The Shadowboxer

by Behn, Noel;

  Kittermaster scooped Hilka in his arms, hurried her into the bathroom, laid her on the floor and turned the water on full. He could hear the pounding grow more insistent.

  He unlocked the door and pulled it open. The constable entered. The trembling desk clerk remained in the hall.

  “All right, what’s going on in here?”

  “Just an argument, officer,” Kittermaster said, sweeping a hand through his hair. “A lovers’ quarrel.”

  “And where’s the lady?”

  “Taking a bath. She always takes a bath after we—after we’ve had one of our little go-rounds.”

  “Let us have your identification.”

  Kittermaster produced his ID card.

  “A colonel?”

  “Yes.”

  The constable took out his book and jotted down the information on the card. “And where are you quartered?”

  “Westerly.”

  “Oh, one of them, are you?”

  “I’m the commander.”

  “Are you. Well, a fine example you’re setting for your men, wouldn’t you say?” The constable put away his pad and glanced about the room. “Is the lady all right?”

  “Yes, she’s fine. She’ll take her bath and have her cry and then be fine. That’s how it always is,”

  “And we’ll have no more trouble from you?”

  “No more trouble. On my word.”

  “And I’ll take your word, Colonel. But if there’s any more trouble, I must warn you, in you go. They run a quiet place here.”

  “We’re known for our quiet,” the clerk added from the hall.

  “I’ll be quiet, you can bet. And thank you, officer, for your kind consideration.”

  “Constable. I’m no officer by a long measure. I’m a constable and proud to be.”

  “Thank you, Constable.”

  Kittermaster closed the door, locked it and hurried back to the bathroom. Hilka lay motionless. He leaned over and put an ear to her mouth. She was breathing. He turned off the water and carried her to the bed. He knelt beside her and began massaging her wrists. “Everything’s going to be okay now, I mean it. Just don’t you worry. Everything’s going to be dandy. Do you hear me? Hear that? Why, you can go and write to whoever you want, even him. Sure. I tell you what. If you want to see Spangler at Westerly, then you go right ahead. It won’t ruffle me the slightest. Do you hear me? Hey, do you hear? Ah, come on, I didn’t hit you that hard. You know I didn’t. What are you trying to do, scare me? Don’t do that to me, honey. Come on, will you, cut it out. Do you hear—”

  The knocking on the door was sharper than before.

  Kittermaster made no move.

  The pounding continued.

  He stood up as a key turned in the lock.

  Two men in double-breasted dark-gray pinstripes entered. One carried a black leather satchel.

  “Police inspectors, Scotland Yard,” said the tall one in a clipped accent. “Don’t mind if we see your identification again, do you? Been some trouble with forged papers lately. May I?”

  Kittermaster reached for his wallet and brought out the card as the short man closed the door in the room clerk’s face.

  The tall inspector studied the identification and then handed it to his companion. “What do you think, Harold?”

  The short man glanced from photograph to Kittermaster and back to photograph. “Seems proper to me, Freddy.”

  “Better check the list,” the tall detective replied. Then he snapped his fingers and pointed to the bed. “Well, well, well, what have we here?” he said, stepping toward the motionless Hilka.

  “She’s—she’s just sleeping,” Kittermaster said nervously. “She fell down—and now she’s sleeping.”

  Kittermaster stepped back as Harold joined Freddy at the bed. “She’s damn near dead,” Harold said without overmuch concern.

  “She is, isn’t she?” Freddy commented casually. “Better see what you can do for her, Harold. See if you can bring her round.”

  Harold opened his satchel, poked about inside and came out with a can of pipe tobacco. He reached further in and withdrew a hypodermic syringe.

  “Getting back to your identification card,” said Freddy. “Is Lamar your Christian name?”

  “Yes,” the colonel answered, watching Harold pull the syringe out of Hilka’s arm and change the needle.

  “Lamar Buford Kittermaster?”

  “That’s right,” he said, turning back to the tall man.

  “Are you sure it isn’t Spangler?”

  “Spangler?”

