“Then I did drive to Gellersheim, and so forth.”
I ground out the cigarette butt with my heel and kicked it under a shelf. Then I turned back to Charlie.
“At some point, Eberhard Schmitz told you about my visit, and you gave Axel orders to go to the villa. To take me to the bunker was the second big mistake. If Axel had just locked me up somewhere else for a day, the refugees could have been deported in all directions of the compass, and everything would have been hunky dory. Axel may be a big guy, but he’s not all that smart. And that gets us back to you. As soon as I showed up at your place tonight, you realized that I had to be eliminated. Schmitz had given you the use of the villa, and if anything happened there, you were responsible. So you decided to pretend that it was all your brother’s doing, A pretty dumb idea, especially considering that it was I who suggested it. I don’t know what your plan was-maybe you were going to tell these two to liquidate me by tomorrow morning. All I know is that if I had come through this door first, I wouldn’t have stood much of a chance of informing the press.”
The only sound in the room came from the humming lights. Slibulsky was chewing on a matchstick, Axel had closed his eyes, Charlie was patting his nose with the handkerchief. They looked like three guys who had gone in on a Porsche and then totaled it immediately. While the wrecker was picking up the pieces, everyone realized how much he disliked the other two.
I lit a new one and took a couple of drags. “Now as for you, Slibulsky-I had been hoping all along that I was mistaken. I didn’t think you were the kind of guy who robs every last dime from people and then sends them off to their deaths. You’re working for Charlie, so if he tells you to keep an eye on me-that’s all right. And since you couldn’t just go back to him and tell him that I was on my way to Gellersheim, you had to write that note. But now I see you here, divvying up the spoils, and that goes beyond your duties as an employee. What’s your share? Twenty, thirty thousand? And a kilo of earrings? You’re just another one of those cheapskates who will crawl into any sewer if there’s money in it.”
Slibulsky kept chewing his match and staring holes into the floor. Only his left hand had now moved into his pocket for warmth.
Charlie cleared his throat, discreetly.
“I hope you realize that you’re just making up a bunch of shit.”
I went to the table, picked up a handful of jewelry and flung it into his face.
“And what about that? Is that just a bunch of shit?”
He started jabbing his index finger into the air and screeched hysterically: “You’re out of your mind, snooper, you’re completely out of your mind!” Then, to Slibulsky: “Tell your buddy that he’s out of his mind-tell him to take the money and leave us alone!”
“Are you guys crazy?” Axel emerged from his stupor. His face, as far as it was visible in all that hair, was pale and contorted by hate. Beads of sweat were dripping off his eyelashes. “You’re scared of this asshole-this asshole?”
He turned, spraying a trail of blood on the floor.
“What do you think would happen if I told the cops that you wanted to liberate that bunch of illegals-eh? Those guys don’t give a shit about noble ideals, any more than we give a shit about your talk about friends! Listen, Ali, we’re not in the Balkans here-and Slibulsky is no Sir Galahad! None of us gives a shit if your dago brothers are sent home!”
“They’re not being sent home. They-”
“I know, they get offed. Let me tell you, Ali, I wipe my ass with your bleeding heart!”
There was a pounding in my temples. I pulled the Remington out, slowly, and aimed the revolver at his left eye, the automatic at the right. “Where is the money?”
The holes in his arm must have deprived him of all common sense. His eyes open wide, he hissed: “You wouldn’t dare,” and his shadow advanced toward me. “We’ve been putting up with your shit long enough. Check your knees, they’re shaking. You’re just a bad April Fool’s joke. So why don’t you just say ‘April Fool,’ and give my gun back, and fuck off!”
He was only inches away from grabbing the guns. Blood began to boil in my ears. Suddenly, a voice behind me said “April Fool!” There were two gunshots, and Axel’s head snapped back, now covered in a paste of brains and hair. He was dead before the echoes of those shots subsided.
Charlie shook. He had jumped up from his chair and was staring at the huge bleeding body toppling to the floor. He turned as pale as only a man shaking with fear in a dirty yellow light could turn pale. A red puddle was spreading out around Axel’s head. I turned. Slibulsky sat where he had been sitting all along. The only difference was that he held a pistol in his left hand. Slowly he slipped it back into the side pocket of his jacket and took the match out of his mouth. His lips twitched a little.
Without a word we dragged the corpse past fenders and hubcaps to a grassy spot where the ground was softer. While Charlie kept vomiting between two wrecked cars, Slibulsky and I dug a hole. The moon stood directly overhead. I seemed to be evolving into a gravedigger.
After the ground had been flattened out again and the shovels had been returned to their shed, Slibulsky handed me my wallet. I went to the office to order two taxicabs. Meanwhile, Slibulsky got a black suitcase from the Toyota. After that we went back to the warehouse, stuffed the dead dog into a plastic bag, and collected the jewelry.
The three of us regained the street, and I dropped the plastic bag into a public wastebasket. Green-faced, Charlie leaned against a lamppost, staring vacantly into space and crumbling a small cigar between his fingers. Slibulsky sat on the curb. I stepped into the light of the streetlamp and lit a cigarette.
“If any of this becomes public, I’ll blame it all on you-a fight over the loot, something like that. If that should happen, Schmitz’s name would hit the papers, too, and I’m not sure who would get the worst of his fury, you or me.”
Charlie nodded.
A little later, the first cab arrived, and Charlie got in. Soon after that the second one came, and Slibulsky and I got in the back with our suitcase full of money and the bag of jewelry. I told the cabbie to take us to the airport.
We rode in silence for a while, and the cabbie cast several suspicious glances at us in the rearview mirror. Then he started to discuss the pointlessness of Daylight Saving Time, all by himself, and all by himself he stopped discussing it. Finally he decided to turn on the radio.
When we got to the autobahn, I asked Slibulsky: “Why didn’t you hand me that gun?”
Leaning forward a little, Slibulsky fussed with his cast. “You already had two,” he replied without looking up. “No one can use three guns at the same time.”
“But if I had really searched you, how do you think I would have reacted?”
Slibulsky didn’t say anything. I looked out the window at the passing lights of American high-rises. My arm throbbed, and I could still feel the tetanus and rabies shots in my ass.
“What I don’t understand is why Schmitz let you use that villa. Never mind what his cut may have been, those are ridiculous sums by his standards.”
“He gave it to us because Axel was his nephew.”
I gave a start. “So it was Schmitz’s nephew you-.” I stopped myself just in time. The cabbie seemed to find it hard to get comfortable in his driver’s seat. Slibulsky must have forgotten him, or he just didn’t give a damn at that moment; in any case, he shrugged and said: “Axel would have killed you. He kept ranting all day about his moment of weakness there in front of the bunker. And after his doggie got atomized … I had no choice. Unless you had pulled the trigger-and it didn’t look like you would.”
When we arrived at the airport and I handed the driver his money, he did not look at me, and his hand shook.