The Fall Guy

by Ritchie Perry

  *

  Even from where I was lying there could be no doubt Lutz was dead. The entry wound in the middle of his forehead was small and clean, the mixture of blood, brains and bone messing up the wallpaper suggested it was a different story at the back. Stifling my repugnance I went across to him, knowing there wasn’t a great deal of time to set the scene for crowds materialized from nowhere in Brazil and a variety of sounds were already converging on my room. Lutz had his gun in a shoulder holster and, trying not to look at his head, I pulled it out, a handkerchief wrapped round my hand. When the first of the curious arrived, a hotel porter, I was still bending over the corpse but the gun was lying by Lutz’s right hand. The porter won by a short head from a gaggle of three or four other competitors, all of them stopping in the doorway to gawp at the gory tableau.

  ‘Robbers,’ I gasped, still doubled over, my gun in one hand and the other clamped over my bruised diaphragm. ‘They tried to rob me.’

  The performance taxed my acting ability to its limits. To avoid further explanations I stumbled across to a chair. With my head in my hands, apparently overwhelmed by the events of the last few minutes, I was in a position to ignore the babble of speculation and start dreaming up a story which would get me off the hook.

  After five minutes or so a 100 decibel increase in noise signified the advent of the police, three of the vanguard posting themselves round my chair. I was busily maintaining my air of bemused shock, not all of it assumed, but this was completely wasted. There were soon at least twenty policemen crowded into the room, both uniformed and in plain clothes, and the result was indescribable chaos. In fact, if I hadn’t been so intimately involved, I would probably have laughed. Scores of instructions were being hurled out and instantly countermanded, one group of plain-clothes men was on the verge of blows and the room was so full there was scarcely space for the body.

  Gradually, however, a chain of command was established and a semblance of order created. An official photographer, who behaved as though he was a refugee from the Italian press, took shots of Lutz from every conceivable angle, plus a few which weren’t. A couple of men appeared with a collapsible stretcher, threw Lutz on to it and carted him away, leaving only a chalked outline of the body and a lot of blood behind them. Eventually they were so well organized someone remembered they had the killer in the bag already.

  At once I became the focus of attention, half a dozen detectives gathering round to bombard me with questions, most of them totally irrelevant. There were so many of them trying to horn in on the act they didn’t even manage to set up any of the elementary traps policemen seemed to delight in, not that I would have contradicted myself in any case. Everything I told them was gospel truth, although I did neglect to inform: them of a few salient facts and I might have misled them a trifle by saying Joao and Lutz’s intent had been robbery pure and simple. With these minor exceptions I was a veritable George Washington, hammering home the point I’d killed only in defence of life and property. Loath as they were to believe me I was getting the message across after about an hour and a half. Nevertheless, when the police began a mass exodus they asked me to accompany them.

  *

  My departure from the hotel in the middle of a tight police cordon bore some resemblance to a royal progress. The corridor was lined with curious spectators and the foyer downstairs was absolutely packed, flash-bulbs popping frantically and even a small television crew on the scene. The police phalanx forced its way to the exit, one or two senior officers peeling off to give their exclusive interviews, and hustled me down the steps to the waiting line of cars. Mine was at the head of the queue, motor already idling and the driver at the wheel, completely incurious behind his shades. Ungentle hands pushed me into the back seat, a policeman squeezed in on either side and we were away before the rear doors had banged shut, leaving all the hullabaloo behind.

  Sinking back as comfortably as I could in the crowded conditions I tried to unwind, although there was no great rush. No court, not even a Brazilian one, was likely to convict me for killing Lutz but there was the dilatory police procedure to go through and, quite probably, considerable delay before the inquest. However much I paid to grease the wheels of justice there would be no question of departing from Rio Grande until the matter had been cleared up.

  My immediate preoccupation was with how I could contact Lydia and Reece so it was a moment or two before I realized the policeman on my right was digging me in the ribs. Seconds later I registered the fact he had his gun pressed into my side and I turned to him in surprise.

