Danger Is My Line Page 17

  “I wanted to. I did. Until that night in Akureyri. If Drum hadn’t come, Maja would be dead right now. If a couple of hikers hadn’t heard the gunfire, even Drum wouldn’t have been able to save her.”

  “Listen, you fool. I’ve been trying to tell you. Of course Laxness’ way is murder. It is what he understands. But for us L.S.D. would have been perfect. We could have brought Maja out of it slowly, making her believe what it was best for her to believe, making her forget what she had to forget. It could have been a classic case of brain-washing. Coming out of the confusion of temporary psychosis, Maja would have embraced any story we gave her about what happened in Washington. After all, she was amnesic.”

  “How can I believe you? How can I believe anything? That was my idea all along, before we even heard of L.S.D. Maja was sick and confused, and would believe anything we wanted her to believe. But you wouldn’t even tell me what she had to forget.” Listening to their angry words and not seeing them, it almost seemed that Kolding and the Baroness had exchanged roles—he a whining, complaining woman and she the aggressive, cocksure male. But suddenly a crisp assertiveness edged Kolding’s voice as he said, “And it wasn’t Laxness who stopped Drum in Akureyri. Drum was gunning for him. You stopped him. Tell me why, Margaretha. Tell me why.”

  For the first time the Baroness’ voice seemed uncertain. I sensed she was groping for words, for a way out of the verbal trap she had built for herself. “The L.S.D. I still wasn’t sure. We had just begun to try it. We might need Laxness. We—”

  “To kill Maja.” Kolding’s voice became louder and softer and louder again as he paced the room. “That’s why I had to make a break for it before. I heard them talking. They were going to kill her.”

  “At any rate,” Baroness Margaretha said dryly, “after what you did tonight they are certainly going to kill her now.”

  “You don’t care at all, do you?”

  “It isn’t my fault. It’s yours.”

  “If they kill her,” Gustaf Kolding said, “they’ll do it over my dead body.”

  As if on cue, a girl cried out from the other side of the house.

  But it wasn’t Maja Kolding. It was Freya.

  I went in fast through the open window, waving the Beretta at the three of them. Baroness Margaretha gasped. She was wearing a dark blue bathrobe. Her long unbound hair hung almost to her waist. Looking at her, I realized for the first time that the woman in my clock fantasy had been the Baroness.

  Kolding wore a tan robe too small for him. On the floor near the room’s double bed was a pile of wet clothing, Kolding’s. A man I had never seen before sat on a chair against the door, a rifle on his knees. Elsewhere in the house I heard footsteps pounding.

  “Hold it right there,” I said, sitting on the windowsill and then pushing off into the room. But the man at the door started to get up, rifle-butt slamming against wood behind him.

  Three strides took me across the small room. I smashed the Beretta against the side of his face while he was still bringing the rifle to bear. It clattered to the floor. He went down after it.

  “How did you—” the Baroness began.

  Beyond the door, someone charged down a flight of stairs.

  “Shut up,” I said. “If you don’t think I’ll shoot, say just one more word.”

  She looked at me and decided against taking the gamble, which was just as well because I wouldn’t have shot her in cold blood.

  “On the bed, both of you. Down on your faces. Snap to it.”

  “Wait a minute, Drum,” Kolding pleaded. “I want to help. I want to help you now.”

  I jerked the Beretta toward the bed. “If I take you up on that, my insurance premiums are liable to skyrocket.”

  He got down prone next to the Baroness.

  The footsteps were in the hallway now, coming this way. I shoved the chair to one side. It tilted and toppled on the man I had hit with the Beretta. Then I jerked the door open.

  Hans and I stared at each other. He was panting. His eyes bugged. He had to pivot his big body around to bring the automatic into play, but his finger tensed on the trigger and he fired too soon. Harmlessly, at the wall. The roar deafened me. Then I was looking at the muzzle of the automatic and he at the muzzle of the Beretta.

  I fired just once. At such close range the bullet pulped his lower jaw. Suddenly it was a soft, boneless red. Hans crashed back against the wall. When his right hand hit it, the automatic went off again. It dropped from his fingers as he fell.

  That left two of them. Laxness and the little guy who had cast off the hawser on the cabin cruiser. The hallway was long and dim, with light at the far end. A head appeared there—Laxness. I snapped off a quick shot, missing. The head ducked out of sight. I heard a door slam.

  Behind me the Baroness shouted. I whirled. She had the unconscious guard’s rifle in her hands and Kolding had her robe in his. She shoved the rifle-butt back into his stomach. Sagging, he held onto her robe. It slipped off her shoulders, trapping her arms. That made it easy to wrench the rifle out of her hands, which is what I did. She glared at me. Kolding, going down to his knees, yanked harder at the robe. It came loose. Under it she wore a nightgown as translucent as the lambent light of a summer day. She had a magnificent body and her rage, in its own way, was also magnificent. She turned on Kolding and began to shout—in either Swedish or Icelandic. Her words were like blows to him. At first he cowered before them, but then his eyes went bleak and he stood up. His big hand closed on her shoulder, and the stream of invective issuing from her lips trailed off to a sibilant whisper. His hand moved, ripping the nightgown to her waist.

  “I’ve had enough of you,” he said. “I’ve had a bellyful of you,” he shouted. “You wanted them to kill my sister. All along you …”

  He became incoherent. “Gustaf—” she began.

  But his hands closed on the column of her throat, and they swayed together in a silent dance that could only end in death.

  I pulled him off her. She lurched to the bed, sat there stroking her throat. Her bare breasts were covered with a sheen of sweat.

