The Linz Tattoo

by Nicholas Guild

  She could feel her heart pounding. Could Hagemann see anything in her face? Did he know now? Oh, God. . .

  It seemed not. His eyes darkened for an instant, but not with recognition.

  “Good. I should hate to think. . . Well, it doesn’t matter. Your life will be quite safe with me, Esther.

  “You see, in addition to everything else, the safe-deposit box, wherever it is, is in your name. You shall have to be the one to open it for me.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “You wouldn’t want to know.”

  He smiled again, the old smile that said it was something more terrible than she could imagine.

  “Then you will never have it. You will never persuade me to open that box for you—never, no matter what you do.”

  “Never, my dear? Oh, I think so.”

  . . . . .

  He had left her alone again. He had even given her something to help her headache.

  “It’s very good,” he said, picking up a half-full bottle of brandy from where it had been resting on the floor beside the bed, “very old and smooth as cream, and there’s nothing in it except brandy, so you needn’t worry. A little will settle your stomach and ease your head. More will help you to see your situation with greater clarity. You need to relax, Esther. Don’t be afraid of anything. We’ll talk again later.”

  He laid the bottle on its side, cradled between her arm and her body, and got up to go.

  After a while she sat up and, when she remembered it was there, picked up the bottle, read the label, and pulled the cork. She had hardly tasted the stuff in three years, not since Waldenburg.

  The General had been a brandy drinker. Perhaps Hagemann had acquired the taste from him, or perhaps it was simply that more men drank brandy than Esther had realized. Did Inar? She hoped not. No—it was unimaginable.

  She raised the bottle to her lips and tipped it up, swallowing as fast as she could so that the liquor ran down her throat like water. It burned, and when she stopped she had to cough several times. She hated it, but that didn’t matter. Hagemann was right—she needed something to bring her back to herself. If Hagemann wouldn’t allow her to die, then she would stay more than just alive. She couldn’t run on nothing but nervous energy forever.

  So she would drink brandy, and stay calm, and think.

  She took two more short swallows and set the bottle down on the floor beside the bed. It was hardly any time at all before her headache had almost disappeared. She could still feel the lump on her scalp where the rifle butt had hit her—it felt as if someone had burned it with a hot iron—but that was nothing. It didn’t prevent her mind from functioning.

  How could she keep from telling Hagemann about the tattoo? Eventually she would have to tell him something—with a man like that, one was better off not having any illusions. She could tell him anything except about the tattoo. She had to keep that buried within her, so deep that she would forget about it herself.

  But she would have to tell him something.

  And he would have to be allowed to extract it from her by torture. It was the way his mind worked—if he didn’t have to take it, he wouldn’t believe it. She would have to think of something, something she could give him when in the last moment her strength failed her. Perhaps it would even be necessary to think of two lies. Perhaps he wouldn’t believe the first, thinking that he hadn’t yet reduced her to the point where she would abandon such little stratagems, where all she would want was for the pain to stop. Yes, she would need two stories. Anything—it didn’t matter what they were—so long as she forgot about the tattoo.

  Why hadn’t she guessed before? That night in Vienna, when Inar had looked at her arm so strangely and had sent her off in tears to find Herr Leivick, why hadn’t she seen it then? Because she had been too busy being in love with Inar, that was why.

  And that was why she had tried to kill herself, and why she would tell Hagemann lies as he burned away her fingertips. At Waldenburg she had belonged to herself, so her only purpose had been to survive—she had had a right to do anything she had to if it would keep her alive. But it was different now. Now she belonged to Inar,

  It was better this way. When life was its own purpose it became simply a burden, a thing heavy with accumulated shame. This way she could hate death without believing that it was the worst.

  She lay down again, feeling strangely tranquil. Perhaps it was merely the effect of the brandy, but for the first time in as long as she could remember, fear had become something that didn’t fill her up, like the air in her lungs. She could be afraid. It was all right to be afraid. It didn’t matter. She could turn her mind to something else. She would find the lies to tell Hagemann.

