Fitzduane 01 - Games of The Hangman

by O'Reilly-Victor

  As the years passed, Kadar refined the process of creating a new person to ritual. Always the process started with his lying back, his eyes closed and his body relaxed. He would focus his mind in a way he could not even describe to himself. It was something akin to fine-tuning his natural life-force. When he was ready to begin, he would see a wall of thin gray mist swirling gently. The mist would have a glow as if lit from within.

  Slowly a shape would appear in the mist, its details obscure. Only one factor would be clear: the height of the figure. Kadar's creations, regardless of their eventual age or sex or external appearance, always started with height.

  He often thought that this first stage was the hardest. It required such an infusion of energy. Sometimes he would lie there for hours, his body drenched in sweat, and the wall of mist would stay blank. Once the basic shape had appeared, the work would be easier and more pleasurable. He would mold and paint in the details as if in an artist's studio, but use his tightly focused mind instead of brushes or tools to achieve the result. He would adjust the height and then work on the general build. Features would become defined. He would work on the posture. Clothing would be added, then texture and color. Finally the creation would be complete but lifeless. Then, in his own time, he would breathe life into it — and it could talk and move if that was his wish.

  Most of the men he created had pale skin and sun-bleached hair and were beautiful. Most of the women he created were more utilitarian, although there were exceptions.

  Over time he had learned to modify his ritual to mold and change real people. There wasn't the same totality of control, but there was more challenge. There was a higher wastage factor, but that in itself yielded benefits.

  It was in the process of killing that he reasserted control.

  * * * * *

  Fitzduane patted the harp on its little head, then left the plane. The flight had taken under two hours. It was on time. He pushed his luggage cart through the NICHTS ZU DEKLARIEREN and looked for a public telephone.

  There were times when having intuition and perception could be a disadvantage, even a curse.

  They had not parted well. Etan lay next to him, their sweat mingled, yet there had been a distance between them. Different people, different ways, different goals, and, for the moment, no bridge. Love and desire, but no bridge. That bridge was commitment, not just talk about marriage but the serious practical business of changing their lives so they could be together. There would be small people to nurture and care for. That meant being around, not departing yet again on another quest. It meant choices and some hard decisions. He smiled to himself. He missed her already, but hell, growing up was harder when you were an adult.

  In the end Guido was the obvious man from whom to obtain background information on the von Graffenlaubs. He and Fitzduane either had covered assignments together or had competed for them in half a dozen different countries. Since being wounded in Lebanon and subsequently contracting a severe liver infection, the Swiss journalist had been deskbound and was currently filling in the time with a research job in the records section of Ringier, the major Swiss publishing house.

  And yet Fitzduane hesitated by the phone; Guido had been Etan's lover for several years. Lover — familiar with her body in the most intimate of ways. A kaleidoscope of explicit sexual images crowded his mind. Another man, his friend, in the body of the woman he loved — in the past perhaps, but in his mind now.

  Life, he thought, is too short for this kind of mental shit. He began to dial.

  * * * * *

  Dr. Paul had pale, aristocratic features, and his blond hair was silky smooth. "Are you comfortable?" he asked. He managed to sound genuinely concerned. The tone of his voice was reassuring, and its timbre projected professional confidence.

  Kadar thought he'd got Dr. Paul about right. "Why don't we start with your name?"

  "Felix Kadar. But that's not my real name."

  "I see," said Dr. Paul.

  "I have many names," said Kadar. "They come and go."

  Dr. Paul smiled enigmatically. He had beautiful white teeth.

  "My birth certificate," said Kadar, "states that I was born in 1944. My place of birth is given as Bern. Actually I was born in a small apartment in Brunnengasse, just a couple of minutes' walk from here. My mother's name was listed as Violeta Consuela María Balart. My father was Henry Bridgenorth Lodge. She was Cuban, a secretary with the diplomatic mission. He was a citizen of the United States of America. They were not married. It was wartime. Even in Switzerland, passions were running high.

