Carnival of Shadows (28 page)

“I am who I am, Mr. Doyle,” Travis said, somewhat defensively. “My manner is my manner, and if it appears too formal, then I am sorry. This is just the way I am, and for a short while, you will have to tolerate it.”

“Oh, I don’t tolerate a great deal, Agent Travis,” Doyle replied. “In fact, I would say that my personal philosophy of life compels me to take all those things I find intolerable and change them for the better.”

“Well, you will have to exclude me from your philosophy, Mr. Doyle. I am more than happy with who I am, and I have no desire to change.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, Mr. Doyle. That is so.”

“Well, perhaps we might be able to stretch your imagination a touch, Agent Travis. After all, even Mr. Hoover himself has requested that much of you.”

Doyle led the way out of the caravan and across the field toward the marquee. Already the sound of voices was audible from within, and across the field came the aroma of something that served only to heighten Travis’s hunger.

“Aha,” Doyle said. “Gabor has been cooking. That, if I am not mistaken, is the smell of
porkolt
. Maybe he will have made dumplings as well. Most excellent.”

“
Porkolt.”

“It is like a stew, perhaps. Beef, maybe chicken. Whichever, it will be good. And you have to drink a glass of wine with it, Agent Travis. If you refuse, you will offend Gabor, and he is six foot eight and three hundred pounds! I am not suggesting you get drunk and dance for us, Agent Travis, merely that you share a small glass of wine with your meal. If nothing else, it will perhaps make these people feel a little less threatened by your presence.”

“Perhaps one glass, then,” Travis said, “for courtesy’s sake.”

“For courtesy,” Doyle said. “Another gentlemanly quality.”

Together they entered the tent, and Doyle greeted Gabor Benedek warmly.

“
Porkolt
, I believe,” Doyle said.

The giant nodded.

“Agent Travis will be eating with us, Gabor, and he has yet to experience the wonders of Hungarian cuisine.”

“Welcome, Agent Travis,” Benedek said, and extended a hand twice the size of Travis’s.

Travis’s hand was swallowed, crushed, and then returned. Even as they exchanged pleasantries, Travis thought of Fekete Kutya, whether Benedek would know anything of this organization, whether he actually knew something of his dead countryman.

“Get a plate,” Benedek said, and indicated crockery and cutlery beside the large pot of stew.

Travis did so, Doyle followed suit, and soon there was a line of people behind them, all waiting to be fed.

20

The return of Valeria Mironescu changed the atmosphere within the central marquee immediately.

No more than five minutes had passed since Travis and Doyle had sat together at one of the tables before she appeared. She was alone, dressed in jeans, a chambray shirt, a suede jacket, and boots.

Doyle rose to take her hand, kissed her on the cheek, asked her to sit. She did so, and Doyle left to get food for her.

“Bring wine!” she called after him.

“Was it a successful trip?” Travis asked.

“Always the little adventure,” she said. “Despite their seeming similarity, each town has its own unique identity. Kansas is very different from Colorado, which is very different from Texas or Alabama or… where is it you are from?”

“Nebraska, originally.”

“Nebraska, yes. They are all so very different. Each state seems to be its own little country.”

“I suppose so, yes.”

“How is your
porkolt
?”

“Excellent, really excellent.”

“Of course. Gabor only uses the best horse meat.”

Travis near-choked, and Valeria started laughing.

“I am teasing you, Agent Travis.”

“No horse, then?”

“No, of course not. How could we afford horse meat? He uses only the tiredest old donkeys for the stew.”

“I thought it was a little different from the usual,” Doyle said. He had reached the table, and he set down a plate before Valeria. He had also brought a bottle of wine and three coffee cups.

“I didn’t want to ask Gabor in case he crushed my head like a grape.”

Doyle poured wine. He passed the cups around.

“Excuse the absence of glasses,” he said.

