The Dragon With One Ruby Eye

by Paul Moomaw

  They met in the small garden where French doors led into the sitting room in which Pray had first seen the dragon.

  “See anything?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Looked clean.” She nodded toward the French doors. “And the other day I didn’t spot anything inside that looked like an alarm system.”

  “You mean you looked?”

  “I always look. Force of habit, one I developed a few years ago, when my life style was somewhat different.”

  “Different?”

  “Yeah, different.”

  “I’m dying to hear the story.”

  “Some day.” She turned to the French doors. They had no handles on the outside, but sported oversized keyholes. Gabriela stuck the tip of a pinky into one of the keyholes and tugged tentatively. Then she pulled harder, and the door eased open with a faint cracking sound.

  She turned to Pray with a grin. “How about that? They weren’t even locked.”

  Pray grinned back.

  “Come into my parlor,” he said. “Spider. Nineteenth Century.”

  Gabriela shivered visibly. “Let’s hope not.” She slipped through the door. Pray followed.

  “Shit,” he murmured.

  “What?”

  “I forgot a flashlight.”

  “Some burglar.” She unzipped the breast pocket of her running suit top, pulled out two pen lights, and handed him one.

  “I’m impressed,” he said, as he flicked the light on.

  “Experience counts.” She flashed her light toward the inner wall. The door into the hallway was open, and she crossed the room and shut it.

  “Just in case you trip and fall into something noisy. Now, we’re after that jade boat, right?”

  “Right. I had kind of hoped it would still be on the table by the windows.” He flashed his light in that direction. The boat was gone, and the table contained, instead, a couple of dirty brandy snifters and the silver straw they had used two days before. Pray’s ears burned as he remembered.

  He pointed the light toward the walls. “It might be uncovered somewhere, or it might be cased. The case I saw it in back in Seattle was uncarved ebony, with a red lacquered interior.”

  Gabriela nodded and moved toward the far end of the room to search.

  Pray had not paid much attention to the walls before, concentrating instead on the jade pieces located on shelves and in niches. He played his light over the space in front of him. No boat or black box revealed itself.

  At head height, the beam from the flashlight struck an expanse of wood and chased metal, and passed on. Pray jerked the light back. The metal, dead in the center of the panel, looked as if it might be a handle. He stepped closer, and saw that the wood was, indeed, two panels, divided by a vertical crack. The ornate metal design included two, finger-long pieces, shaped like tear drops, which hung down from the center.

  Pray grabbed one of the tear drops and tugged. The panel resisted slightly, then yawned open with a loud squeak. Pray froze for a moment, then took a deep breath and opened the other side more carefully, glad of the drumming rain, and glad that Gabriela had shown the foresight to close the door into the rest of the house.

  Pray turned the flashlight onto the wall behind the panels, and saw the dull gray face of a safe that looked very modern, and very strong.

  “Great,” he muttered. If the dragon boat lay behind that gray door, they had wasted a trip. He wondered if Gabriela’s talents included safe cracking.

  “Adam.” Her voice, right at his ear, made him jump.

  “Don’t do that,” he whispered, as he turned to face her. “Makes me look silly. Heroes aren’t supposed to look . . .” He stopped as he saw the ebony box in her hands.

  She held it out to him. “Is this it?”

  “We’ll find out.” Pray took the box carefully, lovingly, from Gabriela’s hands and carried it to the table by the window. He was still fumbling with the catch when the lights in the room went on.

  “Was gibt’s hier, denn?” The voice came from the door to the hallway. Pray turned, blinking, trying to adjust to the sudden, and to him blinding, light.

  Meissner stood in the door, eyes wide, mouth pursed, wearing a purple robe and worn, leather slippers. Pray stared at him, irrelevantly fascinated by the heavy, blue veins that crawled across Meissner’s pale, hairless legs.

  Finally, Pray came to himself enough to grab for the little Hi-Standard derringer in his pocket. He pointed it at Meissner’s belly.

  “Bitte, bleiben Sie wo Sie stehen. Don’t move an inch, Herr Meissner, if you please.”

