light. Just then, red white and blue stars and bars marched across the table top.

“I knew you were Americans the moment I saw you,” she remarked. “My name’s Molly, and I’m an expatriate. That’s what the bartender calls me, an expatriate,” she flashed him a smile and laughed. “Pleased to meet you.”

As the bartender watched, she leaned across the table and shook hands.

At once Eddie saw the connection. “I’m Eddie and she’s Pam. We’re tourists,” Pam raised her eyebrows Eddie’s way.

“Well, I gotta scoot now, but I’ll be back with your drinks. Then we can talk. I haven’t been in the States in over a year!”

The bar tender grimaced and she started off, but she hesitated again.

“Say, where you all from?”

The spotlight shined down through sandy particles of silver and gold as if a dancer threw glitter in the air.

“We’re both from California,” shouted Eddie, “She’s from outside Sacramento and I’m from San Diego.”

The spotlight shined white and truthful like a Klieg light.

“I know something about California too. I’m from L.A.”

Molly burst out laughing and returned to work. She leaned over the bar and conversed with the bartender. He looked their way and smiled. To Pam’s way of thinking, the badly needed translator had been interviewed and accepted. The light moved again to feed the ego of the crowd. It was rebellion typical of youth, and filled with certain secret ceremonies known only to them. To the sleek young illuminati of Dubrovnik, practicing their incantations in Babylon was one of those ceremonies. The rights were performed in public, in a hip venue, but one allowed by the authorities. To the secret police it was no secret. It was on the edge, but not over, since the comrade directors who ran the Babylon paid the police plenty, intending to keep it in balance so no money would spill unnecessarily out of the till that fed them all.

Molly returned with the drinks and a million and one questions. The fashions, the war, and the weather were brought up to date. She gave her history and how she’d ran out of money soon after her boyfriend abandoned her, and was saving more up for a return ticket.

“It’s all under the table, you understand. I have no visa to work.”

“I know what you’re talking about, and we might have a way to help you out,” offered Eddie, who was confident he could read character, certain that as rusty as Molly was on the surface, she gleamed sterling underneath. Pam nudged him under the table with her leg, and when his eyes met hers, nodded approval.

“You can speak the language, and you know your way around, would you be available to help?” asked Pamela.

“This place rarely gets tourists, and never Americans,” Molly said, “I could show you the sites on my day off.”

“It’s a done deal,” said Eddie. “We’ll see you first thing in the morning.”

“Hang around here and watch the action. We won’t close until three.”

Molly shook hands again and left.

Negotiating the narrow spaces between the tables, a young man in a top hat and swallow-tailed coat saw them in the corner. He stopped and proceeded to run a yellow silk handkerchief from one hand to another, and suddenly it changed to red. When he noted the effect it had, he pulled up his sleeve and a ball appeared between his fingers, then two, then two more. They multiplied and disappeared like an illusion. Eddie smiled wryly, because as a child, he’d been initiated in magic.

From out of the boy’s pocket a creature appeared. It was bright yellow, fuzzy, about the size of a crayon or a tube of lipstick. It crawled up out of the pocket and over his arm and bobbed about like a living thing. Then it went to his shoulder, twirled around a pencil he held in his hands, and disappeared up his sleeve.

“How do you do it? Tell me how,” Pamela said, and slipped him a copper coin.

“Don’t tell her,” said Eddie, and put silver in his pocket. “A good magician never tells his secrets."

He turned to Pamela. “You don’t want to know, not really. It would let you down. It’s the ‘effect’ that matters. How it’s done only brings disappointment.”

Eddie was getting deep. Getting deep was Pam’s territory, but she acknowledged his presence. Eddie had angles she’d had yet to figure. She often wondered why he was so hard to reach at times, why he’d clamp down like an oyster long before she discovered the pearls of his inner-self. Eddie struck her as a private person, and it was one reason why she felt special when she was accepted into his fold. After two years she felt she was just scratching the surface.

For a half an hour they sat silently, watching the crowd. Eddie laid his hand over her wrist and squeezed like his life depended on it. The grip was more necessary than the thirty minutes of unspoken words. Flesh was one thing only. It was better than words. It couldn't be misinterpreted. And Pamela felt something good in his touch, a sort of communion without the thin cracker.

The next morning was foggy. The tower of the Babylon was wreathed in a cloud, or so it looked from the street. Molly appeared at the side door.

“Come on in,” she said, “I made coffee for your orientation.”

Each holding a cup, they made their way past the tables stacked high, and slipped through a barricade of chairs piled against the wall. An angular old woman bent over a sop rag, toiling on her hands and knees, and skimming over the wood until it shined with her labor. Her hair was sweat-soaked near the scalp and curled on the ends from steam rising up from a bucket. She wore a knotted red handkerchief around her pale withered neck, and although her face was cast down, it displayed aspects of suffering, patience, and duty. Then the three went into a room so tall and dark they could only make out small white shadows dancing like angels near the ceiling.

Molly found a light switch near a stairway and flicked it on. A sudden flutter of feathers from the tower scared Pam half to death and jostled coffee over the rim of her cup.

“That’s just doves. Come on up. The view will be worth it.”

Eddie couldn’t imagine what they’d see on a foggy day like today. Pam thought the same thing and it showed on her face.

“No, no really, come on. It’ll be safe.”

Molly took the point and Pamela and Eddie followed.

“Watch for splinters, this stair case is over three hundred years old, and it’s not even the original.”

The wound their way up the narrow tower, corner by corner. The roof was peaked and under that were arches in four directions. It resembled an old bell tower.

“See that spire over there? That’s the dome of the Saint Blaise church. It’s got beautiful stained glass windows and flying buttresses. In the square there’s a thirteenth century fountain. We’ll go there today.”

Molly turned to the east. “You’ll have to pardon me, I study architecture and sometimes talk like I’m a fool for the stuff.”

“I understand, and it’s alright,” said Pamela, “Passion is important.”

“It’s the spice of life,” concluded Eddie.

“And over there, that’s the clock tower of the train station. You know, tomorrow I’m off. We can go up the coast and have lunch, if you’d like.”
Below the fog blanketed the city like a shroud over the dead. So thick was the blanket that only the tallest buildings pierced it, and churches with spires. Eddie looked in all four directions.

“This is one of the tallest buildings around. How come it’s empty? Why aren’t they using it for something? Was this a church?”

“Never a church. It’s got a bad history. This was the home of the Drazan family, the wealthiest traders in the Ragusa Republic. Some say they were pirates and smugglers. The patriarch, Darko Drazan, was an avowed agnostic who believed in nothing but himself. As he grew rich he rebuilt and expanded the house. He had a feud with the local cardinal, who was rich too, nobody knew about what. They were both stubborn, stuck in their ways and sure of their power. An obvious sign of this was the height of the cross on their roofs.”

“As Darko grew more prosperous he added a few bricks of height to his palazzo. In the cardinal’s case, he raised up the spire of his church. They were highly competitive, and would do anything to outdo the other.”

“It was nonsense. Then they’d erect a gold cross on the roof to make it even higher. As years went by the city grew rich and the palazzo and church erected the highest crosses in the city. The cardinal became furious because Drazan never came to mass, or confession, showed no respect, and felt it was the churches alone that should raise crosses. He boiled with consternation each time he saw the cross stand defiantly on Darko’s roof.”

“It’s sacrilege,” he’d cry, shake his fist, and point towards heaven. “You know he does it just to irritate me.”

“Darko would look down from his tower and spit in four directions each day. Finally the cardinal wrote a letter to the Pope suggesting Darko should be excommunicated as quickly as possible.”

Molly stopped and sipped her coffee.

“Well, was he?”

“Not soon enough. That September was much like this one. People think the Adriatic is calm. But it has storms with terrible winds, and earthquakes. In the Great earthquake of 1667 most of the City was shattered. Its churches, mansions, buildings, and houses went to ruin, including this one. Darko Drazan was crushed by a wall of collapsing bricks. It would have satisfied the old pirate, who preferred God reprimand him personally rather than have an earthly representative do the job for a commission. That’s one way he acquired wealth, eliminating the middle man. The old independent thinker had a brass plaque fixed over his door engraved, ‘Liberty or salvation cannot be sold for all the gold in the world.’

