Not With a Whimper

by Peter A W Kelt

  “What on earth are you doing?” She was fully dressed, washed and had tidied her hair. I didn’t like the smile. It was motherly.

  “I’m stiff.”

  “Uh-huh. Try a hot bath – the water’s quite warm.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Nearly eleven. I let you sleep. I’ll make some coffee.”

  Motherly right enough. I tried a hot bath. I soaked myself thoroughly, head under, stood up, soaped myself all over and soaked myself again. There were several thin cotton towels on a rail. I towelled myself vigorously. I found a razor with a blunt blade and scraped off my beard. Motherly, huh.

  The coffee was strong and I finished off a loaf with some apricot preserve Carol had found. She sat in silence and pushed a cup around on the table and watched me eat. That was when I said the wrong thing. “You’ll make someone a good wife. You don’t talk.”

  She blushed. “I talked too much this morning. I meant it though.”

  I had forgotten that. She pushed the cup round and her hair hid her face and I tried to think of something to say. You live a long time in a silence like that.

  “I’m married,” I said finally. “I’ve a daughter your age.”

  “Age doesn’t matter.” Her hand found mine and her nails dug in the flesh. It was a hot, dry hand.

  I tried to find the right words. “It’s a kind of bargain. When you get married you make a bargain.”

  “You’re not happily married, you said so.”

  “It’s no honeymoon. That doesn’t mean it’s unhappy.”

  “I could come to England, get a job, we could see each other.” Her nails bit deeper.

  “That wouldn’t be fair to you.”

  “Everything’s got to be fair.” The tone was furious. She threw my hand away from her. I looked at the white crescents in the flesh of my palm. They filled in red. “Everything’s got to be fair, that’s all you can think of.”

  “It’s one of the rules.”

  “Sure, fair.” She dragged her nails across her forehead. They left red lines and her hair flopped. She whirled on her chair. Her knee caught the table leg and it rocked but she kept on going. Her boots echoed on the tiled floor and the table legs scraped the silence. Then she was gone. It wasn’t silent then. I could hear her crying in the kitchen.

  I rocked on the back legs of the chair. My jacket was hanging on the back of it and something banged the edge of the seat. Something solid. In my pocket.

  I turned round, took out the Luger and checked the breech. It was oiled and ready for use and I was going to use it.

  “Don’t blow your brains out because of me. I’m not worth it,” she said bitterly from the doorway.

  “Nobody’s worth it.”

  “God, I hate you.” She punched the frame of the door.

  I dropped the Luger back into its pocket and stood up. I put the jacket on and buttoned it, shrugged the shoulders until it sat comfortably on me with the weight in the pocket. She was watching me. Her face was wet and pink and shiny.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Car keys.” I held out my hand.

  “What are you going to do?” The lines of her frown incised her brow. A finger wandered over her face near her lips. “You look funny.”

  “Car keys.”

  She patted her pockets and found them in her hip pocket. She handed them to me and she was close, looking up at me and asking again, “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to kill a man.” I hadn’t meant to tell her. Her hands made a fist over the keys on my hand, then relaxed and she whispered, “You mean it, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” I put the keys in my pocket. “I do.”

  “Who?”

  “Gunter Katz.”

  “Who?”

  “The man behind it all, that’s who.”

  She stared up at me and saw I meant it. Then she held both my hands. “But why you?”

  “Nobody else might.”

  “You can’t.” She shook my hands free with a gentle movement. “But what will happen to you?”

  I shrugged. “It’s something I’ve got to do.”

  “But why?” She snared my hands again. “The police want you for killing Mingote anyway. Why you?”

  “Somebody has got to do it.” That made her angry again. I was good at making her angry. She churned my hands.

  So how do you explain it?

  How do you explain it to yourself?

  That you are going to kill somebody in cold blood, walk up to him and pull the trigger.

  Because all your life, you’ve had it easy. Because you were lucky enough to be born with a few brains, lucky enough to get an education. Because you had a silk-lined ride through life. Because there are those one or two, and there always have been, who will derail the train to grab the goodies in the guard’s van. That it is time to pay for your ticket. Does that make sense?

