The Hungry Blade

by Lawrence Dudley

  -21-

  “Lots of Englishmen in parachutes these days,” Hawkins said, picking up his paper, setting it on the tablecloth. On the front cover was a news report about the air battle over Britain that’d been taken verbatim from Germany’s Trans-Ocean News Service, which Nazi Propaganda Minister Goebbels had taken over. 150 british planes shot down over channel, it said.

  “I doubt it’s that many,” Falkenberg said.

  “What? Of course,” Eckhardt said.

  “No, no, that’s simply not possible. We never got kill ratios like that and the Soviet-built planes and pilots we were flying against were nowhere near as capable as the British ones.” Yes, Hawkins thought, the Condor Legion, the German “volunteers” Hitler sent. That seemed to really annoy Eckhardt.

  “What are you saying?”

  “A big air battle, you’re not going to knock down a quarter of their force, especially when you’re escorting bombers. Chasing after a fighter is not your job. You can’t abandon them. And you have to get to where they are, the sky is a big place, you’re always chasing specks on the horizon. You have to think about the closing speeds, the arithmetic of that, how long it takes to climb to a high altitude if you’re low. If you’re on the deck it can take as much as fifteen minutes.” He seemed to sense he was treading somewhere dangerous. “Someone’s giving them bad information.”

  Lunch arrived, the conversation suspended by food and cold beers. Hawkins took a long sip, ending with a genuine ah.

  “That’s good.”

  “Yes. Made by German settlers.”

  “Oh, my ears. You can tell we’re getting higher.”

  “Yes, every now and again, getting higher!” They all laughed, working their jaws as their ears popped, followed by another raising of the glasses.

  Eckhardt had ordered a steak, very rare. As the waiter set it down he removed a small folding leather case from his jacket pocket. When he flipped it open there was a row of curved jet-black knives. He saw Hawkins’s quizzical expression.

  “Have you ever seen one of these?” Hawkins shook his head. “It’s an obsidian blade, a copy I made from an Aztec original. I collect them. These are the kinds of things you should put in your gallery. Other Aztec artifacts also. I tell you, they have the most wonderful things here.”

  “Maybe. Can’t say I know anything about them.”

  “Archeology is a passion of mine.” Eckhardt picked one up and held it in the light for Hawkins to see. “This one’s an original.” It was about three inches long, with a smooth curved blade, the color an absolute black. “This is too valuable to use.” He put it back. “I learned to chip my own so I would have ones to use.” He took the other and went to work on his steak. Falkenberg watched with some amusement, glancing at Hawkins, then ever so briefly rolling his eyes.

  “These knives seem perfectly nice,” Hawkins said, picking up his own cutlery.

  “No,” Eckhardt said, “the Aztecs were the best flint chippers of any civilization. Didn’t have metal tools, didn’t need them. An obsidian blade—”

  “What’s obsidian?”

  “Volcanic glass, formed in the intense heat and pressure of the earth. No foundry can forge material with such power. They’re twelve times sharper than any metal object, by far the sharpest blades humans have ever made. The best Solingen swords are no better than butter knives in comparison.” To illustrate he sliced his bloody steak with incredible ease and finesse, wavy undulations of precisely cut meat. “Here.” He smiled and handed it to Hawkins. “You realize that’s iguana you’re eating, not chicken? Right?”

  “Uh—no.”

  “That’s what they do here. It looks and tastes like chicken but you’re actually eating lizard.”

  Falkenberg laughed slightly, “It might be pollo.”

  “Is it tough?” Eckhardt said.

  Hawkins sawed away at it.

  “Maybe.” It was a bit rubbery.

  “Could be a tough old farmyard hen,” Falkenberg said.

  “Try it! But be careful, it’s very sharp.” Eckhardt held the knife out again. Hawkins looked down at his plate. Could this white meat be from a big reptile? he thought. It was slightly unnerving … but then, Eckhardt was probably right about the fly ash. Iguana. Maybe. Did it matter anyway? Naw—Hawkins took Eckhardt’s blade and pressed it slightly against the meat. It was indeed astonishingly sharp, if “sharp” was an adequate word to describe it. It cut—no, floated—through the tough stringy meat, whatever it was, with an eerie effortlessness, as easily as a fresh meringue, hardly anything there but air. Further, the cut was even and smooth like polished stone, shining and clean looking. He turned the meat, looking at it in some awe.

