Whoever O’Kane was, he was dangerous, but the question was: Could he be trusted?
If the Bear wanted out of the city after he had bested Rossett, it seemed like O’Kane was the one ticket on sale.
He just had to be careful he didn’t get shortchanged.
The Bear found a spot, cleared his mind, and calmed the waters.
He thought about his childhood, the same memory he always used when he had to wait and think at times like this.
He heard his mother singing in the kitchen. He was in the back room of their little house in Essen. He could feel the room, every detail.
He was sitting on the floor; he could hear her and smell the strudel she was baking. Her voice was so clear and so crisp. She was through the doorway, just out of sight, except for her shadow on the floor, put there by the sunshine through the window in the kitchen.
The song drifted back to him like a warm breeze that made him lift his chin a little and smile.
“Das Bucklige Männlein.”
The Hunchbacked Little Man.
The words were ugly, but her voice . . . oh, her voice . . . it was beautiful. He wanted to tell her that she sounded like an angel, but he couldn’t go to her because he was so small, stuck there on the floor.
I want to go into my little garden,
I want to water my flowers,
There’s a hunchbacked little man there,
About to start to sneeze.
The years slipped away. The Bear didn’t move an inch. He listened to the soldiers in the alleyway, the crunch of the boots, the hush of their voices, the same as he listened to his mother in memory.
I want to go to my little cellar,
I want to draw my little wine from the keg,
A hunchbacked little man stands there,
He’s already snatched a jug from me.
She was beautiful, smiling as she sang, the sun lighting her blond hair, like golden wisps of angel’s thread.
I want to go into my little bedroom,
I want to make my bed,
A hunchbacked little man stands there
And starts to laugh.
He could hear the soldiers below him grumbling. They were tired, scared, on a wild-goose chase after searching for almost two hours now.
“We’ve got casualties in the truck, we should be looking after them . . .”
He heard the back gate being shoved by a reluctant shoulder and standing firm.
They were moving down the alley again.
He smiled as he listened.
And then they were gone.
Dear little child, please
Pray for the hunchbacked little man . . .
The song ended.
Hours passed, and like the soldiers the afternoon was long gone.
The smile faded, just like it always did as he came back to life.
He remembered her body in the bathtub.
He didn’t want to remember.
He didn’t want to find her dead.
But he had.
The blood in the water.
He blinked and saw her hair, splayed out around her head, like she was falling away from him off a cliff. She stared up, lips apart, as she lay beneath the surface.
Pray for the hunchbacked little man . . .
He wished he had gone to the doorway to watch her sing in the kitchen instead of listening to her voice. He wished she had taken him with her.
That way he wouldn’t hate her.
He wouldn’t hate her for leaving him to the men in the children’s home. The men with their rough hands, stubbly chins, and snorting midnight drunken breath that blew against the back of his neck and sounded like a bull bearing down on him.
He hated her more than he hated them.
And he hated them a lot.
The Bear lifted his head. He’d been there almost three hours, according to his watch. He took a look into the backyard and the alleyway. Empty. Slightly softer, slightly longer shadows as the sun set behind the houses.
There was a cat, oblivious, sitting on the wall, watching a bird on a rooftop. It looked bored and hungry, but not disturbed by searching Germans.
The Bear watched it closely.
He’d learned long ago that a watched animal could tell you a lot more than your own senses could. Their senses were sharper, they smelled people hiding, they heard the beat of a human heart and saw the twitch of a human hair, long before he could.
The cat yawned.
They’d gone.
He was safe.
He slipped his pistol into his pocket and slowly got to his feet, then stretched out his stiff limbs.
There was plenty of cover from where half of the roof had fallen in to make what amounted to a lean-to. The Bear had stashed his provisions there, including an MP40 in case of emergency.
He was cold, but it was still too light to start up a fire. He was hungry, but instead of eating, he decided to prepare some wood while there was still enough light to do so.
The fallen roof provided a few boards, but kindling was scarce, so he checked that the coast was clear and then stepped out of his shelter to rip some of the tattered wallpaper from the floor below.
He saw the fist coming, hard and fast. He felt like a rabbit in the headlamps.
John Henry Rossett punched him in the face.
It was a good punch. A Rossett punch. Straight, economical, and whip-crack fast. Most men would have been out like a light. Most men would have woken up five minutes later and wondered what truck had run them over.
The Bear wasn’t most men.
He managed to dip his chin two inches. That was all it took. Rossett’s right fist connected with his forehead instead of his nose. The Bear staggered back; forehead or not, the punch was hard enough to give his brain a shake and dull his senses.
His instincts were still good, though. They snapped up his hands and lifted his elbows. He dipped his head under their cover. Rossett stepped in, following the Bear as he went backward. The Bear blinked off the shock of the first punch and felt a left fist thud into the back of his right hand and pin it against his head.
