Famous Last Words (6 page)

“I see.”

“I will bring your breakfast,” said the boy.

Mauberley nodded and die iveisse Ratte departed, first

unlocking the door—a fact which Mauberley noted, silent, with alarm. All this time, all through the night, they had been locked inside the salon, Hugo holding the key.

Mauberley stood there sweating wine and brandy, listening to his new-found “friend” departing towards the stairs

beneath the bags of chandeliers that rattled, like his brain, with gagged and indecipherable warnings.

A generation of children he thought, that carries guns… .He had never even seen a gun when he was Hugo’s age, unless it was up on the screen at the Bijou or the Nickelodeon.

Movie guns and movie killers. Bang. With little puffs of pale white smoke that looked so harmless and innocent. Death at the end of a silent white cloud. And the printed word: Bang.’ With an exclamation point. Which was why, in his solitary games, he’d never made the noise of guns. But always said it: “Bang?” Walking home through all those summer

Sundays—church in the mornings, movies in the

afternoons. Choirboys and cowboys. Anthems and gunfights.

Gone.

It had been a very long walk indeed from the Bijou, this time. Mauberley smiled. And what a tale to tell. If I could only tell it, he thought. If there was only time and I could tell it all. Oh well. The journals; the notebooks would have to suffice. Except they were like the title cards of a silent film—without the film itself.

Mauberley noted the brief, white clouds that came from

his mouth as he breathed.

“Bang, bang,” he said. But without exclamation points.

The air was too cold to breathe that deep.

He wandered in his blanket over towards the windows,

looking down at a frozen bird whose eyes were mercifully closed and whose claws were withdrawn in a gesture of

resignation. Either it had starved to death or broken its neck against the glass.

elbowing his way past Annie’s pack and entering the room.

“He could be dangerous.”

Mauberley was leaning forward into a corner not unlike

a man at prayer. One arm was crumpled under him and

broken: the other twisted back with its hand, palm upward, clutching the silver pencil.

“Looks like he’s froze,” said Annie Oakley. “Even in spite of all them clothes.”

Mauberley was dressed in scarves and other bits of wool, with a blanket pinned at his throat and drawn around his shoulders over his greatcoat. Underneath, he wore a suit with all its pockets ripped away and its lining hanging down in strips. But this could not be seen till later. Now, it was only clear that—indeed—he was “froze”. The fires had all gone out and the snow had drifted in across the carpet till it touched his feet. Some of the windows had been blown open in the last assault by storms. Frost had formed on the mirrors. Even the ashes in the bathtub had a kind of crispness to them not to do with fire and the water spout was jetting an icicle the size of someone’s arm.

“I’ll stay here,” said the Sergeant. “You go get Lieutenant Quinn.”

Annie Oakley went away disgruntled down the corridor,

down the stairs and into the lobby with its marble tiers piled high with gear. He wanted the silver pencil. Now it would go in the Sergeant’s collection, not his own. Loot had become increasingly difficult to come by during the latter part of the campaign. Most of the civilians they encountered now were destitute and starving. Every watch and ring and brooch, it seemed, had been bartered away for tins of yellow horsemeat sold by retreating soldiers of the Wehrmachl.

The war had gone on longer here than elsewhere in Europe.

Innsbruck—fifty kilometers north of the Grand Elysium

Hotel—had been the last of the Austrian cities to fall.

Four days later, the war had ended. Now there was nothing left in the army’s path but hordes of unhoused, unfed refugees fleeing from the Russians who had entered Vienna;

the endless parade of barefoot prisoners straggling out of Italy; the mud in the valleys giving way to the ice on the hills and the blizzards in the mountains. And the fear tha^

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some new horror like the shock of walking through the gates at Dachau might reach out from underneath the snow to

catch a person unaware.

Not that Annie Oakley was afraid. Annie hadn’t gone

through the gates at Dachau. His job had been to shoot the dogs that had been trained to kill and he’d done that out in the woods, alone. And afterwards he’d made a fire and

burned the bodies. Meanwhile, one of his friends had bagged himself a German officer waltzing off with a suitcase full of diamond rings and watches. Not that his friend got to keep them. Still, if Annie Oakley had been there…

So Annie’s fear was different from his fellows’. Annie’s fear was of spending the rest of his military life being sent to shoot the dogs or to find Lieutenant Quinn and of missing out on the silver pencils and the diamond rings.

