Dead Man's Tale (10 page)

Then a remarkable thing happened. Through the pain in his body, through the tears of self-pity in his eyes, Gerhard Mueller became aware of the fury and contempt draining rapidly from the face above him. With wonder he saw her lips go slack, part, show the tip of her tongue; he saw her eyes half-close in a sort of agony and then distend in naked animal expectancy. To his astonishment the weight upon him vanished, Theresa vanished. He heard vaguely a ripping sound, as of a garment being torn away. Then she was upon him once more, with her lips, her hands, with everything.

It was the best night Mueller had ever had with her. It made him feel like a young lion.

He fell asleep as if she had clubbed him, not knowing that Theresa lay awake by his side for a long time—staring with hatred into the darkness, savouring again the taste of her hand against his shrinking face, the crunching, bloody impact of the blow she had struck at all the men, the sly, beastly, snorting, snivelling, corrupt and corrupting men to whom she had had to give her body during and since the occupation.

Later, when Theresa fell asleep, Mueller began to toss. He dreamed that he went to Loringhoven's room at the Astoria and demanded his money and Loringhoven tried to throw him out. They fought, he subdued Loringhoven as easily as Theresa had subdued him, and he took the money. Not the money Loringhoven had promised him, but a whole suitcase of crisp new hundred-schilling notes.

Mueller awoke just before dawn. Theresa lay curled in a huge foetal ball, moaning.

He knew that he would have to go to Dieter Loringhoven after breakfast.

When the intermission lights went up in the Kursaal in Lucerne, Heinz Kemka noticed the Americans. One of them was a woman, a little on the attractive side.

The same afternoon, in Zum Wilden Mann, over a steaming crock of fondue, he had overheard them talking to Trudy. He hadn't heard much, but Milo Hacha's name had been mentioned, and the name Longacre, Trudy's fly-by-night American lover. Although Trudy had since made overtures towards a reconciliation, Kemka was still smarting with jealousy. It would take her a long time to get back into his good graces. Besides, if these new Americans wished to find Longacre, and if Trudy did not want them to, and if in the same breath Milo Hacha's name had been mentioned …

Hadn't Trudy told him quite a lot about Milo Hacha?

Heinz Kemka smiled and sat down at the Americans' table.

“You liked the concert?”

“I loved it, Herr—?” the woman said.

“Kemka,” Kemka said.

“Of course. How stupid of me. My name is Estelle Street and this is Mr. Goody.”

“Hi-ya,” Mr. Goody said in a bored voice.

“I hope you won't think this presumptuous of me, Madame—”

“Not at all. We're delighted to have you at our table.”

“You see, I was lunching at Zum Wilden Mann this afternoon.”

“A really splendid restaurant. You Swiss certainly do things with food.”

“… And I couldn't help overhearing your conversation with Fräulein Ohlendorf.”

The woman named Estelle Street suddenly seemed interested. “Yes, Herr Kemka?”

“Like Milo Hacha, I am a Czech. I believe I know where you can find him.”

“Did you know Herr Hacha?”

“Let us say I know of him. Are you interested?”

“Yes. Of course we are. You see—” Estelle Street licked her lips and Kemka knew she was going to lie.

“Please. Don't trouble yourself telling me why.”

“Well, that's fair enough,” Estelle Street said.

“Good. Milo Hacha is employed by Cosmic Tours in Austria. Their main office, I believe, is in Vienna.”

Estelle Street smiled. Even Mr. Goody looked almost happy. “Let me buy you a drink,” the woman said.

“You are most kind, Madame.”

Somehow that helped clean the slate. Already he felt much better. In a day or two he might even condescend to take Trudy back.

“Man, I could really go for a shore dinner,” Mr. Goody said. Heinz Kemka wondered what a shore dinner was. But he smiled just the same.

14

How? How could it have gone wrong?

At least, Loringhoven told himself, Mueller had called from the lobby; that was something. It gave him a few moments to compose himself.

What if Mueller had barged right in? Mueller, who was supposed to be dead? He was not so foolish that he wouldn't have read the truth in the surprised look on Dieter Loringhoven's face, and then what?