  Meissner smiled and shrugged the least little bit. “Ach, at least you say please. A small thing, but I have learned with age to appreciate small things.” He nodded toward the table where the ebony case lay. “That is what you are after, then? I can’t blame you. Who could know how many times the precious thing has been stolen in its existence. Facundo had it stolen for me, for that matter. Such a beauty, nicht wahr?”

  Meissner took a tentative step toward the table. “Do you suppose I might sit down? You’ve quite taken the wind from my sails, so to say.”

  “Go ahead. Carefully.”

  “Thank you.” Meissner paced slowly toward the table. “Actually, I had only come down to retrieve this.” He reached down and plucked the silver straw from the table. “I had left it behind, and it seems somehow to increase the enjoyment of good cocaine.” He cocked his head and smiled at Pray as he seated himself. “Good cocaine, Herr Pray. Not for powdering noses.”

  “I continue to be mortified by that little mistake,” Pray said. “But you can’t change the past, can you? So I’ll settle for a future with my dragon boat.”

  “Your dragon boat, Herr Pray?”

  Pray nodded. “I had just given the previous owner a check for it. There’s a warrant out in Seattle for the arrest of the persons who stole it.” He stepped over to the table and stroked the case. “I suppose if worse comes to worse, I could just go to Interpol. But then it would be tied up as evidence for months, if not years. This is much more efficient, don’t you think?”

  “I must admire your tenacity and daring, Herr Pray. I admire my own foolishness somewhat less. Do you know, I used never to walk around my house late at night without a pistol?” He spread his hands. “Now, when I need one, look at me. And all because of a woman, Herr Pray. Ilona wore me down, convinced me I was being a paranoid old fool. When do you suppose I will learn, Herr Pray?”

  “Much learning does not teach a man to have intelligence.”

  “Heraclitus, I believe? Or one of those clever Greeks, anyway. Such an admirable knowledge of the classics, Herr Pray. Over all, you must be quite pleased with yourself.” Meissner gazed levelly up at Pray, smiling for all the world like an old friend chatting over drinks.

  He looks more pleased than I feel, Pray thought, and wondered why.

  A choked off scream from Gabriela cut the thought short. Pray spun to see her struggling in the arms of Facundo Hesse.

  Meissner rose from the table. “Facundo can be so quiet for such a large man, isn’t it so, Herr Pray?”

  Hesse held Gabriela pinned against his chest with his left arm. His meaty right hand wrapped around her neck, making her head look small and fragile.

  “Put the gun on the table,” he said. “Do it very slowly and carefully, or I will break this one’s neck.”

  Pray experienced an almost overwhelming impulse to do something, anything, besides what he was being told to do. He recognized it for the adolescent who still cohabited his soul, and who rebelled instinctively against authority. Settle down, he told himself, and let the derringer dangle from his finger, then placed it onto the table. Meissner picked it up.

  “Treat it well,” Pray said. “It’s a classic, practically an antique. They don’t even make them any more.”

  “Oh, I shall, Herr Pray.”

  “What are you doing here?” Hesse asked.

  “They couldn’t bear to go home without the little
gift you brought me, Facundo,” Meissner said, waving the gun toward the ebony case.

  “That was stupid, Pray,” Hesse said, a sneer in his high voice. “A stupid idea.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Pray said. He began edging toward Meissner, not sure what he could do, but wanting the older man in range of his hands and feet. “It seemed like a pretty good idea at the time. And I know something about stupid ideas. I used to work for the CIA, after all.”

  Pray shuffled another step toward Meissner, who seemed not to notice.

  “Did you ever hear about the suitcase airplane? Now there was a stupid idea, right out of the bowels of the Company’s Technical Directorate. The idea was to build a tiny airplane you could carry in suitcases. Your secret agent waltzes into the target country and does his dirty deeds. Then he opens his bags, assembles the airplane, and flies home.” Pray laughed loudly at his own tale and took another step toward Meissner. The narrowing of Hesse’s eyes told him it had been too big a step.

  “Move another inch, and I will certainly kill this woman,” Hesse said.

  “Oh Adam, don’t let him kill me.” Gabriela’s eyes widened, and then rolled up as she moaned and slumped against Hesse, who stepped back to support the sudden dead weight.

