The Dead Man's Brother

by Zelazny, Roger

  They moved again, one more time, however, before the final curtain fell on day. I followed quietly, of course, and found myself a shrub-shrouded spot for lurking when they halted.

  They cut fronds for bedding and cursed the jungle frequently, though softly. They did not build a fire. They smoked and drank from their canteens and discussed the possibility of shooting something to eat on the morrow.

  I thought back to our incarceration and questioning, to my promise…

  No, there would be no hunting for you tomorrow, Morales. As a matter of principle, I would be against your being tried and executed for anything, Morales. But my principles allow for your death by violence, at my hand. I do not believe in capital punishment, for I do not believe the state has the right to deprive a man of his life. However, I am not against murder. I was never party to any social contract and I am, by inclination and belief, an anarchist. Not being responsible for the way the world is set up, I do not feel bound by its rules. As a victim of society, I am willing to coexist with evils greater than myself unless they push me beyond the point of bearability. When this occurs, I either run or hit back, often anonymously, with the weapons I possess rather than the ones I have been assigned. I am happy, of course, that everyone does not feel this way, or I could not exist as I do, somewhere midway between civilization and its discontents—for the former situation might be absent and my aurea mediocritas thrown way out of whack. The possibility of this occurring is still sufficiently remote, however, to keep a pragmatist like myself in decent spirit. Mediocrita firma, Morales. I do not fight to win, but to maintain a balance. There is no victory, but your death will contribute to my continuing stalemate with existence. Rest a while now. I am. You might as well. There will be no hunting for you tomorrow.

  *

  They sat and talked for a long while, then stretched out as if to sleep. But they continued to talk. It was quite frustrating. Whenever I thought they had finally drowsed off, one of them would mutter something and they would start in again. Insomnia? Jitters? Probably. I was beginning to grow sleepy myself, though.

  It had grown quite dark, with only a bit of starlight to help outline things, when the helicopter passed. It was some distance away, but the sound was unmistakable. I thought I had heard it several times earlier, but was not certain except for the one previous occasion.

  Its passage, of course, woke up the camp and set off another bout of conversation. After a time, they lit fresh cigarettes. I was tempted to move closer and see whether I could pick up what was being said. I decided against this. It did not matter that much to me.

  Finally, their voices rose and I heard several references to "times," accompanied by a waving of left hands, then a synchronization of their wristwatches.

  With a sigh, Dominic rose, walked away, paced a bit, poked at several nearby bushes, then seated himself on a rock with his rifle across his knees. Morales resumed his recumbent position.

  How excellent! I had been afraid all along that they might neglect guard duty. It made things easier to have them separated that way.

  I rubbed fresh dirt on my hands and face, just in case the old was flaking off. It smelled good, that damp mixture of compost and soil. Then I backed carefully away from my position and scouted to the rear and the flanks. I moved about the camp three times in widening circles, to be certain someone was not doing unto me as I was to my prey. If they were, I decided after a long while, then they were so good that any speculation concerning them belonged in the realms of metaphysics.

  I closed upon the camp once more, drawing much nearer than I had previously. Dominic was up and making his rounds again. I watched him for perhaps fifteen minutes as he paced and poked his way around, as he peered into the shadows. My eyes had by then adapted, of course, as far as Purkinje permitted, and the halo of a smothered moon assisted me slightly from on high.

  He returned to his rock, and I advanced a few feet after he had seated himself. If I were to charge him right then, I felt that I could take him with the machete. But I was equally certain that he would get off a few yells and possibly fire a couple rounds also, before I dispatched him. Morales would be awake in an instant and I would be dead in an instant and a half. I had to take Dominic in complete silence.

  I wormed my way nearer, breathing open-mouthed.

  He stood again and looked all around him. I froze.

  Then he moved off to his left and halted. This brought him slightly closer to me and twenty to twenty-five feet away from Morales. Though he still wore the pistol, he had left his rifle behind, leaning against the stone. I was at a loss to understand his actions.

