Dead Man's Tale (11 page)

“
Ja?”
Theresa said blankly.

But both visitors were looking past Theresa to Steve Longacre.

“Hi-ya, Stevie boy,” the man said.

It was Lou Goody, who had driven the getaway car the night they killed Joey Imparato.

The woman was Estelle Street.

When Theresa drove Gerhard Mueller in her battered Citroën from the Praterstrasse to the Wagramer Bridge across the Danube, Mueller crept out of the car and scurried for the nearest shadow. He watched her drive off with longing and hatred. Why did he let her dominate him so? The fifteen hundred hadn't been enough for her. No, she had to have more … always more.…

Mueller used his sleeve to wipe his face. It came away soaked.

He scampered down the cobblestone ramp, glancing frequently over his shoulder. Everything was quiet, so very quiet, tonight. He found himself trying to hurry on tiptoe. It was impossible; he had weak ankles and flat feet. An elephant lumbering through the jungle could not be noisier, he thought in agony. Suddenly a monstrous roar overwhelmed him; he stopped, transfixed, expecting to die. But it was only a late suburban train going by, with blobs of faces in the yellow windows. If only he were on it!

Mueller wiped his face again and hurried on.

When he saw the truck parked in the shadow of the deserted market under the bridge he almost sobbed with relief. It was the right one, no doubt about that, a big Diesel-driven cab with two trailer vans. Or was it? He stole closer, straining his eyes. Yes! There were the words B
UDWEISER
P
ILSEN
on the sides of both vans.

Mueller sneaked up to the cab. “Helmut?” he called softly If it was not Helmut he would run … run.…

But it was Helmut; the tall man with the bald spot and thin, dark face swinging down to the kerb was unmistakable.

“Gerhard!” he said warmly, seizing Mueller's hand. “I still can't believe it. I thought you'd given up the black-market business. There's no profit in it now.”

“For God's sake, lower your voice, Helmut!”

“We're safe enough,” the truck driver said. “Ah, those good old black-market days. The money we made, hey, Gerhard?”

“And the money we spent,” Mueller muttered, wiping his face again. “I don't remember when I've suffered from the heat so much.… Anyway, I'm through with the black market. Why the devil don't they come?” He kept searching the dark street. “Helmut, you're sure—?”

“Relax,” Helmut said comfortably. “There's nothing illegal about driving a truck of Budweiser. I believe, Gerhard, you mentioned something about two thousand schillings …?”

Mueller handed him an envelope containing twenty hundred-schilling notes, still looking around nervously. The truck driver opened the envelope and counted the bills with concentration and growing satisfaction. Mueller wondered what his friend would say if he knew that Herr Longacre had slipped him three thousand schillings and the other two Americans—the man and the woman whose names he never did learn—had given him three thousand schillings, also. Two from six left four, four thousand schillings clear profit … which Theresa, of course, had promptly taken charge of.… Where, where were the Americans?

“I take your three clients as far as Ceske Budejovice,” Helmut said, stowing the money away. “That is correct?”

“Only two of them,” Mueller mumbled. “Helmut, you have the motorcycle?”

“In the second van, Gerhard. With a sidecar, as you said.”

“Good. The third American, a woman, goes only as far as the border. I'll take her back.”

“A woman?” Helmut said. He seemed unpleasantly surprised. He gave Mueller a cigarette and lit one for himself. “I'm not sure I like that.”

“What difference does it make? You drop us off this side of the border. Where
are
they?”

“And the two men?”

“When they're ready to come back, they'll make contact with you in Pilsen.”

“And if I don't happen to be in Pilsen—?”

“They'll wait until you are. That's not your problem.”

“And it's understood they're to pay me two thousand more when I sneak them back into Austria?”

“Yes.”

Helmut said suddenly, “Someone is coming.”

Mueller's heart jumped. He dropped his unsmoked cigarette and peered. Then he let out his breath with relief. The two figures emerging from the darkness were the American couple whose names he did not know.

The man had a Luger in his hand. “Mueller?”