  Then Gabriela was erect again, stepping quickly to the right into a classic karate horse stance and slamming her left elbow into Hesse’s solar plexus, and her left fist into his groin.

  Hesse screamed in pain as Gabriela spun halfway around, loosening his grip with the force of her shoulders, and raked his face and eyes with her nails.

  Pray wasted a moment admiring Gabriela’s form, then snapped back to reality and chopped the gun out of Meissner’s grip. It clattered to the floor as Hesse let go of Gabriela and grabbed at his face. Gabriela snapped an instep into Hesse’s groin, then turned and slammed another kick into his side. Pray heard the snapping of a rib, accompanied by another scream from Hesse. He dove at the derringer.

  “I’ve got it,” Gabriela yelled, diving at the same time. One of them, Pray never knew which, managed to kick the gun across the floor, where Meissner scooped it up and leveled it at them.

  “I believe we will stop now,” he said.

  Pray stood panting, still hunched over for the gun that was no longer there. He stared helplessly at Meissner, while Hesse’s high pitched moan filled the room.

  He kept thinking how angry Hesse was going to be.

  Chapter 41

  Peter blinked and looked around, trying to understand why he lay flat on his back. He raised himself and whimpered at the pain that tore through his side. He let his head drop back to the thin pillow it had been lying on. His fingers traced the hard edges of an examining table.

  He didn’t remember lying down on the table, but had a vague memory of cool, efficient fingers working over him, and of someone—he remembered, now, Dr. Bruch—saying to him that he had been lucky, that he had lost a lot of blood, but the blade that had sliced under his ribs had struck nothing vital.

  He remembered those things, and the warmth of a tea cup. He raised his head more cautiously. It still hurt, but he could manage it, slowly. He looked around. The tea cup, and a large teapot, sat on a shelf that ran along the wall of the narrow room. At the room’s end he saw a door, closed.

  Peter ran a hand over his body. It encountered tape and a dressing on the left side, where Orsine had cut him. Touching the dressing brought back another memory, of a needle shaped like a fish hook, glinting in the bright, overhead light while Dr. Bruch sutured him, clucking to himself over the size of the wound, complaining—and smiling at the same time to show he was joking—that he would have to gut his own pet cat to have enough material to sew Peter up with.

  Gritting his teeth, Peter slid carefully from the table. He limped to the shelf and picked up the teapot, which still held a sizable amount of lukewarm tea. He filled the cup, drained it, filled and emptied it again, and wondered how long he had been lying unconscious.

  A memory of something missing, something not pressing against his buttocks when he lay on the table, made him reach back and check his rear pocket. It was empty.

  Peter stiffened. Bruch must have his wallet. He moved with effort toward the door and opened it a crack. As he looked down the hall, he heard footsteps. He pulled the door shut again as Bruch walked, holding Peter’s wallet in his hand, and muttering to himself, into a front room.

  Peter slipped through the door and down the hall, trying not to moan at the pain that accompanied every step. He peered into the room. Bruch sat at a cluttered, old-fashioned desk, his back to Peter, and his hand on a telephone.

  Forcing himself to ignore the pain, Peter launched himself at the other man’s back and slammed his face down onto the desk. He wrapped the telephone cord around Bruch’s neck and pulled. Bruch struggled weakly, dazed from striking his head against the wood. The struggle lessened, and Bruch slumped.

  Peter pulled the cord tighter, twisted it, watched it cut deeper into the flesh of Bruch’s neck. Suddenly, he let go.

  “No,” he muttered. “Too many deaths already.” He experienced a wave of revulsion. On top of everything else, this man had helped him, maybe saved his life. He felt a sudden conviction that something awful would happen if he killed Bruch; it would be a crime that he would never be forgiven.

  He unwrapped the telephone cord from Bruch’s neck and stood back, rocking slightly from waves of pain that radiated from his left side. He jerked at the cord until it popped free of the wall, then used it to tie Bruch’s ankles and wrists together. He picked up the wallet, stuffed it into his pocket, and stepped toward the door, then hesitated. He limped back to the room where he had lain. Sure enough, a roll of adhesive tape perched on the shelf, next to the teapot.