Not that it had all gone wrong. The important thing was Hacha, and in that Dieter Loringhoven had not failed. Hacha was in Czechoslovakia, a lamb with dreams of glory. That was the important thing.

But Loringhoven's instructions had also called for the death of Hacha's guide. And the guide, very much alive, was now coming to claim his fee.

Dieter Loringhoven frowned. He was a small, slender man, and at first glance one would think the Slavic blood of eastern Austria had mixed with the German blood in his veins. But there was something Prussian about his appearance.

He carried himself very straight and despite his slenderness had a thick neck that bulged over his collar, supporting a round, almost shorn head.

His father, a Prussian from Brandenburg, had been killed in the Berlin riots of the twenties, when Brown Shirts and Communists terrorized all the cities of the Weimar Republic. His Viennese mother had survived until a smaller riot had claimed her life in Vienna on the eve of the
Anschluss
.

During the war, Dieter Loringhoven had been conscripted from Brandenburg. The Nazis had used him as an
agent provocateur,
first in Austria, later in Hungary and Rumania. He saw no combat.

After the war he had gone back to Brandenburg, where he joined the Communist Party in 1948.

He did not believe in Communism as Communism; he was an opportunist who wanted to be carried along on what he considered to be the wave of the future.

The Communists, knowing his background and linguistic abilities, assigned him to the same sort of work the Nazis had taught him so well. Loringhoven had snooped for the Reds in Czechoslovakia and East Germany and he had uncovered and passed along the names of the leading organizers of the Poznan riot in Poland.

In some ways, the Hacha affair had been the most difficult of his career. True, the element of danger was lacking; he had only to convince Milo Hacha to return to Czechoslovakia. But it had taken him four whole months to do so.

Crafty and cynical himself, Hacha suspected everyone as a matter of course. Loringhoven had had to extend his acting talents to their outermost limits, displaying enthusiasm, respect, diffidence and even anger at psychological moments. And his own mounting curiosity had hampered his efforts.

The more he worked on Milo Hacha the harder he tried to learn why the Czechs wanted him—and why, wanting him, they didn't simply kidnap him and have done with it. Only two items in Hacha's past were suspect. His father had been a leader of the Czechoslovak Social Democrats, a hero, almost a martyr. And Hacha had been attached to the Gestapo on the Western Front during the war.

All this left Loringhoven confused and with no satisfying answers. But now, knocking at Loringhoven's door in the Hotel Astoria, presenting an immediate problem, was the guide who was supposed to be dead.

Loringhoven opened the door flashing his charming smile. “Come in, Mueller,” he said. “Come in, come in.”

He limped after Mueller into the living room. Mueller turned to face him. He was crumpling his hat and trying to control the quivering muscles around his mouth.

“Well, tell me all about it,” Dieter Loringhoven said, as if he did not already know that Hacha had successfully crossed the border. “Has the new Assistant Minister of the Interior been sped on his way to Prague?”

Mueller mumbled an affirmative answer.

“Good,” snapped Loringhoven. “The first the Czechs will know of it is when the next Five-Year Plan is announced from Prague by the new Assistant Minister, the son of a hero of the people—but, of course, this doesn't interest you. You came, naturally, for the money. But tell me at least what happened at the border. You were delayed? I expected you sooner.”

“Siroky was gone,” Mueller panted, as if he had run all the way upstairs. “I had to hide out—”

“Sit down,” Loringhoven said compassionately. “Sit down, Mueller. You're shaking all over. Here's some brandy.”

Mueller spilled half of it raising the glass to his lips. His fat face was chalky. “They shot at me,” he stammered. “They tried to kill me, Herr Loringhoven. Even in the black-market days—may I have one more?” Loringhoven refilled the glass.

“Never again,” Mueller said, “never again!” He drained the glass, and some colour came into his cheeks.

“Well, it is over.” Dieter Loringhoven bestowed another smile on him. “You have earned a bonus, you know.”

The smile was contagious. Mueller began to smile, too. Soon his jowls were shaking, not with fear but with laughter.

Producing his billfold, Loringhoven took out a wad of hundred-schilling notes. “Fifteen hundred schillings,” he said, counting them out on Mueller's lap. “You have earned it. A thousand schillings and a five-hundred schilling bonus. Well done!”

