Killerfest

by Lawrence de Maria

  ***

  The Gallerie Mendelsohn was on the ground floor of a small building on Rue du Chantier. As he roamed through the gallery’s various studios, Scarne had to admit that Gaetan Mendelsohn had exquisite taste. But he only stayed long enough to get a look at Mendelsohn. After he left, he took an outside table at a conveniently located cafe across the street and tailed the owner when he closed up. He knew he had to be careful. If Juliette’s information was accurate and Mendelsohn was a middleman for trained assassins, he would naturally be cautious. Moreover, as a former Belgian security agent, he probably instinctively retained his trade craft. Fortunately, the streets in early-summer Brussels were crowded and Scarne had no trouble following his quarry to a small bistro a few blocks from the gallery, where he joined several friends of both sexes for dinner. Scarne was even able to grab a bite at the bar while keeping Mendelsohn in his sight. After dinner, Mendelsohn and a young male companion bid goodnight to the others and strolled off by themselves, going up various streets and looking in store windows, eventually winding up back at the gallery. They entered a door next to the gallery entrance; Mendelsohn apparently lived next door to his business.

  Scarne had not counted on Mendelsohn’s date. There was nothing to do but wait and hope that the kid left. He went to the cafe he’d used earlier and ordered coffee. After three more coffees, a carafe of wine and proposition from a local hooker sent to his table by the proprietor who was just trying to be helpful, he decided that sitting across from the apartment all night was a waste of time. Mendelsohn’s guest was probably a sleepover. He knew what time the gallery opened. He’d catch Mendelsohn the next morning.

  CHAPTER 27 - WORK OF ART

  When Scarne got to the Gallerie Mendelsohn at 10:15 the next morning, there were several people milling around outside.

  “I don’t understand, Claude,” one middle-aged woman said, “I had an appointment with Gaetan. Why can’t you let us in? You work here, don’t you?”

  The young man she was addressing said, “I’m sorry, Madame. Only Monsieur Mendelsohn has the key. Only he knows the security code. I am sure he will be here at any moment. This is very unusual.”

  Scarne didn’t like the sound of that.

  “How unusual,” he asked.

  “He always opens the door by 9:45,” Claude said.

  “You could set your clock by him,” another man said.

  Scarne drifted away and went to the door that led to Mendelsohn’s apartment. He pressed the buzzer. Nothing. He looked down at the lock and saw the scrapes on the metal. He pushed on the door, which swung open. Just like in the movies, he thought. He looked back at the small crowd in front of the gallery. Nobody was paying him any attention. He slipped inside and locked the door behind him.

  The apartment was spacious and modern, with an open floor plan at ground level: living area, dining area, kitchen. Scarne thought it might once have been a gallery itself. The furnishings and art work were what one would expect in the home of a collector. A spiral staircase led up to a loft level that presumably contained a sleeping area. Looking up, Scarne could see walls covered with modern art, a change from the more traditional paintings and sculptures downstairs. The only light came from windows and skylights. There was no sound except for some music coming from the loft area.

  Scarne drew his gun and started up the stairs. Halfway to the top he caught a familiar odor, much like the one in Quimper’s suite. Much like the odor in too many rooms he’d entered in his life. It wasn’t the smell of decay. It almost certainly was too soon for that. It was the iron smell of blood, a lot of it, with an indelicate overlay of excrement. He stopped at the top of the landing and looked at the ornate king-sized metal-framed bed in the middle of the room. There were two bodies on it, both nude, lying side by side. It was clear what had happened. They had been surprised in bed. Scarne wondered if the killer had entered the apartment after he had left the café the night before. Did he wait for them to start their sex before assaulting them? They would have been at their most vulnerable. In the throes of passion, they probably would not have heard anyone picking the lock downstairs. They might have even been asleep.

  Scarne considered another possibility. There was a large clothes closet just off the loft. Its door was ajar. He walked over. Jackets, shirts and garishly colored robes hung in disarray, as if someone had pushed them aside. Scarne sniffed. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he caught a whiff of a familiar, unpleasant odor, recalling his recent ride in an elevator with Gulle at Khan’s house. Had he been hiding in the closet behind the clothes before the two men had returned to Mendelsohn’s apartment? The scratches on the front door lock were inconclusive. They could have come at any time. Even a pro like Gaetan Mendelsohn might not have noticed them in the dark. Especially if he was anxious to get his boyfriend in the sack.

