The Accomplice

by Joseph Kanon

  Aaron got up, passing under the low branches of the tree, and headed down the street, the white basilica gleaming on his right. Café Napoli. If this was the right day. His other lifeline. No Panama hat this time. That had been left behind in the rush out of Ortiz’s office. Clothes rumpled after the safe house. A bandage on his forehead. Not a leisurely meal—impossible when you’re this alert, watching everything. Maybe just a glass of wine, something to hold the table, until somebody turned up with an envelope.

  By the time he reached La Biela, the image was so fixed in his mind, details filled in, that he hung back at the corner, trying to work out the best approach. The minute Otto saw him, he’d bolt, another back-door exit. Stay away from the restaurant door. Aaron walked toward the café, keeping to the edge of the park. A block of restaurants, some with tables on the sidewalk, awnings down against the late sun. The Napoli seemed a cut above the others, plates rather than pizza, a waiter in a long white apron. Aaron walked closer, still in shadow. He had imagined Otto, back to the wall, just in from the door, but that table was empty. A few people, none of them Otto, a family outside eating gelato, a man in an open-neck shirt reading a newspaper, sipping espresso. No Otto, the restaurant scene a trick of his imagination. Or maybe he’d already been here. No, too early. He’d still be on his way, if he was coming.

  Aaron took a table at the next café, partly hidden by trees. He ordered a coffee and waited. Think how to do it. Otto was armed, had just killed someone. Nothing to lose. So why come here? Not for dinner. To meet someone. He looked again at the man with the newspaper, a plainer version of Moreno, Hanna’s escort, too soft to be sinister, just another idle porteño. The family eating gelato left. Behind him, a bell rang in the church, marking the hour. His table took in the approach to the Napoli from both directions. But no one came.

  He almost missed him because of the walk. He’d been looking for the stroll, that hint of swagger, the old Otto, so at first he didn’t take in the man hurrying up the rise from Vicente López. Disheveled, slightly out of breath, as if he were running late for an appointment. No hat, hair combed back with his fingers and now loose on the sides. The man with the newspaper looked up, surprised, and then stood, intercepting him. A conversation Aaron couldn’t hear, presumably what happened, what’s wrong? A hand on Otto’s upper arm. Sit. But Otto was moving, on the run, touching the man’s elbow to follow him. Aaron had expected a meeting, even a drink, something changing hands, time to call Nathan, and now he saw that he would lose him again, Otto in motion, not stopping.

  He stood up, throwing some pesos on the table, and put his hand in his jacket pocket, clutching the gun, pointing it so Otto would feel it when it pushed up against him. In motion now too, not thinking, coming up behind. Let Otto feel the gun at his back, come quietly, no scene. But the man with the newspaper saw him coming, too fast, and made a noise, a grunt of alarm, and Otto whirled around, facing him before he got there, both of them startled for a second, eyes locked on each other, the kill. Aaron kept coming, expecting Otto to run. Instead, a deeper instinct, he raised his hands and pushed Aaron back, knocking him down, crashing against a table as he fell, winded. People around them looked. Aaron felt a throb of pain where his elbow had hit the ground, and tried to pick himself up, staggering, clumsy, people rushing over to help while Otto and the other man ran across the park. Getting away.

  Aaron gave a final push up, waving his helpers aside, and ran after him. Keep him in sight. Otto had stopped, blocked by a wave of people coming out of the cemetery, closing time, and now had to wade through them, people giving way to his pushing, some urgent hurry. The man with the newspaper was following, and for a second it looked as if one were chasing the other, so that someone tried to hold him back. An argument in Spanish, Aaron still plowing through the crowd. Otto turned around to look and, spotting him, went faster, streaking through the Doric columns of the portico, then the tall wrought iron gates. A guard, annoyed, called after him, “Los muertos todavía estarán aquí mañana,” then, when the other man followed, “Cerrado! Cerrado! ”

  Aaron reached the gates just as the guard turned to shepherd out the last straggling visitors. “Cerrado! ” But he was inside now, racing down the avenue to the plaza, out of sight, swallowed up in the quiet necropolis.

