Coward's Kiss (18 page)

“I wasn’t trying to kill you.”

“Of course not. When you really tried to kill someone, you didn’t miss. I was a sitting duck there, wasn’t I? But that was just a warning. Last night you didn’t miss.”

“Last night?”

“I know about it,” I said. “I ran into the guy outside. He was in the lobby and he followed us when we left here. Maybe he thought I was a buddy of yours. Maybe he wanted to talk to me. I’ll never know.”

He shrugged.

“He was an old friend of yours,” I went on. “I never got to know his name. Did you know it?”

“No.”

“Just a little man with a harmless face. One of the little men who spent some time in that camp of yours across the ocean. A concentration camp victim looking for you. He found you, too. How long was he on your trail?”

“He wasn’t.”

“No?”

“He lived in New York, Mr. London. And he saw me, here in New York. And recognized me.”

“And got killed for it.”

“He’d have killed me, Mr. London.” His shoulders heaved in another shrug. “He was willing to risk death. He cared only for revenge.”

“And he got his revenge. I might have had trouble making the final connection without him. But the forearm tattoo gave it away. You had to be Wallstein then. Everything fit into place.”

“You were lucky.”

“I know that,” I said. “Well, that’s what I got. Did I come close?”

His lips curled into a smile. His chuckle sounded happy. “Too close,” he said. “Far too close. There are points here and there where you’re wrong. But they are really immaterial, Mr. London. They do not matter.” He heaved a sigh. “I never thought you would guess this much. How did you figure it out?”

I watched him put out his cigarette. He didn’t seem nervous at all. He was more interested in seeing where he missed the boat than in finding a way out. There was no reason not to tell him. It wouldn’t do him any good to know.

“A magician would say you made too much use of misdirection,” I told him. “An actress friend of mine would say you over-acted. From the start I had to figure out where you belonged in the overall scheme of things. Your routine about making a living by being in the right place at the right time was a little far-fetched. You knew too much. You had to belong somewhere in the middle of things. At first I guessed you were one of the thieves.”

“That’s what I wished you to think.”

I nodded. “But you sold that too hard. You made a point of telling me what Wallstein was like, being careful to describe someone wholly unlike yourself. You made him tall and blond, a typical SS type, while you yourself are short and dark. You pictured him as a thoroughly unattractive character, one of whom you disapproved highly. Franz Wallstein, obviously, was not the kind of man you like.”

A slight smile. “And perhaps that was not wholly untrue.”

“Maybe not. But I wondered how you would know so much about Wallstein, even if you were one of the thieves. It seemed unlikely. And it was just as funny for you to waste so much time telling me about him. I had to guess you were selling me a bill of goods.”

“Was that all?”

I shook my head. “There was more. You gave me a lot of surface detail on the profession of larceny. But you never got around to describing the very brilliant crime in which the jewels were stolen. From that I guessed that there hadn’t been any crime. You were Wallstein and you stole your own jewels.”

He was nodding, digesting all of it. “More,” I said. “I tied you to Alicia Arden from the start. Not from what you said about her—you were properly vague. But you always called her Alicia, never used anything but the first name. I was Mr. London to you every time. Bannister was Mr. Bannister. Once I realized you weren’t one of the thieves, the rest came easily.”

He looked away. “I didn’t even realize it,” he said. “I guess she was always Alicia to me and nothing else. Of course.”

He looked up at me again, his jaw set, his eyes steady. “I could offer you a great deal of money,” he said. “But you have the keys as it stands. You can get the jewels without my help. Besides, I suspect a bribe would have no effect on you.”

I told him it wouldn’t.

He sighed. “What next, Mr. London? Where do we proceed from here?”

“That’s up to you,” I said.

“May I smoke, Mr. London?”

I told him to go ahead. I raised the gun to cover him but he didn’t make any false movements. He shook out a cigarette, put it to his lips, set the end on fire with his lighter. The cigarette didn’t flare up and blind me. The lighter wasn’t a cleverly camouflaged gun. He lit his cigarette and he smoked it.

I lowered the gun.

“If you turn me in,” he said, “you’ll be faced with problems.”

“I know.”

