A Shroud for Jesso (21 page)

The villa still sat behind the wall like an ornate tomb and the only sound was the constant rustling of the trees in the
Allee.
The light was failing and pretty soon the damp day would be a damp night. Jesso sent his taxi off and for a moment the sound of the old motor was the worst noise in the world. Then just the villa again and the mumble from the old trees.

He didn’t ring the bell and he didn’t wait for Hofer to do any honors. He walked through the two front doors, and he was halfway across the hall when the library door opened and a shaft of light cut toward him. And there stood Kator.

Each knew the other as if he had expected it this way. The door came shut, the light was gone, and very slowly Kator came across the hall. It took Jesso a while to place the queer thing, but then he realized that Kator walked without the sharp click of his heels.

“You’re back.”

“The last time, Kator.”

“I know that, Jesso.”

“So move,” but nothing moved.

As once before, after Delf, when they had held each other with a grip that meant one of the two had to break and die, nothing happened. A door opened upstairs and they both turned. Then the door shut again, the moment went. Jesso didn’t know about Kator, but Jesso had to move right then. He turned toward the stairs and took them two at a time. Neither corridor showed a light. He went right, turned the bend, and then he opened the door to Renette’s rooms.

The bed was there, her clothes, and the decanter with the liqueur stood on a little table where the seat faced the window. She hadn’t moved the seat since that time. There wasn’t any noise from the shower, but he went in there just the same. If he hadn’t maybe the noise from the corridor might have reached him.

That same door had clicked again, only this time it flew open, hit the wall, and stayed there. Then Renette came out. She walked so that her hair bounced and dipped over the back of her neck, and there was nothing calm or gracious in her face. The eyes seemed to slant with anger and her parted lips showed her teeth. She headed for the stairs. Helmut von Lohe was close behind her, looking sharp in his riding clothes and making a tinkle with the spurs on his polished boots. His hair was combed over the skull the way he wanted it and his small red mouth had a new sharp cut to it. He followed Renette down the stairs.

So Jesso missed them. He saw that the bath was empty, the bedroom, the sitting room, and nothing in the dressing room. Her clothes were there; he checked her coats and furs, and it looked as if she had to be somewhere in the house. He started for the stairs as if he felt she had been calling.

It turned out there were plenty of rooms he hadn’t seen before. They were furnished for different moods with different doodads, but all Jesso saw was that they were empty. Once he passed Hofer, but Hofer was just a moving doodad, and then another room with furniture, walls, windows, portraits.

He saw them across an angle from one part of the house to another, behind the glass of the solarium, where the fat plants stood in the heat. Jesso couldn’t hear a word where he stood by the window, but the Baron’s face was working and his hands were making quick flutters. Then Jesso saw Kator. He stepped into sight, looked stolid. He reached out with both hands, seemed to talk in the same back-and-forth rhythm with which he pulled and pushed with his arms whatever he held there. That’s when Jesso saw Renette. Because of the plant Jesso never saw all of her, but the plant was shaking.

The only way to the solarium was back through the rooms that made the angle of the house. Jesso was breathing hard when he hit the salon with the silk and needle point, but racing to get there had taken none of the temper out of him. It made it worse, worse than in the plane with Kator, worse than in the hall a while ago. There wasn’t just Kator. There was Helmut, there was Renette, and Jesso slowed down when he got to the silk place because he didn’t know which way to jump first.

“He’s lying!” he heard Renette say. “Johannes, he’s making it up from spite. I said nothing to Jesso to cause this thing. His own failure—“

When Jesso burst through the door, they all turned.

“You all right?” he said without looking at her. He had stopped and was looking at Kator, feeling the same harsh pull come back, and it was only a question of five, six steps along the passage between tall plants and they would lock into each other like traps that couldn’t let go.

“Stay there,” she said. “I’m all right, Jesso.”

He walked around the little fountain and stopped.

“Did you touch her, Kator?”

“Jesso, leave,” she said.

Helmut had swiveled around. “You intrude!” he said, and there was a screech in his voice. “We will deal with you later!”