The tower wasn’t rebuilt until a hundred years later. Then the house became a shipping center, later a union shop, and finally the restaurant and disco you see today.”

As the sun rose, the blanket of fog grew thinner until the chimneys became visible, then the red tile roofs, and finally the streets and people following their trails to work like ants.

“It’s clearer now. Let’s go,” suggested Molly, and they followed. Pam and Eddie were eager to leave.

“It’s a wonder this building is still standing,” mentioned Eddie. He’d absently brushed his hand against the wall on the way down, and noted the bricks were soft and corrupt. “It could collapse any minute.”

“Then we’ll leave the splinters and rotten bricks to the ghosts of the past,” Pam whispered.

They respectfully tip-toed out the door, as if they feared their slightest sounds, with vibrations made by the souls of their feet, would wake up the spirit of old Darko, and shake his house to its rotten foundations.




to be continued….

©Steven Hunley 2012




http://youtu.be/e956LkJM204

[Steven Hunley]

By noon they were at the church. By two-thirty it was the art gallery. Four found them strolling under shade trees through old town and main streets like Stradun shopping for fashion. Imitation Levi’s made by comrade workers in the east flooded the market at outrageous prices. Bad Chinese imitations were everywhere you looked. The rivets ate through the denim or the cuffs always frayed because the Chinese workers that hemmed the cuffs were at the end of the line and asleep at their machines. The bosses were maniacs and herded them like cattle, worked them overtime with no overtime pay. The thread boy was sleeping too, and besides, the thread was second-rate cotton and never held. Not to worry and get your noodles in a twist. By affixing a small red label on the right back pocket, cheap was magically transformed to expensive.

Eddie had a pencil and was taking notes.

“No Levis? They have no Levis?”

“Not here. Maybe across town. Too up-scale for me at one hundred and fifty American dollars a pair! That’s a big chunk of pay."

“Really, that’s outrageous!”

“Outrageous!” chimed Eddie, and smiled, he was obviously in a good mood.

“Yes, I wish someone could do about something about it. Here they’re classified as luxury goods, and rare as a white rhinoceros.”

He took his pencil, held it like a cigar, tapping its end with his little finger, moving his eyebrows up and down like Groucho, he looked at them both.

“Well, my two good women, I’m hungry. Let’s make a deal. How about lunch?”

Down by the seafront at a little cafe an arrangement was discussed over pasta.

“We can get Levis for a deal. If you could find us a market we’d be indebted to you.”

“Really, how much indebted?”

“We’re thinking about thirty-three percent of the total,” said Pam.

“And that figures too…”

“If you can sell them for at least one hundred and forty you get thirty-three and a third percent of the total which would be…” he took out his pencil, “…around forty-five bucks.”

“And if I can sell them for more?”

“You keep the change,” said Pam, and ordered creamy Blitva.

“We’ve discussed it, and want to help you out,” said Eddie, and decided he wanted Calamari.

“Of course you’d be helping us out too. We know no one here, and we need a connection to canvas and open the market,” continued Pam, “Someone to show us the ropes.”

“Of course you understand,” said Eddie while taking a bite, “it has to be very hush hush.”

‘I agree,” said Pam. “We wouldn’t want this to turn into a ‘Capitalists Caught by Communists’ headline in Pravda.”

“A vacation in a Siberian gulag is definitely not on my menu,” Eddie continued." So what do you say?”

Molly played with her food and said nothing while her mind was performing mental gymnastics. It was a lot to spring on the woman, out of nothing, out of nowhere, an almost impossible scheme and dangerous one at that. Could she keep a cool head? Did she have the moxie required? What would it take to convince her? Up to now Molly had been garrulous. At present she was a stone wall, just as inert, even though thoughts must have been flying through her head a mile a minute. Pam abandoned her fork and reached in the huge woven handbag she carried and pulled out a parcel wrapped in brown paper.

“Here, take this into the ladies room and see what you think.”

Like a creature in the Bella Lugosi movie White Zombie, like the living dead wandering about in a daze, Molly stood up, took the package from Pam’s hand and walked to the women’s room.

She was gone ten minutes. The earth turned slowly, their hearts beat faster, and the Calamari proved too tough for Eddie to swallow. Molly reappeared at the door. She wore a confident air that only the fashionable in-crowd understands. You could gargle her flavor from across the room.

She strolled slowly over in her very very new jeans, like a leopard or lynx on the prowl. Then she shook hands with them both, and while looking down at their empty plates, she purred,

“I know the bakery across the street very well,” she said, licking her chops in anticipation. “You’ll like what they have. Dessert is on me.”

They all got up and while Eddie paid the check the women walked towards the door. Molly looked back saying, “When do we start?”

Eddie said nothing until he caught up. Each woman took one of his arms. Eddie had the distinct impression he was a very rare book, protected by two strong but fashionable bindings, constructed by his know-how and ingenuity from indigo denim and feminine blues.

“We already have,” he responded, and readied himself for a scrumptious desert. The late afternoon sun threw long shadows across the cobblestone street, and nearby church bells rang out the hour, giving the street a timeless quality. Eddie, ever sensitive to the environment, was heard to mutter distinctly, “Business cannot be rushed, nor lasting friendships made in haste.”

The hours of that living afternoon were turning to memories, and as such, would be carried around in their heads forever. Mortal man seeks out the ephemeral, strives to capture it, and make it ever lasting.

Molly turned out to be a woman of action. The first five pairs were estimated to take a week. They were gone in three days. After that it took off like a comet. Pam and Eddie would come in for lunch and sit at her station. She’d hand them a menu. Inside was a slip of paper with the sizes. They’d eat, and then leave her money on the table. She’d pick it up and return with the change. Who knows how much went where. The next day they’d go shopping and come in with bundles wrapped in brown paper and leave them in the coat room. When they left, they’d pick them back up and take them home. Between Pam and Eddie there were nine or more packages a trip. No one noticed they were always one short on the home trip.

Within a week they knew the bartender’s name and that he was a nice sort, but in his way, according to Molly, a brute.

“He never brushes his teeth,” she announced, “And he spits on me when we’re sleeping.”

She made a face and pursed her lips. “Pa-tooie, he goes, and falls asleep.”

They usually came by during the day but had to sometimes make it at night, due to changes in Molly’s schedule, but the routine was becoming worn-out. No one ever noticed, no one ever asked questions, no one cared. In the end they gave up much of the original routine, which in her wisdom and after watching too many James Bond movies, Pamela had thought up.

“We gotta simplify the process,” announced Eddie, who had insight into matters like this. “This isn’t the Man from Uncle or From Russia with Love.”

“But Eddie, what about security?”

“Honey, this is a load of Levi’s 501’s, not the Lector decoding machine.”

They caught Molly during a break.

“We’re gonna simplify the routine. Molly, we trust you and don’t need to pick up the money every day, and we’re willing to let you keep some stash on hand.”

Molly was eagerly listening, or as Eddie phrased it, ‘all ears’.

“So we’ll give you a dozen pairs at a time and leave more of the business up to you. Only… one thing.”

“And what’s that?”

“No fronts.”

“Fronts?”

“Don’t offer credit, no matter how soon they promise to pay, don’t front it to them.”

Hearing this thrilled Pamela. Eddie was usually so indecisive and passive. This was a sign that something was changing in Eddie’s stoner brain, and she noticed he hadn’t smoked since they left the states. Was that the reason for this change? What was going on in her lover’s cranium anyway, a transformation? Were his brain chemicals rearranging into patterns more to her liking?

“I can do that,” Molly said. “I can do that without hesitation.”

The threesome was one in purpose and could be compared to Duma’s classic trio, and Pamela pointed it out.

“Then, all for one,” announced Eddie and held up his glass.

“And one for all,” they chorused gaily, and clinked their glasses in unison. If not French, they felt downright Eastern Bloc.

to be continued…. ©Steven Hunley 2012


http://youtu.be/VqAOf66o1Wg From Russia with Love
http://youtu.be/yQyJnAs7BlU Man from UNCLE

http://youtu.be/lOzgz1Ddmz8 White Zombie

[Steven Hunley]

***
A week later Pam was looking for strudel and Eddie was counting money, subtracting what they’d spent on the investment. They were even .Everything from now on was pure profit. One pair alone paid the hotel for a week and the staff was friendly and sweet. Their mother would make them tea, and when the door knocked, Pam said,

“I’ve got it. Eddie, it’s just Madam Kropotkin, with our tea.”

