Eric Norden - The Ultimate Solution

“Now, what we want to know…”

“There’s a pint of bourbon inside the stove. Would you get it for me?”

His eyes were gray, I noticed, the pupils bloodshot. They were not frightened eyes. And that, I thought, was wrong. Anybody should be frightened when he’s dragged at gunpoint from a public park and kept a prisoner in his own flat. Anybody that is, except somebody who’s accepted such risks as part of the game. Which, appearances notwithstanding, brought us back to the nips. I remembered the panhandler disguise of the Komeito agent who tried to kill me, and that was every bit as believable as the image of the kindly old chess-playing alky projected by the guy on the mattress. Until the mask came off, it was.

“Get him the bourbon, Bill.”

That surprised me, but I walked over, still not putting my back to the door, and rummaged through the rusty old pot-bellied stove till I found a pint of Early Times. The seal was still intact and when I handed it to the old man he screwed off the cap with a strong twist of his hand and took a long slobbering gulp from the bottle.

“Feeling any better?” Ed was playing it easy, for the time being anyway.

“Yes, considerably. I assume you are officers of the law, and not unscrupulous sundial thiefs willing to go to any length to purloin my treasure?”

Kohler frowned, and I seconded the expression. The slightly pedantic voice was educated, intelligent, and the sense of humor didn’t fit the circumstances. To say the least.

“My name is Kohler, Ed Kohler, and this is Lieutenant Haider. We represent a combined task force of the Gestapo and the New York police.” That sounded impressive enough to me, but our captive didn’t even blink. “Now to complete the amenities, why don’t you tell us your name.”

The old man smiled, which also didn’t fit.

“Connor. Francis X. Connor. I’d offer you a drink, gentlemen, but I think my need is the greater and this is the last bottle in the place.”

The flippancy might or might not hide fear but I didn’t like it.

“Connor,” Kohler said, “whether you know it or not, you’re in real trouble. We want your cooperation, and if we don’t get it you won’t be seeing a drop of whisky for a long, long time. Now, we’re looking for a friend of yours, at least an acquaintance, someone you’ve played chess with on several occasions…”

Connor held up a hand.

“Why not spare me the preliminaries, Lieutenant. I know why you’re here, I’ve expected you for some time. You’re looking for the Jew.”

You could have cut the silence with a knife. Shit, he’d come right out with it, admitted it. Which meant he had to be with the nips. But that was wrong too, why the hell would he blow it like that, before we’d even touched him? Kohler must have been just as confused, I’d seen the expression on his face when the old man said it, but he tried to carry on naturally.

“So you know about the Jew. For how long?”

“Oh, from the very beginning. From the day he arrived.”

Arrived. The same word Ed had used in the car coming down from Croton.

“From where did he… arrive ?” I could hear the sudden tension in the words, but Connor just smiled.

“You’d better ask him that. I met him in Washington Square Park, which as you may have guessed is my local stamping ground. He was wandering around in a dazed state, I thought he was ill, either physically or mentally.

At first he couldn’t talk coherently but finally I got him back here and forced the last of my drinkable brandy down his throat. Then he talked, all right. Dear God, he talked and talked, we went right through the night.” He took another pull at the bourbon. “I haven’t talked like that to man or beast for twenty-five years.”

“What did he say?”

“Oh, many things. Crazy things I thought they were at first, then I wasn’t so sure. And now I know he’s the sanest man I’ve met in a long, long time. He stayed on with me here, I fed him and gave him money. I have some, you know, appearances notwithstanding, from a white sheep brother in Scarsdale who sends me a check each month so long as I never darken his split-level doorstep. The Jew had no money of his own, or at least none that would be negotiable here. After awhile he had the courage to go out again, though I stayed with him most of the time at first. It was never easy for him, God knows.”

“Where is he now?” Kohler almost breathed the words.

“I haven’t seen him for two weeks.”

Two weeks. Two fucking weeks, in every case. I think both of us groaned out loud at the same time, but Kohler wasn’t ready to give up that easily.

“And all that time you knew he was a Jew, he’d admitted it to you?”

“Yes, of course.” God, he was a cool one.

“You realize that harboring a Jew is still on the books as a capital offense? You realize that under the Emergency Regulations, which are also valid, I have the right to execute you on the spot?”

“Yes, Mr. Kohler, I do.” Suddenly the urbane mockery was gone from his voice, and the bleary eyes were hard. “And you will, in one way or another. I knew from the moment I saw you that I would die today.”

I wondered if that was just bravado, or if he was already reconciled. I knew one thing, I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be in his shoes at that moment.

“You’ll die, Connor, in due time.” Kohler’s voice was savage now, the gloves were coming off. “But first you’ll tell us what safe house you’ve got the Jew in now, and who the other members of your nip cell are. If you talk fast, we might even keep you alive a while longer, whatever you saw in my eyes.”

Far from being intimidate, Connor just burst out laughing at this. I had to give the man credit, he had guts.

“Do you really think I’m a Japanese agent, Mr. Kohler?” he asked after a moment, gesturing at the debris around him. “Does this really look like the lair of an international spy-master?”

Kohler seemed as baffled by his attitude as I was.

“Look, Connor, you’re just making it hard on yourself. You’re going to talk, and it’s up to you whether it’s hard or easy. We’ve got all the time in the world to get it out of you.” That wasn’t exactly true but I suppose it was good psychology. Not that it seemed to impress the old man.

“You have very little time, Mr. Kohler. All of us have very little time.”

Ed jumped to his feet.

“All right, we’ve played enough games for now. Where is the Jew?”

“He’s gone,” Connor replied calmly. “And he won’t be back. I’m only talking to you now because I know nothing I say can help you. You may find him, but not through me. All the time he was here, the days I could have betrayed him, I carried a small vial of poison with me wherever I went, just in case. Suicide is a mortal sin in my faith, but I’m sure the blessed mercy of Christ would have encompassed and forgiven me.”

Kohler nodded.

“A Christie.” He glanced at me with a trace of self-satisfaction. “I told you and Pete this afternoon, Bill, check out the Christies. And I was right.”

“I’m not a ‘Christie’ as you put it, Mr. Kohler. I am a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, ordained in 1946, one year before what you people call Liberation. I’ve surrendered my self-respect and my humanity over the years, but never my faith.”

“A priest. A whisky priest to boot.” Kohler looked contemptuously around the filthy bottle-littered loft. “You’re a credit to your calling, Father .”

Ed was trying to get him angry, trigger a hot and potentially revealing response, I knew the technique well. So, apparently, did Connor.

“You needn’t try to provoke me, Mr. Kohler.” He was as unruffled as ever, his voice calm and contemplative. “I couldn’t hate you as a man because of my principles, and I don’t even despise you as a symbol. You, your Gestapo, your whole omnipotent Reich have become a juggernaut spinning out of control, hurtling on your way to destruction, just like a cancer that burns itself out when it kills off its host. You’ve scourged all the dignity and gentleness and compassion from this world and now your cancer has nothing left to feed on but itself. I pity you, Mr. Kohler, I pity what you’ve become, all of you.” He looked down at the bottle in his hand. “And what I’ve become, of course.”