Six Graves to Munich

by Mario Puzo

  “You’re lying,” Rogan said. Without even thinking he pulled the trigger of the Walther pistol. The report echoed against the rocks like thunder, and Genco Bari’s frail form was hurled to the ground almost five feet from where he had been standing. Rogan walked to where the dying man was crumpled against a rock. He put the pistol against Bari’s ear.

  The dying man opened his eyes and nodded gratefully; he whispered to Rogan, “Don’t blame yourself. Her screams were terrible because all pain, all death, is equally terrible. You too must die again, and it will not be less terrible.” His breath was coming in bloody ribbons of spit. “Forgive me, as I forgive you,” he said.

  Rogan held the man in his arms, not firing again, waiting for him to die. It took only a few minutes, and he had plenty of time to catch his plane in Palermo. But before he left he covered Genco Bari’s body with a blanket from the car. He hoped it would be found soon.

  CHAPTER 13

  At Rome Rogan caught a flight to Budapest. Arthur Bailey had kept his promise and the visas were waiting for him. Rogan took along some whiskey and stayed drunk on the plane. He couldn’t forget what Genco Bari had told him: that Christine had died in childbirth; that he, Rogan, had been responsible for her death. But could a death so common to women since time began cause the terrible screams of pain he had heard on the phonograph in the Munich Palace of Justice? And that cruel bastard von Osteen making the record. Only a genius of evil could think of something so inhuman on the spur of the moment. Rogan forgot his own feelings of guilt for a moment as he thought of killing von Osteen and the pleasure it would give him. He thought of letting Pajerski’s execution wait, but he was already on the plane bound for Hungary; Arthur Bailey had already arranged things for him in Budapest. Rogan smiled grimly. He knew something Bailey didn’t know.

  In Budapest, more than a little drunk, Rogan went directly to the United States consulate and asked to see the interpreter. This was all according to Arthur Bailey’s instructions.

  A small nervous man with a toothbrush mustache led him to the inner chambers. “I am the interpreter,” he said. “Who sent you to me?”

  “A mutual friend named Arthur Bailey,” Rogan told him.

  The little man ducked away into another room. After a few moments he came back and said in a frightened, timid voice, “Please follow me, sir. I will take you to someone who will help you.”

  They entered a room in which a burly man with thinning hair waited for them. He shook Rogan’s hand with vigor and introduced himself as Stefan Vrostk. “I am the one who will aid you in your mission,” he said. “Our friend Bailey has requested I give it my personal attention.” With a wave of his hand he dismissed the little interpreter.

  When they were alone in the room, Vrostk began to speak in an arrogant manner. “I have read about your case. I have been briefed on what you have done. I have been informed on your future plans.” He spoke as if he were a man of great importance; he was, obviously, a man of overwhelming conceit.

  Rogan sat back and just listened. Vrostk went on. “You must understand that here behind the Iron Curtain things are very different. You cannot hope to operate so flagrantly as you have done. Your record as an agent in World War II does show you are prone to carelessness. Your network was destroyed because you did not take proper precautions when you used your clandestine radio. Isn’t that true?” He gave Rogan a patronizing smile. But Rogan continued to look at him impassively.

  Vrostk was a little nervous now, but this did not lessen his arrogance one bit. “I will point out Pajerski to you—where he works, his living habits, how he is guarded. The actual execution you must do yourself. I will then arrange to have the underground spirit you out of the country. But let me impress upon you that you are to do nothing without consulting me. You will do nothing without my approval. And you must accept without questioning my plans for your escape from this country once you have completed your mission. Do you understand this?”

  Rogan could feel the anger mounting to his head. “Sure,” he said. “I understand. I understand everything perfectly. You work for Bailey, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Vrostk said.

  Rogan smiled. “OK, then I’ll follow your orders. I’ll tell you everything before I do it.” He laughed. “Now show me where I can get my hands on Pajerski.”

  Vrostk smiled paternally. “First we must have you checked into a hotel where you will be safe. Take a little nap, and this evening you and I shall dine at the Café Black Violin. And there you shall see Pajerski. He dines there every evening, plays chess there, meets his friends there. It is his hangout, as you say in America.”