“What could be more relaxing than tea?” replied Eddie.

But when Pamela opened the door, there wasn’t a short pudgy grey-haired woman standing in front of her, hold a teapot, but rather a tall man in a trench coat holding an identification card in her face. His hair was dark and slicked down and his eyes were beady and nervous. Eddie stashed the pile of bills in a drawer.

“I’m inspector Gregarin” - he stated, “and, please, may I come in?”

Without waiting for a response he stepped inside. His eyes darted back and forth.

Eddie picked up his fork. “Why certainly, yes, come in.”

“You’re entry card says you’re tourists? Is that correct?”

“Yes,” answered Pam and closed the door, leaving another man, almost a twin but smaller, standing near the head of the stairs. Gregarin saw a piece of lint on his coat and picked it off.

“Our office was established to ensure the safety of tourists and alert them to crime in the area. Have you encountered any problems with pick pockets?”

“No,” said Eddie, “at least not yet.”

Gregarin snugged the fingers of his glove and admired the shine on the leather, looked up and scanned the room quickly.

“Has anyone offered to exchange Kunas offering rates better than the exchange houses?”

'Only the grocer, the man in the bus station, the baker down the street,' thought Pam.

'Only the elevator operator at the Metropol, the bellboy and the laundry woman,' thought Eddie.

“It’s never happened to me,” said Pam.

“Me neither,” voiced Eddie.

Inspector Gregarin scratched his neck, and pondered, "Hmmmmm."

He looked at the picture on the wall with great interest. It was a photo of Khrushchev standing by a tractor. Then he gave his attention to the windows and doors.

“You understand, it’s my job to safe guard foreigners, I take it seriously”

“I’m sure you do, but we’ve had no trouble,” Pam said.

“No trouble at all,” echoed Eddie.

“Then I’m content,” he replied, offered his card, and finally gave Pam the once over.

Eddie had the distinct impression he noted every seam, every curve, each and every shiny button on the fly of her jeans. Her top was scanned, just a peak, just a squint. But her blue-jeaned bottom was examined, considered, reflected upon, deliberately, in the way Michelangelo examined a piece of Carrera marble for possible fractures.

Eddie’s and Pam’s eyes met. There was no doubt about it. Gregarin’s twin ratty beads had dilated the moment they alighted on indigo denim.

“I’ve seen all I need to see,” he announced curtly, and brought his heals together to mark an end that was more feint than finish.

“Just give me a call if you have any problems. We hope you’ll enjoy your visit.”

He turned on his heal and left.

Pam closed the door and latched it. She turned, put her back against the door and bending her knees in submission, slumped down slowly against it, her face blank, her mind numb, inch by inch, slipping down weakly like snot on a wet shower door.

“They know,” said Eddie in a deflated tone.

“I don’t think they know for sure.”

“I guess not, otherwise we’d already be in jail.”

“That’s a hell of a thing to say.”

The room was as quiet, as Eddie put it, “as a tomb.” Only the bottom of the curtain swayed, prompted by the grey gathering clouds outside. Besides that small aberration, the air had gone quite still. It was too early in the day to be dark. It didn’t make sense. Pam went out to the balcony and peered down the street towards the ocean. Masses of dark clouds threatened the harbor entrance. In the shadow of the shop across the street from their hotel a flame flashed for a second and went out. It turned out to be a man lighting a cigarette, that’s all.

‘But wait. He looks like the man in the hallway while the inspector was here.’

Pam ran to the dresser and put on her red glasses.

“It’s him.”

“What?”

“Eddie, the cop from the hallway is across from our hotel and he’s not going anywhere, at least not now.”

Eddie joined her. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Maybe he’s just waiting for a friend,” he sang nervously.

“Eddie, that was the title of an old Rolling Stones song, and it was a joke then, a throwaway. Get real. This is no joke.”

They took turns watching. An hour later he was still there, and it was beginning to sprinkle.

“Just a light summer shower,” said Eddie, “come inside before you get wet. We need to figure this out.”

They sat at opposite sides of the table.

“Is there anything you may have said or done to raise their suspicions? Think back, Honey.”

“I’ve been trying to think, Eddie, but all I come up with is nothing. And you? What about you?”

“All I can draw is a blank.”

“We need to talk to Molly. We’re missing one third of the equation.”

“We’re not going anywhere, Babycakes, as long as that goon is there. He’d follow us straight to the bacon,” said Eddie.

“That’s right. Maybe she knows something. She’ll be at work in an hour or so, but we can’t leave with him on our tail.”

The rain increased and the wind picked up at the same time, driving mist under the shelter of the roof onto a small wooden table they’d placed on the balcony hours before while playing cards. The cards were still on the table and getting wet. Eddie quickly picked them up. He held them a second in front of his face.

Lightning cracked in the distance. Eddie smelled ozone, a thought provoking gas.

“Honey, ever play Cherchez la Femme?”

“Eddie, this is no time for games! Get a grip.”

“It won’t be so much a game as a trick. It’s a gamble too, but favors the dealer. You see, honey, it’s consists of three cards, but the mark only has one set of eyes to follow them with. Get me?”

“Eddie, don’t look now, but you just lost another marble.”

“Let me explain. You’ll be the red queen. Mister Mark down there is going to have to wait for a while so I can show you the routine.”

“Damn it Eddie, I always knew you were a grifter.”

The two sat close and put their heads together like two Indians having a pow-wow in hushed tones, planning a proper, as Eddie called it, ‘red herring.’ It was The Mohicans of Paris Dubvovnik-style and would have made Dumas envious.

Down on the corner, opposite the Miro, an agent stood waiting and smoking his third Ronhill. His feet were cold. He was getting impatient.

‘They don’t pay me enough Kunas to stand out in the rain,’ he considered. ‘I wish the Americans would make a move.’

Wishes are granted by capitalist fairies, even to Communist agents, as long as it’s profitable. Within seconds a figure appeared from the door of the Miro. It was the owner’s mother, opening her umbrella. She turned to the left and went up the street.

He puffed his cigarette and attempted to blow a smoke ring.

Then miracles of miracles, the American man appeared and the woman beside him. The man gave a brown paper bundle to the woman and opened an umbrella. He gave her a kiss on the cheek, then the umbrella, turned up his collar, and walked away with his hands in his pockets. The woman turned right and set off down the street, hopping puddles as best she could.

The agent threw down the butt and snuffed it out with his foot, and buttoned the top button of his coat. After he’d given her a half a block lead, he trailed the enticing puddle-hopper as if she were vein of precious gold.

After a block or two Pamela crossed the street and looked in a shop window. Not for the non-hip collection of women’s clothes displayed there, but to see a reflection in the street behind her. When she was sure the agent was on her trail, she proceeded another block to a busy street where people were waiting for a late-night tram. She made a great show of looking in all directions, and placed the brown paper bundle in a trashcan under a streetlight, and replaced the lid with care. Then she looked both ways again, and tripped off down the street.
To the young agent, who had aspirations of becoming a member of the K.G.B., she was obviously making a drop.

‘What matters now is not where she goes, but who comes next.’

The agent found a coffee house within sight of the streetlight, and sat down at a table near the window, ordered coffee and strudel, and lit up a Ronhill and steeled himself for what might be an all-night vigil.

‘They’ll give me a Karl Marx award for this one, and I’ll display it on my dresser. My mother will be so proud.’


Hours later, and on his second pack of Ronhills, the street was nearly deserted. Finally he threw ‘caution to the wind’ as Eddie might have phrased it, and decided to investigate.

The brown paper bundle was still there, and he lifted it free of the mess. It seemed very light for even one pair of jeans. It was yesterday’s edition of The Dubrovnik Times, an English language newspaper. Wrapped up inside was a small object, and our intrepid agent noticed a stench.

‘Perhaps it’s a clue.’ he decided, and opened it up.

But it was only someone’s discarded lunch, a red herring with onions.

In the meantime, Pamela met Eddie at the Babylon.


