LACKING VIRTUES

by Thomas Kirkwood

  Claussen had come to Berlin to forge the documents he would need for his trip to the States. After availing himself of the KGB facilities he had set up in a rented warehouse after the Collapse, he caught the train to Neubrandenburg. He traveled second-class through the sandy pine forests of his youth, feeling reinvigorated. A tough mission always had that effect on him.

  He got off the train at noon. From the station vendor he bought a bockwurst and roll, washed them down with a half-liter of pilsner and mounted his old bicycle for the 20 kilometer trip home.

  In a village along the way, he picked up a fresh round black bread, a kilo of butter and a sack of brown farm eggs. When he arrived at his farmhouse in the early afternoon, his geese were hungry and cantankerous. He fed them ten kilos of the meat-laced dog food pellets that seemed to keep them more aggressive. Then he went inside to fetch his swimming bag.

  He walked at a brisk pace down the familiar path to the river, enjoying the warmth of the July sun. When he reached the water’s edge he took the row boat instead of swimming to the island. He would have his swim when he got there, he decided, and return home warm and dry. He was respectful of the weather. The pale blue sky strewn with patches of dimpled white clouds told him rain was near.

  Maria wasn’t there when he arrived. Claussen tied off the boat, stepped agilely on to the dock and traded his street clothes for swim trunks. He made seven brisk laps around the island, then climbed back up on the dock and stretched out in the last of the afternoon warmth to dry. He had dozed off when he felt Maria’s strong hands kneading the backs of his thighs.

  “Walter,” she said, “your body only improves with age. Do you know how often I dreamt of finding you here like this. The entire time I was in France shooting your pictures, my fantasies obsessed me. Nothing I did to myself could sate my hunger for you.”

  “That’s very flattering, Maria, but I’m much too old for you. If I’m what you want, you’ll have to live with deprivation. Were you able to bring me something useful?”

  “Yes, Walter. Everything you asked for and more.”

  “I’m pleased.”

  Claussen lifted himself to a sitting position. He saw that Maria was wearing a string bikini. “My God, child, go for a swim.”

  She stood, pretended to pout and dove in. Soon she was back beside the dock, holding her wet hair up with both hands while she treaded water with her feet. Claussen could not help admire her full breasts, thin muscular arms and high Slavic cheekbones. She was a beautiful woman, she was available. But in his long career he had never mixed work with pleasure. He did not intend to start now.

  “The photos are in the boathouse, Walter,” she said. “Go on and have a peek if you want. I’d like to swim a few more minutes before it gets too chilly.”

  The boathouse was completely overgrown with tangled vines. From the dock it looked like nothing more than a clump of foliage. Claussen picked up his bag with his street clothes in it, ducked through a tunnel of vines and rushes and stepped inside. On the rough-hewn table lay Maria’s backpack and a fat manila folder. An unopened bottle of Armagnac stood beside them.

  The first photos Claussen looked at were of an old country manor on the edge of a densely wooded hillside. The second set included five perfectly focused shots of Paul Delors. He was in front of the house, speaking with the driver of an unmarked van. Two workmen seemed to be preparing to conduct a security check of the premises.

  The third set of photographs had been shot at night with an infra-red lens. Delors again. He stood in front of the entrance with a big slightly overweight man roughly his own age. The man had thick black hair and an irritable look on his face. They were greeting another man, who was short, stout and bald, and carried a slender attaché case.

  The final set of photos was shot as the bald man prepared to leave. The quality was excellent. Dawn had come, making the use of the infrared lens unnecessary.

  Delors stood near the doorway again. The large dark-haired man stood beside him, the same irritable expression on his face. The photographs left no doubt as to the men’s identities.

  Claussen smiled to himself. If they had been planning to kill him when the job was done, they were going to have to revise their plans.

  Maria came in shivering. He looked away while she stepped out of her bikini, dried off and dressed in slacks and a long-sleeved shirt. “Prussian summer,” she said.

  Claussen smiled. “These are good. Excellent. You’ve done another piece of fine work, Maria, up to the standards we maintained in the old days.”

  “Thank you, Walter. I brought a bottle of Armagnac back from France to celebrate.”

  “I noticed.”

  “Want a taste?”

  “Go ahead. I’ll wait until later.”

  “Are we going to your house, Walter?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Maria smiled with her broad, seductive mouth. “And you still plan to resist me?”

  Claussen did not answer.

  Maria took two glasses from the travel bag she’d brought along in her rowboat, set them on the table and filled one of them. “To us,” she said, drinking.

  Claussen ignored her. He was leafing through the first set of photographs, lost in thought. “What’s the date on these, Maria?”

