The Linz Tattoo

by Nicholas Guild

  At almost the same instant, the office door sprang open with a sound of splintering wood and a man in a dark blue suit pushed his way inside. Christiansen seemed to have all the time in the world—the man had pale blond hair, he noticed, and the knot in his tie was pulled a little loose. There was a Luger in his right hand, but apparently it hadn’t occurred to him yet that he would be needing it. He seemed surprised to see Christiansen, as if they had known each other somewhere else and he hadn’t expected to run into him in a place like Burriana.

  With something like relief, Christiansen realized that there would be no problem this time. The man was armed, and everyone was playing for keeps now. It was open season. He brought the Mauser up and fired twice. Both slugs went into the man’s face, one just below the left eye and the other almost square in the middle of the upper lip, popping open his mouth so that he seemed to scream, but there was no sound, only a thick rush of blood. The man was dead, even as he reached back to brace himself against the door frame. The Luger dropped harmlessly to the floor.

  There was a lot of racket now, and Christiansen could look through the open doorway and see people staring at the body. It seemed to be causing quite a sensation. So far, apparently, no one had noticed him—the sound of gunshots and the sight of a corpse were distraction enough.

  It wasn’t going to last—he needed to get out of there. He let the Mauser slip through his fingers and started climbing out through the open window. He was already well outside and crouching in the shadowy courtyard before the first man came around the corner of the building.

  This one wouldn’t be alone. The other one, the fellow who was lying dead inside, had simply made a mistake. He had gotten flustered by the sound of shooting and had rushed inside without thinking. No one would make that mistake again.

  Hagemann had had five bodyguards sitting at the table with him—unless you counted the little Arab, and Christiansen had a feeling that Hagemann didn’t. One was already blown away, one was following Esther and Itzhak back to their hotel, and Hagemann would certainly want to keep at least one with him, so that left two.

  They would come from opposite directions. Let them.

  The first man was simply a shadow, an outline against the pale yellow light from the street. Christiansen took the big British revolver from under his belt, aimed carefully, and fired. One shot was all it took—there just wasn’t anything there anymore.

  There was a sound of footsteps behind him as Christiansen turned. He sprang to one side and rolled, and a bullet careened off the cobblestones with an ugly whine. Number Two had seen the flash of his revolver, but any number could play at that game. Settling for an approximate target, Christiansen fired off three quick rounds, giving them a good spread. He rolled away again, but this time no one fired at him. The courtyard was still echoing with the noise of shooting before he heard the low wail that told him why.

  All he saw was a shape, and that only for a second. A man bent over at an odd angle, holding his side as he limped around the corner and out of sight. That one just wanted to get away. Let him. Let him live to tell Hagemann all about it.

  Christiansen got to his feet and ran. He just picked an alleyway and ran. He didn’t stop until he was sure there was no one behind him.

  . . . . .

  The Casa General Moscardo was conveniently located for mischief. It was a four-story structure sandwiched in between a furniture factory and a building housing a noisy little restaurant on the ground floor and the offices of a maritime insurance company above. The street in front stretched right down to the docks, and there was an alleyway behind that was wide enough to allow the garbage trucks to get through. The view from the roof took in everything for half a mile in any direction.

  Christiansen had taken the long way, just to be certain he hadn’t been followed. He hadn’t seen a sign of life in forty minutes.

  He didn’t have any trouble breaking in. There was a fire escape on the side facing the alley where, on hot summer nights, the patrons of the hotel probably laid out their mattresses on the landings to take advantage of the sea breezes. Mordecai had left a window on the third floor unlatched for him.

  In the dark of the morning, after the curfew had blackened out even the nightclubs, when even the whores were asleep in their innocence, you couldn’t see so much as your feet.

  On the third-floor landing there were a few slivers of light visible behind one of the window shades. That was all the invitation he needed. He pressed his fingers into the narrow gap between the two halves of the window and pulled them toward him. He hadn’t managed to get them open more than three or four inches before the shade popped up and he found himself staring through the window into the muzzle of a British 9-millimeter.

