“Well, the way I figured it, if she got killed, you’d have gotten killed yourself. Come on, pard, cheer up. Only the bad guys get killed in MacMurdo’s world. By the way, there were some of those grenades on the two stiffs at Dauner’s place … same kind they used on us. I gave them to your pal Leary. To keep the maiden safe in the tower.” He looked at his watch, shook Cassidy’s hand. “Time for your train, pard. And I really am headed for Washington. We’ll be in touch. You’ve got the number in D.C. Good hunting up there. Remember—find the minotaur, you find Moller. It’s his passport to the future. That and the money. If the Göring escape route gets set up—well, find Moller and the minotaur and we close it all down. I wish to hell I were going with you, pard. You’re gonna have some fun!”
Cassidy had a club sandwich and a beer as the train rocked and swayed northward and he thought about Sam MacMurdo. The crazy bastard really did wish he was setting off on the trail of the minotaur and Manfred Moller. He really would have looked upon it as having some fun. He had a way of making his plans your plans, his risks your risks. By the time Cassidy was rolling toward Boston his own reasons for the enterprise were being blurred by events. He was becoming one of MacMurdo’s creatures, doing his bidding. Having some fun. He knew that none of his motives had actually changed: he was doing it for his country, he was doing it for Karin because he knew he still loved her. Loving her made it all the more necessary to find Moller, bring them together somehow, and unlock her memory. … Once Karin was whole again, life could lurch forward again.
But all that being true, MacMurdo still transformed the reality behind a smokescreen of action. The action was for MacMurdo the end in itself. And when the minotaur and Manfred Moller and the rest of them were history, Sam MacMurdo would be off somewhere looking for the action. And for the moment Cassidy knew he was being swept along with him. The problem, of course, was that while MacMurdo was indestructible, Cassidy wasn’t.
The maiden in the tower, MacMurdo had said.
It was the best place for her. She was out of the game now. It was MacMurdo’s game and the only way Cassidy would keep playing was to put the maiden in the tower and keep her there. Until it was over.
“But first you gotta find a tower,” MacMurdo had said.
“No problem.”
“That was the easy part, pard. You gotta have a scary kind of monster to guard her in the tower.” He was grinning, enjoying himself. He was always in the game. “Where you gonna find yourself that monster?”
“That’s the easy part.”
That was when they tucked Karin away in Terry Leary’s apartment on Park Avenue.
The maiden had her tower and the monster to keep her safe.
By the time they pulled into South Station the Boston papers were out with the World Series final on the stands. The ink was still wet and there were crowds around the newsies hawking them. South Station was full of travelers, lots of servicemen in uniform and mothers with tired, hungry kids who were setting up a dinnertime howl, and Brahmins still doing their bit coming from Washington and going to Washington. It was still the war and it would be for a while yet.
Cassidy hadn’t been to Boston since the fall of ’41 when the Bulldogs had come up for a game and he’d scored three touchdowns, bucking across from inside the one on the last play of the game. The Bulldogs were down by seventeen at the time so it didn’t make much difference, except to the guys playing the point spread, which was a newish gimmick some smarty had figured out. But it was his last memory of Boston, grinding across the goal line, getting his face shoved into mud three inches deep at the end of a wet and very dark afternoon. As football went, it was a pretty fair memory. And it was ancient history, four years ago, a whole damn war ago.
He slipped a nickel into the kid’s ink-black hand and got the ink smeared all over his own hands. Never mind, it was worth it. Fire Trucks had gone all the way at Briggs Stadium in Detroit and the Tigers had evened the Series at a game each, 4–1. Hank Greenberg’s three-run homer off Hank Wyse in the fifth had decided it. Claude Passeau was going tomorrow for the Cubs against Stubby Overmire, which would close out the three games in Detroit. Then they’d move to Wrigley Field for however long it might take for somebody to win four. Cassidy was trying to figure out how the Cubs might win it and it always came down to the ex-Yankee Hank Borowy and Detroit’s magnificent lefthander, Hal Newhouser, whom the sports writers always called Prince Hal. He had this wonderful scar under one eye, wore it like a badge of courage and a warning, and sometimes it would half hypnotize a hitter. Borowy had pitched a six-hit shutout in the opener and Newhouser hadn’t survived the third inning. The Cubs won that one, 9-0, but now it was all even. Borowy and Newhouser would probably go against each other again in the fifth game and it would probably be another rubber match. It was going to be close all the way, probably seven games, and it was funny how, even with the Yankees out of it and Karin and MacMurdo and Nazis and Gypsies with tommy guns all joining hands to fuck up his life, Cassidy still found himself caring about the World Series. It was the game. That was where MacMurdo was all fouled up. Baseball was the game. Murder and mayhem and the lady with the memory scared out of her, that was the dark side of life. For MacMurdo it was all a game, that dark side. He probably didn’t give a shit about the World Series.