  ‘Just sit still and behave yourself,’ he said, undisguised menace in his voice.

  Taken aback, I wondered what on earth he was talking about. Apart from the inconvenience I didn’t have a great deal to worry over and it was in my own best interests to co-operate with the police. Either the man was trigger happy or he’d been watching too many bad movies.

  ‘Try not to kill him,’ the driver broke in. ‘The boss wants to ask him some questions.’

  The voice was familiar, one I’d heard less than two hours earlier, and a quick glance confirmed the identification. For all his police uniform and dark glasses the driver was indisputably Joao, the man I’d so charitably refrained from shooting at the hotel.

  Despite the small icebergs in my veins I was unable to suppress a sneaking admiration for Joao, and presumably Biddencourt. In under two hours they’d not only managed to acquire three police uniforms from God knew where but cooked up a plan which had whisked me away from two dozen genuine policemen with hundreds of civilians looking on. This made the second occasion in a matter of days that I’d been taken for a ride by bogus policemen and, of the two, Joao’s masquerade was so professional it put Reece’s amateur theatricals completely in the shade. The measure of its brilliance was that although I’d been the central character I didn’t have the slightest idea how I’d been spirited out of official hands.

  Nor did I discover how the getaway was effected. Once the suburbs of Rio Grande had fallen behind us I sat unprotesting under the threat of the gun while the man on my left picked a spot with clinical detachment and tapped it with his riot stick.

  *

  I came round to the carolling of birds and a nasty pain in the head. Tactile examination proved there was no dent in my skull, just a big lump behind my left ear, but it had been some tap, my watch showing it was now the middle of the afternoon. Sometime during the period of unconsciousness I’d arrived wherever it was Joao had been instructed to bring me and, judging by the accommodation, I wasn’t regarded as an honoured guest. In fact the room was specifically designed to aggravate my claustrophobic tendencies — bare walls, high ceiling, solid door and small, barred window. The furniture wasn’t out of Ideal Home either, affording me no aesthetic pleasure whatsoever. The carpet, for want of a better name, was worn down to its jute backing, no hint of its former pattern remaining, the small, lopsided table was made of a close relation to plywood and an all wooden chair had been put together from a child’s do-it-yourself kit by someone unable to follow the instructions. And, finally, there was the bed, a sagging, iron-framed monstrosity which might have been the ultimate in comfort back in the Dark Ages but which definitely wasn’t meant for twentieth century man. I knew because I was the twentieth-century man lying on it.

  Even my throbbing head didn’t tempt me to stay on the lumpy mattress. The antique washbasin in one corner hadn’t struck me as particularly decorative, now I discovered it wasn’t functional. My first attempt to turn the solitary, rusty tap failed to budge it an inch and repeated efforts were no more successful. This left the window as my only entertainment. There was a lovely view if you liked hills and trees and the rest of the nature scene and it was cool enough to suggest the house was several hundred feet above sea level. Personally I preferred streets and people and neon signs to being held prisoner in the foothills behind Pelotas which was where I had to be. The area didn’t exactly rank with the Yangtze basin a
s a centre of population, averaging about one peasant to the square mile, and I couldn’t see the one in my sector doing anything to rescue me. This left Reece and, knowing how unfrequented the roads were in the region, I didn’t rate his chances of having done a successful tail job very highly, not unless he doubled as the Invisible Man or had a helicopter in his suitcase. This assumed he’d been in position outside the hotel when I’d been snatched.

  One way or another the prospect didn’t make me want to leap for joy. Being a prisoner wasn’t my favourite pastime and screaming got on my nerves, especially when it was a woman screaming. It began as I turned away from the window, a full-blooded affair expressing everything a scream normally did — terror, revulsion, pain. Every hair on my head bristled for the three minutes the shrieks lasted, then they tailed off into gurgling sobs and I went back to the bed to think about the kind of people who could make a woman scream like that. This did nothing at all for my morale.

