The Eighth Dwarf

by Ross Thomas

  “I’ll manage,” Jackson said, smiled, and pocketed the cards.

  Lieutenant Meyer studied Jackson for several seconds. He took in the gray hair and the lean face with its almost too regular features. Had it not been for the not-quite gray eyes, the face would have been a toss-up between pleasant and handsome. The eyes made it too alert for either, Lieutenant Meyer decided. Much too alert. His brains leak out through his eyes. Otherwise he’d be Fraternity Row, maybe rush captain at Phi Delta Theta—if you took away ten years and all that gray hair.

  “Let me guess,” Lieutenant Meyer said.

  “Sure.”

  “Dartmouth.”

  Jackson shook his head and smiled slightly. “The University of Virginia.”

  Lieutenant Meyer didn’t bother to keep the sneer out of his voice. “The gentleman factory.”

  “I suppose.”

  “You know something, Mr. Jackson, sir?”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been a little slow, maybe even a little dense, but I think I’m beginning to figure out why you’re in on this thing.”

  “Why?”

  “Money. There’s money in it somewhere, isn’t there?”

  Jackson smiled again—a cool, remote, totally cynical smile. “You’re getting warm, Lieutenant. Very warm.”

  At five minutes until nine the jeep, with Lieutenant Meyer at the wheel, drew up at the address near the Frankfurt zoo. Jackson used his lighter to examine the card the Air Corps Sergeant had given him.

  “You’re sure this is the right address?”

  “I’m sure,” Lieutenant Meyer said. “Some house, isn’t it?”

  “Some house,” Jackson agreed, got out of the jeep, and reached for his bag.

  Still staring at what he could see of the house, which was illuminated only by the lights that came from two of its windows and the jeep’s headlights, Lieutenant Meyer said, “Fifteen rooms. At least fifteen rooms. You sure you don’t know who owns it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Somebody rich.”

  “Apparently.”

  “Not even touched,” Lieutenant Meyer said, shaking his head. “You notice that? Both houses on either side wiped out by the bombs and this one’s not even touched.”

  “I noticed.”

  “You sure you don’t want me to wait?”

  “For what?”

  “To make sure it’s the right address.”

  Jackson shook his head. “It’s the right address.”

  “But you don’t even know who lives here.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Jackson said. “I said I didn’t know who owns it.”

  Lieutenant Meyer sighed. “More mystery-man shit.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Sure you are.” Lieutenant Meyer started the jeep. “Well, if you want to beckon and call some more, you know where I am.”

  “I know. Thanks, Lieutenant, for everything. You’ve been most helpful.”

  “I’ve been a stupid jerk is what I’ve been,” Lieutenant Meyer said, and drove off.

  Jackson watched him go and then walked up to the iron gate set in the chest-high brick wall that seemed to surround the house. The gate was unlocked. Jackson went through it and up the stone path to the door. He tried the door, but it was locked. He took out the key that had been in the envelope along with the card and inserted it into the lock. It turned easily.

  Jackson pushed open the door and went through it into an entry hall that was illuminated by a kerosene lamp. He put his bag down on the parquet floor and looked around. The lamp rested on a table. Farther back, a flight of stairs curved up to the second floor. To Jackson’s left were a pair of sliding doors. They were closed, but some light leaked out from underneath their lower edges.

  Jackson went over to the doors and tried them. They were unlocked. He shoved them apart and went into a room that was lit by another kerosene lamp and the glow that came from the grate of a coal-burning fireplace. Two large, high-backed chairs were drawn up on either side of the fireplace. Next to one of the chairs was a small table. On it were two glasses and a bottle of whiskey.

  Still looking around, Jackson noticed some dark oil paintings on two walls and in a far corner a baby-grand piano with its lid up.

  “Where are you?” he said.

  “Over here,” the dwarf said. “By the fire.”

  17

  Jackson moved over to the two large chairs, glanced briefly down at the dwarf, warmed his hands before the coal grate, and, without turning, said, “Where’re the women, Nick?”

  Ploscaru wriggled with pleasure. It was exactly the cool and laconic greeting that he had hoped for. The American was so absolutely predictable.

