Back from the Dead hl-2

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Back from the Dead hl-2 Page 12

by Peter Leonard


  Zeller walked past an open room to his left filled with big heavy furniture. Small room with a desk to his right, and next to it, a bedroom with an adjoining bathroom, bed made, currently unoccupied. He saw Hess’ bulky shape under a blanket in the second bedroom and tiptoed in.

  “I’ve been expecting you,” Hess said, coming up behind him. “Very carefully, drop your weapon.”

  Zeller heard him cock the hammer of a revolver, lowered the pistol and dropped it on the carpeting.

  “On your knees.”

  Zeller squatted and went down like he was praying. Maybe he should. Hess kicked the gun through the doorway and Zeller heard it slide on the tile floor. Hess bound his wrists and ankles with duct tape, removed his wallet from his rear trouser pocket and sat on the side of the bed. Hess opened the wallet, looked at his driver’s license.

  “You are ex-Stasi, aren’t you? The Makarov gives you away. It’s no Walther but it is a fine weapon. Who sent you, Herr Zeller?”

  He wasn’t going to say a word.

  “Who’re you working for?”

  Zeller stared at the wall. Hess got up now, moved behind him and he felt something crash into the back of his head and the lights went out.

  Zeller’s head was pounding, the pain more intense now as he was coming awake. What had Hess hit him with, a sledgehammer? He tried to move his arms and legs, and couldn’t, opened his eyes, lifted his head and saw why. He was on his back on a table or workbench, wrists and ankles tied to metal rings, head hanging over one end. There was a rack of tools on the wall to his left and a vice bolted to the end of the bench just beyond his feet. He was in a two-car garage, the big green Chrysler parked next to him. He turned his head the other way and saw the door to the house was open, and now Hess appeared, whistling a Bavarian folk tune, carrying a bucket and a hand towel.

  “Ah, Herr Zeller, you’re awake. I want to give you an opportunity to talk before any further unpleasantness,” Hess said, like an affable uncle. Not a nuance of menace in his voice. “What did you do to poor Ingrid?”

  Zeller said nothing.

  “I have been trying to reach her for several days and she doesn’t answer.” Hess placed the bucket next to Zeller’s hip. “Where is the money?”

  “What money?”

  “You have it or Ingrid does. I am betting on you.”

  Zeller’s head hung off the end of the table at an uncomfortable angle. Hess covered his face with the towel, picked up the bucket and poured water into his breathing passages. Zeller closed his mouth, held his breath as long as he could, pulled at the ropes trying to free himself, turned his head from side to side but the water kept coming and he felt like he was drowning. Zeller heard a phone ringing, sounding faint and far away. Hess stopped pouring, set the bucket down and removed the towel.

  “Where is my money?”

  Zeller was trying to breathe, sucking air into singed nasal passages and lungs. “I have it,” he said spitting water out of his mouth. “A safe deposit box in Munich.”

  Hess said, “Where is Ingrid?”

  “I don’t know,” Zeller said, buying himself more time, trying to get his wind back.

  “I think you do,” Hess said, standing over him. “Are you thirsty, Herr Zeller? Another drink? You are making it unnecessarily difficult. You are going to tell me what I want to know. There is no reason to be a hero.” Hess paused. “Where is Ingrid?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Hess put the wet towel over Zeller’s face. He moved his head side to side trying to shake it off, but Hess held it in place.

  “I first saw this technique at Dachau, and it was extremely effective. I was surprised to learn that it dates back to the Spanish Inquisition. You can torture your enemy without leaving a mark.” Hess paused. “Water filling the breathing passages triggers the mammalian diving reflex, causing the victim to feel the sensation of drowning. But why am I telling you this, Albin? You already know what it feels like.” Hess picked up the bucket, tilted the spout over Zeller’s face. “Ingrid is dead, isn’t she?” Zeller nodded.

  “Who sent you?” Hess’ voice was calm and relaxed. “Who do you work for, the federal police, BKA?” He paused. “It was Steiger, wasn’t it? God knows we’ve had our differences.”

