A Song Of Shadows Part 7

'Course you do. We all do. Wouldn't be human if we didn't. There are those who say that all crimes can be ascribed to one of two motives love or money but I don't believe that. In my experience, everything we do is predicated on one of two other things: greed or fear. Oh, sometimes they get mixed up, just like my brandy and milk, but mostly you can keep them separated. We feel greed for what we don't have, and fear because of what we might lose. A man desires a woman who isn't his wife, and takes her that's greed. But, deep down, he doesn't want his own wife to find out because he wants to keep what he has with her, because it's different, and safe. That's fear. You play the markets?'

'No.'

'You're wise. It's a racket. Buying and selling, they're just other names for greed and fear. I tell you, you understand that, and you understand all there is to know about human beings and the way the world works.'

He sipped his milk.

'Except, of course, that isn't all. Look at those pictures from the camps. You can see fear, and not just in the faces of the dying and the dead. Take a look at the men in uniform, the ones they say were responsible for what happened, and you'll see fear there too. Not so much fear of what might happen if they didn't follow orders. I don't hold with that as an excuse, and from what I've read the Germans understood that killing naked Jews and queers and gypsies wasn't for every man, and if you couldn't do it then they'd find someone who would, and send you off to shoot at someone who could shoot back.

'But there's still fear in those faces, no matter how well they try to hide it: fear of what will happen to them when the Russians or the Americans arrive and find out what they've done; fear of looking inside themselves to see what they've become; maybe even fear for their immortal souls. There will also be those who feel no fear of that at all, of course, because sometimes men and women do terrible things just because they gain pleasure from the act, but those ones are the exceptions, and exceptions make bad law. The rest, they just did what they did because they were told to do it and they couldn't see much reason not to, or because there was money in gold teeth and rendered human fat. I guess some of them did it out of ideology, but I don't have much time for ideologies either. They're just flags of convenience.'

The man's voice was very soft, and slightly, sibilant, and held a note of regret that most of the world could not see itself as clearly as he did, and this was his cross to bear.

'You hear that woman on the TV?' he continued. 'She's talking about evil, but throwing around the word "evil" like it means something don't help anyone. Evil is the avoidance of responsibility. It doesn't explain. You might even say that it excuses. To see the real terror, the real darkness, you have to look at the actions of men, however awful they may appear, and call them human. When you can do that, then you'll understand.'

He coughed hard, spattering the milk with droplets of blood.

'You didn't answer my question from earlier,' he said.

'What question was that?' said Lenny.

'I just can't figure out how they know that those two old men are the ones they were looking for. I seen the pictures of the ones they say did all those things, the photographs from way back, and then I see those two old farts and I couldn't swear that it's the same men sixty, seventy years later. Jesus, you could show me a picture of my own father as a young man, and I wouldn't know him from the scarecrow he was when he died.'

'I think there was a paper trail of some kind,' said Lenny. To be honest, he didn't know how Engel and Fuhrmann had been traced. He didn't much care either. They had been found at last, and that was all that mattered. He just wanted this conversation to reach its end, but that was in the hands of the man at the bar. There was a purpose to his presence here, and all Lenny could do was wait for it to be revealed to him, and hope that he survived the adumbration.

'I can't even say that I've heard of the camps that they're supposed to have done all that killing in,' said the man. 'I mean, I heard of Auschwitz, and Dachau, and Bergen-Belsen. I suppose I could name some others, if I put my mind to it, but what's the place that Fuhrmann was at, or the one they claim is Fuhrmann? Ball Sack? Is that even a place?'

'Belsec,' said Lenny softly. 'It's called Belsec.'

'And the other?'

'Lubsko.'

'Well, you have been paying attention, I'll give you that. You had people there?'

'No, not there.'

'So it's not personal, then.'

Lenny had had enough. He killed the TV.

'I don't want you to mistake me,' said the man, not even commenting upon the sudden absence of light and sound from the screen. 'I got no problem with any race or creed: Jews, n.i.g.g.e.rs, spics, white folk, they're all the same to me. I do believe, though, that each race and creed ought to keep to itself. I don't think any one is better than the other, but trouble only comes when they mix. The South Africans, they had it right with apartheid, except they didn't have the common sense, the basic human f.u.c.king decency, to give every man the same privileges, the same rights. They thought white was superior to black, and that's not the case. G.o.d made all of us, and he didn't put one above another, no matter what some might say. Even your own folk, you're no more chosen than anyone else.'

