by Paul Moomaw
“Be reasonable,” Delon said. He let his hand drop slowly to his side, watching Peter with hooded, wary eyes. “And look, you will still get your brother’s share of the money. His death was a great misfortune, I know. You’re entitled to the money. But we have to leave him to the ocean.” He paused again. “You know I’m right.”
Peter sagged. “Yes,” he said. But you will pay, he thought. You will pay more than money.
Delon took a deep breath and waved to Orsine, who went back to his task. Peter watched as Orsine hauled Hannes’ body from the cabin of Le Sylphide and slid it into the dinghy. Tears welled up in his eyes and he blinked them back. It was Hannes who had taught him not to cry, had slapped him silly, in fact, whenever he showed such a weakness. He would not dishonor his memory with tears now.
“He will meet us,” Delon said. He sauntered toward the van, his stride saying the problem was, as far as he was concerned, over. Peter walked heavily behind him. He wasn’t sure yet what he would do; he would know when the time came. It would be best to wait until they were back in Austria, at any rate. As he climbed into the van, he felt the empty place inside him begin to fill with a sense of purpose that focused on the Frenchman.
Chapter 36
Pray knew he was nervous. He was doing the silly, irritating things he always did, had done since childhood when he felt himself in a tight spot—tapping random rhythms on the table with his fingernails, clicking the ice in his drink against his teeth on the offbeat, and glancing with exaggerated, adolescent cockiness from Hesse, to Meissner and back again, while fragments of Bartlett’s tumbled through his brain, out of control.
He glanced at Gabriela, who appeared to have herself in total control. She always did, he reflected, although he was beginning to understand that what you saw, in her case, wasn’t always what you got, and that the polished surface covered over some odd little spots of vulnerability.
I’ve never been good at waiting, he thought
Meissner appeared to enjoy waiting games. He sat across from Pray, a thin smile playing across wrinkled lips, his eyes making disconcerting little jerks from side to side.
“The commodity you ask for is expensive, Herr Pray,” Meissner said, finally. “But, on the other hand, there is a lot of it around the Middle East these days. Every third-rate sheikdom is making nerve gas.”
“I understand there’s a shortage in Europe of the commodity I offer in return,” Pray said.
Meissner shook his head. “By itself, your cocaine isn’t good enough.”
“Why?”
“I don’t have a good system for handling it. I will need money, as well.”
“Money?” Pray stared at the older man blankly, caught himself counting the little wrinkles on Meissner’s upper lip. He hadn’t thought to expect a request for money. “I’m not sure I can come up with money,” he said, and wondered what Biven would think of this development.
“Not that much of it, Herr Pray. Just some start up funds, to finance the distribution network for the cocaine. Say, a couple of hundred thousand U.S. dollars.”
“Not that much, right.” Jesus Christ, Pray thought. Where’s a good Swiss bank account when you need it? Or even a shaky Jamaican one?
“Maybe you can sell a piece of jade,” Meissner said, the smile broadening. He was enjoying this, Pray thought.
“This may take a few days,” he said.
“There’s no hurry at all, Herr Pray. I will, however, be glad to take your sample of cocaine off your hands right now. Call it a gesture of good faith on your part, if you like.”
“Of course.” Pray turned to Gabriela, cocked his head to one side questioningly.
“It’s in my purse,” she said, starting to rise.
Meissner raised a hand. “Please. Facundo will bring it to you.”
Hesse went to the table where Meissner had deposited Gabriela’s things. He returned with her purse and held it out silently. When she reached for the bag, he trapped her hand with a smirk.
Gabriela gazed up at Hesse with a wide-eyed smile. She reached up with her other hand, fingers curved, and slowly, almost lovingly, carved a dime-sized piece of flesh from the top of Hesse’s hand. Hesse sucked in a harsh breath of pain and jerked his hand away. He held it to his mouth, staring malevolently at Gabriela, who carefully placed the bloody piece of flesh on the table in front of her, wiped her hand on her paper drink napkin, and then turned her attention to the fastener of the purse, as if nothing in world could be more fascinating.
