We see her drag the ottoman to the bookcase, climb upon it, and remove four books from the top shelf.
We see her grope for something, then replace the books and get down off the ottoman.
We see the prize in her hand: a bottle, with an inch of brown liquid at the bottom.
She pulls the cork.
Although it is faint, she starts as thought the cork has made the sound of a cannon, and waits to hear if there is movement in the apartment.
Calm.
She has waited all day for this.
It has been unbearable.
She tilts the bottle to her mouth.
She is careful to not drain the bottle; she must always have the promise of one more swallow.
She corks the bottle, steps on the ottoman, and hides it again behind the books.
She gets down.
Her heart starts beating faster.
A sickening taste floods her mouth.
She gags.
She claws at her throat.
WE SEE THE old man, unaccountably ravenous at this time of night, grope his way down the stairs.
His temper is at its worst: he is hungry when he shouldn’t be, and it is night, and he is stiff.
His anger at the night stems from his expectation that it should be evening.
His anger at the stiffness stems from his expectation that everything about him should have remained as useful as it was to him thirty years ago.
He would tell his wife, were she not asleep in bed, that it was her fault for letting him doze off in the parlor after supper.
He would tell his wife—were she not actually awake and waiting for him to come to bed, because she knows she snores and doesn’t want him to come to bed while she is doing just that, because then he’d awaken her and lecture her—that if she kept a proper fire going in the sitting room even in early summer he wouldn’t be so stiff.
We see the old man light a single candle because he doesn’t want to waste electricity, secondary to its costliness. It is fine for the whole family—which he defines as his wife and daughters only, his useless son being… well, the less said and all that—during practical hours, but he doesn’t require it for his late-night foraging.
God, he’s hungry.
He is angry about his heft and heaviness.
His anger at his ever-growing corpulence stems from his wife’s inability to feed him properly, requiring him to make these late-night trips to the larder.
He would tell his wife, were she not upstairs listening to him knock about the kitchen like a confused bear, how remiss she is and how stingy she is with food.
He finds the salami his daughter had been saving for a small party she had planned to throw for her friends. He finds a pot of mustard.
We see him open a drawer in the pantry. We see a collection of glittering steel.
He removes his father’s prized hallaf from the drawer. It glints in lethal glory in the candlelight. The knife is twice as long as the thickness of an animal’s neck. Eternally sharp.
We see the old man, long negligent of his religion, use the hallaf on the salami in the manner his father had shown him, making a silent apology to the memory of his father for the irreverent application of steel and meat.
He raises the perfectly cut slice of salami to his mouth, and pauses as the cat winds its way around his feet.
He drops the salami.
The cat died years ago.
We see the old man crash to the floor as he’s pulled off his feet. He’s dragged across the kitchen on his back, then heaved up, feet first, struggling all the while.
He finds his voice at last. He is yelling. He thinks he is calling out names, calling for help, but he can’t be understood.
He brandishes his dead father’s beloved hallaf, eternally sharp and true and, the old man hopes, forgiving of its current use.
We see him slash in the air.
There is an inhuman scream that can’t, therefore, be a scream, but it is a cry that no one in the house or anywhere on the planet has ever heard before.
We see the old man slash again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
REQUESTS
BEIDE ASKED FRANZ to slow down.
Not the automobile, because Franz wasn’t driving; his mouth.
“Frankly, I’m astonished by your verve, if that’s the proper word,” Beide said.
“I can’t explain it myself,” Franz said, quietly bouncing his fist on his knee. “Can’t this thing go any faster?”
“Not without sending word to the pedestrians in advance.” Nothing from Franz. “That was a humorous remark, Kafka.”
“Very droll,” Franz said. “As for my ‘verve,’ as you call it, there’s no explanation for it, so just accept it so we can make some progress. I feel marvelous, Inspector, and that’s all there is to it. Let’s make the most of it, shall we? Now, what do you want me to repeat?” He was sitting forward in his seat, urging the car through the dark, winding Vienna streets.
“Everything,” Beide said, “after your request for an automobile. I’m still trying to process that.”
“It’s faster than a train.”
“In certain cases.”
“I want to be in Schwechat first thing in the morning, after a few hours’ sleep. Assuming I can sleep.”
“Insomnia?”
“No, work.”
“Work?”
“As I requested, I want everything you have on every victim since Ulla whatever her name was.”
“Ulla Stach.”
“Yes, I want to know who her friends were; friends are very important, I think, particularly with the younger victims. Even, too, the older victims, like that second murder—”
“Walter Furst. But I filled you in on many of the early murders—”
“Yes, yes, but I want to read all of this for myself, talk to people.”
“Do you think I was withholding information from you?”
“Not intentionally. You merely had no idea what I’d want to know.” He noticed Beide wasn’t writing. “Please, inspector. Automobile, and all of your files on the victims.”
He also noticed Beide was a man.