“The police will want to know about your part. You broke a law or two yourself. You moved a body. You were an accessory after the fact of murder.”

“I know.”

“Withholding information—another crime. Not to mention Mr. Bannister’s heart attack.”

“That was self-defense.”

“You might have difficulty proving that to the police. They might call it murder. You might go to jail.”

I shrugged. “Not if I handed you to them,” I said. “I think they’d make allowances.”

He pursed his lips. “Perhaps,” he said. “You’re licensed as a private detective, aren’t you? Couldn’t they revoke your license?”

“If they wanted to.”

“So much trouble,” he said. “And they probably wouldn’t even hang me. They might, but I doubt it. It would be hard to prove murder, harder still to prove premeditation. I might get life imprisonment. But not death.”

“You quoted ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’ a while back, I reminded him. “Know the rest of it?”

He nodded. “I’m fond of Oscar Wilde.”

“Then you remember his description of prison. And of course you had something to do with a prison yourself, didn’t you?”

“Our prisons were worse, Mr. London. Much worse. The Austrian corporal had unhappy ideas. American prisons are not like that.”

“They’re no bed of roses,” I said. “And if they do electrocute you, it won’t be nice. It’s worse than being murdered. All the anticipation before hand. It’s not nice.”

We sat and looked at each other for minute or two. The verbal fencing wasn’t a hell of a lot of fun. I wanted to be out of there, to get away from him.

“So the situation is unhappy for us both,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be simpler to let me go free?”

“It would.”

“But you won’t?”

“No,” I said. “I won’t.”

“Because of what I am? Because I’m Franz Wallstein?” “Because you killed the girl.”

A long sigh. “You would have to be a moral man, Mr. London. It’s unfortunate.”

I shook my head. I said: “It’s not a matter of morality. It’s tough enough living with myself the way things stand. It would be tougher if I let you go. I’m practical, not moral.”

“And you find it more practical to turn me in than to let me go?”

“Yes.”

“No matter how much trouble it causes you?”

“Yes.”

We killed a few more seconds. The sky was almost black now. In a few minutes it was going to start raining. I wondered how Maddy’s audition went. I wondered where she was and what she was doing. I wanted to be with her. “Mr. London——”

I waited.

“I’ve said this before in quite another context. We are both reasonable men.”

“To a point.”

“Of course, to a point. But there is a way for you to achieve your objective without trouble. It would simplify your problems and mine as well. It would be easier for us both.” I nodded.

“Do you know what I mean?”

“I think so.”

“Justice will be served,” he said. “Whatever precisely justice may be. Expedience, quite another goddess, will be served as well. And I think you shall find it no more difficult to live with yourself as a result. Do you follow me?”

“Yes,” I said. “I follow you.”

He got to his feet. “Now follow me literally,” he said. “Keep your gun on me. Because I’ll kill you if given the chance. You shouldn’t give me that chance.”

I didn’t. I stayed behind him and I kept the Beretta centered on his back. He led the way to the bathroom, opened the door of the medicine cabinet. He took out a small phial of pills, held it up and studied the contents thoughtfully.

“I’ve carried them for so long a time,” he said. “When the Reich fell we all supplied ourselves with them. I’ve had them ever since. Some of us carried them in our mouths, ready to bite down on the capsule when it became necessary. Himmler managed that. He cheated his captors, died before their eyes.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I’ve had them with me ever since,” he went on. “Even when I felt most secure they were always within reach. Habit, perhaps. I almost took them once. It was in Mexico City. I was in the air terminal waiting for a plane and two Jewish agents passed within arm’s reach of me. I had a pill in my mouth. I was ready to use it the minute I was recognized. But they did not recognize me.”

He uncapped the phial and tilted it. A large brown capsule rolled into the palm of his hand. He studied it.

“I threw that pill away,” he said. “Not then. Not until I was in Buenos Aires. I took it from my mouth when I stepped onto the plane, and I sat in my seat in the plane with the pill clutched in my hand. I expected agents to meet the plane. They did not. I took an apartment in Buenos Aires and threw the pill away. But I kept the others. And now I have occasion to use them.”

There was a glass on the shelf over the sink. It was still in its cellophane wrapper. He set the pill on the shelf and unwrapped the glass. He let the water run for a minute or two, then filled the glass to the brim.

