“Your own government tumbled to your plan,” Höttl said. His swollen, protruding eyes roamed from me to his dead guard and then to the camera. “They had little concern about you murdering those American Nazis. The agents tipped me to your plans, and I talked one of the members into posing as me in an effort to ostensibly fox the very government authorities who were secretly protecting me. I called in a studio makeup artist to put a false scar on the man. My impersonator was quite flattered to do it. Just like those fools Hitler used to use as doubles. Of course, this man didn’t know he’d be dying as me.”
From behind the camera, Bud said, “This fascination of our government’s with you all these years, the protection you’ve been extended, what has all that been about?”
“Intrigue, intelligence,” Höttl said in his weak voice. His words were slurred, like he was slightly drunk, maybe. Well, that too tallied with what I suspected.
Bud said, “What kind of intelligence did you have to offer them?”
“More than simple spying,” Höttl said. “I had advantages and connections in certain political climes. Many of us Party members did. I was useful for passing on information and misinformation. There were some projects involving your CIA and foreign regimes tied to illicit drug trade. They used—they continue to use—many of us.” Werner smiled. “Your own government, and a priest, made Klaus’ flight to safety from France possible, you know.”
“Klaus? Barbie?” I sighed. “Well, hell, that cocksucker’s maybe fixin’ to be a next project for me, then. Don’t you go thinking he’s clear just yet.”
Höttl looked at his bonds, then looked back at me. “What’s your aim here, Lassiter?” He nodded at the camera. “Why that? I’d use the footage of course, our positions being reversed. But you? What possible use is it to you? Even if you aim to harm my reputation, you can’t possibly use that. Television would never show it and it would be evidence of a crime. Your fake death would be compromised and you’d be branded a torturer and murderer.”
“My reasons for the camera are my own,” I said. I shook out a cigarette and got out my lighter given me so many years ago in the Keys by Hemingway. I said, “Looks who’s got the smokes now, Höttl. Look who’s in the bloody chair. Maybe awaiting the attention of this baby.” I held the glowing end of the cigarette up close to his eyes.
“You won’t do it,” Höttl said, sneering. He looked at the dead man on the floor. “Oh, you’ll do some things, things you can convince yourself represent revenge. What you’d regard as justice. But you won’t torture me. You’re not that kind.”
“But I might be,” Bud said.
“You?” Höttl sneered again. “You far less than Lassiter.”
I poised my cigarette’s end over his bony thigh. “Prepared to bet your life on that?”
Höttl managed a wink and a lopsided smile. “Yes.” He winked again. “Besides, what I did to your women aside, you should kiss my ass and thank me every day of your life for the gifts I’ve given you.”
I took another hit of my Pall Mall, frowning through the smoke. Goddamn Höttl. So far, he was right. I couldn’t make myself grind that coffin nail into him, despite everything he’d done in his too-long, sadistic life to merit it. “Thank you,” I repeated. “Why the hell would I thank you?”
Höttl leaned forward with his death’s head grin. “Because I made you.”
70
“I made you,” Höttl said again. He said it with fierce pride.
I blew smoke in his face, said, “How the hell do you figure?”
“What your career has been since 1945—what you’ve really made your name and your money on—that’s all thanks to me. Don’t you see it, Lassiter?”
“Nah,” I said. “I really don’t. Try and make me see it.”
“I will,” he said. “Film. Film noir, a style and sensibility born of German cinema. With just a handful of visionary others, I sowed the seeds of film noir, the medium with which the name ‘Hector Lassiter’ is most associated. All your American director friends, Huston, Welles and Ford, where would they be without the sparking brilliance, the template of Höttl?”
I laughed scornfully. “You really do yourself way too much credit as a filmmaker, Werner. John, Orson and Sam? Doubt they’ve even heard of you.”
