Gaspar looked relieved. ‘OK, cevapcici, ten.’
Goran looked at Fat Vik, who asked for the same and then at Marika. She looked down at the table, momentarily embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what that is.’
‘Like mini-sausages, you’ll love them,’ said Goran, kindly. ‘If you don’t, we’ll make you something else and these two will eat them.’
At that moment an elderly man walked out and into the main dining area. Dr Gyorgy Lorand was stooped with thick grey hair and old-fashioned square glasses. His white coat was smeared with blood. ‘Your friend is very lucky. He has severe bruising to his cheekbone but somehow it’s not fractured. He tells me he turned away at the moment of impact. Impressive timing. I’ve stitched up the cut, so it should stop bleeding. But he does have a mild concussion. If you have his best interests at heart, he should be in hospital under observation,’ he said pointedly, looking at Goran.
‘What does Memed say?’ asked Goran.
‘No hospital.’
‘Can you look after him, Doctor?’
He nodded. ‘I suppose so. I’ve patched up much worse. Someone needs to check on him every hour. If he worsens, becomes unconscious, vomits or stops making sense, that could mean a brain injury, so no more arguments. Hospital. Agreed? I will be back tomorrow. But you must call an ambulance if he deteriorates. I have your word on that?’
‘Agreed,’ said Goran. He reached inside his trousers for his wallet.
The doctor shook his head wearily. ‘Not now. We’ll settle up later.’ He gave Goran a pointed look. ‘Check on him every hour. Call me if you need me.’
The three of them watched the doctor leave. Marika looked at Fat Vik questioningly, then at Gaspar. ‘Do I have to go back out tonight?’
Gaspar shook his head, his jowls wobbling. ‘No, no, not tonight. Take a couple of days off.’
He reached inside his tracksuit trouser pocket and pulled out a Louis Vuitton wallet with a thick wad of 10,000 and 20,000-forint notes inside. He peeled off several, and handed them to Marika. ‘Here’s 100,000. Go home once you have eaten and buy yourself something nice. Send some to your parents. I’ll call you in a day or two.’
Marika looked at the money, her eyes wide with amazement.
Gaspar turned to Goran, his voice apologetic. ‘Sorry, brat. I lost it a bit earlier. But how are we going to find him? And then we have to rescue him.’
Goran said, ‘Don’t worry. I have a plan.’
The door opened. The three men and Marika turned to see who was coming in.
Goran said, ‘And here they are.’
THIRTY-FIVE
Grand Boulevard, 8.50 p.m.
‘It’s jammed solid from here, boss,’ said the Mercedes driver, glancing at the Waze map on his mobile. The screen showed a thick red line from the Grand Boulevard to Nyugati Station and beyond. ‘I’m going to make a sharp left at Wesselenyi, cut across the tramlines, cut through the seventh district, then zip along the embankment to the Arpad Bridge, then cross the river there.’
The tall gunman grunted a yes. ‘Just get us there as quickly as you can.’
Balthazar silently absorbed this information. Wherever they were headed, they were already making slow progress, inching along the Grand Boulevard in heavy traffic. The car turned onto Wesselenyi Street and moved slowly into District VII.
Doubtless their ultimate destination was a fancy villa in the Buda hills, where most of the city’s rich elite – legitimate or otherwise – lived. But this was potentially good news if they were going through his neighbourhood. Now that Memed was out of the picture Balthazar had no intentions of going anywhere for a ‘guided discussion’.
He knew every inch of his own part of town: the narrow alleyways that cut between the streets, the hidden courtyards and desolate open spaces waiting to be redeveloped. It would be much easier to lose them there, amid the crowded bars and ruin pubs than in the sparsely populated far suburbs.
Wesselenyi Street was one of the district’s main arteries, but this part was a narrow, one-way thoroughfare that ended at the Great Synagogue where it met Dohany Street. Cars were parked nose to tail on the left-hand side and at ninety degrees to the pavement on the right.
