“You’re back.”
“The last time, Kator.”
“I know that, Jesso.”
“So move,” but nothing moved.
As once before, after Delf, when they had held each other with a grip that meant one of the two had to break and die, nothing happened. A door opened upstairs and they both turned. Then the door shut again, the moment went. Jesso didn’t know about Kator, but Jesso had to move right then. He turned toward the stairs and took them two at a time. Neither corridor showed a light. He went right, turned the bend, and then he opened the door to Renette’s rooms.
The bed was there, her clothes, and the decanter with the liqueur stood on a little table where the seat faced the window. She hadn’t moved the seat since that time. There wasn’t any noise from the shower, but he went in there just the same. If he hadn’t maybe the noise from the corridor might have reached him.
That same door had clicked again, only this time it flew open, hit the wall, and stayed there. Then Renette came out. She walked so that her hair bounced and dipped over the back of her neck, and there was nothing calm or gracious in her face. The eyes seemed to slant with anger and her parted lips showed her teeth. She headed for the stairs. Helmut von Lohe was close behind her, looking sharp in his riding clothes and making a tinkle with the spurs on his polished boots. His hair was combed over the skull the way he wanted it and his small red mouth had a new sharp cut to it. He followed Renette down the stairs.
So Jesso missed them. He saw that the bath was empty, the bedroom, the sitting room, and nothing in the dressing room. Her clothes were there; he checked her coats and furs, and it looked as if she had to be somewhere in the house. He started for the stairs as if he felt she had been calling.
It turned out there were plenty of rooms he hadn’t seen before. They were furnished for different moods with different doodads, but all Jesso saw was that they were empty. Once he passed Hofer, but Hofer was just a moving doodad, and then another room with furniture, walls, windows, portraits.
He saw them across an angle from one part of the house to another, behind the glass of the solarium, where the fat plants stood in the heat. Jesso couldn’t hear a word where he stood by the window, but the Baron’s face was working and his hands were making quick flutters. Then Jesso saw Kator. He stepped into sight, looked stolid. He reached out with both hands, seemed to talk in the same back-and-forth rhythm with which he pulled and pushed with his arms whatever he held there. That’s when Jesso saw Renette. Because of the plant Jesso never saw all of her, but the plant was shaking.
The only way to the solarium was back through the rooms that made the angle of the house. Jesso was breathing hard when he hit the salon with the silk and needle point, but racing to get there had taken none of the temper out of him. It made it worse, worse than in the plane with Kator, worse than in the hall a while ago. There wasn’t just Kator. There was Helmut, there was Renette, and Jesso slowed down when he got to the silk place because he didn’t know which way to jump first.
“He’s lying!” he heard Renette say. “Johannes, he’s making it up from spite. I said nothing to Jesso to cause this thing. His own failure-“
When Jesso burst through the door, they all turned.
“You all right?” he said without looking at her. He had stopped and was looking at Kator, feeling the same harsh pull come back, and it was only a question of five, six steps along the passage between tall plants and they would lock into each other like traps that couldn’t let go.
“Stay there,” she said. “I’m all right, Jesso.”
He walked around the little fountain and stopped.
“Did you touch her, Kator?”
“Jesso, leave,” she said.
Helmut had swiveled around. “You intrude!” he said, and there was a screech in his voice. “We will deal with you later!”
Jesso watched him flip a riding crop against his boot, and it might have looked funny at any other time. Now Kator folded his hands behind his back, legs wide, and suddenly it was as if they had all waited for him. When he opened his mouth the voice was like that of the commanding officer at a courtmartial.
“He stays. He’s the important one.”
“You’re damn right I’m staying.” He said it to Kator.
Kator didn’t move his head, only his eyes. He looked at Renette and said, “Was it on the train? Did he get it out of you on the train, Renette?”
“I told you!” She said it loudly, stamping her foot. “He knew nothing to cause this thing. Helmut botched it!”
Kator’s words flew into Jesso’s face like slaps. “What did she tell you? What did you make her say?”
“I don’t get it.”
It was so true and so simple that it caught Kator short. Then he bunched up all the poison and spat, “I can only guess how you worked her over so well, on the train to Munich, but you managed to do what my sister has never permitted. She informed on me, on her brother, and once again, Jesso, you have cost me a fortune.”
“Don’t deny it,” screamed Helmut.
“He will,” said Kator. “How did you do it, Jesso? What did you do on that train?”
“What did you do?” said Helmut, and his face was like filth.
Jesso didn’t get any of it, but nothing showed.
“I don’t talk about what I do in a bedroom,” he said, and he watched Helmut jerk back.
“Do you deny it?” Helmut yelled.
“Comb your hair, Helmut. It’s slipping.”
“I will ask you,” Kator said. “How did you ruin the Zimmer affair?”
“What’s a Zimmer affair?”
“Zimmer, you idiot!” and for once Kator was bellowing. “A year of delicate preparation! Thousands in expenditures, and when the time comes for the final closing, you step in, you worm it out of my sister, you give the tip to-to the others, and everything fails.”
Jesso let the sound die down. He looked from Kator to Helmut and said, “Who told you, Kator? That creep?”
“I told him,” said Helmut, “as it was my duty. No one knew of the arrangements with Zimmer except we three, and no one could have told you except poor Renette. Under what fiendish pressures-”
“Stop dreaming, Helmut. There’s spit on your chin.”
“Dreaming! You swine! My wife came back to me after you left, she confided to me as I suspect she was made to confide by you. She-“
“My God,” she said, “he’s out of his mind. Johannes, don’t you see his game? He wants to make you do it for him, set you against me, make you fight with Jesso.”
It made sense. It would be something like that and it would be somebody like Helmut to do it that way.
“I never heard of Zimmer or whatever it is, and Renette never said a word,” Jesso said, but the words were only a sound. They weren’t big enough or soon enough to catch up with the tension. From now on it hardly seemed to matter what was said. The big plants stood motionless and seemed to get darker. And under them, motionless like the plants, the three stood waiting in the half-light, waiting for the spark to blow it up.
“You’re lying, Jesso.” Kator moved his arm. He reached around, found Renette, and jerked her to his side. “And you, Renette, you lie.”
Kator had sounded quite still. His eyes never left Jesso, but suddenly his hand slammed against Renette’s face.
She hadn’t finished staggering when Jesso made his dash. His foot caught in a flagstone, and when he was half up there was Kator behind the gun.
“Get up.”
Jesso got up. This was it.
Kator knew this was it, but he wasn’t rushing. “Do you see the fountain, Jesso?”
He didn’t. The fountain was in back of him.
“Turn around and look at it, Jesso. I won’t shoot.”
Jesso knew that. Kator wouldn’t shoot without seeing the face.
“There is a cupid on the fountain, Jesso. Do you see it?”