  “We were beginning to think you had gotten lost,” Hirsch said, helping him through with his free hand—he seemed reluctant to put the pistol away, as if he thought he might still need it. Christiansen merely grunted as he pulled the window closed again, latched it, and lowered the shade. They were all there, almost.

  “Where’s Itzhak?”

  “He’s in the room across the hall, getting his beauty rest.” Hirsch grinned at him slyly. “I didn’t get the impression he was real eager to welcome you back.”

  Esther was sitting on a couch, her face in profile as she studied the joints of her fingers. Every so often she would glance at him out of the corner of her eye, but that was all.

  “Have you had a productive day?” Mordecai asked from the armchair where, pinched between two fingers, he was holding a brown paper cigarette that produced the bluest smoke Christiansen had ever seen. His shirt sleeves were rolled up over his heavy forearms. He raised his eyebrows expectantly, prepared to ignore everything else.

  “Yes, I’ve learned a good deal. Where would you like me to start?”

  In the difficult silence that followed, Faglin handed him a cup of coffee. The instant he tasted it, Christiansen realized how tired he was. He sat down on the sofa beside Esther, put his arm over her shoulder, and felt her elbow pressing against his rib cage. He had his woman back and his coffee, and they both felt comfortably warm. That was all he really cared about.

  “I took a look at the seaward side of Hagemann’s little bungalow,” he said finally, as if the matter were of indifferent interest. “The guard makes his circuit about once every twenty-two minutes. He carries a flashlight but doesn’t use it except to light his way. They aren’t expecting trouble from that direction.”

  He turned to Esther and smiled, giving her a small squeeze. There was a look of wordless, incredulous gratitude in her eyes, and something like fear. Well, yes, of course. Why shouldn’t there be?

  “There isn’t any reason why they should. What’s the matter, Christiansen? Didn’t you get a load of those cliffs? They’re slick as gooseberry jam and seventy feet high if they’re an inch.”

  “Probably higher—so what?”

  He was enjoying himself. Hirsch looked like he was ready to pop his cork. So let him.

  “It can’t be done, that’s what.” Hirsch, who was now the only person in the room still standing, looked toward Mordecai and made an exasperated gesture with his right arm, as if he were trying to shake water from his fingers. “We’ve already gone into all this. It’s impossible.”

  “What’s the matter, didn’t you ever do any climbing when you were a kid? It’s practically the Norwegian national sport. Except I keep forgetting—you grew up on Ninth Avenue. That probably explains it.”

  “Stop trying to provoke a quarrel, Inar. What is it you want to say?”

  Christiansen looked over at Mordecai, who seemed to be studying his face like a map of hostile territory.

  “What I want to say is that the reviews are in and your little melodrama has been panned. I saw Hagemann tonight when he came to the cafe—he looked at the back of Esther’s head as he sat down at his table and he smiled. Don’t you understand? He smiled. He wasn’t even pretending to be surprised to see her. She was expected.
”

  They all knew what he was talking about.

  “It’s my fault,” Esther said quietly, almost as if to herself alone. “It was all for nothing then. It’s my fault. If I—”

  “No, it isn’t. He saw it coming, kid. You were blown before you even walked into the room.”

  Christiansen’s eyes felt hot and dried out, as if he hadn’t closed them in hours. When he tried they burned.

  “He’s just trying to keep his girlfriend’s neck out of the noose,” Hirsch said suddenly. He still hadn’t been able to bring himself to sit down, so he leaned back against the window sill, his arms locked across his chest, glaring at some object only he could see. He didn’t even believe what he was saying himself.

  Faglin, who had hardly spoken at all, who seemed to wish he were somewhere else entirely, picked up the coffee cup on the floor between his feet and rose from the corner of the bed into which he seemed to be trying to disappear.