“It’s gotten so I no longer notice when you switch like that,” Franz said. “And, quite honestly, your edges are becoming a blur.”
“My edges?”
“Your boundaries.”
“Of?”
“Dammit, I don’t know what I mean. Now, come on—automobile, files… how soon can I get them?”
“You might already have them.”
“One of your conjuring tricks again?”
“Who’s to say? And what after the automobile and the files?”
“I want you to put in a telephone call to a land agent in Schwechat.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know. Is there more than one? Well, anyway, find one or two or however many and tell them to expect me first thing in the morning. Official business.”
Beide smiled.
“Official business, Kafka?”
“You’re to make me an honorary member of the whatever-it-is you say you represent.”
“The ICPC.”
“Yes. It’s no use being Monsieur Choucas, because I’m no good at it, and I’m always afraid somebody is going to ask me to play something on their drinking glasses and who opens up to a verrilionist anyway? I can continue to play out my insurance investigator background, but I want to look official and show people I mean business.” He paused for breath. “In short, inspector, I want a card.”
Beide laughed. “You’ve had one since Thursday,” he said.
“Of course I have,” Franz said, reaching for his billfold, “because it’s nothing but sleight of hand with you. No wonder you’ve been dogging Henker all this time, you’re birds of a feather…”
“Your coat pocket,” Beide said.
Franz felt in his inside coat pocket and produced a card. He caught a glimpse of it from the light of passing streetla
mps. White letters on a black background read:
KAFKA
Inspektor
“That’s the other side,” Beide said.
Franz flipped it over. Black letters on a white background read:
Inspektor
KAFKA
He nodded, and put the card back in his pocket.
“Very well,” he said. “Now we’re cooking with gas. Where was I?”
“Automobile, files, land agent. Why land agent?”
“I want to confirm some suspicions I have about Kropold.”
“Care to share?”
“I think he killed Inge Hirsch.”
Beide said, “If that’s your instinct, at this point—”
“I know it sounds farfetched, but if I’m right, I’ll have a piece of the puzzle.”
Beide closed his notebook. “You’re trying to get our Hanging Artist off the hook,” he said.
“This goes beyond Henker and Kropold and that bank cashier…”
“Hermann Herbort? I’d forgotten about him already.”
“I haven’t,” Franz said. He looked out the window. “Here we are.”
The driver let Franz and Beide out, saluting both and stepping out of earshot. The engine purred as it waited for the inspector. Franz and Beide regarded the tall, crooked façade of Frau Alt’s rooming house, which sat in the middle of the street like the precarious heap of gingerbreaded boxes it probably was. Here and there a lamp shone in a window. Curtains were drawn. High atop the house a dim light glowed from the windows of the Henker rooms.
“She’s waiting for him, of course,” Franz said.
Beide followed his gaze to the top of the house. “The sister?”
“Someone has to tell her where he’s at. That he most likely won’t be home tonight.”
“And then again he might be home right now, as we speak.”
“You saw the police take him away.”
“But we didn’t see his interview. He could have exonerated himself in a matter of minutes and been on his merry way an hour ago.”
Franz shook his head. “I have to see her again regardless,” he said. “There’s a long history of tragedy with her, a history of which I was only allowed an accidental glimpse this afternoon.” He smirked. “If anything in this case,” he said, “can be said to be accidental. Oh, and one more thing.”
“You want me to turn back time?”
Franz blinked. “Can you do that?”
“Do please cultivate a sense of humor, Kafka.”
“You seem to be able to do everything else, so far, uncanny or not.”
“What is the one more thing you want me to do?”
“I want some time alone with Henker.”
For the first time, Beide looked wary. “To do what to him?” he asked.
“Talk.”
“Talk?”
“You know what talking is?”
“Don’t patronize me, Kafka.”
Franz stepped closer to Beide.
“Regardless of whether Henker is still in custody or not, I need him alone as soon as I return from Schwechat. I think it’s going to crucial, no matter how my investigations turn out. Do you understand me?”
“No.”
“Will you do as I ask anyway?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Thank you.”
“Good to know you’ve given up on your little book.”
“My what?” Franz asked.
“That ridiculous book you bought on how not to be a detective.”
“Oh,” Franz said. Well, he hadn’t been in his room longer than five minutes the entire day. “I forgot all about that thing.”
Beide sighed. “I wish you would allow me to join you on your little adventure.”
“I must have freedom.”
“I’m giving you freedom.”
“Yes, well, I need to feel I’m truly on my own, inspector. It’s how I always felt before, but not since I woke up on Wednesday morning. I’m used to being on my own in this world, and with the exception of the wretched tuberculosis, I think I’ve managed to survive on my own, foraging ahead, making my own way, not beholden to anyone. Can you understand that?”
“Of course I can. I’m not an unsympathetic person.”