  “Erik Spangler.”

  “Say, who the hell are you?”

  “Friends of friends—Herr Erik Spangler.”

  “What—why—Now, just a minute, you’ve got—”

  Kittermaster’s arms were jerked behind his back.

  “Why, that treacherous little bastard,” the colonel half laughed, “that little bastard Julian. Julie put you up to this, didn’t—”

  Freddy ripped open Kittermaster’s shirt.

  “Hey, you fellows just had a good one pulled on—”

  The hypodermic needle drove into Kittermaster’s heart. Death was instantaneous.

  The corpse was laid on the floor and photographed repeatedly. Fingerprints and a blood sample were taken.

  Harold slid the tobacco can between Kittermaster and the bed. The men locked the door after them as they left the room. They had driven almost half a mile before they heard the explosion.

  36

  The documents were signed and sealed and copies given to Julian. The secret inquest conducted by the coroner and three local officials was terminated. The casket was loaded onto a guarded truck and driven off toward the R.A.F. airfield, where a special bomber would be waiting to fly it to the United States.

  Julian followed the coffin as far as the first village before turning off onto a side road and pulling in behind the remains of a fire-gutted barn. He got out of the car, lifted the trunk door and reached in for his priest’s clothing. He was changed and driving on within five minutes.

  The fishing smack was moored to the jetty with its engines idling. Von Schleiben sat in the stern, dressed as a bishop. Freddy and Harold moved in behind him as Julian descended the steep path leading down to the isolated cove.

  “Sorry to have missed Spangler’s final benediction,” von Schleiben called out cordially, with a wave of his ribboned miter, “but I find death slightly obnoxious. That is why I have never set foot in a camp. Did you know that, Peppermint? It is true. If the Fuehrer himself refuses to view a bombed German city, why should I sicken myself with carnage? Come aboard, Peppermint.”

  Julian stopped at the stone wall and tossed a manila envelope down into the boat. “These are the inquest papers, as well as Spangler’s service record,” he called, as Freddy opened the packet and spread the pages on the deck. Harold took out his camera and began photographing.

  “The service record is sparse,” Julian continued, “but that’s the procedure with agents of Spangler’s category. Activities and assignments are never reported. But it does include a photograph, fingerprints, blood type and other physical identification.”

  “Come aboard, Peppermint, come aboard,” von Schleiben urged.

  “I prefer it up here.” Julian slipped one hand under his cassock.

  “Don’t you trust me, Peppermint?”

  “Not with the engines running, I don’t.”

  “But I’ve found some new prospects for you. How can you make the selections if you don’t come aboard?” von Schleiben asked, displaying a typewritten list.

  “Read them to me.”

  “Our understanding doesn’t cover my reading off names.”

  “It doesn’t cover my coming aboard, either.”

  Von Schleiben scowled, paused, then snapped his fingers and removed a list from his pocket. “There are two categories of prisoners to choose from—those being held in prisons and those in concentration camps. Those in prison can be delivered qu
ickly and easily. The camps present a different problem.”

  “Start with the prisons,” Julian said.

  Von Schleiben held the paper out under his glasses and began reading. “Goetz, Speigle, Drosset, Stroud, Werner, Mandelbaum.”

  “No good. Who is on the other list?”

  “Those I once offered you in France: Hauller, Brome and Tolan. You can also have Kapska or Boeck.”

  “What happened to von Rausch and Bengl? They were in the original offering.”

  Von Schleiben recalled, “So they were, Peppermint, so they were. That seems so far back now. Von Rausch and Bengl are no longer with us. Acute pneumonia.”

  “I’ll take Kapska and Brome.”

  Von Schleiben turned to Harold. “Where are we holding them?”

  “Kapska’s at Sobibor, Obergruppenfuehrer, and Brome is in Grossrosen.”

  Von Schleiben shook his head. “Ach, Peppermint, I hope you are in no particular hurry? It will take time to get them out.”

  “How much time?”

  “Six to seven weeks for Brome. Kapska? Perhaps two to three months.”