Although Eddie had been there a half an hour, he saw something was up the moment he entered.

It was busy, that was obvious, but in addition there was tension, so thick you could, ‘cut it with a knife.’ The waiters and waitresses, the bus boys, security, even the bartender, were never at rest. If they weren’t taking or delivering orders or bussing tables, they purposely found other things to do. No movement was casual, no laugh or smile sincere. It was as if they were on stage, in a drama extempore. Any break in the action was not allowed in the script.

“Where’s Pam?” said Molly.

“With luck, she’ll be here any time now,” said Eddie. “We have to talk. It’s serious.”

Molly’s eyes widened. “I’ll have to go upstairs, the boss wants me.”

The bus boy, years away from being a boy, heard, gave Molly a dirty look, and clattered glasses and plates into his tub purposely.

“Don’t mind him,” she whispered in Eddie’s ear. “They call him the Grandmaster; he thinks he’s an heir apparent. He gets sore when the boss calls for anyone but him.”

“The boss? I’ve never seen him.”

“He’s hardly ever here. Mister Neb has ‘other concerns’. That’s why everyone is nervous. He hires and fires at the drop of a hat. Mister Neb is… well… a shady character.”

“A ‘slim customer’?” Eddie arched his eyebrows.

“The slimmest.”

Molly left and went out through the back door, and upstairs to the tower where Mr.Neb had his office. He said he enjoyed the view of ‘his city’. The bus boy followed her with his eyes, and glared at Eddie. Pamela appeared like magic and slumped down, exhausted.

“I did it.”

“You made it! I knew I could depend on you. You’re one of a kind.”

Pamela was tired of Eddie’s endless schmoozing.

“You’ve got to learn to depend on yourself, Eddie. That’s the kind of man that I want, not one that needs a mother.”

The music was getting loud and rapid in tempo. The crowd seemed more frantic than usual, more intense and self-centered. Pam noticed a skinny blond, well-dressed, drunk, loud, surrounded by friends at a table directly across the room. Whoever she was, whatever she was, she wore dark glasses and was signing autographs on menus and napkins. For some reason, even though they weren’t through eating and drinking, the bus boy went to her table and leaned near her, like he was taking an order. His hand touched hers for a fraction of a second while the others to her right and left paid attention to a particular couple on the dance floor. To Eddie what happened was obvious, some kind of business transaction.

“Where’s Molly?” asked Pam.

“She’ll be back in a few; she’s upstairs talking to the boss.”

On the first steps the music throbbed through the walls at Molly and lyrics were easily discerned.

‘Everybody goes out dancin,’
Gonna dance the whole night long…’

Half way up she couldn’t hear the words, they became a mumble. By the time she’d reached the landing near his office, the music was just a whisper, the walls so corrupted, so fat and soft, they absorbed all the good vibrations. You could fire off a gun and nobody would notice. She knocked twice, and went in. Mr. Neb was hunched over his desk doing the books. He wore a drooping mustache and his hair smoothed-back, brilliant, dark, and glossy. His face was designed with a hundred different curves and angles, tortured into a pattern of exquisite evil. Neb’s nails were lacquered and trimmed, except the one on his baby finger which was unusually long.

“I see you’ve found the time to come up,” he said, but kept his eyes on the paper.

“It’s pretty busy down there, I couldn’t get away.”

He put down his pen and looking up, took her measure using his eyes as a tape. He resembled a hungry varmint regarding a piece of premium stake. He’d always had the hots for her, but her icy remarks usually cooled his steam.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about you, Baby.”

“I wish you wouldn’t, Mr. Neb.”

“What?”

“Think about me.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m liable to catch something, hanging around in your mind.”

“There’s a rumor that you’re making money on the side,” he sneered. “And I noticed you haven’t had to hit me up for an advance on your check for a couple of weeks. You wouldn’t be taking the men customers home for piece-work now, would you?”

“No, not on your life. Say, what is this anyway, the Inquisition?”

Mr. Neb’s faced flushed.

“O.K. You don’t have to get nasty. Remember who’s boss.”

“See you remember too.”

Mr. Neb was unfazed.

“You need any money this week? I’ll be gone the whole weekend. You could pay me back later in Deutschmarks, Francs, Pounds Sterling, Drachmas or Kunas.”

“Sure, Mr. Neb, or in pounds of flesh. That’s what you offered last time. I’m fine. My great aunt in Cincinnati died and sent me her diamond ring, express mail. I’m fixed.”

Neb decided to take a different tack, and motioned Molly to the balcony overlooking the harbor.

“Take a look. It’s it lovely?”

Molly surveyed the harbor. White caps topped the growing waves menacing the port. Battalions of clouds streaked with lighting were assembling on the horizon, preparing to reinforce the charging wind, ready to assault the defensive walls of the ancient city. The clouds were bold and full of fire, like young SS officers with silver lightning bolts on their collars, eager to make a name for themselves, willing to write it in blood. Molly could hear the clouds rumbling from her perch, in the same way a canary is aware of a hungry cat whose belly growls with anticipation.

“You know,” Neb took a fatherly tone, and said something every dirty old man always says when they hold a position of power, “This could all be yours. I mean, I want to make life easy for you, if you’d only cooperate.”

‘Oh, sh*t, here it comes again. The old give and take. He offers me one thing, and if I pass it up, he threatens to take another.’

“No thanks. If I want a view similar to this, I can always start going to church and climb the bell tower. Their view doesn’t have so many strings attached.”

“Not ones you can see anyway,” he spat back.

A knock came from the door, it was the grandmaster.

“Mister Neb, I must speak with you, and Molly is needed downstairs right away.”

“We’ll finish this later,” said Neb, ushered her out and closed the door and locked it. Still with his face to the door he whispered something almost unintelligible.

“The pound of flesh which I demand of her
Is dearly bought. ‘Tis mine, and I will have it.”

Then he turned and got back to business less personal.

“Now what have you got for me? I’m busy.”

‘Well,” said Grandmaster, “The same old thing. Money. And something even more valuable.”

“What’s that?”

“Information.”

There were rumors Grandmaster had been a boy genius, then a Russian Grandmaster at chess. Most highly prestigious of fellows. Lived outside Petrograd on an estate in the country with his mother and aunt. Government paid for it all. Ate what he wanted, did what he chose.

Fame brought money, and in a typical youthful capitalist way he wasted it, over-steeping himself in wine, women, and song. After that he was a gambling addict who thought he knew all the percentages and formulas, and positive he could correlate the rules of occurrences that determined the fall of a pair of dice, the spin of a wheel, each card in a hand of cards, and predict every outcome. He indulged in risky behavior, and unprotected sex. Unfortunately, his genius bloomed early in life, and now his intellect had withered. Never again would he experience the shining moments of his younger years, or savor its tender triumphs. While living in a dingy studio next to the Babylon, the government still paid his rent, but from a different end of its benevolent spectrum, ten Kunas a week, only one step away from homeless.

To console himself he’d bedded down with opium. Under its calming influence, his flame of youth had dwindled to passive dying embers, hardly enough to keep the man warm. At one time he was able to look ahead, predict the future, and plan his future moves. But now he spent more time falling behind, lost in reverie. Addicted to his poisoned dreams, unwilling to escape, he preferred to clutch at fantasy with crippled hands that had lost their grip on reality. Sometimes geniuses are so focused on genius they lose sight of their limitations.

“I can wait for news. In the meantime we’ve received a new shipment. One from Chile and one from Bangkok. Let’s get down to business.”

Mr. Neb turned towards a portrait of the Madonna. Her eyes did not show, just their lashes, and she wore a blue cowl over her hair. She possessed a sad expression, eyes downcast, face tender and delicate, patient, the face of a sainted mother who was more than any saint.

“It’s a wonderful painting of Mary.”
.
“Yes, I agree, it’s quite valuable.”

Mr. Neb stood within arm’s length of the frame and after making the sign of the cross, he reached out and opened the hinged frame like a swinging door in a saloon. Inside was a safe, and with a twist left and right it was open. There were bags stacked against either wall. He took one from each side, avoiding their protection in the middle, and placed them on Grandmaster’s portion of his desk. At the same time Grandmaster plopped down a stack of Croatian Kunas and another of American greenbacks.

