George Burkovec

BRUNO

© Iva Hladká, 2012

© Carpe diem, 2012

www.carpe.cz

Made in Moravia, Czech Republic, EU

Conversion to electronic format: Lukáš Vik

All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval stystem, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the Copyright owner.

First published

ISBN 978-80-87631-33-1 (ePub)

ISBN 978-80-87631-54-6 (Mobi)

1.

“Bruno, it’s a fuck up.”

“Who’s out there?”

“Some psycho and about twenty people.”

Sergeant Bruno Calhan looked out towards the small building that belonged to the company A and B. “How many of you are there?”

“About thirty. All of mine and some from the eighth precinct.”

“What does he want?”

“We don’t know.” John Mulmo, head of the assault unit, shrugged his shoulders. “As soon as somebody tries to get in there he shouts like crazy.”

“That’s probably what he is,” muttered Bruno. “What about the back entrance?”

“We tried it, but as soon as he found out he screamed he’d blow everything up. We had to move back.”

“Does anybody know him?”

“Some guy who hangs around here. He say’s he’s Bill Zatre, a neighbour.”

“Yeah? Bruno raised the corner of his lip. He saw him there?”

“He recognised him by his voice.”

“John, send him round here. Thanks.”

“Sure,” replied the cop and went off to one of the parked police cars.

Bruno meanwhile took off his bullet proof vest, checked his revolver and then turned round to the small man being brought up to him by one of the policemen. “You know this nut?”

“Sure, chief, that’s old Bill, everybody knows him round here.”

“What’s his problem?”

“He’s a great guy,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t know why he’s gone crazy.”

“How old is he?”

“I know that one, chief. Fifty-five. He celebrated his birthday not long ago.”

“I thought you said old?” Bruno said ironically.

“Everybody calls him that.”

“What about his family, does he have any?”

“Yeah, three kids and some grandchildren.”

“So a real great guy?”

“You bet your life. I’ve known him more than twenty years.”

“So it seems!”

The man shrugged his shoulders again. “I guess he must a flipped?, otherwise I can’t understand it.”

“Fine, that’s enough, thanks.” He turned from the man in the direction of the building and then to commander Mulma. “John, I’m gonna take a walk up to the entrance and don’t let anybody open fire, understand!?”

“But Bruno!”

“I asked you if you understood!” he said, narrowing his eyes

“Okay,” sighed the commander, shaking his head. “As always. You’re the biggest nutcase I ever met.”

“So no fireworks. And I’m taking this.” Bruno snatched the megaphone. “Nobody’s gonna lift a finger. Guarantee me that!”

He looked once more at the older cop and set off towards the building. After a few steps he lifted the megaphone to his mouth.

“Hey, Bill,” he shouted. “What’s up with you? It’s not worth it, you looking out for a stretch or what?” He kept walking towards the main entrance, talking as he went. “Do the right thing, let me inside and I promise you that we’ll go for dinner together. And the bill’s on me. So what do you say?”

“Don’t move!” Cried a voice from one of the building’s windows.

Bruno stopped. “Bill!?”

“That’s enough! I said that’s enough”. The man’s tortured voice could be heard through the silent street. “Otherwise I’ll blow the thing sky high.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Bill,” Bruno answered calmly. “You couldn’t do that if you tried. Yeah, and another thing, you haven’t got the guts. And you know why?”

Every word could be heard in the tense street. “Because,” went on Bruno, “you’ve got a family and your family would never forgive you if you did something like that. So, what do you say, are we going for dinner, or are we gonna stand here and make each other mad?”

This time nobody answered.

Bruno took another step, holding the megaphone all the time against his mouth. “You let me inside now and I’ll take you down with me to the car and we’ll go get ourselves a meal.” He paused deliberately. “You know what, Bill? I am so hungry I’m most likely gonna have myself a steak. You gonna have one too? At Havran’s they make ‘em over an inch thick, with roast potatoes.”

He’d finally made it to the door. He leaned against them and, surprised to find they weren’t locked, went inside. The view that greeted him was like something from a dumb show. In the room Bill Zatre sat on the floor by the back entrance. He held his head in his hands sobbing quietly. Next to him lay two Molotov cocktails.

Bruno switched his glance to several people who obviously were at a loss to know what to do. Just a few moments before they had been in terror that this wretched man would blow them up and now it was as if time had stopped and they were waiting for what would come next. Nobody said a word.