  He returned with it to the front room, and taped over Bruch’s mouth, then stood back and watched for a moment to be sure the physician was breathing easily enough through his nostrils.

  “There,” he muttered. He pawed through the papers on the desk. He needed the gun. Where had the fellow put it? He started opening drawers. In the bottom one, the revolver stared up at him. He picked it up and started to slip it into his trousers. It hurt, so he stuck it in a pocket instead. It felt awkward there, but at least it didn’t make the pain worse.

  He walked to the door and looked back one more time. Bruch’s eyes were open, dazed, but aware, and staring at him. Peter flinched away from them. He bit his lip, then nervously touched his hand to his forehead.

  “Thanks, anyway,” he said. “I’m sorry if I hurt you.” Then he turned and left.

  The van stood in the drive, keys still in the ignition. He was sure it couldn’t be that far to St. Gilgens; with any luck, he might even get there before anyone found Dr. Bruch.

  “Herr Meissner will be happy with me,” he said, starting the engine. “I will be able to make up for everything.”

  Chapter 42

  Facundo Hesse lay on Meissner’s bed, stretched out on his back, his eyes half-closed. He breathed as shallowly as he could; deep breaths and almost any movement at all sent a flaming lance of pain from his left armpit almost down to his hip.

  “I’m pretty sure the bitch broke my rib,” he said to Meissner, who sat on a chair pulled next to the bed, his purple robe hanging half open, its sash loose, exposing his pale, hairless chest and the top tufts of gray pubic hair. Hesse realized he was staring at the hair. He flushed and glanced quickly away.

  “Don’t worry. She’s being properly punished,” Meissner replied. “Imagine how it must feel to be locked into the best wine cellar in the Salzkammergut, with no corkscrew.”

  “Don’t make me laugh, please.”

  Meissner patted the top of Hesse’s thigh, letting his hand linger an extra moment, and bending over so more of his belly was revealed. Again, Hesse found himself fighting an impulse to stare.

  “My apologies,” Meissner said. “But you will have ample opportunity to laugh after your ribs heal.” He held up a key. “In the morn
ing, I shall find their automobile. It isn’t in the drive; I imagine they tucked it away out of sight, but it can’t be far, nicht wahr? It will be quite at home in my garage, and Herr Pray and Fraulein Villani will keep in the cellar until you are ready for them. Then, they are yours, my friend. A special gift from me.”

  “I look forward to that.”

  In the meantime, look forward to this.” Meissner held out the silver straw and a plasticine envelope of white powder.

  “I can’t. Even normal breathing hurts too much.”

  “Ach so. I wasn’t thinking.” Meissner rose and went to his dresser. “I have exactly what you need, then.”

  He returned with a bottle of brandy, a snifter, and another, smaller bottle of dark brown glass. He poured a generous amount of brandy into the snifter.

  “Start with this,” he said, handing the brandy to Hesse. “Then add this, and you’ll soon feel no pain at all.” He unscrewed the top of the other bottle and shook two large capsules into his hand.

  “I can’t swallow capsules. I always gag and choke.”

  “No problem.” Meissner twisted one of the capsules apart and shook its contents into the brandy. He repeated the process with the other capsule, then swirled the brandy around. “Not exactly Napoleon, but if you drink it down quickly, you’ll hardly taste it.”

  “What is it?”

  “A mixture of Demerol and amphetamine. Absolutely unbeatable. I had it made up for myself when I had a badly broken arm a couple of years ago. It left me floating on the clouds. I still keep it on hand just for fun, now and then.”

  Hesse took the glass and looked at it dubiously. He took a sip. The brandy almost cloaked the bitter taste of the drugs, but not well enough. He would have to gulp it down all at once, just as Meissner had said. He raised the glass again, then stopped, remembering something else.

  “I will still need, soon, to return to America, to clean up that mess I left there.”

  Meissner smiled and nodded. “That’s taken care of, as well.” He got up again and went to an armoire in a corner of the room. When he returned, he held a large brown envelope.