“One white, one black, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that will do.”

“For now.”

“Yes…for now, always for now.”

Mr. Neb picked up the stacks of paper and put them in the safe.

“You know, the white is the very latest product. Our associates in Chile.”

“It doesn’t bother you that they’re all ex-Nazis?”

“Not in the least. Besides, they owe me a few favors. I was one of the agents who worked for Odessa, in charge of the local ratlines. I find it best to no longer think of them as war criminals, but rather as struggling chemists in need of a market. One should always keep labels up to date.”

“That’s a good way to look at it. I can never fault Germans when it comes to their knowledge of chemistry. You know it’s extremely busy down stairs tonight. I’m simply dragging. I have much work to do for you. Can I do a small sample here? It would perk up your best pair of eyes and ears immensely.”

“Only a little, you know how you get.”

“I’ll control myself. I know what I’m doing.”

“Got your knife?”

“Naturally.”

Grandmaster took out a pearl-handled switchblade he got in Damascus. Its bright metal gleamed in the light. Both sides of its polished blade were nasty sharp and cut both ways.

He held the glassine bag firmly to the table like a pig and poked it with the tip. Releasing the bag with one hand he maneuvered the blade under his nose. Taking his free hand he placed the tip of his middle finger over one of his nostrils. With the other he made a quick sniff. The substance disappeared.

“Nice, no sting.”

“Yes, I believe it is extremely clean. These German’s know what they’re doing.”

Grandmaster reached for the bag to put it away. Neb caught him, and pinning his wrist to the desk with one hand, with his free hand he scooped deftly with his long finger nail and imitated the grandmaster’s action. The strength in his hands was insane.

“You don’t mind? I thought you’d never offer, "Neb said and loosened his grip.

“Why should I? You’re the boss.”

“Yes,” said Neb, and looking up at a cloud that wasn’t there, decided, “It seems that I am.”

He put the tip of nail in his mouth and tasted it. To get down to business, grown men think of coffee, youngsters think of Coke or Pepsi fizzing its way down your throat. But to Neb’s way of thinking,

‘This is the only pause that truly refreshes.’

His eyes were dilating already, as if they were hungry. “Well, what about the information? What have you?”

“Someone has a hand in your till, a trusted employee.”

“Is that so?”

“It’s costing you quite a pile. I’ve been keeping watch, it’s been happening almost on a daily basis.”

At the same time the substance was snapping the synapses in Neb’s brain, the same thing was happening to Grandmaster, and he was getting bolder with each passing second. He was eager to dish out information, but to feed Neb by the teaspoon full, rather than overload his plate.

“I say almost because the only days it doesn’t seem to happen, are on Molly’s days off. I have the figures right here.”
He patted his pocket.

“The b*tch! In knew she was up to something.”

Neb started to pace. With each step he grew more disturbed.

“I give her a job and help her out and what do I get? Nothing but disrespect!”

He stopped in front of the balcony and looked out. The sky was dark and brooding. Thunder crashed in the distance and rain began to fall. Soon it was pouring down with a vengeance, and the thunder clouds were so near they were almost on top of them. The interval between thunder and lightning was so close you couldn’t count the distance between them in seconds.

Grandmaster saw beads of perspiration begin the form on Neb’s forehead, and noted his chest heaving, and decided to egg him on.

“Of course I suspect some other employees have a hand in it too, but not half as much as Molly. The problem is, they’re following her example.”

Neb started seething, his hands began to shake.

“She never cooperates! Never gives me what I want, much less shows respect. Now the American is stupid enough to bite the hand that feeds her! Well, we’ll see. I know how to deal with her kind.”

Neb returned to the safe. He took out a Walther PPK and then gathered up the bags of powder off the desk, one black, one white, packed all three in a shaving kit bag he located in the desk drawer, then shoved it towards Grandmaster.

“Take care of her for me,” he suggested.

“You mean?”

“I mean… take care of the b*tch.”

He patted the shaving kit affectionately, and as he did his voice took on a tone of fatherly advice.

“Show initiative. Demonstrate ambition. I know you can do it. I have faith in your abilities. Once a grandmaster always a grandmaster. We both believe that, don’t we?”

“I’ve always believed in good works buying redemption. Your wish, kind sir, is my command.”

When Grandmaster was outside the office door he hesitated to go down the stairs. He wanted to take a moment to savor his triumph of planning, and marvel at its execution. Now each and every penny he stole from his master was accounted for, and blamed on his favorite scapegoat, the American. He wasn’t just at the top of the stairway; he was on top of the world.


Downstairs the party raged on. Eddie and Pamela’s heads were close because the music was so loud they couldn’t hear each other without shouting.

“Where’s Molly? She should be back by now. Did you tell her about the police?”

“Not yet. There wasn’t time.”'

“Not enough time? Eddie, how long have you been here?”

“About half an hour, but it’s frantic and only saw Molly just now. She’ll be back.”

“You saw her but you didn’t say anything…” Pamela trailed off, set her lips, and shook her head.

“Eddie, I follow you to the ends of the earth and this is how it turns out. You’ve got to get serious about this. You have no idea the trouble we’re in. You can’t just ignore it. It’s time for you to step up to the plate.”

Eddie couldn’t see past the present, and said nothing in return.

“Eddie, I don’t like what you’ve become.”

“Something’s up,” Eddie admitted, “Or something’s about to come down. See how everyone’s acting?”

“Forget the money, Eddie. Let’s just get out.”

“Just look at them!”

Pam scanned the room. Everyone was moving or talking or dancing. More than just gay, they were frenzied. The dancing, at one time a purely social pursuit, had taken on a more tribal quality. It was as if the dancers, by their attitudes and body language, had blocked the uninitiated out, or restricted them to the bars and tables. To keep the laymen on their side of the barrier, a couple of girls barked like a dog. A waiter crashed a plate of food on the floor, while a fat woman bellowed her love to a man at the bar getting drunk. A couple of girls started cackling with laughter. A drunk gay young blade with red hair stood up on a chair and started to crow. With all the variety of sound and movement, the crowd was more like a farmyard of nervous animals before an earthquake, rather than dancers going crazy on a wooden floor.

The skinny blond autograph signer ran off to the women’s room clutching her purse.

Pamela started to feel the energy herself. She didn’t like how it felt. The crowd was under a spell and she felt immune, but it was as if the Babylon was a microbe attacking her system, making itself noticed all the same.

“I feel uncomfortable,” she shouted, “I’m going to the little girls’ room. Grab Molly when she comes back, and whatever you do, don’t let go.”

Outside was no better than inside, in fact it was worse. The wind drove the rain with so much ferocity that grown men could not cross the square without being blown away. Trees were uprooted and lay overturned on sidewalks and streets. Lightning crashed in the heavens and visited the earth, setting fire to the bushes and untended grass inside the city walls. Perched high above the rooftops, the only recognizable things were lofty church spires and the cross of Old Darko, glistening against the night, highest of them all.

Inside Eddie was mesmerized by patterns on the surface of his water glass. As the beat reverberated, it struck the glass, forcing concentric circles to converge on the center. Then there was a snap and a crack, and the pattern increased tenfold. Eddie placed his hand flat on the table. It was shaking. The mirrored ball above started to sway, the spotlight that fed it sparked, fell, and hung lose by one wire. Extreme shaking forced the needle on the turntable to skip off the record, compelling the tone arm to scrape mercilessly on the vinyl. The crowd grew silent and listened.

Then the violent rumbling began in earnest.

Old rotten bricks lost their grip on each other and turned to dust. The floor started to roll like a deck of a boat in a storm. A young woman screamed when the walls collapsed. Clouds of dust flew from the shaking rafters and dozens, then hundreds of bricks and splinters and beams fell down smashing the dancers and patrons. Unable to catch their breath, they coughed their innards out in uncontrollable spasms. White powder covered their limbs and faces, giving them a pale and deathly look as they walked like zombies through the wreckage, stunned and disoriented.

Eddie nearly passed out under a collection of bricks the size of Manhattan in a crumpled heap. But the pain kept him alert. His forehead was torn and bleeding. He recollected a noise like a train wreck and being under a rain of bricks, plaster dusting his face, choking, and feeling he'd been pounded by Jack Johnson into fresh white meat chicken salad.