But he wasn’t through, yet. Höttl said, “It wasn’t just the money that I made you as a screenwriter for crime movies whose aesthetic I shaped and informed. No. Crime fiction, those novels of yours and others like you, they were all colored by your post-war sensibilities and film noir. Your entire creative aesthetic sensibility is owed to me, Lassiter. And your experiences in the war? In my chair? I’m not the only one to notice that your novels became richer, darker and sadder after you spent time in my chair there in Paris. Many critics have noticed the change in your post-war work, too. So, yes, Lassiter, I made you.”
I was in the throes of a slow burn, now. I ground out my cigarette—in an ashtray.
“You never had anything to teach me, Höttl. You’re no storyteller and you’re a shitty filmmaker. The only skill you have is causing suffering and destruction. The only thing you’ve made me is vengeful. Fact is, as an avenger, I can only kill you once. I can only end your miserable existence once, that is to say. But as a writer, I can murder your reputation for eternity.”
That brought Höttl up short.
Bud was watching me intently, too. Probably trying to figure where I was headed next. Some part of me actually relished Bud as witness, the fact he was a fellow writer made it better. I savored having an informed audience, so to speak, for this particular famous final scene.
“The only thing I’ve learned from you, Werner, is to confirm every kill,” I said. “And you’ve reminded me it’s true, what the man said—history is most certainly written by the winners. So, along with Marie, I’ve appointed myself caretaker of your memory, Höttl. I mean to place a new brand on you in print.”
Höttl shook his head. “What? Another lie, Lassiter?”
“No, Werner,” I said. “No lie, this. This one is real enough. Certainly tragic enough. I’m going to relish running this one through you. And Marie’s going to help me do that.”
“She’s well past hurting me, as you too well know,” Höttl said. “You, too. As you said, you can only kill me once.”
“Wrong, Werner. I can only kill your body once. Your reputation I can go on murdering for as long as history endures. Marie and I can do that to you. You see, her memoir is going to be released in paperback this fall. It will be an expanded version, updated with material provided by noted novelist Beau Devlin. That is to say, me.”
“New information?” Höttl said. “This phony murder, you mean?”
“Oh, that will move copies, sure,” I said. “But that’s just for starters.” I looked to Bud, pointed at my watch. He checked the camera, then flashed me seven fingers. The shadows were also getting long; we’d lose the light, soon.
I needed to wrap this up. I said, “I’ve got a much bigger revelation regarding you to spring on the bad old world, Werner. And it has the virtue of being tragic fact. Completely provable.”
Bud was all attention now. Höttl, too.
I said, “When Marie was killed, there was an autopsy performed. The coroner, medical examiner, rather, who did that was good. He was thorough. He found that Marie was on the verge of becoming very sick. She had a genetic disease that was just asserting itself. An inherited condition fairly peculiar to her race called Machado Joseph disease.”
Höttl was giving me his death stare, now. Nothing I had to say was news to him, I was sure of that. So much of this was for Bud’s benefit; for Bud and for the camera.
“This disease, it’s a nasty goddamn thing,” I said. “It attacks the central nervous system. Slowly destroys the body while leaving the mind cruelly untouched. You become trapped in your own body as you lose control and strength in your arms and legs. You develop trouble swallowing, have loss of eye control. The eyes themselves begin to
bulge from their sockets. In the end, you’re just a witness to the world, trapped in your own living corpse.”
I leaned in close to Höttl. “But you know all this too well, don’t you, Werner? You had to be carried out of that barn to those motorcycles because you can’t walk on your own anymore, isn’t that right? You have trouble swallowing and your eyes tell their own story. It causes frequent urination, too. So I figure, based on all your reported trips outside to piss, in L.A. in fifty-seven, you were in early phases then. You knew to have your double keep up those frequent trips outside when you swapped places.”
Höttl said nothing. So I said, “Here’s the thing about this disease, Bud. There’s no question but that Höttl fathered Marie. She had Machado Joseph disease, and so does this bastard. But there’s a genetic reality at work here. Both parents—both Jewish parents—have to carry the gene in order to pass the disease on to their offspring.”