  How do you tell a nineteen-year-old with moonlit hair and a figure that would make a Trappist talk that you don’t want her? How do you explain it to yourself? That nothing as easy as that is worth having? That that’s what’s wrong with the world; we’ve reached the promised land but it wasn’t worth reaching?

  And that’s why you’re going to kill Gunter Katz.

  Is it?

  I didn’t know.

  I got a hand free and patted her shoulder and it moved irritably. “I know what I’m doing,” I said. “After I’ve been to Don Carlos’s, I’ll turn myself in to Legra.”

  She let go my other hand and shook her head. The colour had gone from her face and her skin was the colour of the lilies on the shelf. I can’t stop you?”

  “No, Carol.”

  I walked down the stairs. It was after twelve and I hadn’t had a smoke. I hadn’t had a drink. And I didn’t need either. It was a long time since I hadn’t.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  A nice car, the SEAT 600. Not big, nor fast. But it gets you there just the same and those thin little seats are very comfortable. Nothing extra for show in a car like that. It has a job to do and it does it.

  Like me. I had a job to do.

  I came to the drive to Don Carlos’s. El Toro Negro. I drove up it, not fast, not slow, just drove up it and into the outer courtyard.

  There were four cars. A deep red BMW 3.0 Si. A grey Citroën Pallas CX. A blue Mercedes 280 SE. A sand Jaguar XJS. Over £35,000 in the showroom.

  I parked my £1,000 worth of SEAT in front of them and left the windows down and the key in the ignition. No reason. A SEAT 600 is nobody’s idea of a getaway car. I just didn’t think to take the keys with me.

  I walked into the inner patio. Bougainvillaea brushed my face. The fountain tinkled and sparkled.

  Voices murmured from the open windows and door. Quiet, expensive voices that went with quiet expensive cars.

  The voices stopped when I appeared in the doorway. It was Ilse who stopped them. She gasped and the shock in her voice cut their sound like a knife and they all turned to see what had made her gasp.

  “Buenos días,” I said with nonchalance. I leaned against the doorframe. I looked them over and they were as neat a bunch of businessmen as ever got together to turn over a few ideas. And one of them was Gunter Katz.

  Gilbert Keble. Graham O’Halloran. Joseph van Oudtschoorn.

  And Ilse. She was pale, big-eyed and sat forward in her chair, her hands gripping the edge. They were big hands, no rings apart from the half-inch of pure gold wedding ring.

  And Don Carlos himself.

  “Morning.” O’Halloran wore a fawn suit in a lightweight material with wide lapels and a cream tie over a brown shirt. He looked at Don Carlos to remind him to welcome his visitor. A perfect gentleman, O’Halloran. But they were all perfect gentlemen, weren’t they?

  “Will you come in?” Don Carlos pushed himself up. His arms were trembling. His face was a slick yellow colour and he wiped the corner of his mouth with a knuckle.

  “I think I will,” I said.
“Business meeting?” Still nonchalant, I chose a hard-backed chair. I didn’t want to be too nonchalant.

  Van Oudtschoorn was lighting a thin black cigar. He raised his eyes over the flame of the match to look at me. “You could say so,” he said, his voice cold. His sideburns looked strangely fluffy behind the weathered boniness of his face.

  “Oh, it’s hardly business, Joe.” This from O’Halloran.

  Van Oudtschoorn snorted and dropped the match in an ashtray. He let it burn itself out.

  It was my turn to speak. I spoke. “I suppose you all have something in common.” I gave it the big build-up with the big pause. “Some common business.” A lot of steel in the voice. A lot of steel in the look. Good significant stuff.

  “What do you mean by that?” Keble reacted to the significance.

  I had to lean sideways to take out the Luger. Ilse gasped again, explosively. I held the gun in both hands, loosely, between my knees. Nonchalantly.

  “What the hell is that for?” Keble yelped.

  “To kill one of you.” Still nonchalant. I couldn’t get out of low gear.

  “I knew it. I knew it,” Ilse squealed.

  Van Oudtschoorn took the cigar from his mouth, held the smoke, then blew it out in a thin steady stream. “You are mad.”

  Keble laughed. “Which one of us is the lucky fellow?” A false laugh. A false voice. Genuine as a three-pound note.

