Read The Confession for Free Online Page B

some answers,” said Stefan.
    “Give me a coffee,” I told him.
    “Coffee? Come on, Comrade Inspector.”
    “Palinka,” I said.
    He grabbed a bottle of apricot brandy from the shelf behind him. As he poured, he said, “Well,” then corked the bottle and set it beside my glass. “The nut only came in alone. He was that kind.”
    “What kind?” asked Stefan.
    “A friend of nobody. You know what I mean.” The bartender pushed his eyeglasses up the arch of his nose, then leaned an elbow on the counter. “He came in alone, ordered his drinks quietly, but as he got drunk he ordered them louder, like I couldn’t hear.” He shook his head. “We could all hear him.”
    I picked up my brandy. “So he always came in alone.”
    “Of course he did. No one would spend time with that guy, except maybe Martin. But Martin only did it for the drinks. Martin will do most anything for a drink. Sometimes I get him to clean up the toilet for a drink, and he does a hell of a good job.”
    “But did he ever talk to you?” said Stefan. “About anyone he knew. An Antonín?”
    He put away the second, empty glass. “If he ever did, I wasn’t listening.”
    The brandy was coarse; it burned my tongue. “What about Martin?”
    “What about him?”
    “You said Josef Maneck talked to Martin.” I placed some koronas on the counter, more than the drink cost.
    He looked at the money. “That’s what I said. But I don’t know what they talked about.” He placed his hand over the coins.
    Stefan looked at me, at the drink beside the bartender’s hand, then at the bartender. “Where does this Martin live?”
    He slid the coins off the counter. “That, I can tell you.”
    Around the corner, down an alley, and through a misaligned side door that did not shut all the way. There was a short, dark entryway that led to a curtain of beads missing half its strings. “Martin?” Stefan called through the beads. “You in there, Martin?”
    We heard a horrendous, wrenching cough.
    It was an old storage room, with a couple rusted shelves in the corner. I wondered for an instant how someone could end up in a hole like this, in a time of assigned housing. Then I saw Martin on a thin mattress, his back against the stone wall, trying to light a cigarette, but the matches wouldn’t catch. No paperwork, that’s how you ended up here. Lost, or sold for a drink. From a high barred window enough cold light came through to see the cockroaches scurrying from our entrance. Here, beneath the surface of the Capital, lived the lumpenproletariat—or, as The Spark would put it: the underworld criminals, antisocial shirkers and prostitutes. The place stank of feces.
    We stayed on our side of the room. “Having a rough morning, Martin?”
    Martin’s face was swollen and red-veined. He dropped the matches, then leaned to pick them up again. “You got a light?”
    “We’ve got questions, Martin.”
    I saw on the rusted shelves his only possessions—a pair of lopsided shoes, a frayed jacket, and an empty bottle of rubbing alcohol. I threw my lighter; it landed beside his bare foot. When his eyes focused, he made something like a grin and took it.
    Stefan stepped forward. “Just a few questions.”
    He lit the cigarette and drew on it deeply, his whole body rising, then coughed again, lips wet.
    Stefan squatted to his level. “Remember your friend, Josef Maneck? He talked to you, didn’t he?”
    Martin wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and took another drag. He nodded, maybe in answer to the question.
    “Did Josef tell you about his other friends, Martin? Did he tell you about a friend named Antonín?”
    The lighter was no longer in Martin’s hand. I didn’t know where it was.
    “Surely he told you about Antonín. That’s his oldest friend. Did he talk to you about his friends, Martin?”
    That’s when I noticed the source of the stink. In the corner, behind the shelves, were a few fresh turds. Martin had been too drunk to make it