  “I need them faster.”

  “Impossible. And you have no one to blame but yourself. Had you given me Spangler when I first requested, the prisoners would not have been moved around. All the names on the camp list had to be moved—because of you. Now they are more closely watched by Totenkopf security. It is very complicated to arrange for their disappearance without creating suspicion.”

  “I must have Kapska and Brome within three weeks.” Julian insisted.

  “Harold,” von Schleiben snapped, “where are the others?”

  “Hauller’s at Treblinka, Obergruppenfuehrer,” Freddy replied, leaning over von Schleiben’s shoulder and examining the list. Tolan’s at Birkenau and Boeck at Plazow.”

  Von Schleiben considered. “You could have Hauller in three weeks and Tolan in four.”

  “I don’t want Hauller or Tolan. They’re no use to me. I must have Kapska and Brome—and quickly.”

  “No one else will do?”

  “No.”

  Von Schleiben shrugged. “Harold, get down to the radio room and contact Zieff. Tell him that Kapska and Brome are to be immediately executed.” He turned back to Julian with satisfaction. “No reaction, Peppermint? You disappoint me. When I was outwitted in exactly this fashion, I was livid with rage. I lost several good men because I was naïve enough to let another enemy know my requirements.

  “But that’s how it is with us, isn’t it, Peppermint? We learn from one another. The gambit you play on me today I employ against someone else tomorrow. Eventually our bag of tricks becomes the same, and then the game resolves simply into catching the other side off guard. Goals and causes become secondary; only the competition matters. How futile it is, Peppermint. We are jousting windmills, boxing with shadows. Our late friend Spangler was a real shadow-boxer, wasn’t he? And what did he accomplish for all his trouble? But I suppose he enjoyed it. We all do, eh, Peppermint? Intrigue exhilarates us. Win or lose, there’s never any rancor between adversaries. Is that why no one outside really understands us—or cares to?”

  “You agreed to give me whoever I wanted in return for Spangler,” Julian said coldly. “I want Kapska and Brome.”

  “Kapska and Brome were suggestions, not agreements. Our agreement was formulated that night in France when I demanded that Spangler should not go after the Tolan girl. You saw fit not to honor it. You imperiled my position, even my life. But now you have been outmaneuvered. Spangler is gone. Kapska and Brome will soon follow. Whatever the scheme you had in mind, it has been crippled. But, most important, I am safe. No one is left who can implicate me in anything treasonable to Germany. No one except you, Peppermint. But there’s nothing I can do about that, not with a gun pointing at me from under your cassock. Do you intend to shoot? Wouldn’t that be foolish, Peppermint? You would hit me, and my companions here would kill you. So we are at a deadlock.”

  “And Jean-Claude? You also agreed to release him.”

  “Suggested, Peppermint, not agreed. I was careful with my phrasing. I had to be careful not to lie. After all, we may be doing business again in the future.”

  “He knows nothing. He’s only a child.”

  “Then we shall make good use of him, as I once promised,” von Schleiben said with a snap of the fingers as Harold cast off. “Auf Wiedersehen, my friend.”

  37

  “Let your fancy paratroops do the job,” Spangler muttered, asprawl in the great armchair before the blazing fireplace in Kittermaster’s office.

  “The Army has called off the raid, Erik. The invasion has been moved up and they need the planes. With Kittermaster gone, we have no power to override the Army,” Julian said from behind the colonel’s desk.

  “Just what did happen to Kittermaster?”

  “We’re still investigating. Erik, you have to go in.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Then what will become of Jean-Claude?”

  “We don’t even know where he is.”

  “But we do, Erik. I went through Kittermaster’s private files. I found this message he never showed us. Jean-Claude had gotten it out of Birkenau. He’s in Birkenau, Erik.”

  “I won’t go back.”

  “And forsake the boy?”

  “I can’t go back. I’m in no condition. I’m sick—I can’t even walk.”

  “You’re a hypochondriac, Erik, short and simple. You know that as well as I do. You’re that locker-room cripple, that magnificent athlete who always complains of ailments—until the competition begins. There’s not a thing in the world wrong with you, Erik. Not physically.”