The noise stopped.

Next there were sirens and the high-low whining of ambulances, shouting firemen and scores of police. The voices grew faint as Eddie struggled to get up on one elbow. All he could see was clouds of smoke and dust, great beams hanging down from the ceiling split in two like matchsticks, and piles of rubble and bricks. Nothing was left of old Darko Drazan’s tower except an enormous pile of smoking bricks with broken beams poking up at different angles. It looked like black and white newsreels of Berlin after allied bombings. Then it occurred to Eddie that he was seeing in black and white, and to further obscure his vision, a trickle of warm blood, like Salome’s seventh crimson veil, gradually descended over his eyes, transforming his acute vision to an inky darkness just before he lost... his...... head.



***

“Pam! Where’s Pam?”

“Did you hear that?” one nurse said to another. “He’s talking.”

To be continued…………………………©2013 Steven Hunley









to be continued…. ©Steven Hunley 2013

[DocHeart]

What a treat. I was just back from the dentist's, with my lower lip feeling as if I borrowed it from someone who stood 16 rounds with Jack Johnson. I have been TRYING to drink a beer without spills, but some of it did end up on my lap. I snorted your story in without problems, however.

For some reason I find stories that take place in ex-communist European cities extremely charming. This one definitely does it for me.

For now, allow me to refrain from criticism. I don't have much to say beyond what you'll spot yourself when you re-read. May I just thank you for sharing. I can't wait for the rest.

Best,
DH

[Steven Hunley]

Readers, I beg your respective pardons for how long this thing has become. I figured at first it would run about twenty pages, but writing is often a process of discovery, and with all it's twists and turns, now it's double that, and over 18,000 words. No way does it qualify for the short story you probably wanted, it's more like a mini-novella.


Somehow I don't regret it one bit. Enjoy.




***

“Pam! Where’s Pam?”

“Did you hear that?” one nurse said to another. “He’s talking.”

“Where am I?”

Two nurses were sharing coffee out of a thermos in the nurse’s station. One, the petite model, was fresh and new and every one of her nails sparkled.

“Can you believe that? I never thought when I started working here they said that, like it was just a line from a movie or something, but it’s true.”

The tall peroxide blond, a senior nurse, grabbed a chart from the desk.

“His paper work says he’s an American, and we know he’s been unconscious for two days from a concussion. What’d you expect him to say? Hi, I’m Edward Mulcahey from San Diego, California, pleased to meet you?”

“I guess not.”

“Take it from me, he’s a stranger in a strange land according to Dr. Heinlein and he’s suffered a trauma. Go and check his vital signs while I call Doctor Braco.”

The short good-looking one took the chart from her, and for a second stopped at the mirror to remove a wisp of hair from her face, and tucked it neatly under her cap. She liked how the white A-line skirt flattered her figure. She'd wanted to be a nurse since ever she was little when she’d received a nurse's kit for Christmas, and she adored how pure she looked in a white starched cap. She took her wedding ring off her finger, stashed it in her bossom, and draped a stethoscope gracefully over her neck like Maupassant’s Mathilde would a pearl necklace.

The tall nurse added, “And don’t forget to speak English.”

“Gottcha.”

'“O.K. You don’t have to get funny on me. And don’t flirt with this one either. I noticed a Buddhist prayer ring on the ring finger of his left hand. This guy is already taken.”

“ It isn’t a wedding ring!”

“No, a Buddhist prayer ring, but look where it is.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means he’s in love with someone. It’s a one-size-fits-all ring. A man knows his size, or tries a ring on when he buys it. Someone must have given him that ring. I suspect his lover. He could have put it on any finger, but that was his choice."

“But he’s good looking!”

“So’s your husband. Get over it.”

The short dark one held her tongue.

The long-legged peroxide blond poured another cup of coffee and added a spoonful or two of sugar. Then she went back to attacking her paperwork.

‘Who does she think ‘Pam’ is anyway? His mother? Lucky for him he’s unconscious.’

But her wheels had already started to turn. ‘They must not have known each other very long. She doesn’t know his ring size. Not yet. They must be fresh, infatuated. And look at the ring. More than a symbol of union, it’s a symbol of love, eternal, unlike their earth-bound bodies made of minerals that decompose, it lasts forever. And the ring is also a prayer, wrapped around his finger so he’ll never forget.’

She returned to her book and her lunch. She opened the book, placed it on her lap and opened to the title page of Manual of the Operations of Surgery by Dr. Joseph Bell she’d marked with a pressed flower.

‘She’s overly romantic and should have been a detective,’ thought the new girl, ‘and I wish she’d stay out of my business.’

Doctor Braco flew through the doorway, alighted on a chair next to Eddie and peered down at him over the top of his half-frame glasses. With one hand he took Eddie’s pulse and looked at his Tag Heuer watch. Braco was pushing forty and already grey in the temples. In his exam coat pocket was stashed a sterling silver cylinder stamped with impressions of roses and sunflowers, marked 925. His wife gave it to him just after the war, when they were still in school. She picked it up on a side street in The Hague. When she gave it to him on Valentine’s day, it contained fragments of dried rose petals from their hotel room overlooking the canal, ones he’d scattered willy-nilly on the double-bed stacked with perfumed pillows. Now it held his nitroglycerine tablets.

“You are young, and in good health, Mr.Mulcahey. You’re resilient. Some people aren’t.”

“Is Pam here ?”

“Is that someone who was with you?”

“Yes, Pamela Bloomgarden.”

“I don’t know.”

The petite nurse peered over the chart like a doll that had never been out of the box and spoke up.

“The news said there are victims in every hospital, Doctor.”

“Nurse, check the records. Look over all the names in admitting. See who’s been taken where.”

“At once,” said Peroxide.

“You’ve suffered a serious concussion. The building you were in collapsed in an earthquake more severe than the one in 1667. The news said the epicenter was right beneath the club. I’m afraid they’re still digging victims out of the wreckage.”

Braco looked at Eddie’s head and squinted, “You’ve a laceration that required stitches. Come back in ten days and we’ll take them out.”

He talked quickly with the nurses and Peroxide handed him a newspaper. An orderly jetted in and whispered in his ear. The doctor turned to Eddie.

“Here’s the newspaper, Mr. Mulcahey. There’s a list of the injured. Our hospital has one too. I have to go immediately to the next ward.”
He looked at his watch.

“Dubrovnik General alone received fifty-five cases that tragic night. Our facilities are taxed to the limit, you understand. It’s been chaotic, but we’re ahead now. All hospitals are determined to do their best.”

Doctor Braco wiped his brow.

“The nurses will help all they can. I’ll be back this evening and see if you’re fit enough to be discharged.”

Doctor Braco walked quickly to the door and down the hall. When the elevator didn’t come soon enough, he sprung for the stairwell like an athlete, and with his white coat tails flapping, bounded up the stairs like a dove of mercy taking flight.

Eddie, totally conscious now, surveyed his surroundings. There was a row of beds against either wall, cast-iron old-school hospital beds painted white. The ceiling was high, and on his side there was nothing but walls with lights attached at intervals and fixtures for dividing curtains. But on the opposite wall there were windows, and the short nurse was opening them now, starting at one end, and working her way to the other. She would set up a stool, climb up, and crank open each window. Now the blinds were drawn, Eddie could see a flower garden, an open area for the patients. There were a few already there, taking walks, some on crutches, and even one feeding scruffy pigeons. On the far side was a building. It must have been a music conservatory, because he could barely hear music, orchestral music, from its direction.

An old bearded gentleman in the next bed said, “Hear that? It’s Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto and second movement, if I’m not mistaken."

Eddie heard it more distinctly now, perhaps the direction of the wind changed, and it may have, the curtains were moving.

“Is that it?” said Eddie, “I think I’ve heard it before.”

“I’m sure of it,” he answered, “It’s one of my favorite pieces.” The man grew reflective. “People here think musicians that speak Croation, like Haydn for instance, can only be the best composers. But it is my considered opinion that even a Russian can possess a great soul and understanding. Rimsky Korsakov and Rachmaninoff are my proof.”

“And you are from here?”