  12

  AARON STOPPED FOR A second, listening for running, any footsteps, but the air was suddenly filled with the guard’s warning buzzer and then a shout in Spanish, evidently beginning a last sweep to empty the grounds. Aaron stepped back behind a tomb, out of sight. Which way had they gone? Maybe just around the corner, in one of the plaza streets, or deeper in, the maze of narrow alleys. But there was only one exit, back through the wrought iron gates. Wait here.

  The guard was now using a police megaphone to say the cemetery was closing. Aaron followed the sound, moving in a circle left to right, and then jumped when it seemed to be coming from behind him, the odd acoustics creating echoes. He darted to the next tomb, hidden now from behind, a white stone Virgin Mary looking down from the roof. One more announcement from the guard and then he was shuffling toward the gates, finished. Where was Otto? He heard the clanging sound of the gates closing. No doubt a large, ornamental key. Did the guard stay the night, cozy in some station near the gates, or were the dead left to sleep? As the hill sloped down to Vicente López, the walls got higher and higher, impossible to climb. Any valuables in the mausoleums must have long since been picked over, like Egyptian tombs. Nothing to steal, nothing to protect. They’d be on their own, locked in.

  It was then he felt the prickling at the back of his neck. What Otto wanted. All along, from the beginning, Aaron had imagined only one end—a newspaper exposé, a trial. Now he saw that there were two. He might die. Here. Otto wouldn’t shoot to wound. Before the gates opened again, one of them would be dead. He took a breath, looking around. And Otto wasn’t alone. He saw himself cornered in one of the alleys at the other end, a cul-de-sac, lined with granite tombs, no side passage to dart into, a shooting gallery. Let them come to him, to the center avenues with space between the tombs, somewhere to duck if you were dodging bullets.

  The faint scrape of a shoe. He froze, trying to place the sound. With two they could be methodical, taking each end of a street, making sure it was clear, one after the other, until finally there was only the hiding place left. He had to keep moving. He ducked and ran across the avenue to a diagonal street, cutting back down toward the Junin side, crouching behind a tomb, waiting. Silence. And then, like a fluttering bird, a shadow flickered in the street, somebody coming with the sun behind him. Not closing in, heading west. They didn’t know where he was. He looked around. A tomb like a small bank vault, a statue inside, a vase for flowers, all of it dusty, unattended, and padlocked. He had noticed that before, the padlocks, which made the mausoleums impossible hiding places. The maintenance sheds were locked too. He had to stay outside, hugging the backs of the stone tombs, the stacked bags of sand at the repair sites.

  More footsteps. Aaron raised his head, adjusting some internal antenna, feeling the blood pulsing in his ears. If this were a forest, he’d be listening for a twig to snap, the click of a gun lock, but here there seemed no sound at all, the city traffic a faint hum beyond the high walls, distant. Nothing to smell, just dust and heated stone, the occasional dying flower. Only sight mattered, picking out any movement, a change in the light, everything sharp and clear, survival vision.

  At the end of the street, a few alleys down, Otto suddenly came into view, following the other man, but before Aaron could raise his gun, he was gone. Aaron tried to remember the map of the cemetery from his earlier visit, the Haussmann angles, the labyrinth at the west end, but it was guesswork. Now that Otto had passed, he could retreat back to the gate, try to raise some alarm, get out. But that wasn’t what they were doing here. And Otto would move faster than the guard, trapping him. The problem was that there were two of them. No matter what, he needed to take out the other one, wound him, to level th
e odds. But could he do it? Everyone at the Agency had been trained to handle a gun, but he’d never shot anyone, had never hunted anything. Still, what choice was there? He thought of Fritz, the necklace of purple bruises around his neck.

