A Shroud for Jesso (9 page)

When Jesso had typed his piece he sealed it in an envelope and stuck the copy in his pocket. Kator was waiting at the front desk.

“If you are ready,” he said, but Jesso looked right past him.

“I’m not.” He stepped up to the desk. “You understand English?” he asked the clerk.

“Certainly, sir. All our—”

“Very neat. Now listen close. Here’s a letter. Hold it for the next thirty minutes. If I haven’t picked it up by then, open the letter, read it, call the police, and give it to them. Understand?”

Kator had stepped up, clearing his throat, and the clerk looked puzzled.

“If you won’t,” Jesso said, “I’ll call the police right now.”

Jesso hadn’t been wrong. There was nothing the clerk wanted less than having a policeman come across the lobby. Jesso looked at Kator and Kator didn’t like the idea either. The clerk took the letter.

“Let’s go, Kator. You got thirty minutes to get my papers ready.”

They went up in the elevator, looking normal enough, but when they were in the room Kator had rented and the bellhop had bowed himself out of the room the atmosphere changed. One trench coat sat down by the phone, the other stood by the door. He locked it, bolted it, then faced the room. Kator had sat down by the night stand because there was no table in the room. Jesso figured that Kator didn’t mean to stay here very long and there was no reason to waste any money on a proper suite. Good enough to have four bare walls, a washstand, and a bed. Good enough for a short talk and maybe a quick death.

“I thought you’d like to know what’s in that letter,” Jesso said, pulling out the carbon.

Kator took the sheet. It was addressed to the police and asked them to notify the American consul of the violent death of one Jack Jesso, abducted by force by one Johannes Kator, who was described in full and whose activities for the past two weeks were listed in great detail. The whole thing made quite an impression.

Kator’s words were hardly audible. “Would you mind if I burned this?” he asked.

“Go right ahead,” Jesso said, “and you got twenty-three more minutes.”

Kator lit the sheet with his lighter and watched it blacken and curl in the chamber pot he had found in the night stand. He closed his eyes and thought for a moment. When he opened them they looked at the man by the phone. He got up with a rush and Jesso’s arms were pinned back. Then Kator leaned forward, pulled the Luger out of Jesso’s pocket, and tossed it to Karl, the Bean Pole.

Jesso hadn’t tried to move. When the guy behind him let go, Jesso straightened his jacket, folded his arms, and said, “You got eighteen minutes, Kator.” He knew there was a reason for that quick trick, but for the moment it didn’t seem to matter. “So tell Charlie to get busy with my passport.”

“Karl is very adept, you will see. There is plenty of time.” Kator took a leather-bound notebook from his pocket and a small silver pencil. He handed them to Jesso.

“You will write Snell’s instructions down, please. It is best if my associates in this room are not burdened by any unnecessary information.”

Jesso took the notebook and pencil. He flipped the pages but didn’t write.

“You got fourteen minutes.”

“You will write, please!” It was a voice that could have chilled an Army pro.

“Screw yourself,” Jesso said.

Kator looked for one long silent moment as if he were going to burst out of his collar. Then he exhaled. Only his eyes moved when he looked at Karl, but Bean Pole scrambled to his suitcase, opened it up, and sat on the bed with the open case on his knees. Kator handed the passport to Karl, who opened it to the page with the picture.

“Where’s the visa?” Jesso asked.

“Your visa is an entry on a page in your passport, and I am close to the end of my patience. Will you—“

“Why don’t you shut up?”

They looked at each other like stalking cats and then there was no sound except a gentle scraping as Karl removed Snell’s picture from the passport. He had a delicate touch as he worked a small scalpel under the glue of the photo.

Jesso started to write, “The upper half of the left column….”

Karl had the picture off. He picked a stamp from his suitcase, the kind notary publics use, and clamped it over the photo. A round, embossed emblem appeared on the paper.

“… and the lower half of the right column….”

Karl smeared glue on the back of the picture and pressed it to the page. While Jesso watched, Karl wrote “Joseph Snell” across the top of the picture, just the way Snell had done it.

“… combine to give the production figures at …”

There was one more job to be done. Karl had to duplicate the State Department stamp that ran across page and picture, serrating both with tiny holes. He had the stamp. It was a wide steel contraption, built like the jaws of a pair of pliers, and the job was to keep the holes on the page intact while serrating new ones into the photo.

