“Have another drink, Lieutenant. On the house.”
I sipped a second watery Scotch while he prepared a tray of schnappes for some noisy soldiers at a corner table. Business sounded good by the grunts and screams and whipcracks echoing from the curtained alcoves lining the room, but the place stank of stale beer and semen, and I didn’t plan to hang around. When an aged three-piece orchestra groaned into life and the curtain opened on the crucifixion of a nude Slav with stringy blonde hair and saggy tits, I slid the change from my first drink across the bar and got up. The Professor hurried over and asked me if I wanted him to circulate the sketch, and I let him have it. Who could tell, he might come up with something. I could always pick it up and get a few dupes made tomorrow, and anyway I wasn’t in the mood to search through every bar and flophouse in the neighborhood for the rest of the night.
As I walked out a reeling sailor was driving the first nail through the blonde’s palm, and she was squirming on the cross like a fat snake as the blood squirted into the air, her mouth gulping in the same mute scream as the big buck in the Garden. I wondered why they were always tracheotomized, since you’d think the screaming would be a natural turn-on for the fans. So they wouldn’t beg, probably.
The fresh night air felt good, and I took a roundabout way back to the car, passing through Washington Square Park and wondering where the Jew had buried his precious skull. A shiver tingled up my spine, and I hurried on. Somebody walking on my grave. Or somebody planning to put me in it.
By the time I got home I was feeling sick again. I’d always had a nervous stomach and it was working overtime today. The night was warm, somewhere in the sixties, but I still felt clammy and as I lit a cigarette I noticed with clinical detachment that my hands were trembling slightly. I stood by the stoop for a minute, needing the smoke but almost gagging on it, watching the lights go out in the wop deli across the way. It was past two and nobody was on the streets except an old Bowery bum scavenging garbage cans on the corner. I had to be under surveillance, of course, it wouldn’t make sense if I wasn’t, but whoever was doing the job was an expert. I felt even colder.
As I ground out the cigarette the bum shuffled up, a battered shopping bag full of junk clutched under one arm, his shredded winter overcoat flopping around his ankles.
“Got any small change, pal?” he whined. “I ain’t eaten all day, just enough for a bowla soup, hah?”
It wasn’t soup he wanted, I knew the feeling, so I tossed him a ten-mark piece. He deftly fielded it and grinned, baring yellow stumps of teeth.
“Odin love you, friend. Widdya have a cigarette too, maybe, I’m goin’ crazy for one, I sure would appreciate it.”
Soft Touch Haider. I took out the pack of Loreleis, put one in my mouth and leaned over to hand him another. He grabbed the pack with blackened hands, scrabbled a cigarette out and held it up to my lighter, his stubbled face bathed in the flame, bleary eyes fixed on mine. He must have worn that coat year round by the smell of it.
“Thanks mate, the best of luck.”
I just grunted and turned away. I’d mounted the steps and put the key in the lock before it registered: the fingers that took my cigarette were filthy all right, but the nails were polished, manicured. I hadn’t heard him come up behind me but I wheeled around just as his arm slammed past my neck and struck the door, the rigid chopping edge of the palm splintering the central panel like cardboard. It wasn’t any lightning reflex that saved me, just sheer clumsiness. As he spun around and slashed out again with his left I toppled backwards over the stoop and sprawled into the basement areaway, a pile of old newspapers partially breaking my fall. I lay there dazed for a few seconds as he leaped to the sidewalk, but he had to come down another flight of steps to reach me and the time it took him was enough for me to get the Schmeisser out and cocked. He saw it as he appeared on top of the steps crouched in the classic karate attack position, feet pointed out, arms flung back, hands poised to strike. The street lamp framed him in a pool of light as he stood motionless for a second, the coat billowing behind him, a ludicrous little old man who could probably kill me with one blow.
I held up the Schmeisser in both hands.
“Lie down flat on the sidewalk with your arms over your head or you’re dead.”
The words came out a croak, but with some surprise I noticed my hands were steady. He just stood there for what seemed like an hour but could only have been a few seconds and then he was airborne, flying at me feet first as the gun bucked in my hand. I’d set it on automatic and the bullets tore him apart in the air, punching the body back five feet onto the steps. I struggled to my feet and looked down at him. The chest was gone, just a gleaming wet hole, and one leg had been torn off below the knee, the stump pumping out blood like a. broken fire plug. But his weather-beaten face was untouched, the broken mouth rictused in an ugly smile. Lights were flashing on across the street and I could hear shouts from the upstairs windows, but I just stood looking down at him, a little crumpled panhandler who must also have been a black belt, and who wanted me dead. I could hear a siren in the distance so I hurriedly propped him up against the steps, trying without much success to keep my hands and clothes clear of the blood, and started the messy job of searching the remains. But as I pulled his coat back the streetlight shone clearly on his face, and I started. There was something wrong about the man’s features, they seemed to be melting. I reached down, touched the bristly chin, then ran my fingers up behind the ears. His head came off in my hands.
I could hear running footsteps but I didn’t look up. It was a beautiful job, molded out of some plasticene substance, replete with mobile lips and those convincingly ruined teeth. The face of the glossy-haired young man who lay in front of me was finely featured, the flat black eyes serene in death, the yellow skin not yet cold to my touch. I remembered something Kohler told me during the Toronto business and pulled back the grubby sleeve of his undamaged arm. Oh the underside of the wrist was a tiny tattooed red dot. The little old derelict who had tried to murder me was an agent of Komeito, the Intelligence arm of the Japanese Imperial Staff.
Before it could really sink in, a patrolman was standing over me with a drawn gun and I had to spend the next half hour identifying myself and persuading the boys in the squad car to forego standard procedures. Finally we dragged the corpse into the back of the car and I went into my apartment to change my blood-spattered clothes and ring Kohler. Somehow, he didn’t sound surprised.
“Get him over here right away, I’ll call the precinct and tell them it’s security. Do you have any press?”
“Not yet, but somebody in the 22nd will have tipped off the News by now. At least they weren’t monitoring calls or I’d be up to my balls in ’em already.”
“All right, if anybody shows just refer them to me. And for God’s sake don’t flash that authorization of von Leeb’s around or they’ll be all over us.”
He was waiting outside the Federal Building on Chambers Street when we pulled up, flanked by Beck and a burly guy in shirt sleeves propping up a stretcher. We unloaded the Jap and sent the two patrolmen off with instructions to keep quiet, for all the good that would do. Kohler told Beck and the other guy to carry the corpse down to the lab and get to work, then led me to his office.
I’d been operating almost automatically till then, high on adrenalin, but die minute I sagged into a chair I started shaking again, not just the hands this time. I’d only killed a guy once before, when I was a rookie, and then it had been strictly in the line of duty, a crazy Mick who’d run berserk with a carving knife and was going for my partner. I hadn’t enjoyed it, but it hadn’t bothered me that much either. This, somehow, was more personal. That bastard wanted me dead, and all that stopped him was one little slip. Clean fingernails. Shit.