  *

  No one tried to make me scream until eight o’clock in the evening and before then I had one or two surprises, none of them pleasant. I’d been in the room for four hours when Joao and another man, a shrivelled-up, little Brazilian Indian who answered to the name of Pepe, came to fetch me. Regardless of claustrophobia I wasn’t overjoyed to see them. The only reason I hadn’t been killed was that someone wanted to ask me some questions and I had an uncomfortable premonition I didn’t know enough of the answers to satisfy my interrogators, let alone myself. Nor did Joao’s behaviour bolster my confidence.

  ‘Shift your arse,’ he said.

  At least that’s what he might have said if he’d been an American citizen. Portuguese was a much more colourful language.

  In my book two guns to none constituted overwhelming force and I allowed them to hustle me out of the room. There was a long, dark corridor outside, flanked by closed doors and with a flight of stairs halfway along. When I reached the top of the stairs I looked back over my shoulder, wondering whether I was supposed to descend.

  Apparently I was. Joao placed a hand in the small of my back, then pushed, sending me base over apex, bouncing painfully from stair to stair until I reached the stone-flagged floor at the bottom. Physical injuries were negligible, nothing more than a few bruises to keep my headache company, but the gales of laughter from Joao and Pepe as they came down by more conventional means made me see red. I stayed on the floor, gritting my teeth and hoping one of them would come close enough for me to demonstrate my own sense of humour. This meant Joao had a chance to kick me in the side, just as he had earlier in the day, and I didn’t mind a bit. It merely showed he hadn’t learned from experience.

  Groggily I scrambled to my feet, lurched towards Joao as I rose half upright and did something to him no gentleman should do to another. Joao was the only one upset by the breach of etiquette and his mouth was opening on a bellow of pain when I fitted the heel of my left hand under his chin and heaved. His teeth clicked together again, his feet left the ground and he was still airborne as the door on the far side of the passage burst open from the impact of his body.

  Pepe either had slow reflexes or he was under strict orders not to shoot me. Whatever the reason he dithered helplessly while I knocked aside his gun and did my honest best to punch his head through the wall. Although I didn’t even dent the plaster Pepe’s eyeballs were rolling up as he slid to the floor and I headed towards the nearest exit. This was the moment Biddencourt chose to put a bullet into the fleshy part of my right thigh.

  ‘You really are a silly man, Philis,’ he said indulgently, standing in the doorway I’d just thrown Joao through.

  It was the kind of remark he could afford to make from behind a loaded gun and I treated it with the contempt it deserved, reserving my attention for my wounded limb. Although it had suffered little more than a deep scratch I regarded all parts of my body as vital, hating to see any of my quota of blood trickling away, and I used a strip tom from the tail of my shirt to bandage my thigh. Only then did I spare Biddencourt some attention.

  ‘You should be more careful,’ I reproved, striving for the light touch although I wasn’t feeling at all humorous. ‘You might have done me a serious injury.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I probably shall,’ Biddencourt comforted. ‘If you’re quite ready you’d better come in here.’

  He obviously relished his new role as the smooth, master criminal, finding this a pleasant relief from being the suave, super-efficient executive. Suppressing the suspicion that Biddencourt might not be acting this time I did as he suggested, limping through into what proved to be a kitchen. Through the leaded windows I caught a glimpse of a yard and outbuildings which showed the place had once been a farmhouse, then Joao distracted my attention, slamming the barrel of his gun against my cheekbone. It wasn’t much of an effort as he still had one hand cradling his crotch and I didn’t find it too difficult to stay on my feet. Just the same I wasn’t sorry when Biddencourt stepped between us to push Joao back.

  ‘Don’t be impatient,’ Biddencourt said. ‘You’ll have plenty of opportunities to amuse yourself later.’ There was a brief pause while he fixed Joao with what was presumably supposed to be a gimlet eye. ‘You’d better go to see how Pepe is.’