“
Ja, ja
.”

“Very fine,” Helmut said, “Oh, very fine! I'm to take an armed man across. You didn't tell me that, Gerhard. For God's sake, tell him to hide that thing.”

“I don't speak English,” Mueller said fretfully, still searching the shadows, “and he doesn't speak German.”

Helmut swore. But the woman said something to the man, and the weapon disappeared.

So she understood German, Mueller thought. She had not indicated that at their meeting. For some reason the fact increased his nervousness. “What did you say, Helmut?”

“I said, do they have papers?” Helmut said sullenly.

“I got two sets from Fritz Severing.”

“Severing? Are you out of your—?”

“Wait, Helmut, come over here,” Mueller whispered hastily, glancing at the Americans. They were a few yards off, hugging the first van, looking up the street. “The woman apparently knows German. Keep your voice down.”

“Severing's forged papers are no good. They wouldn't fool a cockeyed Czech guard with a litre of vodka under his belt on Red Army Day!”

“It was the best I could do.”

“And if they're caught?”

“Then you won't have to take them back.”

“And I'll lose that extra two thousand!”

Gerhard Mueller began to feel irritated. “So you'll lose it. Look, Helmut, you know the risks in this sort of affair—”

“Sure. And they could implicate me, too!”

Mueller controlled himself. If Helmut lost his nerve.… He managed to say, good-humouredly, “Who's acting like an old woman now? It's all right, Helmut. Nothing's going to go wrong.”

“You should have told me, that's all,” the truck driver grumbled. “Why do they want to go to Czechoslovakia, anyway?”

“I don't know,” Mueller said carelessly. “They're looking for someone. Something like that.”

“Who?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Who's that?”

Both men stiffened, listening intently.

“It must be Herr Longacre,” Mueller muttered. “Yes!”

Steve, wearing soiled corduroy trousers and a cheap wool workman's shirt like the other male American, came into view. He said something curtly to the man and the woman and strode over to the two Austrians. “This is the driver, Mueller? Oh, you don't savvy English, do you? All right, let's get rolling, quickly. What the hell is that word?
Schnell, schnell
.”

The woman said in halting German, “Tell us what to do, please.”

“You will hide in here,” Helmut said. He began to open he sliding door in the side of the first van behind the cab. Over his shoulder he said to Mueller, “I haven't been paid for the motorcycle.”

“You'll get it back, Helmut. And don't forget. I get off with the woman at Gmünd. No nearer the border than Gmünd.”

“You take a lot of chances, don't you?” the driver said sourly. He pointed into the van with urgency.

Gerhard Mueller could hear the Danube lapping against its banks and a tram rumbling by overhead on the Wagramer Bridge, as the three Americans climbed in. He was about to climb in after them when a man's voice came out of the cobbled darkness.

“Wait! Steve! Steve?”

The man was running. He will be heard in Prague, Mueller thought despairingly.

Helmut cursed. “Now what?”

“It's all right. I think it is Herr Longacre's young brother—”

“Nothing was said about another one!”

“I know. It's some misunderstanding.…”

The two Americans already in the van stuck their heads out. The armed one had his Luger showing again. He said something in an angry voice to Herr Longacre. Herr Longacre seemed apologetic and unhappy.

The young man who came running up, puffing, was indeed Herr Longacre's brother. If only I could understand their
verdammlich
tongue! Mueller thought.

The brothers were shouting at each other. Helmut seemed ready to bolt. The woman appeared. She spoke to the man with the Luger. The man with the Luger spoke sharply to Herr Longacre. Herr Longacre shook his head. The young man now stopped shouting at Herr Longacre and was speaking to the woman. She listened, considered, nodded. Immediately the three already in the van retreated into the black interior.

So the woman is running things, Mueller thought. That was an unpleasant development of an already unpleasant night. He wiped his face for the third time.

“Listen,” the younger Longacre said to Mueller in German. “She wants me to go along. She says it's all right.”

“You have papers?” Mueller said.

“I have an American passport.”

“But no Czech visa.”