  He moved out from behind the tomb, still crouching, and made his way to the next street, parallel to Otto’s. It was easier to hear the footsteps now, shoe leather on pavement, and he followed behind the sounds. He had thought Otto and the other man would split up, fan out through the streets, but they seemed to be moving together, careful as they passed down a block of tombs, then scurrying across when they reached an intersection. He imagined them all from above, figures moving through a hedge maze, unable to see each other. A whisper, the other two consulting. Aaron came to a cross street and peeked around the corner, then jumped back, some flash of movement in the corner of his eye. He waited, then looked again. Not Otto, a shadow, another Mary looking down, this one with a halo. A few other shadows, urns and saints and little domes, all reflecting down on the street. Aaron tiptoed across, huddling against the base of a two-story tomb rising to a circle of columns. The Ortiz family, presumably not the doctor’s. He listened. Still heading toward the cul-de-sacs, hoping to seal him off. Another extravagant tomb with bronze doors. A broader street now, darting across, closing in.

  He heard the shot before he felt the slap against his upper arm, pushing him back against the wall. But no bullet, a miss, just the force of it enough to make him whirl backward. He gulped some air, panting. He’d been running, a moving target, or he’d be lying in the alley now, shoulder burning, blood welling up. Not tracking them, their prey. They knew where he was. Move. He raced back across the street, away from the cul-de-sacs. Another shot, after him, as loud as an explosion. Wouldn’t the guard hear? Unless he wasn’t there. People in the street? But he could barely hear the traffic. Outside the walls it might simply be a distant backfiring. He retraced his path, running hard, no longer worried about making noise, then veered off toward the avenues, the trees in the distance. He could hear them running behind him. A zigzag now, not staying in any street long enough to give them another shot. Head for the gates, get help somehow. But there were two of them. If he could only see the plan of the place, which streets led where, not run blind. He flattened himself against another bronze doorway, listening for them. Still running. Closer? The feet hard on the pavement.

  He ran into the next street. More elaborate than the last, miniature churches with crosses, baroque statues, big enough to hide in, but every door locked, one even surrounded by a wrought iron fence. Footsteps louder. He was midway up the block, an easy target if one of them reached the corner. He looked to his side. A mausoleum with wedding cake setbacks. He climbed onto the first level, almost leaping, feeling a sharp ache in his shoulder, another near his elbow, still tender from the fall at the café. Never mind. Go. Another level, then one more climb onto the roof, finally above the maze, looking down, a sniper’s advantage. He looked to either side. If it came to it, he could jump from one roof to the other, the tombs nearly abutting, a cat burglar. Until the impassable dome a few tombs down.

  He looked down into the street. At the far end, the other man was walking in a crouch, signaling to Otto behind him, neither of them looking up. Aaron ducked, his foot slipping backward, dislodging a loose tile. He grabbed it at the edge, just before it could slip away, gripping it. He looked around. The whole roof was a mess, tiles battered and loose, so overdue for repair that it might not hold his weight. He looked over to the next tomb. A flat roof with an angel jutting out over the street, like a ship’s prow.

  He put the tile back gently and started for the edge, trying not to dislodge another one. One step over to the next roof. Now the other leg. He stopped. Someone below in the street. No, his shadow, moving with him. Something they’d see. Given away by the sun. He looked around the open roof, no cover, then down in the street again. His shadow still there, closer now to the other one, the angel spreading her wings. His guardian angel, the only shadow Otto would see. If she could hold him. The angel was lifting a figure in swirling robes, rising to the roof, maybe some version of the Assumption or just the tomb’s occupant being taken to heaven. Real stone or just plaster? Maybe as neglected and fragile as the tile on the next tomb. Below, Otto and the other man were near the corner. Aaron lunged for the angel and lay down on its uncarved back, his arms extending along the wings, ready for flight. No creaks, no crumbling plaster, solid stone. He looked down. One shadow, wings stretched, and two men creeping along the walls. Aaron took a breath, holding it.

  They were almost past his tomb when the tile slid down from the next roof, smashing on the ground, a startling noise, followed by a feral cat, who jumped after it and with a screech went streaking down the street. A nervous exhaling, embarrassed by their own shock, then a look up to see where the cat had come from, the unnoticed roofscape. Now. Aaron moved the gun to the edge of the wing, a clear aim at the man’s shoulder, and fired. A deafening sound, close up, the man jerking back away from it, like the cat, only a second, but long enough for the bullet to catch him full in the throat instead. A spurt of blood. He fell over backward, a crunch as he hit the pavement, blood still gushing. Aaron looked down, stunned. Not a shooting game, real, blood in the street, and then the jerking stopped, everything. And Otto still there, crouching, ready to shoot back.