  What was certain was that it didn’t matter to the victims. The body on the right side was that of the boy Mendelsohn had brought home. His throat was slit ear to ear and the sheet beneath him was soaked red down to his waist. He had been fortunate, his beautiful, pale face registering nothing so much as surprise.

  Mendelsohn’s face was a study in anguish. His hands were tied to the bars of the headboard and his wounds were more gruesome. Some of his fingertips had been cut off. It was obvious he had been tortured. A bloody towel lay by his head. His tormentor had probably gagged him to muffle the screams, only removing it when Mendelsohn broke, as he assuredly would have in an effort to save his manhood. Not that he was able to do even that, Scarne noted, looking at the man’s groin. He’d also been disemboweled.

  Scarne looked at the walls. He realized that what he had taken for modern wall art at a distance was, close up, really a pattern of blood splatters. Having just added some modern paintings to his New York apartment, he shook his head in disgust.

  His eyes drifted to a spot above and behind Mendelsohn’s hands, where several red streaks seemed to have more definition. It was at a point on the wall where the tortured man’s partially severed fingers could just reach. There appeared to four symbols, roughly scrawled in blood. Scarne leaned in and looked closer and saw that they were scraggly letters, the last one of which was “V.” Scarne quickly realized that the dying Mendelsohn, his hands behind him, had tried to write something, but the crude crimson letters were reversed on the wall because of his position. The “V” was really the first letter in the word, the entirety of which was “VEND.”

  Scarne looked at Mendelsohn’s ravaged face. He didn’t know what the word meant, but he had a grudging admiration for the former security officer’s courage in the face of an agonizing and certain death. His gaze went back to the dead boy. There was no time for recrimination. But Scarne knew that later he would have a hard time with the kid’s death. Gaetan Mendelsohn was a professional, and surely an evil man. But his lover would undoubtedly be alive if Scarne hadn’t been so cute. He wanted to stir up trouble, and he did. And it cost an innocent life. I’ll even that up, he thought. And immediately felt ashamed. How noble. How heroic. It would make him feel good. And the kid will still be dead.

  “Fuck you, Scarne,” he said aloud to the empty room.

  The doorbell chimed. He heard someone calling Mendelsohn’s name. It sounded like Claude, the assistant. Scarne looked around the room and spotted a laptop on a small table. Whoever had killed the men had not bothered to take the computer, presumably having gotten the information the old-fashioned way. Scarne had already decided who that was. It was the only thing that made sense. The bell ringing stopped and was replaced with door pounding. The police, emergency services and for all he knew the Belgian Army couldn’t be far behind. He grabbed the laptop and went downstairs. Walking quickly to the rear of the apartment he found a door leading out to a small courtyard. Using a handkerchief he opened the door and left. No one was about.

  ***

  Back in his hotel room Scarne booted up Mendelsohn’s computer. There were dozens of folders in “My Documents,” all label
ed in French. He started at the top. The fifth one down was labeled “Club Gastronomique” and contained sub-folders labeled with the names of 10 European countries: Allemagne, Angleterre, Austriche, Belgique, Danemarke, Espagne, Finlande, France, Italie and Suisse. Scarne started going through the country folders. They each contained WORD files labeled with what appeared to be the first names of the members of Mendelsohn’s so-called “Gourmet Club.” Most countries had one name in them; a few had two. The WORD docs consisted mainly of phone numbers and some email addresses. There was nothing to indicate that the “club” members were anything but personal friends or acquaintances. All the names Scarne read were male until he got to the Italy folder. That contained one name: Vendela. Scarne checked the last folder, Switzerland, just to be thorough, but that name was also obviously a man. He was sure that Mendelsohn had scrawled the first four letters of “Vendela” on the wall before he died.