  “That’s perfection.”

  “Yes! They are the most perfect things ever made,” Eckhardt said. “Black is the color of nothingness, the color of death. They’re a portal to another world, the world of the dead. The Aztecs used just such blades for their human sacrifices—they could cut a man’s heart out in a second or two, one slice across, then around inside.” He twirled his wrist. “Pull out the heart so fast they could hold it beating in front of the conscious victim’s eyes for him to observe as part of the ritual. Did you know that in 1487, when the Aztecs dedicated their new temple to their hummingbird god Huitzilopochtli, they sacrificed eighty thousand victims in four days to consecrate it? The lines up the front of the pyramids must have stretched for miles, the captives bound between a pair of warriors caparisoned with rich feathered headdresses on their helmets, wild colors, their helmets sculptures of eagles, jaguars, serpents, with great feathered fans behind, towering over their heads and down their backs.” He stopped for a moment, happily gazing at it in his imagination. “Can you imagine the magnificence of it!”

  “Quite a sight I’m sure,” Falkenberg dryly said. From his expression he looked like he couldn’t decide whether to be amused or alarmed.

  “They needed so many sacrifices they had what they called ‘flower wars,’ ” Eckhardt said. “The chiefs of vassal tribes they’d conquered were forced to periodically send their armies into battles where they were hopelessly outnumbered so that the Aztecs could take captives. It was a form of tribute. The chiefs were then compelled to come to the capital, Tenochtitlan. As their men were sacrificed they would sit behind a screen of roses, anonymous and unseen by the victims, joining the Aztec rulers in a sumptuous feast, including eating the meat of their own men. When they were done the Aztecs saved all the skulls in a rack the size of a huge building next to the temple so that Huitzilopochtli could gaze on them. There were over a hundred thousand skulls in it. The Spanish counted them.”

  Eckhardt had that unfocused gaze again, staring off and presumably seeing it all, gently waving a piece of steak around on the tip of his obsidian knife. Hawkins’s eyes carefully followed the meat and blade.

  Damn glad I have my gun, Hawkins thought. Damn glad. That damned thing is too close to my nose.

  Falkenberg warily watched, one eyebrow raised. “Did you know der Führer is a vegetarian?”

  “I did not know that,” Hawkins said. Eckhardt paid no attention.

  “The Aztecs understood the transcendent power of death,” Eckhardt said, “the power of death made their empire great. The Führer is right, Christianity made us weak, we lost that power. They have, too. If death returns to Mexico it will again be great. You will see!”

  By now Falkenberg had completely stopped eating, resting his cutlery on his plate, fingers of one hand curled on his chin, carefully observing Eckhardt’s growing excitement, an expression of deep unease on his face.

  Does he think Eckhardt is somewhat nuts? Hawkins wondered. That’d be my guess.

  “They worshipped a hummingbird god? When I see hummingbirds I don’t think of killing people,” Hawkins said.

  “Huitzilopochtli was also the god of war and the sun. Blood sacrifice was requi
red every day to ensure the sun’s return. It makes sense. They had to go to war, had to! To get the sacrifices they needed. To make the sun come back. It was a jealous god.”

  What to say to that? Hawkins thought. “I can see you’re quite the expert. You’ve been here a long time, then?”

  “Only a year now last May.” That meant he’d come right after the fall of the Spanish Republic.

  “I came four months ago,” Falkenberg said.

  “It must be frustrating to miss out on the big show,” Hawkins said. He sensed the beer was starting to loosen everyone up.

  “Yes. It is. They didn’t think they needed me. They were wrong.” He frowned. “This thing with the British is taking too long. We thought they were finished. They should be finished.” A wave of unease flowed across Falkenberg’s face, his lips now tight, looking down, shaking his head slightly. Eckhardt’s mouth was full but he looked irritated.

  There’s a surprise, Hawkins thought. Actually, a big surprise. Falkenberg’s worried? He looks it. That’s a Luftwaffe officer’s perspective? What’s he hearing? Need to get that back to W as soon as Lilly gets here with her cypher machine. Got to play up to this.