Somebody poked at the newspaper and Cassidy lowered it so he could see. Harry Madrid worked the dead cigar into the corner of his mouth. “How are you, Lew?”
“Damn glad to see you, Harry.” Harry Madrid nodded and stood there like one of the pillars holding the train station in place and Cassidy had to smile. Once you really got to know Harry Madrid—and it wasn’t easy, it had taken Cassidy a long, hard time—there was no one else quite like him. It was like going into battle with the last of the Wild Bunch on your side.
“I got your wire and here I am. I figure we both got stories to tell. So who goes first?” His hands were pushed down in the deep pockets of his black overcoat. The crowds swelling around him seemed to bounce off him and he didn’t notice.
“Where did you book us in?”
“Parker House, where else? It’s MacMurdo’s twenty grand.”
Cassidy folded the newspaper, stuck it under his arm. They shouldered their way through the crowds in the station and found themselves on the densely packed sidewalk. It was damp and dark gray and cold, the wet cold you were always running into in the Boston autumn. They climbed into a cab, one of the high step-up models from back in the thirties, with big round headlamps stuck up on top of the fenders. “You go first,” Cassidy said.
Harry Madrid told his story as they inched along through the traffic, winding through tight, claustrophobic streets with those funny Boston names. Somebody had once told Cassidy the streets had been laid out according to the wanderings of sheep and cows a couple of hundred years ago. Cassidy figured it was the truth.
“I found the place where Manfred Moller’s plane probably went down.”
“Harry, that’s great!”
“Yeah.” Harry Madrid was unwrapping the cellophane from a thick, stubby Roi-tan. Then he licked the end and bit it and pushed it into the corner of his mouth. “It’s on what would likely have been the flight path, it’s way back in the bush on this very ritzy estate, fella with the asshole name—if you don’t mind an editorial comment—of Tash Benedictus. So help me, Lew, that’s his name. Mighty back-woodsy up there.”
“Quiet, I suppose.”
“Are you kidding? Lots of noises, and what bothers me is none of ’em are human.”
“Is.”
“What?”
“Is human. None is singular, Harry.”
“Sometimes I do worry about you, son.” He puffed smoke out the cab window. “Anyway, I suppose you’re a reg’lar Natty Bumppo in the woods. Being a college man and all. Well, I hate the Boy Scout stuff. The woods, the animals, the snakes, furry stuff creepin’ up behind you, Lew, little piles of their leavings everywhere—”
“You actually been o
ut in the woods yet?”
“Oh no, I wouldn’t leave you out of the fun. We’ll go in together, get a merit badge.”
“So we just walk in, have a look around, see the wreck of the plane—”
“Well, it’s a little more complicated than that.”
“Always is, isn’t it, Harry?”
“Well, you know how things go, Lew. Things are always the same and they always get complicated. Somehow, sooner or later.”
Locke-Ober or Durgin-Park. They flipped for it and took the longer walk down Scollay Square way to Durgin-Park and dined on turkey with all the trimmings. “It’s like a holiday,” Harry Madrid said, mopping up gravy with a hot biscuit. “This is a good place, Lew.” They were sitting at a long table with a lot of other people. Cassidy waited while Harry drank a fourth cup of coffee and polished off a second helping of Indian pudding.