  Scarne called another number Juliette Boudin had provided. Unlike the man who had given him the gun, this contact was on the right side of the law. Ten minutes later he knew that the bulk of the calls made on the cell listed for “Vendela” originated from a small town near Cortona, Italy.

  The town’s name was Camucia.

  CHAPTER 28 - UNA BELLA DONNA

  Scarne caught a noon flight to Rome, which arrived just after 2 P.M. He didn’t know how far Mendelsohn’s killer was ahead of him, if at all. Perhaps he took a later flight, or a train. The only thing he was fairly sure of was that Gulle — it had to be Khan’s henchman — wouldn’t drive the 800 miles from Brussels to Camucia. But none of that mattered. He couldn’t try to warn the woman; she might flee. Or wait to ambush Gulle, and then Scarne. If he was right about who she was, she was dangerous. Anyone who could stage the tableau she did in Quimper’s hotel suite was capable of anything.

  At the car rental counter in Fiumicino Airport, he found out that the quickest way to his destination was on the A1 Autostrade, through Vita Castellana, Orvieto, Chiusi and Montepulciano. Scarne’s rental, a white Lancia Delta, had a top speed of 144 miles per hour and he intended to keep it near 100 once out of Rome’s environs. He’d driven in Italy before and knew that nutty Italian drivers would probably pass him during the 130-mile trip to the Tuscan town.

  ***

  Vendela Noss was enjoying herself. Her new pool was a delight, set on a terrace overlooking her small olive grove with a wonderful view of the 2,000-foot mount on which the fabled city of Cortona sat. Not that she could see much of the beautiful Tuscan countryside as she tried out her new mask and snorkel. The water had been warmed by the late afternoon sun and she could have floated naked in it for hours. But she arched down to the bottom of the pool and sat on the bottom, considering where she could place a target. She was anxious to start practicing with her new spear gun, which had just arrived and was lying on a nearby table along with some other diving equipment. New challenges always excited Vendela and she was determined to master her latest hobby. Obviously, the target would have to go in the deep end. Perhaps she could tie it to an old lawn chair with a couple of cushions behind it to prevent the spear from going through. She wondered what the optimum range would be. Well, she would experiment and then ask an expert on one of the islands on which she planned to vacation. She hadn’t decided where yet, though she was again leaning toward the Caribbean.

  She kicked to the surface by the side of the pool and was startled as two powerful hands gripped her arms and lifted her violently out of the pool and then slammed her on to a nearby lounge chair. Her mask and snorkel were ripped away and a man straddled her and put his hands around her throat.

  ***

  Scarne had made it to Camucia in just under an hour and a half. He knew he was at a disadvantage. Whoever killed Mendelsohn undoubtedly knew Vendela’s last name and, possibly even her whereabouts. Mendelsohn would have spilled his guts long before his guts were spilled. The killer probably knew what the woman ate for breakfast.

  But Camucia was a typical Tuscan town. Everything revolved around a central square. At 4:30 P.M. he walked into what looked to be a popular trattoria frequented by locals. He was carrying Mendelsohn’s computer and asked to speak to the proprietor. A man wearing an apron came out wiping his hands on a towel. He had probably been preparing for the night’s dinner trade. The place smelled deliciously of fresh-made bread soup, which Scarne knew to be a Tuscan specialty.

  Scarne’s Italian was rusty, and was flavored with the dialect of his grandfather, a Sicilian U-Boat captain captured in the Second World War who eventually settled in Montana near where he had been held as a P.O.W. But it was good enough to get his point across when he flashed his private investigator’s credentials and said he was trying to find the owner of the laptop, which had apparently been stolen and was recovered by his company during a probe of black marketeering by Albanian gangsters. It had many bank accounts and passwords listed and it was important to find out if the Albanians were able to access the accounts. The only problem was that he only new the first name of the owner: Vendela.

  Scarne knew the story was ridiculous. He was counting on the restaurant owner being more into cooking than computers, and was rewarded when the man said, “Questo deve essere Vendela Noss. Una bella donna!”

  It turned out that the Noss woman was a frequent visitor to the trattoria.

