Belgrade Noir

At the door, the politician started to say something, but the neighbor cut him off. “We will get back to you. We have to tidy up here first.” He wiped the handle of the gun with his handkerchief, dropped the weapon into the politician’s hands, and slammed the door in our faces.

The three of us were left standing in the hall. The politician glanced at the gun in his hand, put his coat on, and waved for us to go.

“They’ll probably go out through the clinic,” Kozma said. “You could still wait them out in the next building.”

“Shut up,” the politician said. “The things we did to avoid my wife and the press, all for nothing. There will always be spies.”

“You’re just the one who got fooled,” I said over my shoulder.

He whacked my ear with the butt of the gun. I moved forward, massaging the sore spot.

The dark limousine was waiting for us in front of the building. The politician motioned for us to get into the back, while he took the passenger seat. The driver looked at once confused and like someone who regularly witnesses these kinds of events. “To the summerhouse, chief?” he asked.

The politician nodded. “Up the riverbank.”

We glided by the buildings on one side and the walkway on the other. I saw a girl stand up from a bench and start walking toward us. My ear was still ringing.

Kozma sighed. “Now we’re done for. And I will never find out why you didn’t marry her.”

“What?” I said. Another girl was running toward us from the direction of the dumpsters on the right.

“I always wondered.”

“You did?” I thought I saw someone standing in the middle of the road in the distance. “What can I tell you? I was afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Arguments. Children. Family life. Everything.”

“And you’re not sorry?”

“Shut up!” the politician snapped, but he didn’t sound very convincing. He suddenly noticed the figure standing in front of the car. As we approached, I recognized Gigi. Girls on our left and right started sprinting toward us.

“What are these crazy bitches doing?” the politician shouted. “Step on it!”

The driver floored it, but a girl on the left managed to get close enough to throw something at the car. A balloon filled with black liquid splashed across the windshield, blocking us from seeing where we were going. The driver panicked and swerved. We crashed into something solid, and the driver and politician were immediately engulfed in airbags. While they were trying to disentangle themselves, the door on Kozma’s side opened. Gigi peered inside.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

Kozma had a cut above his eye. My shins throbbed from hitting the front seat. We both nodded as she helped us out.

Once outside, we watched the politician and his gun fall out of the car, which was bent around a pole. Gigi’s girls played soccer with his weapon while he tried to stand up, his coat failing to conceal his spiked leather underpants. The girls had more balloons with thick black liquid inside them, but they chose to shower the man with flashes from their camera phones instead.

Gigi smiled at the sight, then turned to us. “They’re not allowed to bother you,” she said. “Only we are.”

Two days later, I woke up in the afternoon. I didn’t think sleeping so late would become a habit, but it felt good. My ear and my shins were still pulsing. I’d gotten off easy, I knew.

I continued some of my old habits. I swallowed a handful of pills and read chess books.

I gave up my hobby, though, of trying to figure out the meaning of my asymmetrical ceiling. I stopped studying the history of the place I lived in, and just lived.

I started by going out to buy a newspaper. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done so, but they’d printed some interesting photographs of our friend the politician. Maybe it was like that for him too, the river of sadness running underneath it all, but at least now he had something to be genuinely sad about.

On my way back, I found Kozma in front of the building talking to his former colleagues. They had come to unofficially interrogate him, but this time they did not shout or threaten. The criminal ring that acted as a BDSM cell was broken. Celebrities and people who had something to lose had been coming to the cardiologist and entering the next apartment, thinking they were free to do what they pleased. When the blackmailing started, they’d had no one to turn to for help. The only thing missing from the whole story was the ringleaders. When Kozma’s former colleagues said goodbye, he and I set off to the park.

“Nothing?” I asked.

He shook his head.

They hadn’t found the neighbor or Pandora. With so many people in New Belgrade, they could easily move to another building and no one would know. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d done just that. I knew they’d been hurt by the publishing of the politician’s pictures. I only hoped they hurt like hell.