They walked back to the Parker House. It was raining and the drops made a popping sound, tapping on Harry Madrid’s bowler. Cassidy told him everything that had happened the night before, the party at Benn’s place, the old-fashioned shindig at Dauner’s, the shootout on the road, all of it. Harry puffed on his Roi-tan, hands in pockets, his huge bulb-toed black shoes splashing through puddles. He was a good listener. Always had been. Secret of his success, if you’d asked him.
“There’ll be something in the papers tomorrow,” Cassidy said as they made way for a group of sailors back from the war. The oldest looked maybe nineteen. They were looking for a whorehouse. They didn’t have far to go.
“So we’re looking for this minotaur thing.” Harry Madrid’s brow beneath the hard rolled brim of his hat was furrowed. “I don’t like this, Lew. What are we supposed to be doing, anyway? I’m heading into the woods looking for Manfred Moller. And now we’re looking for this minotaur thing—”
“It’s a minotaur, Harry. Not a minotaur thing—”
“Smells like vintage red herring to me,” Harry grumbled.
“I want to know exactly how Henry Brenneman got it. If Dauner and this Felix character knew where it was, then Moller must have survived the flight in, must have made contact with Vulkan. Was Dauner himself Vulkan? I don’t know. But somebody got that minotaur from Moller … or Moller himself got it out to Brenneman—”
“Maybe some poacher stumbled across the damn thing.”
“Fate would not be that cruel, Harry.”
“Ha!”
“No, I don’t think so. Unless he was a poacher who knew about the Göring escape route, a Nazi poacher. That minotaur wound up in the Nazi pipeline. So, we’re sniffing around for the Nazis—for Vulkan, for the connection to our friend Dauner. …”
“If Felix and Dauner knew about the minotaur thing,” Harry said, chewing the Roi-tan to an unsightly shredded mess, “where does Brenneman fit in?”
“He’s either in it with them, or he’s an innocent bystander.”
“Well, sonny, there are no innocent bystanders. So let’s get to it. I’m looking forward to getting back to New York, where it’s safe and sane. I’m a fish out of water in the woods. I hate the woods, Lew, nature, that stuff.”
Henry Brenneman was at home to answer the phone in Cambridge. There was some Bach playing on the radio and Cassidy’s mental picture fitted him out with an old wool cardigan, tweed slacks, carpet slippers, a roaring fire, and a glass of scotch handy. He sounded like a man with bushy eyebrows and a comfortable paunch. The names of Felix and Karl Dauner put a crimp in the comfy style and Henry Brenneman’s voice dropped a tone or two.
“Could we discuss this tomorrow, Mr. Cassidy? I’m home for the night and … I’m not alone.” The last three words were spoken in a whisper. “Tomorrow would be preferable.” He covered the mouthpiece, spoke to someone else.
“I’m afraid time is of the essence,” Cassidy said. “Felix and Dauner have very kindly assured me that you have a certain piece, a very special piece. …”
“Ah …”
“A provenance that goes all the way back to King Ludwig of Bavaria—”
“Oh,” he whispered again, his voice suddenly brittle with tension. “I don’t think I can possibly—”
“It’s a minotaur, encrusted with diamonds and whatnot, a unique piece.”
“Tomorrow, please—”
“Why don’t we just stop out at your place now, take a look at it? We could be there in half an hour, Mr. Brenneman.”
“Yes, yes, I have such a piece, yes. But no, you mustn’t come here, it’s … it’s at my shop. It has come into my possession rather recently, but you must wait until tomorrow. I cannot possibly—”
“Tonight would be better,” Cassidy said. He winked at Harry Madrid.
“But I couldn’t possibly show the piece without speaking to Mr. Dauner. I would require some word from Mr. Dauner or Mr. Felix, I’m sure—”
“Well, that’s going to be a problem,” Cassidy said.
“Not for me, I assure you.” Brenneman sounded stuffy and pleased with his own importance, thought he was winning the argument.
“Listen to me carefully, Mr. Brenneman. I don’t care if the president of Harvard just dropped by with a couple of tarts—listen to me. Mr. Felix and Mr. Dauner were murdered … murdered, as in shot down in cold blood, last night. I was there. It’ll be in the papers tomorrow morning. Are you with me so far?”
“Yes.” His voice was barely audible.
