Men in Space Read Free

fill out if he wished to do so. Did anyone ever appeal? He thought of doing it just to see if they’d go along with it, set up a sham appeals board for him, props, personnel and all, but Helena scotched that idea.
It’s not a game, you know …
But maybe that’s exactly what it was: a game, a rigged game. Nobody ever said that games had to be fun.
    Palmovka. The buildings are more shabby around here. Stalls beside the road sell cigarettes, drinks, lotto cards. Anton walks past a compound from which ventilation shafts rise up. Facing this, there’s a small factory of some sort. The car market’s sunk to the right of the road just beyond this, fifty or so metres before the road rises up into Libeňský Most. From beside the tramlines Anton can see Ilievski standing by the entrance to one of the car dealers’ lots, beneath a string of tinsel flags that sparkle in the sunlight. He’s wearing a thick coat and inspecting a Mercedes. Milachkov’s kicking around behind him. Rambo’s weaving and darting around people’s legs. Ili will be talking car– the only reason he still deals in vehicles. They’re high-risk, low-yield when set against his other ventures, but he just loves being around cars and car people, talking car. He’s got two Mercs in his garage, plus the Skodas, which he lets his men run around in. He’s peering down into the bonnet, poking around with his fingers, as though he were some great physician and the Czech mechanic next to him a gangly junior houseman.
    Anton walks down the stone steps from the road, shakes Mila’s hand and waits for Ilievski to finish. At the back of Ili’s head, the part mirrors won’t show him, his hair, already grey, is thinning out. His back is firm, well padded by the coat. Cashmere, light-brown. He’ll never see himself from that side either: the way he’d look to an assassin, sneaking up behind him. Does it ever occur to him, when he turns his back on everything – lost in contemplation of food, a woman’s body, the combustion engine – that the Russians, or the Yugoslavians, or the Czechs, might have his number? Maybe that’s why Mila’s always with him, standing just behind. But what if the Bulgarians themselves wanted him gone? A hit from inside his own outfit, one of his own men – his children, you could almost say: they’re all in their thirties; he must be fifty-something. Which one would it be, the parricide? Janachkov? Koulin, Milachkov himself? …
    Ilievski pulls his head out from under the Mercedes’ bonnet and turns round. His skin is firm and leathery, grey in the jowls despite being close shaven. Around the eyes and temples are stiff wrinkles that Anton’s always thought of as repositories of some kind of wisdom, or power. The wrinkles intensify as Ilievski catches sight of him and smiles.
    “Hey hey! Anton!” He wipes his right hand on a rag before he takes him by the arm and pulls him towards the car. “Look at this.”
    Tubes, wires, cylinders. What’s he looking for?
    “It’s pretty dirty, I suppose …”
    “What? No, that’s just oil. It’s normal. Look there: the head gasket’s come loose. Pity – the rest of it’s in really good condition. What do you have for me there?”
    He wipes his other hand while Anton opens up his dossier and fishes out the contents. Ilievski flips through the money, passes it to Mila, then shakes Koulin’s envelope.
    “Registration documents?”
    “Passports. And that’s a legal document from Branka.”
    “Good, good. How’s Helena?”
    “OK. Misses her children.”
    “You know my offer’s still open. If ever …”
    “She’s reluctant. To do it that way, I mean. But if she changes …”
    “Sure. Come walk Rambo with me on the island.”
    “Look over there!” says Milachkov. “There’s someone filming.”
    It’s true. A man is walking by the rows of cars some twenty metres away, filming as he goes. He’s young and casually dressed: jeans, jumper, coat, red scarf …
    “So