Philip Kerr - If the Dead Rise Not

Reles crushed the letters in an angry-looking fist and threw them over the side.

“That’s all right,” I said. “I kept a copy.”

The Colt.45 was still in his other hand. It looked as big as a four iron.

“You’re a clever man, Gunther.” He chuckled, but the lack of color in his face told me he wasn’t laughing. “You played those cards well, I’ll say that for you. However. Even if I spare your life, it still leaves me with a hell of a problem. Yes, sir, a hell of a problem.” He puffed the cigar and then threw that over the side, too. “But you know, I think I have the solution. Yes. I really think I know.”

“But you, my dear.” He turned to look at Dora. She had opened her bag and removed her powder compact and was now checking the perimeters of her lipstick. “You know too much.”

Dora dropped the compact. This wasn’t a surprise to anyone, as Max Reles was now pointing the Colt not at me but at her.

“Max?” She smiled-nervously, perhaps-thinking for half a moment that he was joking. “What are you talking about? I Iove you, darling. I’d never betray you, Max. Surely you know that.”

“We both know that’s not true. And while I think I have a way to guarantee that Gunther here won’t actually denounce me to the Gestapo, I don’t have a way of ensuring the same thing from you. I wish I could think of some other way. Really, I do. But you are what you are.”

“Max!” This time Dora screamed his name. Then she turned and ran, as if there had been someplace else for her to go.

Reles uttered a profound sigh that almost made me feel sorry for him. I could see he regretted having to kill her. But I’d given him no choice. That much was now obvious. He leveled the gun and fired after her. It sounded like a cannon on a pirate ship. The shot took her down like a cheetah tripping a gazelle, and her head seemed to explode with a pinkish thought made entirely of blood and brains.

He fired again, but this time he wasn’t aiming the gun at Dora Bauer. Facing me, she was lying in a pool of thick, dark red that was already spreading across the deck, twitching slightly, but probably dead. The second shot hit Gerhard Krempel. It took him by surprise and lifted the crown of his head like the top of a hard-boiled egg. The impact was such that it flipped him over the rail of the boat and into the water.

A strong smell of cordite filled the air and mixed neatly with the acrid scent of my own mortal fear.

“Aw, shit,” moaned Reles, staring over the side. “And I was going to weigh them down together. Like something from an opera. One of those fucking German operas that go on forever.” He made the gun safe, and dropped it on its lanyard. “I guess I’ll have to leave him be. Can’t be helped. Dora, on the other hand. Dora?”

He walked fastidiously around the pool of blood and kicked the back of her head softly with the toe of his white shoe, and then kicked it a little harder, as if making quite certain she was dead. Her eyes, still wide with fear, remained motionless, staring at me accusingly, as if she held me entirely responsible for what had happened to her. And she was right, of course. Reles could never have trusted her.

He came over and inspected my ankles and then untied the rope that was attached to the three concrete blocks. Then he tied it tightly around her shapely ankles.

“I don’t know why you’re looking like that, Gunther. I’m not going to kill you. Of course, that makes it your fault she’s dead.”

“What makes you think you can afford to let me live?” I asked, trying to contain my very real fear that, in spite of what I’d said by way of a threat, and what he’d said by way of an answer, he was going to kill me anyway.

“You mean, what’s to stop you from sending that letter to the Gestapo anyway if you manage to come out of this alive?”

I nodded.

He chuckled his sadistic chuckle and pulled hard on the knot securing Dora’s ankles to the concrete blocks. “That’s a very good question, Gunther. And I will answer it, just as soon as I’ve sent this little lady on her last and most important voyage. You can depend on that.”

The concrete blocks were attached to the rope like a series of fisherman’s weights. One after the other he carried them, grunting loudly, to the side of the boat and then opened a gate in the rail. And then, one after the other, he pushed the blocks over the side with the sole of his shoe. The weight of the blocks turned Dora’s body and started to drag her toward the side.

It was probably the sensation of being moved that brought her back to consciousness. First she moaned, then she inhaled loudly, the breasts on her chest lifting up like two tiny lavender-colored circus tents. At the same time she flung out an arm, turned onto her stomach, lifted up what was left of her head, and spoke. To me.

“Gunther. Help me.”

Max Reles laughed at the surprise of it and fumbled for his automatic to shoot Dora again before the three weights could drag her through the gate in the rail; but by the time he had worked the slide on the Colt it was too late. Whatever she had tried to say to me was lost in a scream as she realized what was happening. The next second she was dragged over the side of the boat.

I closed my eyes. I could do nothing to help. There was a loud splash, and then another. The screaming mouth filled with water, and then there was a terrible silence.

“Jesus,” said Reles, staring down at the water. “Did you see that? I could have sworn the bitch was dead. I mean, you saw me give her a kick to make sure. And I’d have shot her again, to spare her that. If there’d been time. Jesus.” He shook his head and let out a nervous breath. “How about that?”

Once more he made the gun safe, and dropped it on the lanyard. From the coat he took out a hip flask and took a large pull on it before offering it to me. “Hair of the dog?”

I shook my head.

“No, I guess not. That’s the thing about alcohol poisoning. Be a while before you can even tolerate the smell of schnapps, let alone drink any.”

“You bastard.”

“Me? It was you that killed her, Gunther. Him, too. Once you’d said what you said, there was no alternative. They had to die. They’d have had me over a barrel with my pants down and fucked me from now until Christmas, and there’s nothing I could have done about it.” He took another swig of liquor. “You, on the other hand. I know exactly what’s to stop you from doing that very same thing. Can you think what it is?”

I sighed. “Honestly? No.”

He chuckled, and I wanted to kill him for it. “Then it’s lucky I’m here to tell you, asshole. Noreen Charalambides. That’s what. She was, is, in love with you.” He frowned and shook his head. “Christ only knows why. I mean, you’re a loser, Gunther. A liberal in a country full of Nazis. If that doesn’t make you a loser, then there’s that hole in your fucking shoe. I mean, how could a dame like that fall for a schmuck with a hole in his fucking shoe?

“Just as important, however,” he continued, “you are in love with her. No point in denying it. You see, we had a talk, she and I, before she left Berlin to go back to the States. And she told me how you two felt about each other. Which, I have to say, was a disappointment to me. On account of the fact that she and I had a thing ourselves on the boat from New York. Did she tell you that?”

“No.”

“It doesn’t matter now. All that does matter is that you care enough about Noreen to stop her from being killed. Because here’s what’s going to happen. As soon as I’m off this boat, I’m going to send a telegram to my kid brother in New York. To be honest, he’s my half brother. But blood is blood, right? Kid Twist, they call him, because it’s fair to say he’s a little bit fucking twisted in the head. Well, there’s that and the fact that he used to like twisting the necks of guys he didn’t like. Until they broke. That was before he developed his real skill. With an ice pick. Anyway, the fact is, he likes killing people. Me, I do it because I have to. Like just now. But he enjoys his work.