  …until he tore a handful of leaves from the nearest branch, unfastened his pistol belt and placed it on the ground, then unbuckled his trousers and pushed them down, along with his shorts.

  I was moving before he had fully squatted.

  I crept up silently behind him.

  It is a hell of a way to die, I’ll admit, but I was not going to look this gift horse in the mouth.

  He had to die, of course. I could not take a chance at a knockout attempt. If the first blow was off, I could not deal with him and Morales both.

  I raised the blade.

  He had both hands resting on the ground for balance and his head was far forward.

  I rose to my knees, then moved my left leg forward. I pushed the blade high up over my head, then stood.

  To err is so human. Pity.

  Some damn vine caught at the blade as I began to swing.

  He heard it, let out a croak, threw up his arm and toppled, falling onto his left side.

  I heard the bone in his arm crunch as I missed my target, his neck. He cried out again then, but Morales was already astir.

  I released the handle of the machete and clawed after the pistol belt with my right hand. With my left, I hooked him around the neck and dragged him in front of me.

  I saw the flash and heard it just as my fingers found and unsnapped the holster. Two more came my way before I could get the pistol out and return the fire. With each shot, Dominic jerked slightly. Morales emptied his pistol as I fired twice, then he dropped it and slumped.

  Dominic had gone limp in my arms and I could hear Morales cursing. I released my grip on my shield and let him fall to the ground. As I did, my left hand brushed my side and felt something wet and sticky. Whether it was his blood or mine, I could not tell.

  I stepped around Dominic and moved slowly in the direction from which he had come. When I reached the rock he had occupied, I sat on it and watched Morales.

  He raised his head and looked back at me. I could not distinguish his features.

  "I am wounded," he said, after a time.

  "I never would have guessed."

  There was a long silence, then, "Wiley? Ovid Wiley?" he asked. "That is you?"

  "Whatever is left of me," I said.

  "I should never have trusted you."

  "Perceptive of you."

  A stray beam of moonlight showed me then that his rifle lay fairly close to him.

  I rose and went to him, keeping him covered. I kicked his empty pistol into the brush and moved the rifle far out of reach.

  Then I returned and rolled him over onto his back. He permitted this without making a sound. There was blood on his shirt and trousers.

  I stuck the pistol behind my belt and carefully removed his shirt. I struck a match then and regarded him.

  "How bad is it?" he asked, our eyes meeting.

  "You have holes in your shoulder and belly," I told him, shaking out the light. "Do you hurt anywhere else?"

  "I don’t think so," he said, with a heavy exhalation. "I don’t know. It’s the one in my stomach that’s getting to me."

  I located his canteen, took a drink, propped him up and gave him one, took another myself. I used his shirt to wipe off his shoulder, then wadded it and soaked it, pressed it against the wound in his abdomen. I placed his good hand upon it, then propped him in a sitting position, his back against
the bole of the nearest tree. I took another drink of water, then lit a cigarette and gave it to him.

  "Thanks," he said.

  I returned to the rock, taking the canteen with me.

  "You carried it off neatly," he said. "I never expected to run into that."

  I grunted, thinking he was talking about what had just occurred. He went on, however:

  "How did you get them to the village that quickly? Was the timing accidental, or do you deserve full credit?"

  "There was some luck involved," I said, not willing to let him know that I did not understand.

  He coughed then and let out a brief groan.

  "Well?" he asked, his voice sounding strained. "Did you get what you were after?"

  "Yes."

  "Are you certain?"

  "What do you mean?"

  He chuckled weakly.

  "Just so. Just so," he said. "I meant only that a man can never be too certain, can he?"

  I decided not to grant him the Pyrrhic victory of being bothered by his suggestion. After all, what was it to me whether there was something wrong with the papers?