  “I’ve failed you, my boy,” Ploscaru said with mock despair. Then he brightened. “But there is a little parlormaid that we could scare up for you if …” He let the trail off and finished it with a small gesture.

  “Never mind,” Jackson said, and turned from the blazing fire. “There’s no coal in Germany, Nick. I’ve been reading Time magazine. There’s no coal in the American Zone, anyway. When they divided Germany up, Russia got the wheat, Britain got the coal, and America got the scenery.”

  “There’s a ton of coal in the cellar, I believe.”

  The dwarf was wearing his green silk dressing gown and his red slippers. His green eyes seemed to dance with anticipation over the questions that he knew would come.

  “Okay, Nick. Whose house?”

  “A cousin’s. A distant cousin—thrice removed, as I belive you say in the States. He’s actually a Swede and he’s with the United Nations. Something called UNRRA, What ever does UNRRA stand for?”

  “It’s the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Agency.”

  “Yes, well, my cousin runs the DP camp at a place called Badenhausen. It used to be a concentration camp, I understand, but now they keep DP’s there. I wonder if any of those who are now its guests were once its inmates. Well, no matter. In any event, my cousin is on leave for a month, and so we have his house until then. It’s rather a nice place. Fourteen rooms, I think, with a staff of five. So much better than a hotel, don’t you agree?”

  “Sure.”

  “We’ll need a car, of course. The butler gave me a tip on one that we can look into tomorrow.”

  “The butler.”

  “Didn’t I mention the household staff? I thought I did. There’s the butler; the cook, of course; a gardener; and two maids. Rather decadently colonial, don’t you think? I mean, all the servants. Shall we have a drink? No bourbon, I’m afraid, but there is some rather decent Scotch.”

  “I’ll fix them,” Jackson said, and stepped over to the glasses and the Scotch bottle. “Have a nice trip over?”

  “Very pleasant.”

  “Let me guess. The Air Corps again.”

  “How very perceptive of you, Minor. There was this young captain that I’d known in Ploesti. Shot down, you know. He was only a second lieutenant then, but he still believes that I somehow saved his life. Well, I bumped into him in Washington and he mentioned that he was making what he called a ‘goodie run.’”

  “A goodie run?”

  “Yes, it seems that they sometimes do that—fly bombers full of luxury goods over to what the young Captain called the top brass. Rank has its privileges, Minor. So when I happened to mention that I was interested in getting to Germany, he wanted to know how I got along with animals. It turned out that part of his cargo was six Pekingese that belonged to some general’s wife. I get along famously with animals, as you know; even Pekingese, which are, quite frankly, terrible little beasts. So my young Captain and I struck a bargain. He agreed to give me a ride over if I would look after the dogs. It was a quite pleasant trip, as I said. Very quick. We didn’t even stop once, although we did land at Wiesbaden instead of Frankfurt, which was a bit inconvenient. A huge plane—one of these B-29 things. But there was miles of room so I had no trouble in bringing along a few cigarettes. How many did you bring?”

&
nbsp; “A carton,” Jackson said.

  “Well, I brought a few more than that. As a matter of fact, it was the young Captain who suggested that they would come in quite handy.”

  “How many’s a few more, Nick?”

  “Let me think. About forty-eight thousand, actually.”

  “Jesus.”

  “That’s four big cases. There was a fifth case, but when we landed at Wiesbaden, I was inside of that, of course.”

  “So they smuggled you in along with your cigarettes.”

  “Naturally.”

  “I wonder.”

  “You wonder what?”

  “When they catch you, whether you’ll be shot or hanged.”

  Ploscaru chuckled, reached into a pocket of his dressing gown, and took out the Swiss passport. He handed it to Jackson. “Page three, I think. A most official-looking entry visa properly stamped by the U.S. Constabulary, which is handling the borders, you know. It cost me two cartons of cigarettes at the DP camp that I spoke of. My cousin, before he left, put me onto a most expert forger there, a Czech. My cousin, I’m sorry to say, dabbles a bit in the black market himself.”

  Jackson examined the stamp. “It looks all right.” He handed back the passport. “So you’ve been here awhile?”

  “Almost twenty-four hours.”