  The owner suggested that Scarne contact the local chief of police, hinting with raised eyebrows and a sly smile that the “capo della polizia” and Noss were more than casual acquaintances. Scarne said he would, although he no intention of doing so. But in the meantime, could he get directions to the woman’s home.

  ***

  When he drove up to the villa, the first thing Scarne noted were that there were two cars parked in the turnaround. One was a metallic-blue Mercedes convertible. The other was a Peugeot with rental plates. He got a bad feeling.

  He heard a splash, followed by a loud thump. He ran around the back of the house to a pool area. At one end of the pool, which looked new, was a table on which appeared to be scuba equipment. At the other end Boga Gulle appeared to be strangling a naked woman. She was fighting back fiercely and Gulle, for all his brute strength, was having a hard time of it.

  Scarne sprinted toward them, pulling his gun at the same time.

  “Gulle!”

  At the sound of his name the Indian assassin turned his head. He must have also loosened his grip on the woman’s neck because she was able to break his grasp and claw at his eyes while kneeing him in the groin. He grunted in pain and slapped her. The blow knocked her off the lounge. Gulle stood and reached into his belt, pulling out a long dagger with a curved blade.

  Not again, Scarne thought, his mind flashing back to his last knife fight in a shower stall in the Caribbean. Thank God, this time I have a gun.

  “Drop it, Boga.”

  Gulle came towards him, smiling.

  “Don’t be a fool. I will kill you if I have to.”

  Gulle was lighter on his feet than Scarne could have imagined. He only managed to get off two quick shots, which didn’t seem to slow the fierce killer at all. Gulle smashed into him and they tumbled to the ground, Scarne’s gun flying. He managed to grab Gulle’s knife hand before he was able to inflict more than a superficial slash to his arm.

  The next thing Scarne knew they were both in the pool. Gulle had apparently dropped his dagger, but that was little consolation to Scarne, who was being driven to the bottom of the pool with both his opponent’s hands around his neck. He fought savagely, but the water blunted his blows. Meanwhile the vise-like fingers around his throat tightened. I know I shot him twice, Scarne thought wildly. I would have been better off with a water buffalo. The water was turning pink. The bastard must be losing blood. He had to weaken soon. Except he didn’t. They stared into each other’s eyes. Gulle’s were red with hate. Scarne began to see large black spots swimming in his vision and knew he had lost. He stopped thrashing.

  Gulle grinned, his yellow teeth bared. Su
ddenly his eyes widened. His grip ebbed slightly and his mouth opened and it seemed as if he was sticking his tongue out at Scarne. But it wasn’t his tongue. It looked like the tip of an arrow. There was a larger swirl of blood. Then two other hands pried Gulle’s fingers from Scarne’s throat. Cut off from oxygen for so long and almost unconscious, he reflexively inhaled, not the thing to do at the bottom of a pool. Water flowed into his lungs before he could gag.

  Then everything went black.

  CHAPTER 29 - KISS OF LIFE, OR DEATH

  When he came to, Scarne was being kissed by a beautiful woman. Well, not actually kissed. Her mouth covered his, but her hand pinched his nose while she blew breath into his lungs. He gagged and coughed, spewing water onto the deck. He looked into the pool. Gulle floated slowly by face down, with a spear sticking out the back of his neck. A thin trail of blood spiraled in his wake.

  “Two bullets and a spear,” the woman murmured, her voice slightly hoarse. “They don’t make them like that anymore. I’m almost sorry we had to kill him.”

  Scarne rolled on his back and looked up.

  “You have beautiful breasts,” he said.

  She laughed.

  “Thank you,” she said, “Although I know that’s the lack of oxygen talking.”

  She stood up. Her total nakedness didn’t seem to bother her. She was something to see. The only flaw in her appearance were some red welts around her neck.

  “Rest for a moment, and then we will talk.”

  She walked over to a lounge and picked up a robe, which she put on. When she came back, she was holding Scarne’s gun. She pulled up a chair for him and then got one for herself. She placed them far enough apart so that Scarne knew she could easily shoot him before he closed the gap. He climbed painfully into the chair. He had landed hard on the pool deck and the cut on his arm began to sting. She threw him a small towel.