  In the small side-street hotel Vrostk had found for him, Rogan sat in a stuffed chair and made his own plans. In doing so he thought about Wenta Pajerski and everything the raw-boned Hungarian had done to him in the Munich Palace of Justice.

  The face was huge, red, and warty as a hog’s, yet Pajerski had been only casual in his cruelty, and sometimes he had been kind. He had halted the interrogation to give Rogan a drink of water or a cigarette, slipped mint wafers into his hand. And though Rogan knew that Pajerski was deliberately playing the role of the “good guy,” the classic “nice cop” who makes some prisoners talk where nothing else will, he could not even now help feeling the glow of gratitude the act of kindness in itself inspired.

  Whatever the motive, the sugary mints had been real, the sweet bits of chocolate broke his suffering. The water and cigarettes were miraculous gifts of life. They lived. They entered his body. So why not let Pajerski live? He remembered the hulking man’s vitality, his obvious joy in the good things of life that were material. The physical pleasure he took in eating, drinking, and even in the tortures demanded by the interrogation. But he had laughed when Eric Freisling was creeping up behind Rogan to fire the bullet into his skull. Pajerski had enjoyed that.

  Rogan remembered something else. On the afternoon of the first interrogation in the Munich Palace of Justice, they had played the recording of Christine’s screams from the next room. Rogan had twisted and cried out in agony. Pajerski had sauntered out of the high-domed room saying jokingly to Rogan, “Be at ease; I go to make your wife scream with pleasure instead of pain.”

  Rogan sighed. They had all played their parts so well. They had succeeded in tricking him every time. They had failed in only one thing: They had not killed him. And now it was his turn. It was his turn to materialize suddenly out of the darkness, bearing torture and death in his hands. It was his turn to know and see everything, and their turn to guess and fear what would happen next.

  CHAPTER 14

  That night Rogan went with Stefan Vrostk to the Black Violin. It proved to be exactly the kind of place he would have imagined as being Wenta Pajerski’s favorite hangout. The food was good and the plates were heaped high. The drinks were strong and cheap. The waitresses were handsomely buxom, cheerful, lusty, and had a dozen sly ways of presenting their plump bottoms to be pinched. The accordion music was bouncy, and the atmosphere was hazy with pungent tobacco smoke.

  Wenta Pajerski entered at exactly 7:00 p.m. He had not changed at all, just as animals never look older after maturity, until they reach an extreme age. And Wenta Pajerski was an animal. He pinched the first waitress so hard she let out a little scream of pain. He drank a huge tankard of beer in one slug, choking it down in his refusal to stop and draw a breath. Then he sat at a large round table, reserved for him, and was soon joined by male cronies. They laughed and joked and drank French cognac by the bottle. Meanwhile a blond waitress brought an oblong carved chest to the table. With great relish, Pajerski opened it up and took out chess pieces. The chest itself opened up into a chessboard. Pajerski appropriated the white pieces for himself, with their advantage of moving first, without giving his opponent the usual hidden choice between black and white. This was an insight into the giant Hungarian’s character. He had not changed.

  Rogan and Vrostk watched Pajerski’s table all evening. Pajerski played chess until n
ine, drinking all the while. At exactly nine the blond waitress took away the chess set and brought dinner to the table.

  Pajerski ate with such animal gusto that Rogan felt almost sorry he had to be killed. It was like killing some happy-go-lucky unreasoning animal. Pajerski lifted the soup bowl to his lips to lap up the last dregs. He used a huge spoon, instead of a fork, to shovel mountains of gravy-soaked rice into his cavernous mouth. He drank his wine from the bottle, with an impatient gurgling thirst. Then he let out a wave of belches that rolled across the room.