  23

  “We’ll need to do something about him before we get on with the rest of it. If we let him stay there, he’s bound to hear us.”

  “Can we be so sure it’s even Hagemann’s?”

  “Of course it’s Hagemann’s,” Faglin snapped impatiently. “God damn it, Itzikel, who else around here is going to put an armed man to looking after his boat?”

  Christiansen merely shrugged. “I don’t think we can ignore him.”

  “It’s just as well. Who likes leaving Hagemann with an escape hatch? While you settle things with the guard, I can wire the boat.”

  Faglin grinned. That was very much his line of country.

  They were perhaps three hundred yards off shore, in Christiansen’s rented sailboat—whispering because sound carries well over water, and because the guard who stood with his back to them at the foot of Hagemann’s private wharf, bathed in the half-light that filtered down from the compound above, was paid to listen.

  “We’ll have to land further up.” Christiansen raised his arm and pointed out at the invisible shoreline. “Just you and me. Itzhak can bring the boat back down to provide a little distraction.”

  “How about it, Itzikel? You think you can sail her a quarter of a mile without piling up on the rocks?”,

  Itzhak didn’t seem to think he was being the least funny, so Faglin patted him on the arm.

  “It’s okay, kid—just a little joke to break the tension.”

  “You don’t have to worry yourselves about me.”

  “Fine. Then we won’t.”

  Christiansen smiled at him in the darkness. There was only the palest sliver of a moon, which was fine except that they could hardly see each other. He was being as nice as he could to Itzhak. The kid seemed to think he was planning to murder him over that business with Esther—it seemed to be the translation of every look and word and gesture that passed between them, as if that was all they had to think about—and tonight of all nights they needed their minds clear. So Christiansen was being as nice as he knew how. If, they both got out of this alive, which seemed a remote enough possibility, all was forgiven.

  Hagemann’s dock was just about the worst place imaginable for trying to jump someone. The beach, if you could call it that, was nothing but a narrow apron of loose rock—no sand, nothing to cover the sound of footsteps. The only possible approach was directly under the cliff face, where enough loose dirt had fallen down to provide a little path a man could walk on without raising the alarm as surely as if he had brought along a full symphony orchestra just to keep from feeling lonely. When Christiansen had seen it yesterday in daylight, he had nearly decided that Hirsch was right and the place was impregnable. Nearly.

  There was a fair breeze this night, coming straight down the shore, which was both good and bad. Even Itzhak, who had learned everything he knew about sailing in the last hour and a half, wouldn’t have any trouble steering for Hagemann’s dock once Christiansen and Faglin had been landed farther up. But the wind also carried sound, so the kid was going to have to put on one hell of a show if that guard wasn’t going to hear them coming.

  Christiansen raised his sail—a dark red one, since he didn’t particularly care to have it pick up the reflection of anyone’s searchlights—and headed the little boat’s
nose as close into the wind as he could. She bucked a trace, but before long they were a good three hundred yards up the coast.

  When he and Faglin jumped into the water it was only chest deep, which was cutting it a shade fine for the keel.

  “Take her out a bit,” he said to Itzhak, who was peering over the side at them, precisely as if they were a couple of mermaids. “Come in on him from the sea, and try not to be too subtle about it.”

  By the time the water had dropped to their waists they could no longer see the boat at all. When they came up on shore they might as well have been alone in the world.

  “Good God, I’m cold,” Faglin muttered. And he was too. His teeth were chattering. Anyone would have been cold.

  “Count your blessings, and hope you live long enough to die of pneumonia. “

  “Very funny. Doesn’t it bother you at all?”

  “Yes, but I’m used to it. You fought your war in the desert, I fought mine in northern Europe. We used to say, if water doesn’t have ice floating in it that means it’s warm enough to make tea. Now, not another word until we’ve seen to the guard.”

  As they stood by the shoreline they could hear the waves dragging the shingle back and forth. It was a melancholy sound, suggestive of life’s final futility. Clackity, clackity, clickity, clack, on and on, like a death rattle.

