Алистер Маклин - Prime Target

‘And I’m Mike.’ He tried to guess her age. Twenty at most, he decided, but already raddled and weary-looking. ‘And, yes, I enjoyed the show. You have a very lovely body.’

‘Thank you.’

He watched her lower her eyes. It amused him how women in the skin trade always came on so fluffy and demure, as if anything indelicate might cause them to blow away on a wave of affronted modesty.

‘Was that your only performance for the evening?’

‘My only one here,’ she said. ‘Two nights out of six I do a speciality act at the Saucy Sailor, across the road.’

‘Speciality act?’

‘That’s right.’ Again, she lowered her eyes demurely. ‘It’s different to what I do here, and it costs more to see. But customers say it is worth the extra.’

‘So you’ll be going there now?’

‘As soon as I’ve had a drink.’

Mike took the cue and waggled a finger at the barman, who had been waiting for a sign. He had the drink poured ready. When he brought it across Mike saw him wink at Magda – a sign of confirmation, Mike assumed, that here was another soft mark.

‘Cheers, Mike,’ she said, and swallowed the whisky as if it was a thirst quencher. She leaned across the table. ‘If you want, I can see you after I finish across the road.’

‘That would be nice. But I’m an impatient person, Magda. What if I made it worth your while to cancel your show at the Saucy Sailor, just for tonight?’

She frowned at that, but the frown looked as counterfeit as her smile. ‘I would lose my pay for the evening…’

‘As I said, I would make it worth your while.’

‘I would also have to provide a substitute act. Otherwise I would no longer be a friend of the management, you understand?’

‘How much for your stand-in?’

‘Dollars?’

He nodded.

‘Fifty.’

He produced a wad, peeled off five twenties and put them on the table. ‘That takes care of you both.’ He pushed the notes towards her. ‘For the moment,’ he added, making her flutter her eyes again.

Arrangements for Magda’s deputy were made through the barman, who did not appear to find the transaction unusual. Magda had another drink, then coyly suggested they go upstairs to her place, where it was quieter.

It was certainly quiet, Mike observed as he followed her into the tiny room. It was also airless and incredibly shabby. He had been in poorly furnished rooms that nevertheless said something good about their occupants; this room, with its litter of empty food containers, grubby glasses and full ashtrays, simply said that Magda Schaeffer was precisely the charmless slut she had appeared to be the moment the spotlight came on.

‘Sit down,’ she told Mike. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

He sank into a dusty old armchair that creaked under his weight. Magda disappeared behind a curtain hung across one end of the room. When she emerged she had two drinks in her hand.

‘I hope you don’t think I do this often. I only let you come up here because I like you.’

‘I’m flattered.’

She drew a nail-bitten fingertip along the rim of his ear. ‘What would you like me to do?’

He smiled. ‘Stand up,’ he whispered.

She eased away from him and stood back, watching him from behind lowered eyelids. Mike got to his feet. He reached under his jacket and pulled out his revolver. He pointed it at Magda’s throat. She gasped and backed away.

‘I don’t do sick stuff,’ she said.

‘But I do.’

‘I’ll scream!’

‘Do that, and a second later you’re dead.’

‘Please, don’t hurt me.’

‘I have to say I’m shocked, Magda.’ Mike backed off a little, keeping the gun levelled on her. ‘This is no way to treat your boyfriend, is it? Entertaining strange men for money.’

‘I have no boyfriend.’

‘He’s called Einar. Einar Ahlin.’

She stared at him, her mouth moving uncertainly. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Mike, remember? I was asking you how you square this kind of behaviour with your boyfriend.’

‘Einar doesn’t mind.’

‘Hard to believe, Magda.’

‘I’m his girl, but we don’t…’ She shrugged. ‘I hold him in my arms sometimes. When he cries. That’s all. We are not physical.’

‘Where is he?’

‘I don’t know that.’

‘Tell me where he is.’ Mike wagged the gun at her.

‘I swear I don’t know. He tells nobody. He comes here a lot, but I don’t know where he goes.’

‘Do you know what he does?’

She swallowed.

‘Magda?’

‘He kills people.’

‘He told you?’

‘He always tells me.’

‘You must have some idea where he is when he isn’t here.’

‘I don’t know where he goes. All I know for now is that he is away on work. Professional work.’

Magda glanced at the tiny fireplace. ‘He has a safe, in there.’ She pointed to a metal plate with a small door at its centre, set into the firebricks at the back. ‘He put that there, he keeps the key for it on a chain round his neck.’

‘What’s in it?’

‘His schedule, he calls it. He likes to take one week for each job. He puts a single name on each week of the diary.’

‘A week for each killing?’

She nodded. ‘He has a diary with seven days printed on every page, and on each page he writes a name from a list he keeps.’

‘Why does he keep the diary in the safe?’

‘It’s his only private space in Berlin. That’s what he said. He said he’d make a private space, and he did, and when it was made he put his diary in it. He says it is something orderly. The pages are his life’s schedule, he said. They are sacred to him, so he keeps them apart from the world.’

Mike knelt before the empty fireplace. He picked up the small steel poker by the hearth and pushed it under the lower edge of the metal plate. He jerked the poker backwards and particles of brick fell away from the edges. Two more hard tugs on the poker and the plate sprang loose. He reached up under the edge and felt a book. He pulled it out and took it to the coffee table.

‘This is the schedule?’

‘Yes.’

Mike riffled through the pages, looking for the one for the current week. When he found it he saw a single name written diagonally across the page. It confirmed what he had feared.

The name was Andreas Wolff.

‘The big companies are all turning to outsourcing,’ Don Chadwick said. ‘The little outfits are fast becoming the well-head for new jobs and opportunities.’

His luncheon guest, a plastic-casings manufacturer called George Winship, was nodding steadily, but his attention was elsewhere. They were at a table on the roof restaurant at Don Giorgio’s, a mile south of Waxahachie.

‘The small man like yourself has a lot to offer in terms of employment and direct creation of cash. It’s just a pity you’re so vulnerable.’

‘Mr Chadwick, forgive me interrupting, but I’ve been looking out over the parking lot there, and I’m sure somebody is paying uncommon attention to your car.’

Chadwick stood up, shielding his eyes against the sun. He had come in his classic MGB, one of his extensive collection of British cars.

‘It’s a fraction to the right of the ticket machine over there,’ Winship said, pointing.

‘Oh, yeah.’

Two men were standing in front of the car. One was writing in a notebook. Chadwick reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out his mini-scope.

‘You always carry one of those?’

‘Yep.’

‘I heard of people being arrested with things like that on them,’ Winship said.

Chadwick put the scope to his eye and turned the focus ring. He saw the two men looking into his car. He could clearly see their faces, their frowning expressions. He moved the scope down. They wore good shiny shoes and they had briefcases standing beside them. They didn’t look at all like thieves.