The Dead Mountaineer's Inn (22 page)

“I don't understand,” he said.

“I don't know,” I said. “Whether it's your suitcase or not. If it's yours, if Olaf brought it here for you, then prove it. Then I'll give it to you.”

His eyes drifted apart and then focused again on the bridge of his nose.

“Don't,” he said. “I don't want to. I'm tired. Let's go.”

I followed him out of the room feeling a little puzzled. The air in the hallway seemed surprisingly clean and fresh. Where had that apothecary's stench in the room come from? Perhaps something had been spilled in there earlier, but the window being opened had masked the smell? I closed the door. Luarvik remained where he was, apparently immersed in deep thought, as I got the glue and paper from my room and set to work resealing the scene.

“So what's it going to be?” I asked. “Are you going to answer my questions?”

“No,” he said decisively. “I don't want questions. I want to lie down. Where can I lie down?”

“Go back to your room,” I said numbly. I was overcome with apathy. Suddenly I had a splitting headache. I wanted to relax, lie down, close my eyes. The entire absurd, unprecedented, messed-up, nonsensical case seemed to be coming to life in the form of the absurd, unprecedented, messed-up, nonsensical Luarvik L. Luarvik.

We went down the hall; he staggered back to his room, and
I sat in the armchair, stretched myself out and, finally, closed my eyes. Somewhere I could hear the sea murmuring, loud, insensible music, dark spots swimming towards me and away from me. My mouth felt like I'd been chewing for hours on a damp rag. Then I felt a wet nose sniff my ear, and Lel's heavy head leaned consolingly against my knee.

I managed to nap for about fifteen minutes before Lel intervened. He licked my ears and cheeks, tugged at my pant legs, jostled and then, finally, lightly bit my hand. At this point, I couldn't hold back anymore; I jumped up, ready to tear him to pieces, incoherent curses and complaints stuck in my throat, but then my gaze fell on the side table and I froze. On its shiny lacquer top, next to the owner's papers and receipts, lay a large black pistol.

It was a .45-caliber Luger with an extended handle. It was lying in a little puddle of water, and there were still clumps of unmelted snow sticking to it; with my mouth hanging open I watched one of these lumps drip down the trigger and onto the tabletop. I looked around the lobby. The only one there was Lel, standing beside the table. He tipped his head to the side, giving me a stern and curious look.

Normal kitchen-type noises were coming out of the kitchen, the owner's soft bass could be heard and there was a drifting smell of coffee.

“Did you bring me this?” I asked Lel with a whisper.

He tipped his head to the other side and continued to look at me. His paws were covered in snow, and his shaggy belly was still dripping. I picked the pistol up carefully.

It was a true gangster's weapon. Its effective range was
two hundred meters; it had a place to put a sight, a switch for automatic firing, and other amenities. The barrel was full of snow. The gun was cold, heavy; its ribbed handle lay comfortably in my palm. For some reason I remembered that I hadn't searched Hinkus. I'd searched his luggage, his coat, but I'd forgotten to search his person. Probably because I'd thought he was a victim.

I pulled the clip out of the handle: it was full. I pulled back the bolt and a bullet jumped out onto the table. I picked it up to put it back in the clip, but was arrested suddenly by the strange color of the bullet. It was not the usual dull gray or yellow. It was shiny, like it was nickel-plated, but it looked more silver than nickel. I had never seen a bullet like it before in my life. One after another I hurriedly expelled the bullets from the cartridge. All of them were the same silvery color. I licked my dry lips and looked at Lel again.

“Where'd you get this, old man?” I asked.

Lel playfully shook his head and leapt sideways to the door.

“I get it,” I said. “I understand. Wait a minute.”

I put the bullets back into the clip, drove the clip into the handle and shoved the pistol in a side pocket on my way to the door. Outside, Lel rolled off the porch and, falling into the snow, galloped along the facade. I felt almost certain that he was going to stop beneath Olaf's window—but he didn't. He circled the house, disappearing for a second and then reappearing again to peer eagerly at me from around the corner. I grabbed the first pair of available skis, fastened them haphazardly on my feet and immediately ski'd after him.

