The Julian secret lr-2

by Gregg Loomis

  "Do you have to?" he asked.

  "You smoke cigars," she replied, shaking out a match.

  "Once or twice a month, maybe."

  "So your cigars are five or six times larger than my cigarettes. I smoke one, two cigarettes a day-it is the same, yes?"

  There was a logic error there somewhere, but Lang wasn't sure where. At least he had gotten her habit down from over a pack a day. If she didn't quit, she wasn't going to be around long enough to become the next Mrs. Lang Reilly. So far, though, he had had little luck in persuading her into marriage. Instead, she seemed perfectly content, pointing out that their relationship worked just fine as is. He had had no success in finding the logic error there, either.

  Minutes later, they were getting out of a taxi in front of a building with the unmistakable facade common to 1930s-era dictators, a style of architecture Lang referred to as Fascist Modern. After they passed through metal detectors found in public buildings worldwide, a uniformed officer directed them to the office of Inspector Mendezo.

  Blinds against the still-fierce afternoon sun created an artificial twilight. Silhouetted by a dim lamp, a thin figure rose to extend a hand and a "Buenos dias." A chink in the blinds behind him allowed sunlight into the two visitor's chairs in front of the desk, an arrangement that made it difficult to see the face of whoever was behind the desk, a setup Lang was certain was intentional.

  In Spain, manners required the usual prefatory discussion of the weather, Lang and Gurt's accommodations, their impressions of Seville, and the inspector's recommendations as to local restaurants, a suggestion that was amended when he learned of their arrival by private plane. Lang guessed his potential dinner tab had doubled.

  Preliminaries out of the way, the inspector produced a pack of cigarettes and looked at Gurt. She nodded, producing a pack of her own. Lang, unable to say a word, prepared for a double volume of secondhand smoke.

  Or double lungful.

  The inspector leaned across the desk with a gallant flourish to light Gurt's smoke with a lighter encased in gold. Pushing a cheap glass ashtray across the desk, he asked in heavily accented English, "So how may I help you?"

  Although he couldn't see the face because of the light in his eyes, Lang would have bet the policeman was giving Gurt an appraising stare. "The Huff murder," Lang said. "His daughter asked us to look into it."

  "Hmmph!" Lang could not tell if the snort was derisive or angry. Americans. They see too many detective programs on the televisions, believe every crime can be solved in sixty minutes with time for advertising. Even in your country, I think crime is not solved that quickly."

  "Of course not," Lang said, "but the woman, Miss Huff, is emotional and cannot understand the diligent efforts you and your department are making. If you would be so gracious as to explain them to me so I may comfort the unmarried daughter of an old friend…"

  "Diligent?"

  "Working very hard," Gurt supplied, flicking an ash into the tray. Lang made a mental note to keep the language simple. It was difficult enough to carry on a conversation in a tongue not native to all participants. Employing unusual words would only alienate the Spaniard.

  "We are working hard," the Inspector said. ''You see, here in Seville, or all of Spain, for that matter, we have less murder than in, say, your New York. Almost always a hombre…"

  "Man," Gurt supplied.

  "… man killed, it is because he and a friend get drink. A woman, gamble, you know? Narcotics also. Sometime, not many, a… man, he bust into house to take, steal, get caught, he kill to get away. Here, Mr. Huff, look like only papers get stealed, yes? Very difficult, this thing, this killing. It was… How you say? Like your gangsters."

  "Execution?" Lang offered. ''Yes, execution. Bullet to the back of the neck, powder burns on skin. Very intentional."

  "Do you have any idea why someone would kill Huff to get his manu

  … his book?" Lang asked.

  "I never see before in twenty years," the inspector answered. "To kill for a book…? It is not thinkable. I tell you, Senor, Mr. Reilly, we will not quit until we find man who do it."

  The inspector stood, indicating the interview was over. He had demonstrated a talent for packing a maximum number of words into a minimum of information.

