Death Pulls a Doublecross [= Cowards Kiss]

Thirteen

The air was gray, the sun smothered by clouds. Eighth Avenue swam with the human debris of late afternoon. A pair of well-dressed Negro pimps stood like cigar store Indians in front of the Greek movie theater across the street. A Madison Avenue type, his attaché case at his feet, leafed dispassionately and sadly through a bin of pornographic pictures in a bookstore. Taxi drivers honked their horns and pedestrians dodged rush-hour traffic. All over neon signs winked in electric seduction.

The Chevy was parked on Forty-fifth Street. I left it there and went into the Ruskin with the briefcase tucked under one arm. I found the taproom and had a double cognac. It went down smoothly and made a warm spot in my stomach.

In the lobby I picked up the house phone and called Peter Armin. He picked up the phone right off the bat.

“London,” I said. “Busy?”

He wasn’t.

“I’ve got a present for you,” I told him. “Okay to bring it right up?”

A low chuckle came over the phone. “You’re an amazing man, Mr. London. Come right up. I’ll be anxious to see you.”

I rang off, stuffed tobacco into a pipe and lit it. I walked to the elevator. The operator was a sleepy-eyed kid with a very short brushcut and a wad of gum in his mouth. He chewed it all the way to the eleventh floor, telling me at the same time who was going to win the fight at St. Nick’s that night. I yeahed him along, got out of the car and found Armin’s door. I knocked on it and he opened it.

“Mr. London,” he said. “Come in. Please come in.”

We went inside. He closed the door, then turned to me again. I looked at him while he looked at the briefcase I was holding. He was very pleased to see it. His clothes were different again — chocolate slacks, a dark brown silk shirt, a tan cashmere cardigan. I wondered how many changes of clothes he carried around in that suitcase of his.

“An amazing man,” he said softly. “You and I make a pact. Within twenty-four hours you produce the briefcase. One might almost be tempted to presume you’d had it all along. But I’m sure that’s not the truth.”

“It isn’t.”

“May I ask how you took possession of it?”

I shrugged. “Somebody dropped it in my lap.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“Amazing, truly amazing. And Mr. Bannister? Have you any news of Mr. Bannister?”

“He’s dead.”

“You killed him?”

“I think he had a heart attack.”

He chuckled again. “Marvelous, Mr. London. De mortuis, of course. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. Yet I cannot avoid thinking that few men have merited a heart attack more whole-heartedly, if you’ll excuse the play on words. You’re a man of action, Mr. London, and a man of economy as well. You waste neither time nor words. A rare and enviable combination in these perilous times.”

He stopped, reached into a pocket of the cardigan and dragged out his Turkish cigarettes. He offered me one, as usual. I passed it up, as usual. He took one himself and lit it.

“Now,” he said. “If I might have the briefcase?”

“One thing first.”

“Oh?”

“A matter of money,” I said. “Something like five thousand.”

He was all apologies. He scurried over to the dresser, opened the bottom drawer, drew out a small gray steel lockbox with a combination lock. He spun dials mysteriously and the box opened. There was an envelope inside it. He took it out and presented it solemnly to me.

“Five thousand,” he said. “The bills are perfectly good and perfectly untraceable. If you’d like to count them—”

“I’ll trust you,” I said. I stuffed the envelope in my inside jacket pocket.

“Now the briefcase?”

I said: “Of course.” I handed it to him and he took it from me, his small hands trembling slightly. He accepted the case the way a man takes into his arms a woman he has lusted after without success for a long period of time. I stood and watched him as he sat down in his chair and opened it.

He reacted just the way he was supposed to. He unzipped the briefcase quickly, ignored the letter and opened the pouch with the keys in it. He took them out, looked them over.

His face changed expression.

For a moment or two he sat still as Death and did not say a word. Then, his eyes still on the keys, he said: “There seems to be some sort of mistake, Mr. London.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Something’s gone wrong,” he said. “Somewhere along the line there’s been a slip. These are not the right keys.”

“Of course not,” I said. “I know that, Mr. Wallstein.”

The words sank in slowly. He stayed where he was, not moving at all for a minute or two. Then his eyes left the keys and climbed an inch at a time until they were looking at me.

They widened when they were focused on the Beretta in my hand.

He said nothing at first. His face changed expression several times and I could see his mind working, looking for avenues of escape, seeing each in turn sealed off in front of him. When he got around to speaking his voice was a thousand years old. He sounded like a man who had been running very hard and very fast for a very long time. And who was now discovering that he had been running in the wrong direction.

“A most amazing man,” he said. “And just how much do you know, Mr. London?”

“Most of it.”

He sighed. “Tell me,” he said. “I’d like to see how much you know and how you determined it. I don’t suppose it will be much in the way of consolation. But it’s important for a man to know just where he cut his own throat.”

“Keep your hands where I can see them.”

“Certainly,” he said. He placed them palms-down on his knees. “And if you could point that gun elsewhere—”

He had shown me the same courtesy before, in my own apartment. I could hardly refuse him. I lowered the gun slightly.

I said: “Your name is Franz Wallstein. You occupied a fairly important position in Nazi Germany. You stole a small fortune in jewels and managed to make a clean break when the roof fell in in 1945. You ran for Mexico, then skipped to Buenos Aires. You set yourself up as an importer under the name Heinz Linder and you were doing pretty well. Then the Israelis found your trail again.”

