A police car—a Volkswagen Jetta—came onto the bridge. It pulled up beside the silver Mercedes and a sergeant and the driver got out.
“What’s happened?” the sergeant demanded.
“That man and two others tried to rob Úr Kocian,” Tor said.
“Who are you?”
“Sándor Tor, director of security of the Tages Zeitung,” Sándor said as he reached down and pulled Eric Kocian erect.
“What are you doing?” the sergeant said.
“I’m taking Úr Kocian to the hospital.”
“An ambulance is on the way.”
“I can’t wait. Take that slime to the station and I’ll come there,” Tor said.
He half carried the old man to the Mercedes, hoping the sergeant was not going to give him trouble.
“I’ll meet you at the Szent János Kórház,” the sergeant said.
“Fine,” Tor said.
I’ll worry about that later.
The old man crawled into the backseat. Max got in and jumped on the seat and started to lick his face.
Sándor closed the door and then got behind the wheel.
“Take Max to Dr. Kincs first,” the old man ordered.
“You’re going to the hospital first. I’ll take care of Max.”
“Not one goddamned word of this is to get to Otto Görner, you understand?”
At that moment, Tor had just finished deciding that he would call Görner the moment the doctors started to work on the old man at the Telki Private Hospital.
“I’m not sure I can do that, Úr Kocian. He’ll have to know sometime.”
“I’ll call him as I soon as I can. I’ll tell him I fell down the stairs. Fell over Max and then down the stairs. He’ll believe that.”
“Why can’t I tell him?”
“Because he would immediately get in the way of me getting the bastards who did this to me.”
“You know who they are?”
“I’ve got a pretty good goddamned idea. They know I’ve been nosing around. They want to know how much I know about the oil-for-food outrage. Why do you think they tried to kidnap me?”
“Kidnap you?”
“The sonofabitch who came after me on the bridge had a hypodermic needle.”
“A hypodermic needle?” Tor parroted.
“It’s in my jacket pocket,” the old man said. “When we get to the hospital, take it and find out what it is.”
“They were going to drug you?”