Budapest Noir Read Online Free PDF

either.”
    Krisztina shook her head, looked toward the stage, and then took a sip of her wine.
    “An English publisher saw your work on the Berlin Olympics,” said Gordon, lighting another cigarette, “and decided that it’s you they want in their design department.”
    “Exactly.”
    “Good. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to sound sarcastic, nor do I want to seem like a boor. But would you explain to me why a publisher that does not publish illustrated books and that uses the same sort of cover design for each of its books—white in the middle, with only a different border—needs a graphic designer?”
    “So you know Penguin?”
    “I do.”
    “Then you should know that not every cover of theirs is quite the same. Besides, I’d design other things for them, too.”
    “Sounds good.”
    “And I’d go only for a year.”
    “How can you be so sure?”
    “In case you don’t recall, a couple of weeks ago I was asked to design the materials for the International Eucharistic Congress. Well, some of the materials.”
    “That’s a year and a half from now.”
    “I know. That’s why I’d come back after a year. And as long as we’re on the subject, you could come join me.”
    “In London.”
    “Right.”
    “I can’t go, Krisztina, and you know this full well. Because of Opa.”
    “I know. So what do you say? Should I go?”
    “If it’s important to you.”
    “Is it important to you that I stay?” asked Krisztina.
    “It’s important to you that you go,” replied Gordon.
    I t was already past nine by the time they left the club. Krisztina hadn’t enjoyed the main act in the least, whereas Gordon had listened to the two American girls with rapture, pleased with their performance and their white smiles and sizable wigs, as they jumped about in their fishnet stockings.
    “So go ahead and show me where it happened,” said Krisztina, pulling her coat tighter.
    “Where what happened?”
    “The dead girl. Where they found her.”
    “On Nagy Diófa Street.”
    “I know,” said Krisztina. And she headed toward Blaha Lujza Square.
    “Now where are you off to?” Gordon called after her.
    “Nagy Diófa Street,” she replied. “I’ll ask someone which doorway the body was found in.”
    Gordon sighed deeply, flicked his half-smoked cigarette onto the road, and went after her.
    “What was she wearing?” asked Krisztina when he caught up. Gordon conjured up the image and told her. “Her nails? Her hands?” Gordon said the girl’s nails were manicured. “Her hair, was it greasy? I mean, unkempt? Colored?” No, Gordon shook his head. Krisztina pressed on with her questioning, and Gordon patiently answered when he could. “What is it you noticed, after all?” she asked, looking at the corner of Wesselényi Street and Erzsébet Boulevard. “You would have made one rotten detective.”
    Gordon didn’t say another word until they reached Nagy Diófa Street. He turned and stopped in front of the second building on the right. “This is where they found her.” A window was thrown open above them: “Manci! Get yourself up here this instant!” came a drunken shout.
    “And aren’t you curious even now about what a Jewish streetwalker would have been doing here?” Krisztina fixed her eyes on Gordon. “And as long as we’re on the subject, have you ever seen a Jewish prostitute? If you want my opinion, the question is not how she died, but how a Jewish girl—probably from a respectable, bourgeois family—ended up becoming a prostitute in the first place.”

Three
    I n the morning Gordon got out of bed quietly while Krisztina was still asleep. He shaved carefully, then went to the closet for a clean shirt, taking care not to step on the creakier part of the parquet floor. In the kitchen, he pulled out a chair from under the table and sat down. He took out the jar of jam Krisztina had cleverly hidden in her purse, removed the cellophane, and dipped in a teaspoon. He’d expected worse.