  “Gunter Katz.”

  “You’ve got the wrong place, old boy.” Keble sweated out and looked at the others. “Nobody by that name here.”

  “Oh, yes there is.”

  O’Halloran turned an intelligent look on me. “You mean one of us is someone called Gunter Katz?” He cupped his hand backwards over his head, smoothing his hair. It was already smooth.

  “Why are you… ” Keble let the sentence die. He ran the back of his forefinger against the side of his moustache. It was an elegant forefinger and an elegant moustache. There was nothing elegant about his eyes. Worry scarred his eyes and crumpled his face.

  “Katz is a German Nazi.”

  “You mean, you think one of us… ” O’Halloran stopped and looked at each of the others in turn to identify them. “We’ve known each other for years. I think you must be mistaken.” He sounded earnest. He frowned to show how earnest he was.

  Van Oudtschoorn had never taken his eyes off me. “I think you should telephone the police, Carlos.” His eyes were black and steady.

  “Do,” I said. “Tell Captain Legra I am here.”

  “No,” Ilse exclaimed. “Carlos do something.” She cursed him in Spanish then switched to German. Don Carlos pulled his fingers. His eyes ran round the room like a trapped lizard. He almost shrugged. Not quite.

  “Several weeks ago there was a shooting accident. A man called Lynd. Then there was Vance Hoggart, Miguel Aberaccín, Agustín Mingote. They weren’t accidents and neither was Lynd.”

  Van Oudtschoorn tapped the ash off his cigar and snorted again.

  “Then there were one or two attempts on me.” I slapped the Luger on my thigh. “In Chipiona, for example.” Keble squeezed his forehead. Van Oudtschoorn sat like stone. “I was taken there by Teresa Navas.”

  “I gave you the key, Joe, I lent you the key.” Keble was bleating.

  Van Oudtschoorn sneered at him but the dull red above his eyebrows crept up his forehead.

  “Well, well.” O’Halloran chuckled. He looked at the back of his hand and smiled to himself. “Rafael Morena’s sister.”

  “Lynd had come across a conspiracy –”

  “It was an accident.” Don Carlos nibbled the words hesitantly. “The police said so.”

  “Hoggart was in it. Juan Gallegos killed him and he was Paco Jurado’s playmate and Paco approached Aberaccín to see if he wanted to work for El Toro Negro. Jurado and Aberaccín were old friends.”

  “We don’t know these men, do we, Carlos?” Ilse screeched. “These men were never here, never.”

  Don Carlos barely shook his head, just enough to make his cheeks quiver. They could have been quivering anyway.

  I ignored her. “Then they tried to kill me.”

  Van Oudtschoorn spoke. “Do you really intend to kill this man Katz?”

  “Yes.” I still meant it.

  “Why?”

  Van Oudtschoorn’s face was impassive.

  “He and his fellow Nazis were prepared to destroy the world so that they could pick up the pieces afterwards. In the cellar of the Bodega Ortega there is a fallout shelter, equipped for months, radioactivity monitoring equipment, everything necessary to survive nuclear war.

  They all looked at Don Carlos. Then Ilse. Then me.

  “They were going to start a nuclear war?” O’Halloran, incredulous.

  “How could they make a nuclear bomb?” Keble, puzzled.

  “Many nuclear bombs?” Van Oudtschoorn, logical. “And the means to deliver them?” Equally logical.

  “All they needed was the right man in the right place. That man was Commander Byrd.”

  “You’re saying Gil Byrd is a Nazi?” Keble’s hand worked at trying to smooth some of the lines on his face. They hadn’t been there before. I nodded. “I don’t believe it.” He did though.

  “Byrd had a rendezvous with a squad of German sailors. They were going to hijack the Seagull – his sub. In just about thirty-six hours from now they were going to launch a nuclear missile attack on the Soviet Union. Russia strikes back. The USA retaliates. Instant annihilation for the price of one hijack. And after the all-clear they come out of their shelters and pick up the pieces.”

  “Well, well, well.” Keble. “Well, well, well.” He drew his thumbnail across his forehead. It left a thin white mark.