  Joao wasn’t noticeably happy about not getting to knock me around some more but he followed instructions and left the kitchen, slightly hunched over and muttering under his breath. For my part I massaged my cheek, wondering whether the swelling was likely to add to my already distinguished looks, and took as much weight as possible on my left leg. I also watched Biddencourt back to the table where he picked up a slim booklet and threw it across to me. Effortlessly I plucked it out of the air, demonstrating what a great close fielder England was in danger of losing.

  ‘Take a good look at it,’ Biddencourt suggested. ‘It should interest you.’

  He was right. Counting the way I’d been pushed downstairs as the first unpleasant surprise and a bullet in the leg as the second, then this made the third of the evening and it was by far the worst. Subconsciously I’d placed a lot of reliance on Reece’s help, even though I’d realised it would have taken a near miracle for him to have followed me to the farmhouse, so it was a body blow to finally appreciate I was on my own. I’d been frightened since my arrival in Porto Alegre, a controlled, reasonable fear which had increased the more I’d probed into Otto’s disappearance, but now was the time for me to be scared stiff. It wasn’t a booklet Biddencourt had tossed to me, it was the same passport I’d examined in Santos a few days before.

  Since then there had been considerable changes in its appearance. The photograph of Reece was now disfigured by the black-edged hole which went all the way through the passport and the stained cover was tacky to the touch. There was no need for a forensic scientist to tell me the hole had been made by a bullet or that the stain was blood, meaning another of the imponderables had been swept from the board. Admittedly I wasn’t a great deal wiser as a result but at least I knew survival was going to depend on my efforts alone.

  When I threw back the passport Biddencourt made no attempt to catch it. As he was obviously expecting me to make some comment I kept quiet, turning to watch Joao and Pepe come into the kitchen instead. Although Joao was walking tall again Pepe was nowhere near to a full recovery from having his head made into a sandwich between my fist and the wall.

  ‘You haven’t anything to say then?’ Biddencourt asked, snapping my attention back to him.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Stop playing the fool,’ he snarled, his composure crumbling momentarily. ‘I was referring to the passport and you know it.’

  ‘Oh that,’ I said airily, my nonchalance entirely assumed. ‘Depending on which pocket Reece was carrying it in I’d say he’s either dead, severely wounded or sitting uncomfortable.’

  Biddencourt was quick to seize on my mistake.

  ‘You recognised the name?’

  ‘No,’ I answered, more than equal to the ch
allenge. ‘I read it from the passport.’

  ‘He’s lying,’ Joao said from behind me.

  The venom in his voice indicated he was still feeling sore and this reminded me that standing around wasn’t doing my leg any good. There was a straight-backed chair by the table so I made use of it before replying to Joao’s accusation.

  ‘I realize it’s probably a shock to you,’ I told him once I was comfortable, ‘but it’s one of my many accomplishments. I’ve been reading since I was nineteen.’

  My attempts to lighten the atmosphere weren’t appreciated. For a start, on Biddencourt’s orders, Joao lashed me to the chair, binding my wrists so tightly behind my back I thought my shoulders would come out of their sockets. This did nothing to shake my faith in the attitude I was adopting.

  ‘Let’s start again,’ Biddencourt said menacingly, doing his best to look and sound like a modern Al Capone. ‘However clever you think you are you’re going to answer my questions one way or another. Joao is quite an expert at persuading people to talk and I’m sure he’d welcome the chance to practise on you. Is that clear?’

  ‘Perfectly,’ I assured him, ‘but before I begin my life story I’d like you to satisfy my curiosity on one point.’

  Predictably, Biddencourt raised his eyebrows in quizzical interrogation.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Is Otto dead?’ I enquired.

  ‘He is,’ Biddencourt answered, his tone bland. ‘As a matter of fact he died in the very same chair you’re in now. He didn’t want to answer my questions either and Joao had to use those powers of persuasion I was telling you about. Unfortunately Joao was a trifle over enthusiastic. Either that or Otto had a weak heart.’