“Good. And I need to act quickly. It’s not the world’s shortest journey from here to Schwechat, so I want to make good time; the sooner you can spare me an automobile, the better. I’m hoping to have my answers—or, failing that, better questions—in time to return here before The Hanging Artist gives his final performance.”
“His final performance?”
“Before he moves to Die Feier. Before the Sabbath.”
Beide took Franz by the hand and put his other hand on his shoulder.
“Use your time well, inspector,” Beide said.
Franz smiled. “I’m learning to do just that,” he said. “Better late than never, eh, inspector?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THE LADIES OF THE ROOMING HOUSE
FRANZ FOUND A woman in his room, drinking.
Which is exactly what he didn’t want.
“I hope I haven’t ruined your glass harp,” Julia Dierkop said, “but…”
“How did you get in here?” he asked, shutting the door. There is no space on Earth smaller than a confining room full of an anxious man, a woman drinking brandy who never drinks brandy, and a bed.
And a highly flustered three-foot-tall insect huddled in the corner giving the room’s rightful occupant a stock company helpless shrug.
“It wasn’t locked,” Julia said. She had one of the Borgia goblets in her hand. A bottle of liquor was perched on the washstand. “I hope you’ll forgive my being so bold, monsieur. I just had to see you again.”
“Tonight?” Franz asked. “Breakfast is only a few hours away.”
“I had to see you privately,” she said.
“Oh?” came his incisive retort. “Is that allowed?”
“Allowed, monsieur?”
“I didn’t think to ask at the time, but are Frau Alt’s morals… that is, what are the rules of the house regarding men and women who aren’t married or related to one another occupying the same room after hours—or any hour, for that matter—”
“I don’t know, I’ve never had the opportunity,” Julia said.
“And tonight you thought you’d make an opportunity?”
“You were so kind to me tonight,” she said, “and it seemed to me like you truly understood my fears for Herr Henker, and… well… I wanted to thank you, seeing how I was so rudely dragged away by my cousins. They’re horrid prudes, you know, they make”—she hiccupped—“my life miserable, excuse me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“So am I.” She hiccupped again. “Oh, no,” she said. “Once these start, I can’t get rid of them.”
“Tell her to stick her head in a bag,” Gregor said.
“Put your arms over your head,” Franz suggested.
Julia hiccupped and belched at the same time.
“Pardon me,” she said, giggling. “I don’t usually drink drinkohol. I mean alcohol.”
“Well, what do you usually drink, and why didn’t you?”
“Tea,” she said, “because my cousins are such bitches. This French brandy,” she said, showing him the bottle, “is supposed to be very good.”
“And is it?”
“I’ve no complaints so far,” she said, slurring left and right. “And I’m sorry, too, that I couldn’t wait. I didn’t know when you’d be back, and, well…”
She shifted from one foot to another and batted her eyes.
Gregor covered his eyes as best he could with his stick-like legs. “If she vomits, demand a new room,” he said.
Franz reached out and took the glass from her hand.
“Easy does it,” he said, returning it safely to the ornamental tray. “That’s a very old goblet.”
She picked up the goblet, apparently unable to take e
ven the broadest hint.
“Really? How old?”
“Oh, I’d say two hundred years, give or take a decade.”
“Gosh. I am sorry. But I was very careful… and you don’t have any other glasses I could use. You didn’t have any other anything, in fact. Except the water jug. Couldn’t very well have filled that up, could I? Drinking brandy from a water jug… I’m a lady, monsieur.” She made a face and said, “Bleah.” Her hand went to her throat, and he realized she was wearing the tin collar.
“Are you going to be sick?” he asked.
She stuck out her tongue and frowned. “Brandy is very burny,” she said. “How do you Frenchmen stand it?”
“We export much of it to the Viennese,” he said, hoping she’d find it funny, but she just hiccupped. If there was ever a time he wished Gregor could make his presence known to others, now was the time.
He cast a significant look to Gregor, raising his eyebrows and looking at the floor.
“I have no idea what that means,” Gregor said.
“Which note is this?” Julia asked, holding the goblet to the light.
“I beg your pardon?” Franz asked.
“Of your glass harp. Is this A? Or middle C?”
“It’s anything I wish it to be, depending on how much liquid I put into it,” he said, pointing to the floor repeatedly.
“What are you pointing at?” Gregor asked.
“Something wrong with your arm?” Julia asked.
“It gets tingly when it’s going to rain,” Franz said.
“Rain?” she asked. She squinted one eye at Franz, then the other. “It’s not raining.”
“It will.”
“Is your arm reliable?”
“Well…”
A bolt of lightning and an aggressive crack of thunder tore through the night.
“Right on cue,” Gregor said.
Julia, however, had been so startled that she let go of the goblet. It flipped from her hand into the air with a delicate pinging sound.
Franz barely had time to curse.
Gregor kicked the pillow across the bed, and the goblet landed on it with a soft thump. Franz looked at Julia—had she seen the pillow move?
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