Jesso watched him flip a riding crop against his boot, and it might have looked funny at any other time. Now Kator folded his hands behind his back, legs wide, and suddenly it was as if they had all waited for him. When he opened his mouth the voice was like that of the commanding officer at a courtmartial.

“He stays. He’s the important one.”

“You’re damn right I’m staying.” He said it to Kator.

Kator didn’t move his head, only his eyes. He looked at Renette and said, “Was it on the train? Did he get it out of you on the train, Renette?”

“I told you!” She said it loudly, stamping her foot. “He knew nothing to cause this thing. Helmut botched it!”

Kator’s words flew into Jesso’s face like slaps. “What did she tell you? What did you make her say?”

“I don’t get it.”

It was so true and so simple that it caught Kator short. Then he bunched up all the poison and spat, “I can only guess how you worked her over so well, on the train to Munich, but you managed to do what my sister has never permitted. She informed on me, on her brother, and once again, Jesso, you have cost me a fortune.”

“Don’t deny it,” screamed Helmut.

“He will,” said Kator. “How did you do it, Jesso? What did you do on that train?”

“What did you do?” said Helmut, and his face was like filth.

Jesso didn’t get any of it, but nothing showed.

“I don’t talk about what I do in a bedroom,” he said, and he watched Helmut jerk back.

“Do you deny it?” Helmut yelled.

“Comb your hair, Helmut. It’s slipping.”

“I will ask you,” Kator said. “How did you ruin the Zimmer affair?”

“What’s a Zimmer affair?”

“Zimmer, you idiot!” and for once Kator was bellowing. “A year of delicate preparation! Thousands in expenditures, and when the time comes for the final closing, you step in, you worm it out of my sister, you give the tip to—to the others, and everything fails.”

Jesso let the sound die down. He looked from Kator to Helmut and said, “Who told you, Kator? That creep?”

“I told him,” said Helmut, “as it was my duty. No one knew of the arrangements with Zimmer except we three, and no one could have told you except poor Renette. Under what fiendish pressures—”

“Stop dreaming, Helmut. There’s spit on your chin.”

“Dreaming! You swine! My wife came back to me after you left, she confided to me as I suspect she was made to confide by you. She—“

“My God,” she said, “he’s out of his mind. Johannes, don’t you see his game? He wants to make you do it for him, set you against me, make you fight with Jesso.”

It made sense. It would be something like that and it would be somebody like Helmut to do it that way.

“I never heard of Zimmer or whatever it is, and Renette never said a word,” Jesso said, but the words were only a sound. They weren’t big enough or soon enough to catch up with the tension. From now on it hardly seemed to matter what was said. The big plants stood motionless and seemed to get darker. And under them, motionless like the plants, the three stood waiting in the half-light, waiting for the spark to blow it up.

“You’re lying, Jesso.” Kator moved his arm. He reached around, found Renette, and jerked her to his side. “And you, Renette, you lie.”

Kator had sounded quite still. His eyes never left Jesso, but suddenly his hand slammed against Renette’s face.

She hadn’t finished staggering when Jesso made his dash. His foot caught in a flagstone, and when he was half up there was Kator behind the gun.

“Get up.”

Jesso got up. This was it.

Kator knew this was it, but he wasn’t rushing. “Do you see the fountain, Jesso?”

He didn’t. The fountain was in back of him.

“Turn around and look at it, Jesso. I won’t shoot.”

Jesso knew that. Kator wouldn’t shoot without seeing the face.

“There is a cupid on the fountain, Jesso. Do you see it?”

He saw it. A small copper cupid, looking wet and green, and no larger than a toy dog.

“He is raising one hand, isn’t he, Jesso?”

He was. He was sort of waving one baby hand.

“Now you see it, now you don’t,” Kator said, and behind Jesso’s back the gun went off with a sharp crash and Kator was right. The little hand was gone.

He was good. He had shot right past Jesso’s middle, with maybe inches to spare, and the cupid’s arm had a shiny end where the metal hand had been ripped off.

“And now turn around again.”

Jesso turned around.

“I knew this would impress you,” Kator said. “Helmut, what else did she tell you?”

The Baron straightened himself as if he were going to give a speech at graduation.