Lenny made one final effort to save himself, to force this thing away. It was futile, but he had to try.

'I'd like you to leave now,' he said. 'I'm all done for the night. Have the drinks on me.'

But the man did not move. All this was only the prelude. The worst was yet to come. Lenny felt it. This creature had brought with him a miasma of darkness, of horror. Maybe a small chance still remained, a c.h.i.n.k in the wall that was closing in around him, through which he might escape. He could not show weakness, though. The drama would play out, and each would accept the role that had been given to him.

'I haven't finished my milk yet.'

'You can take it with you.'

'Nah, I think I'll drink it here. Wouldn't want it to spill.'

'I'm going to be closing up around you,' said Lenny. 'You'll have to excuse me.'

He moved to take the drawer from the register. Usually he counted the takings before he left, but on this occasion he'd leave that until the morning. He didn't want to give this man any cause to linger.

'I'm no charity case,' said the visitor. 'I'll pay my own way, just as I always have.'

He reached into his jacket pocket.

'Well, what do you think this is?'

Despite himself, Lenny found himself looking to see what had drawn the man's attention. He glimpsed something small and white, apparently drawn from the man's own pocket.

'Jesus, it's a tooth.' He p.r.o.nounced it 'toot'. He held the item in question up to the light, like a jeweler appraising a gemstone. 'Now where do you suppose that came from? It sure ain't one of mine.'

As if to put the issue beyond doubt, he manipulated his upper row of teeth with his tongue, and his dentures popped out into his left palm. The action caused his mouth to collapse in upon itself, rendering his appearance stranger still. He smiled, nodded at Lenny, and replaced his appliance. He then laid the single tooth on the surface of the bar. A length of reddish flesh adhered to the root.

'That's certainly something, isn't it?' he said.

Lenny backed off. He wondered if he could get away for long enough to call the cops. There was no gun on the premises, but the back office had a strong door and a good lock. He could seal himself inside and wait for the police to come. Even if he could make it to a phone, what would he tell the operator that a man had produced a tooth for his inspection? Last he heard, that wasn't a crime.

Except, except ...

Like a conjuror, the customer reached into his pocket again and produced a second tooth, then a third. Finally, he seemed to tire of the whole business, rummaged for a final time, and scattered a full mouth's worth of teeth on the bar. Some were without roots. At least one appeared to have broken during extraction. A lot of them were still stained with blood, or trailed tails of tissue.

'Who are you?' asked Lenny. 'What do you want from me?'

The gun appeared in the man's hand. Lenny didn't know from guns, but this one looked big and kind of old.

'You stay where you are now,' said the man. 'You hear me?'

Lenny nodded. He found his voice.

'We got next to nothing in the register,' he said. 'It's been quiet all day.'

'I look like a thief to you?'

He sounded genuinely offended.

'I don't know what you look like,' said Lenny, and he regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth.

'You got no manners,' said the man. 'You know that, you f.u.c.king kike?'

'I'm sorry,' said Lenny. He had no pride now, only fear.

'I accept your apology. You know what this is?'

He gave the weapon a little jerk.

'No. I don't know much about guns.'

'There's your first error. It's not a gun, it's a pistol: a Mauser C96 military pistol, made in long nine millimeter, which is rare. Some people call it a Broomhandle Mauser on account of the shape of the grip, or a Red 9 after the number carved into the grip. Consider that an education. Now move away from the door. You pay attention to me and what I say, and maybe this won't go as bad for you as it might.'

Lenny knew that wasn't true men who planned to let other men live didn't point guns at them without first concealing their faces yet he found himself obeying. The man reached into his pocket again. This time his hand emerged holding a pair of cuffs. He tossed them to Lenny and instructed him to attach one to his right wrist, then put his hands close together behind his back and place them on the bar. If he tried to run away, or pull a fast one, he was a.s.sured that he would be shot in the back. Once more, Lenny did as he was told. When he turned his back and put his hands on the bar, the second cuff was quickly cinched tight around his left wrist.

'All done,' said the man. 'Now come around here and sit on the floor.'

