He saw it. A small copper cupid, looking wet and green, and no larger than a toy dog.
“He is raising one hand, isn’t he, Jesso?”
He was. He was sort of waving one baby hand.
“Now you see it, now you don’t,” Kator said, and behind Jesso’s back the gun went off with a sharp crash and Kator was right. The little hand was gone.
He was good. He had shot right past Jesso’s middle, with maybe inches to spare, and the cupid’s arm had a shiny end where the metal hand had been ripped off.
“And now turn around again.”
Jesso turned around.
“I knew this would impress you,” Kator said. “Helmut, what else did she tell you?”
The Baron straightened himself as if he were going to give a speech at graduation.
“Once Renette began to confide in me, she held back nothing. He wanted to take her away from us-from me-set her against you, dear Johannes, and-“
“Stop him, Johannes!” Renette’s voice was sharp. “Send him away, or you’ll never stop playing it his way. And the gun, Johannes.”
“You are wrong, Renette. This is my way. And Jesso’s way. Isn’t it, Jesso?”
“No, Johannes, don’t! Neither of you will win. Leave each other, let it go!” She reached for Kator’s arm and flinched.
He had snapped up his arm, ready to hit again, but he did not strike. His gun was steady and a slow thing came over his face like an ugly grin. Jesso had moved, Kator saw that. And when Renette had stepped away Jesso relaxed.
“It’s time, Jesso.” Kator’s face did not change. He kept staring at Jesso, daring him, and there was a constant triumph on his face.
“Come here, Renette.” He waved at her without turning. “Jesso,” he said, “for a while I thought you were very much like me. A man without a flaw. Look, Jesso.” Kator reached around, taking Renette by the arm. He pulled her and she winced.
“Look, Jesso,” he said when she stood next to him. “Look!”
Kator’s hand came up in a fist, slowly. He held it in the air, very still, so that Jesso could see the knuckles turn white. One of his tricks, one of his intelligent tricks, to give it a stretch before tearing it. Jesso held still, not believing that Kator would do it when the fist blurred, stopped with a jar that made a sick sound, and Renette stumbled back. And Jesso charged. And the gun exploded.
Kator had played it his way, for the sport. He hadn’t meant to kill, and he hadn’t. And that’s how he played it Jesso’s way.
The gun went off again, but the bullet went wild because first the target was gone and then the target had turned attacker with the gun snapping out of Kator’s hand and a fist exploded in his right eye.
Helmut was gone. Spurs tinkling, he had dashed from the room, and only Renette stood there. Her face was cut but she seemed not to know it. She stood and looked, and when she cried her shoulders did not move.
It was a while before Jesso and Kator stopped rolling like one mass of evil strength while the fat leaves shook, large plants dipped, leaned, and slowly toppled to fall with a sound like a splash-but that wasn’t how it went. It was like an instant spasm with beginning and end all in one while they cut at each other, the cut that was going to kill one or both. That’s how it was to Jesso, and it was the same to Kator. He never knew when he didn’t see any more. He never knew when he changed from a man to a mass and was dead.
Jesso didn’t know either. He might have stopped sooner. As it was, he sat under the broken leaves of the dark-green plant long after it was still.
Chapter Twenty-four
“You haven’t changed since yesterday. Since then.” Renette looked at his spurs.
“No,” said Helmut. “I’ve been too busy.”
“I know. They came very fast.”
“I was on the phone when it happened, my dear. I was not standing there, being sentimental.”
“No. You were clever, for once.”
“And now you, dear Renette. Now you must be clever. The crime was murder, first degree. Remember, Renette. First degree, and Johannes fired in self-defense.”
“You know that is false.”
“What was it, my dear? A crime passionnel?”
“You know what it was, Helmut.”
“Yes, and what will happen if you say so?”
“Maybe he will go free. Soon.”
“And come back, like a leech and a disease. Is that what you want?”
“You should talk of disease.”
“Ah! So you admire it, all of it.”
“It was useless and ugly. And it killed Johannes.”
“How sentimental of you! Johannes left us everything.”
“Not us, Helmut. Me.”
“And you don’t resent the gift, do you? The wealth, the freedom.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Then be clever, Renette. Cold-blooded murder, you understand? Anything else and it might take years. Years in litigation, from one court to the next-“
“And you couldn’t wait that long, could you, Helmut?”
“So you love him.”
“I do not despise him, as I despise you.”
“Be clever, Renette. I want nothing from you. I don’t interfere with you one way or the other.”
“You won’t.”
“But I will, if you don’t share with me what he left.”
“Helmut, listen to me-”
“I might even get it all, if you do not act as I say.”
“Listen to me, Helmut. Have you thought of this? You killed Johannes. You attacked him, Johannes fired, and Jesso, trying to pull you apart, got shot.”
“You’re being absurd!”
“Jesso will say the same thing. We had just a moment before they took him. He explained it to me.”
“You must be insane, Renette!”
“So don’t threaten me, Helmut. Nobody threatens me any more.”
“No. Johannes is dead. But Jesso isn’t.”
“He doesn’t threaten me.”
“I forget. You love him. Do you love him enough to go to prison, too? Not in the same one, my dear, not with him, but just a prison?”
“Now you’re absurd.”
“Perhaps, but it’s worth a try. Like your trying to implicate me. I could say you engineered the whole thing, the murder, the passport. Even-“
“None of this would stand up in court. And I would never murder my brother.”
“Of course. But it might take years. We would lose everything in the meantime. My name, which means nothing to you. Your money, which means a great deal to you. And your freedom, Renette. For a long time-your freedom.”
“You are clever, Helmut.”
“Of course.”
“But you’re wasting your time.”
“You don’t believe what I said?”
“What I believe I believed before you came.”
“Three o’clock,” said Helmut, and he got out of his chair. “The police Prafekt will be waiting.”
Jesso looked at the bars in the window, and at their shadows, stretching big across the wall. When he stood up they reached across his face. He sat down, facing the wall where the washbasin stood, because that corner looked least like a prison. He wasn’t trying to get used to the bars. There was no point in that. Ten minutes, five minutes, maybe, and she would be here. In five minutes the testimony, and then he would be free. Kator was dead and he was free. Renette was outside and he was free. Five minutes perhaps.
He got up and moved carefully. His arm was in a sling and the wound where the bullet had cut through felt hot. When he got out he would go to a real doctor, he would pay a real doctor and not leave it the way some underpaid prison quack fixed it up, with iodine and some stinking ointment. Jesso could smell the reek of it through the bandage. Or perhaps it was the reek of the prison. The whole place stank, and if he were staying he would go crazy. He’d go out of his mind without trying to stop it. He walked the length of the room a few times, walking as if he were crossing a street. It wasn’t impatience and he didn’t feel he was waiting. He was hardly there any more. Then the door opened.
The guard waved and showed him the way. It was behind the bend in the corridor. The door was paneled wood and inside he saw wallpaper and curtains on the windows. He saw Renette. He saw also the guard, a stenographer, the Prafekt with his gray mustache, and Helmut. Behind the curtains on the windows there were bars. But for Jesso there was only Renette.