Bruno went up to the seated man and took him gently by the arm. “Let’s go, Bill, come on.” He helped him onto his feet. “Yeah, and we’ll have a beer as well. They got ginger beer. It leaves you with a peach of a hangover.” Then, in front of everybody, he led him out to his car, started the engine without a word to anyone, and drove out of the closed street.

“How you feeling?”

The man realised for the first time that he was sitting in the car next to the cop. “Why’d you do it?” he asked without looking at Bruno.

“I thought we’d be on friendly terms.”

He was silent for a while. “I don’t know you.”

“That doesn’t matter anymore. Call me Bruno.”

“Bruno?,” the man repeated quietly.

“Yeah, Bruno.”

“That’s not a Canadian name?”

“It sure isn’t. My mum was Italian and my Dad came from somewhere in Czechoslovakia. They met in Prague in sixty-eight. That’s where I was born. My Dad wanted for me to be called Josef but my mum stuck on Bruno. Like every woman. You interested?” He looked at the man beside him.

“You saved my life.”

“Hey, Bill,” Bruno lowered his voice, “you saved your own life by not going crazy and doing something stupid. Because as I know the assault squad they’d fill you with more holes than a sieve. That’s what saved your life. I had a dinner date and you went and screwed that up by getting those guys to call me out to that building. I was pissed off with you and I wanted the thing over with. That’s all.”

The man looked in front of him at the wind screen, before saying quietly,

“I’m sorry.”

“Forget it,” Bruno widened his lips and tapped his fingers on the wheel. “Let’s go to Havran, get ourselves something good to eat and then you can tell me what really happened. Maybe we’ll do something about it.”

“How much am I gonna get for this?” the man asked, his voice still little more than a whisper.

“If nobody from the crowd that was with you decides to sue you we should be able to quieten everything down. Maybe just a fine.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know,” said Bruno and he flicked the right indicator. He drove slowly down into the full parking lot, where he stopped. He turned off the engine and opened the doors. “It’s always full here, but Lisa’ll find us somewhere to sit. She’s great.”

The man didn’t answer.

“What’s up. Something not right?”

The man shook his head. “I don’t understand why you’re doing all this?”

“Me neither,” said Bruno, throwing up his arms. “I’m hungry and so maybe I’m acting stupid. I wanna make the most of your company. Yeah, and don’t be so formal, for fuck’s sake!” He slammed the door and set off towards the restaurant entrance. The man followed him.

When they both entered the packed local Bruno pointed out a woman past her youth who was moving frantically behind the bar. “That’s Lisa.” The man looked at the woman. “Lover?”

“Bill,” said Bruno, smiling. “That’s the most faithful woman in the world. Her old man is a truck driver and she has him home once a month. And yet she’ll be faithful to him to the grave.”

“I’ve got one like that at home as well,” said the man, and for the first time he smiled a little.

“Yeah?” Bruno looked at him. “I envy you, because mine is like a tornado. When it comes over her she destroys everything that gets in her way. But it’s true that I sometimes deserve it. As if she knew about it.”

“Bruuuno!” He was interrupted by a loud female voice that rose above everybody else in the local.

“You just been on the television, you bastard! What are you doing here?” The smiling Lisa made her way towards him between the tables. “Bruno, you bastard, I’d rather kiss you than any of the others?” She threw herself at him, hugging his wide shoulders. “You bum, what did you go and do again that they’re all talking about you. The whole bar was watching it.”

“Me?” he hugged Lisa back.

“I can still recognise one of the best-looking cops in our district. Or maybe you think I’m so old I can’t see!”

“Lisa, no way. You’re as young and pretty as ever.”

“Look at him,” she pushed Bruno away. “He’s still trying to make up to me, the idiot. And here we were shitting ourselves over whether he’d make it or not.”

“I’ll tell you all about it, Lisa, but first I’m starving. Couldn’t you find us somewhere to sit?”

“Beautiful Bruno?” The waitress put her hands on her hips. “Wherever you like.” She looked around the room and pointed at a table with a reserved sign. “As if someone had prepared it for you. As long as you don’t mind that it’s a little out of the way.”

“It’s perfect.” He took Lisa by the arm and walked across with her to the table. “Bring us the biggest steaks you got. My and my friend here are real hungry.”

“For you Bruno, anything.” The waitress brushed some things from the table and placed over it a new tablecloth which she had gotten from the kitchen. Then she put two beers in front of them and the third, which she had on a tray, she raised to the room in general. “To Bruno,” she said loudly and brought the bottle to her lips. Some of the guests turned to their table and raised their beer glasses.