He needed some space for his plan to work – and a decent speed. The Mercedes drove past the artisan bakeries, hipster bars, bicycle repair shops and cafés, slowing to cross Klauzal Street. Balthazar shut his eyes for a moment, tried to ignore the pain in his side and his front. His flat was just a minute or two’s drive away, but was far out of reach.
The gunmen had strapped him in with a seatbelt – which suited him perfectly. Neither of them had used theirs.
After Klauzal Street the road widened and the Mercedes speeded up as it headed towards Dohany Street. He glanced at the speedometer – the road was clear and the car was touching forty kilometres an hour – then glanced again at the headrest. It was an old-fashioned restraint, with the pad mounted on two thin metal poles.
He looked outside. The pavements were deserted.
Now.
He leaned back into the car seat and braced himself. The two men on either side sensed his movement and looked to see what he was doing.
Balthazar quickly pulled both legs up to his chest, then kicked forward as hard and fast as he could, lifting his hips and slamming the balls of his feet into the back of the headrest.
It snapped clean off, smashing into the back of the driver’s head.
The driver instantly lost control of the car, which began to spin. He lurched forward, then backwards, grabbing at the steering wheel as the car skidded across the road. The gunmen on either side of Balthazar flailed wildly trying to hold onto something to stabilise themselves.
Balthazar leaned back again and shot his legs forward once more.
This time he made solid contact with the back of the driver’s head. He flew forward, slamming his forehead into the steering wheel, knocking himself out.
The front airbag exploded with a loud bang.
The car spun around, hitting a bollard, then careered in the opposite direction. The G-force pushed Balthazar first into the tall gunman, then the wiry one.
The Mercedes smashed sideways into a parked white Dacia SUV, bounced off, shattering the passenger windows on his right side, showering Balthazar and the others with broken glass. The Mercedes finally stopped moving and the Dacia’s alarm started howling.
Balthazar felt sick and dizzy from the impacts. Unlike the driver and the two gunmen, he had known what was coming and had braced himself. But knowledge was still not adequate protection against the G-forces that had slammed him back and forth and shaken his brain as the Mercedes impacted.
He blinked for a moment, trying to focus. He gasped as a sharp pain shot down one side of his back, as though someone had stuck a needle into the muscle and was gouging it back and forth. Something was pulled, even torn, but he ignored the pain and forced himself to move.
Both of the gunmen were half dazed, trying to understand what was happening. They had been thrown forward against the front seats with the first impact, then sideways against the car windows as the car spun. The car had no rear airbags, but Balthazar’s seat belt had locked and somehow the gunmen’s bodies had also cushioned him from the impacts.
He lifted his right foot and ignored the knife of pain cutting through his back.
He slammed his heel edge down as hard as he could onto the arch of the tall gunman’s left foot, through his leather boot.
The gunman gasped in agony, letting rip a stream of abuse. While he was swearing, Balthazar delivered the same strike to the other gunman’s right foot with his left leg. He was wearing training shoes and Balthazar felt the bones of his foot move as his heel impacted.
Balthazar threw his arms forward, rubbed the duct tape around his wrists back and forth against the jagged glass in the door frame where the window had shattered, felt it tear, then sat back and drove his arms back on either side of his ribcage. The duct tape tore slightly but his hands remained bound.
The tall gunman tried to punch him in the head but, jammed against the door frame on one side and Balthazar on the other, he could not get proper leverage for his fist.
Balthazar ignored the glancing blow. He quickly extended his arms forward again, slammed his elbows back again in the car seat. This time the duct tape tore with a loud ripping sound.
His arms free now, Balthazar undid his seat belt. He turned leftwards on his hip to make space then smashed his right elbow into the side of the tall gunman’s face, then moved rightwards and slammed his left elbow into the other gunman’s cheek. Had he been standing, the blows would likely have fractured their cheekbones and knocked them out. Jammed between the two men he could not deliver the proper force, but still both lurched back from the blow, grunting in pain.