  “The fifth of July, several days after I arrived. I suppose I got lucky. I was camped out across the street from the Piscine with the scope, pretending to photograph pigeons. Delors showed up for work in his own car around eight thirty. Ten minutes later he left the compound in an agency car with that truck you see in the photograph following him. The traffic was heavy in Paris, and also on the autoroute. It was a simple matter to join the convoy along with a thousand other cars.

  “When they turned off, they ended up on a hilly, curvy country road. I hung back out of view, but I could see them ahead whenever they crested a hill. At the top of one of the hills, they turned into a long gravel drive. I went on past, parked my car and hiked in. There was an old barn about three hundred meters from the spot where they had parked. From the upper hayloft I had a perfect bead on the manor.”

  “I believe the photographs show the forest of Fontainebleau.”

  “Yes, Walter, a lovely place.”

  “What about the other photos? When were they shot?”

  “Well, Walter, I lived in that smelly barn for many days. I wouldn’t have done it for anyone else. There’s always a lot lying around to eat in France. The peasants who work there are ancient, which helped my requisitioning. Nothing happened until the last night of my stay. I was about to pack up and leave for Germany.”

  “Yes.”

  She took a sip of her drink. “Delors arrived shortly after dark. The third man came after midnight. They stayed in the house until dawn, and that allowed me to photograph them clearly, without the infrared, when they came out.”

  “The photographs are very good, Maria,” he repeated.

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you know who these people are?”

  She giggled and put a hand on his arm. “Yes, Walter. I was curious. Do you blame me?” “How did you learn their identities, Maria?”

  “I asked. In a bar. At a newsstand. Very discretely, mind you. People recognized them. What about you? Do you know who they are?”

  He warmed up, even managed a thin smile. “Of course I do. Now, Maria, why don’t you come home with me? We’ll have a bite to eat. I was in Berlin today and had the opportunity to convert your compensation into Swiss francs, as you requested. If you wish, you may stay the night.”

  “I wish, Walter. You know that.”

  ***

  At dusk, they crossed the lake in their two separate boats and paddled vigorously upriver. Claussen, a few meters ahead, waved her over to the flat grassy bank with the ancient stone bench where he always began his swim. She was out of breath. He caught her backpack and helped her to shore with a steady hand, then tied both boats to the bench for the night. Maria thanked him and put her arm through hi
s. This time he did not pull away.

  The woods were still as they began the half hour walk to the farmhouse. Low clouds had rolled in, dark and fragrant with the promise of rain.

  Maria found the night enchanting. She wondered out loud if Claussen would ever break down and make love to her. He implied with his silence that he would, and she hugged him tightly.

  A cool persistent rain off the Baltic began to fall. When they arrived at the farmhouse, they were both soaked. The geese, stirred up by the presence of a female, attacked Maria so aggressively she had to beat them back with a stick.

  “They’re nice and plump, Walter,” she said, laughing. “They sense that I grew up on a farm and am their enemy. You should let me fix you one for Christmas dinner.”

  “Perhaps, if I’m here,” he said, leading her inside. “Would you like a hot shower, Maria?”

  She nodded happily, her teeth chattering and goose bumps on her bare arms. “More than anything. Almost anything. Where is it?”

  “In the second-floor bedroom to your left.”

  “Will you join me, Walter? Two get warm faster than one.”

  “Yes,” he said. “And I’ll bring the Armagnac.”

  “Wonderful.” She ran up the stairs, her hard shapely calves glistening with rainwater. “I was beginning to think you could resist me forever,” she called over her shoulder, her voice like a schoolgirl’s. “I’m glad I was wrong.”

  When he heard the bedroom door close, he reached quietly into the second drawer for his stiletto. It weighed only three ounces, but was deadliest close-range weapon he had ever used. He taped it to the back of his right thigh, undressed in the kitchen and climbed the stairs naked. Her clothes were in a pile on the bed. He could hear water running. When he opened the shower door, she was standing with her back to him, washing her hair, her face turned upward toward the nozzle.

  He plunged the stiletto between her shoulder blades, a precise thrust.

  When she turned toward him, soap and water streamed down her beautiful face. He could see the stiletto’s tip where it had run her through. It was protruding from the left center of her chest. A moment of silence ensued as she gaped at him, her large, dark eyes filled with incomprehension. She finally said, “Why, Walter? Why?”

  He stepped back from the shower. She sat hard and shuddered. The blood, sparse in front, spurted from her back and formed a pool beneath her. “Why, Walter?” she repeated, her voice already weak.

  “You knew too much,” he said curtly. “You knew of my past, you knew of my mission, you were foolish enough to inquire about the identity of my employers. When I offered you the assignment, you should have refused.”

  She stretched out her arms toward him, fingers splayed and trembling. “Walter, please help me.”

  He kicked her further back in the shower and turned up the water. “Good bye, Maria. You should have been a paparazza.” He closed the shower door and scooted a heavy armoire in front of it.