Another good punch. A brain-numbing punch, but still not enough to put him down. He feinted another step back, then stepped forward.
He met Rossett halfway through throwing another right.
This time the Bear was close enough to duck under it and into Rossett’s chest. The hands that had been held high protecting his head now became levers to slam into Rossett and rock him backward to open a gap between the Lion and the Bear.
The fight was on.
Rossett would have bet a hundred pounds on the Bear going down after that first punch. His hand was stinging from slamming it into the German’s forehead, and he had a nagging feeling that he might just have broken a bone or two.
It didn’t stop him throwing the left, though. The one that normally finished the job.
The Bear fended it off with a high elbow and forearm. They took out most of the power of the punch and left it landing limply against the hand protecting his head.
Rossett was surprised. The Bear protected himself like a boxer. He knew that winning a fight wasn’t all about the punches you threw; it was about how you dealt with the punches you drew.
And he was dealing with them well.
Rossett stepped in, drawing back his right. He’d find out if it was broken the second it landed on the Bear, but either way, Rossett knew it should be the punch to end the fight.
The Bear stepped inside the punch almost the second it was thrown. It flashed past his left ear and left Rossett’s torso exposed in its wake.
The Bear slammed Rossett’s chest with the flats of both hands and drove him back eighteen inches. The Bear threw a good right, and Rossett hooked it away. The Bear threw a sharp left; Rossett took it on the shoulder and rolled with it a few inches.
The Bear stepped in, hooked the left again, and caught Rossett with a good kidney punch.
Rossett started to regret not jus
t shooting the Bear when he had the chance.
The Bear dug his knuckles hard into Rossett’s back, grabbed at the Englishman’s raincoat, and tried to pull him upright so that he could land a head butt.
It was his first mistake of the fight.
He had to step across Rossett. He was in too close. He realized it the second he felt Rossett wrap his arm around his then use his momentum against him. The Bear hit the wall face-first.
He felt the already weakened plaster crack under his cheek. His right arm was locked up and behind him by Rossett.
He couldn’t shake it free. He felt Rossett pulling on his shoulder, trying to lift him a few inches off the wall. He guessed he was going to be slammed again.
He wasn’t.
It was a trick designed to get him to bring his leg forward to brace himself.
It worked.
Rossett kicked down on the outside of his knee. It buckled, and screamed with pain the second it gave way. The Bear dropped into the rubble. Rossett slammed his face back into the wall and then pulled him back. The Bear looked up.
Rossett knocked him out.
The Bear blinked.
The world spun, disappeared, then spun again as he squinted up at the muzzle of a Webley revolver. He closed his eyes, squeezed them so tight it ratcheted up the dull ache in his head a notch, and opened them again.
Rossett stared back at him from behind the Webley.
“Oh,” the Bear said quietly, because it was all he could think to say.
“You’re under arrest.”
“Arrest?”
“Arrest.” Rossett dropped the cuffs onto his chest.
The Bear sighed and closed his eyes again for a moment. Eventually he swallowed, licked his tongue around his dry lips, and looked back up at Rossett.
“Where were you?”
“Other side of the wall next door.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“I saw you talking in the street, before the shooting started.”
“In the street?”
“In the street. Put the cuffs on.”
“If I don’t?”
“I’ll shoot you in the right elbow.”
The Bear considered that option, then slipped the cuffs on and held them up for Rossett to inspect. They passed muster, so the Bear dropped his hands back onto his chest.
“I killed your partner.”
“I know.”
“I shot him like a dog.”
“I know.”
“He whimpered like a dog.”
“I don’t care.”
“Just because these cuffs are on doesn’t mean you’ve won. There is a long way to go yet.”
Rossett lowered the Webley a few inches. “Get up.”
“You aren’t going to make me pay for what I’ve done?”
“Not the way you think, no.”
“Why?”
“Because I am better than you.”
The Bear sighed. “I think you broke my nose.”
“Good. Now get up.”
The Bear got up to his feet unsteadily, tested his nose again, and looked at Rossett.
“They won’t stop; they want that gold more than anything else on earth.”
“Then they will have to go through me to get it.”
“They’ll walk right through you and out the other side without stopping. They will want the address of the gold, and there is nothing you can do about it. I promise you that.”
“Like you promised you’d written it down and put it in your pocket?” Rossett took hold of the Bear’s arm and pushed him ahead as they made their way out of the building.
The Bear looked back at him over his shoulder. “You searched me?”
“You lied.”
The Bear laughed. “Were you disappointed, Lion? Were you going to kill me if you found it?”
“I don’t want your gold, Bauer.”
“You looked, though.”
“I just wanted to see if you were telling the truth.”