  Lang remained seated, indicating he was not quite through. "Could we see the papers you took from the house?"

  "Ho-kay." The policeman handed a cardboard box across the desk. "If they tell you anything, you call?"

  "Sure."

  "Ah, I forget." The inspector handed Lang an envelope. "CD. Only one has anything on it, pictures, old pictures, maybe sixty years old."

  As Lang and Gurt reached the door, Mendezo said, "One more thing" Mr. Reilly."

  Lang turned. ''Yes?''

  "Any assistance you give your friend's daughter is kindness. Interfering with professional police investigation is something else. You will please leave that job to us."

  Lang nodded. "Of course, Inspector. Thank you for your time."

  "Amateurs," he muttered to Gurt as they stepped outside the building, "constructed the ark. It was the professionals who built the Titanic."

  Once back in the old section of town, Gurt led Lang to one of the tapas bars that seemed to occupy every corner. Since the average Spaniard ate dinner after 10:30, the small appetizers at least abated the hunger pangs. From what Lang could see, a couple or a group would enter one of the places, or sit outside if seats were available, have a glass of beer or the sweet, spicy sangria along with two or three tapas, and move along to an identical establishment a few blocks away where they greeted other people.

  In the third tapas bar, he noted a pair of men who had been in the other two.

  He could feel the old familiar tingling at the back of his neck, the sensation he had whenever danger was close.

  He leaned across the small table, using the excuse of refilling Gurt's glass of sangria to get close enough to speak in a whisper. "Did you notice those two guys who came in right behind us?"

  He knew she was too well trained to turn around. ''You mean the two that have been in each place we have?"

  He smiled as though acknowledging a clever remark, no more than conversation between a man and a woman to any observer. "When did you first pick them up?"

  She was rummaging around in the huge purse she carried, one large enough to contain a complete change of clothes for several days. "When we got out of the cab, they from a car got. Everywhere they looked but at us."

  She had recognized what they were doing a good thirty minutes before he had. But then, she was still in the spook business. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  She retrieved a pack of cigarettes and began further exploration for matches. ''You did not notice them until now? You are losing your corner."

  "Edge," he corrected tartly. "I'm a lawyer now, not an operative." She found a book of matches and struck one. "You do not have to be sharp to be a lawyer?"

  He filled his own glass, using his hand across the spout of the pitcher to keep the assorted fruit from splattering onto the table. This conversation was going nowhere. And why, do you suppose, are we being followed?"

  She shrugged. "We do not know certainly that we are. There are at least three other couples in this place that were in the first one we went to."

  Lang was not about to admit this was a revelation. Instead, he drained his glass. "We'll soon find out. You know how. Go straight back to the hotel."

  Gurt let smoke trickle from her lips. No matter how much Lang wanted her to quit, he found this sexy. "Why do not you go back to the hotel? It is you, not I, who is years removed from recurrent Agency training. I resent being treated as though I cannot take care of myself."

  "Tell it to Dr. Phil. You will go back to the hotel." If there was one thing a German understood, it was the difference between a request and an order.

  He stood, counting out euros, which he tossed on the table. He and, Gurt sauntered outside, each taking turns pointing at a nu
mber of sights, two tourists discovering one of Europe's more interesting. old cities. Suddenly, gestures became angry, voices lowered to keep them from passersby. Tourists had become combatants.

  Then they split, each stalking angrily away from the other. The two men, just exiting the tapas bar, exchanged glances. One followed Lang, the other Gurt.

  There was now no doubt.

  Lang slowed his pace, the gait of a man perhaps regretting what he had done. A couple of uncertain glances in the direction in which Gurt had departed told him his follower was keeping a consistent distance, not the move of someone intent on a street mugging ·or picking a pocket, two common crimes in an area with twenty-five percent unemployment.

  Shadows were growing longer. Lang estimated it would be dark in less than a half hour. If there were more of whoever these people were, Lang would prefer to be able to see them.

