“The blond man with the shotgun?”
“The owner of the barge? Dead.”
“So now?”
“So now I simply make other arrangements for the transfer of Herr Symmes and Herr Burchwood in Amsterdam. Where Ku failed, I shall succeed, and I assume that I shall be adequately compensated.”
“You can pilot a barge?”
“Of course not. I will merely transfer them to an automobile and drive to Amsterdam. There will be no trouble at the border. I checked their excellent papers that you so thoughtfully provided.”
“That takes care of everyone but me,” I said.
“I’m afraid, Herr McCorckle, that this is the end of our association.”
“And we were becoming such friends.”
Maas smiled faintly. “Always the joke, even at such a time.”
“There’s one you haven’t heard yet.”
“So?”
“That’s a single-shot you’re aiming at me. I don’t think you reloaded.”
Maas pulled the trigger and the hammer made a comforting click. He swung the shotgun down at me, but I had already begun to move and its barrel clanged on the steel railing. My right foot caught him in the stomach. It was a hard, satisfying kick. He belched and stumbled forward and fell on the railing. The shotgun dropped into the water. I edged myself around and gave him another kick and he tumbled over the edge, but his arms caught the rail. I hit at him weakly with my right hand. He slipped some more and dangled above the water, clutching the railing with only his hands.
“Please, Herr McCorkle; I cannot swim. Pull me up. Good Jesus, pull me up!”
I crawled to the rail and leaned over and looked down at him. Something scraped against the deck. It was my left hand. It still held the neck of the broken bottle.
I stared down at Maas. He stared back, his mouth making little round 0 shapes as he tried to make his arms lift his weight. They refused. His head twisted from side to side. His shoes scraped against the barge. He couldn’t pull himself up, but he could hang there all night.
“Drown, damn you,” I said, and raised the bottle and brought it down on his hands again and again until they were bloody and they didn’t clutch the rail anymore.
Chapter 21
The attendants were putting me in a strait jacket and chattering away like magpies about what kind of knots they should use when the pain came back and I could taste its bitterness far down into my throat.
But it wasn’t a strait jacket, it was only a life preserver, the Mae West type, and Symmes and Burchwood were struggling to get me into it.
“He’ll bleed to death,” Symmes said severely.
“Well, there’s no rowboat and I don’t go to all those summer camps without learning something.” That was Burchwood.
“I know what you learned,” Symmes said, and giggled.
“What town is this?” I said.
“He’s awake,” Burchwood said.
“I can see he’s awake.”
“We’re going to swim you ashore, Mr. McCorkle.”
“That’s nice.”
“That’s why we’re putting this life preserver on you,” Symmes said. “Russ used to be a lifeguard.”
“Good,” I said. “Have you got one for Padillo? He’s hurt.” I knew it was a stupid thing to say before I said it, but it came out anyway.
“Mr. Padillo isn’t here,” Symmes said. His voice was apologetic.
“Gone, huh?”
“Everybody’s gone, Mr. McCorkle.”
“Everybody’s gone,” I said dreamily. “Weatherby gone. Bill-Wilhelm gone. The blond kid on the wall a long time ago. He gone, too? The captain gone, and Maas is gone, and Ku is long gone. And the Albanians gone. And old partner Padillo gone. Goddamn, that’s something. Old partner Padillo.”
The water woke me up. Someone had me by the neck and was swimming somewhere. I was on my back. My left leg throbbed and I felt lightheaded. I leaned back into the life jacket and looked up at the stars. The water must have been cold because my teeth chattered. But I didn’t notice. I was too busy counting the stars.
They dragged me up the bank of the Rhine and flagged down a truck that was bound to the Bonn market with a load of chickens. I had to talk to the driver, because he spoke only German. I was standing there, supported by Symmes and Burchwood, sodden and scraggly, and trying to make up a reasonable lie about how my friends and I had been walking by the river and had fallen in. Finally I gave up and fished out all the money I had from the ruined billfold Wolgemuth had given me. I pressed it on the driver and gave him my address. For $154 he let us sit in the back of the truck with the chickens.
Burchwood and Symmes dragged me out of the truck and up the twelve steps to the front door of my house. “There’s a key under the mat. My clever, clever hiding place.”
Burchwood found it and opened the door. They half carried, half pushed me in and dumped me into my favorite chair so I could bleed on it for a while.
“You need a doctor,” Symmes said. “You’re bleeding again.”
“Whiskey,” I said. “At the bar. And cigarettes.”
Symmes went behind the bar and came back with a half-tumbler of whiskey and a lighted cigarette. I clutched the tumbler and managed to get it to my mouth, where if started to play a tune on my teeth. I sloshed some of it down. It was bourbon. I got some more down and then reached for the cigarette and took a long, grateful drag. Then some more whiskey and another lungful of smoke.
“Hand me the phone,” I told Burchwood.
“Who are you going to call?”
“A doctor.”
He handed me the phone and I dropped it. Burchwood picked it up and said, “What number?” I told him and he dialed it.
It rang for a while and a sleepy voice answered it. “Willi?”
“Ja.”
“McCorkle.”
“You drunk again, you and that no-good partner?”
“No. Not drunk yet. Just shot. Can you help?”
“I’ll be right there,” he snapped, and hung up.
I slopped some more whiskey down. The pain wouldn’t go away. “Dial ’nother number,” I told Burchwood. He looked at Symmes, who nodded. He dialed and the number rang. It rang a long time before it answered.
“Fredl,” I said. “S’Mac.”
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Home.”
When I awoke I was in my own bed between fresh clean sheets and daylight was creeping through a crack in the drawn drapes. Fredl sat in a chair next to the bed smoking a cigarette and drinking a cup of coffee. I moved experimentally and my thigh responded by sending out a wave of pain. My stomach felt as if someone had slammed a bat into it.
“You’re awake,” Fredl said.
“But am I alive?”
She leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. “Very much so. It took Dr. Klett an hour to pick the shot out of your thigh. He said you got only the fringe of the pattern. Also your stomach is going to be sore for a week or so and you bled a lot. And, finally, what in God’s name have you been up to?”
“Too much,” I said. “Where are Symmes and Burchwood?”
“Those two!” she sniffed.
“You jealous?”
“No, they just seemed so tired and pathetic — and lost, I suppose.”
“They’ve been through a lot, but they’re O.K. I’d hate to see anything happen to them.”
“One’s asleep in the den. The other’s on the couch in your living room.”
“What time is it?”
“Almost noon.”
“What time did I call you?”
“About three this morning. You passed out right after that, they said. Then the doctor arrived and started to use his tweezers. He said that you lost quite a lot of blood — that you’ll be weak for a few days.”