“Yeah, Lion.” The Bear stumbled forward a few paces, then cast a glance over his shoulder as Rossett shoved him again. “You keep telling yourself that.”
Chapter 19
“I’m a police officer and I need your car.”
The driver stared up at Rossett through the half-open window of the tiny Standard Eight motorcar, then craned his neck a little to look at the Bear.
“I’m a port agent and I need the car more than you, so piss off.” The driver wasn’t too keen on walking home.
Rossett pulled out the Webley and shoved it through the window.
“This needs it too, so you are outvoted.”
The port agent stared at the Webley and then opened the door. Rossett gripped his collar and half dragged him out of his seat into the road. The agent stumbled, righted himself, looked at the Bear, who gave him a shrug, then back at Rossett.
“I need that car.”
It was the Bear’s turn to be grabbed by the collar and dragged around. He was compliant, especially because now his hands were handcuffed behind him and his options for resistance were pretty much zero.
Rossett opened the front passenger door of the car, shoved the Bear in, and slammed the door behind him. The port agent lifted his hands and tried again.
“If I lose that car, I’ll lose my job!”
“You’ll find it at the central police station.”
Rossett got in the driver’s seat. He crunched a gear and pulled away with a small wheel spin on the wet cobbles, but squealed to a halt after a few seconds.
Rossett leaned out the window and called back to the port agent.
“Do you know where the central police station is?”
“Of course I do!”
The driver’s door flew open and Rossett got out, then reached in and manhandled the Bear into the backseat with the Webley as encouragement. He gestured that the port agent should get back in the driver’s seat, then walked around the car and got in the other side.
Rossett looked over his shoulder at the Bear.
“One move, one twitch, one thing I don’t like, and I will put a round in you. Understand?”
“Perfectly.”
“Don’t doubt me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Rossett looked at the port agent, who was looking in through the driver’s door.
“What’s your name?”
“Brian.”
“Well, Brian, if you drive us to the central police station you’ll be free to go with my thanks.”
“I’d rather just go without you shooting me.”
“So would I.”
Brian considered his options, then climbed in. He looked over his shoulder at the Bear, who smiled at him and said, “He’s actually quite nice when you get to know him.”
It had started to rain again. Not heavily, just enough to speckle the streets and mist the edges of the windscreen as they headed across town.
Nobody spoke.
Rossett was watching the Bear. Who, in turn, was simply staring out the side window at the passing streets. They had driven for almost ten minutes, hardly stopping at traffic lights or slowing for corners as Rossett encouraged speed with gentle waves of the hand whenever they looked to be in danger of reducing speed.
Brian finally spoke.
“I drive home this way six days a week.”
“Just drive.”
Brian glanced over his left shoulder at the Bear, and then at Rossett, before looking back out the windscreen.
“I think we’re being followed.”
Rossett looked out through the back window. There was a car, maybe a hundred yards back, with its headlamps on, the only other moving vehicle on the street.
The Bear spoke softly. “It seems that even if you don’t care about the gold . . . someone else does.”
Rossett did his best to ignore him and turned to Brian.
“Take the next right-hand turn as quick as you can. When you’re clear of the
intersection, stand on the brakes. I want you to stop, but keep the engine running.”
“Did he say gold?”
“Just turn the down the next street.”
Brian did as he was told as soon as they reached the next right-hand turn. For a moment Rossett thought they were going to skid, but Brian was a better driver than he looked. He countered the slide with a flick of the steering wheel, and then, once they had rounded the corner, stamped on the brakes and brought the car to a halt.
“Lights.”
Brian turned them off as Rossett stepped out the already-open passenger door and pointed the Webley over the car roof toward the corner.
He waited.
A moment, then another, then the car that had been behind them drove past the intersection at about thirty miles an hour and speeded on out of sight.
Rossett lifted the Webley, released the hammer with his thumb, and blew out his cheeks. He glanced around at the side street they were in, checked the Bear through the back window, then placed his Webley on the roof of the car and started to pat himself down for a cigarette.
He didn’t have one.
He picked up the Webley and got back into the car.
“Turn around and head for the police station.”
“We going to be driving around all night like this?”
“Don’t make me shoot you, Brian.”
Brian shook his head, jabbed at the clutch, and finally found first gear.
They’d moved less than twenty feet when two cars came around the corner in procession and fanned out to block the road.
Brian stamped on the foot brake.
“Oh dear,” the Bear said quietly.
Rossett knew it was pointless pointing the pistol at them, but he did it anyway. Behind the headlamps he could count eight men, and he guessed there were eight guns as well.
He could feel the cold from the car roof leaching through the thin material of his coat as he rested his arms on it, the Webley outstretched in front of him in a double-handed grip.
Iris came out of the lights. He recognized the walk long before he heard her voice calling to him from the silhouette.
An Army of One: A John Rossett Novel Page 27