“Do they always greet you like that?” asked Bill when Lisa had left. “That’s Lisa’s work. She’s proud of her customers.” He put the bottle on the table and wiped his lips. “And what about you? You said you had a good wife but then you went crazy. Why?”

Bill lowered his head a little before raising it again to look around the packed room. His eyes stopped on Bruno’s face. “You wouldn’t understand if I told you. A guy my age pulls a stunt that would make a twenty year old punk feel ashamed.”

“Try me.” Bruno didn’t shift his gaze. “I have my bad turns too. And if I hadn’t become a cop, who knows?”

“You’re still young. How old are you, twenty-five, twenty-seven?”

“Twenty-nine,” said Bruno.

Bill took a drink before speaking again. “Either you’re really that good or I don’t get something here.”

“I don’t want to destroy your illusions,” said Bruno, also sipping his beer, “but I’m not that good. People like to make out they’re better than they are.”

“You think so. What about today’s experience?”

“I was hungry. That’s all there is to it.”

“But they called for you. And don’t tell me they just wanted you to make up the numbers ‘cos they were crawling around like flies.”

Bill leaned against his chair. “They always call someone from our group. We’ve been specially trained. I was the nearest.”

“Maybe,” Bill’s eyes were shining. “But you’re real good.”

“Are you bullshitting, Bill?”

“You’re a pro.”

“I’m paid to do it.”

“And I went and insulted you when I asked how old you were. I’m an asshole.” Bill shook his head.

“If you were an asshole I wouldn’t be sitting here with you. Anyway you’re right. I am a lot younger.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I only wanted to say that you’d probably find it difficult to understand a guy who’s nearing sixty and suddenly finds his world turned upside down.”

Bruno said nothing and so Bill went on.

“It all happened a year ago. I had a job earning good money, a great wife and beautiful grandchildren. What could a guy my age want more? I even had good health. And yet it came to what you saw today. I fucked up everything I touched.”

“Why,?” asked Bruno.

Bill pursed his lips. “I’m old,” he sighed quietly.

“You’re kidding yourself.”

“No!” He looked Bruno hard in the eyes. “That’s what they said to me when they sacked me.”

“They threw you out of your job?”

“After twenty-five years.”

Bruno checked himself. “How did they explain it to you?”

“They didn’t. They sent me a letter, and that was the end of it. Apparently they got no need for me any more. After twenty-five years. If you want me to translate what they said it was “old and decrepit.”

“Where did you work?”

“The same place you found me today.”

“In A and B?”

The man nodded.

Bruno was about to ask another question when he caught sight of Lisa with a full tray of food. So all he said was “Just a moment” and turned towards the woman who was already at their table. “Lisa, I love you so much.” He looked at the plates. “They must weigh at least a pound each.”

“Cut it out, Bruno.” Lisa put the plates down on the table. “You know very well I make ‘em like that for whenever you show up. I wouldn’t let you starve, you know that.” She leaned against his shoulder. “And who’s your good-looking friend?” she said, nodding at Bill.

“That’s Bill, a friend of mine I haven’t seen for many years. Just imagine I met him today in Sears. He was buying something and looked straight past me.”

“You?” screeched Lisa. “Nobody looks past you.”

“Exactly,” smiled Bruno. “But he did.”

“You must have been real deep in thought if you didn’t see Bruno.” She laid the full plate in front of Bill.

“I wanted to avoid him but he wouldn’t let me,” said Bill, entering into Bruno’s game. “I was worried unless I might not make it back home today. And it looks as if I was right.”

Lisa ran her hands through Bruno’s hair. “It’s a shame you only make time for your friends.”

“Lisa,” Bruno squeezed her waist. “You know you wouldn’t go behind Frank’s back.”

“Yuhyuh,” she sighed. “I’m a perfect idiot. So, enjoy your food.” She took the empty beer bottles and disappeared into the kitchen.

Bruno picked up the knife and pointed it at Bill. “Not bad. It’s obvious you’re coming round.”

“You started me on it.”

“Yeah, maybe. Lisa asks a lot of questions. She doesn’t know you.”

Bill cut up the meat. “It’s good. I feel such a jerk.”

“Forget about it.” Bruno wiped the knife and fork on the serviette. “People have short memories.”

Table of Contents

1.