  Aaron swept his hand left, aiming for Otto’s leg, and fired again. A hit, throwing Otto back against the wall with a scream of pain or surprise, clutching his side, his gun clattering as it fell. But how many seconds before he could pick it up? Aaron leaped across to the tiles, dislodging a few more, jumping down to the next level, then the street, his mind not registering anything but the distance to Otto, the second it would take before he could reach down for the gun. A sprint, what felt like his whole body in the air, then shoving Otto back against the wall, his face wincing in pain, Aaron’s gun at his chest.

  “Leave it.”

  Both of them breathing fast, staring at each other. Then, keeping his gun aimed, Aaron bent down and picked up Otto’s.

  “Finish it,” Otto said, breath still ragged, head drooping.

  “Not yet.”

  Another moment, adjusting, his mind darting in several directions. The other man dead. But no sounds of footsteps running toward them. Still on their own. Otto groaned, looking down at his side, seeping blood. No hope of getting out through the gates now, visitors accidentally locked in. Some other way.

  “Don’t move. I mean it.”

  Aaron walked over to the other man and crouched down, one eye on Otto, and went through his pockets.

  “Don’t bother,” Otto said, almost a taunt. “He didn’t have a—”

  Aaron stopped for a second, a twisting in his stomach. In cold blood.

  “Who is he?”

  “Nobody. A messenger.”

  Aaron finished rifling the pockets, pulling out an envelope. “Your ticket?” He glanced inside. “Let me guess. Herr Bildener?”

  “Just finish it,” Otto said, weary.

  Aaron put the ticket in his pocket and looked down at the man, the torn hole in his neck. “Nobody,” he said, Otto’s tone. “Anybody going to miss him?”

  “I don’t know. We just meet at the café.” He looked over. “He wasn’t armed.” An accusation, using it.

  “But you were. With Fritz’s gun,” he said, holding it up.

  “So now you have both. What are you going to do?” Not really curious, poking him.

  What? Aaron looked around, as if an idea might be hanging in the air.

  “Kill me? Go ahead. No. Max’s boy,” he said, an edge of contempt. “You can’t.”

  “I won’t have to,” Aaron said, emptying the bullets out of his gun and flinging them up over the tiled roof.

  “What are you doing?”

  “In case you get any ideas. It’s a murder weapon now. The bullet will match exactly. I’ll leave the gun with you so the police will know who used it. Make i
t easy for them. Unless you bleed out during the night. That doesn’t look good.” He nodded toward the wound.

  “Don’t leave me here,” Otto said, blurting it out, unguarded, suddenly childlike. “Not here.”

  “We can’t walk out the door now, not after this,” Aaron said, looking toward the dead man. “And I don’t think you’re in any shape to go over the walls. So—”

  “Don’t,” Otto said, sliding down the wall, slumping on the ground.

  Aaron raised the gun. “I said don’t move.”

  “I’m dizzy. I don’t feel well.”

  “That’s not good. It’s a long night.”

  Otto looked at him for a minute, just breathing. “And you? You can’t let them see you either.”

  “No. I’ll have to climb out.”

  Otto shook his head. “Too high. You notice, no broken glass on the top. They don’t need it. Nobody can get up that high. You climb out, it’s too long a drop. You’d break your legs.”

  “Not by the entrance. Only after you go down the hill. But nobody’s going to break in by the entrance. You’d have the guard all over you. Too many people. But getting out? Nobody’s inside to notice. And once you’re over, it’s a quick drop. Maybe somebody sees you, maybe they don’t. It’s a chance.”

  Otto looked down for a moment, thinking this through. “If you leave me here, it’s the same as putting a bullet in my head.” He nodded toward the body. “Like him.” He moved his hand away from his side to check the blood.