LACKING VIRTUES (62 page)

Steven backed up to the wall and began to move slowly toward Claussen. His heart was pounding but his mind was clear. Sophie’s killer was going to make his day.

“Come a little closer,” Claussen said calmly. “Well, come on, LeConte. What are you waiting for? Let’s have at it. This is between you and me, isn’t it? Look at your partner. He’s exhausted and out of shape. He has chosen to sit this round out.”

“Fuck you,” Warner said. Steven watched him begin approaching Claussen along the opposite wall.

This was the right move. Claussen had a knife, but to kill a strong healthy man with a knife you had to do a lot of jumping, parrying and thrusting. It took a long time even if the man was not armed. Warner would be coming from one side, Steven from the other. Claussen would have to choose whom to strike first. When he did that, the free man would have a clear shot at his rear – a kick to the thigh, a kick to the kidney, a chop to the neck when he started to falter . . .  

Steven said, “Let’s see your fancy stuff, cockroach. Or do you only use it on against women?”

Claussen looked Steven in the eye, using the diversion to catch Warner off-guard with a lightning fast kick to the chin. He smiled now, and shook the knife at Steven.

Warner tottered and slumped in a heap against the wall. Claussen, his keen blue eyes still boring into Steven, delivered a vicious back kick to Warner’s temple.

“Twenty minutes,” Claussen said. “He’ll be out cold for twenty minutes, give or take a few seconds. It’s one-on-one now, a fair fight. A sixty-year-old man with a knife, a big muscled kid with his fists. Have you got a plan or are you like your country, big and dumb? Well, LeConte, you’d better do something. I’m getting bored.”

Steven’s eyes flashed to Warner, who was unconscious. He tried to locate Warner’s gun but couldn’t see it. And he couldn’t dive for it, either, not without getting a blade in the back. The sofa under which it had slid was of heavy oak and very low to the floor. Forget the gun. It was out of play.

He faced Claussen directly, knowing he must keep his eyes on him every second. His best bet, it seemed, was to draw out the fight and hope this son of a bitch got tired or made a mistake.

Claussen took a step toward him. “Put out your hand, LeConte. Let’s see the color of your blood. It’s going to happen sooner or later. You’re not a procrastinator by any chance?”

Steven tried to block out the words. He circled in front of the roll top desk, reached behind him while keeping his eyes on Claussen, picked up a smooth granite paper weight and faked a throw at Claussen’s head.

Claussen ducked and lunged at the same time. Steven spun out of his way. He held up the paper weight. “Pretty clumsy, asshole. You Europeans should play more baseball.”

Claussen kicked at the weight in Steven’s hand, using the same move that sent Warner crashing to the floor.

Steven was feeling good. He saw the shoe coming, like a weak serve. He stepped easily to the side. He had the impression he could have caught Claussen’s leg, upended him and ripped it from its socket.

But if he had missed . . . if he had missed, he would have left himself wide open. The fight would have ended then and there with a stiletto through his liver. It was better, he thought, to be patient and feel out Claussen’s weaknesses.

Yes, but hard to do in the heat of battle.  

“You know,” Claussen said, coming closer and holding the knife loosely, as if to tempt a kick, “I don’t want to insult you. You’re a decent combatant, better than I would have guessed. Not many survive this long. But the outcome is not in doubt. Have you ever seen a bull fight, Mr. LeConte?”

Steven kept his eyes glued to Claussen’s. His heart pounded in his ears. He needed to do something. But what? The bastard handled his knife like one of those gypsies in the circus.

“Well,” Claussen said, “since your fear has turned you into a mute, I’ll answer for you. You’ve seen many bull fights, perhaps in Spain, perhaps only on television or in movies. You’ve seen them, though, so you know what I’m talking about.”

Claussen smiled and backed closer to Warner. Steven stepped forward, keeping the distance between them the same. If Claussen turned to stab Frank, Steven was going to kick him in the tailbone so hard every disk in his spine would explode.

Claussen didn’t oblige him. It was as if he had eyes in the back of his head. While looking straight at Steven, he delivered a blind heel to Warner’s chin.

“Add ten minutes to your friend’s nap,” he said.

From his peripheral vision Steven saw Warner flop like a sack of grain. He was unconscious when Claussen kicked him, and he was unconscious now.

Steven felt his control over his temper slipping away. He was going to say something about Germans liking to kick the guy who was down and feeling really tough, but he stopped himself. He knew Claussen wanted him to get mad, to cause him to lose his temper and throw judgment to the wind. He wasn’t going to oblige, For once in his life, he was going to control his emotions. He rubbed the granite paper weight.

Claussen charged him without warning, knife horizontal. It was a feint. He stopped just out of range and smiled. “In these dramatic confrontations about which we were speaking, Mr. LeConte, in these blood-stirring confrontations between brawn and brain, brute force and subtle mastery, who always wins? The bull fighter, no? I shall grant you that if the bull is particularly strong or adept, the killing may take a little longer. But this only helps to make the contest more interesting. I am in no hurry. How about you, Mr. LeConte?”

Claussen lunged but he had telegraphed his move with his eyes. Steven knew it was another feint. He held his ground and unleashed the paper weight. It hit Claussen in the forehead. Blood gushed down over his eyes.

