Shadow Ticket

Pips Quarrender arrives in Budapest. She has changed her appearance, as per her talents as a spy. Hicks confesses to Pip that Egon keeps talking about Bruno Airmont, but Hicks “can’t shake this feeling that he’s up to something else” (174). Pip congratulates Hicks, telling him that Egon is really working to help “a goon squad known as the Ustashe” (174), fascist, Nazi-backed Croatian nationalists who are fighting for independence from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Alf arrives, complaining about the extent to which the Nazis have changed the mood in Vienna. Once a relatively safe haven for all sorts of spies from around the world, the city is now “as dangerous as anyplace in Europe” (175). Alf also talks about the Crossword Café, where a man once left a suicide note scrawled on the bathroom wall in the form of a crossword puzzle. Codebreakers come from far and wide hoping to crack the puzzle. The couple introduces Hicks to a Russian spy with the British codename Vassily Midoff, whose appearance is so forgettable that he is practically invisible since no one can remember that they saw him. The short meeting is brought to an end when Drei Im Weggle arrive on a motorcycle. Vassily insists that there is an invisible fourth passenger on the backseat of the vehicle. The “invisible rider” (177) spooks Vassily, who disappears.

In his office in Budapest, Egon Praediger broods about his latest failure to capture Bruno Airmont as he shovels cocaine into his nose. Praediger is furious that he seems to be consistently foiled by the luck of the “evil moron” (179) who is not worthy of his talents. Outside, Hicks runs into Terike, who offers to show him her motorcycle and demonstrates a particularly Hungarian talent for passing through another person while moving through revolving doors. She shows Hicks her motorcycle, a 500 cc Guzzi Sport 15, on which she demonstrates her impressive talents as a motorcycle courier. Sitting in the motorcycle’s sidecar, Hicks accompanies her on a job, transporting radio valves from a factory for use in an all-female theremin performance at Club Hypotenuse. At the club, Terike talks about her rejection of her bourgeois upbringing amid the recent political upheaval in Hungary. At the bar, Hicks also meets an American journalist named Slide Gearheart, who claims to have information about Daphne Airmont. Hicks arranges to meet with Slide the next day, and at this meeting Slide reveals that, since the breakup of the Klezmopolitans, the whereabouts of Daphne and Hop are “suddenly unknown” (186). Slide also cautions Hicks to stick to English while in Hungary, so that most of the locals will assume him to be an “idiot” (187) who poses no threat. Like others, Slide believes that “the smart money is on war, sometime in the next ten years” (187). Hicks, he warns, should not count on being able to go home any time soon.

A day or two later, Hicks learns from Slide that Daphne has been spotted at the Tropikus club in Budapest. Hicks arrives at the club and sees Daphne perform a solo song. They dance together, and Daphne returns to their midnight speedboat chase, calling Hicks “a key factor in [her] history, like it or not” (191). She also mentions Hop Wingdale and her concerns that it has become “too dangerous” (193) in Europe due to the rise of fascism. She was concerned that Hop cared more about his music than her and that he was constantly afraid of her father coming after them. Unable to ignore the threat of “Bruno’s invisible hand” (195), they parted ways.

After leaving Hop, a grief-stricken Daphne traveled aimlessly across Europe until she eventually settled briefly in Budapest. Though she is worried that she is telling Hicks too much, he assures her that he is interested. He tells her about Rodney and her mother hiring him to bring her back, which seems like “the only way [he will] ever see a payday out of this ticket” (198). Daphne says that she will not return to the United States without Hop; much to his chagrin, Hicks realizes that Daphne wants to send him on an assignment to find Hop, so that he can complete his main assignment to bring her back. As they dance together, Daphne warns Hicks that he should “get clear of this” (202). She cites a phrase by the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, which was hung in the office of the mental health facility from which she escaped. She wonders whether Hicks ever considered that escape may have been the right thing for her, to which Hicks explains his actions by saying, “you were on the run, that was enough” (203). Hicks returns with Daphne to her hotel, where they consummate the relationship that began on the midnight speedboat chase. Daphne explains that she and Hop have a “free and forgiving arrangement” (205); she has frequently come across him with another woman, so she does not feel guilty about having sex with Hicks. Hop is dear to her, she reiterates, and she would do almost anything to keep him safe. Hicks thinks how pleasant it would be to reunite a couple, rather than aid in their divorce.

Hop Wingdale travels across Europe in “a string of peculiar one-night engagements” (207). Stopping in Geneva, he meets with his agent, Nigel Trevelyan, and complains about playing gigs in Nazi clubs and bars. Instead, Nigel floats the idea of the Trans-Trianon 2000 Tour of Hungary Unredeemed, a radical, chaotic motorcycle race that will end in Fiume. He warns Hop that clarinet playing “screams Jewish” (208), but Hop assures Nigel that he can play any instrument in A-flat instead. Then, they move to their real business. As well as Hop’s agent, Nigel is a “bureaucrat working at a Continental scale” (208), an undercover agent who is scouting out escape routes for the Jewish people in Europe as antisemitism and fascism spread across the continent. Hop is helping Nigel to scout the various escape routes, with his music tour a cover for his true mission. The key connection, Nigel says, will be Fiume. Hop boards a bus in the direction of Fiume.

Hicks has a moment of nostalgic homesickness, wishing that he were back in “a country not yet gone fascist” (210). Slide understands but warns that there is always another Central European night to be got through before he can think of returning home. Soon, Terike will be leaving to take part in the Trans-Trianon bike race. Among the 90% male participants, Hicks worries that Ace Lomax may also be taking part. Hicks visits Egon Praediger, who hints that he would pay money to have Bruno Airmont killed. Hicks turns down the offer; he is growing weary of “one high-risk orangutan job after another, always in the service of someone else’s greed or fear” (212). Talking again to Slide, Hicks talks about his current assignment being his last “runaway rich dame” (213) job. Slide is doubtful that Hicks can find redemption in helping Daphne. Slide tells of his own encounter with Bruno, making Hicks wonder why the Al Capone of cheese keeps coming up in his life.

Meanwhile, Daphne meets up with her estranged father in a particularly-depraved nightclub filled with television screens. Bruno describes the screens, on which patrons observe one another at their tables, as “the future of flirtation” (214). Daphne is surprised by her father’s youthful appearance. Europe is filled with doctors who offer new anti-aging treatments, Bruno explains. They listen to music and dance, then go to a screening of the film Bigger Than Yer Stummick, a new film whose chaotic depictions of greed are causing “civic disorder” (219) in the United States. The film’s gluttonous depiction of food is causing many Depression-affected, food deprived viewers to riot. After the film, Bruno makes an offer: he wants to buy the herds of cattle left to Daphne by her grandfather. Daphne suspects that her father is “trying to euchre [her] out of money that’s rightfully [hers]” (223). Bruno warns that mysterious forces are out to get him, forces that he never knew existed.

Slide explains to Hicks that rumors abound of Daphne working her own “counter-scheme” (224) by luring her father into a potentially incestuous affair that she can use to blackmail him. Then, Daphne leaves town, seemingly in search of Hop again. Slide has talked to Heino Zäpfchen, “a much sought-after Judenjäger, or Jew-tracker” (224), who is pursuing Hop, who is booked on the motorcycle circuit. This means that Hop is in danger of coming into touch with the Vladboys, an antisemitic biker gang “desperate for Nazi approval” (225). Slide, now driving an Alfa Romeo convertible, also introduces Hicks to Zdeněk, who claims to be an authentic Czechoslovakian golem and who explains the centuries of Jewish golem law which have been passed down, rabbi to rabbi.