After we had circled the inn Lel shot off, stopping about fifty meters away from the building. I made my way to him and looked around. All of this was strange. I saw a hole in the snow, from which Lel had dug up the pistol; I saw the tracks of my skis behind me; I saw the furrows that Lel had made
jumping through the snowbanks; but the rest of the ground around us was unmarked. This could only mean one thing: the pistol had been thrown here, from either the road or the inn. Either way, it was a good throw. I wasn't sure that I would have been able to heave such a heavy and unwieldy thing so far. Then I understood. The pistol had been thrown from the roof. They'd taken the gun from Hinkus and thrown it away. Or else, maybe Hinkus had thrown the gun away himself. Maybe he had been afraid of being caught with the gun. Or maybe Hinkus himself hadn't done it, but someone else … anyway, it definitely had to be from the roof. Only an exceptional arm could have thrown that far from the road, and to do it from any of the rooms would have been completely impossible.

“Well, Lel,” I said to the Saint Bernard, “you've done a good job. Better than me. I should have shaken down Hinkus more thoroughly, the way old Zgut would have done it. Right? Luckily it's not too late.”

I set off back to the inn without waiting for Lel's response. He galloped along beside me, scattering snow, falling through drifts and swinging his ears.

I intended to find Hinkus immediately—to wake that son of a bitch up and shake him to within an inch of his life, even if it cost me a reprimand on my end of year review. It was clear to me now that the cases of Olaf and Hinkus were connected in the most direct way; that their arrival here together hadn't been an accident; that Hinkus had been sitting on the roof armed with a long-range pistol and a single purpose: to keep a close watch on the immediate surroundings and not let anyone leave the inn; that he was the one who had sent the note as a warning, signing it “F” (he'd sent it to the wrong room, of course: Du Barnstoker couldn't possibly be wrapped up in this), that his presence here had caused and was still causing someone great difficulties, and that I'd be damned if I wasn't
going to find out right now who that someone was, and why it was happening. There were a lot of contradictions to this version of things, of course. Let's say Hinkus was Olaf's bodyguard, and was thwarting his murderer—well, then, why had they dealt with Hinkus himself so lightly? Why hadn't they broken his neck too? Why had his enemy deployed such an exceptionally humane tactic as capturing him and tying him up? Actually, this would have been easy to explain: Hinkus was clearly a hired man, and they just didn't want to get their hands dirty with him … Yes! I had to find out who he'd sent that telegram to … I'd forgotten about this the whole time …

The owner called out to me from the pantry and, without saying another word, offered me a mug of hot coffee and a huge sandwich triangle with fresh ham. It was exactly what I needed. He looked at me as I chewed rapidly, and then finally asked:

“Anything new?”

I nodded.

“Yes. A pistol. Only I didn't find it—Lel did. Also, I'm an idiot.”

“Hm … Yes. Lel's a smart dog. What kind of pistol?”

“An interesting one,” I said. “Professional … By the way, have you ever heard of a gun being loaded with silver bullets?”

The owner was quiet for a while, his jaw bulging.

“Your gun is loaded with silver bullets?” he said slowly.

I nodded.

“Hmm … well, I've read about it,” the owner said. “People load their weapons with silver bullets when they're planning to shoot ghosts.”

“More zombie mumbo-jumbo,” I grumbled. But then I remembered hearing about this myself.

“Yes, more. Normal bullets won't kill ghouls. Werewolves, kitsune foxes … frog queens … I warned you, Peter!” He
raised a fat finger. “I've been waiting for something like this for a long time. And now it turns out I'm not the only one …”

I finished chewing my sandwich and drank the rest of my coffee. I can't say that the owner's words didn't give me pause. For whatever reason, it appeared that the single fantastic version of the events that he'd offered was constantly being confirmed, while my many realistic ones were not … Ghouls, phantoms, ghosts … The only problem was that, if this was the case then there was nothing left for me to do but turn in my weapon: as some writer or another said, the afterlife is the church's business, not the police's …

“Have you figured out whose gun it is?” the manager asked.

“Yes, we have one ghoul hunter here—a certain Hinkus,” I said and left.