“I’m not sure about this,” he said. “Do I swallow the pill or crush it in my teeth? Swallowing would be simpler. But the capsule might not dissolve. It didn’t dissolve when I had it in my mouth.”

He went on talking in the same gentle tone of voice. “I could have thrown the water in your face,” he said. “It would have been a chance, if a slim one. But I think you would have shot me. And the shot might not have killed me, and then we would have had the unpleasantness of police and a trial and the rest. It’s really not worth the chance. But how do you measure worth here? Is it worth any risk to save one’s life? All the logic in the world won’t answer that question.”

He poured the water into the sink, put the glass back on the shelf. He picked up the pill and held it between thumb and forefinger.

“They’re supposed to be painless,” he said. “Almost instantaneous. I wonder if that’s so or not. I really hope so. I’m a physical coward, Mr. London.”

“You’re a brave man.”

“That’s not true,” he said. “Bravery and resignation are not synonymous, not by any means. I’m simply a resigned coward.”

He put the pill in his mouth. Then he changed his mind and took it out again.

“There’s one point,” he said. “You might as well know this. I lied to you about one thing. I did it more to simplify procedures than anything else. Alicia wasn’t nude when I left her. After I killed her, that is.”

“I know.”

“Do you know what she was wearing?”

“Yes.”

A smile. “You know so many things, Mr. London. There are things I wish I knew. I wish I knew just what will happen after I put this little pill to use. Will it end there? The religious myths are really a little hard to take, yet I wish I could accept them. Even Hell would be preferable to simple nonexistence. The churches make a mistake, you know. Simple nothingness is more terrible than any Hell they have managed to devise. Sulfur and brimstone cannot compare.”

“Maybe it’s like going to sleep.”

He shook his head. “Sleep implies an eventual awakening. But I’m afraid it’s a moot point. A semantic game. And why puzzle over it when I can find out the answer in an instant?”

I wanted to tell him to put down the pill, to run, to catch a plane and disappear. But I thought of the dead blonde and the dead thieves and the corpse in Argentina. I thought of a little man found leaning against a Hell’s Kitchen warehouse, and I thought of six million of his relatives in German ovens.

I still wanted to let him go.

He smiled at me. Then he popped the pill into his mouth and closed his eyes. His jaws twitched once as he bit into the pill. His eyes opened, and for a tiny speck of time he looked at me. Then he fell to the floor and died.

FOURTEEN

I GAVE my car back to the garage. The same kid was still on duty and he had something suitably inane to say. But I didn’t hear it. I wasn’t listening.

The air smelled of a storm on the way. It had begun that way and it was ending the same way, with the city crouching under rain clouds. I walked home with the briefcase under my arm. I climbed the stairs and nobody shot at me from behind. I unlocked my door and went inside. There were no surprises—no dark little men with guns, no briefcases, no disorder. Just my apartment, just as I had left it.

I filled a glass with cognac and worked on it. I thought about love and death. I thought about Alicia Arden, about the kind of girl she must have been, about the girl she had been to the men who had known her. I thought about a girl of my own and found myself smiling. I picked up the phone and dialed Maddy’s number.

“Hi,” I said. “How was the audition?”

“Ed,” she chirped. “Oh, it was fine, it was great, I’ll tell you about it later. But what happened? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“How ... how did everything go?”

“All right. Lots of things happened.”

“Tell me. You didn’t get hurt, did you? You’re all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said again. “I’ll tell you when I see you.”

“Can you come right down? Or should I come up?”

“Neither,” I said. “I’ll be down in an hour or so. We can grab a late dinner. I’ll take you out and feed you.”

“I’ll cook, Ed. I feel like cooking tonight. Why don’t you come down right away? I thought you were all finished.”

“Almost,” I said. “I’ll see you in two hours at the outside. And cook a big dinner. I’ll need it.”

I stood there a moment, thought about her, remembered how her voice sounded. I wondered what was coming up next for us, what she would be to me and what I would be to her. I thought about love, about its effect on some people I knew. It was either the most essential single thing in the world or the one thing a man had to learn to get by without, and I couldn’t make up my mind which way it worked. You could argue either side.