Zombies

by Otto Penzler

  “You don’t have to hold up that door, Carpetsi; nothing’s coming after you. Haarman’s dead down there! Dead, understand? He isn’t any hoodoo named Adolph Perl, and he didn’t croak any fourteen years ago!”

  Professor Schlitz moaned out, “The girl said—”

  “Never mind,” the Irishman cut him off, “what the girl said!” Hands thrust in pockets, he wheeled, regarded Laïs Engles with a direct stare. “Doesn’t it strike you as a coincidence that Dr. Eberhardt, the only person in Haiti who could verify this Adolph Perl yarn of yours, isn’t here?”

  She gasped, “Yes! Oh, God—What has happened to him? What has happened to Unkle Doktor? That creature you brought here tonight—”

  JOHN RANIER STEPPED to the girl, took her by the arm roughly. “Look here, Miss Engles. Forget that—that man downstairs. You’re mistaken about him somehow. We’ve got to locate Dr. Eberhardt, whatever we do! It looks as if there’s been a fight in his laboratory here. There’s mud on that window sill. Somebody came in.” He controlled his tone. “Do you know if Dr. Eberhardt had any enemies?”

  “Enemies? I—”

  “Anyone,” Ranier persisted, “who might break in on him, want to do him any harm?”

  She sobbed, “He was kind, good to everyone. Established a free clinic. Gave vaccinations. All he wanted was to be left alone. The natives love him who know him. But they are people most superstitious. Ja, there are enemies on the island—”

  “Who?”

  “The hougans—those witch doctors who say he has robbed them of their business, who warn the ignorant blacks against him. There is that ugly Hyacinth Lucien who runs the café down in the village. He is a bocor who practises sorcery and sells charms to the deluded Negroes. Several times in the past he has threatened—”

  “Hyacinth? He was there in his café all evening, Miss Engles. Anyone else? Did Dr. Eberhardt ever mention anyone? Someone not a native—who might have a reason—”

  “Nein—nein—” She was crying in her throat, forcing the words through tears. “Who could want to harm Dr. Eberhardt?”

  “Listen,” Ranier demanded. All at once his tongue felt queer. An electrical taste, transmitting the thought telegraphed from his mind. As if his spinning brain cells, joining in collision, had caused a spark, a definite flash across his mental vision. A hunch that numbed his tongue. He said loudly, “That night fourteen years ago! When you and Adolph Perl and another sailor were waiting down there in the emergency room! All the others had died of that plague, you said, and you three were the only ones left. You and the mate and—?”

  “And a sailor named Hans Blücher—”

  “That’s the one I mean,” Ranier flashed. “What became of him?”

  “That night he ran away. Adolph Perl went after him and said he saw him run from the hospital. He ran away to escape the contagion.”

  Angelo Carpetsi had edged around the roll-top desk to peep at the bowl which was still simmering on the center table. Temporary courage which had been inspired in the Italian by Kavanaugh’s gritty assurance, a shot of Scotch and the door closed on the hall, now left the pink-shirted boy with a loud yell. He whirled on his heels, his complexion pasty as spaghetti. His black eyes glittered at Kavanaugh, at the girl, at Ranier.

  “What the hell!” he yelled. “Are we gonna stand around an’ talk? Are we gonna stand around here an’ talk—with that thing downstairs? Don’tcha see what’s in that bowl, there? Are we gonna stand here?” His voice close to hysteria, he hooked frantic fingers on Kavanaugh’s sleeve. “It’s your fault!” he shouted. “You sent the car away! You wouldn’t let me go with Brown an’ Coolidge! You wouldn’t let me go! I wanna get outa here! Outa here—”

  John Ranier was not sorry to see Kavanaugh’s knuckles whip up under Carpetsi’s jaw, closing the Italian’s mouth with a crack that drove him to the wall and left him speechless. The pink-shirted boy had interrupted a thought, and thinking was getting difficult in this nightmare. What had he been asking the girl—

  “That sailor who ran away that night. Blücher. Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know.” The girl pressed her forehead and gave Ranier a dazed look. “Nobody knows. Why do you question me about Hans Blücher? In Haiti he was never seen again. Fearing he would spread the contagion, the doctor was very angry he ran off. That was not all. Hans Blücher was gone in the night, and with him the suitcase Captain Friederich had asked Dr. Eberhardt to send to Germany. Police were called, but Hans Blücher was never caught.”

