The Third Place

by J Sydney Jones

  It felt good to be away from the walking corpse. The outdoors smelled fresh tonight with the slight breeze off the Danube Canal. It was near freezing, but Klavan was not uncomfortable. He kept his hands in his pockets, felt the revolver in the right one and the garroting noose in the left. There was a blade strapped to his left leg.

  Light spilled out into the street from the café doors opening. He tensed, ready for action, but it was only the last of the customers leaving for the night. His man would be coming presently, he hoped.

  This was not his usual method of operation. Klavan was someone who planned well and wisely, who knew the lay of the land, who appraised himself of routines, timetables and routes in advance.

  Christ, he was not even sure that the junior waiter would be closing up tonight, but it made sense: if he was second to Herr Karl, he would be taking over that man’s responsibilities. So much for his usual operating methods.

  This was no longer a usual operation, however. Since realizing he had left a possible loose end, he knew he had to sew it up or cauterize it. There was no time for subtlety. But the one thing he had to avoid at all costs was drawing attention to the man’s death. This must appear accidental. It must go unremarked. Or undiscovered.

  It would be soon now, he thought. He needed to be ready, to strike like a snake and disappear into the night like shade. This was a test mission for him and for future employers. Botch this and he would be hard pressed to find such work again. Klavan had gone from government agent to freelance, and the generals in Belgrade were his first employers.

  After making his way out of Russia, Klavan had wanted to stop off for a time at his home by the Baltic, but he had been warned off. His old grandfather was outside the house playing the role of living beacon, wearing a red vest he reserved only for funerals. This let Klavan know something was amiss before approaching; then he had seen the Russian soldiers tucked away behind outbuildings in the nearby ditch. He made no attempt to turn into the lane to his family home, his heart aching to say farewell properly to his people.

  He’d robbed a bank in Riga, taken a train through Poland and ultimately made his way to Brussels, where Monsieur Philipot ran his little business. During his years as a Russian agent, Klavan had used Philipot’s men several times when short-handed on operations. They were generally reliable though not always the best at their job – killing. He’d had to step in for the third such young freelance and finish the job, wringing the neck of a dowager of seventy. But she was a woman with a head full of secrets she was trying to flog to the highest bidder.

  Monsieur Philipot, a man as round as he was tall, was not happy to see him, knowing that he was on the run from the Russians. But when he learned that Klavan had come to him for work and not for help, the man brightened.

  ‘I have just the thing for you,’ Monsieur Philipot said.

  They were in his watch shop which sold very few watches. ‘This one requires someone of your skill level. As I understand it, there has been an attempt already on the target, but it was poorly conceived and the execution was even worse.’ He laughed out loud at his unintentional pun, spitting a damp crumb of cheese onto Klavan’s coat. Philipot was the sort to snack most of the day; he always had a plate of cheese and wurst handy.

  When Philipot told him who the target was, Klavan could only marvel at the audacity of such a deed. Then, learning who his prospective employers would be, he better understood.

  He took the train that very night for Paris, where he was able to catch the Orient Express to Vienna and from there through Budapest to Belgrade. He found a hotel and bathed, arranged his materials, and then went to the address supplied by Philipot.

  It was on a quiet backstreet in the center of Belgrade. There, in a third-floor walk-up, he met four young Serbian military officers, their leader a captain in the General Staff of the Serbian Army. He went by the code name of Apis; the others were not introduced. They spoke in German, though it was clearly a language Apis hated. He knew of Klavan’s history, and that he was on the run from the Russians.

  ‘We sometimes look to Mother Russia for support,’ Apis told him. ‘At other times, we use whatever agencies are available to us. Our Black Hand has a long reach.’

  It was the first Klavan had heard of this secret organization. He eyed the mustachioed Apis carefully. Fearing a trap, he had wired himself with explosives at the hotel, for he would not be taken alive. The Russians would not send him off to one of their godforsaken work camps.

