SNAP: The World Unfolds

CHAPTER THIRTY

I didn’t get the Baron’s private plane.  Since I was a regular, it didn’t matter if I flew commercial and during the day.   The Baron and SNAP were sufficiently classy to book me on first class, though. 

One of the demons would drive me to Budapest.  I’d fly through Paris and stop in New York.  The Baron wanted me to spend a few days in the New York office to meet some of the staff I’d only conferenced with.  He wanted me to assess them for possible promotion and relocation to Poland or Ukraine, two of the posts in had in mind for the “little Huszar adventure”.

Jean-Louis came to say good-bye before dawn.  He looked excited and his eyes glimmered with anticipation.  I looked wrung out and so stressed I had pouches on top of purple circles under my eyes.  Even a quick dose of make-up and concealer had little effect.  I consoled myself that the trip from Paris would give me a chance to stretch out and sleep.

“I’m so happy that you had a chance to talk with Carola and Pen,” he reached for my hand.  “Thank you for listening and agreeing to help us neutralize the Huszars.”

Then he stepped closer and ran his hand through my hair.  “And thank you for being so lovely and so understanding.  I didn’t think I’d ever find a combination of beauty and brains again.  After Magda...”

“Carola told me about Magda last night.  I’m so sorry.” I tried to contain the quaver in my voice.  I didn’t want to hear about his old love and sure didn’t want any comparison.  “I hope you’ll stay in touch and keep me in the loop about the, what did Pen call it last night?  contretemps?” 

“I will talk with you as often as I can.”

Sandor appeared then to give the driver last minute instructions in Hungarian.  I was sure he was telling the demon not to stop for anything, keep all the doors locked and not to talk to me.  When I looked at Jean-Louis, he grinned.  “He’s only telling the driver to make sure he escorts you to the gate.  Nothing sinister, I promise.”

As I walked down the steps of the castle to the car, the Baron joined Jean-Louis to send me off.

“Stay safe, my dear,” he said.  “We’ll make sure we stay in touch.”

The heavy Mercedes pulled away and I watched Jean-Louis wave again then turn and head into the castle.  Was this just one more of the dreams?   Would I wake up suddenly in Paris or New York or my own bed in LA and discover that this was my own making?  Even if it were real, would I ever see Jean-Louis again?  He and the Baron were cavalier about their “little Huszar adventure,” but how dangerous was it really?  The Kandesky family looked to be well-ordered and the demons were loyal.  From what I’d seen so far, they’d had no trouble handling any of the Huszar’s attackers, but I was sure these had only been small sorties, early skirmishes to test the resolve and defenses of the Kandeskys.  If they couldn’t pull together a coup, it might mean war, and that could get a lot of people—vampires, demons and others—hurt or dead.

The trip to Budapest in the daylight showed Hungary at its best.  Rolling hills, cultivated fields, acres of grape vines interspersed with stands of forest.  It looked peaceful and fertile and I could see why this land had been the crossroads of invasions over the centuries.

We made it to the airport with just enough time to check in.  As instructed, the demon walked me to the gate and gave me a small head bow as I entered the jetway.  The trip to Paris was short and when I changed planes for the New York leg I snuggled into a seat that almost became a bed.  After breakfast, the attendant offered blankets and a sleep mask. I managed to sleep for a few hours and was met by a town car at Kennedy.

I must have been rummy because it wasn’t until the car pulled up to a building in the west Sixties and the driver got out that I realized he was a demon, black suit and all.

“I’ve been instructed to escort you to the apartment and check it before I can let you in.”  His voice was low in his throat.   Not an order, not conversation, just a statement.  So I stood in the hall with my luggage and let the demon look for demons, or whatever the Huszars may have sent to New York.

It checked out to his satisfaction and he led me inside, putting my luggage in a master bedroom.  “We have a housekeeping service and I’ll wait until the maid gets here.”  He took a straight chair into the foyer and sat.

After hours of travel I felt dirty and tired so I grabbed some underwear and headed for a shower.  I came out, toweling my hair, and found a woman going through my luggage.

“I’m Elana, the housekeeper,” she introduced herself.  She had a slight accent I pegged as Hungarian until she said, “The management at SNAP hired me to staff the apartment.  I was just out marketing when I got a call you were arriving.  Did you come from Bulgaria?  That’s where I’m from.”

“No, I’ve been in Hungary.  I just came in from Budapest.” 

Months ago when I‘d left LA—at least it felt like months—I’d packed a pair of jeans and a couple of tees.  I ‘d only worn them on my stroll to the river and now it was good, and solid, and familiar to pull them on in New York.

I gave myself a few minutes to survey the apartment before I checked in with SNAP/NY.  It was a twelve-room unit in prewar building with tall ceilings, three fireplaces, a balcony and a terrace.  The dining room would seat twenty and the maid’s quarters were a suite with a sitting room.

“Does any one live here?” I asked Elena.

“Only me.”  She was working in the kitchen and something smelled good.  “The Baron is here sometimes, and we have other SNAP people come through, like you.”

Typical of the Baron to have a pied-a-terre of only a dozen rooms off Park Avenue in New York. I was learning fast that he and the Kandesky family didn’t stint themselves on any creature comforts.  Of course, they’d had centuries to amass money and belongings and real estate and hadn’t ever had to worry about death duties.  It was a lot easier to hang on to wealth that way.

One of the rooms was an office, already connected to the SNAP network.  I logged on and got inundated by several hundred emails.  I wasn’t going to read them all, so I deleted everything before today. If Jazz or somebody else hadn’t dealt with the problems, they’d get in touch with me eventually.  I’d managed to skim most of them and reply to a few when Elena knocked softly on the door and announced dinner. 

The food gave me enough of a boost that I was able to have conversations with the New York editors and set up meetings for the next day.  I’d only been gone just under a week, and seen most of the SNAP shows, so I was current on the celeb news and gave myself permission to take a sleeping pill and be out for twelve hours.

SNAP’s New York office was secondary to LA’s.  Since the magazine, and then the TV shows, were spawned by movie coverage, they were produced in the Los Angles area and got feeds from everywhere else.  In fact, we didn’t cover a lot of New York society or celebs unless they had some entertainment connection or were just too big to completely ignore.  This meant that most of the East Coast people were safe from our paparazzi and freelancers.  It even meant politicians were out of the celeb loop, at least until they got caught with their pants down.