“Dauner died practically in my arms. By nothing short of a miracle, I survived. Now listen very carefully—the last thing Karl Dauner told me was your name, that you have the Ludwig Minotaur. Now, I want to see it. Tonight, not tomorrow. Once certain parties learn that Dauner is dead, anything might happen. …”
“Murdered?” The voice was weak. He wasn’t winning the argument anymore. “What are you implying—”
“All I need to do is verify the existence of the minotaur and ask you a few questions, like how it actually came into your hands—”
“There’s no mystery to that.” He was recovering some lost composure. “A commercial messenger service delivered it to me, I don’t recall who. … But Karl Dauner told me it was coming, or it could have been Felix acting for Dauner, it’s all the same. I’ve done a great deal of business with Mr. Dauner over the years. A wonderful man, a notable collector. I got the impression they—he, Dauner—wanted me to babysit the piece, keep it out of sight. … Mr. Cassidy?”
“Yes?”
“Who killed Mr. Dauner?”
“Can you keep a secret?”
“In my work it’s a requisite.”
“Some people who just hate Nazis.”
There was a long pause. “Oh, my goodness … You can’t possibly mean …”
“For your sake, Mr. Brenneman, I think I should take a look at the minotaur tonight. Don’t you?”
“Just a look?”
“You have my word.”
“All right. I have a town house on Beacon Hill. I sometimes use it as a showroom for special pieces. It’s on Joy Street. Do you know it?”
“Just give me the number.”
Brenneman did and said he’d be expecting them in two hours. “Until midnight, then.”
“One more thing, Mr. Brenneman.”
“Yes?”
“Do you handle much Nazi loot? Or is this piece an exception?”
“Don’t provoke me, sir.” He hung up.
Cassidy and Harry Madrid went down to the bar at the Parker House. Cassidy asked for a dry Rob Roy. Harry Madrid said, “Dickens martini.”
The bartender nodded. “That’ll be no olive or twist.”
Harry Madrid smiled. “What’s the point of just having a look at this minotaur thing?”
“None that I can see.”
“So what’s the deal, Lew?”
“Well, gosh, Harry, I’m gonna steal the damn thing.”
“Why, Lew!”
“I know, I know.”
“You lied to that man.”
“Well, I didn’t figure he’d go along with
it if I’d told him my true intentions. That I was gonna steal it.”
“Liberate it,” Harry Madrid said. “Spoils of war. We’re gonna liberate the minotaur thing.”
“Then, by God,” Cassidy said, “we’ll have the two things in the world that mean more than anything else to Manfred Moller.”
“He’ll have to come after them,” Harry Madrid said.
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”
They stood at the corner of Beacon and Joy, which angled uphill in the general direction of Louisburg Square. The streetlamps cast long shadows. The damp wind made the deep covering of fallen leaves ripple like a rug with something big and scary under it. The streets were slick. They looked up Joy Street into the shadows. The wavering light behind the canopy of trees gave the scene the look of a stage set. It was two minutes to midnight. The gold-domed statehouse glowed faintly against the night sky. Behind them the Common stretched far away, a long slope into darkness, dotted by occasional lamp poles.
“This is a lot like a movie,” Harry Madrid muttered. “Now we go to the dark house and find the art dealer murdered and the minotaur thing gone. It’s always the same. It can be Tom Conway or Bogart or John Garfield or George Sanders, it’s always the same. Did you ever see Lionel Stander and Edward Arnold in the Nero Wolfe movie? Well, it would be the same with them, too. Or William Powell and Myrna Loy and that dog? No matter who’s in it, I’m tellin’ you, Lew, the art dealer’s a dead duck, a goner.” He sucked his cigar and the smoke was whirled away.
“Harry, you interest me strangely,” Cassidy said.
“Now don’t get weird on me,” Harry Madrid growled.
“I had no idea you were a movie fan.”
“It was the wife in the first place. She enjoyed a movie, two, three times a week, Bank Night, best dishes we ever had the wife won at the Orpheum one night back in ’thirty-five.” He sighed philosophically. “Chinese scene on ’em, all in blue. Well, when she passed on, I kept going to the movies, beat stayin’ at home reading Collier’s and Bluebook and listening to the radio.”
Kiss Me Twice Page 13