Deadly Pedigree - By Jimmy Fox Page 0,9

Soon, she sprang her daring counteroffer–$100,000. It was her big chance to change her life, perhaps even to leave dreary Poland for good. The price had gone up, dramatically, but Elzbieta would assure the safe arrival of the documents by carrying them personally. Otherwise, who knew what would happen to them? She had worked it all out: her vacation month was coming up. Several phone calls followed. Finally, her veiled threat worked. Surprising the dickens out of Elzbieta, the woman agreed, though not without a certain coldness that characterized their final transatlantic conversation.

Funny thing…she would never give her name, this woman. Just a phone number. Perhaps these weren’t even her people, these Balazars. Maybe she was only a secretary, didn’t want to get involved further than giving telephoned instructions. Elzbieta didn’t care. She just wanted that money.

So many signs, so many unfamiliar names and words.

There! There was her ride: two men standing next to a big car. One man held a piece of cardboard, but she couldn’t quite catch the name on it. The man scanned passing pedestrians, showing his sign quickly only to certain young women, as if it were a dirty photograph.

Her relief turned to wariness. Both men seemed impatient, angry for some reason. Was she the cause of their annoyance? She recalled the nervous young men in the Customs line; each second of delay could have cost them their lives. Everything seemed to be faster over here in America, passing minutes grabbed ravenously. She hoped these men would not be mean to her. Maybe she was later than she thought. What time was it at home? Had she set her watch back too far, failing to account for Daylight Saving Time? She would have to ask them, apologize if so.

These men…she held back. Both of them were big, muscular, handsome, in fact. Good teeth. One was blond, the other was darker, vaguely Siberian looking. Then she remembered there was a lot of aboriginal stock in the population, here in the South. What did they call them–Indians? How can all these people live together in peace? she wondered. Europeans can’t seem to do it. Since New York, black people, especially, had fascinated her. She had seen a few in Virginia, on campus and in town, of course, but now she really noticed them in all their variety of colors and facial constructions and raven hair. What a wonderful country!

But these men scared her. Their eyes were cruel, hunter’s eyes. She remembered that look in the eyes of the worst of Jaruzelski’s security forces, in December of 1981 when martial law was declared. Recently, she had seen the look in the eyes of Russian and Ukranian gangsters in newspapers and magazines and on television. Such eyes looked on horrible things and did not blink.

“My name is Elzbieta,” she said. “You are here for me?”

“Yeah, babe, we’re here for you,” the fair-haired one said, a troubling leer on his face.

He tried to take her briefcase, but she clutched it to her.

“Suit yourself. Get in.” She heard him say something to his darker friend, and she thought it ended with “dumb Polack bitch.”

Surely she had misunderstood.

The car amazed her. The president of Poland himself, the great Walesa, probably didn’t have a car this big or nice. All this comfort, this complexity. It was almost as big as some apartments she’d lived in back home.

She was embarrassed. She knew she did not smell all that great; it was so warm here, and she had been sweating in the heat. She checked her breath. She began to worry about her jaw-length light-brown hair–a disgrace, stiff and lusterless; she had tucked it behind her ears because it refused to do anything else. A bath, a long, luxurious bath in a clean American hotel room! That’s what she most wanted right now. She should be living like a queen, she was going to be so rich!

The dark-featured man drove very fast. He ran red lights. Neither of the two men spoke. They stared straight ahead as the engine roared.

Elzbieta had a guidebook with a foldout map. She prided herself on her map-reading skills. The car was going in the wrong direction. She was certain her reservations were at a hotel downtown.

“We should go that way?” she said, pointing over her shoulder.

No answer. The blond one turned up the radio. Spunky jazz. Elzbieta would have enjoyed it in other circumstances.

“You are mistaking,” she said. Fear made her chin quiver. “I am staying in hotel downtown. That