Six Graves to Munich - Mario Cleri [38]
Rogan sighed. They had all played their parts so well. They had succeeded in tricking him every time. They had failed in only one thing: They had not killed him. And now it was his turn. It was his turn to materialize suddenly out of the darkness, bearing torture and death in his hands. It was his turn to know and see everything, and their turn to guess and fear what would happen next.
CHAPTER 14
That night Rogan went with Stefan Vrostk to the Black Violin. It proved to be exactly the kind of place he would have imagined as being Wenta Pajerski’s favorite hangout. The food was good and the plates were heaped high. The drinks were strong and cheap. The waitresses were handsomely buxom, cheerful, lusty, and had a dozen sly ways of presenting their plump bottoms to be pinched. The accordion music was bouncy, and the atmosphere was hazy with pungent tobacco smoke.
Wenta Pajerski entered at exactly 7:00 p.m. He had not changed at all, just as animals never look older after maturity, until they reach an extreme age. And Wenta Pajerski was an animal. He pinched the first waitress so hard she let out a little scream of pain. He drank a huge tankard of beer in one slug, choking it down in his refusal to stop and draw a breath. Then he sat at a large round table, reserved for him, and was soon joined by male cronies. They laughed and joked and drank French cognac by the bottle. Meanwhile a blond waitress brought an oblong carved chest to the table. With great relish, Pajerski opened it up and took out chess pieces. The chest itself opened up into a chessboard. Pajerski appropriated the white pieces for himself, with their advantage of moving first, without giving his opponent the usual hidden choice between black and white. This was an insight into the giant Hungarian’s character. He had not changed.
Rogan and Vrostk watched Pajerski’s table all evening. Pajerski played chess until nine, drinking all the while. At exactly nine the blond waitress took away the chess set and brought dinner to the table.
Pajerski ate with such animal gusto that Rogan felt almost sorry he had to be killed. It was like killing some happy-go-lucky unreasoning animal. Pajerski lifted the soup bowl to his lips to lap up the last dregs. He used a huge spoon, instead of a fork, to shovel mountains of gravy-soaked rice into his cavernous mouth. He drank his wine from the bottle, with an impatient gurgling thirst. Then he let out a wave of belches that rolled across the room.
When he was finished, Pajerski paid for everyone’s dinner, pinched the waitress’ behind, and shoved a huge tip of crumpled paper money down inside her dress so that he could squeeze her breast. Everybody put up with his behavior; they were obviously either very fond of him or very afraid of him. His male companions followed him out onto the dark streets, marching arm in arm, talking loudly. When they passed an open café whose music rolled out into the open, Wenta Pajerski did a bearlike waltz down the street, whirling his nearest companion in his arms.
Rogan and Vrostk followed them until they disappeared into an ornately faced building. Then Vrostk hailed a cab, and they drove to the consulate. Vrostk gave Rogan the Hungarian’s dossier to read. “This will fill you in on the rest of Pajerski’s evening,” he said. “We won’t have to follow him everywhere. He does the same thing every night.”
The dossier was short but informative. Wenta Pajerski was the executive officer of the Communist secret police in Budapest. He worked hard all day in the town hall administration building. He also had his living quarters in this building. Both office and living quarters were heavily guarded by special details of the secret police. He always left the building punctually at 6:30 p.m., but was escorted by guards in plain clothes. At least two official guards were among the men who walked down the street with him.
Wenta Pajerski was the only one of the seven torturers who had remained in the same kind of work. Ordinary citizens suspected of activities against