“I can speak German. I'll do them more good than harm.”

“Can you speak the Czech language?”

“No. But there are plenty of Sudeten Czechs who can't either.”

“Let him come, let him come,” Helmut groaned. “How long are we going to stand here? But this will cost them an extra thousand on the return trip!”

The Diesel engine roared. The truck drove up the ramp and turned right, across the Wagramer Bridge.

Ten minutes later they recrossed the Danube on the Jagerstrasse Bridge, and five minutes after that they were rumbling north through the quiet suburbs towards the Czech frontier.

16

At first there was little talking in the van.

Every few minutes Estelle Street would ask anxiously, “What time is it, Lou?” A match would be struck and in its puff of light Andy could see Steve's face dimly and Lou Goody's face clearly.

Goody looked worried. In the stifling heat of the van's interior, his face glistened with sweat. As far as Andy could tell, Steve looked more angry than concerned.

Then suddenly Estelle Street said, “What are you so nervous about, Lou?”

“Who wouldn't be nervous?” Goody said. “You realize where we're headed for, Mrs. Street? That's one bunch of tough babies over there.”

“You picked a fine time to think of that,” she snapped. “And here I was under the impression that you're the tough baby.” Her voice sweetened. “It's just another job, Lou. The kind of job you've done—how many times is it? Relax.”

“Yeah,” Goody muttered. “Relax.”

Andy wondered what the expression on Steve's face was now. Steve was being awfully quiet.

They all sat in silence for a while.

Then Goody said, “I sure as hell wish Bigger was here.”

“I'm beginning to wish the same thing,” Estelle said sarcastically.

“Making himself scarce all of a sudden,” Goody complained. “I should be so smart. He's probably down in Miami or some place having himself a ball. Damn it, I wish we'd located him!”

“Oh, shut up,” she said. “The ten grand you're going to get ought to stiffen your backbone long enough to pull a trigger.”

So there it is, Andy thought. That's what Steve had been keeping from him, why they had come to Europe in the first place. They were there to find Milo Hacha, all right—to find him and kill him. Andy wondered why he felt so little sense of shock. But then he realized that, buried far down somewhere, he had known it all along.

No wonder Steve was being so quiet.

All at once it came back to Andy—who Lou Goody was. He had seen his picture in the papers once, along with the picture of a much bigger man. The big man's name was Biggert, but they called him Bigger.

He was a hood, and so was Lou Goody, hangers-on from the old strong-arm days in Long Island County. Barney Street's goons.

Andy's muscles felt stiff and cramped. When the truck had started he had crouched down against the tail gate of the van and hadn't moved since. Now he got up and almost fell as the van rolled over some hole in the road.

“What's the matter, kid?” Steve said. If the question was innocuous, the voice that asked it told a long story.

“Nothing,” Andy said.

Milo Hacha, he thought. I don't even know what you look like. But here are two pretty good boys, proficient at their trade, come four thousand miles to bump you off. One of them is my brother. And they're not going to leave Czechoslovakia till you're dead.

Andy's thoughts continued to drift in the sweltering darkness. What would Trudy have done if she had known that this was why they were looking for Milo Hacha? And then there was Milo Hacha's daughter in Holland, and the dead old man who had convinced himself that the girl was his granddaughter. The heat and the strong smell of beer in the van made him thirsty. Or was his mouth dry because he was afraid?

The truck suddenly ground to a stop. They waited in silence. Mueller went cautiously to the door of the van. Finally, it slid open. “Gmünd,” Helmut's voice said. It cracked with urgency.

Mueller launched himself out of the van's darkness into the darkness of the road. He had not uttered a sound during the trip.

But now he thrust his head into the van and shrilled, “Herr Longacre, the woman. Tell her she must get out at once!”

“This is where you get off, Mrs. Street,” Andy said. “He says to hurry.”

“Ten thousand dollars,” Estelle Street's voice said. “Remember, Lou.”

“Okay, okay.

“I'm depending on you, too, Steve. I don't have to remind you what it means to—well, let's say to both of us.”