Höttl said, “Goddamn you!”
Bud said, “This son of a bitch Nazi is a Jew?”
“That’s the reality the revised version of Marie’s memoir is going to make clear to the world,” I said. “Werner Höttl, this wicked Nazi and right hand to the Butcher of Lyon, was himself Jewish.”
I looked at my watch. “One minute of film left,” I said. I began to work on the ropes binding Höttl.
The German said, “One minute? Until what? Until you kill me? I’m sick, like you said, Lassiter. You won’t beat or torture me. What are you going to do? Put a gun in my mouth and shoot me like Hans?”
“That would be far too kind,” I said. I grabbed him by the back of the neck and by one wrist. I twisted that arm up behind him to control him. I hauled Höttl to his feet.
In that slurred voice he said, “What are you doing to me, Lassiter?”
“I’m writing you out of the story now, Werner. For you, this dream is over. Time to fade to black. But as you do that, I want you to think about what you did to Marie. About what you had done to Duff.”
Höttl sneered. “Had done to her? I did it myself. I beat you down to Mexico and filmed all I did to Duff.”
I nearly beat him to death then. Instead I smiled meanly, said, “Danke, Werner. You just made this so much easier.”
I began pushing the old Nazi across the room, out toward the dying light.
Bud followed with the camera.
Höttl saw what was coming and began to scream. It was a choked, suffocated cry of fear—his lungs were already ravaged by the Machado Josephs and so he had no air projection to make any noise anyone might hear.
“That’s right, scream you bloody son of a bitch,” I said. “Scream all the way down, now. I would surely hate for you to land on some innocent tourist.”
I pitched him over the side.
Höttl softly howled all the way down.
There were no other screams from below yet; it must still be empty around the pool, I figured. I pointed at the rope hanging from the overhead balcony. “You go up first, Bud. I’ll bring the camera.”
71
My boys were tying one on in celebration, really wallowing in that presidential suite pad.
Jésus called up some working girls. The gals were rough-looking local trade. Bud and I swiftly retreated to the hotel lounge.
I took my drink with me to a phone booth.
Given the difference in time zones, I woke him up of course. But I hoped the news would be worth it.
Groggy, Jimmy said, “Everything is okay, boyo?”
“Is now,” I said. “It’s over now.”
I heard Jimmy bite back a sob; that cleaved me. He said, “Are you sure? You saw with your own eyes?”
“It happened by my hand,” I said.
“Thank Christ.” Jimmy paused, said, “God, I wish I could have seen it.”
I almost hesitated, but pushed on. “Well, about that…”
72
Cleveland was in the throes of a hard summer rain; rolling thunder in the distance. The rain had seemed to follow Bud and I all the way from Brazil.
Bud was now screening the Höttl film on one of Jimmy’s blank white living room walls.
I couldn’t watch the goddamn thing.
Instead, I wandered out to Jimmy’s back porch, staring off through the trees and watching the rain fall.
Jimmy eventually wandered out. He was looking a good bit stronger than the last time I’d seen him. His color was better. He put a big hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I can never make it up to you, your taking care of Höttl like that.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” I said. “Hell, I still owe you more favors than I can count, Jimmy. Besides, Marie meant the world to me. And I had to avenge Duff. And on both counts, it still wasn’t enough.”
Jimmy said, “I know it has to be destroyed, Hector. Hell, it’s evidence of a capital crime. But I’d like to watch it another time or two. To savor Höttl’s fear and hate and helplessness. His realization that, like you said, Marie is going to destroy him with her words. I don’t think I could ever get tired of watching that moment.”
“You roll it again, then, Jimmy. But me, I’ve really got to get on home.”
“You do.” We hugged and said our goodbyes.
***
Bud walked me outside. I said, “Once again, you’ve gone above and beyond, my friend.”
The poet/screenwriter/songwriter shrugged it off. “I heard what you said to Jimmy,” he said. “It’s the same for me, Lass. Marie was my friend, too. There was no choosing in this.”
