The Widow Killer (52 page)

The dark-eyed man watched those leaving either nod respectfully or look angrily past him.

“I approve of any action that will remove this threat,” he then said. “But what’s the best way to carry it out?”

“Are your escorts reliable?”

“I’ll vouch for them. Comrades from the Resistance.”

“Then with us, my men, and those two soldiers”—he added them to the group as if it were self-evident and met with no objection— “that’ll be enough. My colleague went off to find them; once he returns, we can decide how to take them.”

The gymnasium had meanwhile emptied out; those who had not cleared off in a huff were busy shepherding the Germans from the cloakroom cages into classrooms. Only the group that had first met out on the street remained. Litera was still missing. Morava repeated his news for the rest of them in more detail, and Svoboda added a fiery conclusion.

“On the threshold of our revolution, which will secure peace and prosperity for our people without exploitation, we have met a great danger, one which has destroyed many progressive movements before us: Parasites and even ordinary murderers have slipped into our ranks amid the warriors. Despite the differences of opinion among us, I believe we are all of one mind on this matter. Where is your colleague?”

Litera was still absent.

“I don’t know,” said Morava uneasily. Suddenly a foreboding gripped him.

“I’ll go have a look,” Matlak offered, removing his safety catch.

“No.”

“Why not?”

I’ve already risked too much, he feared. And someone else’s hide, at that…

“We’ll all go; can I lead?” the sergeant asked. “I’m trained in house-to-house fighting.”

Spring man was about to object, but Svoboda cut him off.

“Lead on.”

Morava appreciated the Communist more and more. Unexpectedly he’d found a firm supporter in this man.

The sergeant described to them briefly how they should cover each other.

“If they fire first, let’s hope we have better aim,” he finished simply. “And if they don’t fire?” He turned to Morava. “What then, Inspector?”

“I’m not an inspector,” he corrected the sergeant, “but I still have to say that sentence.”

“What sentence?”

“You know: T arrest you in the name of the law.”‘

It sounded like something out of the good old penny dreadfuls. Everyone smiled, even Morava.

“Except…” he admitted glumly, “I made a major mistake… What if they’re holding our colleague as a hostage?”

He met Matlak and Jetel’s shaken eyes and had to answer his own question.

“Then we’ll have to let him run…”

No, there was no other possibility, and their only hope was that Litera, whom none of the murderers could know, had kept the gang in the dark until reinforcements could arrive.

“You’ll arrest him later; we’ll help you,” the Communist said un-derstandingly. “We’ll hunt him down.”

My new Beran, Morava thought gratefully. It was the second time in his life someone had won his trust completely. Once it’s all over I have to introduce them, these two thoroughly different sides of the coin called a virtuous character.

The sergeant put himself at the front of the formation with Jetel’s automatic weapon. Leaving the gymnasium, they found themselves at the foot of a ceremonial staircase. A sign in Czech announced that it led

K AULE

with an arrow pointing toward the auditorium. The part reading

ZU DER AULA

in German had for now simply been crossed out. The sergeant arranged the men with pistols—Morava and Svoboda—at the end. As they quietly ascended he demonstrated mutely how they could cover each other by firing if things turned ugly.

The double doors above the staircase’s horizon were ajar; the great hall was empty.

They went back down, and the sergeant and Matlak checked the toilets, just to be sure. Nothing. Behind the staircase they found a door where wide, well-lit steps led to the cellar. The sergeant crossed the threshold and listened.

“Silence…” he whispered encouragingly to the others.

Morava already knew it was the worst thing they could have heard. Meanwhile he checked the main door into the courtyard; it was not locked.

The bald one, he remembered. He warned them. Rypl has escaped again!

And Litera? He must be on their trail, of course, so the hunt could continue immediately. Beran’s favorite driver was a policeman’s policeman after all his years with the superintendent, a handy, wily Czech who could get himself out of any can of worms. Morava thought it unlikely that Litera would underestimate the danger and pounce on the bait.

