along the wall in the cover of the shadow, until he was far enough away from the cars to cross the alley in safety before doubling back. A heel scraped on a cobblestone behind me, and I held my breath. There was only my thumb which moved, slowly and steadily pulling back the revolver's hammer with a scarcely audible click, and then releasing the safety. Slowly I turned and looked down the length of my body. I saw a pair of shoes standing squarely behind where I was lying, framed neatly by the two rear wheels of the car. The man's feet took him away to my right, behind the Bugatti, and, realizing that he was on to its half-open door, I slid in the opposite direction, to my left, and out from underneath the Mercedes. Staying low, beneath the level of the car's windows, I went to the rear and peered around its enormous trunk. A brown-suited figure crouched beside the rear tyre of the Bugatti in almost exactly the same position as me, but facing in the opposite direction. He was no more than a couple of metres away. I stepped quietly forward, bringing the big revolver up to level it at arm's length at the back of his hat.
'Drop it,' I said. 'Or I'll put a tunnel through your goddamned head, so help me God.' The man froze, but the gun stayed put in his hand.
'No problem, friend,' he said, releasing the handle of his automatic, a Mauser, so that it dangled from his forefinger by the trigger guard. Mind if I put the catch on it? This little baby's got a hair-trigger.' The voice was slow and cool.
'First pull the brim of your hat down over your face,' I said. 'Then put the catch on like you had your hand in a bag of sand. Remember, at this range I can hardly miss. And it would be too bad to mess up Red's nice paintwork with your brains.' He tugged at his hat until it was well down over his eyes, and after he had seen to the Mauser's safety catch he let the gun drop to the ground where it clattered harmlessly on the cobbles.
'Did Red tell you I was following you?'
'Shut up and turn around,' I told him. 'And keep your hands in the air.' The brown suit turned and then dropped his head back onto his shoulders in an effort to see beyond the brim of his hat.
'You going to kill me?' he said.
'That depends.'
'On what?'
'On whether or not you tell me who's signing your expenses.'
'Maybe we can make a deal.'
'I don't see that you've got much to trade,' I said. 'Either you talk or I fit you with an extra pair of nostrils. It's that simple.'
He grinned. 'You wouldn't shoot me in cold blood,' he said.
'Oh, wouldn't I?' I poked the gun hard against his chin, and then dragged the barrel up across the flesh of his face to screw it under his cheekbone. 'Don't be so sure. You've got me in the mood to use this thing, so you'd better find your tongue now or you'll never find it again.'
'But if I sing, then what? Will you let me go?'
'And have you track me down again? You must think I'm stupid.'
'What can I do to convince you that I wouldn't?'
I stepped away from him, and thought for a moment. 'Swear on your mother's life.'
'I swear on my mother's life,' he said readily enough.
'Fine. So who's your client?'
'You'll let me go if I tell you?'
'Yes.'
'Swear on your mother's life.'
'I swear on my mother's life.'
'All right then,' he said. 'It was a fellow called HaupthSndler.'
'How much is he paying you?'
'Three hundred now and ' He didn't finish the sentence. Stepping forward I knocked him cold with one blow of the revolver's butt. It was a cruel blow, delivered with sufficient power to render him insensible for a long time.
'My mother is dead,' I said. Then I picked up his weapon and pocketing both guns I ran back to the car. Inge's eyes widened when she saw the dirt and oil covering my suit. My best suit.
'The lift's not good enough for you? What did you do, jump down?'
'Something like that.' I felt around under the driver's seat for the pair of handcuffs I kept next to my gun. Then I drove the seventy or so metres back to the alley.
The brown suit lay unconscious where I had dropped him. I got out of the car and dragged him over to a wall a short way up the alley, where I manacled him to some iron bars protecting a window. He groaned a little as I moved him, so I knew I hadn't killed him. I went back to the Bugatti and returned Red's gun to the glove-box. At the same time I helped myself to the small paper twists of white powder. I didn't figure that Red Dieter was the type to keep cooking-salt in his glove-box, but I sniffed a pinch anyway. Just enough to recognize cocaine. There weren't many of the twists. Not more than a hundred marks' worth.
And it looked like they were for Red's personal use.
I locked the car and slid the keys inside the exhaust, like he'd asked. Then I walked back to the brown suit and tucked a couple of the twists into his top pocket.
'This should interest the boys at the Alex,' I said. Short of killing him in cold blood, I could think of no more certain way of ensuring that he wouldn't finish the job he'd started.
Deals were for people that met you with nothing more deadly in their right hand than a shot of schnapps.
Chapter 14
The next morning it was drizzling, a warm fine rain like the spray from a garden-sprinkler. I got up feeling sharp and rested, and stood looking out of the windows. I felt as full of life as a pack of sled-dogs.
We got up and breakfasted on a pot of Mexican mixture and a couple of cigarettes. I think I was even whistling as I shaved. She came into the bathroom and stood looking at me. We seemed to be doing a lot of that.
'Considering that someone tried to kill you last night,' she said, 'you're in a remarkably good frame of mind this morning.'
'I always say that there's nothing like a brush with the grim reaper to renew the taste for life.' I smiled at her, and added, 'That, and a good woman,'
'You still haven't told me why he did it.'
'Because he was paid to,' I said.
'By whom? The man in the club?' I wiped my face and looked for missed stubble.
There wasn't any, so I put down my razor.
'Do you remember yesterday morning that I telephoned Six's house and asked the butler to give both his master and HaupthSndler a message?'
Inge nodded. 'Yes. You said to tell them that you were getting close.'
'I was hoping it would spook HaupthSndler into playing his hand. Well, it did.
Only rather more quickly than I had expected.'
'So you think he paid that man to kill you?'
'I know he did.' Inge followed me into the bedroom where I put on a shirt, and watched me as I fumbled with the cuff-link on the arm that I had grazed, and that she had bandaged. 'You know,' I said, 'last night posed just as many questions as it answered. There's no logic to anything, none at all. It's like trying to make up a jigsaw, with not one but two sets of pieces. There were two things stolen from the Pfarrs' safe; some jewels and some papers. But they don't seem to fit together at all. And then there are the pieces which have a picture of a murder on them, which can't be made to fit with those belonging to the theft.'
Inge blinked slowly like a clever cat, and looked at me with the sort of expression that makes a man feel meschugge for not having thought of it first.
Irritating to watch, but when she spoke I realized just how stupid I really was.
'Perhaps there never was just one jigsaw,' she said. 'Perhaps you've been trying to put one together when there were two all along.' It took a moment or two to let that one sink all the way in, helped at the end with the flat