Standing in the middle of the lobby, looking very awkward and unnatural, like a stuffed doll, was Mr. Luarvik L. Luarvik. He stared at me with one eye, as the other peered up the stairs. His jacket looked particularly crooked on him, his pants were slipping down, his dangling empty sleeve looked like a cow had been chewing on it. I nodded and tried to walk past him, but he quickly hobbled forward to stand directly in my way.

“Yes?” I said, stopping short.

“A small but important conversation,” he announced.

“I'm busy. Give me half an hour.”

He grabbed my elbow.

“I beg you to predispose yourself. Immediately.”

“I don't understand. Predispose myself to what?”

“To giving me a few minutes. It's important to me.”

“It's important to you,” I repeated, continuing to make my way towards the stairs. “If it's important only to you, then to me, it's not that important.”

He kept a hold on me as if tethered, planting his feet strangely: one with its toes out, the other with its toes in.

“Important to you too,” he said. “You'll be happy. You'll get everything you want.”

We were already halfway up the stairs.

“And what exactly are we going to talk about?” I asked.

“About the suitcase.”

“So you're ready to answer my questions?”

“Let's stop walking and talk,” he asked. “My legs work bad.”

Ah, he's getting worked up, I thought. That's good—I like that.

“In half an hour,” I said. “And let go of me, please. You're in my way.”

“Yes,” he said. “In your way. I want to be in your way. My conversation is urgent.”

“How urgent could it be?” I objected. “There's no need to hurry. Half an hour. Or let's say an hour.”

“No, no, immediately please. Everything depends on it. And it will be quick. Me to you, you to me. That's that.”

We were already in the second floor hallway. I began to feel bad for him.

“Well, all right,” I said. “Let's go to my room. Only it has to be quick.”

“Yes, yes, of course, quick.”

I led him to my room, sat down on the edge of the table and said,

“Tell me.”

But he didn't start immediately. At first he looked around, hoping no doubt that the suitcase was lying somewhere within sight.

“The suitcase is not here,” I said. “Now hurry up.”

“Then I will sit down,” he said, and sat in my chair. “I very much need this suitcase. What do you want for it?”

“I don't want anything for it. Prove that you have a right to it, and it's yours.”

Luarvik L. Luarvik shook his head and said,

“No. I am not going to prove it. The briefcase is not mine. At first I didn't understand. But I thought a lot, and now I understand. Olaf stole the suitcase. I was ordered to find Olaf and tell him, ‘Return what you took, Commandant two twenty-four.' I don't know what this means. I don't know what he took. And you keep saying ‘suitcase'. This fools me. It is not a suitcase. It is a casing. Inside is a device. Before, I didn't know this. When I saw Olaf, I figured it out. Now I know: Olaf was not killed. Olaf died. From the device. The device is very dangerous. Its threat is to everyone. Everyone will become like Olaf, or perhaps an explosion will happen. Then it will be even worse. Do you understand why we need it quickly? Olaf was a fool, he died. We are smart, we won't die. Give me the suitcase quickly.”

He babbled along in his flat tone, looking at me out of his right eye and then left eye in turn, tugging relentlessly at his empty sleeve. His face remained motionless, except that from time to time his thin eyebrows rose or fell. I watched him, thinking that his manners and grammar were the same as they had been before, but that his vocabulary had increased significantly. Luarvik had gotten better at speaking.

“Who are you anyway?” I asked.

“I'm an emigrant, a foreign specialist. Exile. Political refugee.”

Yes, Luarvik had gotten better at talking. But who could have expected all this?

“An emigrant from where?”

“No need for such questions. I can't tell. I promised. It is not an enemy to your country.”

“But you already told me that you're a Swede.”

“A Swede? I never said that. I'm an emigrant, a political exile.”

“Excuse me,” I said. “An hour ago you told me you were a Swede. That you were a Swede for the most part. And now you deny it?”

“I don't know … I don't remember …” he muttered. “I don't feel good. I'm afraid. I must have the suitcase soon.”

The more he urged me on, the less inclined I was to hurry. It was all clear to me: he was lying, and lying very badly. “Where do you live?” I asked.