Travis took the cup tentatively. He felt he should not drink with these people, but he wanted to. A couple of mouthfuls would not hurt, and—as Doyle had said—such a gesture might ingratiate Travis into their community a little.

Doyle raised his cup for a toast. “To new friends,” he said.

“New friends,” both Valeria and Travis echoed.

They drank. The wine was good. It reminded him of evenings with Esther, the months before he lost her.

“Where did you go?” Valeria asked.

Travis looked up at her. “Am I so easy to read?” he said.

“One of the easiest, I believe, Agent Travis.”

“I was remembering someone.”

“You lost them?”

“They died.”

“I am sorry to hear it.”

“What was her name?”

Travis smiled. “What makes you think it was a girl?”

“Because men never look like that save when they are thinking of lost loves, Agent Travis.”

“Her name was Esther. She got very sick, and then she died.”

Valeria raised her cup, as did Doyle. “To Esther,” she said.

Travis looked at the strange pair facing him—the crazy Irishman, his Romanian
wife—
and it felt for a moment that there, right there and then, that a more heartfelt and sincere acknowledgment was being made for the loss he had suffered than any funeral or memorial service back in Grand Island.

“Yes,” he said, his voice a broken whisper. “To Esther.” And then he drank from the cup and the cup was empty, and before he knew it, Doyle had refilled the cup and Travis did not protest.

“Eat,” Doyle said. “Eat your
porkolt
, some dumplings, drink some wine, and we will talk of other, less difficult matters.”

And so Travis ate, and there was nothing for a while but the hubbub and laughter of gathered people, and as he looked around at the adjacent tables—at Akiko Mimasuya and Oscar Haynes, at Harold Lamb from Minnesota whose mother was a prostitute, at Gabor Benedek and the five identical Bellanca brothers, as each of them caught his eye and nodded, smiled, raised a cup in his direction—he felt somehow strangely comforted by their collective presence. He did not know why, and he did not understand it, and it did not matter.

Travis went back to his meal, and when he was done, he looked up at Doyle and Valeria Mironescu and he smiled.

“Thank you for sharing your meal with me,” he said. “That was the best meal I have had for some considerable time.”

“Tell Gabor,” Valeria said, and nodded toward the giant.

Travis looked at Benedek, caught his attention.

“A wonderful
porkolt
, Mr. Benedek,” he said. “Truly wonderful.”

Benedek smiled, raised his cup. Travis raised his cup also, found it empty, and Doyle refilled it for the third time.

Travis drank.

“So, I left you two alone and what trouble did you cause?” Valeria asked.

“We shared a little history,” Doyle said.

“Did he bore you to death with his war stories, what a hero he was, how many lives he saved?”

“A little of the war, Miss Valeria. And I understand you fought with the Resistance in France?”

“I have been fighting my whole life, Agent Travis,” she said. “Against the Communists, against the Nazis, against the imperialists, the fascists, and now against mediocrity, banality, ignorance, stupidity, against all the preconceptions that people have about one another. Some of us are born to fight, Agent Travis. Some of us will even start a battle in order to have something to fight for.”

“And Agent Travis told me a little of his own life,” Doyle interjected. “You were right, my dear. He is indeed a man of many shadows.”

Travis waved Doyle’s comment aside.

“And how is your case progressing, Agent Travis?” Valeria asked.

“Beyond ascertaining the significance of the design I found on the dead man’s body, there is very little else.”

“And you know what it means?”

“I do, yes.”

“You can tell us, perhaps?” Doyle asked.

Travis saw no reason not to divulge some small part of the information he had gleaned. “The dead man was part of a Hungarian criminal organization known as Fekete Kutya, or Black Dog.”

“Is that so?” Valeria asked. She turned and called out to Benedek. “Gabor, come here a minute.”

Benedek joined them at the table. Seated facing him, Travis felt like a child.

“You know of an organization called… what was it?”

“
Fekete
—”

“Fekete Kutya,” Benedek interjected. “Yes, I know of them, but I am surprised to hear that name here.”