  Zeller was familiar enough with the politics of Bavaria to know that Wolfgang Steiger and Ernst Hess had been bitter rivals in the Christian Social Union.

  “And if not Steiger, then who?”

  Zeller held his breath until he couldn’t, water filling his nose and mouth. Neck muscles bulging, he strained to lift his head up, but Hess held him down. And just as Zeller felt himself starting to fade, Hess stopped pouring and removed the towel. He was coughing up water and trying to draw in air when the doorbell rang.

  Hess turned his head, glanced at the open door leading to the house. “How many are working with you?”

  The doorbell rang again.

  “I am alone.”

  “We’ll see,” Hess said. He ripped a strip of duct tape off the roll and pressed it over Zeller’s mouth. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  Hess drew a revolver from his pocket and went into the house.

  Eighteen

  Harry had packed a bag and was getting ready to drive to the airport, catch a flight to Florida, find out what the hell was going on with Joyce, when he got the call. It was a woman with the Detroit police, telling him there had been a homicide at the scrap yard, asking if he could come down right away.

  There were two police cars, lights flashing, one in the yard near his night watchman, Columbus Fletcher’s Chevy, which Harry was surprised to see, the other in the parking area by the office. Next to the police car was a black van that said MEDICAL EXAMINER on the side — never a good sign, and next to that was an unmarked Plymouth Harry’d seen before. Phyllis’ VW Bug was in its usual space.

  The scene was familiar, almost a duplicate of the morning Harry’d arrived to find police investigating the murder of Jerry Dubuque. There was a cop in uniform standing next to the door.

  “I’m Harry Levin,” he said. “I own the place.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He walked in the lobby. Through the window he saw Detective Frank Mazza sitting at Phyllis’ desk, Phyllis across from him, smears of mascara on her cheeks, Columbus Fletcher on his back, arms bent, legs apart, blood stains under him, dark against the gray low-pile industrial carpeting. A cop from forensics was dusting the lock box for prints. And someone else was photographing Columbus from different angles, flashbulbs popping.

  Harry walked in the office, glanced at Phyllis first and then Mazza, noticed the metal cabinet against the wall was damaged. By the look of it someone had used a sledgehammer. Frank Mazza said, “Mr. Levin, you’re keeping us busy.”

  “Not my intention,” Harry said, annoyed by the remark. Phyllis got up and came over. Harry hugged her and she started crying, body heaving against him. He guided her back to the chair she was sitting in.

  “Perp or perps cut through the fence out there.” Frank Mazza turned the swivel chair toward Harry and pointed north. “Just on the other side of the building. Broke a window, came in through the lavatory. Came in here like they knew what they were looking for. Broke into the cabinet where Ms. Wampler said you keep the lock box. How much was in there?”

  “Not much. Maybe five hundred dollars. I keep most of the money in the safe in my office. Leave a little for Phyllis to get started in case I’m late.”

  Mazza had traded his Sears wash-and-wear suit in for a tweed sport coat.

  “Your night man must’ve heard or seen them and come in to have a look. Shot him with a .45 Colt. Cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds. Manner of death was homicide.”

  “How do you know it was a .45?”

  Mazza took a small plastic evidence bag out of his sport-coat pocket, three shell casings in it. He pushed his heavy-looking hair up on his forehead and it fell back where it had been. “What can you tell me about Columbus Fletcher?”

&
nbsp; “Years ago he was a fighter, middleweight.”

  “I wondered what happened to his face.”

  “Two hundred seven stitches, he told me, thirty-nine fights.”

  “Ever see him in the ring?”

  “One time,” Harry said, “exhibition bout at Cobo.”

  “Married?”

  “Three times. Daughter works at Henry Ford Hospital.”

  “What was he like?”

  “Quiet, likeable, easy-going. Showed up on time, never missed work.”

  “How would you know?”

  “Everyone punches a time card.”

  “He use drugs?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “He ever been arrested, convicted of a crime?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you sit down, we’ll try to figure out who had motive.”