  He studied the flyspecked window of an apparel shop for a few minutes before stepping inside. Clothes, men's suits, ladies' coats, shoes, were dumped in random piles so close together there was little room between them. Lang idly edged between a mountain of cheap cloth handbags and brightly colored sweaters to examine a man's faux-fur overcoat. Why someone would want such a heavy garment in the south of Spain escaped him, but the price was right. Pretending to seek the proprietor, he confirmed that his minder had entered the shop.

  Casually, Lang made his way to the rear, brushing aside a curtain that divided the store's public space from the owner's. Dropping the coat, he quickly stepped to the back of the building, gratified to see a door. The dead bolt turned easily, and Lang stood in a narrow alley lined with the rears of buildings.

  He waited patiently. Inside, he heard angry voices, no doubt the shopkeeper protesting the invasion of private space by the man following Lang.

  Lang moved to the side against which the door would open. For at least a split second, it· would shield him from anyone exiting. He thought of the Sig Sauer, useless in his bedside table an ocean away.

  The first thing the man did when he stepped into the alley was look in the direction away from Lang. Before he could turn his head the other way, Lang had an arm bent around the man's neck, the elbow directly under his chin so that equal pressure was brought on both carotid arteries. The effect was to starve the brain of blood while allowing oxygen to be sucked into otherwise empty capillaries, causing them to pop like balloons. In four or five seconds, the victim would be unconscious. In twenty, he would be dead.

  A trained hand-to-hand fighter would have immediately gone limp, thereby placing his weight against the attacker's arm and lessening the pressure. Instead, the man Lang held struggled briefly to pull the arm away, a near impossibility without substantial height advantage.

  In seconds, he was crumpled on the ground. A quick but thorough search of his pockets produced the cell phone without which no European can exist, keys, and a switchblade, which, when open, made a deadly dagger. His wallet held a few euros and a national ID card, which Lang slipped into his pocket along with the phone. The knife he hurled into the gathering dark.

  A series of tortured coughs told Lang the man would soon be conscious. He would have liked to question him, but that was not going to happen. All the follower had to do was not speak English, or pretend not to, and interrogation would be impossible. Besides, remaining in an alley rapidly filling with nig-ht didn't seem like a good idea.

  He looked over his shoulder as he turned back onto the main street. Losing his corner, was he?

  Gurt was waiting for him in the hotel room. Her raised eyebrows asked the question.

  Lang gave a brief summary of what had happened, finishing with, "I don't know any more than before, but I do have a cell phone and an ID. I suppose it's possible he was just a criminal looking for a score."

  "Getting out of a car to follow us?"

  She was right, of course.

  "Can you think of anyone at the Agency who owes you a favor, can run this ID, maybe find out to whom the number of the cell phone is registered?"

  She stood to look out the window. "It is possible."

  The equivalent of a Social Security number in Europe would produce not only a credit history but everything from the names of relatives to the date and nature of the holder's last visit to his state-subsidized physician.

  Americans would find this intolerable. Fortunately, only a few were aware it was equally possible there. ''And also, see how we can find out to whom this cell phone number belongs."

  She cocked an annoyed eyebrow, clicked her heels, and gave him a Nazi salute. "Jawohl, Herr Gruppenfuhrer! Shall I also serve your dinner?"

  Maybe she had not forgotten as much of World War II as he had thought.

  He played it straight. "That won't be necessary. While you're calling favors due, I'm going to see if the hotel has a computer I can use, check out that CD."

  Despite its fourteenth-century Moorish appearance, the hotel had a business center equal to any similar facility in the United States. Lang showed his room key to the attractive young woman at the entrance, and she led him to a cubicle complete with computer and printer.

  "Will that be all?" she asked in almost accentless English.

  "Yes, er, no." Lang was looking at the keyboard. "I want to print out some photographs on this disk, but I don't read Spanish."

