Drumbeat Erica

by Stephen Marlowe

  “His ex-wife lives in Gstaad.” She started to laugh, and about halfway out it became a sob. “It was a very interesting honeymoon.” She asked suddenly, “What kind of work do you do for my father?”

  ‘Who said I work for him?”

  “Janice. I must have sounded pretty rocky. Janice said if things got very bad for me yours might be a good shoulder to cry on. But you haven’t answered my question.”

  I still didn’t.

  “Are you going to Gstaad too? That’s in the Bernese Oberland. It’s the most beautiful part of Switzerland. I’ll bet it’s snowing right now. Just like a Christmas card.”

  “I’ve got to find your husband,” I said. “Fast.”

  “What for?”

  “It’s my job.”

  “Really? Are you his keeper?” She giggled. “Lord knows he needs one.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Out,” she said with flat finality. “He is always out.” She began to cry.

  “Stop it,” I said harshly. “Feel sorry for yourself on your own time. You’ll have plenty to feel sorry for when you’re a widow.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “His life may be in danger. That’s why I’ve got to find him.”

  “Why should I believe you? Everybody treats me like a child.”

  “Then stop acting like one. Where’s your husband?”

  She finished her second drink. “The Method,” she said. “The goddam Method.”

  I looked at her.

  “That’s where he was the night before we sailed. He was going to play a young sea-captain on the prowl, so he had to make like a young sea-captain on the prowl. So he put on a pea jacket and jeans and spent our last night in the States wandering around the waterfront dives off West Street. The Method—to understand the role you play you’ve got to live it in depth.” She smiled wryly. “That gives him an awful lot of license. I stay home. He goes out and has a ball.”

  “It wasn’t West Street,” I said. “It was the Village. I was there, Mrs. Shiraz. He was almost killed.”

  “Killed?”

  “Somebody took a shot at him. It could happen again.”

  She said nothing for a while. Then she said: “Maybe that’s the best thing that could happen—for me.”

  I took a gamble and stood up. “Okay. If you really mean that I’ll take off. Forget I ever came here. Then wait and see what happens—and try living with yourself.”

  I headed for the door, not very fast.

  “Wait. It’s pea jacket and jeans night again. Amsterdam instead of New York.”

  “Amsterdam’s a pretty big town, Mrs. Shiraz.”

  “That’s all I can tell you. Isn’t there a sailors’ quarter?”

  There was. It centered around Zeedijk, where Jeremy Budd ran a cabaret called the Brooklyn Bridge.

  12

  IT WAS sailor town all right.

  Even in the cold driving rain, seamen from a dozen countries prowled the wet cobbles of Zeedijk, and the narrow side streets hardly wider than alleys that bore unpronounceable names like Oude Zijds Achterburgwal and Oude Zijds Voorburgwal. Red and blue neon signs of a hundred sleazy bars gleamed on the sidewalks. They had names like Casa Blanca, Skip O Hoy Bar, City Lights and for some reason Salon Mexico.

  The Brooklyn Bridge was two doors down from Skip O Hoy Bar. Surprisingly it wasn’t crowded. A couple of Japanese sailors held down a table near the door. Half a dozen boys and two girls, barely if at all out of their teens, were crowded around a bigger table in the rear. They were drinking beer, and one of them had just said something that was very funny. They were all laughing. One of the girls slapped the table. They all looked up and stopped laughing when I made my entrance. Their sudden silence and hostile stares made me feel like the stranger in a Western pushing his way through the bat-wing doors still not sure if he’ll have to draw his six-guns.

  I went to the bar, which was empty. Instead of a back-bar mirror I found myself looking at one of those big colorful prints of the Brooklyn Bridge on tape-cutting day with fireboats in the water circling the big brick towers and sending jets of water into the air.

  A large man came between me and the bridge. He was six and a half feet tall and four feet wide in his white barman’s jacket. His thinning black hair was waxed in a few carefully parallel strands to his gleaming pate. His eyes were as dark and as friendly as two little chunks of anthracite.

  “Some weather out there,” I said.

  He nodded philosophically. The kids at the big rear table started to laugh again. They were watching the two Japanese sailors leave. They thought it was a million laughs.

