Games of The Hangman f-1

by VICTOR O'REILLY

  * * * * *

  The Bear tried to maintain an orderly wallet with everything in its place, but somehow it didn't seem to work out that way. Cash, credit cards, notes, receipts, police bulletins, bills, letters, and other impedimenta of debatable origin all seemed to gravitate of their own volition in no logical order to an apparently endless series of pockets that he had discovered disgorged their contents only on whim. It was infuriating. He worried that he would be unable to find his police identity card at some crucial moment, but so far, at least, that piece of documentation seemed to be a bit less independently mobile than the others.

  The Bear hadn’t found a way to solve his problem, but he had discovered over the years that he could keep anarchy marginally in check by a deliberate daily ritual — weekly more like it — of emptying out his pockets on his office desk and doing a sort.

  He swore violently in Berndeutsch, and then in Romansh for good measure, when he discovered in the debris the photograph of the motorcyclist the Irishman had asked him to check. He reached for the phone.

  The answer from the vehicle registration computer came through almost immediately. The motorcycle was registered to Felix Krane with an address in Lenk. He checked with the Operations Room and discovered that Fitzduane's tail had reported in by personal radio some eight minutes earlier. The Irishman was in the Youth House.

  The Bear decided it might be a good idea to make up for his absentmindedness by delivering his information immediately. He looked at the chaos on his desk, swore again, extracted the minimum necessary for survival, and swept the balance into a drawer.

  He headed toward the Youth House, which was only a few minutes away on foot. Most places were, in Bern.

  * * * * *

  Fitzduane felt a hand cup his chin, and his head was jerked painfully backward.

  Van der Grijn stared down at him for a few seconds and then withdrew his hand with a grunt. "No, I don't think so."

  He spoke a quick command in Dutch, and Fitzduane felt himself hauled to his feet and quickly but thoroughly frisked. The shoulder bag containing his camera equipment and the tripod case lay on the floor, ignored in the confusion.

  Out of the corner of his eyes Fitzduane could see Ivo on his right but slightly behind him. Fitzduane had the strong feeling that Ivo knew more than he was saying. Still, comparing the slight figure of Ivo with the three burly Dutchmen, he began to appreciate the youth's courage. He'd known what he was up against, and he could have gotten away. Instead, he had deliberately put himself in danger to try to do something about the situation.

  Van der Grijn stepped back a couple of paces and stood to one side so that he could keep Fitzduane in full view while the Dutchman who had been doing the frisking came around in front of Fitzduane and started going through his pockets. He was carrying a Bundeswehrmesser, the standard West German Army fighting knife. He held it in his right hand as he emptied Fitzduane's pockets with his left. At all times he kept the point of the blade, which bore the signs of many loving encounters with a sharpening stone and glistened under a light film of oil, either under Fitzduane's neck or angled slightly upward for an easy thrust into his heart or stomach.

  Fitzduane kept quite still. His wallet was removed from his inside pocket and handed to van der Grijn. The searcher stepped back and then returned to his position behind Fitzduane, by the door. Fitzduane mentally christened him Knife. He thought that Knife was about two meters behind him. He was beginning to have some potential room to maneuver.

  Van der Grijn flipped open Fitzduane's wallet. He pocketed cash and credit cards and examined Fitzduane's press card and other credentials. The short pause gave Fitzduane time to get his bearings. The rectangular room was spacious but furnished only with a large, plain wooden table, two stuffed armchairs not in the prime of life, and two straight-back chairs. Every square millimeter of wall space was covered with drawings, slogans, and other graffiti. Light came from one large and two small windows at one end of the room.

  There were roughly a dozen people of both sexes lined up in two irregular groups on either side of the room. They were mostly in their late teens and early twenties, but several were older. All of the smaller group — four in number — had been badly beaten. One lay on the floor, his bloody hand over his eyes and a pool of blood leaching from his head.