  There was a swivel chair at another desk across the room. Harry wheeled it over and sat.

  “Who knew you kept cash in the office?”

  “Everyone we did business with. People bring scrap to us in trucks, cars, vans, trailers, you name it. We weigh it, take their name and address, send them in to see Phyllis and she pays them in cash.”

  “I told you,” Phyllis said, giving Mazza a dirty look. She liked his hair but didn’t care much for him.

  “Why don’t you go over all the receipts the past few days, see if anyone rings a bell.”

  “Say you decide to rob a scrap yard. You come in for a look, sell a load, see the money. You think they’re going to give us a real name and address?”

  “People are dumb,” Frank Mazza said. “You wouldn’t believe it.”

  Phyllis got up, moved to the other side of the desk, knelt next to Mazza, opened a drawer and took out a manila envelope. She folded back the metal clasps and handed it to Harry. Harry dumped the receipts on the desktop. Frank Mazza got up, tapped a Lucky out of the pack and said he was going outside to smoke. Harry sat where Mazza had been, shuffling through the receipts, looking at names and dollar amounts: Clarence Cherry, an address on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, $68.75, Donnell Lewis on 2nd Avenue, $159.33. He looked at forty more, all from the inner city, and then he came to Aubrey Ponder, a trailer park in Pontiac, $28. Right away that one struck him as odd. Harry didn’t get many customers from the suburbs. And it was a long way to come for hardly any money. Harry handed the receipt to Phyllis. “Remember who gave you this one?”

  She studied it and looked at him. “There were two of them, sleazy-looking, like they hadn’t used soap and water in a while. They were wearing caps. One said Red Man, the other Cat Diesel. Guy that did the talking had a southern accent.”

  Based on that description they sounded like the two who kidnapped Colette. “How do you remember so much?”

  “I handed the guy twenty-eight dollars and said, ‘Don’t spend it all in one place.’”

  “Were they driving a green Ford pickup by chance?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Harry went outside and talked to his scale man, Archie Damman, saw Mazza smoking, talking to the cop he’d met on the way in. “Remember two guys came in yesterday, wearing caps, one had a southern accent?”

  “Both did. Drove up in a white El Camino with a primer gray hood. They brought in an old icebox from the twenties, weighed a ton. Couple of confederates.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There was a rebel flag on the tailgate,” Archie said. “They have something to do with what’s going on here?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Here you go,” Harry said, handing Mazza a piece of notepaper. “The two that killed Columbus. Gary Boone lives on Clark Street in Pontiac, drives a green Ford F-100, and Aubrey Ponder lives in a trailer park at that address.”

  “You know them?”

  “I can’t say that,” Harry said.

  “What’s going on, they have something against you?”

  “You’ll have to ask them.” Harry paused. “If there’s nothing else…” He would’ve preferred to go after the rednecks himself, but Columbus Fletcher was dead, and Joyce was still alive.

  Nineteen

  Someone was knocking on the door. Hess crossed into the salon, glanced out the window and saw Lois Grant standing at the front door, holding a silver tray covered with tin foil. That’s right, Max had said she would bring him food, baked goods.

  Lois rested the tray on brick steps, moved toward the living-room window, placed an outstretched palm over her eyes, trying to cut the daylight glare and see inside. Hess stepped away from the window, out of sight, his back against the living-room wall. He could see Lois’ face close to the glass.

  Then he saw her through a side window, carrying the tray, walking back to her house. Hess didn’t like it. He couldn’t be sure what this woman was going to do next. Hess went back in the salon, stood at the window, scanned the street. Zeller’s Ford sedan was parked in front of the vacant lot, Hess wondering when the reinforcements were coming. He believed Zeller was federal police, BKA, and knew they would have sent more than one agent. They would need at least four to set up surveillance, to find and apprehend him, or take him out.

  Hess filled the bucket at the kitchen sink, listening to a message on Max Hoffman’s answering machine. It was Lois Grant saying, “Max, where are you? I’ve left three messages. That car parked next to the vacant lot, nobody in the neighborhood knows who it belongs to, so I called the police.”