  ‘So, Herr Klavan, you can trust me. I assume you prepared some sort of insurance for this visit. You may rest assured that you are worth more to us alive than dead or in the hands of the Russians.’

  He snapped his fingers and one of the other officers handed him a black satchel. Apis opened it to display fresh bank notes: French francs and British pounds.

  ‘Our down payment. The rest will be made available to you via Monsieur Philipot upon the successful completion of your mission.’

  Apis named the target and the final price.

  ‘The means are up to you. We will provide what support we can, but you are on your own. This affair does not come back to Serbia. If captured there is no one who will believe a word you tell them. Your previous exploits in Vienna have seen to that. And if you decide to simply disappear with our money without fulfilling our little contract, I would advise you simply not to try it.’

  ‘The long reach of the Black Hand?’ Klavan had said it with a slight smile, but he knew there was nothing humorous about Apis.

  ‘Exactly, my friend. I believe we understand one another.’

  The café door opened once again, cutting these thoughts short.

  ‘Goodnight, Kleinman,’ a tall, thin man said to another person inside as he closed the door and locked up.

  Klavan sighed in relief. It was the under waiter.

  The waiter headed north out of the Inner City toward the Danube Canal. Klavan kept a half block behind him. The waiter had the demeanor of a man headed home after a hard day’s work, which might make Klavan’s job easier. It was just after ten at night, and there were few pedestrians about, especially with the cold. A sharp blast of chill wind bit into him as they neared the canal. The waiter suddenly stopped as he approached the broad expanse of the Franz-Josefs-Kai paralleling the canal. Klavan quickly ducked into a doorway as the waiter looked in back of him. A late horse-drawn tram made its way along the broad boulevard that also served as a dockland for produce. The waiter made his way across the street toward the Stephanie-Brücke, obviously on his way into the Second District across the canal.

  Klavan needed to make his move now. There were no pedestrians about and he made a dash across the street, catching up to the waiter as he began to cross the bridge. He had his pistol drawn and had it to the man’s head before he could react.

  ‘Make a sound and you die,’ he said.

  The man’s eyes grew bigger, the whites showing as they stood under the lights at the foot of the bridge.

  ‘Cooperate and you live,’ Klavan said, his voice controlled. He jerked his head to a flight of stairs leading down below the bridge to a promenade and docks closer to the water level.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Your money. Now move and no one gets hurt.’

  The man’s eyes surveyed the scene, but there were no other pedestrians about, no street traffic.

  Luck is with me, Klavan told himself. ‘Move or die here,’ he hissed.

  The waiter shuffled toward the steps, Klavan in back with the gun against his back.

  Reaching the bottom of the steps, Klavan shoved the man to the right, under the bridge and out of sight. He felt more confident now. Halfway home.

  ‘Here,’ the man said, pulling out a crumple of bills from his pants pockets. ‘Take it. That’s all I have. I don’t carry a wallet.’

  Klavan said nothing, merely fixing the man with his icy gaze.

  ‘Take it,’ the man pleaded, holding out the bills. Klavan’s silence unnerved h
im. Then his eyes went to Klavan’s hands and a sudden recognition struck the waiter. ‘Mother of God, it’s you. The man from the café talking to Herr Karl the day he died. You were the one who killed Herr Karl. I saw you. I followed Herr Karl that night. You must be the one.’

  The words chilled Klavan more than the wind off the Danube Canal.

  ‘Who have you told?’ The words were uttered with almost a sweetness that again caught the waiter off guard.

  ‘You’ll never get away with this. Werthen will see to that. I swear—’

  He was about to scream out when Klavan clapped his hand over the man’s mouth, his left cupping the back of the man’s skull. A quick twist and he broke the waiter’s neck.

  He let him drop to the cobbled promenade, a lifeless rag doll.

