The Sisters

by Robert Littell

  And we considered it luxurious not to have to walk, because the roads were a sea of mud."

  Kaat rolled down her window, paid the toll and maneuvered the Chevrolet into the lane of traffic that seemed to be going through the tunnel the fastest. The Potter sank deeper into his seat. He disliked tunnels passionately; it wasn't so much that he felt trapped in them as physically squeezed by them. During the Great Patriotic War, he had spent several weeks hiding in an abandoned mine while Waffen SS squads combed the countryside, shooting partisans and Communists on sight. In the night, when the wind was right, he had been able to hear the shots reverberating through the valley.

  From some Backwater of his mind, he dredged up memories. "It was during the war," he said out loud, though he wasn't sure why he wanted to tell her this, "that one of my comrades, a university professor, took to referring to me as the ascian. How is that for an A word?"

  "Ascian." Kaat tried it out. "It has a very soothing sound. What does it mean?"

  "It refers," the Potter told her, "to someone who doesn't cast a shadow at all in sunlight."

  Kaat looked at him curiously. "And you don't cast a shadow in sunlight?"

  she asked sharply.

  "In those days I didn't. I don't know about now."

  They talked about more down-to-earth matters after that. The Potter directed Kaat into a labyrinth of narrow back streets on the Jersey side of the river north of the tunnel. It was an area he had come to know during his tenure as rezident in New York.

  If Kaat was curious how the Potter came by his experience-"Left at the next corner, left again, right at that warehouse"-she never let on.

  Following his instructions, she eventually brought the Chevrolet to a stop in a deserted alleyway down the block from an all-night bar with a broken neon sign sizzling over its door. When she cut the motor she could hear the faint sound of a tide lapping against pilings, and make out the outline of several freighters tied to piers beyond a chain-link fence at the end of the block.

  "You will wait for me here," the Potter instructed her.

  "You actually expect me not to go with you?" She shivered at the idea of remaining alone in the car.

  She must have transmitted her alarm to the cat, because it began emitting that throaty howl again.

  "Cant you keep the animal quiet?" the Potter demanded.

  "No," Kaat said flatly. "What do I do if you don't come back?"

  "If I am not back in, say, twenty minutes, go home and forget you ever met me."

  The cat perked up behind Kaat's neck. Kaat seemed to perk up too. "Go home, he says," she told the cat. "What home? I have no home; I have only a former home. Even if I had a home to go home to, how in God's name would I find my way out of this maze? What are we doing here anyway, if you don't mind my asking?"

  The Potter rummaged in his valise for something, found what he was looking for and slipped it into his jacket pocket. "I used up all the money I had getting myself to New York," he told her. "I need more.

  There used to be people here who bought things of value without asking questions."

  "You could have asked me if you needed money."

  "I need other things too."

  "Like what?"

  "I need bullets. Also a gun to put them in."

  "Why do you need a gun?"

  "I need a gun," the Porter explained patiently, "because I am beginning to be frightened. I will tell you something you will probably find amusing. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't." He opened the door. "Lock this after me. Keep the cat quiet if you can." He laughed under his breath. "If anything happens to me, perhaps we will meet in another incarnation."

  Kaat grabbed his sleeve. "Here's the thing: you're frightened. Fear is contagious. I've caught it. Me also, if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't."

  They exchanged gentle, conspiratorial smiles. "That," the Potter told her quietly, "may be the first sensible thing I have heard you say."

  At the end of the alley the Potter turned, and for an instant Kaat thought he was going to wave, but he only shook his head in confusion and continued on toward the all-night bar.

  The bartender was the only one who looked up when the Potter came through the door, though the dozen or so men scattered around the booths appeared to suspend all conversation. The Potter hefted himself onto a stool and eyed the collection of baseball bats in an umbrella stand near the cash register. The bartender, a heavyset, balding man in his forties who looked as if he might have once been a baseball player, eyed the Potter suspiciously.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?" the Potter finally asked.