  He carried the bucket to the garage, surprised by how much water had pooled under the worktable on the seal-coated concrete floor, streams running all the way to the garage door. Zeller’s white shirt was so wet Hess could see right through it — his skin and the hair on his chest. Hess could hear Zeller forcing air through his damaged nasal passages, the exhale sounding like a snort, face wet, watery bloodshot eyes watching him.

  Hess ripped the duct tape off Zeller’s mouth leaving red marks where the adhesive had stuck to his skin. Zeller’s arms flexed, pulling at the restraints.

  “You are with Bundeskriminalamt.”

  “No.”

  “Where are the other agents?”

  “I’m alone.”

  “Sure you are.” Hess wrapped the wet towel around his face, picked up the bucket and started to pour.

  Zeller knew that as soon as he gave up Gerhard Braun’s name it would be all over. Hess would finish him. He tried to hold his breath but the water came and kept coming and now he was gagging, pulling on the ropes, muscles flexing, chest heaving, lungs burning. Then he was drowning, under water, and his air was gone and he started to lose consciousness, started to fade and the water stopped. Hess removed the towel, Zeller spat water out of his mouth and blew it out his nose, tried to focus on Hess through bleary eyes.

  “Who sent you?”

  “Give me a minute.”

  Hess draped the towel over his face again before he could take a breath, and then water filled his nose and mouth and he was gagging, out of air, experiencing fresh trauma, the pain severe and then, like before, he was starting to go under.

  Zeller opened his eyes looking up at the rafters. There was a strip of tape over his mouth and his nose was plugged. He snorted out water and felt the passages clear, inhaling as much air as he could. He heard the faucet on in the kitchen, Hess filling the bucket again. Zeller didn’t know how much more he could take.

  He heard a car drive in and park next to the house, and a car door open and close. Heard the doorbell ring. The faucet in the kitchen was turned off. He heard someone banging on the front door. Heard voices and then footsteps on the concrete outside the garage. And then someone banging on the garage door, the echo reverberating around him.

  A voice said, “Pompano Beach Police. Is anyone home?”

  Zeller grunted under the tape, tried to lift his head, neck muscles bulging but he didn’t have the strength to do it. He heard footsteps going back to the car. He heard the door close, the engine start, and the car drive off.

  Standi
ng at the kitchen sink, Hess heard the phone ring, and the answering machine click on. A woman’s voice said, “Mr. Hoffman, this is the Pompano Beach Police. An officer will be arriving at your home any minute. Please answer your door.”

  A Palm Beach cruiser rolled up the driveway and parked next to the house. A policeman in a tan uniform got out, looking around. He seemed to be focusing on water that had streamed out from under the garage door and pooled on the concrete driveway.

  Hess heard the doorbell ring. He moved through the house to the living room, saw the policeman at the front door. On the street a tow truck was backing up next to Zeller’s Ford sedan. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lois Grant approaching. She and the policeman talked for several minutes, Lois pointing at the tow truck.

  Lois walked around the house, looking in windows. He heard the French doors rattle, Lois shaking the handles, face distorted, pressed against a glass pane. After a while she gave up and went back to her house, and Hess went back to the living room. He watched the police car back down the driveway. On the street the tow truck was lifting the front end of Zeller’s sedan.

  Hess finished filling the bucket and carried it into the garage. Zeller had had a nice long rest, and now he would have to start all over. Zeller’s eyes were closed. Hess stood over him, ripped the tape off his mouth and Zeller’s eyes popped open. “You can stop the pain. You can save yourself from any further discomfort. Tell me who sent you.”

  “Gerhard Braun,” Zeller said.

  Good old Gerhard, Hess was thinking. You can’t trust anyone.

  “Mr. Hoffman, don’t you get nervous carrying around that much cash?” the homely, big-breasted teller said. “I know I would be.”

  “That’s just it,” Hess said. “Nobody would suspect someone of carrying that much. It is totally unexpected.”

 

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