“Yes, born in Zagreb! A patriot too! But I also possess a clear head. Music, my friend, is bigger than theories and politics and petty political parties. They only cause divisions among men. Music unties, it’s just the opposite. It cuts across all borders, but never threatens, instead, it persuades. It favors no particular language, and speaks to every one of us equally. Just listen to this piece; even an American from thousands of miles away can understand it.”

All’s gone quiet except the soft music overhead. Most patients are asleep. Eddie has wandered to the garden to read the paper about the earthquake and fall of the Babylon. The descriptions alone are horrific and the pictures are worse. He scans for her name. She’s not with the living. She’s not with the dead. There are many people unaccounted for. A mother insists her son and his girlfriend were going that night, left from her house, and haven’t shown up. Eddie moves through the garden in a trance.

He realizes the gravity of the situation. He questions his motives for getting her into it in the first place. He wonders why he drug her along, and what happened and why. He questions the motives behind his risk-taking behavior. Eddie isn’t just thinking twice about his actions, but in a muddled way, about himself and their causes and effects on those closest to him.

With his typical thought patterns he realizes, “A man don’t miss his water ‘till his well runs dry’.

The raised fountain on the highest tier spurts sparkled in the sunlight. He sat on the edge of the lower level and watched koi move slowly back and forth like blimps underwater. The surface was a pastiche of white clouds and blue sky dotted with green lily pads. In each lily pad, in every white cloud, in each bright reflection, he sees Pamela’s face.

In ward two, two women survivors were having a discussion. One is a movie star of great renown and the other is an American ‘on vacation’.

“It’s not so bad for you,” the skinny blond complained, “You only have a dislocated foot in a cast and a few bruises. I have this broken leg. Have they located your boyfriend yet?”

“Not yet. Every time they call there’s no answer.”

“They’ll get through. Love always finds a way.”

“Has it for you?”

“When I was younger…but not lately.”

“Really?”

“My problem is, ever since I became well known, all the men I meet fall in love with Anna Pavlova, or my latest roll. We go out, they’re romantic and sincere, and like a fool I believe. But the next morning, without make-up or flattering light, unaccompanied by award-wining romantic violin scores, they wake up to Anna Yushenko the factory girl. The illusion outweighs the reality… and I get lost in the translation. It's like being Rita Hayworth."

“You’re beautiful too.”

“Beauty sometimes gets in the way of love, Pamela. American girls should know that.”

Anna looked around quickly, and seeing no nurse, lit a cigarette. She took a long drag and sat up in her bed, fluffed the pillow, and adjusted her leg.

“You must be going crazy not knowing what happened to your boyfriend, Eddie.”

“I am.”

“I wish I had a regular boyfriend like you. From what you say he seems like a nice guy. I like nice unassuming guys. I would do anything for love.”

“Don’t get all dramatic on me.”

“I never get too dramatic unless I’m paid.”

“Hey. Listen. Put that out. I hear footsteps.”

The nurse appeared and smelled the air. Ignoring the obvious she said,

“I tried again to call your friend this morning, Miss Bloomgarden, but he wasn’t there. Don’t worry. He’ll show up. I have a feeling about these things. And Miss Pavola, your people,” she said it oddly, “will be here in the morning to pick you up.”

Knowing they were saying goodbye, they exchanged phone numbers. After lunch, Pam walked to the central garden for some sun. The only way there was out the end of the ward through the double doors, then down the hallway. One of the oldest parts of the hospital was an original vestibule to the garden. The ceiling was vaulted, and traces of an original fresco of angels hovered overhead like at Sorkočević's villa in Lapad . Stained-glass doors opened onto the garden itself.

The first thing Pamela saw was a man’s figure. He was turned away and sitting on the edge of the koi pond. She didn’t want some man bothering her, so she turned to go back. She needed an opportunity meditate about Eddie, to make a plan to find out where he was, not have a conversation with a stranger.
She needed to think. But inside was uncomfortable and outside was airy and fresh. Pamela wasn’t the kind of girl who went around things. She was a ‘take the bull by the horns’ kind of woman.

“If any guy messes with me, I’ll just tell him, get lost.”

Cast on her ankle, stiff leg and all, she limped through the doorway and into the fresh air, balancing on her crutches. Her slow exhausted cadence multiplied through the gravel sounded like Napoleon’s Grand Armee retreating from Moscow.

The shock of the present was hard on Eddie; every minute he sat there he suffered. The Rachmaninoff didn’t help, and inspired only desperate longing. Now he was seeing Pam’s face more distinctly. The sunlight glistened and shaped her reflection on the water’s surface. He even thought for a moment he could hear her voice whisper,

“Eddie. I’m here.”

No reason to speak to a phantom.

“Eddie, I’m here,” followed by a touch on his shoulder.

‘The nurse has news,’ thought Eddie, snapped out of it and turned around.

Pamela dropped her crutches and fell into his arms. Not a word was said. Everything of value was communicated in body language. Touch was their tender telegraph.

The next morning they were back in their cozy nest.

By breakfast Eddie and Pamela were waiting for Mrs. Kropotnik’s tea again.

“I have a simple plan this time, Honey.”

When Pam heard the word plan, she gave him an extra dubious look.

“And what’s that this time, Eddie?”

“Take the money and run.”

Pamela had always been a fan of Broadway musicals. And here was Eddie, making himself over, just like Professor Higgins did Eliza Doolittle. Aptly enough she replied,

“I think he’s got it. I think he’s got it!”

It was as plain as the rain in Spain.

The door knocked just like it did before. And just like before, Pam said,

“It’s Mrs. Kropotkin with our Earl Grey.”

And just like before, when she opened the door, it was Gregarin and his minions nearly tripping over each other rushing in.

“You thought, no doubt, that we’d forgotten you.”

“We were hoping…”

“Hoping the law has a short memory? It doesn’t. And its arm goes on forever.”

Gregarin put out his hand but never took his eyes off Eddie, expecting to milk the scene for the largest bucket of drama possible when he said, “Warrant, if you please.”

Nothing happened. His Ronhill-smoking corporal was too busy giving Pamela a dirty look, and missed his cue. He patted his side coat pockets, one after the other. Nothing. Gregarin watched him open his coat and fish in his inside coat pocket. Nada.

“Well, where is it?”

Ronhill looked frightened and said sheepishly, “I think it may be back in the station with my other coat. You see, my wife said…..”
“I can’t believe this! The incompetence! What will my superiors say?”

He took Ronhill man aside.

“You take the door, have another man in front, and one around back too. We won’t let them slip away this time and I’ll go for the warrant.”

Gregarin put on his game face and announced to the two Americanskis, “Consider yourselves under house arrest. Don’t think of leaving. My men will stop you. Just wait here.”

After his footsteps died away down the stairs the corporal lit up a Ronhill and relaxed. ‘I hope it isn’t in the coat my wife sent to the cleaners. He might be gone all day if he has to see a judge and get another.’

Considering that being in an easy chair in a snug hotel was a more comfortable than shadowing someone in the rain and digging through trash cans, Corporal Ronhill knew contentment. Pam and Eddie knew nothing of the sort.

“This is so ironic,” said Eddie, “I decide to change my ways, to abandon the sleaze, and this happens. We’ve got to get rid of the stuff.”

“But Eddie, there are a hundred pairs left.”

“Sh*t.”

Eddie sat down and took Pamela’s hand and said, “Babygirl, we need a miracle.”

Pam agreed, “Or the Marines.”

“Yes,” said Eddie, “someone to draw their fire.”

“But Eddie… we don’t have anyone close enough who can do any good. Molly is out of the picture and I fear the worst.”

“Didn’t I tell you? She’s OK. I talked to one of the injured waiters in the hospital. She’s wasn’t even scratched!”

“Oh my god, that’s a relief.”

“So we do have “one good man” on the outside.”

“Maybe more than that,” said Eddie. “Let me think about this.”

Unlike at home, Eddie had no Alcapulco Gold to conjure with or spin his wheels. This time he was on his own and had a grip, even though he was as smokeless as a Halloween candy cigarette with crumpled red foil for a cherry. He went back over their trip, rewinding each encounter, replaying every detail that might matter, and any fact that might be pertinent. It was like making a home-made pizza, you had to be creative and use what you had around the house. Finally he asked Pamela for her little grey phone book and a few Kunas change. Since the phone was close by downstairs, Ronhill man didn’t object.