  “Make it a bottle of Amstel,” I told the enormous barman.

  “Only sell it on tap,” he said in excellent English. I didn’t see a beer barrel anywhere. Maybe, I thought, what he did was tap his barrel of a torso. I said tap beer suited me fine.

  He ducked down and thrust both hands out of sight under the bar. His left hand emerged surrounding a large glass of beer. He cut the head with a wand and set the glass in front of me. I let it stand there.

  “Jeremy Budd,” I said.

  That earned me a blink that hid the chunks of anthracite for a split second.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “I have a message for him. From Plattsburgh, New York.”

  The big man had a way of moving very fast. I found myself looking at the view of the bridge again. I raised my glass and toasted the fireboats and drank.. The big guy didn’t come back. Instead a tall slender number wearing black jeans and a black turtleneck came past the table of kids in the rear. He smiled and called something at them in Dutch. They all started laughing. They were a fun group. The tall guy had what teen-aged girls would call a sensitive face and I call a girlish one. It had long lashes, a smooth complexion and a pouting mouth. It was topped by long light brown hair. It blocked the bridge.

  “What’s the story, mister?”

  “Jeremy Budd?”

  The eyes under the long lashes were pale and reckless. They looked me over. “I’m Budd. That gives you the ad.”

  “Wrong,” I said. “It gives me a pair of them. I know your sister. She said if ever I was in the mood to take a trip I ought to look you up.”

  “What kind of trip?”

  “Inner space,” I said quickly in a whisper.

  “Are you?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  He waited. One of the kids from the back table dropped a coin in the juke box and it began to wail some of the latest cacaphony that is Britain’s gift to music lovers.

  “Herman’s Hermits,” Jeremy Budd said. “Boy, do they ever stink.”

  I nodded. That made a temporary bond between us. I broke it by saying, “Erica settled in okay?”

  He leaned across the bar. “Just who are you, mister?”

  “Friend of Linda’s. Friend of Erica’s.”

  “You get around.”

  “We may be working together one of these days. Erica offered me a job.”

  Jeremy Budd chuckled. “You want congratulations or commiseration?”

  “Which would you suggest?”

  He laughed. I laughed. The kid’s at the back table went on laughing. I finished my beer.

  I said, “Linda was in a bit of trouble the last time I saw her.”

  “Tell me something that’s news. She’s always in trouble.”

  “That’s a nice gun you gave her,” I said, and it got a rise out of him.

  “That kind of trouble? She use it or something? Jesus.”

  “She picked up a guy, or maybe it was the other way around, and they did some pub crawling until somebody took a shot at him. At the time she was taking a trip and understandably vague about whether she’d been following your instructions or Uncle Gerald’s. I’m curious.”

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “Shiraz. Ahmed Shiraz.”

  He rocked back on his heels and rocked forward again. “You are like hell Ahmed Sh
iraz.”

  “Know him?”

  “I’ve seen his pictures.”

  “So have the Amsterdam police,” I improvised. “They knów somebody’s gunning for him. Anybody lifting a finger in his direction will find himself at the bottom of a pile of cops.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean to me?”

  “That’s only half of it, Jeremy. The other half is that Erica’s client changed his mind. The job’s been called off.”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “You already had your taste of prison in the States,” I said. “What makes you think it’ll be any better over here?”

  He stared at me, his pale eyes narrowing. What I needed was time, just a few hours while Shiraz was on the prowl, enough time to get Erica on the phone with Amos Littlejohn, provided Littlejohn could talk. Had Shiraz stayed put at the de l’Europe it would have been a cinch, but he hadn’t. That meant I had to stall Erica’s goons. I looked at Jeremy Budd, hoping I hadn’t pushed him too far.

  I had. He gazed past my shoulder and shouted: “Oom! Oom, throw this bum the hell out of here.”

  The enormous barman glided up to us as though wearing roller skates. His small mouth smiled a tight but happy smile. The kids at the back table were no longer laughing.

  I pulled the .44 Magnum from its shoulder holster and said calmly, “A slug from this cannon would stop even you, Oom.”