  “Surely you’re not worried,” Hawkins said. “I mean, look what Germany did. You can go back a thousand years—” Falkenberg took a deep breath. He and Eckhardt both began nodding vigorously.

  “Well, yes, yes, that is all so true,” Falkenberg said. “I initially feared a drawn-out affair, like the last war, but”—he began laughing and smiling—“he pulled it off. It’s amazing, simply amazing. You have to give Herr Hitler credit, truly—he saw something no one else did. Starting with going into the Rhineland, then Spain, Czechoslovakia, then Poland, and everything from Norway to France. You wake up in the morning, thinking it all must be a dream, then you rub your eyes and realize it’s not, and you lay there laughing. It’s delightful. Everyone feels it.”

  The train came around another bend. In the distance was a snowcapped mountain, maybe seventeen or eighteen thousand feet high, a volcano with a wisp of smoke or steam rising from the caldera. Hawkins turned to look.

  “Popocatépetl,” Falkenberg said.

  “You worry too much,” Eckhardt said.

  “Perhaps so. It’s in the breed, you know, it’s drilled into us, to keep the eyes open. As long as the Americans leave us alone we’ll be fine. This air battle? It’s little more than a mop-up operation at this point, even if it is taking longer than expected.”

  “Yes, what about the Americans?” Eckhardt said.

  Be careful, Hawkins sensed, don’t show how you feel, let that dead feeling work for you.

  “No one there wants the US to get in this time,” Hawkins said. “After the last war, there were such misgivings, so much disillusionment. All those lives. What did it accomplish? Whose fight was it? Many questions.” Parrot back the rhetoric, Hawkins thought, what was Goebbels saying? “Except for the arms merchants, who want to profit, the banks, the Jews, Roosevelt and his English-loving friends, everyone wants to stay out of it. Not America’s fight.”

  Ja, ja, they both heartily agreed, the US should stay out.

  “Not America’s fight,” Eckhardt said. “Here, let’s have a toast.”

  “To what?” Falkenberg said. “The Führer?”

  “To another victory. Like Spain! ¡Viva la Muerte!”

  Hawkins knew what that was: Long Live Death, the slogan of the Fascist troops in Spain, a salute to nihilism, death and destruction of the old order. Ah yes, Hawkins thought, you spent some time there. And not well.

  Falkenberg raised his glass, looking at Hawkins, smiling slightly. “Let’s stick with Heil Hitler.”

  -22-

  As the train climbed through and into the mountains you could actually feel the incline pressing you back into the seat, like a plane taking off, ears periodically popping from the altitude. After a couple more hours they came through passes over seven thousand feet high, past towering snowcapped mountains in the distance. Then around a bend and before them lay the Valle de México, stretching fifty miles across, a verdant, brilliant-green bowl hemmed by the mountains, classic volcanic cones five thousand feet higher. In the center sprawled La Capital.

  Hawkins checked their business cards again. Clear addresses, phones, even a telex number. That made things much, much easier, no question of what to do next or whom to follow. He could easily pick up Eckhardt and Falkenberg’s trail later—they weren’t going to sell many airplanes if people couldn’t find them. That meant he was free to follow the cases. A good guess was that another trucking company would pick them up and deliver them to whoever this Aust was, that Eckhardt and Falkenberg would keep the same distance and deniability.

  El Jarocho Expreso plummeted down the mountainside into the city, picking up speed—a tremendous rushing, rattling, accelerating feeling, wind blasting through the windows. The people on the train began stirring in excitement, murmuring “La Capital! La Capital!” Into the city, the impoverished suburbs a blur, then the city center, domes of churches and monuments in the distance, finally a dark braking into the station that had them all leaning forward on the seats.

  Hawkins checked his map against the business cards, then skimmed his guidebook for a good hotel near Eckhardt and Falkenberg’s offices in the downtown off the Paseo de la Reforma. The Hotel Imperial seemed the logical choice, a top-class hotel, near the main government offices and embassies. Car agencies were nearby, too. It’d be good to rent one, if he could.