  "So," said van der Grijn, holding up Fitzduane's press card, "you are a photographer." Like many Dutchmen, he spoke good English though the accent lingered. Each syllable was enunciated, and the voice was hard and uncompromising. Fitzduane noted that the second of van der Grijn's sidekicks was about five meters ahead and to his left, near the windows at the end of the room, and was able to monitor the whole room. He could see the butt of a large-caliber revolver protruding from a shoulder holster as the man shifted position. He seemed entertained by the situation. He was shorter than van der Grijn and Knife but had the physique of a body builder.

  The prospects for doing something did not look good. Van der Grijn and Knife aside, there was no chance of getting near the third man before he had a chance to fire. He designated the third man Gun. The others in the room looked as if they had been persuaded out of heroism. That left Ivo. Something less than a balance of power.

  Van der Grijn put Fitzduane's credentials into his pocket. "All you people have to do is flash your ID and doors open," he said. "Very useful."

  Fitzduane had the strong feeling that whatever he said would be pointless, but he thought he ought to go through the motions.

  "Give them back," he said quietly.

  Van der Grijn didn’t reply immediately. His face slowly flushed with anger. It began to be clear that he was high on something and that rationality had little to do with his behavior. He rocked slightly to and fro on his feet, and Fitzduane braced himself for a blow. The Dutchman at the window grinned.

  Van der Grijn reached inside his leather jacket and pulled a long-barreled 9 mm Browning automatic out of his shoulder holster. He checked the clip, cocked the weapon, and deactivated the safety catch. Suddenly he whipped up the gun and held it in a two-handed combat grip a hair's breadth from Fitzduane's nose.

  Fitzduane could smell the gun oil. He was looking straight down the black pit of the muzzle; it shook in van der Grijn's hands. He didn't think van der Grijn could be crazy enough to shoot him in a room full of witnesses, for no good reason except machismo, and only a sparrow hop from the Federal Police building. The he looked into van der Grijn's eyes and knew that things weren't in control, and that if he didn’t do something soon, he would die. He moistened his lips to speak, and the gun barrel jabbed closer.

  All eyes in the room were fixed on van der Grijn, Fitzduane, and that swaying gun barrel. A bearded man standing in the as-yet-uninterrogated group bent down almost imperceptibly, as if to massage an aching calf muscle, and with two fingers removed a Beretta from his boot. Nobody seemed to notice.

  Fitzduane debated making an immediate move but decided against it. Van der Grijn only had to flinch and Fitzduane's skull would explode. But fuck it, he was going to have to do something. Van der Grijn and his people weren't going to lie down quietly. They were high, drunk on power — but they hadn't seen the bearded man draw the Beretta. Fitzduane could feel the sweat trickling into his eyes, but he was afraid to move to wipe it away.

  Van der Grijn's eyes went empty; then he fired.

  * * * * *

  The Bear was looking down at the somnambulant form if Detective Siemann with amusement rather than anger when he heard the shot. His feelings of benevolence toward Siemann changed in one split second. "Wake up, you idiot," he snarled at him, simultaneously kicking him hard in the ribs.

  The large window of the room on the second floor of the Youth House burst into shards of glass. A chair hurtled through it and smashed on the pavement below, missing the Bear as he ran toward the entrance, pistol in hand. Sieman tripped on the splintered remains, cut himself messily on the spears of broken glass, picked himself up, and, pouring blood, ran after t
he Bear, who had by this time vanished into the building.

  * * * * *

  Fitzduane felt a sharp pain as the muzzle blast seared the side of his face. The bullet cracked past his right ear so close it drew blood, and it splintered the door behind him before embedding itself in the plaster of the first-floor landing.

  "You stupid shit," cried Fitzduane, shock, anger, and sheer naked terror combining to pump adrenaline into his bloodstream. He grabbed van der Grijn's wrists with both hands and deflected the Dutchman's aim toward the ceiling. Van der Grijn fired again and again as they struggled, hot shell casings showering across the room and plaster falling from the ceiling as the rounds bored their way in.

  Knife leaped forward to help van der Grijn. Fitzduane swiveled van der Grijn around as the blade was thrust at him. He felt van der Grijn jerk and saw the shock in his eyes as the blade cut effortlessly through his leather jacket and entered his back. He bellowed in pain.