  Julian took a cigar from Kittermaster’s humidor. “Erik, remember when we first met in France? You had been staying with Henri Tramont in the mountains, at his cabin. You and Henri had already freed those priests—the ones who had been friends of his at a monastery nearby.”

  “What has that to do with anything?”

  “What order of priests were they, Erik?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Of course you do.” Julian lit his cigar and inhaled appreciatively. “That’s one reason you went to visit Henri so often. Those particular priests fascinated you, didn’t they?”

  “I went there to hunt and ski.”

  “Those priests were flagellants, weren’t they, Erik? And that’s why they lived in such isolation in the mountains—they had been banished by the Church, I believe.”

  “I don’t know what they were, outside of being friends of Henri.”

  “Was Henri a flagellant?”

  “How would I know?”

  “Are you a flagellant?”

  “You must be out of your mind,” said Spangler.

  “It’s odd that you should say that, Erik. You see, I’ve talked to some medical people. Erik, did you realize that under certain circumstances hypochondria is a form of self-flagellation? Instead of punishing yourself physically, you do it mentally.”

  “When I want a psychoanalyst I’ll pick my own,” Spangler said, rising and limping to the desk. He glanced down and read the message Jean-Claude had sent from Birkenau.

  “I found out a good deal about those priests, and a great many things start fitting in place. The numbers, for instance. The dates that Henri also liked for his raids—the eighth, the seventeenth and the twenty-sixth—remember them, Erik? Remember how we decided to set patterns to confuse the Germans and make them think it was one man engineering all those escapes? Eventually only one man did, Erik—you. But at the beginning there were to be many. Henri picked those numbers, and I never gave it another thought. But you knew what they stood for. Those were the dates on which the priests would flagellate themselves—inflict pain on each other and expiate their sins. It was a private joke between you and Henri, wasn’t it? “But your own symptoms—your pains are the worst on those three days, aren’t they?”

  “None of your goddam business.”

  �
�Go back to the camp, Erik—bring out the boy.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You still have your contacts, you can get across Germany without trouble. You can get into Poland. You’ll conceive a method to get him out.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “They’re not searching for you any more, Erik. It will be much easier. Look, Vetter is a Russian agent. I’ve known it all along, and I’ve let him send out messages—but I’ve changed them. They have a description of you that belongs to a man who is now dead. The Russians have passed the information on to von Schleiben. Von Schleiben has confirmed it through another source. Von Schleiben thinks you’re dead, Erik. So you see there’s nothing to worry about. They won’t be expecting you.”

  “I won’t do it.”

  “Henri was Jean-Claude’s father.”

  Spangler remained silent.

  “And now you’re repaying Henri for deserting him—letting him go on a raid alone and get captured. You have officially adopted his son. You are the protector of Henri’s orphaned child?”

  Spangler turned away.

  “You have to go, Erik. You have to go for Henri’s sake—for letting him die. But you owe it even more to Jean-Claude himself—von Schleiben has threatened to use him as a Bubel.”

  Spangler’s head dropped and his eyes closed. Teeth and fists clenched. He remained motionless for many seconds. Then he began to sob.

  “And while you’re there, Erik, you’ll have to bring out Tolan as well. I’ll help you, if you help me. Tolan must come out. And if you don’t do it, Erik, I’ll turn you over to von Schleiben myself.”

  Kuprov sat cross-legged on the low wide hassock, reading the coroner’s report while harem-clad serving girls draped a Grande Armée cape over his business suit. Von Schleiben, resplendent in Roman toga and myrtle wreath, with open sandals and painted toenails, reclined on a divan beside a lily pool.

  The Russian picked through the other documents Julian had provided on Spangler’s death. He studied the pages carefully and suddenly stopped with a harsh laugh.

  “Idiot!” he shouted at von Schleiben. “They have made an idiot out of you. You have slaughtered my agent.”

  Von Schleiben waved the girls from the salon.