  "Well, now, someone who didn't know better might say I was sizing you up," the bartender replied.

  A sailor in one of the booths snickered.

  "I would like a drink, if you please," the Potter ventured.

  "You have definitely come to the right place," the bartender said.

  "Don't tell me what you want-let me guess." He squinted at the Potter, screwed up his beefy lips, rubbed a forefinger along the side of his bulbous nose. "Vodka!" he exploded. "Bison vodka when you can get it. Am I right or am I right?"

  "How do you do it?" the Potter asked.

  The bartender leaned across the counter toward the Potter until their faces were inches apart. "No offense intended, but you talk with some kind of foreign-type accent, so I figured you must be off the Polak ship three piers down. And any idiot knows that Polaks drink vodka. Good vodka when they can get their mitts on it. Any vodka when they can't."

  He laughed at his own joke.

  "A glass of Bison vodka would certainly be welcome," the Potter acknowledged.

  The bartender leaned back. "Don't have Bison vodka," he said. "But I can give you a shot of good old New Jersey vodka."

  "I never heard of New Jersey vodka," the Potter admitted.

  "That don't surprise me none," said the bartender. "New Jersey vodka is what's left over when they finish refining petroleum." Several of the sailors in the booths laughed out loud at that. Smiling maliciously, the bartender poured out a shot glass full and set it before the Potter.

  The Potter raised the glass to his nose and sniffed the contents. It smelled vaguely like glue. Then he brought it to his lips and drank a small quantity. It seared the back of his throat. He gasped. The bartender slapped the bar in pleasure. "Moonshine," he explained when he stopped laughing. "Good old hundred-proof New Jersey moonshine."

  At the booths the sailors resumed their conversations. Nodding toward the moonshine, the bartender said, "No harm intended."

  "No harm done," the Potter said amiably. "Listen, I have been here before. To this bar. Years ago."

  The bartender's attitude changed. His eyes appeared to cloud over. "You don't say," he muttered guardedly.

  "I do say. There used to be a narrow staircase back there that smelled of urine. It led to a corridor that also smelled of urine. At the end of the corridor was a room in which men played cards for big stakes. They were usually Italians, though there was an occasional Jew. The Italians all wore diamond cufflinks, I remember."

  "You have a very good memory," the bartender conceded grudgingly. "Be careful it don't get you in no trouble."

  "I also remember that there was a button under the bar that you pushed when someone started up the back stairs."

  "Say, you really are one smart cookie. What ship did you say you were off?"

  "I didn't say," the Potter said. "Why don't you reach under the counter and ring the bell now." With that, he slipped off his stool and headed toward the back of the bar and the staircase. It still smelled of urine.

  Ahead, the Potter thought he could make out the distant sound of a buzzer. The upstairs corridor had been painted recently, and the smell of paint overpowered the smell of urine that had almost asphyxiated him the last time he had come through it; he had been in the market for a rifle equipped with a new U.S. Army night sight at the time. The door at the end of the corridor had been fitted with a peephole
. The Potter knocked politely and then stared up into the peephole so that whoever was on the other side could get a good look at him.

  Eventually a bolt was thrown, then a second one. The Potter tried the knob. The door clicked open. He entered the room. There were five men seated around a glass-covered table, with colored chips and cards scattered around it. All of them were in their shirtsleeves. Four of the five wore diamond cufflinks. Another man, with his jacket on, sat on a windowsill. Still another, wearing a raincoat, lounged with his back to a wall. The Potter closed the door and stepped boldly into the room. The man lounging against the wall shifted position so that his back was pressed to the door.

  "Do you have a name?" This from the man without diamond cufflinks.

  "I have an occupation," the Potter announced. "I am a seller."

  "A travelling salesman has found his way to our door," quipped the man on the windowsill.

  One of the Italians peered up at the Potter through thick eyeglasses with gold rims. "We have met maybe before," he suggested.

  "It is possible," the Potter agreed, although he couldn't place the face.