  The big man looked at me, at the Magnum, at Jeremy Budd. Nobody said anything for ten long seconds. I backed along the bar so that I could cover both of them. Oom took a step toward me.

  Then Jeremy Budd shrugged. “Ah, forget it,” he said. “Everybody calm down, okay?” He went on sheepishly, “I don’t like being reminded of the trouble I had in the army, that’s all. Go read a comic book, Oom.”

  Oom skated. off to read a comic book.

  Both Jeremy Budd’s hands disappeared under the bar and came back into sight with two glasses of beer. “On the house,” he said. “No hard feelings?” His pretty-boy face was shiny with sweat. He mopped it with a bar rag. I drank half my beer. He drank all of his.

  The door opened and Erica’s rosy-cheeked friend Claeys came into the bar with his trenchcoat collar turned up. He took a couple of steps beyond the doorway and jerked his chin in Budd’s direction. Then he saw me. I still had the Magnum in my hand. He turned and took a quick step toward the door.

  “Hold it,” Budd said. “You don’t have to worry about him.” He took an olive raincoat off a peg to the left of the bar. “Hey, Oom,” he called. “Take over.”

  Oom skated into, sight again. He was really gliding along now. He did a figure eight and bowed. That made his face turn a deep purple color. He grinned with both his mouths.

  “What’s going on?” I heard myself say. My voice was slate-gray and bumpy.

  “You don’t have to worry,” Budd told Claeys, “on account of he is taking a trip. Let’s roll.”

  He set out for the door. I pointed the Magnum at him. It said, very softly, “Don’t take a shot at him, you sap. He hasn’t done anything.”

  That seemed to make sense. The fact that the Magnum was talking bothered me only slightly. It climbed up my chest and tucked itself into the shoulder rig.

  The kids in back were laughing bright orange laughter. I looked at the half-empty beer glass on the bar. It was just a half-empty beer glass. LSD is tasteless, odorless and colorless. I picked up the glass and drained it, cleverly.

  Then I went outside after Jeremy Budd and Claeys. The rain was singing just like Herman’s Hermits.

  13

  I SAW them right away. They were huddling in the doorway of a shop next door. A man came toward them moving with an easy rolling gait. He was wearing a pea coat and a beret. He went right by the Brooklyn Bridge and the Skip O Hoy Bar, his eyes downcast on the wet pavement. He never even spotted me in the doorway. Maybe he liked walking in the rain. He was Ahmed Shiraz.

  Claeys and Jeremy Budd gave him thirty or forty yards and then moved out after him. I gave them the same distance and started walking.

  The sidewalk did an interesting thing. It opened up and started running liquidly, like lava. It swept me along. I had enough momentum to leap effortlessly like Nureyev over the yawning chasm.

  Shiraz crossed the street. Claeys and Jeremy Budd didn’t. I started to. A car moving fast through the rain smiled at me with its headlights. I tipped my hat. The car swerved and skidded and went away doing a few ingenious loops and barrel-rolls

  “Hey, Ahmed old pal,” I whispered. I didn’t want Budd and Claeys to hear me. Shiraz didn’t hear me either. He kept walking. I followed him for a few blocks. The street lights became huge Christmas tree ornaments. Then they began to pulse, bigger and smaller, bigger and smaller. All of a sudden the distance between me and Shiraz lengthened. What had been forty yards became ten or twelve miles, but I could still see him clearly. I waved. He didn’t wave. I snapped my fingers and Shiraz was only forty yards away again. A girl had joined him. She was small and trim with short blond hair. I wondered if I was hallucinating her. She spoke to Shiraz. She tucked her hand under his arm and they went walking off together.

  After a few more blocks the sailor town lights were behind us. We were on a dike. The level of water to our right was higher than the cobbled street to our left. Waves lapped at the dike. Something poked its head up out of the water and shot a jet of flame at me. It was a big head with armor plate and teeth. I dodged the jet of flame and hoped it would incinerate Claeys and Budd across the street, if Claeys and Budd were still across the street. I had never seen a flame-spitting sea serpent before. It interested me.

  The girl and Shiraz stopped. She climbed up on tip-toe and clung to him and kissed him.