Mueller seemed astounded. He stuffed the money into his pocket and jumped out of the chair.

“
Danke,
Herr Loringhoven.
Danke schön!
”

“We must have a drink some time together when next I am in Vienna.”

“You are leaving, Herr Loringhoven?”

“But of course. My business here is finished.” He ushered Mueller to the door. “I wish to thank you for a splendid achievement.”

A grin bisected Mueller's face, making it look fatter. He punched Loringhoven's shoulder with his pudgy left fist. Loringhoven winced. He detested physical contact.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Mueller babbled, pumping Loringhoven's hand up and down. “Yes, yes—”

He patted the pocket in which the money was stuffed, then staggered out into the hall.

Dieter Loringhoven shut the door and looked at the hand that Mueller had pumped. He went into the bathroom and washed his hands thoroughly with soap and hot water. When he had dried them, he flung the contaminated towel on the floor.

Then he lit a cigarette, picked up the telephone and gave the operator a number.

“Ja, bitte?”
a voice answered.

“This is Pilsen Brandenburg.”

“
Ja,
Herr Brandenburg?”

“Gerhard Mueller. He is a bus driver for Cosmic Tours. Their office is on The Graben. When in Vienna Mueller lives at Praterstrasse 178.”

“
Ja,
Herr Brandenburg?”

“Liquidate him,” Dieter Loringhoven said.

The impersonal voice said, “
Jawohl
.”

15

“But I can tell you this,” Theresa said in her surprisingly good English. “Maybe he'll lead you to the border. Maybe he'll tell you where Milo Hacha went. But he'll never take you across. You couldn't get him to take you across now for a million schillings.”

“I don't know this schilling business,” Steve Longacre said. “There's five hundred bucks in it for him. You know, dollars.”

“It's not enough,” Gerhard Mueller's mistress said. “No amount would be enough. But perhaps, Mr. Longacre, he would lead you
to
the border and tell you how to get across by yourself.”

“That's no good, Fräulein,” Steve said.

Theresa shrugged. “Then perhaps Gerhard could arrange to have you taken across the border by someone else. He has connections. But it would cost you more money.”

“How much more?”

“That you would have to arrange with Gerhard. Cigarette?”

Steve nodded, frowning. Just then the door crashed open and Gerhard Mueller rushed into the room. “I got the money,
liebchen,”
he cried in German. “You see, I got it. Not one thousand, but fifteen hundred—ah, Herr Longacre!”

Theresa took the money and counted it. “Herr Longacre still wants to go after the Czech,” she said in German. “Can you arrange it? I think he will pay.”

“I'm not going back there,” Gerhard Mueller whined.

“Who said anything about going back, stupid? I said, can you arrange it?”

“
Ja, ja,
it is possible. I know a trucker—”

“Don't sound so eager, you fool. You must act doubtful. He will pay more.”

But Mueller's thoughts were elsewhere. “Loringhoven was friendly,” he said. “He was actually grateful! What a fool I was.”

Theresa glared at him and turned to Steve. “Gerhard thinks there is a possibility it can be arranged,” she said in English. “But as you Americans say, there will be many palms to be greased.”

“You talk my lingo pretty good,” Steve growled.

“The war taught us many things, Mr. Longacre,” Theresa said, shrugging. She had lived with an American sergeant for two years in the American zone. When the sergeant shipped out, she had moved over to Praterstrasse with a Russian captain. She knew the colloquial expression for bribery in Russian, too.

“Can you afford five thousand schillings? It may cost you even more.”

Steve rose. “Let's stop playing hi'-go-seek, Fräulein. You find out if he can do it and what it'll cost, then let me know. But it's got to be soon. Kapeesh?”

“What does he say?” Mueller asked in German.

“He is in a hurry, Gerhard. He is going to pay. Almost anything we want to ask!”

There was a rap on the door.

Steve looked at the big blonde suspiciously. “Expecting somebody?”

“Not I—”

“Do not answer,” Mueller whispered. He was chalk-faced again. “Theresa, no!”

But she was striding over to the door. “
Feigling,”
she said contemptuously. “The so-called men I pick!”

She opened the door. A man and a woman stood there.