  ''And what treasure is it you are selling?" the same Italian inquired with infinite politeness.

  The Potter reached into his jacket pocket and took out a package wrapped in an old kerchief. He undid the rubber bands that bound it and removed the cloth. Then he stepped forward and deposited two engraved plates on the table.

  The player without diamond cufflinks whistled through his front teeth.

  "Twenty-dollar plates!"

  He passed the plates to one of the Italians, who held them up to the light and studied them. He must have been something of an expert, because the others seemed to be waiting for his verdict. "The engraving is first class," he finally announced. "Where did he get these?"

  "Where," the Italian without diamond cufflinks repeated the question,

  "did you get these?"

  "How I came by them does not concern you," the Potter replied evenly.

  (The man lounging against the door straightened up, but one of the Italians shook his head imperceptibly, and the man relaxed again.) "They are of German origin," the Potter went on. "They were made by the same artist who engraved the Third Reich's deutsche-mark plates. The original intention was to print up a supply of funds for German agents working out of Mexico during the war. But the Russians reached Berlin before the plates could be put to use."

  "And wound up in your hands," said the Italian who thought he recognized the Potter. "Which means that your accent must be Russian."

  One of the players studying the plates whispered, "These are worth a fortune."

  "What if we are not buyers?" another Italian said. "What if we are takers?"

  "If you are takers," the Potter pointed out, "it follows that you will have to spend a certain amount of money to dispose of a body The sum of money I want from you is so modest that it will be cheaper for you to pay me than to kill me."

  The man lounging on the windowsill grunted. "Maybe we won't see the situation the way you see it," he warned.

  "I am betting that you will."

  "You are betting your life on it," suggested the Italian holding the plates. He looked up. "How much is modest in your book?"

  The Potter took a deep breath. "I require five thousand dollars in small bills," he said. "I also require a handgun. Any one will do as long as it is in working condition."

  "He needs five thousand dollars," the man without diamond cufflinks repeated with a laugh. "He needs a handgun. So what else does he need?"

  The Potter remained silent.

  "A guy with an accent waltzes in off the street- how do we know this is not a setup?" the man lounging against the door demanded.

  "You will never in your life get another opportunity to come into possession of plates of this quality," the Potter said. "You are all gamblers, aren't you?"

  The man without diamond cufflinks scraped back his chair, walked over to a buffet and picked up the telephone. "Charlie, do me a favor, huh," he said into the receiver. "Duck outside and take a good long look around.

  Then come back and let me know what you see."

  The Potter retreated to a wall. The men at the table passed the plates around and talked Italian in undertones. After a while the telephone sounded. The man lounging on the windowsill sauntered over and picked up the receiver. He listened for a long moment. "Okay," he said, and hung up. "There's a Chevy parked in the alleyway. There's a girl and a pussycat in it. The doors are locked. The girl refused to open. Nothing else is in sight."

  The men around the table exchanged looks. "Well," said the man without cufflinks, "do we buy from him, or do we bury him?"

  The man with the gold-rim glasses burst into guttural laughter. "For five thousand dollars, we can't go wrong." He gestured to the man on his right. "Pay him, Frankie. Eugene, remove the bullets from your gun and give it to him."

  Eugene didn't like the idea of parting with his pistol; it was an Italian Beretta, .22-caliber, that he had won in a crap game the previous year, and he had become attached to it. "Why does it have to be my gun?" he whined.

  The Italian who held the plates looked up sharply. Eugene puffed up his cheeks and let out the air in an annoyed burst. Then he removed the clip from his Beretta and thumbed the bullets out of it into his palm before reinserting the empty clip back into the pistol.

  The Italian who thought he recognized the Potter was staring at him curiously. Suddenly his face brightened. "I know where I seen you before," he said. "It was here, in this room. Seven, maybe eight years ago. You were a buyer then, not a seller. How the mighty have fallen."

  Pocketing the money and the pistol, the Potter turned toward the door.

  Eugene still blocked his way, and seemed in no mood to move.