  Ranier leaned at her, staring. “You mean—this Blücher ran off with that case belonging to the German government? The devil! Why didn’t you tell us that before?” Turning his back on the girl, he paced down the laboratory to the open window, kicking at loose note-papers in his path. Wisps of moisture floated in from the night to finger his face while he stood looking out, his mind racing. Fragmentary thoughts, scenes, went topsy-turvy through his head. Haarman’s plaster-cast face in that café. Down there on an operating table, that webbed foot bared. The girl’s story knotted in the tangle. Thoughts like live wires whipping about, contacting at some point, creating that flash. Good God, it would be incredible, but—

  BACK TOWARD THE room, he slipped a hand into his breast pocket; fished out the letters he’d discovered on Haarman earlier that night. Ignoring the inexplicable notations pencilled on the stained envelope of one, he thumbed open and read the missives under the pretense of leaning from the window for air. Contents told him nothing. A dry cleaner’s bill for one white linen suit (it would want more than dry cleaning now!). A circular and note from a travel bureau advising Mr. Haarman that the Adlon in Berlin was a splendid hotel and the Hamburg-American ships were non-pareil. Wait! Another thought sparked as he returned the letters to his pocket. Had Haarman been considering Europe, then (frightened, perhaps?) veered to the Caribbean?

  He rounded from the window, lips compressed; then, before he could open them to frame the question in his mind, he was interrupted by an oath from Kavanaugh. The Irishman, who’d been stooped in a rubbish-strewn corner, picked a book out of the litter, swung about, elbowed the girl aside and confronted Ranier, narrow-eyed.

  “Look here, Dr. Ranier, don’t you think we’ve chattered long enough with this girl? Seems to me the thing to do would be search the hospital for this Dr. Eberhardt who runs the place. Why gabble about this Blücher guy when her story’s nutty anyhow?”

  “Suppose,” Ranier said, “the dead man downstairs were Hans Blücher instead of Adolph Perl.”

  “Yes, and suppose,” Kavanaugh’s brows came together, “he’s only a murdered man named Haarman!”

  “This girl thinks he isn’t. At the same time we know he can’t be the German mate she says she saw buried in 1922. But,” Ranier faced the Irishman’s skepticism, “he could be somebody who knew that Perl fellow; someone made up, say, to resemble him. Suppose that Blücher, who skipped out that night, shipped up to the States and wanted to disguise himself. Why? The suitcase, let’s say documents belonging to the German government; maybe he took ’em to sell to a foreign country. He figures the Wilhelmstrasse will be after him to get the stuff back. So he takes the identity of a man who’s likely dead and at any event won’t be known in the U.S.A. or described by the German secret service. He could assume the name of Haarman and the appearance of Adolph Perl. The scar would be easy enough. The toes a matter of grafted skin. Then, after fourteen years, he comes back to Haiti—”

  “On a cruise?”

  “How do I know? Maybe to silence Dr. Eberhardt and Miss Engles who’re the only ones who would know about the stuff he stole? I’m only guessing. Trying to show this girl how Haarman, who seems to look like an Adolph Perl, might be the other sailor who—”

  “That could not be!” Laïs Engles cried. “It is Adolph Perl downstairs. Never Hans Blücher disguised to look like him. The scar, the web foot, the face might be disguised. But never the build or color of the eyes.” Her dark gaze swerved at those near the door. “Adolp
h Perl is the man you brought here tonight. Thick-set, heavy shoulders, blue eyes. Hans Blücher was very bony, very thin, taller, with brown eyes. Like you.”

  Her pointing finger brought a squeal from Professor Schlitz and a stifled oath of disappointment from Ranier. He groped despairingly, “You said there was something valuable in that suitcase—papers, you thought. Didn’t you ever know what it contained?”

  “Only that it was to have been delivered that time in Chile. Captain Friederich told Dr. Eberhardt what it was. Worth much to Germany. That is all I overheard. Dr. Eberhardt would know.”