“They are relentless,” he said.

“But you had advance warning. Not much warning — it didn’t leave you time to cash in your home or your business. But you did have enough time to make sure your trail would end forever in Buenos Aires. You found some one who looked enough like you to pass for you. He didn’t have to be a perfect double — you’d been under wraps for fifteen years. You took him home with you and shot him dead.”

He listened with no trace of expression on his face. I got the impression that he was discovering himself now in the words I spoke. His eyes were deep, his features relaxed.

“Maybe you bought cooperation from the government,” I went on. “That’s supposed to be pretty easy in Argentina. At any rate, you left your double dead in your home and let the Israelis take credit for the kill. Then you staged a robbery — filled your suitcase with jewels and caught the first plane to Canada. It was an easier country to enter than the United States. But it wasn’t as easy to set up shop there as it was in Argentina. You’ve got expensive tastes. The money must have gone pretty quickly. You needed more money and you needed it in a hurry.”

“Debts pile up,” he said softly. “And a hunted man must keep his credit good.” There was the ghost of a smile on his lips.

“You still had the jewels. They were negotiable, especially if you sold them off a few at a time. But that wasn’t good enough for you. You wanted to latch onto the money without letting go of the jewels. You’re a man who l likes beautiful things and you wanted to keep them.” I paused. “Am I right so far?”

“More or less. I could never have received a shadow of their worth. And they’re very beautiful stones, Mr. London.”

“They must be. Let’s take it a little further. You met Alicia Arden. She knew about a fence — Bannister. That was fine, but you still wanted to sell the jewels without letting go. So the two of you cooked up a swindle. You managed to hook up with three or four professional thieves and you sold them on the notion of acting as agents for the sale of the jewels. According to what you told them, they would go to New York to handle the transfer of the gems for the money.”

“It’s common enough,” he said. “They took their chances in return for a cut of the proceeds.”

“That was the setup, sure. You even let them cache the jewels and make up only one set of keys. That was to keep you from stealing the stuff back and leaving Bannister holding the briefcase. They were honest thieves, as you said. But they weren’t careful enough. You and Alicia fixed things so that both Bannister and the thieves would be out in the cold.”

“You know the details, Mr. London?”

I looked at him. I wondered where Maddy was, what she was doing. I glanced out the window and watched the sky turn darker. I looked back at him.

“I can guess,” I said. “Alicia was supposed to come to New York to negotiate with Bannister. Then she told Bannister he could pull a switch and save himself a hundred grand — this kept him from haggling over the price. When the time came, he gave her the money and sent her where the thieves were staying. She was supposed to trade the money for the briefcase, but instead of turning the case over to Bannister she held onto it.

“Then you came into the picture. You would get the money from the thieves and leave them for Bannister, who would get rid of them by killing them. It was neat — the thieves wouldn’t be looking for you because they’d be dead. And Bannister didn’t even know you were alive. You and Alicia would have the money and the jewels. Free and clear.”

I drew a breath. “But she didn’t play it that way, did she?”

“No,” he said quietly. “She did not.”

“She must have made a fresh switch of her own. She set up the deal without telling you about it.”

He managed a smile. “She was supposed to make the switch on a Wednesday. It took place a day early. I did not know about it until it was over.”

“She made the switch,” I said. “She turned over the money to the thieves and took the briefcase in exchange. Then she called Bannister and told him they wouldn’t play ball. He killed them and took his dough back. She lost the money that way — but she had the jewels all to herself now. And they were worth a hell of a lot more than a hundred grand.”

He nodded, agreeing.

“So you found out about the cross. And you went hunting for Alicia Arden. You knew her very well. You knew what to look for and where to look. You didn’t have Bannister’s organization but you had something more valuable in your knowledge. He never found her. You did.”

My pipe had been out for a while. I put it in a pocket. “So you broke in on her and killed her,” I went on. “You didn’t use a Beretta then. You had another gun and you used it to put a hole in her face. You killed her before you did anything else. She had crossed you and you were furious. Bannister was after her more as a matter of profit-and-loss than anything else. He might have killed her, but not unless he found the briefcase first. But you wanted her dead. That was more important than the briefcase.”

His face darkened. “For each man kills the thing he loves,” he quoted. “I was in love with her, Mr. London. A human fault. A reasonable man is a man who never loves. Reason goes only so far. I loved her. When she betrayed that love I killed her. Another common pattern.”

He took out another cigarette and lit it. I watched him smoke. I wondered what he was thinking now.

I said: “You had to be the killer. If Bannister had killed her he would have turned the place upside-down. But you’re a neat man. You wouldn’t confuse a search with a sacking. You must have cleaned as you searched.”

“It was easier that way.”

“And you left her there,” I said. “You couldn’t find the briefcase so you kept the apartment under as close surveillance as you could. There was a limit — you were alone, and you couldn’t be there all the time. You didn’t see my friend visit the apartment. But you saw me and thought I took the briefcase.”

He shook his head. “I thought you had it all along. I thought you were working with her.”

“Same thing.” I shrugged. “That’s what I got so far. Also that you were the one who took a potshot at me when I was heading up the stairs to my apartment. Just a warning, I guess. So I’d be in a mood to team up with you.”

“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.