The Linz Tattoo (39 page)

It wasn’t going to last—he needed to get out
of there. He let the Mauser slip through his fingers and started
climbing out through the open window. He was already well outside
and crouching in the shadowy courtyard before the first man came
around the corner of the building.

This one wouldn’t be alone. The other one,
the fellow who was lying dead inside, had simply made a mistake. He
had gotten flustered by the sound of shooting and had rushed inside
without thinking. No one would make that mistake again.

Hagemann had had five bodyguards sitting at
the table with him—unless you counted the little Arab, and
Christiansen had a feeling that Hagemann didn’t. One was already
blown away, one was following Esther and Itzhak back to their
hotel, and Hagemann would certainly want to keep at least one with
him, so that left two.

They would come from opposite directions. Let
them.

The first man was simply a shadow, an outline
against the pale yellow light from the street. Christiansen took
the big British revolver from under his belt, aimed carefully, and
fired. One shot was all it took—there just wasn’t anything there
anymore.

There was a sound of footsteps behind him as
Christiansen turned. He sprang to one side and rolled, and a bullet
careened off the cobblestones with an ugly whine. Number Two had
seen the flash of his revolver, but any number could play at that
game. Settling for an approximate target, Christiansen fired off
three quick rounds, giving them a good spread. He rolled away
again, but this time no one fired at him. The courtyard was still
echoing with the noise of shooting before he heard the low wail
that told him why.

All he saw was a shape, and that only for a
second. A man bent over at an odd angle, holding his side as he
limped around the corner and out of sight. That one just wanted to
get away. Let him. Let him live to tell Hagemann all about it.

Christiansen got to his feet and ran. He just
picked an alleyway and ran. He didn’t stop until he was sure there
was no one behind him.

. . . . .

The Casa General Moscardo was conveniently
located for mischief. It was a four-story structure sandwiched in
between a furniture factory and a building housing a noisy little
restaurant on the ground floor and the offices of a maritime
insurance company above. The street in front stretched right down
to the docks, and there was an alleyway behind that was wide enough
to allow the garbage trucks to get through. The view from the roof
took in everything for half a mile in any direction.

Christiansen had taken the long way, just to
be certain he hadn’t been followed. He hadn’t seen a sign of life
in forty minutes.

He didn’t have any trouble breaking in. There
was a fire escape on the side facing the alley where, on hot summer
nights, the patrons of the hotel probably laid out their mattresses
on the landings to take advantage of the sea breezes. Mordecai had
left a window on the third floor unlatched for him.

In the dark of the morning, after the curfew
had blackened out even the nightclubs, when even the whores were
asleep in their innocence, you couldn’t see so much as your
feet.

On the third-floor landing there were a few
slivers of light visible behind one of the window shades. That was
all the invitation he needed. He pressed his fingers into the
narrow gap between the two halves of the window and pulled them
toward him. He hadn’t managed to get them open more than three or
four inches before the shade popped up and he found himself staring
through the window into the muzzle of a British 9-millimeter.

“We were beginning to think you had gotten
lost,” Hirsch said, helping him through with his free hand—he
seemed reluctant to put the pistol away, as if he thought he might
still need it. Christiansen merely grunted as he pulled the window
closed again, latched it, and lowered the shade. They were all
there, almost.

“Where’s Itzhak?”

“He’s in the room across the hall, getting
his beauty rest.” Hirsch grinned at him slyly. “I didn’t get the
impression he was real eager to welcome you back.”

Esther was sitting on a couch, her face in
profile as she studied the joints of her fingers. Every so often
she would glance at him out of the corner of her eye, but that was
all.

“Have you had a productive day?” Mordecai
asked from the armchair where, pinched between two fingers, he was
holding a brown paper cigarette that produced the bluest smoke
Christiansen had ever seen. His shirt sleeves were rolled up over
his heavy forearms. He raised his eyebrows expectantly, prepared to
ignore everything else.

“Yes, I’ve learned a good deal. Where would
you like me to start?”

In the difficult silence that followed,
Faglin handed him a cup of coffee. The instant he tasted it,
Christiansen realized how tired he was. He sat down on the sofa
beside Esther, put his arm over her shoulder, and felt her elbow
pressing against his rib cage. He had his woman back and his
coffee, and they both felt comfortably warm. That was all he really
cared about.

“I took a look at the seaward side of
Hagemann’s little bungalow,” he said finally, as if the matter were
of indifferent interest. “The guard makes his circuit about once
every twenty-two minutes. He carries a flashlight but doesn’t use
it except to light his way. They aren’t expecting trouble from that
direction.”

He turned to Esther and smiled, giving her a
small squeeze. There was a look of wordless, incredulous gratitude
in her eyes, and something like fear. Well, yes, of course. Why
shouldn’t there be?

“There isn’t any reason why they should.
What’s the matter, Christiansen? Didn’t you get a load of those
cliffs? They’re slick as gooseberry jam and seventy feet high if
they’re an inch.”

“Probably higher—so what?”

He was enjoying himself. Hirsch looked like
he was ready to pop his cork. So let him.

“It can’t be done, that’s what.” Hirsch, who
was now the only person in the room still standing, looked toward
Mordecai and made an exasperated gesture with his right arm, as if
he were trying to shake water from his fingers. “We’ve already gone
into all this. It’s impossible.”

“What
’
s the matter, didn’t you ever do
any climbing when you were a kid? It
’
s practically the Norwegian
national sport. Except I keep forgetting—you grew up on Ninth
Avenue. That probably explains it.”

“Stop trying to provoke a quarrel, Inar.
What is it you want to say?”

Christiansen looked over at Mordecai, who
seemed to be studying his face like a map of hostile territory.