  “And Dr. Eberhardt,” Kavanaugh interposed bitingly, “still isn’t here! Neither are those dam-fool black police! So I think it’s time to cut all this comedy and get down to facts!” He pivoted at John Ranier; ordered, “Put up your hands!” so unexpectedly that Ranier recoiled backwards, jarred into the laboratory skeleton. The bones clinkled.

  Mr. Kavanaugh seemed to copy the skeleton’s grin. Mr. Kavanaugh’s shoulders were pulled forward, his neck shortened into his trench coat collar, chin jutting, hat-brim down almost to the bridge of his long hard nose. Mr. Kavanaugh’s Irish eyes weren’t smiling, but were points of hard blue coral sharpening themselves on Ranier’s face. Mr. Kavanaugh had transferred the volume he’d salvaged from the floor to his left hand; but he was not pointing that bossy righthand forefinger this time.

  There was a Colt automatic in Mr. Kavanaugh’s right hand.

  CHAPTER X

  ZOMBIES!

  John Ranier looked in surprise at the gun and was almost glad to see it there. It was blue-steel, snub-nosed, business like. It looked quick, hard and compact, like the man who aimed it. But its menace was real, a definite focal point for fear, something that brought actuality into this creep-walled, fog-windowed place atmosphered with a whisper of Haitian drums and a wizardish hint of resurrection. It put the cards on the table. An Irishman was something you could get your teeth in.

  Ranier lifted his arms. Somehow Kavanaugh’s explosive gesture had flicked to his mind that scene in the waterfront café, when he’d picked up Haarman’s hand and said, “This man was a con—” meaning to say “consumptive”; and Kavanaugh had interrupted with the same unexpected violence in his voice.

  That hard voice had flatted again, commanding, “Come here. Walk towards me and keep your hands up.”

  “Dave Kavanaugh,” the stout blonde screamed, “what are you doing?”

  Mr. Kavanaugh banished query and woman with an impatient sideglance; stepped close to John Ranier, ran a quick hand over his coat, ribs, side pockets, hip. “All right, step back and relax,” he directed. “You haven’t got a gun. Just don’t forget, from now on, that I have. That goes for everyone else in this nut factory!”

  “I thought we were using knives tonight,” Ranier said dryly, meeting those feral Irish eyes. “Where did your artillery come in?”

  “Unpacked it from my traveling bag when we motored out here in the Winton. Had an idea I might be able to use it, and it won’t be any mysterious mauve death if I do.” He waved the gun threateningly. “Stand over there by the girl, will you, Dr. Ranier? You’re both under arrest!”

  It was an ultimatum as unexpected as the gun; brought an oath from Ranier, an exclamation from the waxworks figure of Professor Schlitz, a gargle from the blonde, a gasp from Angelo Carpetsi. “Say!” jaw hanging limp. “You’re gonna arrest them two?”

  “Under arrest!” Laïs Engles murmured in a lethargic way, her eyes uncomprehending on the gun.

  “Yeah,” Kavanaugh informed. “As an American citizen waitin’ the protection of this foreign government, I’m taking some law in my hands.”

  She put her hands to her breast, her eyes bewildered. “I—I do not understand—”

  “Then you will,” Kavanaugh advised acidly. “Here’s a man stabbed in the back and we bring him to your hospital for First Aid, and you let him die. You say you’re a nurse for the Dr. Eberhardt who runs this place, but when we call for the doctor you don’t know where he is. You tell us you’ve always lived here with this Dr. Eberhardt; he always leaves word where he goes; then you show us this laboratory smashed to hell. The doc is gone; you don’t know how or when it happened—although you sleep on the same floor—and you don’t know what’s become of him. Is that enough?”

  “But I—”

  “It’s enough,” Kavanaugh promised through his teeth, “but it isn’t all. We run back downstairs and find Haarman’s bled to death. Do you start looking for Dr. Eberhardt, send out a call for help, yell for the servants as one might naturally expect—”

  “But there are no servants,” the girl shook her head in protest. “There are only the sleeping patients here; they would know nothing. The old house-boy, Polypheme, went to the village early this evening with the car and will not be back until—”

  Kavanaugh lifted his left palm peremptorily. “Save it. Eberhardt’s not here, anyway, and you then stall us with a wild bedtime story about Mr. Haarman being a guy you saw die fourteen years ago. A good trick, but it doesn’t go down. Any more than Haarman’s web foot proves he was once a German sailor called Adolph Perl, nicknamed the Duck.”