Meissner broke into peals of laughter. “Ah, Facundo,” he managed between laughs. “You are not always irresistible, after all, isn’t it so?”
Hesse pulled his hand from his mouth and began blotting the blood with a napkin, staring silently out the windows as he did.
“Oh, come, Facundo,” Meissner said. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. No hard feelings, right?”
Hesse turned stiffly, moving his whole body like a solid piece of wood, toward Gabriela.
“Of course I have no hard feelings,” he said, his voice higher than ever.
Of course not, Pray thought. Neither does a cobra.
Gabriela smiled sweetly up at Hesse. “Oh, did I really hurt you? I’m so sorry,”
“It’s nothing,” Hesse said. “A scratch.”
“Perhaps we can get on with things, then,” Meissner said, an edge of eagerness in his voice as he leaned toward Gabriela’s purse, his eyes glistening.
Gabriela pulled the plastic bag from the purse and held it out to Meissner, who started to reach for it, then paused.
“But I am being impolite. You and Herr Pray must go first. It still belongs to you, after all.”
“Be my guest,” Pray said.
Meissner shook his head. “I insist. He reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved a small mirror and a silver straw, placing them on the table in front of Gabriela, who shrugged and smiled at him, and asked, “What do I do with those?”
“You are serious?”
“I’ve never used cocaine,” she said.
Meissner turned to Pray. “Perhaps you can instruct her?”
Pray nodded. He pulled a pen knife from his trousers pocket, snapped it open with one hand, using the seam of his pants to snag the point—another adolescent stunt, he realized—and bent toward the table.
“Allow me, miss,” he said. He opened the plastic bag and transported a small pile of white powder onto the mirror with the knife blade. Then he diced it thoroughly and spread it into a long, skinny line of white.
“Like this,” he said, placing the straw into a nostril and snorting up the string of powder. He laid out another string and handed Gabriela the silver straw while he waited for something to happen inside his head. He had a vague memory of using cocaine once at a party in Washington DC, but he had already been drunk, and could have been snorting powdered sugar for all he would have known.
Gabriela copied his moves with the straw, then pushed straw, bag, knife and mirror across the table toward Meissner, who motioned grandly toward Hesse.
“Facundo, be my guest,” he said. He turned with a smile to Pray. “Anticipation is half the enjoyment, isn’t it?”
“If you say so,” Pray replied.
Gabriela put her head next to Pray’s as Hesse prepared two long lines of powder.
“Adam, what should I feel?”
“I’m not sure. Numb nose, or something like that.” He realized as he spoke that he still felt nothing at all.
Hesse snorted up the first line of powder. He switched nostrils with the straw and bent toward the second line, then stopped, a puzzled frown on his face. He licked his index finger, touched it to the string, and placed it on his tongue. The frown deepened to a scowl.
“This shit is not cocaine,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Meissner asked.
“I mean just that. This is nothing. Some kind of talcum powder, something maybe that Ilona could use on her nose.” He tossed the straw onto the table, then pick
ed up the penknife, closed it, and slipped it into a pocket.
“I think that’s my knife,” Pray said, a little stupidly.
“Be glad I don’t cut your throat with it,” Hesse said.
Meissner picked up the straw, wagged it at Pray. “What kind of game are you about, Herr Pray?”
Pray shook his head. “I don’t understand.” He shook his head again, and gazed desperately at Gabriela, as if she somehow had the answer. She stared back at him.
“That fucking messenger boy,” she said. She didn’t add, “I told you so,” and didn’t need to. Pray shook his head slowly from side to side.
“Someone must have pulled a switch,” he said.
“This is rather crude, Herr Pray,” Meissner said.
“I hope you credit me with more sense than to offer you trash deliberately?”
“I couldn’t guess, at this point, what you might or might not do.” The older man rose and stared down at Pray and Gabriela with cold eyes. “But I think you will understand if I ask you to leave.”
Hesse slammed a fist into a palm. “You’re just going to let these scum walk out the door?”
