Ultimate Weapon (McClouds & Friends #6)(14)

Hegel would be furious to be kept waiting. Val did not care.

The kitchen was dirty. The dishes in the sink stank. He made a note to scold the agency he paid to send someone to cook and clean for Imre. Lazy cow. It would never occur to Imre, the perfect gentleman with his head in the clouds, to scold the stupid woman for slacking off.

Perhaps she’d been too upset by finding Imre in such a terrible state, but even so. This was accumulated weeks of mess, not days.

He put the kettle on, dumped some cookies onto a plate. The chipped, stained porcelain teapot unleashed a flood of memories.

The first time he’d seen that teapot, or sat at that table was twenty-two years ago. He’d been Vajda then, a tough, slit-eyed twelve-year-old, small for his age, trolling the streets for a trick, a pocket to pick, any way to make his quota for that prick Kustler, and avoid the beating or cutting or cigarette burns that were his punishment if he didn’t. He’d seen the man, shabby clothes flapping on his thin body, staring from across the street. He had an intense look in his deep-set eyes, as if he recognized the boy from somewhere.

Vajda thought he knew what that look meant, so he sauntered over and tried to bum a cigarette. The man had told him sternly that he was too young to smoke, which made Vajda practically choke laughing.

Then the man had invited him up to his apartment, which was a stroke of luck, as it was beginning to snow. Kustler had taken his coat that morning. Vajda hadn’t had a chance to steal a replacement yet.

The apartment had seemed luxurious and rich to him at the time, lined with books, crowded with antique furniture. He’d expected the man to open his pants, tell him to undress. Imre had not done so. He’d just summoned the boy into the kitchen and poured him cup after cup of sweet, milky tea while he soaked bread in egg and fried it in butter. The first food Vajda had eaten that day, perhaps longer. Delicious.

It had disoriented him. He’d told Imre angrily that if he wanted tail, get the f*ck on with it, because he had places to go, things to do.

Imre had beckoned him into the parlor, lit the lamp, sat him down and proceeded to teach him the rudiments of chess. The place was so warm. The snow outside so cold. It was strange. He had stayed.

When he started to nod off, the man gave him a blanket, and let him stretch out on the divan. He’d slept like the dead, and wakened in the morning, confused and scared. Imre sat across from him, staring at him, and Vajda thought then, with a rush of bitterness, Here’s where it starts. He’s just like all the others. He just needs a lot of lead-in time.

But Imre had only dug some money out of his pocket, more or less what Vajda might have earned in a good night. “Up with you,” he said. “You may use the bathroom. There is milk and bread in the kitchen, and then you must go. My first music student will arrive shortly.”

Vajda stared at the money in his hand. “Why…?”

“I don’t want you to suffer when you must account for your time,” Imre said, matter-of-factly. “I enjoyed your company.”

Vajda had pocketed the money, speechless. He inhaled every crumb of food Imre had put on the table and left the place with his belly sloshing with hot milk, pockets bulging with tea biscuits. A warm, worn jacket on his back, sleeves rolled up four times to find his hands.

He’d gone back another wet, cold night. Crept up to the fourth floor, listened outside the door to Imre playing his grand piano while he summoned the courage to knock. Imre had let him in again, fed him again, played Bach inventions for him. He offered the divan, although this time he insisted that the boy take a bath and change into Imre’s own threadbare pajamas. The boy had left a seething nest of fleas and lice the last time he had slept there.

Imre had regretfully explained that he enjoyed the company, but did not have the funds to finance every visit. So Vajda found his own ways to budget time, and crept to his odd haven whenever he dared.

He had barely been able to read, but Imre would have none of that. He was a demanding teacher. History, philosophy, mathematics, languages, Val sucked it all up like a hungry sponge. Besides Hungarian, he already spoke the Romanian of his infancy, and the gutter Italian that he’d learned from Giulietta, his mother’s roommate. Imre taught him more. English, French, Russian. He even tried to teach the boy to play piano, but after some effort, he had to concede that Vajda had no musical talent at all.

As Val grew bigger and vicious enough to intimidate in his own right, when he’d been promoted from picking pockets and selling tail and smuggled cigarettes to heroin dealing, he returned the favor the only way he could—by making it known on the street that anyone who bothered Imre would be gutted like a fish.

Fucking idiot that he’d been. He should have kept his mouth shut.

“Good God, Vajda! Wake up!”

Imre’s indignant voice jerked Val out of his reverie. “Huh?”

He turned to see the old man scowling from the kitchen door, leaning heavily on his cane. “That kettle’s been wailing like a cat in heat for five minutes!” Imre shouted over the din. “Are you drugged? That would explain your chess game, at least!”

“Ah, cazzo.” Val jerked the shrieking kettle off the gas flame.

The familiar ritual of brewing and drinking tea restored a cautious equilibrium between them, but the long silences made Val uneasy.

Finally Imre set down his cup with a decisive click and threaded the tips of his swollen, arthritic fingers together. “Vajda.”