“What I want to say is that the reviews are
in and your little melodrama has been panned. I saw Hagemann
tonight when he came to the cafe—he looked at the back of Esther’s
head as he sat down at his table and he smiled. Don’t you
understand? He smiled. He wasn’t even pretending to be surprised to
see her. She was expected.”

They all knew what he was talking about.

“It’s my fault,” Esther said quietly, almost
as if to herself alone. “It was all for nothing then. It’s my
fault. If I—”

“No, it isn’t. He saw it coming, kid. You
were blown before you even walked into the room.”

Christiansen’s eyes felt
hot and dried out, as if he hadn
’
t closed them in hours. When he
tried they burned.

“He’s just trying to
ke
e
p his
girlfrie
n
d’s
ne
c
k out of the
noose,” Hirsch said suddenly. He still hadn’t been able to bring
himself to s
i
t
down, so he leaned back against the window sill, his arms locked
ac
r
oss his chest,
gla
r
ing at some
object only he could see. He didn’t even believe what he was saying
himself.

Faglin, who had
hard
l
y spoken at
all
,
who seemed
to wish he were somewhe
re
else enti
r
ely, picked up the coffee
cup
o
n the floor
be
t
ween his feet
and rose from the corner of the bed into which he seemed to be
trying to disappear
.

“Does anybody want some?”
he asked, in all innoce
n
ce
.
Hirsch merely scowled a
t
him.

“It’s true, isn’t it?”
With a kind of savage petulance, Hirsch pushed himself away from
the window. “All he wants
i
s to take care of himself. If we
help him get
c
lose enough to kill Hagemann, that’s fine with him—just so
long as we don
’
t
do anything to interfere with his love life
.
Well, I
’
ve got a flash for you,
pal—”

“That will be enough,
Jerr
y
.”

Mordecai let his gaze
drift from Hirsch’s face to Christiansen’s and
,
finally
,
to Esther’s
.
He smiled at Esther, as if the
sight of her alone gave h
i
m a twinge of pleasure.

“And you can rest yourself
as well, Inar,” he went on, the smile disappearing from his
lips
.
“I won’t
ask the two of you to kiss and make up, but
y
ou’ll have to continue your
argument some other time. Let us keep to the point.”

“What is the point?” Hirsch snapped.

“The point is that your plan isn’t going to
work.” Christiansen was almost insultingly calm. “The point is that
if you want Hagemann dead or alive you’re going to have to go right
up that cliff face and get him.”

“It can’t be done. It’s impossible.”

“No, it’s only difficult. Nothing is
impossible.”

As if on signal, Mordecai
stood up, pushing himself out of the chair with his arms. He looked
around him with a certain distaste
.

“I think we’ve discussed it enough for now,”
he said, principally to Christiansen it seemed. “Jerry, remember
you’re supposed to be working in this place, so get downstairs and
sit behind the night desk like a good boy. You come with me, Amos.
I want to talk to you.”

There was some grumbling, but Mordecai could
still make himself be obeyed. In a moment, after the shuffling
exodus was over and the door had closed, Christiansen found himself
alone in the room with Esther, who still sat at her end of the
couch, her hands pressed into her lap. She looked as if she had
been dreading this very moment.

“I can’t understand why Hirsch is so down on
me all of a sudden,” he said, switching off the ceiling fixture so
that only a standing lamp in the corner near the chest of drawers
bathed the room in soft, white, shadowy light. “I haven’t set eyes
on him in nearly two weeks, and all day long he’s been riding
me.”

“He doesn’t like that you’re sleeping with a
Jewish woman.”

“What’s the matter? Does he want to keep
them all for himself?”

He grinned. It was supposed to have been a
harmless joke, but already he wished he hadn’t said it. Esther only
stared at him with dark, sad eyes and then turned her face
away.

“I didn’t go to bed with Itzhak,” she began,
almost whispering. What made her want to go into all that now, he
wondered. “But I think you should—”

“No, I really don’t want to hear anything
about it. No confessions, is that all right? There’s not much you
could tell me I don’t already know, and it’s a little late in the
day.”

He sat down on the couch beside her, and she
threw herself at him, burying her face in his lap and weeping out
of control. He cradled her head in his arms and let her cry. There
were things about her that never ceased to astonish him.

“I love you,” he said quietly. He hadn’t
meant to say it—he hadn’t meant to say anything. It had just
slipped out. He wondered if there was any chance it could be true
and then decided that, yes, it probably was. So much the worse for
both of them.

Fortunately, she didn’t seem to have heard
him. Or perhaps it wasn’t something she wanted to hear.

“Finished?”

She looked up at him and nodded, wiping away
the tears with the palm of her hand. She was smiling now.

“Fine. Then I’d like to take a shower and
then maybe get some sleep. It’s been a long day, and I’d just as
soon get it over with.”

She was waiting for him when he got out of
the shower. He couldn’t see her—he couldn’t even see the bed once
he had turned off the bathroom light—but she was there
nevertheless.

They didn’t say anything.
He crawled into the narrow bed, and when he put his arm around her,
and touched her bare shoulder, he could feel he
r
toes brushing against his legs,
just below the kneecaps. She was wearing a thin blue cotton
nightdress. He liked that nightdress
;
it was better than if she was
wearing nothing at all. It was gathered up around her waist; he
slipped his hand in underneath and let his fingers
glid
e
up the
curve of her back. When he kissed her she opened her lips as if she
wanted to bite him, and he could feel her warm, moist breath and
hear the tiny whimper of longing that seemed to come of its
own
.
By the time
she guided him into her, she was
a
lready breathing in short, ragged
sobs and her forehead, pres
s
ed against his chest, just below
the collarbone, felt hot and damp. She made him feel pleasure
through his whole body. It was as
i
f they really did become one
flesh.