  Yet it did bother me. After what we had been through, to have them turn out worthless would be a hell of an epilogue. There could be no such thing, in a moral sense, as seeing the right thing done with the papers. But Emil’s notion struck me as being the least disagreeable, and I was willing to help effectuate it. It seemed most likely that Morales was just bowing out ungracefully, and I decided not to pursue the matter with him.

  I went and fetched Dominic’s canteen. I did not feel up to touching him, let alone covering him over at the moment.

  I took Morales a drink and listened approvingly as his breath came faster and faster.

  "How long have you known about me?" he said.

  "That you have been acting in your capacity as a Tupamara—or whatever the hell you want to call yourself—rather than a cop? That you may indeed be Saci?" I asked. "I don’t know. I got to thinking about it sometime after you released us."

  He snorted.

  "Was your job to get the papers or to get me?"

  I could not avoid a small feeling of triumph, since I had been wandering blindfolded with the donkey’s tail tickling my forearms.

  "The papers, of course," I said. "You are not considered especially important."

  He snarled and spat.

  "I will be a cause célèbre! A rallying cry for the movement! Diplomats will be kidnapped and exchanged for my freedom. You have grasped more than you can hold, Ovid. By taking me, you further the cause!"

  Here he broke into another coughing spell, seized his stomach and bit back a moan.

  "How much longer until they arrive?" he asked.

  "Who?"

  "Your co-workers, your fellow officious intermeddlers. Whatever the hell you call the other pigs. You have had your moment of glory now. When do they close in?"

  "Is it getting bad?" I asked him.

  He cursed.

  Then, "You could have carried some morphine, for emergencies!" he snarled.

  "You seem to be laboring under a misapprehension," I said, returning to the stone and taking another drink of water. "It does not matter to me one way or another whether you are or are not Saci. The only thing that matters is that you are Morales, and that I have promised to kill you."

  "You are lying!" he said. "Dead, I would be a martyr. I am too big for you to touch, dead or alive."

  Then, "Who did you promise?" he asked.

  "I promised myself," I told him, "because of the way you treated Maria, and me. But don’t flatter yourself you’ll be a martyr. Che Guevara you are not. You’ll sink without a ripple. How many people know who Saci really is?"

  "I do not believe you," he said. "If you are not lying, why don’t you use another bullet and be done with it?"

  I lit my first cigarette of the century.

  "Because I want to watch you die," I said.

  After his next, longest bout of coughing and cursing, he steadied his voice and said softly, "I can hurt you yet."

  I continued smoking. Let him talk. It was all he could do now. And what did he think he could tell me that would hurt me?

  "The man who gave you the papers," Morales said, with vicious pleasure in his voice. "I don’t know who he is—but he is not Emil Bretagne."

  So. I kept my own voice neutral, except for a note of fatigue it was not hard for me to inject.

  "I don’t care," I said.

  He had more to say, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of appearing to pay attention. Bit by bit, he wound down, his final sally a failure. Eventually he sank into silence. I waited for the night to pass.

  I insisted on speaking with him in private. I clammed up on everything else and kept repeating my request until they finally got the idea that I meant what I was saying.

  They chased Maria out of the hut and left me alone with him. I doubted they had had time to bug the place, but we spoke in whispers.

  "Claude?" I said. "How do you feel?"

  He was lying on a cot, regarding the roof, several fresh dressings on his upper body. He smiled faintly, then said, "I’ll recover."

  He turned his head then and met my eyes.

  "How did you find out?" he asked.

  "Morales told me you were not Emil. He thought I would find it distressing. He was wrong."

  "Where is Morales now?"

  "Dead."

  "How?"

  "I killed him."

  "Were you alone with him when he told you?"

  "Except for a corpse."

  "Have you told anyone else?"

  "No. Nor do I intend to."

  "That is good of you. It gives me some time. What made you decide I was Claude when you learned I was not Emil?"