“Apparently, the dead man was part of this group,” Valeria explained.

Benedek was visibly surprised.

“What do you know of this?” Travis asked.

“Not a great amount,” Benedek explained. “I know
of
them. They are criminals and killers. I have no personal history with them.”

“But you know of them because…”

“Because everyone knows of them, Agent Travis. There are stories about them, the things they have done, the influence they have over the police in Budapest. That is all.”

“You have not been here long, have you, Mr. Benedek?”

“Not long, no.”

“And yet your English is excellent.”

“I left Hungary in January of last year. My father was a professor of literature at the University of Budapest, and we spoke English at home, even as children. My father’s brother came to America in the twenties and raised his family in a place called Aurora in Illinois. He owns a restaurant there. That’s where I went after the uprising. I was with my uncle for some weeks, and then I met Edgar and Valeria in a town called De Kalb, and I decided to travel with them. Like Valeria, I have the Eastern European gypsy in my blood, and I cannot get rid of him.” He smiled, his expression somehow pensive. “Every time I stop moving, he starts to scratch at my soul.”

“And your own parents… they are still alive?”

Benedek shook his head. “No, Agent Travis, they are dead. My family is Jewish, and he and my mother were murdered in Auschwitz in June of 1944.”

“The Holocaust,” Travis said.

“Indeed, the Holocaust. My grandparents also, several aunts, uncles, cousins… In fact, when the war ended, there were very few of us Benedeks left at all. My brother and my sister both survived, but my brother was shot by the Soviets and my sister was killed by the State Security Police.”

Travis shook his head in disbelief. “Is there no end to the tragedy in your life, Mr. Benedek?”

“My life is no better or worse than anyone’s here, Agent Travis. There are some who say it is our lot to suffer in this life and that we will be rewarded in the next.”

“Do you believe that?” Travis asked.

“I
want
to believe it,” Benedek said, “if not for me, then for my parents and the rest of my family who are dead.”

Travis reached out and placed his hand on Benedek’s forearm.

“I did not mean to cause you any upset, Mr. Benedek. I am sorry if recounting these events has troubled you.”

Benedek gripped Travis’s shoulder with a huge hand. “If you had upset me, I would have just crushed your head like an apple!” He laughed, lifted the wine bottle, and refilled the cups on the table.

“I think I’ve had more than enough wine,” Travis said.

Benedek looked stony-faced and then raised his hand over Travis’s head.

“Drink,” he said, “or your head will be crushed!”

They laughed, all of them, and they drank the wine, and then Benedek rose from the bench and started clearing away plates and cups from the other tables.

“Can I help you?” Travis said.

“It is good. You should go about your business, Agent Travis. You have a dead Hungarian killer to identify, and that is far more important than washing plates.”

“And I have matters to attend to also,” Doyle said as he rose from the bench.

Travis rose also, watched Doyle and Valeria Mironescu leave the marquee and head back toward the Westfalia.

Within less than a minute Travis was alone, and he looked out through the doorway at the landscape before him. All of a sudden, it seemed bleak and desolate, as if there were nothing at all for him beyond the canvas walls of this tent.

He sat down again, drained the cup before him, and then he reached for the bottle of wine.

21

Travis sat at the small table in his room. The typewriter before him remained silent. It was Thursday evening, and here he was trying to type a report that should have been completed the previous day. He remembered leaving the marquee alone and walking back to his car. Then he must have fallen asleep. That would have been the only explanation, for the next thing he recalled was the fact that it was almost dark and he was very cold. He had drank perhaps half a bottle of wine, and he had passed out. That was the truth. There was no excusing such lack of professionalism. He did not feel so much guilty as slightly ashamed of himself.

Travis knew he had to straighten things out, get things back on an even keel. Permitting himself to be drawn into any kind of personal relationship with these people could do nothing but compromise the integrity of the investigation.

Travis tried to focus on the report, but his mind was elsewhere.