  The second Dutchman had his revolver in his hand.

  "Police!" yelled the bearded man. The voice was American. "Drop it, motherfucker!" The man had dropped into the combat crouch and had his gun aimed at the second Dutchman.

  Moving with unexpected speed, the second Dutchman whirled toward the American, dropped to one knee, and fired two rounds at him, hitting him once in the stomach.

  The American's first shot went over the second Dutchman's head, but then he sagged with the impact of the bullet in his stomach, and his aim dropped. The next five slugs from his little Beretta went into the Dutchman's face and neck. In a bloody parody of a knight's posture, the Dutchman stayed on one knee for several seconds, his head bowed, blood spurting from his wounds, his gun still held in his drooping hand, and then slid sideways to the ground.

  The Dutchman with the knife, appalled and confused by his error, left the knife in van der Grijn's back and leaped at Fitzduane. The force of his attack separated Fitzduane from van der Grijn, who still held the automatic in his hand. Though half blinded by the plaster dust from the ceiling and groggy with pain from the knife in his back, he was still just able to function. He tried to aim at Fitzduane, who was wrestling with Knife on the floor.

  Ivo, who had flung a chair out the window to attract attention, now flung a second chair at van der Grijn. It missed. He dived under the table, encountering a mass of arms and legs belonging to people who had beaten him to it. Van der Grijn, momentarily distracted from Fitzduane, fired back twice. One round gouged into the graffiti on the wall; the second drilled through the table, hitting a seventeen-year-old runaway from Geneva in the left thigh.

  The door bust open. "Polizei!" yelled the Bear.

  Van der Grijn fired. The Bear shot him four times in the chest, the rounds impacting in a textbook group and flinging van der Grijn back across the room. He staggered, still upright, and the Bear fired again, this time assisted by Detective Siemann.

  Van der Grijn reeled back against the window, smashed through the remaining jagged edges of glass, and fell one story onto the pointed tops of the fleur-de-lis cast-iron railings below. His vast body arched at the impact and twitched for a few seconds; then it lay unmoving, impaled in a dozen places.

  The Bear smashed the one surviving Dutchman across the side of his face with his still-hot gun barrel. The Dutchman fell to the floor, his cheekbone broken, and lay on his back, moaning. The Bear flipped him over and pressed his gun into the back of his neck. "Don't move, asshole!" The Dutchman became quite still; intermittently he trembled, and moaning sounds came out of his mouth. The Bear kept his gun in position and, using his left hand, handcuffed him.

  Siemann pulled the table aside. Bodies intertwined in a confusion of limbs, began to separate. Terrified faces looked up at him. He held out his hand to help and realized he was still holding his gun. He holstered it and tried to say something reassuring. They stared at him, and he looked down at his bloodstained body. He shook his head and tried to smile, and the tension on the faces eased. One by one they rose to their feet. One figure remained unmoving, blood gushing from her thigh. Siemann leaped forward, ripped the belt from his waist, and began to apply a tourniquet. Once the bleeding eased, he unclipped his radio on and put in an emergency call. When he finished he caught the Bear's eye. The Bear nodded his head a couple of times and smiled fleetingly. He rested his hand on Siemann's shoulder.

  "That was good, Kurt, that was very good."

  Siemannn didn't know what to say. He looked away and stroked the injured girl's forehead with his bloody hand. After twenty-five years on the force he no longer felt he had just a job: he felt accepted; he felt like a real policeman.

  The Bear reached down to help Fitzduane to his feet. "What was that all about?"

  "I'm fucked if I know." Fitzduane walked across to the bearded man, who was lying on the floor surrounded by a circle of people. Someone had put a folded coat under his head. His face under the beard was very white.

  Fitzduane knelt down by his side. "You'll be all right," he said gently. "That was some piece of shooting."

  The man smiled weakly. "It's a paycheck," he said. His eyes were going cloudy. "The agency expects nothing less."

  "CIA?"

  "No, not those bozos — DEA." The man grimaced in pain.