His heart a bit lighter, he set out with the others to examine the cellar. The sergeant ordered them to maintain a decent interval between entrances. Morava was once again last, and halfway down the steps he could already read what awaited him in the posture of those who reached the cellar first. The arms with weapons ready slowly sank to their sides; the men stopped and looked wordlessly before them.

He held his breath and followed them in.

On the cellar paving stones lay a row of women bound with wire, all apparently sleeping; at first glance there were no visible wounds. Only the closest still had a long, thin knife sticking into her chest.

Despite this horrid sight he felt relief. Dear God, thank You for at least sparing…

Then he noticed that everyone else was now looking diagonally behind him, and turned around.

In a hidden corner next to the entrance Litera lay in a pool of blood next to a good-looking fellow with a mustache. Both throats had been cut.

She’s still with me! Lojza had popped into the gym just when the whole criminal squad came marching in, and he’d recognized the policeman who’d been pretending to be seriously injured down at the barricade. It could only be her doing!

They were in the middle of working over a rich lady; she had already confessed that she’d buried her jewels in the garden, and all that remained was to make her divulge the precise locations of her stashes. He immediately sent Pepik upstairs to sound things out. The boy ran right into the arms of the spy they’d sent, and handled things admirably: He d poured out a story about some guy downstairs torturing a German woman while he ran for help. Then the fool drew his pistol and ran downstairs. The boy followed and managed to trip him halfway down the flight.

He could see it in the guy’s eyes, just as he’d seen it in the caretaker’s: The man knew he was Rypl. There was no choice; he had the man’s hands bound. The cop even tried to frighten them.

“I’m in uniform! You’ll get the rope for murdering a policeman!”

He taunted the cop with the new word he’d learned.

“But we’ll get a medal for executing a kolous!”

As a reward, he let the boy cut his throat. Pepik did it enthusiastically with a single stroke. Lojza did the driver, less expertly but with pretty much the same result. The chauffeur was clearly eager to turn them in, and as it turned out, the machine gunner, a chimney sweep in civilian life, knew how to drive. They finished on a sour note; Ladislav, who was already nervous, panicked and stabbed the last and most promising old hag before she could give them her address.

They left the school through the courtyard exit without any problems. The sentries greeted them, and a couple of fellows asked if they could come along; some big shot inside was getting on their nerves. Unfortunately, at the moment unfavorable conditions prevented him from recruiting a full-fledged detachment.

But i have a plan!

Those three hours running the show here, where he had been welcomed by the leaderless horde, had given him new ideas. The Germans in Prague were just an appetizer for the meaty morsel that, by all accounts, awaited them in the Sudetenland. The sharper kids in the Revolutionary Guards predicted that the former border regions would return to the Czechoslovak motherland, and the Germans living there would be expelled (heim ins Reich with them!). In all probability the Krauts would only get to take what they could carry, just like in Prague, and then what would be left…?

One man at the school had been expelled this way from the Sudetenland by the Germans in ‘38, after they shot his brother, a reserves member. He’d always thought he’d never hurt a fly, he told them, but now a need for vengeance had erupted in him. He’d take what they’d taken from his family, and something on top for damages. And if they so much as opened their mouths, he’d blow at least one of them away too!

The effect it had on the men was electrifying. A gold rush, Lojza gasped; didn’t the boss think maybe they were needed there? He did. They were finished in Prague, he had to admit; even with an uprising going on, those damned Sherlocks had nothing better to do than chase him. They must have his description, probably even a photo, and he could not count on maintaining superior firepower.

The sudetenland is my chance!

Once the Krauts in Prague were liquidated—and this was a question of days or hours—he and his men would take their Mercedes, move to a larger German nest, and seize power there. He was sure it would be as easy as it had been in this lousy school.

I’m a born leader!

By the time Prague could send out its official rats, he’d have his own bureaucrats, and policemen from outside would get sent right back to their mothers by his personal guard. It would consist of his most faithful men, who’d teach everyone to jump when he whistled, so long as he let them make the rest jump on their signal too.

