The Judas Goat

by Robert B. Parker

  “If they’re any good.”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ll circulate,” I said. “I’ll stay up there by the dress shop for a half hour, then I’ll stroll down to the place that sells broodjes and you stroll up to the dress shop. And we’ll rotate that way every half hour or so.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Hawk said, “let’s make the circulation irregular. Each time we switch we’ll decide how long before we switch again. Break up the rhythm.”

  “Yes. We’ll do that. Unless there’s a back way she’ll have to pass one of us if she leaves.”

  “Why don’t you anchor here for a while, babe, and I’ll go around and see if I find any back way. I’ll check in the store and I’ll go around the block and see what I can find.” I nodded. “If she comes out and I go after her I’ll meet you back at the hotel.” Hawk said, “Yowzah” and went into the bookstore. He went to the back and down the stairs. Five minutes later he was back up the stairs and out of the bookstore, his face glistening with humor. “Get any pointers?” I said. “Oh yeah, soon’s I make a move on a pony, I gonna know just what to do.”

  “These Europeans are so sophisticated.”

  18

  Hawk found no back entrance. We walked up and down a short stretch of the Kalverstraat all the rest of the day, staying close to the wall under Kathie’s windows, if they were Kathie’s windows, so she wouldn’t spot us, if she were looking out, if she were up there. The dress shop was featuring that season a fatigue green number that looked like a shelter half, long and formless, belted at the waist. It didn’t even look good on the window dummy. The broodje shop was featuring roast beef on a soft roll, topped with a fried egg. Broodje seemed to mean sandwich. There were about thirty-five different kinds of broodjes listed behind the counter, but the roast beef with the fried egg was the hot seller. The street was crowded all afternoon. There seemed to be a lot of tourists, Japanese and Germans with cameras, in groups. There was a fair number of Dutch sailors. More people seemed to smoke in Holland than they did at home. And there were far fewer big men. Sandals and clogs seemed more prevalent, especially for men, and occasionally a Dutch cop would stroll by in his gray-blue uniform with white trim. Nobody bothered me and nobody bothered Hawk. At eight o’clock I said to Hawk, “It is time to go eat before I break into tears.”

  “I can dig that,” Hawk said. “There’s a place just off to the side here called The Little Nun. I ate there last time I was here.”

  “What you doing here before, man?”

  “Pleasure trip. Came with a lady.”

  “Suze?”

  “Yeah. ” The Little Nun was everything I remembered. Polished stone floor, whitewashed walls, low-beamed ceiling, some stained glass in the windows, flowers and very fine food. For dessert they brought out a great crock of red currants, cherries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries that had been marinated in cassis. Everyone spoke English. In fact everyone in Holland spoke English as far as I could tell, and spoke it with very little accent. We went to bed in the Marriott feeling good about supper but bad about tomorrow. I had the feeling that a lot of aimless walking was in store for us tomorrow. It was. We walked up and down the Kalverstraat all day. I looked in every store window along the way until I knew the price of all the merchandise. I ate five broodjes during the day, three out of hunger and two out of boredom. The high point of the day was two trips to the public urinal near the Dutch Tourist Bureau on Rokin. At night we had an Indonesian rijsttafel at the Bali Restaurant on Leidsestraat. There were about twenty-five different courses of meat, vegetables and rice. We drank Amstel beer with the meal. Hawk too. Champagne didn’t go with a rijsttafel. Hawk drank some Amstel and said to me, “Spenser, how long we gonna walk up and down past the hot sex shows?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We only been at it two days.”

  “Yeah, man, but we don’t even know she’s in there. I mean we may be walking up and down in front of some old Dutch granny.”

  “But no one has come out of that place or gone in it in two days. Isn’t that a little strange?”

  “Maybe nobody lives there.” I ate some beef with peanuts. “We’ll give it another day, then we’ll go in and see, okay?” Hawk nodded. “I like going in and seeing,” he said, “a lot better than hanging around and watching.”