  "Father worked for the OSS. He never got around to mentioning to Mother that he had a wife and young son back in the States. When Mother explained that it wasn't the high standard of Swiss wartime cuisine that was thickening her waist, Dad had himself parachuted into Italy, and by all accounts he had a very good war.

  "Mother and I were shipped back to Cuba and banished to a small town call Mayarí in OrienteProvince. The area has one claim to fame: the biggest hacienda for miles around — it was over ten thousand acres — was owned by a man with a singularly inappropriate name, Ángel Castro. He sired seven children, and one of them was Fidel.

  "Many people say that they have no interest in politics because no matter who is in power, it seems to make no difference. Life just goes on grinding them down. Well, I can't agree with that view. The Batista government meant a great deal to me. All of a sudden — I was about eight at the time — I had new clothes to wear, shoes on my feet, and there was enough to eat. Mother had a new hairstyle and smelled of perfume. Major Altamir Ventura, the province head of Batista's secret police, had entered our lives. He wore a uniform and had shiny brown boots and smelled of sweat and whiskey and cigars and cologne. When he took off his jacket and draped his belt and holster over the chair, I could see that he had another, smaller pistol tucked into the small of his back."

  "How did you feel about your mother at that time?" asked Dr. Paul.

  "I didn't hate her then," said Kadar, "and of course, it's pointless to hate her now. At that time I merely despised her. She was stupid and weak — a natural victim. Whatever she did, she seemed to come out second best. She was one of life's losers. She was abandoned by my father. She was treated abominably by her family. She had to scrimp and scrape to make a living, and then she became Ventura's plaything."

  "Did you love her?"

  "Love, love, love," said Kadar. "What an odd word. It is almost the antithesis of being in control. I don't know whether I loved her or not. Perhaps I did when I was very small. She was all I had. But I grew up quickly."

  "Did she love you?"

  "I suppose," said Kadar without enthusiasm, "in her own stupid way. She used to have me sleep in her bed."

  "Until Major Ventura came along?"

  "Yes," said Kadar.

  "Was your mother attractive?"

  "Attractive?" said Kadar. "Oh, yes, she was attractive. More to the point, she was sensual. She liked to touch and be touched. She always slept naked."

  "Did you miss sleeping with your mother?"

  "Yes," said Kadar. "I was lonely."

  "And you used to cry and cry," said Dr. Paul.

  "But nobody knew," said Kadar.

  "And you swore never to rely on anybody again."

  "Yes," said Kadar.

  "But you didn't keep your promise, did you?"

  "No," Kadar whispered. "No."

  * * * * *

  Fitzduane had several hours to kill before he met Guido at the close of the working day at Ringier. He took a train the short distance into the center of Zurich and left his luggage at the central station. He shrugged his camera bag over his shoulder and set off to explore. Wandering around a new city on foot was something he loved to do.

  Zurich was as sleek and affluent as he had expected, but to his surprise there were no signs of discord among the banks, the expensive shops, and the high-rise office buildings. At first it looked like a few isolated cases of vandalism. Then he began to
notice that the damage, albeit superficial, was widespread. There were clear signs of recent rioting on a substantial scale. Plate glass windows had been cracked and were neatly taped up pending repair. Other windows had been smashed and were boarded up, again in the same painstaking and professional manner. Shards of broken glass glittered from the gutters. Spray-painted graffiti festooned the walls. A church just off Bahnhofstrasse was smeared with red paint as if with gobbets of blood. Under the read streaks were the words EUTHANASIE = RELIGION. On another side street he found two empty tear gas canisters. He bought a map and walked to Dufourstrasse 23.

  Ringier was one of the largest publishing houses in Switzerland, and its success showed in the sleek modernism of its headquarters building. The foyer was large and dominated by a bunkerlike reception module; desk hardly seemed the appropriate term. There was a magazine shop built into the ground floor. While Guido was being located, Fitzduane browsed idly through some of the Ringier output. A miniature television camera whirred quietly on its mobile mount, following his movements.