It was a delicate job of positioning and Karl did it by touch.

“You got eight minutes,” Jesso said.

Nobody answered. Karl felt the underside of the page, eyes closed, and Kator had got up to bend over Jesso’s shoulder. He saw the incomplete sentence there. Jesso could hear the breath next to his ear, and he smelled the faint dry-cleaning odor from Kator’s clothes.

“You got five minutes.”

Karl grabbed the handles of the stamp, pressed, and held on. When he let go slowly the serrations across the picture looked neat. It read, as it should, “PHOTOGRAPH ATTACHED DEPARTMENT OF STATE WASHINGTON.” Karl was an expert.

“Continue, Jesso.” Kator’s breath was moist on Jesso’s ear.

He wrote, “Honeywell,” then closed the notebook. “You got four minutes,” he said, and handed the notebook to Kator.

Then they gave him the passport, unlocked the door, and walked to the elevators.

“You got half a minute,” Jesso said when he leaned across the desk in the lobby The room clerk handed the letter across as if it were soiled, and Jesso slipped it into his pocket.

“And now one final word with you, my dear Jesso.” Kator noticed the look on Jesso’s face and smiled. He had a smile like winter coming. “We will stay in the lobby, dear Jesso, in plain sight of everyone.”

They walked to the large windows that looked out to the Kirchenalle and sat down on a wide couch, like travel companions, or like men who had time to kill.

“You realize, Jesso, there are ways of checking the accuracy of your information.”

“So?”

“Simply this. The risk in accepting your information is mine, and while I have been patient, even docile with you, I warn you that I am a different man when I run a risk. Should the information you gave me prove to be incorrect, should you have lied to me, Jesso, I promise you an unpleasant end. No matter where you may be, Jesso, an unpleasant end.” Kator paused and studied his frail-looking hands. “Would you care to correct the information you gave me?”

“You got the right dope, Kator.”

“I am glad to hear this. And now, the matter of your payment.” Kator gave Jesso an envelope. It wasn’t sealed. When Jesso reached for it, the envelope dropped out of Kator’s hand. So that’s why Jesso doubled over, reaching for the envelope, but then he stayed that way and didn’t come back up. Right in the lobby, on the couch, facing the window.

Kator had been very good. The hard edge of his hand made the slightest arch and then snapped fast against the base of Jesso’s skull. It was the kind of punch that makes the victim feel he knows everything that’s going on. He knows the impact, the fact that he can’t move, but any minute now he will. Except no air. There was no air. But that passed too, because without transition Jesso blacked out.

It went so smoothly after that that Jesso himself would have been proud of it. But Jesso wasn’t doing a thing. Kator was. He asked a bellhop to stand by and wave a handkerchief in the fainted man’s face and then sent Bean Pole to the phone, because an ambulance was just the thing for a case like this. That ambulance took no time at all. It was a miracle the way that ambulance showed up. One trench coat grabbed Jesso by the legs, the bellhop grabbed his arms, and then they hoisted the body into the ambulance, ready and waiting, because the driver had jumped out, white coat and all, and swung the doors wide in the back. Kator had left before the ambulance took off. Once he had given an order, he rarely bothered with details.

The driver drove and the trench coat sat in back, smoking a cigarette. He must have thought he looked sassy as all hell with the wide coat, the beret, and the cigarette hanging down out of one corner of his mouth.

The first thing Jesso knew was smoke. It drifted past his nose and Jesso wanted a cigarette. The thought was strong but it didn’t last. There was the sore neck and a blue pain below his heart. Kator must have operated like a fiend to pull this off.

It took a while of figuring, but then it all came out simple enough. There was Trench Coat, and this was an ambulance and just before that there was an envelope dropping out of Kator’s hand, clumsy as could be, and then the rest not so clumsy. And there wasn’t any five hundred in that envelope and this wasn’t really an ambulance. But Trench Coat, he was real enough. Perhaps he’d heard something, a difference in breathing. Couldn’t be. The ambulance was clattering across a street of cobblestones, and Trench Coat, crawling back where Jesso was, held himself steady with both hands. Then he leaned over Jesso to make sure of the damage. Jesso could smell the smoke again. In nothing flat the damage was one agonizing flood of pain spreading from the groin, a wicked burn where the cigarette had splashed against the nose, and one lip badly cut. Then Jesso made sure. Kator himself would have been proud of the way that hand sliced down. Trench Coat stretched out, trembled, and lay still. The ambulance was bumping badly and the driver drove.