  Focus, he commanded himself. No way to make this look like an accident now, not with a broken neck. So concealment was the thing. He looked around and found a stack of heavy cobbles under the bridge left for repairs. He stripped the long coat off the man, found no belt but there were suspenders. Even better. He took out the knife from its leg sheath and cut the suspenders in two. Then he trussed several of the heavy cobbles in the man’s coat like a satchel, binding it at the top with one of the suspenders. The other he tied to this bundle and wrapped it around the man’s waist, tightly securing it.

  There were voices overhead – a woman and a man.

  ‘Come on, dearie,’ the woman said. ‘We can go below. Nobody will see. A nice fast one for you.’

  He would have to kill them as well. Which actually might be a good idea. It would surely take attention away from a waiter gone missing.

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ the man said. ‘Too cold for outdoor sports.’

  ‘Oh, you’re a comedian,’ the woman said in a shrill tone. ‘Feel this. It’ll warm you up.’

  ‘Give it a rest, will you?’ the man replied. ‘I’ve got a wife waiting for me at home.’

  ‘But she won’t do what I could do for you, dearie.’

  He heard footsteps clapping on the bridge overhead, moving away, crossing the bridge. One pair only.

  ‘Go ahead!’ the woman shouted at him. ‘Go home to your sweet little frau. You don’t know what you’re missing.’

  Soon, he heard her leaving the bridge and going back to the quai. He waited another five minutes before moving the body over to the edge of the dock and letting it down gently, without a splash, into the murky waters of the canal. It sunk immediately.

  He did not go back up to the Stephanie-Brücke, but instead walked north along the docks to Maria Theresien-Brücke, where he went up a flight of stairs again to street level.

  It would be a long walk back to his pension, but he had much to think about.

  He was sure of the name. The waiter had said Werthen. He knew the lawyer and his friend Gross from his earlier mission in Vienna. It was they who caused his fall from grace with the Russians. They who made him a man without a home.

  How much did they know? What had the waiter told them? Did they know of his blackmailing Herr Karl? Of the request to Oberstabelmeister Johann Czerny to put Postling on the list?

  It had been an intricate, beautiful plan he had constructed after the heavy-handed and botched work of his predecessors. Discovering the weak link in the Oberstabelmeister’s life, examining and then exploiting that weakness: his friendship with Herr Karl. And then, the night of Herr Karl’s death, when all seemed lost, his sudden inspiration, and he was in control again.

  And now, to have it suddenly put in jeopardy once more. It was too much.

  He would need to double-check everything, beginning with the old man, Hermann Postling. Had he been traced to the men’s hostel? That would be easy enough to check on.

  And then there was the meddling Advokat Werthen and the pompous Doktor Gross to deal with. He smiled at the thought. Actually, this might be a stroke of luck, if he looked at it in the right way. To finally get pay back on those two: that would be a fine thing.

  And one further thought: he had neglected to go through the waiter’s pocket. Perhaps there was some incriminating bit of information there. But he consoled himself that it would be some time before the body was discovered, if ever. His mission would be accomplished by that time and he would be on to a new life.

  Still, the oversight rankled. It was an error he would not have made several months ago.

  FOURTEEN

  Werthen was not looking forward to the appointment. Netty was wearing the same blue linen shirtwaist and scowl on her face that she had when they had first come to talk with Frau Schratt.

  ‘She’s expecting you,’ the housekeeper said abruptly. ‘You know where to go.’

  She left them to find their own way to the conservatory once again. Werthen and Gross exchanged glances but said nothing. As they made their way down the long hallway, a hand reached out from a dark recess and grabbed Werthen’s arm. It startled him, but his eyes were adjusting to the gloom and he could make out the features of Franzl.

  ‘Advokat,’ the boy whispered. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’ He tugged at Werthen’s arm and the lawyer moved into the recess of the doorway while Gross stood watch in the hall.

  ‘What is it, Franzl?’ Werthen said, his voice lowered.

  ‘Fräulein Anna and I were talking last night,’ Franzl said, his eyes wide and almost frightened-looking. ‘She says Cook thinks the letter really didn’t go missing after all. That maybe the mistress wants some attention from the emperor.’