  JOHN RANIER LIMPED half a step at the man with the gun. “One minute, Kavanaugh! How would this girl know Haarman had a webbed foot unless—”

  “Unless you told her?” The man’s mouth quirked up the side of his face insinuatingly. “Unless you raced out here ahead of us and tipped her off. You’re our ship’s medico. Maybe on shipboard you spotted Haarman’s phony toes. Tonight, after the stabbing, you scoot out here and wise up this girl. You were on hand when we pulled in with Haarman, weren’t you?”

  The implication was clear. Ranier said, staggered, “I rode out here on the back of the Winton. Got here the same time you did. As for Miss Engles, why would I tip her off about anything? I never saw her before in my—”

  “Didn’t you?” Kavanaugh’s question came from a contemptuous smile. “You’ve been doctor on this cruise ship five years, I understand. Sailing around Haiti and making this port every two months or so. You wouldn’t, conceivably, have called on your colleague in this God-forsaken spot; struck up a friendship with the beautiful, lonely nurse?”

  The girl answered for Ranier, her accent deep-throated, “I do not know this man!” pointing at John Ranier; and he felt a slow flush mount in his cheekbones. No, he’d never called on his colleague in this God-forsaken spot, as one physician on another. Never, in fact, heard of him until tonight. He hadn’t struck up a friendship with the beautiful (Kavanaugh’s sarcasm was uncalled for on that point) and lonely nurse. The only place he’d visited in this wretched port was the nearest bar. Swigging that damned aguardiente. Going to seed. Not that it mattered. Only if he’d been more clearheaded at the start of tonight’s madness—

  He heard Kavanaugh rasping, “Well, I’m holding the girl for your accomplice, Ranier, and I’m going to turn you over for the murder of Mr. Haarman and maybe Dr. Eberhardt.”

  Then he could feel the blood running down out of his face, and he was aware that the girl, stricken by the Irishman’s malignant accusation, had pressed back to the wall, her hands behind her, shrinking from his nearness, her eyes repelling him with horror. Facing Kavanaugh, his lips went stiff with controlled fury.

  “I don’t know a damned thing about Eberhardt, or Haarman, either. How could I have stabbed Haarman back there in that café?”

  Kavanaugh shrugged, bowing a little over his aimed gun. “I’m not saying you did. I’m saying I think you did.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do I think you did?”

  “Let’s have it.”

  “I think you did,” the Irishman’s tone was mockingly judicious, “because you’re the only one who was there in that café who could have done it. Logical?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Have some more.” Kavanaugh might have been passing the jelly. “No one of our party at the table could’ve stabbed Haarman because the others
at the table would’ve seen it. No one at the table went around behind his chair. Only other occupants of the dump were that black bartender and you. You don’t accuse that coon of doing it, do you?”

  “He couldn’t—”

  “That,” Kavanaugh smiled, “leaves you.”

  JOHN RANIER DIDN’T smile. “Does it? I was sitting in an alcove off the bar, wasn’t I? Mr. Haarman was in the middle of the room. How could I have stabbed the man?”

  “Mr. Haarman was to meet the rest of us in the motoring party at the café, which was to have been our starting point. He went there a half hour ahead of us. You were there when he turned up. Admitted?”

  “What do you mean admitted?” Ranier said, angered. He felt he would go cross-eyed staring at the gun which kept his fist from flying at the tall man’s mocking teeth. There was a cat-with-mouse attitude about the Irishman that needed a stiff punching. Ranier could only open and shut his hands, glaring. “What do you mean admitted? I said so from the first, didn’t I?”

  Kavanaugh lifted an admonitory eyebrow. “You also admitted you and Haarman had had a little quarrel?”

  “I told you about that, too. He’d been drinking. Ugly when he came into the café. Chucked me out of my chair. He took a pass at me, understand? I never put a hand on him. And what’s that got to do with my stabbing the man when the rest of you were there.”

  “Before we got there,” was the answer. Kavanaugh’s eyes went slant-wise at the book he was holding in his left hand. His forehead wrinkled inquiringly. “You might’ve stabbed Haarman before the rest of us arrived. Eh?”