The fact that his attention was also drawn to the single sheet of paper beside his typewriter, upon it the word
regulus
, was no help. He still struggled with the explanation he had been given by Saxon and Beck. He was still haunted by the possibility that someone had done this, that there had been no instance of sleepwalking, that it had been a direct effort to influence the direction of his investigation.

Travis turned the page over. He could not think about it. He had to focus on what was real, what lay there within the borders of the probative and credible.

The simple fact that Doyle, Mironescu, and Benedek had all possessed some direct or indirect connection to military or paramilitary activities had no bearing on the case, save to recognize the fact that they were all familiar—to a greater or lesser degree—with the very physical aspect of war. What did that suggest? That they were all capable of killing a man? Perhaps, perhaps not. Again, so much hinged on the identity of the man, and that identification was paramount. Travis believed himself sufficiently divorced from the
personality
of this case to be able to let go if it were determined to be of nonfederal interest. If he was recalled to Kansas, would it concern him? No, not at all, except if his recall were in some way a reflection of his failure to fulfill his duty. That could not be allowed to happen. Today would be different. Today would be a model day.

Travis looked over his notes. He was interested to speak next with the Thin Man, Oscar Haynes. Then there was the dwarf, Chester Greene, the contortionist, Akiko Mimasuya, and the five Bellanca brothers. Harold Lamb, aka Mr. Slate, would need another visit, but not as yet.

Travis left the report undone; it could wait until later, and then he would summarize the results of both days’ interviews.

Downstairs, he asked Danny McCaffrey for the use of a private phone line.

“There’s one back in the kitchen,” he told Travis.

Alone, Travis called the Kansas office, asked for Tom Bishop.

“Travis,” Bishop said. “About time we heard from you. Got the information you sent through, and yes, looks like your dead guy belongs to some crime gang.”

“They’re called the Fekete Kutya,” Travis interjected. “It means Black Dog. From what I have been able to establish, they are a Hungarian crime organization.”

“Good work, Travis. That’s more than we had. We were simply able to establish that this kind of tattooing is employed to denote membership of certain Eastern European gangs. So where are we with this now? We any further forward on finding out who he was?”

“No, sir,” Travis replied. “I am going to have to ask for assistance on that. I sent through the prints, and I am wondering if they can be run on the system.”

Bishop paused before replying. “It hasn’t yet been confirmed as a federal matter, Agent Travis. Until that is done, I do not see it’s possible to utilize Bureau resources.”

“But my concern is that without Bureau resources, we will not be able to identify the deceased. Without accurate and confirmed identification, there will be little chance of determining where he came from, why he was here, where he was going. That will inhibit determination of—”

“Agent Travis?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Stop talking for a moment, and listen.”

Travis held his tongue. Bishop’s tone had changed ever so slightly.

“Have you stopped for just a second and asked yourself why Section Chief Gale assigned you to this case? Not only to this case specifically, but alone, and as a senior special agent?”

Travis said nothing, knowing that he could very easily answer the question incorrectly. Better not to take the risk.

“You are a good agent, Travis, no doubt about it. You follow the rules, you color inside the lines, and you follow protocol and Bureau procedure to the letter. However, it has to be said that despite all the best advice, all the rules and regulations, no advancement in investigative technique was ever brought about by those who did precisely what they were told and only what they were told. Are you following me?”

“Yes, sir, of course.”

“You recall meeting Mr. Hoover?”

“I do, sir, yes,” In truth, Travis could remember it word for word.

“Something about lacking imagination, remember?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did he mean, Travis? What did the director mean when he said that?”