Lenny moved from behind the bar. He thought about running for the door, but knew that he wouldn't get more than a few feet without being shot. He gazed out into the night, willing a car to appear, but none came. He walked to the spot indicated by the man, and sat down. The TV came on again, blazing into life at the gunman's touch on the remote. It continued to show images of the camps, of men and women climbing from trains, some of them still wearing ordinary clothing, and others already dressed in the grab of prisoners. There were so many of them, and they outnumbered their captors. As a boy, Lenny would wonder why they didn't try to overcome the Germans and fight to save themselves. Later he learned that their captors starved them before marching them to their deaths, so they would be too weak to struggle. But now he knew that physical weakness was only part of the explanation. Fear real terror, intensified by the terror of others eats away at the will.

The man leaned against the bar, the pistol leveled at Lenny.

'You asked me who I am,' he said. 'You can call me Steiger. It doesn't matter much. It's just a name. Might as well have plucked it from the air. I can give you another, if you don't like that one.'

And again Lenny felt a glimmer of hope warm the coldness of his insides. Perhaps, just perhaps, this night might not end in his death. Could it be that, if he was withholding his true name, this freakish individual planned to return to the hole from which he had emerged and leave Lenny alive? Or was all this a ruse, just one more way to torment a doomed man before the inevitable bullet brought all to an end?

'You know where these teeth came from?'

'No.'

'Your wife. They came from her mouth.'

Steiger grabbed a handful of the teeth from the bar and threw them on the floor before Lenny. One landed in his lap.

For a moment Lenny was unable to move. His vomit reflex activated, and he tasted something awful in his throat. Then he was moving, trying to rise to his feet, but a bullet struck the floor inches from the soles of his shoes, and the noise as much as the sight of the splintered mark upon the floor stilled him.

'Don't do that again,' said Steiger. 'If you try, the next one will take out a kneecap, or maybe your b.a.l.l.s.'

Lenny froze. He stared at the tooth stuck to his jeans. He didn't want to believe that it had once been his wife's.

'I'll tell you something,' said Stegner. 'Working on your wife's teeth gave me a renewed admiration for the skill of dentists. I used to believe that they were just like failed doctors, because, I mean, how difficult can it be to work on teeth, all the nerves and stuff apart. I hated going to the dentist as a kid. Still do.

'Anyway, I always thought extractions would be the easy part. You get a grip, and you yank. But it's harder to get a good grip on a tooth than you might think, and then you have to twist, and sometimes if there's a weakness the tooth just breaks. You'll see that some of your wife's teeth didn't emerge intact. I like to think that it was a learning experience for both of us.

'If you doubt me, and are trying to convince yourself that they're not your wife's teeth,' said Steiger, 'I can tell you that she was wearing jeans and a yellow blouse, with green no, blue flowers. It was hard to tell in the dark. She also has a mark here, on her left forearm, like a big freckle. That would bother me, I have to say. She's a nice-looking woman, but I'd always have been aware of that mark, like a reminder of all that's wrong inside, because we all have things wrong with us inside. That sound like your wife? Pegi, right? Spelled with an "I". Short for Margaret. That's what she said, while she could still speak.

'No, no, don't go getting all upset now. You'll move, or you'll try to lash out, and this will all get a whole lot worse for you both. Yeah, that's right: she's still alive, I swear to you. And listen to me, now, just listen there are worse things than losing your teeth. They can do all kinds of miracles with implants now. She could have teeth that are better than her old ones. And if that's too expensive, or just doesn't work out because of the damage because, to remind you, I'm no professional then there's always dentures. My mother wore dentures, just like I do, and I thought that they made her look younger, because they were always clean and even. You ever see old people with their own teeth? They look like s.h.i.+t. Nothing you can do about old age. It's pitiless. It ravages us all.'

He squatted before Lenny, still careful to remain just beyond his reach should Lenny's anger overcome his fear, but he needn't have worried. Lenny was weeping.

'Here's how it will go,' said Steiger. 'If you're straight with me, and answer my questions, I'll let her live. She's all dosed up on painkillers, so she's not feeling much of anything right now. Before I leave, I'll call an ambulance for her, and she'll be looked after. I promise you that.

'As for you, well, I can't promise anything other than, if you're honest, you won't be aware of your own dying, and you'll have saved your wife in the process. Are we clear?'

Lenny was now sobbing loudly. Steiger reached out and slapped him hard across the side of the head.

'I said, "Are we clear?"'

'Yes,' said Lenny. 'We're clear.'