  “Then you must have left Washington just after you saw me off at the station.”

  “Baltimore, actually. We flew out of Baltimore. Now tell me, how was your trip?”

  “Rotten,” Jackson said. “I was met at the airport by a Lieutenant Meyer. Lieutenant LaFollette Meyer, who’s with the CIC here.”

  “The counterintelligence people.”

  “Right. Lieutenant Meyer seemed to think that I was going to help him find Kurt Oppenheimer.”

  “You disabused him of that notion, I trust.”

  “Not completely. Lieutenant Meyer will probably come in handy. I turned mysterious instead.”

  Ploscaru nodded judiciously. “Yes, that’s often effective. He’s young, I take it?”

  “Twenty-six or so. He gave me a rundown on Oppenheimer. It seems that he’s just killed somebody else.”

  “Who?”

  “Somebody called Damm. From what Meyer tells me, Damm may have needed killing, but the Army’s getting awfully upset with Oppenheimer. It’s not only the killing that bothers them. It’s also the fact that he’s going around posing as a U.S. Army major.”

  “What a wonderful disguise!”

  “It fooled Baker-Bates.”

  “Dear me. Is he here?”

  “Uh-huh. Your old pal. Apparently Oppenheimer braced him at the American officers’ club. They had quite a chat. Oppenheimer even bought him a drink.”

  Ploscaru chuckled. “Poor Gilbert must be absolutely livid.”

  “They also think that Oppenheimer has a list.”

  “A list of what?”

  “Of the people that he’s going to kill next.”

  Jackson watched as the dwarf slowly lit one of his Old Gold cigarettes. When the cigarette was burning satisfactorily, Ploscaru reached for the drink that Jackson had poured him and took a long swallow. Then he sighed.

  “You’ll have to interpret that for me,” Jackson said.

  “What?”

  “The sigh.”

  “It means, I suppose, that instead of the brief respite that I’d hoped for, we must instead be up and doing.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Why, finding young Oppenheimer, of course.”

  “When?”

  “We start tomorrow morning.”

  “Not tonight?”

  Ploscaru frowned, but the wrinkles in his forehead quickly smoothed themselves out. “Oh, I see. You’re joking just a little, aren’t you? You must be terribly tired.”

  “You’re right; I am.”

  “We’ll get a good sleep tonight, have a nice breakfast tomorrow, and then be off to our appointments.”

  “Appointments?”

  “Yes, you have one for ten o’clock tomorrow with Leah Oppenheimer. She arrived late yesterday from Paris. A terribly complicated trip, I understand, by train.”

  Jackson nodded slowly. “You’re not coming with me?”

  “No, I think not. I have my own appointment to keep.”

  “What appointment?”

  “Why, my appointment at the zoo, naturally.”

  It had stopped raining an hour before. From his seat on the bench near the zoo’s pond, Ploscaru watched as the neatly dressed old man took the small cloth bundle from his briefcase. The old man, limping slightly had arrived some five minutes before. He walked with the aid of a heavy cane. For a while, for nearly the full five minutes, he had stood at the edge of the pond, leaning on his cane and gazing out at the ducks.

  Now he took the bundle from his briefcase and started calling to them softly. The ducks ignored him until one of them, more curious or hungrier than the rest, left the pond and, quacking loudly, waddled up to the old man, who opened the cloth bundle and fed the duck some bits of bread. The duck ate them hungrily and quacked for more.

  The old man raised his heavy walking stick and quickly beat the duck to death. Then he stuffed it into his briefcase, snapped that shut, and looked around furtively. When he saw Ploscaru, he stiffened; looked as if he were about to explain, or at least try to; apparently thought better of it; turned; and limped quickly away.

  Enjoy your duck dinner, old man, Ploscaru thought, and looked at his watch. For once he was early, or nearly so. Had he not been early, he would have missed the duck’s execution. He wondered how long the old man had gone without eating anything but bread before hunger had driven him to do what he had just done. A day? Two days? Three? Ploscaru settled on three, because the old man had looked very neat and respectable. He wondered what he had been before he had turned duck killer. A teacher? A minor bureaucrat, perhaps? Something stiff and proper, anyway. Something with a handle to it, a title of sorts, so that the old man could be called Herr This or Herr That. Now he can be called Herr Duck Killer.