  In the kitchen, Claussen put water on to boil, laid out two potatoes and a thick cutlet of veal. He put a glob of goose fat in the skillet and opened a bottle of Stierenblut wine.

  While he surveyed the beginnings of his meal, he couldn’t help laughing. Old Bauernsachs, the peasant down the road, was coming at five a.m. with a wagon of swine guts and two wagons of grain.

  Bauernsachs used the machinery in Claussen’s barn, which had once been part of a small state-owned dog food plant. Claussen charged him a share of the finished product adequate to feed his geese. This time there would be something other than pig guts in those pellets. His geese would have their go at Maria after all.

  He ate heartily, putting ample butter on his black bread and potatoes and not bothering to trim the fat from his cutlet. He had learned long ago your system needed a little something extra when you demanded superhuman things of it. A few more trivial items of business and he would be ready to leave for the States. Upstairs, he turned off the shower, pleased to see no sign of Maria’s blood in the stall. He left her and his stiletto to spend the night together in peace.

  Chapter Ten

  Soon after his arrival in the south of France, Steven reported to the Roches Fleuries Tennis Club for his scheduled meeting with the outgoing pro and the director. He already had the job, some sort of international exchange Sophie had worked out with friends in Beverly Hills and Paris. But the director of this exclusive club wanted to have a formal chat with him before he started.

  Steven assumed there would be a lot of emphasis on dress codes, tennis etiquette and other things he didn’t give a damn about. It was his image of Nicole in a short skirt responding to his hands-on demonstration of a proper serve that convinced him he could keep his mouth shut.

  He was a few minutes early so he throttled back his bike and took a coasting tour of the facility. It was impressive. Twelve finely groomed red clay courts were set among Roman ruins high above the Mediterranean. The courts on the steepest incline were built on platforms that jutted out over the mountainside. Palm trees and pines ringed the courts, providing a windbreak and a measure of privacy, and gnarled old olive trees grew among the ruins. Flower beds with all sorts of brightly colored southern plants bordered the asphalt paths connecting the courts. Best of all, if you looked down at the coastline, you could see medieval fishing villages nestled into craggy coves, and sailboats plying the aquamarine water.

  The clubhouse was a sprawling white stucco and glass villa. There was a stone patio with wrought-iron tables facing Court Number One, a first-class tournament court with a grandstand on the far side. A waiter in a white jacket held vigil over a dozen or so middle-aged women who were wearing too much jewelry and getting too much sun. He hoped they didn’t like Americans.

  He parked his bike among the fancy cars, introduced himself to the waiter and went inside. The girl at the reservation desk looked coldly at his T-shirt and cut-off jeans.

  “May I help you?”

  “I have an appointment with Philippe. My name’s LeConte. I’m going to be your pro while he’s in Beverly Hills.”

  She looked him over again as if to say, You’re dressed like that and think you’re going to be the pro here?

  “This way, please, Monsieur LeConte.”

  He followed silently up two broad flights of stairs. She ushered him into a waiting room that reminded him of the waiting room of the shrink he had once gone to see as a condition of his father’s continued financial support.

  “I’ll tell them you have arrived,” the girl said.

  “Hey, before you lock me in here, why don’t you have that waiter down below bring me up a beer? It’s hot out there.”

  “Are you sure you want to drink alcohol, Monsieur LeConte?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  She consulted her watch. “But your match begins in three hours.”

  “Match? What match?”

  “With Philippe. It’s a big event. We are expecting most of the club members to attend.”

  “I don’t know anything about a match. I didn’t even bring my racket.”

  The director’s door opened and a stern middle-age man motioned with a condescending flick of his wrist for the girl to leave. He looked Steven over with cool gray eyes. “Monsieur LeConte?”

  Steven extended his hand. “That’s me. And you must be Monsieur Denis du Péage?”

  “Yes. I trust you had a pleasant trip?”

  “It’s a long way from Paris.”

  “For an American? I thought you were accustomed to distances.”

  “I’ve been in France for quite a while.”

  “I see. Well, Philippe will be here shortly.” The director went back into his office, leaving a chill in the room.

  Soon, a man in his mid-twenties came in. He was lean and tall, 6ʹ3ʺ Steven guessed, with razor cut black hair and a gold chain around his neck. Dressed in the latest silver and mauve Sergio Tacchini warm-up suit, he looked like an ad in a tennis magazine.

  “Philippe Denis du Pé
age,” he said coolly. He extended his hand but did not squeeze when Steven shook it.

  “Denis du Péage?” Steven said. “You’re the director’s son?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what’s this I hear about a match between the two of us tonight? No one mentioned it to me.”

  “It’s tradition at the Roches Fleuries. The outgoing pro always plays the new man. The outgoing pro chooses the time of the match and the number of sets.”