  The station was another Spanish colonial like Veracruz, taxis waiting outside. As he hit the street with his bags he saw Eckhardt and Falkenberg several cabs down. Good, he thought, I’m right on following the trucking company. He gave them a big cheery wave. Waves and a smiling Auf Wiedersehen! came back.

  A few minutes later Hawkins was tipping the Imperial’s bellboy. The view out the corner window was spectacular, looking down the Paseo de la Reforma at a monument to what appeared to be Columbus. The avenue was vast, lined with trees and beaux arts mansions, all obviously inspired by Baron Haussmann’s reconstruction of Paris, including the Hotel Imperial itself, surrounded by verdant topiaries. The concierge—first-rate man, anywhere—had a car, a black ’32 Ford Model A coupe, fetched from an agency across the street by the time Hawkins had gotten back downstairs. And he was deeply apologetic.

  “It’s old, so very sorry, the best we could do on such short notice.”

  But it was perfect, nothing fancy that would stand out here, an anonymous car that would blend in. He had to hurry. The day was getting long, the light wasn’t going to hold, and who knew if he could find the address in the dark? He turned down the grand avenue, passing by the leafy medians. The Champs-Élysées had nothing on it for scale, it was bigger, wider, cutting through the city, busy with cars, sprinkled with statues. The streets were crowded with people passing by the elegant old houses and smart, modern-looking shops. It was slow going, light to light past uniformed traffic cops with white gloves, along the pleasant-looking, crowded cafés. As he drove he could see more big beaux arts–style monuments in the distance.

  The sun was setting when Hawkins finally found his way to the address in San Ángel, an old Spanish colonial town, now a rather nice-looking suburb about nine or ten miles south of the city center and the hotel. He drove by once, then twice, checking the numbers. All the houses in the neighborhood had high stone or adobe walls around them, hiding the homes, only red tile roofs, greenery and trees peeking over the top. A few had Spanish-style windows with curlicue iron grates over them and heavy, elaborate doors. All had large gates, big enough to drive a car or carriage inside. Few cars were on the street. He parked, waiting. Some people walked by, eyeing him suspiciously. Not good, he realized, too conspicuous. He drove back to a pretty square near a church and a café, parked and walked back up. After circling the house again, he looked carefully up and down the street, then slipped
behind a large broad-leaved tree, toed his shoes off, checked the bottoms for filth, pocketed them and shimmied up the tree, climbing into the branches, pulling himself up with a heave.

  As he teetered on the limb for a few seconds he felt dizzy and queasy. What’s wrong? Then he realized: it was the 7,400-foot altitude, like going up the Alps, a pinched feeling in the head that’d been there all day. Careful … You were warned. Take it easy. It passed after a few seconds and a couple of deep breaths.

  He turned and sat and heard odd noises, a clucking sound. There were several chickens roosting in the branches, presumably waiting to sleep. They started making noises, alarmed at the intrusion. Hawkins froze. Damn it, he thought. Going to be given away by a bunch of bloody birds? What the hell are they doing up here? For a second he wondered if he could grab one, wring its neck and stuff it in the branches. But the light wasn’t good, they seemed pretty agile and how many were there? Hard to tell. Would they fight back? Roosters do fight. He came here to fight Nazis, not chickens, they had no creed or cause, and they already had their freedom, what with being up here in the tree instead of a coop. But the damn birds were going to give him away if they didn’t shut the hell up. He began making a clucking noise, trying to calm them down, moving as slowly as a sloth, not looking at them. They obligingly moved farther out on the branches, giving him some room.

  He checked the big limb he was perched on. Not too clean. He spread a handkerchief and sat on it. The chickens warily watched him and when they decided he wasn’t about to grab their necks they finally settled down. Good. This’ll work, he thought. But what a contrast, to have the countryside intrude into the edge of a metropolis like this. Despite the boulevard and elegant mansions, this was a place not far from its rural past. Or perhaps to travel outward from the center was to travel back in time, to that rural past. How far back could one go? San Ángel looked very Spanish, very quaint, lovely. Were Eckhardt’s Indians here, too? The people in the shantytowns, who were they? Where did they come from? The country, probably. And that past.