  “It’s not true. It’s all lies, nonsense. You’re mad, he’s mad.” She appealed to the others.

  Not even Van Oudtschoorn looked as if he thought I was mad now. He knuckled his eyebrows over a frown and chewed the inside corner of his lip and rubbed his right hand over his left. “And it was Teresa who tried to kill you in Chipiona?”

  I hadn’t realised he could talk so softly.

  “Your lady friend isn’t a fully paid-up member. Her brother is.”

  “I see. Go on.”

  I went on. “You know it’s true, Ilse. You were an essential part of the plan. You talked your husband into providing the headquarters. Katz was the planner, the organiser.”

  “Yes.” Keble asked the billion-dollar question that no-one had asked. “Who is Katz?”

  I looked round them one by one.

  Keble, cracking his knuckles in a large freckled hand, the colour gone from his face, the eyes dead with panic.

  O’Halloran, too stiff to be casual, muscles tight round his mouth, white lines between his eyes and a nerve twitching in his jaw.

  Van Oudtschoorn, eyes like knotholes, the creases in his brow climbing up over his bald scalp, pecking the corner of his jaw with thumb and finger.

  I said quietly, “You are, O’Halloran.”

  He smoothed a smile over his face and looked at me with pity. “Oh, come now. It’s a fine story you’ve been telling us but this is ridiculous.”

  Keble croaked: “You can’t kill him in cold blood.”

  “You’re making a hell of a mistake.” His face was white now and there was sweat on his brow.

  “When Ilse brought me into the library on the day of the tienta, she spoke to me about living in Barcelona. You were the only person I told that to. You were the only person who could have told Ilse.”

  “That is very thin evidence.” Van Oudtschoorn sounded cold but he was watching O’Halloran.

  Keble spoke simultaneously. “You can’t shoot him on that.”

  But I knew how to force out the truth. I turned to Don Carlos. “Did you know that Gunter is Ilse’s lover?”

  “No,” he gasped. “No, it is not true, no.”

  Ilse said the same thing.

  “Mingote told me. Félix Benítez told me. Miguel Abera
ccín told me. Everybody in El Puerto knows, and Rota and Jerez.” I exaggerated.

  “No, no, it is not true.” He stared at me with the face of a drowning man.

  “Just call in anyone of your staff,” I said, cruel now. “Ask them. If a man like Mingote knew … “ I made a spitting gesture and shrugged. “How they must laugh at you in the clubs of Jerez.”

  Don Carlos stumbled to his feet, turned to Ilse who sat white-faced and shaking her head. “Say it is not true,” he screamed.

  Keble murmured, “That’s a bit rough” and I turned on him and said savagely, “You make me sick.”

  Don Carlos swung on O’Halloran. “You and Ilse.” Tears ran down his cheeks. He slumped back into his chair. “I wanted to be a great man like my father. I was going to show him that I too could be a leader.” He punched his cheek twice. Blood showed in his mouth. “My father would have killed you.” He tasted the blood. He lunged out of the chair. “My father would have killed you.” O’Halloran shot him without moving, a tiny handgun in his right hand. Keble jumped and blocked my view of O’Halloran. Don Carlos hung, balanced forward on his feet, a gaping hole in his throat that gushed blood and a wide-eyed look of astonishment on his face, then softly crumpled. The air in his lungs rattled through his throat like pebbles gently rolling in a can.

  I had jumped sideways, knocking my chair over to get a sight on O’Halloran but he was a quick mover. He was behind the other three. It was a .25 Walther TP and its muzzle was rammed under Keble’s ear, not trained on me. His lips were white.

  “Drop your gun or I shoot him.”

  I shook my head.

  “Wait, listen,” he urged. “I see your finger move on that trigger, I shoot Keble, maybe Joseph, maybe time to get them both before you get me.” The words jumbled themselves in their urgency. “I mean it.” He was almost screaming but the Walther was rock steady and his eyes never left my hand. Keble stood frozen. They were all frozen.

  A quick mover and a quick thinker. But then Gunter Katz would be. Keble must have unsighted him as well as me. H knew I could get him in the fraction of a second it took to swing the Walther on me.

  “Ilse, is there anything between me and the door?”

  She shook her head.