  The dwarf grinned a little and took out an Old Gold. Just as he was lighting it, a hoarse voice from behind him whispered, “Nicolae, is that you?”

  Without turning, Ploscaru said, “Who else would it be, Mircea?”

  “I had to be sure,” the hoarse voice said.

  “For God’s sake, man, come out from behind the bushes.”

  The big, shambling figure that emerged from behind the clump of evergreens belonged to Mircea Ulescu, not quite a giant, but well over six feet tall, who swooped down on the dwarf, lifted him by his armpits, stood him on the bench, bent down, and kissed him wetly on both cheeks.

  “Nicolae, Nicolae, Nicolae! It’s really you.”

  “Of course it’s I, you lummox,” the dwarf snapped, but grinned as he wiped the wet from his cheeks.

  “Yesterday at the camp, I knew it was you, but I said nothing. One never knows, these days. But then when I got the note and it said to be here at the zoo—”

  “I know all that, Mircea,” the dwarf said, interrupting.

  “Still as crazy for zoos as ever,” the big man said, gazing fondly down at Ploscaru, who still stood on the bench. “Little Nicolae.” Two tears formed in the inside corners of the big man’s eyes and rolled down his cheeks. The eyes were an impossibly soft gray, a romantic’s eyes, and they didn’t at all seem to go with the thrusting nose or the wide slash of mouth that could have belonged to someone who, early in life, had been taught never to smile. Except for the eyes it could have been a soldier’s face. Or an unhappy policeman’s.

  “Little Nicolae,” Mircea Ulescu said again, and patted the dwarf on the head. “My oldest friend.”

  “Stop it, you fool,” Ploscaru said gruffly, although unable to disguise his pleasure. “Can we sit down now like two adults?”

  “Sit,” Ulescu said, quickly producing a dirty handkerchief, which he used to dust off the bench. “Sit, Nicolae; sit, and we shall talk in our own language of the
old days. How weary I grow of speaking German. It’s a barbarian’s language.”

  “You were speaking it eagerly enough when I last saw you.”

  The big man nodded gloomily. “Once again I picked the wrong horse. First the Iron Guards, then the Germans.”

  “You didn’t wait for the Russians, I see.”

  “They would have hanged me. The Germans made me promises, none of which they kept. I came back with them. What else could I do? Oh, God, Nicolae, how I miss Bucharest and the old days.” Two more tears rolled down the big man’s cheeks. He used the dirty handkerchief to mop them up.

  “So now you’re a DP?”

  “I’m not even that legally. Romania was a belligerent nation. A citizen of a belligerent nation can’t be a DP—not legally. Now I’m an Estonian.”

  “You can’t speak Estonian.”

  “But I speak French like a native. So I claim that I was born in Estonia, but reared in Paris. I have the authorities very confused.”

  Ploscaru brought out his Old Golds and offered them to Ulescu, who smiled, shook his head, and produced a package of Camels. “I prefer these Nicolae,” he said, and lit both cigarettes with an American Zippo.

  The dwarf eyed the big man more carefully. “Even as a DP Mircea, you don’t appear to have been missing many meals.”

  The big man shrugged. “Because of the terrible suffering that we DP’s have undergone, the authorities feed us two thousand calories a day. It’s mostly stew, but still quite nourishing.” He changed the subject abruptly. “Did you see that old fellow kill the duck. Nicolae? Wasn’t that something? I don’t think it was his first time, do you? No, I think he comes here regularly, perhaps once a week, and goes home with a nice duck dinner.

  “You’re prospering, Mircea.” The dwarf made it a flat accusation.

  The big man bridled a bit. “And look at you with your nice little suit.” He fingered its material. “Tailored, of course, but then your clothes were always tailored. It couldn’t be that you’re still with British intelligence, could it, Nicolae? No, of course not. The British would never pay enough for you to be able to afford such a nice little gray suit. Possibly the Americans, eh? Someone told me that there at the end, just before the Russians came, you and the American fliers became very thick. Where have you come from Nicolae—America?”