The Confession by Olen Steinhauer Read Free Book Online Page A

from his chair until he found a pack of cigarettes. He offered me one. We blew smoke simultaneously into the stuffy office. “Moscow sent him, but I only heard about it the day before he showed up. What can I tell you?”
    “You can tell me why he’s here.”
    “Does he need a reason?” He didn’t seem to like the taste of his cigarette, so he put it out. “You’ve heard about what’s been going on in Poland. It wasn’t so long ago they sent tanks into East Berlin and shot a lot of people. You think they want to do that here? They don’t like sending in tanks, any more than we like receiving tanks.” He readjusted himself in his groaning chair. “Kaminski apparently asked for this assignment. He was posted here after the war and claims he’s in love with our country. Says he wants to help shepherd our path to socialism. I checked his file, and it’s true—he was here after the war. I don’t think either of us knew him, but he worked with Sev. And you know what that means.”
    It meant that, just after the war, Mikhail Kaminski from the KGB and Brano Sev from our own Ministry for State Security were partners in the quick cleansing of the Capital. It meant sudden disappearances in post offices, government ministries, and even the Militia offices—old friends of questionable loyalty vanished, replaced by fresh-faced automatons. Only Moska’s deft juggling of paperwork kept our office relatively untouched. I said, “So this guy is an old hack.”
    “He’s an ambitious prick. Be careful around him. He puts on a good face, but take a look at his hand when he talks. He’s got a nervous trigger finger.”
    I smiled.
    “How was your vacation?”
    “Didn’t get much rest.”
    “I don’t think you mean that in a good way.”
    “I don’t.” I smoked his cigarette a while longer. “I think you’re going to hear from Stefan. About me, that is.”
    He frowned.
    “He’s obsessed with this case, he’s got us going all over the place for nothing.”
    “It is his case.”
    “Maybe.” I put the cigarette out. “But I don’t have to like it.”
    “Just bear with him, he’ll figure it out soon enough. He’s a good inspector.”
    “He can’t seem to believe that anyone could commit suicide in these times.”
    “But you can,” said Moska.
    “Yes. I can.”

16
     

     
    Stefan was there when I came out. He didn’t have his bag, and he was standing at his desk, shifting some papers around. When he saw me leave Moska’s office he stopped trying to appear occupied. He gave me a firm look, then nodded at the door.
    I followed him through the busy corridor, past uniformed militiamen walking with secretaries, and out to the front steps. It wasn’t that hot, but Stefan was sweating.
    “Yes?”
    “I’ve had enough of this,” he began, then stopped. When he started again, it came out clearly and without hesitation: “I’ve put up with you for a long time now, and I thought that going off to the provinces would help things. But it’s only made them worse.”
    “Investigate the suicide. I don’t care, really.”
    He raised a hand. “That’s not what I’m talking about. This case is just another part of a four-year-long insult. Four years!” he said, shaking his head. “Ever since that shoddy book came out you’ve forgotten what we were to each other—we grew up together!”
    He waited, for some kind of recognition perhaps, and it says something about me that I was stuck on his description of my book as shoddy.
    “I’ve seen this coming for a long time. Those friends of yours, those writers, they fill you up, they make you think you’re infallible. But you certainly are not. You’ve ruined a marriage to a beautiful woman, you can’t do police work anymore, and now you can’t even write. What are you, Ferenc? What the hell do you have left to offer?”
    I didn’t know where all this was coming from—or maybe I did know, but I didn’t know why now, of all times, he had to say it. We’d