  “Does anybody want some?” he asked, in all innocence. Hirsch merely scowled at him.

  “It’s true, isn’t it?” With a kind of savage petulance, Hirsch pushed himself away from the window. “All he wants is to take care of himself. If we help him get close enough to kill Hagemann, that’s fine with him—just so long as we don’t do anything to interfere with his love life. Well, I’ve got a flash for you, pal—”

  “That will be enough, Jerry.”

  Mordecai let his gaze drift from Hirsch’s face to Christiansen’s and, finally, to Esther’s. He smiled at Esther, as if the sight of her alone gave him a twinge of pleasure.

  “And you can rest yourself as well, Inar,” he went on, the smile disappearing from his lips. “I won’t ask the two of you to kiss and make up, but you’ll have to continue your argument some other time. Let us keep to the point.”

  “What is the point?” Hirsch snapped.

  “The point is that your plan isn’t going to work.” Christiansen was almost insultingly calm. “The point is that if you want Hagemann dead or alive you’re going to have to go right up that cliff face and get him.”

  “It can’t be done. It’s impossible.”

  “No, it’s only difficult. Nothing is impossible.”

  As if on signal, Mordecai stood up, pushing himself out of the chair with his arms. He looked around him with a certain distaste.

  “I think we’ve discussed it enough for now,” he said, principally to Christiansen it seemed. “Jerry, remember you’re supposed to be working in this place, so get downstairs and sit behind the night desk like a good boy. You come with me, Amos. I want to talk to you.”

  There was some grumbling, but Mordecai could still make himself be obeyed. In a moment, after the shuffling exodus was over and the door had closed, Christiansen found himself alone in the room with Esther, who still sat at her end of the couch, her hands pressed into her lap. She looked as if she had been dreading this very moment.

  “I can’t understand why Hirsch is so down on me all of a sudden,” he said, switching off the ceiling fixture so that only a standing lamp in the corner near the chest of drawers bathed the room in soft, white, shadowy light. “I haven’t set eyes on him in nearly two weeks, and all day long he’s been riding me.”

  “He doesn’t like that you’re sleeping with a Jewish woman.”

  “What’s the matter? Does he want to keep them all for himself?”

  He grinned. It was supposed to have been a harmless joke, but already he wished he hadn’t said it. Esther only stared at him with dark, sad eyes and then turned her face away.

  “I didn’t go to bed with Itzhak,” she began, almost whispering. What made her want to go into all that now, he wondered. “But I think you should—”

  “No, I really don’t want to hear anything about it. No confessions, is that all right? There’s not much you could tell me I don’t already know, and it’s a little late in the day.”

  He sat down on the couch beside her, and she threw herself at him, burying her face in his lap and weeping out of control. He cradled her head in his arms and let her cry. There were things about her that never ceased to astonish him.

  “I love you,” he said quietly. He hadn’t meant to say it—he hadn’t meant to say anything. It had just slipped out. He wondered if there was any chance it could be true and then decided that, yes, it probably was. So much the worse for both of them.

  Fortunately, she didn’t seem to have heard him. Or perhaps it wasn’t something she wanted to hear.

  “Finished?”

  She looked up at him and nodded, wiping away the tears with the palm of her hand. She was smiling now.

  “Fine. Then I’d like to take a shower and then maybe get some sleep. It’s been a long day, and I’d just as soon get it over with.”

  She was waiting for him when he got out of the shower. He couldn’t see her—he couldn’t even see the bed once he had turned off the bathroom light—but she was there nevertheless.

  They didn’t say anything. He crawled into the narrow bed, and when he put his arm around her, and touched her bare shoulder, he could feel her toes brushing against his legs, just below the kneecaps. She was wearing a thin blue cotton nightdress. He liked that nightdress; it was better than if she was wearing nothing at all. It was gathered up around her waist; he slipped his hand in underneath and let his fingers glide up the curve of her back. When he kissed her she opened her lips as if she wanted to bite him, and he could feel her warm, moist breath and hear the tiny whimper of longing that seemed to come of its own. By the time she guided him into her, she was already breathing in short, ragged sobs and her forehead, pressed against his chest, just below the collarbone, felt hot and damp. She made him feel pleasure through his whole body. It was as if they really did become one flesh.