Now!

Steven stepped forward and sent a straight left crashing into Claussen’s mouth.

In the same instant, he felt an ugly sensation in his other forearm. The bastard had taken his punch and somehow managed to cut him.

It was a scratch, he told himself, just a little scratch. He refused to look at it, concentrating his attention instead on Claussen’s face.

The man’s lower lip was split, and blood still poured from the gash in his forehead. But in the center of that grotesque face was his smile, as condescending as ever.

“Well, LeConte, that was it. You, the bull, committed the fatal blunder. They always do. Now, now, you should not feel badly. It was a quite a courageous effort, even though it was not informed by any measurable degree of intelligence.

Claussen kicked the paper weight under the oak sofa, where it hit the pistol with a ping. “You might not believe your wound is serious, but if you were in a position to inspect it, you would see that an artery has been severed. With each beat of your heart, you are pumping away your strength. Of course, you don’t know enough to know the name of the artery which you so foolishly exposed to my blade. “Ignorant, like your country, Mr. LeConte?”

The guy was bluffing, thought Steven.

Or was he? The hot pulsing of blood inside his sleeve made him unsure.

Claussen smiled – a different, softer smile.

Steven felt a surge of panic he hoped Claussen hadn’t seen. What if he did grow weaker? What were his options? He couldn’t think of any.

“So we wait,” Claussen said. He ran his arm across the wound on his forehead. By now the bleeding had almost stopped. He wasn’t hurt.

Steven felt the first tell-tale waves of nausea and dizziness sweeping over him. He needed to do something, and do it fast. But what? He now knew the deadly accuracy of that blade. And turn away from Claussen, any attempt to upend a desk or slide a sofa, and he would be dead.

He fought to keep his mind and eyes clear, to keep his belief in his ability to prevail alive.

“I read your List of Lacking Virtues,” Claussen said in a mocking voice. “Your surrogate mother was a perceptive woman. How shocking, your lack of perseverance. To be fair with you, LeConte, you have made improvements in that area or you would not be here now. I’ll commend you on your progress while we wait for you to grow just a little bit weaker.

“Your penchant for procrastination is another matter entirely. It is very bad, even fatal, this particular flaw. You see, it prevented you from dealing with item number nine on your list, your carelessness in matters large and small.

“Here too, LeConte, you are a remarkable mirror image of your country. The costs of such carelessness, to you personally and to an America in decline, are incalculable. Why mince words? Let us say that they are terminal.”

He laughed like a man who was enjoying himself. The thought of losing to him nauseated Steven more than his spilled blood.

Claussen’s back was to the door. Steven moved around until his rear brushed up against the roll top desk. He was looking at Claussen, but he thought he glimpsed a shadow on the white stucco wall in corridor.

A goose, maybe. Claussen could have left the door open when he entered. This might offer a distraction, some sort of a chance for him to strike. He couldn’t quite form an image of what that chance would look like, but he had a strong feeling it would be his last.

In the meantime, it was critical to keep all of Claussen’s attention focused squarely on him.

For wont of anything better to do, he took a deep breath and groped around on the paper-strewn surface of the desk behind him. He brushed the pages of Claussen’s memoirs carelessly about as he probed for something, anything, he might be able to use.

Near the edge of the desk, his hand bumped into an object that warmed his heart. He grasped it and slowly brought it around in front of him. It was a cigarette lighter, a gold lighter.

He could see Claussen changing the grip on his stiletto. He wasn’t sure what this meant, but he thought it could be the sign he was hoping for, a very good sign.

He flicked the lighter on. He adjusted the tiny, precise knob until the flame burned an inch high. He feigned a weakness, as if his legs had buckled. Claussen remained frozen in his stance. He was no longer smiling.

Could Warner possibly be right? Could this man be so arrogant he had not bothered to make copies of his memoirs? Did he really believe he was immune to the sort of fate that would strike a mere mortal? It was beginning to look that way.

Now it was Steven who smiled. “No copies, eh? Maybe we have more in common than you realize. Maybe you caught something while you were in the States.”

Claussen’s face became an angry sneer.

The shadow in the hall appeared again, then vanished. This time there could be no doubt whatsoever. Something was out there.

One of Steven’s knees started to tremble. He locked it, got it under control. But Claussen had noticed he wasn’t faking. His expression changed from anger to psychopathic delight.

Steven grabbed a page off the desk and lit it. He tossed it toward Claussen. It fluttered, burning, to the floor. Claussen stamped out the flames. “I have twenty copies,” he said. “Save your energy. You’re going to need it.”

“Yeah, you’ve got twenty copies all right. Where are they? With those lawyers of yours who are going to release details of your conspiracy when you get killed? It must have surprised you when your French buddies swallowed that bluff. They believed you would entrust lawyers with proof that you’re nothing but a little Himmler clone! They actually believed something that preposterous. Americans, sure. They would have believed it because they believe anything. But the French?”

Steven glanced back at the door into the hallway and gave a start. Nicole was sitting on the floor, her shoes off and her ankle bound in yellow canvas. With both hands, she was raising the automatic pistol he had left in his pack.