But he went on up the steps and pressed the bell. Mitzi followed, then halfway up she stumbled and dropped her handbag. It hit the stone below with a sharp glassy pop.
'Scheisse!'
Ipicked it up. 'What the hell have you got in there?'
'It was just a little pot I had bought. I thought to ask Herr Gadulla if it was real.'
'I hope it wasn't.' I took it up the steps. The door creaked open and dim light filtered out. A pot goespopi I opened the handbag and shook out the ruins of a light bulb.
Or signal gun.
A soldier ran into the alley behind us, pointing an Uzi.
'Please do not move,' said the voice of Mihail Ben Iver.
30
Of course, hewas a soldier; any Israeli his age would still be on the reserve. And if you happen to want to take your submachine gun to a party, you'd attract comment in civilian dress and no second glance in uniform.
He arranged us competently: Ken, Gadulla and me in chairs jammed into a corner, with nothing we could reach or kick within range. But not until Mitzi had searched us. Gadulla didn't like that. Not one bit he didn't.
Mitzi stood back, mousey eyes glinting and smiling watchfully.
Ken asked: 'I suppose young fuzzy-chops found out where you were staying and came a-calling?'
Ben Iver said: 'Miss Spohr decided to change her agent. She thought I might get her a better deal.'
Well, maybe. He could cut out Ken and me and Gadulla – if Gadulla agreed to turn up the sword at all – but he'd also be cutting himself a big slice of the action.
'Is that the gun that killed Papadimitriou?' Ken asked.
Ben Iver grinned. 'Hardly.'
It had been a ridiculous question. But the answer had solved Papa's death, all right.
'Any more questions?' Ben Iver asked cheerfully, his glasses twinkling in the lamplight. 'Or shall we move on to item three, like where is the sword?"
Nobody said anything, Gadulla in particular. Mitzi looked hopefully at Ben Iver. He held the gun one-handed – you can do that easily with a small, compact gun like the Uzi – and took out a smallish colour photograph.
'You know this, of course?' He waggled it at Gadulla. 'It was the original redemption ticket you gave Professor Spohr in return for the sword.'
'He stole it from me,' Gadulla said bleakly.
Mitzi looked a bit sharp, but Ben Iver nodded. 'That sounds more likely.'
I asked: 'Are we too young to see this picture?'
'No, but I would prefer to describe it. It shows Mr Gadulla in happy conversation with a certain Palestinian terrorist leader who lives in Beirut – or is it Damascus? Anyway, the likenesses are very good. I really don't know why people allow such pictures to be taken.'
Nor do I, yet you see books about the French Resistance with wartime group photos, everybody clutchinga Sten gun and grinning like a toothpaste ad, and what the Gestapo would have done if they'd found one of those pictures…
'It isn't evidence,' Ken said.
'Evidence, schmevidence. We know it would at least put Mr Gadulla across the border into Jordan, stateless, homeless, all his property here confiscated. Ha Mosad – which you kindly thought I belonged to – doesn't need legal evidence.'
He held up the photo. 'So I have here one pawn ticket for one sword.'
'It was in the letter Spohr wrote to Gadulla?' I asked, just to get things straight. 'Did Papa know what it was?'
Ben Iver shook his head without looking at me. 'Not exactly. But he had the sort of mind that understands blackmail. Now, please – the sword.'
Gadulla went on looking like a bent hawk for a moment longer, then nodded. 'If I may stand up?'
'Carefully.'
Gadulla went to a thin, colourful rug hanging on the wall, unhooked it and lifted the sword down from the pegs behind.
'Has it been there all the time?' Ken asked, staring.
'Only a few hours,' He laid it carefully on the table under the lamp and sat down. Mitzi moved quickly across to look.
I'd never really expected to meet it and so hadn't any high hopes about it, but even so I wasn't much impressed. It was just a big, very sword-like sword. A long straight, slightly tapered blade two inches wide at the top, and with occasional little nicks of rust. But painted with some brownish-red stuff – probably a rust inhibitor the Prof had slapped on.
The hilt looked oddly thin: just a bar of rough metal leading up from a straight crosspiece and loosely wrapped with a tangle of grimy gold wire. There'd probably been a grip of wood, long rotted, with the wire binding it in place. And at the top, fat as a small plum, the pommel, with the crest on one side, a wine-coloured jewel on the other.
Mitzi had her sharp eyes right down on it, almost as if she was trying to pick up a scent.'Ufert… the name is right… and three leopards, passant guardant…' she rubbed the crest carefully with her thumb; '… that is right… and the jewel. Yes!'
'Is that a ruby?' Ken asked.
'Ruby?' Ben Iver leant forward.
Mitzi shrugged. 'Miss Travis told you: they did not put yet real gems in German swords.' She had a ring on her finger with a tiny diamond; she scratched at the 'ruby'. 'No, it is what you call"balas".'
'Spinel,' Ben Iver said sadly. I think he'd have been more at home with a genuine gem and a doubtful sword, but you can't have everything.
Mitzi lifted the sword reverently. It must have weighed like a bad conscience and I'd hate to have been on the consumer's end, but it still looked just a rather crude old sword.
Not to her. 'It was mine and now Ihave it! '
Ken said gently: 'Bruno didn't plan on you getting it'
She swung round on him. 'He had no right. / am his daughter. When he is dead his money is mine, not to some criminals in here and Beirut! '
I said: 'But he wasn't going to die…' then remembered he was, anyway. Then I knew why he'd died.'You told him he'd got cancer. The doctors had told you secretly, the way they do, and you got into a row that night – it would be about money, wouldn't it? – and you said "Screw you, dear daddy, you'll be dead in two months and it'll all be mine anyway." The jolt of that, and knowing he'd got just two months of pain to come, he rings Gadulla then posts the two letters… It figures.'
Mitzi was looking at me with a little mousey Mona Lisa smile.
Ken swallowed. 'If he's determined to do her down, why not leave a note saying what happened?'
'Let's put in one more scene. For neatness. She doesn't go out. She hears a shot. She goes in next door: one dead father, one suicide note. She confiscates that, maybe she goes through his papers. But nobody's come running. So she can walk out, to prove her uninvolvement -and get rid of the note. She daren't dispose of that around the hotel.'
Ben Iver said: 'Please do not go on. These family dramas make us Jews feel very sentimental.'
Mitzi turned and glared at him. 'I did not know he would kill himself!'
I nodded. 'It caused you a lot of trouble when he did. You just wanted him to appreciate his last two months to the full.'
Beside me, Ken gave a little shiver.
Gadulla said calmly: 'If I may have the photograph?'
Ben Iver seemed surprised to find it in his hand, then crunched it and tossed it across. Gadulla picked itöS the floor – Arabs aren't ball players – uncrumpled it, looked at it unemotionally. Then stood up again slowly. 'May I?'
He went to the table and lit the spirit stove. 'Of course, you may have copied this.'
Ben Iver shrugged. 'So may the Professor. But you have what you always expected. And we are both in business… there may be a time when we can work together.'
Gadulla nodded briefly, held the photo to the stove. There's something about flame that makes you watch it. Ben Iver said: 'I think that is the best-'
Mitzi hit him with the sword.
It was a simple back-hand swing, and if she couldn't put much weight behind it, the sword had plenty of its own. Ben Iver got his arms up and the sword chopped into them, swept them back past his head and sliced into the bridge of his nose, exploding his glasses. And stuck there. He slammed back against the wall – and then I got my eyes shut.