  When they reached the cliff face and were a little sheltered from the wind, they took off their trousers and sweaters, wrung them out as best they could, and put them back on. There was nothing they could do about their shoes except empty them.

  They crept along, trying not to stumble—they could hardly see each other, let alone the path in front of them. There was absolutely no light until they were almost level with the dock. When they could see that, they crouched down and waited for Itzhak and the boat.

  It was only a floating pier, running twenty feet or so out from the shore and anchored to a couple of massive posts. Hagemann’s motorboat was just visible at the end, a ghostly white shape bobbing slightly in rhythm with the waves from the almost tideless Mediterranean. She was sleek and luxurious-looking, the kind of boat that had never been intended for anything except the amusement of people with too much money. It would have been interesting to know how Hagemann got the Syrians to pay for her.

  The guard was nothing but a shape huddled against one of the posts. He was smoking a cigarette—they could just make out the plumes of smoke—and he was huddled up after the fashion of soldiers who have grown weary and bored with sentry duty. He wasn’t looking at anything. His thoughts were somewhere else.

  It was perhaps a quarter of an hour before they had any sign of Itzhak, and they heard him before they saw anything.

  He was singing, the little bastard: “Sixteen men on a dead man’s che-est, yo ho ho an’ a bottle of rum.” And then the sound of slurred laughter drifted across the churning water.

  “Hi there! Anybody home? I can’t get my fuckin’ motor started again.”

  The guard reacted quicker than one would have expected. He brought the rifle down from his shoulder and glanced around, as if he couldn’t make up his mind where all the noise was coming from. He must have had a flashlight in his pocket, because very quickly there was a thin beam of light playing over the sand. If he pointed it toward the cliffs they were all finished.

  “Come on, pal. Give us a han’, will ya?”

  That settled everything. Now he knew where it was. The flashlight caught the side of Christiansen’s boat in its beam and ran down the mast until it encountered Itzhak’s smiling, innocent face. The guard raised his rifle.

  The kid had maneuvered in to the side of the dock, close enough that he could almost have reached out and touched the hull of Hagemann’s gigantic pleasure craft. He was sitting on the stern, not even trying to steer, not more than fifteen feet from where the guard was peering at him over the sights of his rifle. It was a bad moment.

  And then Itzhak raised the thermos bottle he had been holding between his knees, which turned it into something of a standoff.

  “Be a sport, pal. I been flounderin’ aroun’ all night, God damn it. Give us a han’, an’ we’ll have a li’l drinkie, jus’ you an’ me.”

  If he was scared—and who the hell wouldn’t have been scared?—he didn’t look it. What he looked like was just another damn fool of a tourist, out on a little toot that had gone ever so slightly wrong. He was a good boy. He was doing great.

  And the guard seemed to be buying it, at least to the degree that he wasn’t going to shoot anybody out of hand. He lowered his rifle just a little and took a few tentative steps toward the dock. He wasn’t quite fool enough to go out onto that spit of creaking, heaving wood, not just yet, not until he was a shade clearer about what was going on. But, for the moment, at least, he wasn’t going to kill anybody either.

  And maybe, just maybe, the supposed contents of that thermos were not without interest. There wasn’t anything in it except coffee, but he didn’t know that.

  “Come on, be a sport—you know anythin’ ’bout engines?”

  The guard was watching Itzhak now. He was all attention, and his back was to the cliffs. Christiansen didn’t wait any longer. Keeping a hand on Faglin’s shoulder, he stood up. He didn’t want any help—this sort of thing was supposed to be his specialty.

  It was distance of perhaps sixty feet—not very far, except that the rocky shore crunched like a cement mixer with every step he took. There were no covering noises except the clicking of the stones as the waves drew them back and forth and the sound of Itzhak’s voice. It was to be hoped he wouldn’t run out of things to say.