'Good. I have only two questions for you. What did the Jew named Perlman tell you, and who else knows?'

When the questions were answered at last, and Lenny Tedesco was dead, Steiger removed from the dishwasher the gla.s.ses that he had used and placed them in a bag. He also emptied the register for appearances' sake. He had been careful to touch as few surfaces as possible, but he went over them once again with some bleach that he found behind the bar. Some traces of his presence would still remain, but they would be useless without a suspect, or a record against which to check them, and Steiger was a ghost. He traced the hard drive for the bar's security camera, and removed it. He turned off the lights in the Hurricane Hatch before he left and closed the door behind him. Lenny's car was parked behind the bar, and would not be noticed unless someone came looking for it.

Steiger walked for five minutes to where his car was parked, out of sight of both the bar and the road, then drove to the Tedescos' small, neat home. He opened the door with Pegi Tedesco's key and went upstairs to the main bedroom, where he had left her tied to the bed. Beside her were the tools with which he had removed all of her teeth, along with some others for which he had not yet found a use. The painkillers were wearing off, and Pegi was moaning softy against the gag.

Steiger sat down beside her on the bed, and brushed the hair from her face.

'Now,' he said, 'where were we?'

13.

Angel and Louis sat at the window of Gritty's brewpub on Fore Street in Portland, two cask ales before them, the world beyond. They were watching a man arguing with a woman on the street outside. Both were probably in their thirties, at most, but with a lot of city miles on their clocks. The man was wearing sneakers, but in his right hand he held a single tan Timberland boot. He was waving it in the face of the woman until she, tiring of having a boot hanging inches from her nose, wrenched it from his hand and proceeded to beat him across the head with it, yelling something in time to the blows.

'You know,' said Angel, 'there are a lot of f.u.c.ked-up people in this town.'

Louis couldn't disagree. It said something when one could travel north from New York City a place that, to be straight, was not entirely lacking in f.u.c.ked-up people of its own and take the view that, well, yes, given its size and population, Portland, Maine was more than holding its own in the f.u.c.ked-up stakes.

'More to the point,' said Angel, 'there are some f.u.c.ked-up tattoos in this town. Did you see that woman's leg? It looked like she'd been burned in a fire.'

'I think it was supposed to be a face,' said Louis.

'Whose face?'

'Could be anyone's. Could be mine and I wouldn't know it.'

Louis considered the matter, and decided that it was less a reflection on Portland's tattoo artists than on the kind of people who came to it, possibly hoping to have something done about their f.u.c.ked-up tattoos.

The couple moved on or, more correctly, the man moved on quickly, the woman hot on his trail, still yelling, still hitting him with the boot.

'Lot of f.u.c.ked-up people,' said Angel, again.

'Colorful, though.'

'It has its charms.'

They had rented an apartment in Portland's East End, once again in order to be near Charlie Parker. When first they'd done so, he had seemingly been dying in a hospital bed. Now he was recovering in Boreas. They had considered finding somewhere closer to him, maybe even in Boreas itself, but he'd made it clear that he didn't want them hovering over him like a pair of demented Florence Nightingales. He didn't mind them coming up to see him, but even then he wasn't prepared to have them stay under his roof. Two lesser men might have been hurt by this, but Angel and Louis were familiar with pain and suffering, and the various ways in which individuals coped with it. Whatever Parker was enduring as he worked his way back to health, he did not want others to witness it. He would present a face to the world, but he would do so on his own terms.

So Angel and Louis stayed more and more in Portland, and they missed Manhattan less than either of them would admit to the other. Portland was curious and colorful. All right, so an attempt by the American Planning a.s.sociation to categorize Congress Street as one of the ten greatest streets in the nation took a little time to digest. They had also decided that Portland was growing hotels like mushrooms, without much thought of who might fill those rooms come winter, seeing as how even most of the city's residents didn't want to be there come December and January. Any time they raised this question, someone would mention 'cruise liners,' although any cruise liner hoping to dock in Portland in the depths of winter might need to hire an icebreaker first, and the last time they checked, the whole point of cruise liners was that you got to sleep on the boat. It wasn't like the liner dumped you on dry land and then floated away, like some Robinson Crusoe outfit with all the crew laughing their a.s.ses off as you signaled for help from the dock. Portland was also playing host to a couple of restaurants that, even in New York, would cause a man to shake the check at the end of the night, just in case a zero might drop off the end.