Victor O'Reilly - Games of The Hangman

The Barenplatz wasn't a nice neat shoebox with one entrance. Far from it: it was impossible to seal off without much greater manpower than was available. One end led into Spitalgasse, one of the main shopping streets, providing endless opportunities for escape; the other end of the square bordered the Bundesplatz, the even larger open area in front of the Federal Parliament building. To cap it all off, Ivo would probably be on roller skates, which meant he could move considerably faster than the police. Fitzduane had raised the matter with von Beck, who had laughed and said that an earlier suggestion that some detectives might wear skates had nearly given the Chief Kripo a heart attack.

The compromise was two detectives on motorcycles. Fitzduane looked at the jugglers and the fire-eater and the dense crowds and had bad vibes about the whole thing. On the other hand, he admitted to himself, he was biased. He would have liked to have seen the Bear on skates.

The High Noon was in one corner of the Barenplatz within a few yards of the Kafigturm, the PrisonTower, which divided what was essentially one street into Spitalgasse and Marktgasse.

Ivo had stipulated no police, and the Bear, who knew him well, had been adamant. If Ivo wasn't to be frightened away, the backup force would have to be well concealed. "Ivo," the Bear had said, tapping his nose, "may be odd, but he's no fool. He can smell a cop – and he's got a good sense of smell. Believe me."

They did. All of which put the onus on Fitzduane and good communications. The idea was that Ivo wouldn't be arrested until he had had a chance to say whatever was on his mind. Only then, at Fitzduane's signal, would the trap be sprung. Fitzduane drank some beer and tried to feel less uneasy with his role. He felt like a Judas. Ivo, a lonely soul who needed help more than anything else, trusted him.

The taped wires of the concealed transmitter itched, but he resisted the temptation to scratch under his shirt. He pressed the transmitter switch that was taped to his left wrist under his shirt cuff. The gesture looked as if he were consulting his watch. He heard an answering click from the Bear, who, together with the federal policeman, was sitting on the second-floor veranda of a tearoom more or less directly across from where Fitzduane sat. This gave the Bear a bird's-eye view of the operation, and it kept him out of Ivo's sight. He was, however, too far away from the High Noon to make the actual arrest. That would be the responsibility of the two detectives concealed in the kitchen. The task force was linked by two radio nets. One channel was restricted to Fitzduane and the Bear. The second channel was netted between the Bear and all the other members of his team. The setup should work fine unless the Bear go this transmission buttons mixed up.

The clock in the PrisonTower struck noon.

Frau Hunziker looked up in surprise as the door opened.

"Herr von Graffenlaub," she said, a little flustered. "I didn't expect you until next week. I thought you were in New York. Is something wrong?"

Beat von Graffenlaub smiled at her gently. The smile was incongruous because his eyes were hollow from lack of sleep and his whole demeanor projected stress and worry. He had aged in the past few days. My God, he's an old man, she thought for the first time.

"You and I, Frau Hunziker," he said, "have some arrangements to make."

"I don't understand," said Frau Hunziker. "Everything is in order as far as I know."

"You do an excellent job, my dear Frau Hunziker, excellent, quite excellent." He stood in the doorway of his office. "No interruptions until after lunch. Then I will need you. No interruptions at all. Is that quite clear?"

"Yes, Herr von Graffenlaub." She heard the lock click in the door. She was concerned. Herr von Graffenlaub had never behaved this way before, and he was looking terrible. Perhaps she should do something. She looked up at the clock on the wall. It was just after midday, two hours until her employer would need her. But training and discipline reasserted themselves, and she returned to her work.

Moving at speed, Ivo emerged from behind the jugglers, sideslipped gracefully between a mother and her dallying gaggle of children, looped around a flower stall, and glissaded to a halt in front of Fitzduane. He slid his visor up with a click. Behind him the fire-eater started to do something antisocial. Fitzduane hoped the mother was keeping count of her children: the smallest looked as if he were planning to get fried.

"Hello, Irishman," said Ivo. "I'm glad you came."

"I hope I am," said Fitzduane. "The last time we met I nearly got shot."

"Nothing will happen today," said Ivo. "I am invisible to my enemies. I have special powers, you know."

"Nothing personal," said Fitzduane, "but it's not you I'm worried about. I don't have any magic skates, not even a broomstick, and there are people out there with decidedly unpleasant habits."

Ivo sat down across the table from Fitzduane and with the grace of a conjurer produced two brightly painted eggs from the depths of his guitar and began to juggle with them. His special powers obviously didn't extend to juggling, and Fitzduane waited for the accident to happen. He hoped that Ivo had used an egg timer, or he was likely to need a fresh shirt. The display was morbidly fascinating. One egg went unilateral and thudded onto the table in front of Fitzduane.

There was no explosion of yellow; it just lay there cracked.

Ivo shrugged and began removing the shell. "I can never decide which color to eat first," he said.

Fitzduane pushed the salt cellar across the table. "It's one of life's great dilemmas," he said. "Something to drink?"

A waiter was standing by their table, looking at Ivo with ill-concealed distaste. He wrinkled his nose as the light breeze demonstrated the less visible aspects of knightly behavior, and he looked around to see if the other customers seemed to have noticed the smell. Fortunately it was late for morning coffee and early for lunch. The tables were nearly empty. In his own idiosyncratic way, Fitzduane decided, Ivo was a smart screwball, and polite, too. He was sitting downwind of Fitzduane.

"One of those," said Ivo, pointing at Fitzduane's beer.

Fitzduane looked up at the waiter, who seemed to be debating about accepting the order. Fitzduane was not entirely unsympathetic, but the time didn't seem right for a discussion of personal hygiene. "My eccentric but very rich and influential friend," he said, "would like a beer." He smiled and placed a hundred-franc note on the table, weighting it in place with his empty beer bottle.

The waiter's scruples vanished at much the same speed as the hundred-franc note. Fitzduane thought that with such manual dexterity the waiter would be a safer bet with the colored eggs than Ivo.

"Would the gentleman like anything else?" asked the waiter. "Perhaps something to eat?"

"The gentleman's diet permits only a certain type of egg, which, as you can see, he carries with him, but more salt would be appreciated." Fitzduane indicated the nearly empty cellar.

Ivo moved on to the second egg. "I've written a book," he said, his mouth half full. "a book of poems." He reached inside the guitar and produced a soiled but bulky package, which he pushed across the table to Fitzduane. "It's about my friend Klaus and the man who killed him."

"Klaus Minder?"

"Yes," said Ivo, "my friend Klaus." He was silent. Then he put some salt on the side of his left thumb. He drank some beer and licked the salt. "Like tequila," he said.

"You're missing the lemon," said Fitzduane.

"Klaus is dead, you know. I miss him. I need a friend. Will you be my friend? We can find out who killed Klaus together."