  “I knew you were a doer,” I said. “I am that,” he said. “And I want to do something pretty quick.” We walked back to the Marriott through night life and music along the Leidsestraat. The lobby was nearly empty. There were two kids from a South American soccer team half asleep in chairs. A bellhop leaned on the counter talking to the desk clerk. Faint music from the in-house night spot drifted down toward the elevators. We rode to the eighth floor in silence. At our room the no NOT DISTURB sign was on the door. I looked at Hawk, he shook his head. The sign had not been there this morning. I put my ear hard against the door. I could hear the bedsprings creak, and what sounded like heavy breathing. I motioned Hawk to the door. He listened. We had a room near the corner, and I gestured Hawk around the corner. “Sound like one of them hot sex shows,” Hawk said. “You think somebody shacking up in our room?”

  “That’s crazy,” I said. “Maybe a maid or something, see we’re out all day, figures she’ll slip in with her old man and make it while we out.”

  “If you can think of it somebody will do it,” I said. “But I don’t believe it.”

  “We could stand around out here awhile and see if they come out. If there’s somebody in there putting the boots to his old lady, they can’t stay all night.”

  “I been standing around in hotel corridors and on street corners since I been in Europe. I’m getting sick of it.”

  “Let’s do it,” Hawk said. He pulled the shotgun out from under his coat. I took out the room key and we went around the corner. There was no one in the hall. Hawk sprawled on the floor in front of the door. I slipped the key in the door. Hawk leveled the shotgun on his propped elbows and nodded. I turned the key from one side of the door out of the line of fire and swung the door open. I had my gun out. Hawk said, “Jesus Christ,” and gestured with his head. I slid around the door, staying flat against the wall. There were two dead men on the floor and Kathie on the bed. She wasn’t dead. She was tied. I kicked open the door to the bathroom. No one there. Hawk was in behind me. He closed the room door with his left hand. The right kept the shotgun half erect in front of him. I came out of the bathroom. “Nothing,” I said, and slid my gun back in its holster. Hawk squatted beside the two men on the floor. “They dead,” he said. I nodded. Kathie lay on the bed, her hands tied behind her, her feet bound. Her mouth was taped, and a rope around her waist fastened her to the bed. Hawk looked down at her and said, “That what we heard. Nobody screwing, old Kathie here trying to get loose.” Kathie made a thick muffled sound of outrage and twisted against the ropes. “What killed the stiffs on the floor?” I said. 124 125 “Somebody shot each of them behind the left ear with a small bullet.”

  “Twenty-two?”

  “Could be. Been a while, they pretty cold.” There was an envelope stuck to Kathie’s right thigh with some of the same adhesive tape that closed her mouth. I picked it up. “Maybe we won her in a raffle,” I said. “I bet that ain’t it,” Hawk said. He was still holding the shotgun, but now negligently, hanging loosely at his side. I opened the note. Kathie squirmed on the bed and made her muffled noise some more. Hawk read over my shoulder. The note said: We have much to do and you are in the way. Had we the time we would kill you. But you are obviously hard to kill, as is the Schwartze. Thus we have delivered to you what you seek. The two dead men are the last of those you sought. I shall probably be sorry that I let the woman live, but I am more sentimental than I should be. We have cared for each other and I cannot kill her. You have no reason now to bother us further. If you persist despite that we shall turn our full attention to your deaths. Paul. “Sonovabitch,” I said. “Schwartze?” Hawk said. “That’s German for spade, I think.”

/>   “I know what it mean,” Hawk said. “These two look like your sketches?”

  “We’ll look,” I said. I got the Identikit drawings out of the top bureau drawer. With his foot Hawk turned both bodies over on their backs. I looked at the pictures and at the phony-looking dead faces staring up at me. “I’d say so.” I handed the drawings to Hawk. He nodded. “Look about right,” he said. I pointed my chin at Kathie. “And that makes number nine.”

  “What you going to do?”

  “We could untie her.”

  “You think we safe?”