“I can hardly call the police, can I?”
“But they should pay for this.”
“Never mind, Facundo. Be a realist. Whatever their game was, we have avoided it. Let that be enough.” Meissner bowed stiffly to Gabriela, picked up her purse, and held it out to her. “Please leave now. In fact, I think you will be well advised to leave Austria altogether. I am not without means of making life unpleasant for you here.”
Pray grabbed Gabriela’s arm and began to tug her toward the door.
“Wait!” She pulled away and stalked over to her coat. She flipped it over her shoulder, offered another smile to Meissner and Hesse, and headed for the door. Pray threw one last, despairing glance at the dragon boat, and slunk after her with as much nonchalance as he could muster.
* * *
They drove back to Salzburg in gloomy silence, which Pray broke as they pulled into the hotel parking lot.
“You know what bothers me?”
“Something bothers you, Adam? Really?”
“Really.” He nodded earnestly. “I mean beyond just seeing the deal blown apart. That pisses me off. It depresses me. It makes me want to jump into the lake with my clothes on. But there’s something else that bothers me. Puzzles me.” He fell silent, rubbing his chin and staring blankly through the windshield.
“Spare me the pregnant pause, Adam.”
“What bothers me,” he said finally, “Is that Meissner didn’t seem bothered enough.” He glanced at Gabriela. “Know what I mean?”
“The other ape was bothered enough for both of them.”
“But not Meissner. And I’m sure he was as surprised as I was that the cocaine wasn’t cocaine. That threw him. But I got the feeling he didn’t really care.”
“So? Maybe he’s just happy to have all that powder for the Hungarian. She’s got a pretty big nose.”
Pray gazed at her with amusement. “Being a little feline, aren’t we.”
“Oh, you’re right.” Gabriela’s body and voice sagged together. “No sense in taking my pissy mood out on a sister.” She threw the car door open and swung herself out. “Let’s go up and get drunk.”
In the lobby of the Schloss Monchstein, an agitated clerk rushed over to them as they walked dispiritedly into the door.
“Herr Pray,” he said, and glanced over his shoulder.
“Herr Pray, that man is of the police, and insists on interrogating you. In addition, his partner is at this moment in your suite, conducting a search.”
Pray’s stomach twisted. Leaning against the desk was Inspector Pflantz of the Salzburg Municipal Police. What the hell was about to go wrong now, he wondered?
“Searching for what?” he snapped.
“I do not know, Mein Herr. But I had no choice.”
Inspector Pflantz marched toward them with an expression of triumph.
The clerk glanced briefly at him and wrung his hands.
“This is very unusual, Herr Pray,” he said. “I must inform you that we are not used to the police here. It is not good, Herr Pray.”
“Please accompany me upstairs, Herr Pray,” Pflantz said. He stood with his feet slightly spraddled, hands hanging deceptively at his sides. Pray knew the stance. Yellow alert, they used to call it at the dojo—ready for trouble.
“How can I help you?” he asked.
“Please,” the policeman repeated, and motioned toward the elevator. Pray shrugged and started walking, Gabriela at his side.
The suite was a minor mess, where the other policeman had been searching.
“Mind telling me what you’re looking for?” Pray asked.
“Please stand with your hands spread on that table,” Inspector Pflantz said. He frisked Pray briskly, efficiently, then turned to Gabriela, who arched her eyebrows.
“You just keep your hands off me,” she said.
Pflantz grinned suddenly.
“Absolutely, gnaedige Fraulein. But I must see your purse, if you will be so kind.”
Gabriela sniffed and held the purse out to him.
“Please put it on the table and open it for me,” he said.
Gabriela did as he asked. Pflantz bent over the open purse, nodded, and smiled.
“You can stop looking, Kurt,” he called to his partner, and reached into the purse almost delicately. When his hand reappeared it held a small, exquisitely carved jade netsuke. Pray’s eyes widened and his heart fell into his stomach. It looked to be Meiji, and had more than likely graced some samurai’s robes a century before. Even more likely, it had graced Meissner’s residence until a very short time before.