Funny thing about Eddie, he was well known for his flashy surface stuff, being witty, suave, unconcerned or indifferent if need be, and at other times when it suited the occasion, enthusiastic and endearing. He was King of the World of Appearances for Appearances Sake, but underneath that, when the chips were down, in a ‘life or liberty’ struggle, he could get bull-dog tough and serious as a heart attack.

“Now we wait.”

Looked like to Ronhill man the coat had gone to the cleaners. But with every minute that ticked by Eddie and Pamela grew more nervous. Suddenly the door swung open and Gregarin appeared waving a piece of paper over his head like the torch of liberty.

“Start the search, all of you.”

Ronhill man snuffed out his cigarette and headed to the bedroom. Another agent started going through the kitchen cupboards. Gregarin took a chair.

“Just relax,” he said confidently, “It won’t be much longer.”

Eddie knelt down and hid his face in his hands and Pamela put her hand on his shoulder. Eddie was praying.

A siren screamed from down the street. It wasn’t an ambulance, but the state police, a parade of state police.

“See about that,” Gregarin told one of the men. The agent held his head out the window.

“There’s a commotion in the street. A car has pulled up. Four men with submachine guns are getting out. They’re surrounding the rear door. Someone is getting out. He’s looking up here and coming in. Whoever he is he’s official, there are two motorcycle guards in front of the car and two more behind.”

Two six-footers trooped up the stairs. One came in and stood in the room and the other stood at the top of the stairs like a Goliath. A man of enormous girth followed wearing a rain coat pinned with a red star on the lapel. His hands were gigantic and he was wearing black Cape buffalo skin gloves. He smoked a cigar and looked like Citizen Kane.

He sized the room up in double-quick time.

“Nicoli Antitoff,” he said to Gregarin, “I want you to know that in Zagreb we’ve heard your name.”

“Really, I’m flattered.”

“Who’s that?” said one of the local police in the hallway to a six-footer.

“Haven’t you heard of Comrade Antitoff the Crime Czar? This is him in the flesh.”

“So he’s the one everyone talks about but nobody ever sees.”

“Yes. The boss has to protect his anonymity. There have been assassination attempts.”

“I’ve heard. And bomb threats?”

“Three last week alone. He isn’t popular with criminals.”

Antitoff tapped his cigar on the side of a tea cup and the ash fell in. “Oops, didn’t mean to do that. Ask the woman downstairs for some tea. Don’t let me interrupt, continue with your work.”

Gregarin gave the signal and the men continued to search. One did the closet while Ronhill continued with the bed.

“As I was saying. In Zagreb we’ve been following your progress. We like your style, Gregarin. You’re the kind of no-nonsense investigator we like, a real professional.”

“I didn’t know it was beyond the local reports. I didn’t take it as such a serious case.”

“I have eyes and ears everywhere, Gregarin. And you’ll pardon me if I disagree, it’s serious case and you’re doing a conscientious job. These capitalist money grubbing contraband merchants need to be made an example of.”

He took Gregarin out the door just a step. “It’s near elections. Zagreb would like an arrest made and an example of good policing. You would have to testify in federal court.”

Just then Ronhill man clapped his hands and shouted from the bedroom, “Here it is!”

“Ah, just as we both suspected,” said Antitoff with glee, “Tea for everyone!”

“I knew it all along,” said Gregarin.

“Cuff them at once,” ordered Antitoff. “And sit them both down here at the table. You know, comrade Gregarin, this might be the start of something productive.”

Mrs. Kropotkin arrived with the tea, but not enough for everyone. She looked at Antitoff and gave him a wink.

“Let the local police and their fearless leader have it first, it’s their arrest. And put on another pot for my people.”

“At once, Comrade Commissar.”

“But what about these two?” said Gregarin, pointing at Eddie and Pam.

“They don’t deserve any,” said Antitoff. “And they can’t drink with their hands behind their backs. Besides, they have nothing to celebrate.”

“There are one hundred pairs of Levi’s here, Commissar.”

“Fine work. Pack them up and put them in the trunk. Make sure none are missing and that the numbers tally when we get them to headquarters in Zagreb. I want this to be a clean operation without a hint of corruption.”

‘Go ahead, Comrade, you and your men drink up. You deserve all the credit, it’s your case.” “However,” he added slyly, “I will bring it, and you, into the spotlight. Why, a case like this will help both our careers. In fifty years, the history books will call it a win-win situation. How do you like that phrasing, win-win? I just made it up. It’s quite original. I think it has linguistic potential.”

“Yes, there is something about it that rings.”

“It won’t be all fun and games, you know,” he leaned over closely. “It will take thought and hard work. By the way, wait until we’ve returned to Zagreb before you notify the local newspapers of your bust. That way, we can leak the story to the big papers in Zagreb a day earlier, and mention your name, you know, local police man just doing his job sort of thing, all in a day’s work. It will make you seem humble. A policeman never wants to look self-serving.”

“Ah, yes, I agree. You are font of useful information. I can learn many things from you, Commissar Antitoff.”

Commissar stood up and buttoned his raincoat. He took two more off the coat rack for each of the detainees, and turned to Gregarin and laughed.

“They’ll need these. It’s cold in Siberia this time of year.”

He put on his black Cape buffalo gloves and motioned to his men to help Pam and Eddie on their feet. Both looked too numb to speak.

“We’ll send you a message early tomorrow and give you a copy of the press release at the same time.”

“Thank you, Comrade Commissar.”

“Think nothing of it. It’s only a professional courtesy. A man in your position deserves respect.”

The six-footers hurried the couple down the stairway and into the car. The motor was already running, and the instant the Commissar took his seat the motorcade took off. Gregarin’s head started to swim again, but this time, deeper and darker and farther down into his subconscious.
Maybe it was something he ate or something he drank, as he and all three of his men fell asleep, not an uncommon effect when Laudanum is added to tea.

One by one the machine-gun men on motor cycles peeled off as the car sped out of town. Soon there was only the driver and the Commissar and the alleged criminals in the back.

‘How was I?” asked the Commissar. Was I convincing?”

“You were great. Tell them to give you a Palme d'Or when you get to Cannes. Now get us out of these cuffs.”

Pamela and Eddie were freed in an instant, and the ‘Commissar’ and bit players were sure of getting parts in Anna Pavlova’s next picture. Molly, thrilled to help the couple and now free of Grand Master and Mr. Nebuchadnezzar, made all the connections and phone calls. Customs agent Gorin made sure to look the other way when they left. He explained his almost instant connection to Pamela the next day when they boarded the launch for the steamer. The fact was they both read Tagore.

“Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance,” he quoted.

To which Pamela replied a farewell as poetic as Shelly.

“Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.”

Eddie, now the ever-practical one, looked at his watch and urged Pamela to get her butt in gear.

“You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water,” he cautioned, and added, “Let’s bounce.”

After they were delivered to the steamer itself and Pamela was secure in their cabin, Eddie thought he’d take a walk on the deck for one final look.

They’d made some progress, because the Dalmatian Coast was barely visible now, the only features he could make out were the white walls of fortress Dubrovnik, defending the city against all foreign elements. The sun was low, and the water’s surface gave off so many reflections it was hard to imagine that the vast majority of the Adriatic was depth and more depth under that, for the most part, unrevealed and unknown. Like Eddie, even unto himself, it remained a mystery.

©Steven Hunley 2013


http://therockblog.wordpress.com/2007/03/26/cover-of-upcoming-xandria-album-salome-the-seventh-veil-revealed/

http://youtu.be/21z-K5ChWbE Rachmaninoff

[DocHeart]

I've made a special entry in Outlook. "Read Dubrovnik | Wed, Feb 13, 22:00 - 23:00". I plan to accompany this with Nancy Wilson's 1964 album "Where Does That Leave Me", which I just downloaded *after actually paying for it*. Different flavours, I know, but so are Drambuie and ginger ale and when you mix them - well.

In the meantime, may I urge fellow forumites to invest some time in this one... I don't know what the finale does, but the parts that come before it are Midnight Express with plenty of dashes of Hunley humour.

Regards,
DH