  When he was finished, Pajerski paid for everyone’s dinner, pinched the waitress’ behind, and shoved a huge tip of crumpled paper money down inside her dress so that he could squeeze her breast. Everybody put up with his behavior; they were obviously either very fond of him or very afraid of him. His male companions followed him out onto the dark streets, marching arm in arm, talking loudly. When they passed an open café whose music rolled out into the open, Wenta Pajerski did a bearlike waltz down the street, whirling his nearest companion in his arms.

  Rogan and Vrostk followed them until they disappeared into an ornately faced building. Then Vrostk hailed a cab, and they drove to the consulate. Vrostk gave Rogan the Hungarian’s dossier to read. “This will fill you in on the rest of Pajerski’s evening,” he said. “We won’t have to follow him everywhere. He does the same thing every night.”

  The dossier was short but informative. Wenta Pajerski was the executive officer of the Communist secret police in Budapest. He worked hard all day in the town hall administration building. He also had his living quarters in this building. Both office and living quarters were heavily guarded by special details of the secret police. He always left the building punctually at 6:30 p.m., but was escorted by guards in plain clothes. At least two official guards were among the men who walked down the street with him.

  Wenta Pajerski was the only one of the seven torturers who had remained in the same kind of work. Ordinary citizens suspected of activities against the State disappeared into his office and were never seen again. He was believed responsible for the kidnapping of West German scientists. Pajerski was high on the list of Cold War criminals the West would like to see liquidated. Rogan smiled grimly. He understood Bailey’s cooperation and why Vrostk was so anxious that everything be checked out with him. The repercussions of Pajerski’s murder would shake the whole city of Budapest.

  The dossier also explained the ornate building Pajerski had entered with his friends. It was the most expensive and exclusive brothel, not only in Budapest but in the whole area behind the Iron Curtain as well. After caressing every girl in the parlor, Pajerski never took fewer than two upstairs for his pleasure. An hour later he would reappear in the street, puffing on an enormous cigar, looking as content as a bear ready to hibernate. But both inside the house and out, his guards stuck as close to him as possible, without interfering with his pleasures. He was not vulnerable in that area.

  Rogan closed the dossier and looked up at Vrostk. “How long has your organization been trying to kill him?” he asked.

  Vrostk grimaced. “What makes you think that?”

  Rogan said, “Everything in this dossier. Earlier today you gave me a lot of crap about how you’re the big boss of this operation because you’re so much better an agent than I am. I took it. But you’re not my boss. I’ll tell you what you have to know, and I’ll count on you to get me out of the country after I kill Pajerski. But that’s all. And I’ll give you some good advice: Don’t pull any fast ones on me—none of those tricky Intelligence moves. I’d kill you as soon as I’d kill Pajerski. Sooner. I like him better.” Rogan gave the man a brutally cold smile.

  Stefan Vrostk flushed. “I didn’t mean to offend you earlier,” he said. “I meant it well.”

  Rogan shrugged. “I haven’t come all this way to be jerked around like a puppet. I’ll pull your chestnuts out of the fire; I’ll kill Pajerski for you. But don’t ever try to bull me again.” He got out of his chair and walked out the door. Vrostk followed him and conducted him out of the consulate, then held out his hand. Rogan ignored it and walked away.

  He could not explain why he had got so tough with Vrostk. Perhaps it was the feeling that only an accident of time and history had prevented Vrostk from being one of the seven men in the high-domed room of the Munich Palace of Justice. But it was also that he distrusted Vrostk even now. Anyone who acted so imperiously in small matters had to be weak.

  Not trusting anyone else, Rogan checked out the dossier by personal observation. For six days he frequented the Café Black Violin and memorized Pajerski’s every move. The dossier proved to be correct in every particular. But Rogan noticed something that was not in the dossier. Pajerski, like many genial giants, always looked for an advantage. For example, he always took the white pieces, without fail, in his chess games. He had a nervous habit of scratching his chin with the pointed crown of his king piece. Rogan also noted that though the chess set was the property of the Black Violin, it was not loaned to other patrons until Pajerski had finished with it for the evening.