  "Actually, I had suspected you of being Claude earlier. Emil disappeared prior to your apparent death. It seemed doubtful to me that he could have learned of it so quickly, while flitting about the country rechanneling money. And why would it be necessary for him to break into his own safe to get the records? And his disappearance, your apparent death and his reappearance with a whole new set of objectives seemed a bit strange. But it was your avoidance of Maria yesterday that told me who you really were. Even Morales was not certain as to your true identity, though. It puzzled him that a man trained in finance, with full knowledge of the enterprise and a strong physical resemblance should suddenly appear on the scene and cause a stir. He speculated that you were a Soviet agent engaged in an elaborate scheme to embarrass the CIA. He was somewhat hurt that his organization had not been taken into confidence on this, because they would have assisted, he said. He did not get to question you for very long, did he?"

  "No. It was only a matter of minutes before the counterattack came."

  His eyes wandered toward the roof once more.

  "You have guessed what became of my brother then," he said.

  "When you ran into difficulties in Rome, I assume you discussed with him the matter of coming to Brazil in a hurry. He was quite concerned over this because he was in with Morales’ crowd—which is the reason Morales spotted you as an impostor immediately—and he was not living up to his end of the bargain with you, as to the disbursement of the funds you were diverting. He persuaded you to meet with him in Lisbon, where he tried to explain what he had done and swing you over to his way of thinking before you came to Brazil, saw it for yourself and caused him trouble. I choose to believe that he had the gun, and when a fight followed the inevitable argument it was discharged accidentally, killing him—a facial wound at that, enough to fool even Maria as to who it was, for the brief look she had. The thought occurred to you also, and you decided to assume his identity and undo as much as you could of what he had done."

  "Thank you," he said. "That is essentially correct. Only the three of us know it—for now."

  The three of us. He, I—and Maria. Or to put it in the proper order, he and Maria. And I.

  "Tell me, would you have access to the fund
s you succeeded in sequestering if you were someone other than Emil Bretagne?"

  "Yes," he said, turning his head toward me once more, eyes narrowing, "I set it up that way. Some are even in a thumbprint account. My thumb, naturally. Why?"

  "If you were to die again, then both Bretagnes would be completely out of the picture and you would be free to direct the expenditures you had in mind for this area personally."

  "I do not understand."

  "The doctor they brought, the one who patched you up, said that you would live."

  "Yes."

  "Then it is really quite simple. He was mistaken in his prognosis. He will come in and spend some time with you, then step outside and let it be known that you suffered a relapse with massive internal hemorrhaging and ultimate cardiac arrest, then sign a death certificate stating that Emil Bretagne died here today. Then we will all depart, leaving you to recuperate and go about your business. Oh, yes. Your deathbed request was that your remains be interred here by the natives you had come to love so dearly for their simple kindness, etcetera."

  "How would you manage this? And why would you do it?"

  "Do you get the newspaper every day?"

  "Yes. Usually it’s a day or two late, though. The bus drivers drop off a few at the stations. One of the tribesmen gets me one."

  "Thank you. That clears up something. You sent Vera hunting for me because of that write-up in the paper, correct?"

  "Yes. That made you the only CIA agent I knew of. I read her the article and told her I had to talk with you. She said that she would locate you and bring you here. She is a very strange, resourceful woman."

  "I daresay. Still, he couldn’t have known all that. He must really have been down to his last card for this round."

  "Who are you talking about?"

  "I’ve known the CIA man who is in charge of this operation for a long while. I was not aware that he was an agency man until he led the rescue party to me in the jungle this morning. I’ve known him for years as a second-rate art critic. It was very good cover. It gave him a reason for running all over Europe and having free time on his hands. It must have been in this role—perhaps even the reason for his assuming it—that he backed into this thing by way of his investigation of Sign of the Fish operations. It will hardly be a great distortion that I will be asking him to have confirmed—that Emil Bretagne died here, today, rather than a few weeks ago in Lisbon."