Budapest Noir by Vilmos Kondor Read Free Book Online

the receiver.
    “You didn’t have to do that, Opa,” said Gordon. “Really. I only asked you what the cause of death might have been.”
    “Son, since you’ve been working for the Evening , this is the first time you’ve asked me a question concerning an article of yours. So it must be important to you. I’ll add that your question is foolish, for if anyone should know, you certainly should, that unless someone has a knife sticking out of their heart or has just been pulled out of the Danube, it’s practically impossible to say what did them in without an autopsy. You can go to the coroner’s office this afternoon.”
    M eanwhile it had begun to rain in big, swollen drops. Gordon hugged the buildings as he walked quickly along Aradi Street without an umbrella. Silence now reigned in Skublics’s building; only the stink accompanied Gordon up to the sixth floor. He opened the attic door and glanced around but didn’t see the girl anywhere. He knocked on the inner door. In a minute a hoarse, smoke-saturated voice called out: “Get lost.”
    Gordon began pounding on the door. Again came the voice: “What do you want?”
    Gordon said he’d gotten his name from Vogel and that he wanted a word with him. Finally, Skublics let him in. All Gordon could make out in the dark hall was a stunted old man with an idiotic goatee. Skublics went on ahead, opening up another door.
    Gordon found himself in a living room furnished with exceptional taste: carved furniture, leather armchairs, Turkish carpets, a crystal chandelier, and paintings on the walls. Just one thing was missing: a window. Gordon was beginning to suspect they were in the heart of the building, and he was certain that this flat was entirely windowless; yet it might well have a separate exit to the attic. Suddenly he found it hard to imagine he could be in the right place. This was not how he’d imagined the apartment of a black-market photographer. Just what he’d expected, he couldn’t have said, but not this. Moreover, he saw nothing that so much as suggested that Skublics even had a camera.
    “What do you want?” Skublics shot out his question once again. Gordon was now able to get a good look at him. The short old man was wearing a good quality suit, complemented by a gold-chained pocket watch. His hands were bony and his fingers long, like the feet of a sparrow hawk. He’d let his nails grow, and this only strengthened Gordon’s impression that he was talking with an aged bird of prey. His sunken eyes topped off a face of baggy and pale parchment-like skin. He spoke fast, as if spitting out his words. “What do you want? I don’t want to ask again. I don’t care whether Vogel or someone else sent you, out with it!”
    Gordon momentarily dropped his head and took a deep breath. He was just about to reply when a door sunk deep in the wall opened up, and out stepped the scrawny girl. She was buttoning her blouse. When she saw Gordon, her eyes turned away and she quickly went back where she’d come from.
    “What do I want?” Gordon now asked in a quiet, menacing voice.
    “What you saw here is none of your business,” the old man proclaimed. “You can get going, as far as I’m concerned.”
    “Not until you answer my question. You took a picture of a young girl barely over twenty with slightly curly black hair.”
    “I don’t remember.”
    “Of course you do,” said Gordon, stepping closer to him. The old man did not draw back. “A green-eyed Jewish girl. With a big birthmark on her left arm.”
    “I don’t remember any yiddie gal.”
    “No?”
    “No.”
    “And what is that girl doing here?”
    “I took her portrait.”
    “Full figure, nude?”
    “It’s my business who I photograph and how. It’s not me who decides but my clients.”
    “Your clients.”
    “Them.”
    “Does the vice squad know about your little business?”
    Skublics turned beet-red. Gordon had gone too far. He shouldn’t have threatened the old man, at least