For now he ordered them to drive just a couple of blocks further; the cops weren’t organized enough to comb the whole city in this confusion. Here in Pankrac there were more Russians in German khakis than local inhabitants. They hung from tank turrets and hid behind the shields of cannons and machine guns, oblivious to the prolonged downpour that had driven even most of the insurgents to shelter, their tense alertness a sign that the fight went on.

No, the war was not over, and it would be crazy to leave Prague prematurely; being first in the border regions could mean being first to die, and that definitely wasn’t what he had in mind. But where could they wait? Sleeping in the Germans’ old apartments meant risking discovery; covetous neighbors or official confiscators might find them. He was about to ask the boy to take them home—at least he’d see how the kid handled his mother—but then a new idea hit him.

Right under their noses!

The last places they’d look were where he’d punished those whores.

The embankment suited him best, except the dead caretaker was floating just beneath it, maybe even caught in the weir. The closest was the apartment where he’d spindled those two lesbians, but as they pulled up they saw a gaggle of people carrying the dead out of the house; well, there you go, in this case he’d just beaten the SS to the job! Of course, this morgue was now too lively for a hideaway.

Then his idea ripened as he remembered what flashed through his mind on the barricade.

That house!

That grubby house on a dead-end street where they set their trap for him! Whether it belonged to a policeman or someone who lent it to them for their dirty tricks, he’d see they got their deserts. First, though, the guilty party could be of use to him, like the half-pint on the train.

Of course, he didn’t tell his foursome the whole story. He didn’t have to explain.

“Some koloussi live there,” he informed them tersely. “If they’re not home, we can catch a few winks till our clothes dry out, and if they are home it’s their bad luck!”

He found the house by directing them to the cemetery and from there recalling step by step how he’d followed that whore a week ago. It was satisfying to approach it this time not as a foolish fox blindly chasing the bait into a trap, but as a victor and avenger. An idea for a new punishment was growing in his mind as well. He’d thought of it this morning for the first time, but it had already captivated him as completely as the picture in the rectory once had.

It’s mine! all mine!

A work of his own imagination. And this morning, when he saw a gas canister attached to the Mercedes’s mudguard, he knew it was foreordained.

Although hastily boarded up, he could see through the window that the house was lived in. All the better! He got out of the car first and rang the bell. When nothing happened, he rang twice, and, after another pause, thrice, pressing the bell somewhat longer each time.

He could feel their curiosity behind him, but also their deference.

They simply waited. And he did not hurry. He remembered, long ago, the way she had read him the fairy tale about the boy and the giant.

Fee fie foe fum!

Four long rings. Suddenly the drumming of the rain ceased and footsteps resounded from within.

What could she owe me, he mused, once Grete had fallen swiftly into sleep. As he lay by her side and gradually recovered from the day’s events, he fought a fatigue so strong that at times it robbed him of consciousness. Had time stopped? This day seemed as long to him as the whole war.

He forced himself to stand and noiselessly opened each drawer in the attic, until, to his surprise, he found what he needed: paper, even writing paper! And the fact that it was pink and decorated with a rather precious forget-me-not bothered him least of all.

He had never dared capture in words anything other than facts for work reports; thus he had never in his life written a love letter. When the war separated him from Hilde, his letters from the field contained only the superficial events of his life; the law of military confidentiality made this the easiest course. They both left their feelings for personal meetings.

Hilde’s unexpected death taught him painfully that these might end with no warning. How terribly he had later missed those lines that might have given him back the sound of her words, breathed life into a dead photograph. And so he felt dogged by the need at least once to write Grete what he hadn’t been able to tell her.

“My love,” he began with Grete’s favorite appellation, “my briefest and yet greatest love! Even though I can never understand why of all the men who admire you, you have chosen me, I am happy. If by some chance I pay that highest price for Germany’s debt, I want you to know—”