He must have known where he was going. The ride got smooth as they crossed a bridge over the Elbe and then they turned and twisted where steep houses seemed to nod across the narrow streets. After a while the ambulance picked up speed and the tires started to sing. At first Jesso didn’t realize it was a highway. He watched the tree tops shoot away to the rear, where they appeared and disappeared in the small window at the back. After a while, keeping a cautious stoop, he looked and saw the long ribbon on the black-top road. There were apple trees along both sides.

Then it started to bump again and the trees got thicker. When the car slowed down and stopped, Jesso was ready.

The driver wore an orderly’s uniform but he looked more like a butcher. He had the rear door open, and then he almost stumbled, he was that confused.

“Reach,” said Jesso, but the butcher didn’t understand English. Or perhaps he was stupid. One hand came up chest-high, groped for the gun there, so Jesso shot him in the shoulder. The man spun and dropped.

There was a penetrating odor of wet pine in the air and Jesso breathed it in deeply They had parked off the road, where the dark-green trees came together in a thick curtain. The soil looked sandy white, soft underfoot, and not too far away there was an open space where stone and sand made a shallow dip. Jesso noticed that the butcher had brought a shovel along. It was leaning against the side of the ambulance, ready and waiting.

Then Jesso waited. The guy in the car hadn’t come around yet and the butcher was slowly rolling himself over the sandy ground. He had dropped his gun on the way, but only his shoulder interested him. Each time he rolled over he cringed with pain, but he kept rolling back and forth just the same. He was stupid, all right.

It had been close quarters in the bumping ambulance, so Jesso straightened his new shirt, new tie, new suit, and draped the big trench coat so it wouldn’t bunch up in the back. He hadn’t bothered with the beret. Then Jesso lit a cigarette and waited.

After a while the guy with the shot-up shoulder stopped rolling around and sat up. There was a big red stain on his orderly’s uniform and it looked medical as hell. Jesso walked over to him and said, “How’s the arm?” But the guy didn’t understand, so Jesso waited for the other one.

When he came around he sat up with a start, but right away he lay down again. He lay that way for a while. Then Jesso didn’t want to wait any longer.

“Hey, you.” He prodded the man’s foot. “Understand English?”

The man got up and raked his long hair back over his head.

“Come on out.”

He did understand English, because he crawled out of the ambulance. He had also seen a lot of American movies, because he raised his hands over his head and waited to be shot in the belly.

“Put your hands down. Your underwear don’t scare me.”

The man lowered his hands and plucked at his shorts.

“What’s your name?”

“Fritz.”

“I should have known. And the thinker over there? What’s his name?”

“Hans.”

“Of course, what else? Now tell Hans to sit over there by the tree.”

Fritz told Hans and then they waited for Jesso’s next word.

There was a long, webbed strap on the bed in the ambulance. Jesso took it off, threw it at Fritz, and told him to tie up Hans. After that was done he waved for Fritz to come back.

“Now I want some answers. Where is Kator?”

“Ich versteche nicht”

“Where’s Kator?”

“I understand not.”

“Look Fritz, you’re getting me mad.” He was going to say more when Fritz kicked up his foot and a spray of sand hit Jesso in the face. Fritz didn’t follow it up because Jesso was still holding the gun, but there was no shot. Jesso couldn’t see well enough to put his shot where he wanted. For a man in his underwear, Fritz certainly had guts. He rushed to the side of the ambulance, and while Jesso blinked blindly the shovel came into view and slammed down at Jesso. It missed the head but glanced across Jesso’s hand so that the gun flew down. Fritz stooped to reach for it, which was fine with Jesso. The sand trick could work both ways, and the cloud hit Fritz straight in the face. But Fritz fired just the same. With his eyes burning blind he shot way off the mark, so that nothing happened except that Jesso got mad. A flying tackle took him under the firing line into Fritz’s middle. One hand tore at the gun and then the two men rolled on the ground. There was one more shot, which tore through Fritz’s own foot, and then Jesso let fly. Fritz was never going to look the same. He was screaming and burbling now, and when Jesso jumped up he was out of breath.