letting off steam, a natural release of tensions, a purification through excess. That wasn't the real problem.
It was the periods of amnesia that concerned him. He was a man with an astonishing ability to manipulate and control other beings – up to and including matters of life and death – and yet his underlying fear, a fear that bordered on panic, was that he was losing his ability to control himself.
It was the incident with the girl on the chessboard that had persuaded him that he must get himself under control. Previous incidents, like his killing that beautiful boy Klaus Minder, were unpremeditated and perhaps a little excessive but could be rationalized in context of the needs of his advanced sexuality. Killing Esther was a matter of routine discipline. The killing and the manner of the killing were not the problem. But why had he suddenly taken the notion to draw attention to his presence by planting the torso in such a public place as the Rose Garden's chessboard – not to mention dumping the legs in the Russian Embassy?
Did he subconsciously want to be caught? Was this some sublimated cry for help? He hoped not. He'd put far too much effort into the last couple of decades to have some programmed element of his subconscious betray him. That was the trouble with the childhood phase. In your early years anyone and everyone has a go at programming you, from your parents to religious nuts, from corporations that bombard you with unremitting lies on TV to an educational system that trains you to conform to its values and does its level best to crush your own natural talent.
But Kadar had been lucky. From an early age he had sensed the realities of life, the lies, the corruption, the compromises. He had learned to have only one friend, one loyalty, one guide through life: himself. He had learned one key discipline: control. He had mastered one vital pattern of behavior: to live inside himself and to reveal nothing. Externally he appeared to conform; he knew how the game must be played.
He lay back in his chair and started the ritual of creating Dr. Paul. He desperately needed someone to talk to. But hours later, drenched in sweat, he admitted failure: the image of the smiling doctor wouldn't appear. His headache had escalated into the full, terrible agony of a serious migraine.
Alone in his soundproofed premises Kadar screamed.
18
The Bear sat in a private room of Bern's ultramodern InselHospital and waited for the Monkey to die. His once-beautiful face was wrapped in bandages from crown to neck. The Bear had seen what was left underneath and was too appalled even to feel nauseated. Best guess was that some kind of sharpened chain, possibly a motorcycle chain, had been used. His nose, teeth, and much else had been smashed, and the face flayed to the bone.
The Monkey muttered something unintelligible. The sound was picked up by a voice-actuated tape recorder whose miniature microphone lead joined the tangle of tubes and wires that were only just keeping the Monkey alive. There was a harsh rattling sound from the bed, and score was kept by the electric monitor. The uniformed Berp sitting at the other side of the bed held a notebook in his hands and tried to make sense of the sounds. He bent his ear close to the shrouded hole that was the Monkey's mouth. The edges of the bandages around the hole were stained with fresh blood, and the Berp's face was pale. He shook his head. He didn't write anything.
The rattling and sucking sounds culminated in a strangled cough. An intern and a nurse rushed into the room. They went through the motions while the Bear looked out the window, seeing nothing.
'That's it,' said the intern. He went to wash his hands at the sink in the corner of the room. The nurse pulled the sheet over the Monkey's head. The Bear untangled the tape recorder and removed the cassette. He broke the tabs to make sure it could not be accidentally recorded over, marked it, and gave it to the Berp.
'Did he say anything?' asked the intern. He was drying his hands.
'Something,' said the Bear. 'Not a lot. He hadn't a lot left to talk with.'
'But you know who did it?'
'It looks that way.'
'Is it always like this?' asked the Berp. 'That noise when they die?' The young policeman had an unseasoned look about him. Not a good choice, thought the Bear, but then you have to start sometime.
'Not always,' he said, 'but often enough. It's not called the death rattle without good reason.' He gestured at the cassette in the envelope. 'Take it to Examining Magistrate von Beck. The fresh air will do you good.'
Afterward the Bear went to the Barengraben for a little snack and a think. There would be a warrant out for Ivo within the hour. This time it would not be a matter of routine questioning. The little idiot would be charged with murder – at least until more information was available. Even if he ended up with a lesser charge, he was going to be locked up for an awfully long time.
The Monkey had not actually died from having his face destroyed but from a one-sided encounter with a delivery truck as he ran in panic through the streets near the Hauptbahnhof. Whether that made Ivo – them man who had wielded the chain and thus induced the panic – guilty of murder was something for the lawyers to decide. But what had possessed Ivo to behave so savagely? He had no track record of violence, and the Bear would have bet modest money that he would never do such a thing. Nonetheless, the Monkey was undoubtedly telling the truth. Ivo had done it. Had he understood the damage he was doing when he struck? Probably not, but such an excuse wouldn't take him very far in court. The Bear doubted that Ivo would survive a long stretch in prison.
The Monkey had been incoherent most of the time, but he had had some lucid moments. The Bear remembered one in particular: '…and I gave them to him. I did. I did. But he wouldn’t stop. He's mad. I gave them to him.' What had the Monkey been trying to say? What did he mean by ‘them’?
The Bear enjoyed his meal. He made a list on his table napkin of what the Monkey might have been referring to, but then he needed it to remove the cream sauce from his mustache. He thought the Monkey's demise was one of the better things that had happened to Bern that day. He felt sorry for Ivo. He also thought that the Chief Kripo, with yet another dead body on his hands – albeit the killer identified – would be shitting bricks.
Well, rank had its privileges.
It was Fitzduane's third or fourth visit to Simon Balac's studio after Erika von Graffenlaub had introduced the two men at Kuno Gonschior's vernissage. Simon didn't project the smoldering anger of so many creative artists, or the sense of insecurity heightened by years of rejection. His manner was charming and relaxed, but his conversational style was enlivened by a pointed wit. He was well informed and widely traveled. Good company, in fact.
Simon was often away at exhibitions or seeking creative inspiration, but when in Bern he kept what almost amounted to a salon. This took place every weekday between twelve and two, when the painter broke for lunch and conversation with his friends. For the rest of the day Simon was ruthless in guarding his privacy. The doors were locked and he painted.
Posters of Balac's various exhibitions held throughout Europe and America decorated one end of the converted warehouse down by Wasserwerkgasse. It was said that a Balac routinely commanded prices in excess of twenty thousand dollars. He painted fewer than a dozen or so a year, and many, after one showing, went immediately into bank vaults as investments. His corporate customers, keenly aware of his ability to market his output to maximum advantage, admired his business acumen as much as his artistic talent.
Socially he was much in demand. Balac was a good listener with the ability to draw others out and spend little time talking about himself, but Fitzduane gathered that he was an expatriate American who had originally come to the Continent to study art in Paris, Munich, and Florence and had then moved to Bern because of a woman.
'My affair with Sabine didn't last,' he had said, 'but with Bern, it did. Bern has been more faithful. She tolerates my little infidelities when I sample the delights of other cities because I always return. To me Bern has the attraction of an experienced woman. Innocence has novelty but experience has performance.' He laughed as if to show that he didn't want to be taken seriously. It was hard to know where Balac stood on most issues. His warm, open manner, combined with his sense of humor, tended to conceal what lay beneath, and Fitzduane did not try to dig. He was content to enjoy the painter's hospitality and his company.