Left alone, the Sergeant—Rudecki—took no chances.

“Never trust a corpse,” he said out aloud, pointing his Browning down at the back of Mauberley’s head, watching the hand with the silver pencil. Some of the dead, in Rudecki’s experience had been alive while others had been

boobytrapped. The handsome silver pencil was a good example of the sort of trap that blew your balls off, shot you

in the face or tripped a wire that brought down the ceiling.

“Don’t touch a thing till Quinn is here,” he said—just as if Mauberley could hear him and obey. “Don’t touch a fuckin’

thing.”

Lieutenant Quinn was their demolitions expert. He was efficient and ambitious. His hair was always combed; his

breath was always peppermint fresh and the moons always showed on his fingernails. Even when he had dysentery, his underwear was always clean. And he kept a special kit apart from all his other stuff with a bottle of antiseptic inside and a bar of Castile soap. He was even good at his job. It wasn’t fair. He looked like Tyrone Power. Still—he was only a lieutenant. No one had bothered to learn his first name.

Coming up the marble stairs with Annie Oakley in tow,

Quinn balanced his fingerends along the rail and said; “this ranks among the great hotels of Europe. Did you know that, Private?”

“No, sir.”

“Poor Scott Fitzgerald used to get drunk in the bar down there.”

“Good for him, sir. Who was Poor Scott Fitzgerald?”

Quinn—who was walking first—gave the slightest hesitation and made a little sigh. “He wrote,” he said, “books.”

“I’ll remember that,” said Annie Oakley, looking back

across the lobbies past a pair of glass doors and into the gloom beyond—presumably the bar where Poor Scott Fitzgerald got drunk. Oakley thought how nice it would have

been to join him there for a Pilsner. He wondered if there was any chance Poor Scott Fitzgerald would be returning, now the war was over.

“No,” said Quinn. “He won’t be coming back. He’s dead.”

Some German sniper got him, maybe.

Arriving at the mezzanine. Lieutenant Quinn could feel

the draught and he pushed the tails of his khaki scarf a little deeper down against his chest.

“Now you say there’s another body?”

“Yes, sir. Just up here.”

“What with those others we found before that makes six

or seven….”

“Eight.”

“And there wasn’t even a battle here. I simply don’t understand.

…”

Up on the second floor, Lieutenant Quinn was puzzled

further by what he saw. A long thin drift of snow stretched down the length of the corridor before them. Over their heads, the chandeliers in canvas bags made all the shapes and motions of a torture chamber. Crystal corpses: tinkling bones and swaying shadows. One or two doors stood open, giving off the echoes of the hollow rooms beyond—everything lit with a pale, filtered light that smelled of ash.

“Third door down on the left,” said Annie Oakley.

Quinn felt the old familiar twinge of apprehension. Third door down on (he left, he might be blown to pieces.

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“Sergeant Rudecki?”

“Yessir.”

“And what have we here?”

“A body, Lieutenant. Maybe boobytrapped.”

“I see.”

Quinn pressed forward, drawing oh his leather gloves.

Annie hung back in the doorway. Rudecki, who was loathe to cross the floor in case it got him in the balls, stood off a single step, his Browning automatic rifle still at the ready.

“Watch that silver pencil, sir,” said Rudecki.

“Thank you, Sergeant. Don’t forget I’ve done this sort of thing before. It’s why I’m here,” said Quinn.

“Yessir. I just want to keep you here, that’s all… .”

“Your concern is very touching—”

Annie Oakley smiled. Rudecki’s kiss-ass concern was oh

so very touching. Hah! Maybe the silver pencil would blow the fucker’s hand off. No one would get the pencil then.

Good. And Quinn maimed for life in one of the great hotels of Europe.

Quinn got down on his knees beside the body.

Mauberley’s head was turned away into the corner.

“He’s starved to death,” said Quinn “or had a heart attack.

I can’t tell.” He sniffed. “Funny. There isn’t any smell but fire and smoke.”

“Could be the devil, then,” said Annie Oakley from the

doorway; smiling.

“I mean there isn’t any smell of death,” said Quinn, chagrined and sitting back on his heels.