  The last time he had seen Guido, the Swiss had been fit and noticeably handsome, with a deep, confident voice and a personality to match. The overall effect was to project credibility, and it was not a misleading impression. Over the years Guido had built up a considerable network of sources and contacts who confided in him with unusual frankness.

  This time, as Guido stepped from the elevator, Fitzduane felt a sense of shock and then sadness. He knew that look all too well. Guido's face seemed to have shrunk. It was newly lined and an unhealthy yellow. His eyes were bloodshot and cloudy. He had lost weight. He walked slowly, without his normal vigor of stride. Even his voice had changed. The warmth was still there, but the assurance was lacking, replaced by pain and fatigue. Only his smile was the same.

  "It's been a long time, Samurai," he said. He grasped Fitzduane's hand with both of his and shook it warmly. Fitzduane felt a rush of affection but was at a loss for words.

  Guido looked at him in silence for a moment; then he spoke. "I had much the same reaction when I looked in my shaving mirror every morning. But you get used to it. Anyway, it won't be long now. I don't want to talk about it. Come on home and tell me all."

  * * * * *

  The last Batista presidency, as far as Major Ventura was concerned, was an opportunity for both career advancement and the acquisition of serious wealth.

  Ventura's ambitions were furthered by the international political climate of the period. The Cold War was at full chill. The Dulles brothers were in charge of the State Department and the CIA, and they did not look kindly on even the hint of communism on their doorstep. Batista's approach to upward mobility mightn't exactly be the American Way

  , but at least the son of a bitch couldn't be accused of being a Red.

  Within two years Major Ventura was Colonel Ventura and posted back to Havana to become the deputy director of BRAC, the special anti-Communist police. He stopped wearing a uniform and instead dressed in immaculately tailored cream-colored suits cut generously under the left armpit. He was fond of alligator-skin shoes. He took vacations in Switzerland. He investigated, arrested, interrogated, tortured and killed many people who were said to be Communists. He had close working links with the CIA, which was how Kadar met Whitney Reston, the only person Kadar truly loved, and by whom he was seduced.

  "We'd been in Havana for a few years," said Kadar. "Ventura still lived with Mother, but he was getting bored with her. He had other women — many other women.

  "Whitney worked for a CIA man called Kirkpatrick. He used to come to the house regularly to see Ventura. The CIA had set up BRAC with Batista, and they funded it. They liked to keep an eye on where the money was going. Ventura was their man within BRAC, probably one of many. He was paid a regular monthly retainer by the CIA on top of his BRAC salary and the money he made in other ways. One of his favorite techniques was to arrest someone from a rich family, rough him up a bit, and then have the family buy the prisoner out."

  "How did you know all this?"

  "Various ways," said Kadar. "The house we lived in was big and old. I had time on my hands — I had made the decision not to have any friends — and I had already discovered that I was smart, really smart. I found if I could get a book on how to do something, I only had to read it a couple of times and I could become proficient in whatever it was. In this way I learned some basic building skills and how to plant microphones and organize spy holes. I stole much of what I needed from BRAC and the CIA. I learned how to tap phones. To tell the truth, it wasn't difficult.

  "I learned early that knowledge is power. I made it my business to know everything that went on in that house, and from that I learned much of what BRAC and the CIA were up to elsewhere. I learned that words such as good and bad are meaningless. You are either master or victim.

  "I used to look at Ventura and my mother in bed together. That was easy to arrange because my room was over theirs and all I had to do was make a hole from my floor to their ceiling. I put in a monocular so I could see every detail, and I had the place wired, of course. He made her do some disgusting things, but she didn't seem to mind. I thought she was pathetic."

  "Tell me about your affair with Whitney Reston," said Dr. Paul. "Did you have homosexual inclinations to start with?"