  Werthen nodded at this confirmation of his own theory.

  ‘I feel awful,’ Franzl said. ‘She swore me to secrecy.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Fräulein Anna. I lied to her and after she’s been so good to me.’

  Werthen put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Franzl. We already decided the same thing, so it’s not really like you betrayed her. That’s why we are here today – to talk to Frau Schratt. Besides, I think your services will not be needed here after today. We’ll take you with us when we go.’

  ‘They’ve got central heating here, did you know that? Every room has a little heater in it. No fires to build except in the boiler.’

  Werthen squeezed Franzl’s shoulder. ‘You’ve done well. Don’t feel guilty.’

  He moved back into the hall and told Gross what Franzl had said. The criminologist grunted in assent.

  ‘Still, it needs to be handled gently,’ Gross said.

  Frau Schratt was seated in the same chair as on their last visit. She greeted them with a question: ‘Has there been progress?’

  Gross and Werthen sat across from her.

  ‘Not really, Frau Schratt,’ Gross said.

  Her eyes squinted at him. ‘Then why the urgency of this meeting? You could very well notify that creature Montenuovo of your failure. Why bother me?’

  Gross sighed. ‘You misunderstand me, Frau Schratt. I think we may have found the letter, but as to progress, that remains to be seen.’

  Her squint narrowed now to a look of suspicion. ‘You are speaking in riddles, Doktor Gross.’

  He tilted his head at this. ‘I have been accused of that before, Frau Schratt.’

  She glanced from Gross to Werthen, but he gave nothing away, either.

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  ‘And just where is this letter now?’ she finally said.

  Gross smoothed his moustache with his right forefinger. ‘I believe if we examined your escritoire one more time, we might just discover that the letter somehow became lodged behind another folder or perhaps in the join of the wood.’

  ‘I told you, I examined the drawer thoroughly,’ Frau Schratt began, and then looked at Gross’s expression, his eyes fixed on her. She shifted her gaze to Werthen, but he also had his courtroom face on.

  She sat upright in her chair, clasping her hands in her lap. ‘I see. You believe I deliberately sequestered this letter. To what end?’

  Werthen remarked the false note,
as did Gross. An innocent person would demand their heads, not question possible motive.

  They did not reply.

  ‘This is absurd,’ she spluttered.

  ‘Yes, absurd accidents happen,’ Gross replied. ‘Absurd or not, just think how relieved everyone will be, the emperor in particular, when it is learned that the letter is safe. I am sure he will thank you personally. After all, there is no blame to simply mislay a letter. And it was wise of you to sound an alarm when such an important document appeared to have gone missing. It demonstrates due diligence on your part.’

  He was offering her a way out and Frau Schratt was apparently considering it.

  She stood with a suddenness that caught them off guard.

  ‘I will take one more look at your insistence,’ she said as they were rising. ‘You may wait here.’

  She swept out of the room and Gross and Werthen sat again, saying nothing. Werthen doubted it would take very long.

  He was right. Five minutes later she was back in the room, a letter in her hand.

  ‘I feel such a fool,’ she said, her Burgtheater voice ringing in the conservatory. ‘You gentlemen were right. I do not know how I could have missed it. The letter somehow got into the file of Burgtheater contracts.’

  She handed it to Gross. ‘You may return it to the emperor,’ she said grandly.

  Gross held his hands to his chest palms out. ‘No, no, my lady. I leave that for you to do in person if so requested. I am only happy to report that things have been resolved so nicely. And now, Frau Schratt, we will take up no more of your valuable time.’

  She half bowed at this. ‘I suppose you will be taking your little protégé with you,’ she said, obviously referring to Franzl. ‘Too bad, for Cook tells me he is a fine addition to the kitchen.’

  ‘Yes,’ Werthen said. ‘Franzl will come with us.’

  She nodded, feigning a smile. Werthen hoped she did not attribute their deduction to Franzl’s actions and take out retribution on the staff for perceived loose tongues.