  “Hey, Ahmed,” I called. “She got a friend?”

  This time he heard me. “Who’s that?”

  I trotted up to them, all smiles. “It’s me,” I said.

  The girl gave me a somewhat jaundiced look. She was young and pretty. I snapped my fingers and she became an old hag. “You ought to be able to do better than that,” I chided Shiraz.

  “Boy, have you a load on,” he said, grinning the way people grin at drunks.

  The girl became pretty again. I decided to leave her pretty.

  “You’re being followed,” I told Shiraz.

  “No stuff.”

  “I don’t mean me. Over there.”

  I jerked my head toward the other side of the street. Nobody was there.

  “Tell your friend to go away,” the girl said.

  “You heard the lady,” Shiraz told me. “Get lost.”

  “You don’t understand. I’m here to protect you.”

  “Either he leaves or I do,” the girl said. “I don’t like drunkards.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” I tried to explain.

  “For the last time,” Shiraz said, “I’m telling you to scram.”

  I didn’t scram. He took a languid swing at me. His fist moved so slowly that I just stood there watching it float toward my face like a big balloon with Mickey Mouse’s face stamped on it. I figured I could duck any old time.

  Shiraz looked down at me. I was sitting on the wet sidewalk, my ears ringing.

  “Now beat it,” Shiraz said.

  “Nothing to it,” I said. I dusted my hands off and climbed to my feet and Shiraz knocked me down again.

  I looked up at the blonde. “Didn’t I see you in the Brooklyn Bridge,” I asked, “laughing your pretty little head off?”

  She ignored me. “How far to your place?” Shiraz asked her. For a moment I thought we were back on West Houston Street. Apparently part of The Method was for Shiraz to pick up a girl, and the heavies always supplied one. I began to relax. After all I’d saved Shiraz’s life in the Village, hadn’t I? I scowled, realizing it was Harry Kretschmer who had saved his life, and poor old Harry had died doing it. I felt a tear on my face, but it might have been the maudlin rain.

  “Not
far,” the girl said, and they walked off along the dike together.

  I sat there feeling tired but otherwise full of energy. After a while I saw two figures across the street. They went by. I got up and took my place in the parade. A stiff wind blew across the dike, almost dumping me again. I leaned into it and kept going. Then I stopped suddenly. Jeremy Budd and Claeys were coming across the street. I figured they’d better not see me. They crossed moving fast now and not quietly. Only an occasional lamppost cast its glow on the dike and gleamed on the black water. It was a swell place to kill a guy.

  When Claeys and Jeremy Budd started to close in on their quarry I began to run. The cobbled surface. of the dike became a treadmill. The faster I ran the less I seemed to get anywhere. I realized I was. running in place. I lunged forward. The Magnum had popped out of my shoulder holster and slid along my arm to my hand. Its butt felt cold but cosy against my palm. It didn’t say anything.

  Shiraz had his back to the water, standing at the edge of a patch of lamplight. The blonde had moved off into the darkness. I could just make her out. Claeys and Budd advanced on Shiraz. Something flashed in Claeys’ hand. It was a knife.

  Claeys, holding the knife low, took another step toward Shiraz. Then Jeremy Budd turned in my direction. He had a gun in his hand, only a little thing, black, not much of a weapon at all. He fixed it twice. I didn’t see one of the bullets in the glare of the muzzle-flash. The other one came oozing out of the gun like toothpaste out of a tube. Something brushed my coat sleeve.

  I fired the Magnum once, a real Lone Ranger of a shot that sent the gun flying from Budd’s hand. He yowled and the Magnum chuckled, pleased with itself.

  Claeys took a swipe at Shiraz with the knife. The actor sidestepped and stuck out a foot and used a shoulder, and Claeys went hurtling off the dike into the water. He hit with a great splash. Jeremy Budd started running. So did the girl. Nobody stopped them.

  I heard Claeys swimming around down there somewhere.

  “Let’s have it,” Shiraz said.

  I looked at him blankly. “What?”

  “The gun, you dope. I’m going to finish the son of a bitch off.”

  The Magnum said, “I’ve done my good deed for today.”