"Does this mean you throw me back into the Vltava?"
"Yourfriends would yank you out and put a bullet in your eye."
"Don't worry yourself No one knows I'm here, though they may be curious by now where I went."
"No one is trolling you?"
"No, nothing so crude or well planned."
"Excuse me, but I'm not convinced. You're out of your country, rolling around Eastern Europe like a billiard ball, and no one knows where you are? Sorry. I'm not in the market for a story like that. And you know what? If I don't believe you, we don't have a meeting. You go your way, I go mine. Good-bye, see you in a ditch."
"You want the truth? They don't care who I meet."
"You don't get it, do you?" He closed the briefcase that was beside him on the floor. "I'm only going to give you one more chance. Then I'm gone."
I didn't say anything.
"See, I'm a trusting fellow, but I'm not stupid. Let's say I hand in my notes. First question I'm going to get is, 'What was the SOB doing in Prague if his orders called for him to be in Budapest?' And I'm going to say, 'Wow, good question. It didn't occur to me to ask. I was thinking of hills and girls on their sides.'" He clicked the lock on the briefcase. "Like I said, see you in a ditch."
"Go to hell. I'm only a police inspector. Sometimes they need someone unmarked. They hand me my passport, tell me to go somewhere, see someone, do something. Nothing complicated. I'm like background noise. No one looks twice at me." I glanced at the red eyebrows. "Anyway, as far as they're concerned, I don't know anything that will do anyone like you any good.
Even if you chop off my fingers one at a time, I've got nothing to tell."
"We're not into fingers." He settled back on the couch. "Not this week."
"You asked about Kang. Still interested?"
He gestured toward the table. "Sit down, if you want. You got something to say, I'm listening. I doubt if it's worth a lamb's tit. We'll have to see. If it makes any sense, I'll take out my notebook. Otherwise"-the red eyebrows jumped on his forehead, then settled back into place-"I have a date."