  "Help's coming," said Fitzduane. He looked down at the man's stomach. The large-caliber hollow-nosed bullet must have hit bone and ricocheted. The entire lower part of his torso seemed to have been ripped open. He had his hands folded across his intestines in a reflex attempt to kept them in. Fitzduane wanted to hold his hand or somehow comfort him, but he knew if he did so, it could add to the pressure and cause more pain.

  The man closed his eyes and then opened them again. They were unfocused. "I can hear the dustoff," he whispered. Fitzduane had to bend down and put his ear to the man's mouth to hear him. "Those pilots have a lot of balls."

  The man gave a little rattling sound, and for a moment Fitzduane was back in Vietnam watching another man die, the sound of the medevac chopper arriving too late. Then he knew that the sound of the helicopter was real and that it was circling somewhere outside the building.

  The Bear looked down at the American. "He's dead," he said. As he had with Siemann, he put his hand on Fitzduane's shoulder, but this time he didn't say anything. Fitzduane, still kneeling, stayed there looking at the man's body, the hands already folded as if in anticipation of an olive green body bag. The blue eyes were still open; they looked faded. Fitzduane gently closed the lids, then rose off his knees.

  From outside the Youth House, a heavily amplified voice boomed at them: "YOU INSIDE, THIS IS THE POLICE. LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS AND COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP."

  "Assholes," said the Bear. "It's the Federal Police from the building next door. They must be back from their coffee break."

  * * * * *

  Examining Magistrate Charlie von Beck — wearing a large, floppy brown velvet bow tie to go with his cream shirt and three-piece corduroy suit — was talking. The Chief thought von Beck looked like a leftover from a late-nineteenth-century artist's colony. He wore his fair hair long so it flopped over one eye. His father was an influential professor of law at BernUniversity, he was rich, had connections in all the right places, and he was sharp as a razor. All in all, thought the Chief, Charlie von Beck would have made an ideal person to hate. It irritated him that he liked the man.

  "Well, it doesn't make the crime statistics look too good, I admit," said von Beck, "but you have to agree: it's exciting."

  "Don't talk like that," said the Chief Kripo. "We haven't had this many violent deaths in Bern in such a short period since the French invasion nearly two hundred years ago — and all you can say is ‘exciting.’ I can see the headlines in Blick or some other scandal sheet: CHAIN OF KILLINGS EXCITING, QUIP BERN AUTHORITIES."

  "Relax," said von Beck. "Der Bund, in its usual discreet way, will come out with something to balance the scales, like EXAMINING MAGISTRATE COMMENTS ON STATISTICAL ABNORMALITY IN CRIME FIGURES."

  "T
hey don't write headlines that sensational," said the Chief. "So far, including Hoden, we have seven dead, two seriously injured, and eight or so slightly injured."

  "At least there's an explanation for the fracas in the Youth House," said von Beck. "I'm still poking around, but we've interviewed most of the parties involved and had some feedback from the Amsterdam cops and the DEA."

  "I wish they'd keep their cowboys off my patch," said the Chief Kripo in a grumpy voice.

  "Don't be a spoilsport. Anyway, it looks fairly straightforward. Van der Grijn had some heroin stolen from him. He reckoned it had happened in the Youth House, so he came back with two heavies to try to find the culprit. The American DEA man was tailing him. Van der Grijn got out of hand when the Irishman walked in, and then all hell broke loose."

  "It never used to be like this in Bern," said the Chief Kripo. "I don't care about explanations. I want it to stop."

  "Well, don't hold your breath," said von Beck. "I've only been talking about the easy bits so far. We have an explanation for the Youth House deaths, and I guess Hoden's heart attack is no mystery under the circumstances."

  "Poor Hoden, what a lousy way to go. You know I served under him for a while."

  "So did my father," said von Beck.

  "We're still left with a few questions about the Youth House," said the Chief. "For instance, who stole van der Grijn's heroin in the first place — and why? Is the thief selling it or has he some other motive? What was that Irishman doing there? Not content with flinging people off bridges, he seems to gravitate toward trouble like..." He paused, thinking.