17
Gerd Exner said, “Do I kill them, Claude?”
My gun was still in my office, not that it would have done me any good. He had his, I would have had to get mine out, and he was a soldier, a Legionnaire. He had the skill and the nerve, the experience of killing. He would be better, which is why I don’t carry a gun unless I’m sure I need it for some specific reason. Someone, I’ve said before, is always better.
“No,” Claude Marais said. “Put the gun away, Gerd.”
“I came up unseen,” Exner said. “You and Li can leave, be seen. I kill the three of them, no trace, we go back to our work. Yes?”
“We don’t have any work to do anymore,” Claude Marais said. “Hang up the guns, Gerd. The wars are over.”
“The wars are never over,” Gerd Exner said. His scarred face under the thin blond hair was like ivory. “You see it now? What do you do, Claude? How do you live? Like this, useless and rusting? It will not work, not for us. There is no way for us but what we know.”
“There is no way for us at all,” Claude Marais said. “All we can be is bandits. There is no purpose for us, nothing we can fight for anymore.”
The tall ex-Legionnaire moved closer to Claude Marais, his limp more obvious now as if he had been running too hard. The gun in his hand remained steady, but there was a kind of anger in his pale blue German eyes. He spoke only to Claude, but he did not relax his watch.
“Purpose?” Exner said. “What do we wish with purposes, Claude? Causes? Patriotics? Those things are for amateurs and fools. We are soldiers, nothing else. We fought for nations and purposes, for France, and France failed us. All nations fail their soldiers. A man cannot put his trust in nations or politicians. We must trust only ourselves, fight only for ourselves. Mercenaries, Claude. Both of us.”
Claude Marais shrugged. “Perhaps for you, Gerd, but it is not so for me. I do not want to fight. I told you so.”
In her corner, Li Marais stood up suddenly. Her small, full body was shaking under the Chinese dress. I found myself wondering if she had anything on underneath the dress now. Her gentle, rigid face was agitated, no longer calm.
“Go away,” she said to Gerd Exner. “Go away from Claude, please. Leave us alone, Exner!”
The German mercenary seemed to think about it, watched Li Marais speculatively. “You hired this detective here to scare me away, told him lies. Now you ask me to leave Claude alone. You like him as he now is? A shadow man?”
“No,” Li Marais said, “but I do not want him like you, a jackal preying on everyone.”
“So? I see what has been done to Claude,” Gerd Exner said. “Women can ruin a man. You have destroyed a good soldier. I have seen it before. Aryan women are strong, they inspire a man to conquer, but you gook women are weak, you do not understand a white man. You weaken him, ruin him.”
Claude Marais moved, stepped at Exner. The tall German with the scarred face backed away, his gun up and aimed at Claude. The quick, animal reaction of a wary professional gunman in his blue eyes. He would shoot on an instant, as much from fear as from intent. To shoot at any possible threat was how a mercenary survived. Claude Marais knew this, stopped.
“No more, Gerd. Get out of here now. Get out of this city, this country. We have nothing together. You’re nothing more now than a hired killer!”
“So?” Exner said again, considered Claude Marais. “Very well, you are useless now, anyway. I’ll go, but first I think I will take that package the detective there is looking so hard for, eh? It is half mine, but now I think it should be all mine, yes. Where is it, Claude?”
“I don’t know.”
Exner smiled. “Come, this is Gerd you talk to, eh? It is not found, I know that from the detective. Who else would have a package of Claude Marais’s? ”
“I don’t know who has it, or where it is,” Claude Marais said. “If I find it, I’ll send it to you. If there is anywhere you can stay long enough to receive mail, Gerd.”
The click was like a slap in all our faces. Gerd Exner had cocked his pistol. It was aimed at Claude Marais.
“You’re lying, Claude. I think I will have to kill you too. All of you. I-”
The shape, figure, man, seemed to come from nowhere. Out of the air of the hotel room. Suddenly there, a shape jumping at Gerd Exner with a wild, unintelligible cry of rage. Exner half turned to face the shock-a shock as much psychological as physical. Surprised, stunned, his gun slow in turning.
Perhaps it was that Exner was getting older. Maybe that he was in New York, and not as alert, wary, as normal. Perhaps only the arrogance of years of sneering at the “gooks,” ignoring them as human beings, despising them as weak. After a time, not even seeing them at all.
Exner had forgotten Jimmy Sung. I suppose we all had. Away against a wall, silent, taking no part, everyone had forgotten that Jimmy Sung was even in the room. Until, wildly, Jimmy Sung charged, and Exner turned too slowly.
Exner shot.
I saw blood on Jimmy Sung’s arm. It didn’t stop him. Half crazy, half drunk, he crashed into Gerd Exner. The tall German staggered, almost fell, held on to a table. It was my chance. I grabbed his gun arm from behind, twisted with all I had. Exner cried out, the gun dropped.
I held on.
Jimmy Sung punched Exner in the face. Viviane Marais had a heavy ashtray, swung it at Exner, missed.
Li Marais scrambled on the floor, got the pistol. She held it in both hands, aimed at the German, still cocked. Exner stopped fighting. Jimmy sat down on the floor, held his arm.
I took the gun, picked up the telephone, told George Jenkins down at the desk to get the police.
Claude Marais stood alone where he had been. He had not moved. Passive, he watched as if none of it concerned him. As I hung up the receiver, Claude Marais lit a cigarette.
18
Three uniformed patrolmen and an ambulance doctor arrived at the suite first. The patrolmen took charge of Gerd Exner and his gun, and the ambulance doctor worked on Jimmy Sung. Jimmy had taken a shot through his right upper arm-a clean wound that had hit no bone or major blood vessel. The police listened to the story, gave Jimmy Sung nods of solemn admiration. They lived with daily danger, admired bravery.
“Nice work, mister,” one patrolman said.
“He threatened three of you,” another patrolman said, writing laboriously in his report book, “wanted Mr. Marais there to go with him on some work. When Mr. Marais refused, he then threatened to shoot you all, and Mr. Sung stopped him. That it?”
“More or less,” I said.
“What’s this about some package?”
“Exner seemed to think Marais had a package that was half his, said he wanted all of it,” I said.
Claude Marais said, “I have no package. It was unimportant. Some trinkets.”
The patrolmen nodded. One made his notes, and that was all. The package wasn’t their problem. When the ambulance doctor had finished with Jimmy Sung, he left. The rest of us waited. Gerd Exner had said nothing since the police had arrived, sat silent with two patrolmen beside him. Jimmy Sung lay on the couch, his arm bandaged, shaking now that the moment of action was over. Claude Marais smoked, still stood where he had the whole time. Li Marais had gone back to her chair in the corner. Viviane Marais was smoking too. I just waited.