  “There’s two of us,” I said. “She awful mean and mad-looking,” Hawk said. He was right. Kathie’s eyes were wide and angry. Since we had entered the room she had not stopped twisting against the ropes, squirming to get free. She grunted furiously at us. “Actually, you know, we better pat her down. It could be a very elaborate fake. We untie her and she jumps up and shoots us.” Hawk laughed. “You are a suspicious mamma.” He put the shotgun down on the night table. “But I’ll check her.” I looked out the window at the street eight floors below. Nothing looked different than it should. Across the street in the light of street lamps the canal flowed past. A tour boat taking a candlelight cruise glimmered by. They served wine and cheese on the candlelight cruises. If I were with Suze we could drift through the ancient graceful city and drink the wine and eat the cheese and have a nice time. But Suze wasn’t here. Hawk would probably go with me, but I didn’t think he’d care for the hand-holding. I looked back at Hawk. He was methodically patting Kathie for a hidden weapon. As he did so she began to twist and squirm, and a high locust sort of noise forced out around the tape. As he touched her thighs she arched her back and, straining against the ropes, thrust her pelvis forward. Her face was very red and her breath came in snorts through her nose. Hawk looked at me. “She ain’t armed,” he said. I reached down and carefully peeled the tape from her mouth. She breathed in gasps through her open mouth, reddened from the friction of the tape. “Shall you,” she gasped, “shall you rape me? Shall he?” She looked at Hawk. The locust hum in her voice had softened to a kind of hiss. A little saliva bubbled at the left corner of her mouth. Her body continued to arch against the ropes. “I’m not sure it would be rape,” I said. “Shall you both take me, gag me again. Take me while I’m helpless, voiceless, bound and writhing on the bed?” Her mouth was open now and her tongue ran and fretted over her lower lip. “I can’t move,” she gasped. “I’m bound and helpless, shall you tear my clothing, use me, degrade me, drive me mad?” Hawk said, “Naw.” I said, “Maybe later.” Hawk pulled a jackknife from his right hip pocket and cut her free. He had to roll her over to cut the rope on her hands, and when he did he gave her a slap on the backside, light and friendly, like one ballplayer to another. She sat up abruptly. “Nigger,” she said. “Never touch me, nigger.” Hawk looked at me, his face bright. “Nigger?” he said. “That’s English for spade, I think.”

  “I know what it mean,” Hawk said. “What happened to take me, ravage me?” I said. “I’ll kill you both,” she said, “as soon as I can.”

  “That gonna be awhile, hon,” Hawk said. “Beside you gonna have to get in line.” She was sitting up now on the edge of the bed. Her white linen dress was badly wrinkled from her struggle against the ropes. “I want to go to the bathroom,” she said. “Go ahead,” I said. “Take your time.” She walked stiffly to the bathroom and closed the door. We heard the bolt slide and then the water begin to run in the sink. Hawk walked over to one of the red vinyl armchairs, stepped carefully over the two dead men on the floor. “What we going to do with the corpus delicti here?” Hawk said. “Oh,” I said. “You don’t know either?”

  19

  While Kathie was still in the bathroom, Hawk and I took one body each and slipped them under the twin beds. In the bathroom, the faucet still ran in the sink, masking any other sound. “What you suppose she doing?” Hawk said. “Nothing probably. She’s probably trying to think what to do when she comes out.”

  “Maybe she perfuming up in case we want to rape her.”

  “Still waters run deep,” I said. “Her idea of a good time is probably to be beaten by Benito Mussolini with a copy of Mein Kampf.”

  “Or to be raped by you and me,” Hawk said. “Especially you, big fella. I know what they say about you black folk.”

  “And quick,” Hawk said, “we very quick and rhythmical. ”

  “That’s what I heard,” I said. I got a can of Spot-lifter off the top closet shelf and sprayed the blood stains on the rug. “That stuff work?”

  “Works on my suits,” I said. “When it dries I just brush it away.”

  “You make a fine wife someday, babe. You cook good too.

  “Yeah, but I’ve always wanted a career of my own.”

  Kathie shut off the running water and came out of the bathroom. She’d combed her hair and smoothed out her dress as much as possible.

  I was on my hands and knees working on the blood stains. “Sit down,” I said. “You want something to eat? Drink? Both?”

  “I am hungry,” she said.

  “Hawk, get her something from room service.”

  “They got a late night special here,” Hawk said. “House pate, cheese, bread and a carafe of wine. Want that?” Kathie nodded.