“I’m sure that—”

“I’ll tell you, Agent Travis. I’ll tell you what he meant. He meant that you possessed potential, that he saw a great future for you, yet such a future would perhaps be inhibited by your routine and predictable approach—”

“But, sir, I—”

“You remember the Scarapetto case, Travis?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We followed your lead on that one, Travis. You stepped outside of your fixed ideas for just a moment, and you found the Jarvis woman. You made a decision in that kitchen that could have resulted… well, let’s just say that it might not have turned out as well as it did. That specific case is one of the reasons you are out there in Seneca Falls, Agent Travis, and that is one of the reasons I will not be able to assist you with federal resources until
you
determine that this is a federal case. If I do not operate in this way, then anyone might as well come along here and utilize federal resources and appropriations to find lost cats and dogs.”

Travis did not reply; he could hear Bishop breathing.

“Are we clear on this, Agent Travis?”

“It’s a test, sir.”

“It’s a murder investigation, Agent Travis.”

“Yes, sir, but from what you’ve said— ”

“I have advised you to use your imagination, Agent Travis. Sometimes, the use of one’s imagination allows for the possibility that you do not communicate everything undertaken in the field to determine the truth.”

Travis opened his mouth to ask another question and then decided against it. He had the message loud and clear. This
was
a test. This was his trial by fire. If he did this, if he actually conducted and concluded this investigation alone, then who knew what he would be offered? It unnerved him a little, but it also excited him.

“So, are we done asking questions, Agent Travis?”

“Yes, sir. We’re done.”

“Good. I am glad to hear that. So, let me tell you what I want from you. I want you to vigorously investigate this homicide. I want you to vigorously investigate the people that were present when this body was found. I want you to submit one final report. I do not want daily situation reports. I do not want interview transcripts. I want you to spend your time as an investigator, not as an office boy. I want you to act alone. I want you to use whatever resources you deem fit to employ, but they cannot include this office, nor the office in Wichita. Expenses will be met by the Bureau, within reason, of course, and we want to see this matter addressed and resolved with the greatest expediency.”

“Yes, sir,” Travis said.

“Good. So, let’s get out there and solve a murder, Agent Travis.”

“Yes, sir.”

The line went dead.

Travis sat there at Danny McCaffrey’s kitchen table with the receiver in his hand. He stood up, replaced it in the cradle on the wall, and then walked to the window. From there he could see out into a small yard behind the hotel.

He knew what was going on now. He smiled to himself. He would have done better to ask no questions at all, but if this was what it had taken to level the playing field, then so be it.

He was being given free rein to run this case as he saw fit. Bishop, as his supervisor, Gale as his section chief, perhaps even the director himself, wanted to see what Michael Travis was capable of when he was let off the leash.

Nevertheless, the forward progress of this investigation was almost exclusively dependent upon the identification of the dead man. It seemed realistic to now move forward on the basis that he was indeed Hungarian, that he did belong to this organization, Fekete Kutya, that he had himself murdered seven people.

Travis went upstairs to his room. He sat on the edge of the bed. He knew that he possessed nothing of any real worth. Doyle and Mironescu had said nothing to either incriminate or absolve themselves, nor Slate, nor Benedek. In fact, the only striking thing about any of their testimony, for want of a better word, was the simple lack of reaction to this situation. These people ran a carnival. The carnival traveled the United States. A dead man had been found beneath a carousel, stabbed in the back of the neck, and there had been no uproar, no drama, nothing. It was almost as if they were taking the whole thing in their collective stride. Maybe that was down to the simple fact that each of them had come from backgrounds where such things as unexplained deaths were really not that noteworthy. There had been talk of Nazis in Ireland, the French Resistance movement, Auschwitz, the Hungarian uprising. It was as if each of these people had come rushing out of some hot cauldron of violence and mayhem, and one more dead body was of no significance at all.

No, there was too little that made sense and too much that confounded Travis for him to pass off their lack of reaction as anything other than complicity or collusion. These people knew
something
, and they were hiding it well.

He had no choice now but to continue his questioning. Oscar Haynes, the human skeleton, was next. Travis was curious to see what he had to say for himself, whether he too hailed out of some terrible past, whether he too was running away from a history of violence and drama.

There was a time for thought, and there was a time for action.

Travis got up and put on his jacket.