“Jesso, leave,” she said.
Helmut had swiveled around. “You intrude!” he said, and there was a screech in his voice. “We will deal with you later!”
Jesso watched him flip a riding crop against his boot, and it might have looked funny at any other time. Now Kator folded his hands behind his back, legs wide, and suddenly it was as if they had all waited for him. When he opened his mouth the voice was like that of the commanding officer at a courtmartial.
“He stays. He’s the important one.”
“You’re damn right I’m staying.” He said it to Kator.
Kator didn’t move his head, only his eyes. He looked at Renette and said, “Was it on the train? Did he get it out of you on the train, Renette?”
“I told you!” She said it loudly, stamping her foot. “He knew nothing to cause this thing. Helmut botched it!”
Kator’s words flew into Jesso’s face like slaps. “What did she tell you? What did you make her say?”
“I don’t get it.”
It was so true and so simple that it caught Kator short. Then he bunched up all the poison and spat, “I can only guess how you worked her over so well, on the train to Munich, but you managed to do what my sister has never permitted. She informed on me, on her brother, and once again, Jesso, you have cost me a fortune.”
“Don’t deny it,” screamed Helmut.
“He will,” said Kator. “How did you do it, Jesso? What did you do on that train?”
“What did you do?” said Helmut, and his face was like filth.
Jesso didn’t get any of it, but nothing showed.
“I don’t talk about what I do in a bedroom,” he said, and he watched Helmut jerk back.
“Do you deny it?” Helmut yelled.
“Comb your hair, Helmut. It’s slipping.”
“I will ask you,” Kator said. “How did you ruin the Zimmer affair?”
“What’s a Zimmer affair?”
“Zimmer, you idiot!” and for once Kator was bellowing. “A year of delicate preparation! Thousands in expenditures, and when the time comes for the final closing, you step in, you worm it out of my sister, you give the tip to-to the others, and everything fails.”
Jesso let the sound die down. He looked from Kator to Helmut and said, “Who told you, Kator? That creep?”
“I told him,” said Helmut, “as it was my duty. No one knew of the arrangements with Zimmer except we three, and no one could have told you except poor Renette. Under what fiendish pressures-”
“Stop dreaming, Helmut. There’s spit on your chin.”
“Dreaming! You swine! My wife came back to me after you left, she confided to me as I suspect she was made to confide by you. She-“
“My God,” she said, “he’s out of his mind. Johannes, don’t you see his game? He wants to make you do it for him, set you against me, make you fight with Jesso.”
It made sense. It would be something like that and it would be somebody like Helmut to do it that way.
“I never heard of Zimmer or whatever it is, and Renette never said a word,” Jesso said, but the words were only a sound. They weren’t big enough or soon enough to catch up with the tension. From now on it hardly seemed to matter what was said. The big plants stood motionless and seemed to get darker. And under them, motionless like the plants, the three stood waiting in the half-light, waiting for the spark to blow it up.
“You’re lying, Jesso.” Kator moved his arm. He reached around, found Renette, and jerked her to his side. “And you, Renette, you lie.”
Kator had sounded quite still. His eyes never left Jesso, but suddenly his hand slammed against Renette’s face.
She hadn’t finished staggering when Jesso made his dash. His foot caught in a flagstone, and when he was half up there was Kator behind the gun.
“Get up.”
Jesso got up. This was it.
Kator knew this was it, but he wasn’t rushing. “Do you see the fountain, Jesso?”
He didn’t. The fountain was in back of him.
“Turn around and look at it, Jesso. I won’t shoot.”
Jesso knew that. Kator wouldn’t shoot without seeing the face.
“There is a cupid on the fountain, Jesso. Do you see it?”
He saw it. A small copper cupid, looking wet and green, and no larger than a toy dog.
“He is raising one hand, isn’t he, Jesso?”
He was. He was sort of waving one baby hand.
“Now you see it, now you don’t,” Kator said, and behind Jesso’s back the gun went off with a sharp crash and Kator was right. The little hand was gone.
He was good. He had shot right past Jesso’s middle, with maybe inches to spare, and the cupid’s arm had a shiny end where the metal hand had been ripped off.
“And now turn around again.”
Jesso turned around.
“I knew this would impress you,” Kator said. “Helmut, what else did she tell you?”
The Baron straightened himself as if he were going to give a speech at graduation.
“Once Renette began to confide in me, she held back nothing. He wanted to take her away from us-from me-set her against you, dear Johannes, and-“
“Stop him, Johannes!” Renette’s voice was sharp. “Send him away, or you’ll never stop playing it his way. And the gun, Johannes.”
“You are wrong, Renette. This is my way. And Jesso’s way. Isn’t it, Jesso?”
“No, Johannes, don’t! Neither of you will win. Leave each other, let it go!” She reached for Kator’s arm and flinched.
He had snapped up his arm, ready to hit again, but he did not strike. His gun was steady and a slow thing came over his face like an ugly grin. Jesso had moved, Kator saw that. And when Renette had stepped away Jesso relaxed.
“It’s time, Jesso.” Kator’s face did not change. He kept staring at Jesso, daring him, and there was a constant triumph on his face.
“Come here, Renette.” He waved at her without turning. “Jesso,” he said, “for a while I thought you were very much like me. A man without a flaw. Look, Jesso.” Kator reached around, taking Renette by the arm. He pulled her and she winced.
“Look, Jesso,” he said when she stood next to him. “Look!”
Kator’s hand came up in a fist, slowly. He held it in the air, very still, so that Jesso could see the knuckles turn white. One of his tricks, one of his intelligent tricks, to give it a stretch before tearing it. Jesso held still, not believing that Kator would do it when the fist blurred, stopped with a jar that made a sick sound, and Renette stumbled back. And Jesso charged. And the gun exploded.
Kator had played it his way, for the sport. He hadn’t meant to kill, and he hadn’t. And that’s how he played it Jesso’s way.
The gun went off again, but the bullet went wild because first the target was gone and then the target had turned attacker with the gun snapping out of Kator’s hand and a fist exploded in his right eye.
Helmut was gone. Spurs tinkling, he had dashed from the room, and only Renette stood there. Her face was cut but she seemed not to know it. She stood and looked, and when she cried her shoulders did not move.
It was a while before Jesso and Kator stopped rolling like one mass of evil strength while the fat leaves shook, large plants dipped, leaned, and slowly toppled to fall with a sound like a splash-but that wasn’t how it went. It was like an instant spasm with beginning and end all in one while they cut at each other, the cut that was going to kill one or both. That’s how it was to Jesso, and it was the same to Kator. He never knew when he didn’t see any more. He never knew when he changed from a man to a mass and was dead.
Jesso didn’t know either. He might have stopped sooner. As it was, he sat under the broken leaves of the