“Once Renette began to confide in me, she held back nothing. He wanted to take her away from us—from me—set her against you, dear Johannes, and—“

“Stop him, Johannes!” Renette’s voice was sharp. “Send him away, or you’ll never stop playing it his way. And the gun, Johannes.”

“You are wrong, Renette. This is my way. And Jesso’s way. Isn’t it, Jesso?”

“No, Johannes, don’t! Neither of you will win. Leave each other, let it go!” She reached for Kator’s arm and flinched.

He had snapped up his arm, ready to hit again, but he did not strike. His gun was steady and a slow thing came over his face like an ugly grin. Jesso had moved, Kator saw that. And when Renette had stepped away Jesso relaxed.

“It’s time, Jesso.” Kator’s face did not change. He kept staring at Jesso, daring him, and there was a constant triumph on his face.

“Come here, Renette.” He waved at her without turning. “Jesso,” he said, “for a while I thought you were very much like me. A man without a flaw. Look, Jesso.” Kator reached around, taking Renette by the arm. He pulled her and she winced.

“Look, Jesso,” he said when she stood next to him. “Look!”

Kator’s hand came up in a fist, slowly. He held it in the air, very still, so that Jesso could see the knuckles turn white. One of his tricks, one of his intelligent tricks, to give it a stretch before tearing it. Jesso held still, not believing that Kator would do it when the fist blurred, stopped with a jar that made a sick sound, and Renette stumbled back. And Jesso charged. And the gun exploded.

Kator had played it his way, for the sport. He hadn’t meant to kill, and he hadn’t. And that’s how he played it Jesso’s way.

The gun went off again, but the bullet went wild because first the target was gone and then the target had turned attacker with the gun snapping out of Kator’s hand and a fist exploded in his right eye.

Helmut was gone. Spurs tinkling, he had dashed from the room, and only Renette stood there. Her face was cut but she seemed not to know it. She stood and looked, and when she cried her shoulders did not move.

It was a while before Jesso and Kator stopped rolling like one mass of evil strength while the fat leaves shook, large plants dipped, leaned, and slowly toppled to fall with a sound like a splash—but that wasn’t how it went. It was like an instant spasm with beginning and end all in one while they cut at each other, the cut that was going to kill one or both. That’s how it was to Jesso, and it was the same to Kator. He never knew when he didn’t see any more. He never knew when he changed from a man to a mass and was dead.

Jesso didn’t know either. He might have stopped sooner. As it was, he sat under the broken leaves of the dark-green plant long after it was still.

“You haven’t changed since yesterday. Since then.” Renette looked at his spurs.

“No,” said Helmut. “I’ve been too busy.”

“I know. They came very fast.”

“I was on the phone when it happened, my dear. I was not standing there, being sentimental.”

“No. You were clever, for once.”

“And now you, dear Renette. Now you must be clever. The crime was murder, first degree. Remember, Renette. First degree, and Johannes fired in self-defense.”

“You know that is false.”

“What was it, my dear?
A crime passionnel?”

“You know what it was, Helmut.”

“Yes, and what will happen if you say so?”

“Maybe he will go free. Soon.”

“And come back, like a leech and a disease. Is that what you want?”

“You should talk of disease.”

“Ah! So you admire it, all of it.”

“It was useless and ugly. And it killed Johannes.”

“How sentimental of you! Johannes left us everything.”

“Not
us,
Helmut. Me.”

“And you don’t resent the gift, do you? The wealth, the freedom.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then be clever, Renette. Cold-blooded murder, you understand? Anything else and it might take years. Years in litigation, from one court to the next—“

“And you couldn’t wait that long, could you, Helmut?”

“So you love him.”

“I do not despise him, as I despise you.”

“Be clever, Renette. I want nothing from you. I don’t interfere with you one way or the other.”

“You won’t.”

“But I will, if you don’t share with me what he left.”

“Helmut, listen to me—”

“I might even get it all, if you do not act as I say.”

“Listen to me, Helmut. Have you thought of this? You killed Johannes. You attacked him, Johannes fired, and Jesso, trying to pull you apart, got shot.”

“You’re being absurd!”

“Jesso will say the same thing. We had just a moment before they took him. He explained it to me.”