The Lions Of Lucerne

28

André Martin struggled against the laundry cord digging into his wrists, then let his muscles go limp. He had to stay calm. Focus on your breathing, he told himself. The gag in his mouth tasted like shoe polish, and a strong smell of mildew rose from the stained floor beneath him. All he wanted to do was vomit, but he knew for sure if he did, he would choke on it and die. He kept reminding himself to be calm. There has to be a way out of this, he thought. It had better come soon, though. The uncomfortable hog-tie position in which he was restrained threatened to drive him insane. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on what had happened.

When Senator Snyder had opened the door to the shower, André hadn’t seen the hypodermic in his hand. By the time he did, it was too late. The tranquilizer worked extremely fast. Considering the difference in their sizes, deception was the only advantage Snyder had over his taller and more muscular victim.

In a strange sort of way, had he but known it, this had been André’s lucky day. The senator’s schedule was tightly packed, and with all the events of the last fourteen hours, he didn’t have time for any diversions, especially a killing and the requisite disposal of the body. This was something he wanted time to savor. He also wanted to know how much his young lover knew.

Snyder didn’t have the time to put all of the pieces together then, but lately something about André Martin had begun to bother him. Call it a feeling. Senator Snyder put a lot of stock in his intuition, especially when it was telegraphing danger signals.

Snyder had tried to rationalize his fears, thinking that as he was getting older he was getting more paranoid, but he knew this wasn’t true. In fact, it was quite the opposite. The older he got, the more attuned to his senses he had become. That morning, not wanting to appear suspicious, Snyder could glance over his shoulder only so many times in the taxicab on the way to Rolander’s house. Although he couldn’t have proved it, he knew he was being followed.

When he returned home to Georgetown, the entry hall was perfectly dry, but the mudroom at the rear entrance to the house was a different story. There was water there, even though someone had done their best to mop up. Snyder knew that person could only have been André Martin.

Snyder was also sure André had been listening in on his phone call with Agent Zuschnitt. When he’d hung up the phone, he had done so by depressing the switch hook so he could place another call to his office. André had not been fast enough in replacing the handset in the upstairs bedroom, and Snyder had heard him hang up. Those two pieces of evidence were enough to seal Martin’s fate.

From inside a false champagne split stored in the wet bar fridge of his den, Snyder removed the hypo and its potent drug. Minutes later he was at the shower door. With the thick steam and Snyder’s quick moves, André never had a chance of avoiding the needle.

Like a cat playing with a mouse, Snyder couldn’t deny himself the opportunity of toying with André. While he waited for the drug to take full effect, he asked him why he had followed him and why he had listened in on the phone call. To his credit, André was quite clever.

“You’ve been distant lately. You seem preoccupied with something or someone else,” said André, his muscles growing extremely weak, his eyes showing his terror despite their heavy lids. He knew what Snyder was capable of. He struggled to gather all of his faculties to present the strongest argument he could, but the fog of the drug was pulling him down with ever increasing speed. “I thought you might be seeing someone on the side. Why else would you leave the house in the middle of the night like you did?”

“What I do, my little André,” said Snyder as he yanked Martin’s hair to lift his head from where it had slumped against his chest, “is my business. I am a senator, you know, and have very important business at all times of the day and night.”

André tried desperately to convince him, though he knew he wasn’t buying it. “I…I love you and I couldn’t bear the thought of you with someone else. I’ve always been the jealous type.”

“Then why didn’t you confront me with it?”

“I was afraid. I wanted to be sure that you were really seeing someone else first. I didn’t want to look stupid if I was wrong.”

“Is that really it? Or do you have another reason for following me? What else have you seen?”

Snyder had turned off the water after he had injected him, and André now sat on the floor of the shower stall. The drugged man’s mouth hung slack, and a silvery stream of drool ran from the left-hand corner.

The senator slapped him to get his attention. “What about the telephone call I received this morning? What do you have to say about that?”

André laughed lightly and was mumbling something quietly to himself.

Snyder slapped him again, harder this time. He had used too much of the drug. He hadn’t seen it work like this before. It was no problem, though. When he returned home tonight, his victim would be willing to tell him anything. Of that he was sure.

He tried slapping André one more time. “What do you have to say?”

The mumbling continued, and the senator barked at him to speak up. When he did, Snyder was enraged.

“A little prick in the shower, that’s all it was. That’s all he was. A little prick from a little prick with a little prick,” said André as he started laughing to himself once again.

Snyder landed a blow to the side of his head, which stopped the laughing, as André Martin fell unconscious.