  No, he didn’t require any explanations. She still loved him. She belonged to him. She would never have betrayed him in anything, and what had to be done had to be done.

  . . . . .

  It was nearly morning, and he had the impression he had been asleep for something like half an hour, when he heard the tapping on the hotel room door. He tried to get out of bed without waking Esther, but she had her arms around his neck and, besides, she had heard the tapping too.

  “It’s one of the good guys,” he said, slipping his arms into the sleeves of his bathrobe. “Go back to sleep.”

  It was Faglin. He was still in his suit and looked as if he hadn’t been near a bed in days.

  “Mordecai wants to talk to you. Can you come right down?”

  “Sure. Just let me get dressed. Come inside—you can babysit until I get back.”

  “Sure.”

  It was the off season for seaside resorts, and three quarters of the hotel’s rooms were empty. Mordecai had installed himself in the front of the building, where he could watch the street. Still, it was an ugly little box he had chosen, with a cold linoleum floor and paper that threatened to come peeling off the walls in great sheets. But it was next door to the stairwell—probably you could hear people through the wall. From a practical point of view, Mordecai had chosen well.

  “We had a policeman here about half an hour ago,” he said. He was in the bathroom, standing over the sink, shaving. His voice seemed to come from nowhere. “He had your description. He even had your name. It was only with some difficulty that Jerry was able to keep him from searching the hotel. He said you had killed three men at the Café Pícaro.”

  “The third man died? I’m glad.”

  Mordecai stepped into the bathroom doorway and looked at him almost as if he had to confirm for himself that there really was someone else in the room. He was in his undershirt, and his face was still half covered with lather. Christiansen grinned at him.

  “It was dangerous, Inar. And it draws official attention to us, and we don’t need that.”

  “I was supposed to provide the distraction—that was the idea, wasn’t it? Hagemann will have something to think about now besides where all the trip wires and trap do
ors are in this thing you’ve set up for him. He’s frightened now. He knows that I’ll kill him if he hangs around much longer. There’s a time limit now. It’ll make him careless.”

  “That’s a good reason, but is it the real reason?”

  “No.”

  “You feel like telling me what is?”

  Christiansen sat down on a peculiarly ugly wooden chair with a circular seat, took the pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, and lit one. He felt like a schoolboy called into the headmaster’s office to explain why he had been found scratching his name into the top of his desk.

  “I told you, I was there tonight.” He crossed his legs and stared up at the ceiling. The cigarette smoke drifted up and then seemed to lose energy, flattening out like a layer of silt. “I sat up in the little box from where they run the lights, and I watched Hagemann playing the great man for close to three hours. I had my gun—it would have been the easiest thing in the world to blow the back of his head out, to make such a mess of him they wouldn’t even have bothered to bury him, just feed him to the dogs. But I didn’t do that. I remembered you, and General von Goltz’s nerve gas, and the Jewish homeland. Why the hell am I supposed to do my bit for the Jewish homeland, I might think to inquire? So don’t ask me why I felt the need to burn down a few of Hagemann’s soldiers.”

  “All right. I won’t ask.”

  Mordecai had wiped his face clean by the time he came out of the bathroom. He looked quite bright, as if someone had gone over him with metal polish. Mordecai was one of those men who could wash his face and make a brand new start in life. It was a gift.

  “Would it be still all right if I asked you something else?”

  “Ask.”

  “This business about going up the cliffs behind Hagemann’s villa, is that because you want to keep Esther out of his way? I have to know.”

  “I don’t want her used as bait, but the cliffs are still the only way to reach him. He knows all about the bait. Use her like that and he’ll steal her right off your hook.”