  Christiansen paced himself. Every time the waves rushed up the shoreline he stood still, waiting. When they receded he would risk a few carefully placed steps. He had to be so cautious—all that loose rock could sound like an avalanche, and there was always the risk of tripping in the darkness. Out the water would go. One, two, three, four paces closer. Then wait. Fifty feet, then forty, then thirty. . .

  “How ’bout I throw you a line—you tie me up? You got a phone around here I could use? Come ON, sport. Be a sport. “

  It was an open question whether Hagemann’s guard understood one word of this singular monologue. He hadn’t spoken. He was merely watching, waiting, listening. . .

  Christiansen was only about twenty-five feet behind him now—standing there, waiting for the waves to fall back. He could rush the guard now. Even if he were discovered, he would have at least a fifty-fifty chance of reaching him before he could take aim.

  It wasn’t good enough. If the guard fired the rifle at all, the game was up and they were all dead.

  He reached into his pocket and took out his coil of catgut. It was the only way.

  The guard was getting restless. In a second or two he would make up his mind about what to do. If he shot Itzhak, they were finished. If he stepped onto the pier, Christiansen would never reach him.

  The waves slid back down, and the sound of the clicking stones returned. A few more paces. Now just fifteen feet.

  “Look, pal, I’m tired of waitin’.” Itzhak climbed down from the prow of his boat, stumbling as his feet landed on the pier. It gave the guard something new to think about. It was perfect timing.

  Ten feet, now seven, now five. . .

  Itzhak started down the pier toward them. At the last possible moment he caught Christiansen’s eye. Did the guard notice?

  But it was too late for him. Christiansen dropped the noose over his head and pulled tight.

  In the first second the guard went rigid. They all did that. The only thing he could think about was that cord around his neck, cutting into his flesh, choking him as it closed around his windpipe. His hands flew up to his throat—it was a reflex; he couldn’t have helped himself. Itzhak rushed forward to take the rifle from him before he remembered to fire it.

  Christiansen just hung on. There was nothing else to do. The man was clawing at the cord, fighting, trying at least to turn around, bu
t Christiansen yanked him down to the ground, put a foot on his shoulder, and kept pulling. The guard’s head was turned away—there was always that saving mercy; at least you didn’t have to watch their eyes while they died—but he could still see it, the whole death agony. It was mirrored in Itzhak’s face.

  Finally it was over. It was always surprising, and just a little sickening, to realize how long it took a man to strangle. The body had been limp for a long while, and then some subtle change took place, that strange thing that marked the difference between mere unconsciousness and death. Christiansen, when he was sure, allowed himself to let go. As he loosened the cord, the last breath the man had ever taken rushed from his lungs in a drawn-out, mechanical wheeze, and Itzhak, wheeling around, supported himself against the closer of the two posts and retched loudly. Christiansen didn’t blame him a bit.

  “What should we do with the body?”

  It was Faglin, who had probably seen worse things. He was standing beside Christiansen, his eyes darting between the guard’s corpse and Itzhak, who was still busy being sick.

  “Drop him in the drink and let the current carry him off. If somebody looks down and sees he isn’t there, maybe they’ll just think he’s off somewhere taking a leak. Better that than somebody stumbles over a stiff.”

  “Right. You take care of that. I’ll see to my own business. “

  He stepped up on the pier and climbed aboard the sailboat to pick up the knapsack he had brought with him from his hotel room. Then he disappeared up a short steel gangway and into Hagemann’s boat.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. . . It’s just, I’ve never seen anybody die like that before.”

  Itzhak was sitting at the foot of the pier, wiping his mouth, trying hard not to look at the dead body that was curled up almost at his feet.

  “Don’t worry about it. You played that scene very well, by the way.”

  Christiansen had been through it all himself. He knew what the kid was feeling, that mixture of gratitude and appalled consciousness that, yes, he had helped to kill a man. Like a lot of other kids, not that many years ago, who had suddenly found themselves in uniform to fight the great war, Itzhak was fast coming of age in a world where manhood was indistinguishable from the taste of blood, and he was entitled not to be too crazy about it.