Bud looked around, said, “Think before I head back to Nashville, I’m going to hang around here a few days. Just to make sure Jimmy really is solid.”
“Bless you for doing that, son,” I said.
Bud shook my hand. “All my love to Alicia.”
“I’ll surely pass it along.”
***
Before I hit the airport, I made a last stop at the cemetery to pay respects to Marie.
I stopped by the graveyard’s chapel and lit two candles.
August 1971
The in-flight movie was Patton. I tore off my earphones and read a book instead.
***
I picked up my Chevy from the airport’s long-term lot and flipped on the wipers. More goddamn rain. Seemed to be raining, like some writer said, everywhere in the known universe.
Close to home, the setting sun finally dipped beneath all that cloud cover. It was a red sun that made the sky look like a Technicolor matte painting in a Selznick picture.
A skinny dog was flirting with a suicidal road crossing. He was a black Lab that looked about half-starved. I pulled curbside and popped the passenger side door and whistled.
Skittish, the Lab approached my car. He had no tags; not even a collar. He looked like he had been days on the run.
It had sure been a long time since I’d had a dog. I patted the seat. He hesitated, then climbed in, collapsing next to me.
I reached across, closed the door. I scratched his head and rolled back into traffic.
A country song on the radio: Buck Owens warbling “Act Naturally.” Buck sang, “They’re gonna put me in the movies.”
I turned that off, dialed around and found Ray Price singing “For the Good Times.”
I drove into that big bloody sunset, one hand on the stray and the other on the wheel.
Roll the credits.
Reader Discussion Questions
1.Hector Lassiter’s WWII activities have been loosely hinted at in previous novels. What most surprised you about his now-revealed World War II adventures?
2.Werner Höttl was first glimpsed in One True Sentence as another artistic intellectual haunting 1920s Paris and another member of the Lost Generation shaped or damaged by WWI. Did the Paris flashback in this novel give you any fresh insights into prior novels’ themes?
3.Hector Lassiter is an author and Werner Höttl a filmmaker. How do their respective careers inform their lives and define their very private war?
4.In this
novel, we at last come face-to-face with Duff Sexton, one of Hector’s eventual wives (and one name-checked in an earlier book). What about Duff do you think so strongly appeals to Hector sufficiently to result in matrimony?
5.A number of characters from prior Lassiter novels make cameos or return appearances in this book. Was there a particular character you were pleased to see back? Who were you most pleasantly surprised to see make a return?
6.Film and film noir drive and inform Roll the Credits. How did you feel about Hector’s use of film at the novel’s climax to punish Höttl?
7.This is the first novel since Head Games to be narrated by Hector. Did the shift in voice in any way affect your attitude towards Hector?
8.Do you prefer your Lassiters in first- or third-person point of view? If you have a preference, what drives it?
9.Bud Fiske, Hector’s Head Games sidekick, returns in this novel. Did anything about the direction of Bud’s intervening life surprise or disarm you?
10.Apart from Duff, another Lassiter wife is revealed in this novel. Were you surprised to see who the much older Hector was married to? Did that union please you, or…?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Craig McDonald is an award-winning author and journalist. The Hector Lassiter series has been published to international acclaim in numerous languages. McDonald’s debut novel was nominated for Edgar, Anthony and Gumshoe awards in the U.S. and the 2011 Sélection du prix polar Saint-Maur en Poche in France.
The Lassiter series has been enthusiastically endorsed by a who’s who of crime fiction authors including: Michael Connelly, Laura Lippmann, Daniel Woodrell, James Crumley, James Sallis, Diana Gabaldon, and Ken Bruen, among many others.
Hector Lassiter also centers short stories that appear in three crime fiction anthologies, Dublin Noir (Akashic Books), The Deadly Bride & 19 of the Year’s Finest Crime and Mystery Stories, (Carroll & Graf) and Danger City II (Contemporary Press).
Roll the Credits: A Hector Lassiter novel Page 33