The Silence (29 page)

‘I assure you,’ Gross protested, ‘we have not come to assassinate your mayor.’

‘That’s as may be,’ the man growled.

Suddenly Werthen made a connection that had until this moment eluded him. It all added up now that it was clear that Lueger was in back of the Vienna Woods sale. Adalbert Kulowski was in fact the large beefy man Berthe had described, the man who had assaulted his father and chased the party away from the farmhouse in Laab im Walde.

‘Do you enjoy terrorizing women and children?’ Werthen looked the man straight in the eye.

‘What are you talking about?’ The man glared back at him.

‘About a little farmhouse at Laab im Walde. Sound familiar?’

Kulowski cut his eyes from Werthen for a fraction of a second.

‘The courts might have something to say about your tactics, Herr Kulowski.’

‘What’s keeping them, Kulowski?’ Lueger’s voice boomed from inside the office.

‘Indeed,’ Gross said with heavy indignation. ‘What
is
keeping us? Let us leave this bully to easier pickings. Come, Werthen.’

They brushed past the bodyguard, who by now was too confused to bother with his search.

Inside the room, Lueger sat behind Bielohlawek’s desk, and the councilman was seated in a smaller chair at his side. On the desk in front of them both was the mock-up of the front page of this afternoon’s
Arbeiter Zeitung
, which Adler had kindly supplied them with. The banner headline was upside down to Werthen, but he knew very well what it said, for he had written it:

A smaller headline underneath got the point across for any who could not interpret the main headline:

Under the two headlines was an article detailing the sale and naming those interested parties who were putting in bids, as well as their plans for development. It ended by elucidating Lueger’s own plans for the position of prime minister. The whole sordid business was laid out in plain, but sometimes breathless prose. Also written by Werthen.

‘I’ll sue if you print this,’ Lueger said, not bothering with introductions.

‘You will have to speak to Herr Adler about that,’ Werthen said. ‘I believe Herr Kraus will also be carrying a similar story in the next edition of
Die Fackel.
You might want to speak with him, too.’

Werthen wanted to make sure that Lueger understood that others were involved in this, as well. That others knew of their interview at the Rathaus today.

‘The censors would never allow it.’

Gross was impolitic enough to laugh at this. ‘I am afraid it is the Habsburgs who do the censoring around here. And they will be only too happy to have such news broadcast.’

‘You’ll regret this,’ Lueger snarled at them. ‘For as long as you both live.’

Neither responded to this threat, but rather stood in silence and let Lueger make the next move. Werthen’s hand slipped into his coat pocket and was comforted by the cold touch of the Steyr pistol.

‘Why are you doing this to me?’

‘You are not the victim, Mayor,’ Gross said. ‘This is only what Councilman Steinwitz and Herr Praetor were attempting, before they were killed.’

‘Killed!’ Lueger stood as if an electric current had been shot through him. ‘Councilman Steinwitz shot himself in this very office. And of this journalist, I can only assume that a man with his predilections might meet with some very bad company.’

Werthen and Gross refused to be drawn into diversions from the issue at hand: stopping tomorrow’s sale of the Vienna Woods. They stood silently across the desk from Lueger as the mayor looked from one to the other.

Finally, ‘What is it you want?’

‘I should think that would be very clear,’ Werthen said. ‘Call off the sale. Neither Remington nor Wittgenstein would be very interested, I assume, with such adverse publicity,’ he said, pointing at the paper on the desk. ‘And your hopes for higher office, let alone another term as mayor, will be null if this is published.’

‘In your opinion,’ the mayor shot back.

Werthen shrugged. ‘Take your chances, then. The afternoon editions will be on the streets in three hours. Which gives you plenty of time to call this off and instead appear to be a heroic mayor who uncovered a despicable cabal out to privatize the Vienna Woods and foiled it.’

Lueger glanced at the front-page dummy in front of him. ‘Where does it say that?’

‘It doesn’t,’ Werthen said. ‘But it will, in this afternoon’s edition. A carrot for you and an assurance that you really will call off the sale.’

Lueger, despite his obvious anger, nodded in appreciation at the gambit. ‘You have given this some thought.’