  The Hungarian also passed a café whose music delighted him, and he would invariably go into his bearlike dance when he heard the music from that café. The dance took him usually thirty yards ahead of his guards to a street corner, which he then turned. For perhaps one minute he was out of the guards’ sight, alone and vulnerable. Vrostk wasn’t such a hot agent, Rogan thought, not if that one vulnerable minute was not recorded in the dossier. Unless it had been deliberately omitted.

  Rogan kept checking. He thought the brothel a likely place to catch Pajerski unguarded. But he found that two men from the secret police invariably took their posts outside the bedroom door while Pajerski took his exercise within.

  The problem was admittedly difficult. Pajerski’s living and working quarters were impregnable. Only in the evening was he slightly vulnerable. When he danced around that corner there would be a minute to kill him and escape. But a minute would not be enough to evade the guards following. In his mind Rogan kept reviewing Pajerski’s every move, searching for a fatal chink in the man’s security armor. On the sixth night he fell asleep with the problem still unsolved. What made it even more difficult was that Pajerski had to know why he was being killed before he died. For Rogan this was essential.

  In the middle of the night he woke up. He had had a dream in which he played chess with Wenta Pajerski, and Pajerski kept saying to him, “You stupid Amerikaner, you have had a checkmate for three moves.” And Rogan had kept staring at the board looking for the elusive winning move, staring at the huge white king carved out of wood. Smiling slyly, Pajerski picked up the white king and used its pointed crown to scratch his chin. It was a hint. Rogan sat up in bed. The dream had given him his answer. He knew how he would kill Pajerski.

  The next day he went to the consulate and asked to see Vrostk. When he told the agent what tools and other equipment he would need Vrostk looked at him in astonishment, but Rogan refused to explain. Vrostk told him it would take at least the rest of the day to get everything together. Rogan nodded. “I’ll come by tomorrow morning to pick it up. Tomorrow night your friend Pajerski will be dead.”

  CHAPTER 15

  In Munich every day was the same for Rosalie. She had settled into the pension to wait for Rogan’s return. She checked the Munich airport schedules and found that there was a daily flight from Budapest, arriving at 10:00 p.m. After that, every night she waited at the gate to check the passengers coming off the Budapest plane. She sensed that Rogan might not come back to her, that he would not want her involved in his murder of von Osteen. But since he was the only man, the only human being she cared about, she went every evening to the airport. She prayed that he had not died in Sicily; and then as time went on, she prayed that he had not died in Budapest. But it didn’t matter. She was prepared to make her evening pilgrimage for the rest of her life.

  During the second week she went shopping in the central square of Munich. That was wh
ere the Palace of Justice was situated. It had miraculously escaped damage during the war and now housed the criminal courts of the city. Nazi concentration camp commandants and guards were being tried for their war crimes in those courtrooms at almost every session.

  On an impulse, Rosalie went into the massive building. In the cool, dark hall she studied the public bulletin boards to see if von Osteen was sitting as judge that day. He was not. Then a little notice caught her eye. The municipal court system was advertising for a nurse’s aide to work in the emergency hospital room of the court.

  Again on an impulse, Rosalie applied for the position. Her training in the asylum had given her the necessary basic skills, and she was immediately taken on. There was a great shortage of medical personnel in all postwar German cities.

  The emergency hospital room was in the basement of the Municipal Palace of Justice. It had its own private entrance, a small door that led into the huge inner courtyard. With a shock of horror, Rosalie realized that it was in this courtyard that the wounded Rogan had been thrown onto a pile of corpses.

  The emergency room was astonishingly busy. Wives of convicted criminals sentenced to long terms in prison collapsed and were brought down to be revived. Elderly swindlers on trial suffered heart attacks. Rosalie’s duties were more clerical than medical. She had to record every case in a huge blue book on the admittance desk. The young doctor on duty was immediately taken by her beauty and asked her to dinner. She refused him with a polite smile. Some of the sleek attorneys accompanying their sick clients to the medical room asked her if she would be interested in working in their offices. She smiled at them and politely said she would not.

  She was interested in only one man in the Munich Palace of Justice: Klaus von Osteen. When he sat in court she attended the trial by taking a very late lunch hour and skipping lunch.