“I told you. He’s been froze. Nothin’ froze has a smell.”

Logic, thought Quinn, is always in the smallest package.

“Private Oakley, please shut up,” he said. “I have to listen now.”

Quinn leaned out across the body, turning his head from side to side like a doctor listening for the shale-fall of illness in beyond the patient’s clothing. Rudecki put his free hand down and gathered his testicles under the protection of his fingers. Oakley, unaware he did it, whistled through his teeth, “Don’t Fence Me In.”

Mauberley was bent in such a way his right ear touched

the floor. The back of his neck was exposed and twisted.

Otherwise, he was a sack of cloth. Quinn made a thorough inspection with his ears and eves before he laid a hand on anything. Nothing ticking; nothing whirring; no wires leading anywhere. “He’s safe…”

Gingerly, Quinn made a cup for Mauberley’s chin with

his gloved right hand. He was afraid—though he maintained his poise and silence—Mauberlev’s ear or nose or even his head might break away, being frozen. Still he had only seen that once and then the victim was alive. A lad whose ear had come away in his helmet. This was different. This was death. He wanted first to see the face and then to roll the body over onto its back. And cover it.

“Oakley?”

“Yessir?”

“Take his feet. Everything’s fine…we’re just going to turn him. First on his side and then on his back… .”

Annie put his rifle down against the doorjamb. Rudecki

went even further off across the floor, since now the floor was presumably safe.

“Maybe best to hold him by the shins till we get him on his side,” said Quinn, whose hand was still supporting

Mauberley’s chin. He laid his other hand against the shoulder of the twisted arm that held the silver pencil. Oakley

was now on the floor by his side.

“Okay?”

“Okay…”

They pushed, very gently—Mauberley “toppling” under

the pressure further onto his broken left arm, his back now hard against the wall, his knees drawn up, his toes hooked back: a child, asleep.

Rudecki turned away and was sick.

Oakley got to his feet—but Quinn was unable.

After a moment, Rudecki went out into the corridor and

threw up again.

Quinn said, “Go bring Captain Freyberg, will you?”

Annie said; “yessir” but didn’t move.

“Tell him there’s someone here important. Tell him to

come as fast as he can.”

“Yessir.”

“Don’t say a word to anyone else.”

“No, sir.”

“Quickly, Private. Quickly, damn it.”

“Yessir.”

Rudecki, in the corridor, covered his vomit with snow and turned away while Annie passed. He was ashamed of what

he had done, angered by his weakness.

“Better get back in there, Sarge. Clean up the rest of your mess,” said Annie, departing. “I’m to get Freyberg—an’ you know what that means… .”

Annie sort of bounced as he walked away—like a kid.

Where did all that adrenalin come from? Finding corpses?

Maybe Rudecki was getting old. The prospect of Captain

Freyberg’s arrival did not please him, either. It meant the body was dangerous after all. It meant the war, that was over, wasn’t over and had just been given one more chance to kill him.

Down in the lobbies, Annie Oakley slung his rifle over his shoulder and made his way across the marble, heading for the courtyard. Freyberg, he knew, was out there tagging the toes of the other dead and making one of his famous lists.

Annie turned his collar up, put on his gloves and straightened his helmet. There before him were the great, blank

doors that opened into the Kristall Salon. Annie stood, like one in reverence, gazing at all the fallen glass on the floor—

conjuring the warmth and music that must have been and

the pale gold light and the famous clientele. Maybe Dooley Wilson sitting at the piano; Ingrid Bergman over in the corner smoking a cigarette, with her hat pulled down across one side of her face; Humphrey Bogart standing in the shadows and the music sad and perfect. Annie pulled his gloves on tighter: watching—listening—making movies. “Well—here’s lookin’ at you, kid,” he said. And the music swelled… .

Turning away, there was one last vision. The ghost of Poor Scott Fitzgerald shunted along the bar in Annie Oakley’s movie, making way for the Corpse of Someone Important

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to belly up beside him: One Eyed Reilly, blinded with a stick and his brains all pouring down his cheek.

Too-ri-oo-Jy, too-riiJy

What’s the matter with One Eyed Reilly?

Lieutenant Quinn, still kneeling, wondered what he should do. Propriety and decency demanded Mauberley’s face be