  She gave him a very professional smile, one he was sure she lavished on every dullard fortunate enough to be a guest here. "No problem. May I have the disk?"

  She inserted it into the computer, pressed a couple of buttons, and stepped back. "That should work. If you have a problem, let me know."

  Lang sat in front of the screen as the printer hummed. Why was it technology was less intimidating the younger you were?

  The black-and-white pictures were not quite as clear as he might have hoped, either because they were not exactly focused or because of something in the process of transferring ordinary film images to a digital format. The computer had caught the sepia tone of old photographs. Most were different views of the classical facade of the same building, a structure Lang recognized as St. Peter's in Rome. One depicted a man in what might have been a black uniform, with what could have been part of the basilica as background. Lang studied the face. Perhaps mid-thirties, piercing eyes, and, most distinguishing, a scar across the right cheek. Lang looked closer. What was the insignia on the collar of his tunic? Too blurred to be certain. The other pictures seemed to have been taken at night or inside, and depicted the same man, this time in mufti, standing in front of a rock face on which barely distinguishable letters were carved.

  Lang stared at the man for a long time. His face was… familiar? Impossible. Lang was certain he had never seen the guy before, yet there was something recognizable about him. Perhaps a movie star or other celebrity of years past whose picture Lang had seen?

  Hadn't the inspector said the pictures were sixty or so years old? How did he know? The next photo answered the question. In this one, the man's uniform was clearly visible and distinguishable from civilian clothes. He stood in front of the building. Lang looked closer. His attire was either black or very dark, perhaps navy. On the high collar was some sort of… Lang held the paper inches from his face and recognized the stylized lightning bolts of the SS, the elite of the Nazi military.

  That made sense, Lang supposed, since Don had been writing about some long-dead Nazi. But why would photographs that old be worth killing for, particularly pictures that looked like those some soldier might have had made to send home like any other tourist?

  He turned off the computer and headed back to the room.

  Gurt was watching what appeared to be a Spanish soap on the room's TV. A man with sideburns that would have rivaled Elvis's was shouting something at a sobbing woman. It was the first time he had seen her watch television.

  "I didn't know you spoke Spanish," Lang said. "I don't, but the story on these programs is much the same everywhere." Apparently, she was more of a television watcher than she ad
mitted. Lang put the envelope with the disk in it on the room's desk. "Any luck getting a line on our friend?"

  Gurt aimed the remote at the TV. It clicked off. "Luck? No. I intended to get the information. The man is a little-time criminal, has attended prison for purse snatching, picking pockets, that sort of thing. He has been out less than a month."

  "And the cell phone?"

  "Someone else's, stolen."

  Something Spain and the United States had in common: the effectiveness of the corrective function of their respective penal systems.

  Lang sat down on the bed. "Penny-ante crooks can't afford automobiles in Europe. Unless those two stole the one they got out of, somebody hired them to follow us. Or worse."

  "Or they wanted to scare us away."

  Lang hadn't considered that possibility. "From what?"

  Gurt glanced at her purse, no doubt wondering how much grief she'd get if she lit another cigarette. "From whatever they think we are doing. Or whatever they think we might find among your friend's papers."

  They looked at each other without speaking for a full minute before Gurt broke the silence. "That knife. He could have intended to kill you."

  "And the one that followed you?"

  "Ion the lighted streets remained. He had no chance to harm me before I walked the two or three blocks back here."

  Another pause. Gurt decided to risk it. She pulled her cigarettes out of the purse. "Lang, what are we doing?"

  "I'm not sure I understand the question. What you are doing is setting yourself up for cancer, emphysema, and tobacco-stained teeth."

  Like her favorite fictional character, Scarlett O'Hara, Gurt apparently decided she would worry about that tomorrow. "I mean, why are we getting involved in this? Huff may have been a friend, but he was not close. I never heard you mention him before the other day. Besides, what cap. we do the police cannot?"