  "I don't think I was either homosexual or heterosexual," said Kadar, "merely sexually awakening and alone. I hadn't yet mastered how to mix with people and to take what is needed without being involved. I was still vulnerable."

  "When I was small, I had an imaginary friend called Michael. Whitney looked like an older version of Michael. He had the same blond hair, pale skin, and fine features. And he was nice to me and gentle, and he loved me. It lasted for a year. I was so happy.

  "I spent so much time with Whitney that I stopped monitoring all the activities of the house. I still kept an eye on Ventura, but provided I knew where she was, I left mother unsupervised. I didn't think she was important. I was wrong. Even a pathetic figure like Mother could be dangerous.

  "I don't remember all of it, but I remember too much. Whitney and I had driven out to the beach at Santa María-Guanabo. As far as other people were concerned, Whitney was just being a family friend giving a lonely teenager an outing. We had been very discreet. Whitney knew he'd be in real trouble if the CIA found out. He said that the Company was obsessed with homosexuality.

  "The beach, a ribbon of white sand some ten kilometers long bordered by pine trees, was only about twenty kilometers from Havana. We liked it because it was easy to get to, yet during midweek it was always possible to find a private spot. Most people used to cluster near the few bars and restaurants. Ten minutes' walk, and you'd think you had the world all to yourself.

  "It was a hot, hot day — hot and humid. The sea was calm, and the sound of white-topped rollers was beautifully relaxing. I was nearly asleep in the shade of an awning we had rigged up. There was the smell of the sea and of pine from the groves behind us.

  "I heard voices — not a long conversation, just a quick exchange of words. I opened my eyes a little. The glare off the sea and the white sand was dazzling. I was drowsy from drinking half a bottle of cerveza. Whitney used to limit me to half a bottle. He said I was too young to drink more.

  "Whitney had gone for a swim to cool off, but he wasn't far out. I put my sunglasses back on to cut the glare, and as my eyes adjusted, I could see two men walking down to the water's edge. They were wearing loose cotton shirts and slacks. Both men wore wide-brimmed hats like those of cane cutters."

  "One of the men called to Whitney. I couldn't hear what was said, but Whitney waved and shouted something. He swam toward shore and rose to his feet in the shallow water. He looked across at me and smiled. He ran his fingers through his hair to remove the water. His tanned, wet body gleamed in the sun.

  "The two men stepped forward a few paces, and my view of Whitney was momentarily obscured. One of the men moved, and I heard two bangs very close together. The so
und was muffled by the noise of the sea.

  "I sat up, but I was still not seriously alarmed. What I was seeing was unreal. None of the actions I was observing seemed to have any relevance to me. They were pictures in the landscape — nothing more. Sweat trickled into my eyes, and I had to take my sunglasses off for a second to wipe it away.

  "The two men separated. One was reloading a short, thick weapon. I could see the sun glinting off cartridge cases. The other man had an automatic pistol in his right hand. He stepped into the shallow surface and pointed the weapon toward Whitney but didn't fire immediately. For some moments he stared at Whitney, his weapon extended as if he were shocked into stillness by what he saw.

  "Whitney's body remained upright, but where his face and the top of his head had been there was nothing. A fountain of arterial blood gushed from his head and cascaded down his torso and lower body and stained the water around his feet.

  "Then the man with the pistol fired. The first shot hurled the body back into the water in a cloud of pink spray. The man went on firing shots into the bundle at his feet until the gun was empty and the slide locked back. He pulled a fresh clip from his pocket and pulled back the slide to insert a round into the breach and recock the weapon. He looked toward me. The other man said something, and the two of them walked away into the woods."

  Kadar looked up at Dr. Paul. "I think I'd like a rest now," he said.

  * * * * *

  They took a taxi from Ringier, picked up Fitzduane's bags from the station, and traveled the short distance to Guido's apartment on Limmatstrasse.

  The River Limmat was a dull steel gray in the evening light. The rush-hour traffic was heavy but moved easily. Trams were filled with tired faces heading homeward.