  "He is a Russian secret agent," the man who recognized the Potter announced to the others.

  "Get out of my way," the Potter ordered Eugene in a low voice that he hoped was full of menace.

  "Maybe you think you can make me," Eugene shot back, caressing the knuckles of one hand with the palm of the other.

  "Leave him leave," the man who had identified the Potter ordered.

  Eugene reluctantly stepped to one side. With a last look over his shoulder, the Potter left the room. He fled along the corridor, down the staircase through the bar-the bartender was nowhere in sight-into the street. The neon sizzled over his head like the rattle of a snake. The night air sent a chill through the Potter, and he realized he had been sweating profusely-from fear, probably, though he hadn't been aware of it at the time. Fear to him implied that there was hope. This was an illusion he didn't harbor.

  He ducked into the alleyway and saw the Chevy and waved to Kaat. She waved back, though her waving had an agitated aspect to it, and then the Potter realized she wasn't waving, but pointing, and he turned back to see the hulking figure of the bartender advancing toward him in a shuffling step used by wrestlers when they stalk an opponent. He was gripping one of those American baseball bats in both hands, and thrashing it about in front of him with short snaps of his thick wrists.

  "What I am going to break first is your ankles," he called in an excited voice. "Then I am going to break your kneecaps. Then your rib cage. Then your wrists. Then your neck. Then your skull." He laughed hysterically, shuffling forward all the while. "You were wrong about how much it costs to bury someone. I work cut-rate. A package deal is what I offer. The body, buried, for twenty-five hundred dollars. Niggers, foreigners, I do for the fun of it."

  The Potter backed away until he was up against the front grille of the Chevrolet. Swinging the baseball bat, grinning into the darkness, the bartender closed in on him. A loss of nerve hit the Potter-it manifested itself as a sudden weakness in his knees, a ringing in his ears. It was not only a question of the violence that would be done to him, but to the girl in the car behind him: having disposed of the Potter, the bartender would then feel obliged to attend to the eyewitness. The barte
nder was so close now that the Potter imagined that he could feel the rush of air that preceded the swishing bat. The Potter knew he had to move, to do something, but for the life of him he couldn't see what he could do. The bartender was too big, too methodical. And then Kaat, behind the wheel of the Chevrolet, switched on the car's high beams and leaned on the horn. Startled, blinded, the bartender jerked an arm up in front of his eyes. The Potter stepped forward and kicked him sharply in the crotch. The big man groaned and doubled over. The bat clattered to the pavement. The Potter moved around behind the kneeling figure, took a grip on his thick neck and began to squeeze. Gasping, the bartender tried to pry the Potter's fingers loose, but the years of kneading clay had strengthened them into a vise. After a while the bartender went limp in the Potter's oustretched arms. He let the corpse slip to the ground. Kaat flicked off the high beams, and the Potter could see her peering out at him from the window of the Chevrolet. Violence is in my blood, he wanted to tell her, but the pale mask of a face that stared back at him seemed to say that that was something she knew already.

  Khanda arrived in the designated city at the end of the first week of October, and using the alias O, Lee settled into a one-story rooming house in a run-down section of town. One block away, past a yellow-brick self-service laundry and a pharmacy with a parking lot next to it full of pickup trucks, he could make out the center of the city rising from the flat like a wart. He had bought a street map of the city and had traced the two possible routes from the airport to the luncheon site, one in blue, one in red. In the days that followed, he went over the routes again and again, and eventually compiled a list of buildings from which he could get a shot at the target no matter which of the two routes was finally selected. Several of the possibilities he ruled out because of the nature of the business conducted in them, he stood precious little chance of getting a job in a bank, or an insurance company, for instance. Eventually he narrowed the possibilities down to two buildings. On the thirteenth, he put on a tie and jacket and presented himself at the employment office of a lumber company whose top floors dominated the route between the airport and the city proper. He was interviewed by a wispy woman with a harelip who became suspicious at his failure to produce references from previous jobs. His application was turned down.