Peter Rabe - A Shroud for Jesso

“You will write Snell’s instructions down, please. It is best if my associates in this room are not burdened by any unnecessary information.”

Jesso took the notebook and pencil. He flipped the pages but didn’t write.

“You got fourteen minutes.”

“You will write, please!” It was a voice that could have chilled an Army pro.

“Screw yourself,” Jesso said.

Kator looked for one long silent moment as if he were going to burst out of his collar. Then he exhaled. Only his eyes moved when he looked at Karl, but Bean Pole scrambled to his suitcase, opened it up, and sat on the bed with the open case on his knees. Kator handed the passport to Karl, who opened it to the page with the picture.

“Where’s the visa?” Jesso asked.

“Your visa is an entry on a page in your passport, and I am close to the end of my patience. Will you-“

“Why don’t you shut up?”

They looked at each other like stalking cats and then there was no sound except a gentle scraping as Karl removed Snell’s picture from the passport. He had a delicate touch as he worked a small scalpel under the glue of the photo.

Jesso started to write, “The upper half of the left column…”

Karl had the picture off. He picked a stamp from his suitcase, the kind notary publics use, and clamped it over the photo. A round, embossed emblem appeared on the paper.

“… and the lower half of the right column…”

Karl smeared glue on the back of the picture and pressed it to the page. While Jesso watched, Karl wrote “Joseph Snell” across the top of the picture, just the way Snell had done it.

“… combine to give the production figures at…”

There was one more job to be done. Karl had to duplicate the State Department stamp that ran across page and picture, serrating both with tiny holes. He had the stamp. It was a wide steel contraption, built like the jaws of a pair of pliers, and the job was to keep the holes on the page intact while serrating new ones into the photo.

It was a delicate job of positioning and Karl did it by touch.

“You got eight minutes,” Jesso said.

Nobody answered. Karl felt the underside of the page, eyes closed, and Kator had got up to bend over Jesso’s shoulder. He saw the incomplete sentence there. Jesso could hear the breath next to his ear, and he smelled the faint dry-cleaning odor from Kator’s clothes.

“You got five minutes.”

Karl grabbed the handles of the stamp, pressed, and held on. When he let go slowly the serrations across the picture looked neat. It read, as it should, “PHOTOGRAPH ATTACHED DEPARTMENT OF STATE WASHINGTON.” Karl was an expert.

“Continue, Jesso.” Kator’s breath was moist on Jesso’s ear.

He wrote, “Honeywell,” then closed the notebook. “You got four minutes,” he said, and handed the notebook to Kator.

Then they gave him the passport, unlocked the door, and walked to the elevators.

“You got half a minute,” Jesso said when he leaned across the desk in the lobby The room clerk handed the letter across as if it were soiled, and Jesso slipped it into his pocket.

“And now one final word with you, my dear Jesso.” Kator noticed the look on Jesso’s face and smiled. He had a smile like winter coming. “We will stay in the lobby, dear Jesso, in plain sight of everyone.”

They walked to the large windows that looked out to the Kirchenalle and sat down on a wide couch, like travel companions, or like men who had time to kill.

“You realize, Jesso, there are ways of checking the accuracy of your information.”

“So?”

“Simply this. The risk in accepting your information is mine, and while I have been patient, even docile with you, I warn you that I am a different man when I run a risk. Should the information you gave me prove to be incorrect, should you have lied to me, Jesso, I promise you an unpleasant end. No matter where you may be, Jesso, an unpleasant end.” Kator paused and studied his frail-looking hands. “Would you care to correct the information you gave me?”

“You got the right dope, Kator.”

“I am glad to hear this. And now, the matter of your payment.” Kator gave Jesso an envelope. It wasn’t sealed. When Jesso reached for it, the envelope dropped out of Kator’s hand. So that’s why Jesso doubled over, reaching for the envelope, but then he stayed that way and didn’t come back up. Right in the lobby, on the couch, facing the window.

Kator had been very good. The hard edge of his hand made the slightest arch and then snapped fast against the base of Jesso’s skull. It was the kind of punch that makes the victim feel he knows everything that’s going on. He knows the impact, the fact that he can’t move, but any minute now he will. Except no air. There was no air. But that passed too, because without transition Jesso blacked out.

It went so smoothly after that that Jesso himself would have been proud of it. But Jesso wasn’t doing a thing. Kator was. He asked a bellhop to stand by and wave a handkerchief in the fainted man’s face and then sent Bean Pole to the phone, because an ambulance was just the thing for a case like this. That ambulance took no time at all. It was a miracle the way that ambulance showed up. One trench coat grabbed Jesso by the legs, the bellhop grabbed his arms, and then they hoisted the body into the ambulance, ready and waiting, because the driver had jumped out, white coat and all, and swung the doors wide in the back. Kator had left before the ambulance took off. Once he had given an order, he rarely bothered with details.

The driver drove and the trench coat sat in back, smoking a cigarette. He must have thought he looked sassy as all hell with the wide coat, the beret, and the cigarette hanging down out of one corner of his mouth.

The first thing Jesso knew was smoke. It drifted past his nose and Jesso wanted a cigarette. The thought was strong but it didn’t last. There was the sore neck and a blue pain below his heart. Kator must have operated like a fiend to pull this off.

It took a while of figuring, but then it all came out simple enough. There was Trench Coat, and this was an ambulance and just before that there was an envelope dropping out of Kator’s hand, clumsy as could be, and then the rest not so clumsy. And there wasn’t any five hundred in that envelope and this wasn’t really an ambulance. But Trench Coat, he was real enough. Perhaps he’d heard something, a difference in breathing. Couldn’t be. The ambulance was clattering across a street of cobblestones, and Trench Coat, crawling back where Jesso was, held himself steady with both hands. Then he leaned over Jesso to make sure of the damage. Jesso could smell the smoke again. In nothing flat the damage was one agonizing flood of pain spreading from the groin, a wicked burn where the cigarette had splashed against the nose, and one lip badly cut. Then Jesso made sure. Kator himself would have been proud of the way that hand sliced down. Trench Coat stretched out, trembled, and lay still. The ambulance was bumping badly and the driver drove.

He must have known where he was going. The ride got smooth as they crossed a bridge over the Elbe and then they turned and twisted where steep houses seemed to nod across the narrow streets. After a while the ambulance picked up speed and the tires started to sing. At first Jesso didn’t realize it was a highway. He watched the tree tops shoot away to the rear, where they appeared and disappeared in the small window at the back. After a while, keeping a cautious stoop, he looked and saw the long ribbon on the black-top road. There were apple trees along both sides.

Then it started to bump again and the trees got thicker. When the car slowed down and stopped, Jesso was ready.