Prussian Blue

SIXTY-FOUR

Pointing my gun at the center of his chest I started across the cave. At fifteen meters my mouth was as dry as the sand on the ground; at fourteen meters, my heart was beating so loudly I thought he might hear it; at thirteen meters I was starting to grow in confidence; at twelve I was close enough to see the white scar on his chin; at ten I was getting ready to tell him to drop the gun and put up his hands; but at eight meters, he opened his eyes, met mine, and smiled as if he’d been expecting me.

“I think that’s far enough, copper,” he said coolly. “Take another step and you’ll find out how excellent a shot I am.”

“All that salt must have dried your brain like last week’s herring. If I shoot you’ll be dead before you can even wave that pistol.” I threw some handcuffs onto the sand beside his leg. “Let go of the Luger, gently, like it was one of Pony’s lovely breasts. Toss it over here and then put those bracelets on.”

“How did you know about Pony?” he asked, still holding on to the Luger.

“Your wife told me.”

“I guess she told you a lot,” he said, puffing his pipe nonchalantly. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have come all this way to lovely Homburg.”

“Don’t blame her,” I said. “Blame Benno. And then blame the Nazis. Threatening someone with a trip to Dachau is a very persuasive way to preface all sorts of pressing questions.”

“You know, I somehow think that Bormann has something far worse planned for me than that. So I should tell you now, I’ve no intention of swapping my best hat for a wastepaper basket in Plötzensee. Which means I’ve really got nothing to lose by shooting it out with you here, copper. It will be a pity if we both have to take a bullet because you want to put my neck in the lunette.”

“I can live with that. Which is more than I can say for you, Johann. The second I pull this trigger your last thought is a red mark on that wall.

“But give up now and I give you my word I will make sure that nothing happens to Eva and Benno. I’m not a vindictive man, Johann, but I’m afraid the same cannot be said for my employers. They’ll treat your wife and son like the worst kind of criminals. Take the roof off your house. Dynamite your salt mine. If your wife thought your son was too warm for the army, how long do you think he’ll last in Dachau? And all because you want to go out like Jimmy Cagney.”

“You’re not much of a detective, are you?”

“I found you, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but surely you’ve worked out that my wife and I haven’t been getting along at all well. Not since she found out about Pony. And my son. Well, you’ve met Benno, haven’t you? He’s not what I’d call a man’s man, so much as a man’s boy, if you see what I mean. His mother bribing that bastard Flex to keep him out of the army was the last straw as far as I was concerned. What I’m saying is that they’ll have to take their chances. Besides, I rather think that if I do have to shoot you, I’ll just walk out of here and be across the border tonight. I speak French. I shouldn’t think I’ll have much of a problem.”

“You must be mistaking me for a cop who was dumb enough to come here on my own. This whole area is surrounded with the local leather heads. Besides, don’t assume that the Franzis won’t hand you over to us. They might be about to go to war with Germany, but until that happens we enjoy the total cooperation of the French police.”

“Sounds about right. The French have always been in Germany’s back pocket. And I suppose you must be in Martin Bormann’s. How does it feel to be just another Nazi doing the dirty work in Hitler’s new order?”

“I’m not a Nazi. And I’m tired of hearing about the new order. The only shred of self-respect left to me now is to try to do my job the old way. That means taking you to jail. Alive. To arrest you for a crime I know you committed. After you’re safely in the cement it’s up to them what they do with you. I really don’t care. But don’t make the mistake of thinking I won’t shoot you, Johann. What I know about you, shooting you would be a real pleasure.”

“Then we’re not so very different, you and I.”

“How do you figure that?”

“I killed Karl Flex because he was a part of the same criminal hypocrisy as your police bosses. Because he had it coming. You must have known about all the rackets he was involved in, surely. Bormann’s Obersalzberg rackets. Drugs, property, bribery. There’s nothing that man doesn’t have a piece of. Flex was one of Bormann’s rats. The worst kind of Nazi. The greedy kind. Surely you can see that.”

“You can tell yourself what you like,” I said. “And perhaps Flex did have it coming. But you can hardly say the same for Udo Ambros. Your old comrade. Your friend. A man who served with you. I don’t see for a minute how he deserved to have his face blown off with a shotgun. By you.”

“Don’t you see? I had to kill him. He’d threatened to go to the police and tell them about the carbine I’d borrowed from him. The one I used to shoot Flex. That was clever of you, copper—finding it down the chimney like that. Anyway, Udo said he would give me a twenty-four-hour head start out of Berchtesgaden before he went to the police. But I had too much to lose just to let him drop me in the shit pit like that. And all because I’d wiped out a piece of dirt like Karl Flex. You saw the way Udo lived. What right did he have to wreck my life? All he had to do was keep his mouth shut. Say the rifle was stolen, something like that. I had a good life, a good business. I had to kill him. Please. You have to understand. He gave me no choice. I had to protect my family and my business.”

There was a note in his pompous Bavarian voice that hadn’t been there before. It sounded like the kind of unctuous, self-justifying mendacity we’d heard just a few weeks before, when Hitler had torn up the Munich agreement and occupied what was left of Czechoslovakia after Germany had already annexed the Sudetenland. It was what happened next that convinced me I’d overestimated him: when he reached for his pipe his hand was shaking. Johann Diesbach was scared. It was in the man’s eyes.

“The way you talk about it—your whining explanation for an act of cold-blooded murder—in my book, that makes you as bad as the Nazis, Johann. Worse, maybe. But I think you’re losing your nerve for this stalemate game. I think that you’re the kind of Fritz who only shoots a man when he’s not expecting it. Am I right? Are you going to fire that Luger or use it to pick your nose?” Lowering my pistol I walked toward him and kicked his stockinged foot. “Go ahead, tough guy. Point that Bismarck and see what happens.” Diesbach stared at me sullenly: close up, I could see now that whatever fight had been in him was long gone. Perhaps it had never really been there. Candlelight—especially in a cave—can play some strange tricks on you. “No? I didn’t think so. Maybe once upon a time, pifke. But not anymore. Your son Benno has more guts than you.”

I took the gun away from him and dropped it into my coat pocket. Then I dragged him onto his feet and slapped him hard. Not because of that irritating Hitler mustache but because he’d scared me and I didn’t like being scared.