‘We try,’ Werthen said. ‘Do we have your word?’

Lueger clenched his jaws violently.

‘Mayor?’ Werthen prodded him.

‘Yes, yes. My word.’

‘And you might tell Herr Kulowski that next time he decides to play rough with women and children there will be consequences.’

‘I have no idea whatsoever of what you are speaking,’ Lueger replied.

Bielohlawek, who until now had remained quiet, suddenly found his voice.

‘I for one do not know what motivates men such as you to destroy a brilliant political future—’

But Gross cut him off. ‘On the contrary, we are ensuring your mayor’s political future . . . in Vienna.’

They could not believe how easy it had been. After leaving the Rathaus, Werthen placed a call to Victor Adler to let him know he should run the positive story about Lueger foiling a plot to sell the Vienna Woods to an unnamed American developer.

‘Neatly handled,’ Gross pronounced after Werthen came out of the telephone cubicle of the telegraph and exchange office near the Rathaus.

‘Too neatly, I fear,’ Werthen said.

‘Do not despair, my friend. We have yet to catch the killer of Steinwitz and Praetor.’

‘Do you still think Lueger was responsible?’

Going back out on to the chill of the street, Gross pulled the collar of his coat up.

‘I believe that was your theory,’ he replied. ‘I have not yet made a determination. There is still much evidence to be gathered. We should hear from my researchers in Czernowitz this week about the ribbon from Herr Praetor’s typewriting machine. With any luck that might give us a new direction to pursue or confirm old suspicions. I admit I expected more direct threats from Mayor Lueger.’

‘He could not very well make us disappear. Not after I made it clear that Adler, Kraus and who knows what others were aware of our presence there today.’

‘That is true. But still, a man who has killed twice, one of the victims his old friend . . . Well, one expects a bit more fight.’

‘He knew he had lost,’ Werthen said. ‘Perhaps he did not want to raise our suspicions about his culpability for the deaths, did not want us focusing too hard on him as a suspect. His financial scheme was foiled this time, but he will have other opportunities. However, if homicide is traced to him, that is quite another matter.’

‘Hmm.’ Gross did not seem convinced. ‘That is one theory. I suggest, however, that we watch our backs.’

They reached the Josefstädterstrasse in time for lunch. Frau Blatschky had promised stuffed kidneys.

They found pandemonium instead.

‘It’s Father,’ Berthe said to him as they entered the apartment. ‘He’s been badly injured. The doctor fears for his life.’

The immediate thought came into Werthen’s mind: Another attack from the Rathaus. But he had no time for other rumination.

They quickly followed Berthe to the guest room. There Herr Meisner was laid out on the bed, a nasty gash over his right eye. Doktor Weisman, a local physician, was leaning over the man. Berthe began sobbing now that Werthen had finally arrived. It was as if she had been holding herself together as surrogate head of the household, but now that Werthen was here, she could finally let her emotions out.

‘It was horrible, Karl. This brute of a man came to the door. Frau Blatschky answered it, and he came storming in, demanding to see you. I screamed when I saw him coming in and Father came out of the reading room, newspaper in hand and demanded the man leave. At that the thug struck him in the face. I am sure he was carrying something heavy in his hand. And Father fell back with such force that he knocked his head against the base of the telephone table.’

‘Easy,’ said Werthen, putting an arm around her shoulder.

‘I was frantic. There was Father flat on his back, not moving. Frieda was screaming. Thank heavens for Frau Blatschky. By this time she had retrieved one of your shotguns from the study. I am sure it was not loaded . . . but she aimed it straight at his chest. The coward ran without a word.’

Gross meanwhile was conferring with the doctor, who was shaking his head. Herr Meisner’s breathing was labored, ragged.

‘We’ve got to get him to the General Hospital,’ Werthen said, instinct telling him that if they left him here the man could easily die. Weisman was a good general practitioner, but surely he knew nothing of head wounds.

‘I would advise against moving him,’ the doctor said. His voice was high, almost a falsetto.

‘I’ll take that risk,’ Werthen said.

‘Karl,’ Berthe said, holding him tight.