“We’ve been set up,” Pray said. “Now I understand why Meissner was so calm.”
“I believe we have found what we look for,” Pflantz said quietly. “And I am afraid I must place you under arrest.”
Chapter 37
The highway sign flashed in the headlights of the van, 23 NORTH - UDINE 19 KM. Then it was gone, with the interchange it marked, and the van continued west.
Delon sat in the front passenger seat. Peter, kneeling on the floor behind the Frenchman, tapped him insistently on the shoulder. “Why aren’t we turning? That’s the way to Austria, isn’t it?”
“Who said anything about Austria?” Delon didn’t look behind him. Orsine, who was driving, glanced back briefly, then rested his right hand against the forepiece of a rifle, which lay between the seats, its barrel wedged against the engine compartment.
Peter grasped the back of Delon’s seat and tugged on it. “Where are we going?”
“Relax,” Delon said.
“I don’t want to relax. I want to know what’s going on.”
“We’re going to France, of course. Where else would a Frenchman go?”
“I don’t want to go to France. I want to go to St. Gilgens. You can go to France later.”
Delon twisted around and gazed at Peter with a crooked smile. “It’s the other way around. After we have gotten our cargo to France, safe and sound, you can go home to St. Gilgens, or anywhere else you want. With your pay. Don’t forget that.”
Peter shook his head rapidly from side to side. “No. You have to pay me now. If you’re not going to Austria, pay me and let me out so I can get home.”
“You are being unreasonable. I can’t pay you until we reach France. That’s where the money is. And I don’t have to do anything. Get that through your head. The important thing is that stuff back there.” Delon pointed over Peter’s shoulder toward the darkened rear, where the plutonium lay hidden in its steel bottles, under the false floor of the van.
“I don’t like it,” Peter said.
“You don’t have to like it. And you don’t have to put up with it for long. Anyway, it’s a great drive—to Torino, then right over the mountains to Grenoble, Lyon, Dijon. Relax and enjoy the view.”
“There is no view. It’s dark.”
Delon rolled his eyes, their whites flashing in the reflected light of the traffic. “That was a joke.”
“I don’t want to laugh, either.” Peter threw himself down, winced as a bolt protruding from the wall of the van poked him between the shoulder blades. “You could have given me something decent to sit on, at least.”
Delon turned back to face the front. He said something in French to Orsine. Both men laughed, and Orsine massaged the barrel of the rifle. Then they settled into an uneasy silence, Delon staring out the window, and Orsine driving with one hand still on the weapon.
Peter rocked rhythmically back and forth on his haunches, watching through the windshield, feeling more and more agitated. The urge to do something, anything, to break the impasse grew stronger with each passing kilometer; but it had to wrestle with the fear of making a mistake, of doing the wrong thing and just making things worse. That was one reason he had always left decisions, at least decisions about important things, to Hannes, who always seemed to know what to do, or when to do nothing at all.
But Hannes was gone. Peter shook his head and rubbed violently at his eyes, trying to erase the picture that sprang to them unbidden—Hannes hanging on him, gasping, his mouth a dark circle of surprise and pain. The old, familiar feeling of pressure began to fill his head.
Another highway sign approached, A-28 NORTH. North had to mean Austria eventually. Peter stared at the sign and decided. If he was wrong, he would have to be wrong. The pressure in his head wouldn’t let him sit there any longer.
He took a quick breath, then lashed out with his left hand, smashing his knuckles into Orsine’s temple, and grabbing at the rifle with the other hand as Orsine yelped in pain and released his grip on the weapon reflexively to rub his head. Peter pulled the rifle toward him and let himself fall back, away from the seats. By the time Delon swiveled around with a “What the shit?” Peter was sitting upright again, the weapon trained on the Frenchman.
“At this next road, you will turn right,” Peter said.
“Don’t be a fool.” Delon managed half a smile, which disappeared as Peter poked the rifle barrel toward him.