  “That sounds pretty good,” I said to Hawk. “Why don’t we all have some.”

  “That how it is eating that Indonesian food,” Hawk said. “An hour later you hungry again.”

  Kathie sat in one of the straight chairs near the window, her hands in her lap, her knees together. Her head lowered looking at the crossed thumbs of her clasped hands. Hawk called and ordered. I brushed away the dried Spot-lifter and applied some cold water to what was left of the blood stain.

  The room service waiter appeared with the late night special and Hawk took the table from him at the door. Hawk set the circular table into the room with the pate and cheese, French bread and red wine.

  “Go ahead, kid,” Hawk said to Kathie. “Sit down, we gonna eat.”

  Kathie came to the table and sat down without a word. Hawk poured her some wine. She drank a little and her hand shook enough so that some spilled on her chin. She wiped it with a napkin. Hawk cut a wedge of pate and broke a piece of bread and said to me, “What we gonna do with Kathie?”

  “Don’t know,” I said. I drank some wine. It had a rich mouth-filling taste. Maybe the people who didn’t chill it knew what they were about.

  “How about what we doing here. I mean, we gonna do what the note said? We done what you was hired for?”

  “Don’t know,” I said. “This pate is terrific.”

  “Yeah,” Hawk said. “These little nuts pistachios?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “You want to go home?”

  “Me, man? I got nothing to go home to. It’s you getting moony about Susan and all.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Besides,” Hawk said, “I don’t like that Paul.”

  “Yeah. ”

  “I don’t like how he was gonna kill us, and I don’t like him saying he will if we keep after him, and I don’t like much how he dump his girlfriend on us when we get close.”

  “No. I don’t like that much either. I don’t like walking away from him.”

  “Besides,” Hawk’s face widened into a brilliant humorless smile, “he call me Schwartze.”

  “Racist bastard,” I said.

  “Whyn’t we tell him we ain’t taking the deal.” Kathie ate and drank in silence.

  “You know where he is, Kathie?”

  She shook her head. There seemed no more venom in her.

  Hawk said, “Sure you do. You must have some place where you people make contact if you get in trouble.” She shook her head. Tears had begun to run down her cheeks.

  Hawk took a sip of wine, put down the glass and slapped her across the face. Her head rocked back and then she seemed to collapse in on herself, shrinking down into the chair. The tears came in sobs then, shaking her
body as she bent over. She put both hands over her ears and squeezed her face between her forearms and cried. Hawk sipped some more wine and looked at her with mild interest. “She do take on,” he said.

  “She’s scared,” I said. “Everybody gets scared. She’s alone with two guys she’s tried to kill and the man she loves has ditched her. She’s alone. That’s hard.”

  “It gonna get a lot harder if she don’t tell us what I want her to,” Hawk said.

  “Beating up on a lady isn’t your style, Hawk.”

  “Women’s lib, babe. She got the same rights to have me bust her up that a man have.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “Take a walk then. When you come back, we’ll know what we want to know.”

  I stood up. I knew we were playing good-cop bad-cop, but did Hawk?

  “Oh my God,” Kathie said. “Don’t.”

  Hawk stood up too. He took off the jacket, slipped out of the shotgun shoulder rig and peeled off his shirt. Hawk had always had a lot of muscle tone. His upper body was taut and graceful. The muscles in his chest and arms swelled slightly as he made a slight loosening gesture with his shoulders. I started for the door.

  “Oh God, don’t leave me with him.” Kathie slid out of the chair onto the floor and crawled after me. “Don’t let him. Don’t let him debase me. Please don’t.”

  Hawk stepped between her and me. She grasped one of his legs. “Don’t, don’t, don’t.” The saliva was bubbling again at the corner of her mouth. She was gasping for breath. Her nose ran.

  I said to Hawk, “I don’t want to know this bad.”

  “Your biggest problem, man, you a candy ass.”

  I shrugged. “I still don’t want to know this bad.” I reached down and took Kathie’s arm. “Get up,” I said. “And sit in the chair. We aren’t going to do anything bad to you.” I put her in the chair. Then I went in the bathroom and got a facecloth and soaked it in cold water and wrung it out and brought it in and washed her face with it.