‘He may just as easily die here,’ Werthen said to Weisman. ‘Am I right, Doktor?’

The elderly medical man began to protest, checked himself, and made a curt nod of his head.

‘Then let us waste no more time,’ Werthen said. He went to the phone and dialed the number for the city ambulance corps. The dispatcher took the information and promised to have an ambulance there in half an hour.

‘But he could be dead by then,’ he said.

‘There was a fire in Hietzing this morning,’ the lady replied, her voice taking on an icy edge. ‘Do you still wish to have an ambulance sent?’

Werthen did not bother replying, but simply hung up the apparatus.

‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ he called to whomever was listening. Racing down the stairs, he reached the street and hurried to the nearest
Fiaker
queue. He was in luck, for his favorite driver, Bachmann, was there whistling his usual tune from Strauss. Werthen had once done the man a service regarding his challenged birth status, and Bachmann had since been grateful and cooperative.

He doffed a battered derby as Werthen approached. His thick frame was covered chin to boot top in an ancient and somewhat moth-eaten woolen coat that could have been a hand-me-down from one of Napoleon’s generals.

‘A wonderful day, Advokat. Can I be of service?’

Werthen quickly explained the situation and Bachmann lost no time in leaping to his seat. ‘Get in,’ he ordered. He wheeled the
Fiaker
to Werthen’s door, tied the horses to the reins pole on the sidewalk, and hurried up the stairs with Werthen.

‘You can’t mean to move him by cab,’ the doctor said when they entered the guest bedroom. ‘His pulse is weakening.’

‘All the more reason to move him now. Will you accompany us, Doktor?’

With Bachmann carrying Herr Meisner’s upper body, and Werthen and Gross grabbing a leg apiece, they gently lifted the injured man from the bed. Werthen could now see a large lump at the back of his father-in-law’s head. There was no blood.

As they made their way down the hall of the apartment, Gross told Berthe, ‘Try to contact Doktor Praetor. As I recall, he has office hours now. See if he can arrange for a specialist to meet us.’

Frau Blatschky was at the door, her wits about her. ‘We will see to it,’ she promised.

‘And get the police over here,’ Werthen said over his shoulder. ‘Call Drechsler. That lunatic may come again.’

‘I’ll have shells in the gun next time,’ Frau Blatschky said.

The trip to the General Hospital passed in a blur for Werthen, with Herr Meisner splayed across the knees of the three men inside. Bachmann used his quirt liberally and the
Fiaker
rattled over the cobblestone streets in and out of traffic, at one point perilously overtaking a streetcar. But Werthen was focused on one thing: the identity of the burly man who had attacked his family. His first thought had been an attack sponsored by the Rathaus. But now he attempted to evaluate things more methodically. Clearly it was not the same man as at Laab im Walde, otherwise Berthe would have immediately mentioned that. Not the bodyguard, Kulowski, then. Could it be the same thug who had attacked him in the street? He would not know for sure until he was able to speak with his wife again. Who had sent the man? But that was patently clear. On both instances Werthen had just been to see someone at the Rathaus.

He would avenge this outrage, he promised himself.

Herr Meisner’s labored breathing seemed to echo in the narrow confines of the carriage.

‘His pulse grows weaker and weaker,’ Doktor Weisman said.

Finally they arrived at the hospital and miraculously Doktor Praetor himself was there, with another doctor whom he introduced as Doktor Sulzman. ‘Foremost man in brain surgery,’ Praetor said as two strong assistants guided Herr Meisner off their laps and on to a stretcher.

Following closely behind he heard Doktor Sulzman say, ‘By the looks of that lump there could be internal hemorrhaging.’

They followed the stretcher carrying Herr Meisner as far as they could, finally forced to stop at a door marked ‘No Admittance.’

They stood there dumbly for a few minutes. Doktor Praetor came out to speak to them.

‘No use staying on here,’ he told them. ‘There is a waiting room on the second floor. I will look for you there when there is anything to report.’

‘Will he live?’ Werthen asked.

‘I will not give you false promises. The gentleman is badly injured. But he will have the best care available, I can assure you of that. Did he fall?’