  “I’m going after Laxness,” I told Kolding. “There’s another one of them someplace on the island.”

  “I’ll get him,” Kolding said.

  I left them there and ran outside.

  25

  AS I HIT THE GRAVEL beyond the veranda I heard the A stuttering cough of the cabin cruiser’s starter. It coughed, rumbled, then faded. Coughed again.

  I picked my way along the rocks of the breakwater. In the north and east, the first light of dawn touched the sky with pink. It made the dark water look like blood.

  When I reached the end of the breakwater I was still thirty or forty yards from the boat. I dropped into the cold, dark water. It lapped at my armpits when my shoes struck bottom. I waded toward the cabin cruiser, holding the Beretta out of the water. It deepened, and I had to swim awkwardly on my side, using one arm and both legs and keeping the Beretta dry.

  I had covered two thirds of the distance to the cabin cruiser when the motor kicked over. I dropped the Beretta and went into a fast, water-churning crawl. The cabin cruiser began to move, rocking forward in the water. I reached its stern, felt the sucking drag of the screw, clambered aboard and fell gasping for air across the gunwale.

  Beyond the small rear deck and the cockpit, the cabin door stood ajar. I could see Laxness in there, intent at the wheel. He hadn’t heard me, didn’t know I was aboard. The inboard engine roared powerfully as he gave it full throttle. Lurching to my feet, I went across the deck to the cockpit and across that to the cabin doorway. Through it to Laxness.

  I saw both our reflections in the windshield. So did he. Turning, he grabbed for his pocket. I hit him with everything I had, but at the moment it wasn’t much. All it did was force him back against the wheel. The boat swung sharply to starboard. I crashed against the bulkhead, shoved back hard against it with my hands to propel myself toward Laxness.

  We came together and fo
ught for the gun he now had in his hand. Over his shoulder through the windshield I saw water and sky, suffused with red, then the jagged rocks of the breakwater.

  Laxness had a wiry strength. He couldn’t bring the automatic to bear, but I couldn’t wrench it from his grasp either. We stumbled back through the cabin doorway and out into the cockpit. I lowered my grip to his sweaty, slippery wrist. Shoved back and down hard. His hand struck the gunwale and the automatic went overboard with a splash. Off-balance, he struck with the edge of his left hand in a judo-chop at my neck. With his weight evenly distributed on both feet he might have broken it. As it was, the blow drove me to my knees and a dark hand closed on my brain, squeezing out consciousness.

  When I could see again, Laxness stood on the small rear deck in a crouch, preparing to go over. At first I couldn’t understand why. Then as I got up, staggering, I saw the breakwater. We were bearing down on it under full throttle.

  Laxness went over the side. I followed him, hitting the cold water a moment before the boat struck rock with a great splintering, crunching sound. For a few moments the engine continued to roar, then it stuttered, backfired and was silent.

  I swam to the breakwater. Laxness was etched against the pink sky, arms overhead, hands grasping a rock bigger than his head. He hurled it, and it struck water inches from my face. Then I reached the breakwater, grabbed a barnacle-encrusted boulder and held on. Laxness brought his heel down on my right hand. I let go, but he lost his footing and fell. By the time he got up, I was on the rocks too.

  My wind was gone. We faced each other, crouching, hands low and open, fingers extended, thumbs out stiffly, like knife-fighters. Feinting with my right hand, I drove my left in a judo-chop at the base of Laxness’ rib-cage. Landing, it would have shattered bone and possibly driven it into his lung. But it didn’t land. Laxness moved in close and my arm went around his back harmlessly. He rabbit-punched me. I mauled his kidneys but couldn’t get enough swinging room to hurt him. He butted with his head and I tasted warm wet saltiness in my mouth. He used a knee on me. I sagged slowly into a cocoon of pain. Hard rock bit at my back.

  Arms out like a skier searching for balance, he came down at me heels first, stomping for my head. I rolled over. One of his heels scraped my cheek. It was that close.

  Landing with knees flexed, he still lost his balance. I had time to get up. He didn’t.

  His right arm was extended, shoulder on one rock, hand on another, the fingers groping for purchase. I jumped as he had jumped, heels first. A hundred and ninety pounds came down on his arm. It held for a moment, stiffly, elbow up, making a bridge between the rocks.

  Then I could hear it crack, and suddenly it had bent the wrong way against the elbow joint.

  Laxness screamed. His body went limp. I stumbled and lurched over the rocks toward the gravel beach.

  The Baroness was waiting at the edge of the breakwater. She wore her blue robe again and she had an automatic, Hans’ probably, in her hand.

  “You bastard,” she said. “Come on, you bastard. I want to see your face when I kill you.”

  I looked at her. If I ever was going to eat lead, this seemed the time and the place, on a strip of gravel beach at dawn, four thousand miles from home, the water as red as blood, the quarry I had sought across an ocean almost in my hands.

  All I had left was talk, but I almost choked on the words in my throat. “What’s it going to get you?” I said.

  “You had to meddle, didn’t you? You had to come here.” Her hand that held the gun was trembling with fury.

  “Sure I had to. You asked me to help Maja. Remember?”

  “I wanted you to keep her out of the cops’ hands. That’s all.”

  “It wasn’t all for me. At first it didn’t make sense. I saw Maja just after Brandvik died. She was in no condition to phone you for help as you said she had. A man—not a woman—was seen leaving Brandvik’s floor at the hotel. Laxness killed him, didn’t he? And you were there. You drove him there in your car, didn’t you? And he told you Maja was there. Isn’t that the way it happened?”

  I looked beyond her and up past the gravel at the beach house. Its bare wood shingles were weathered a silver-gray. I thought I saw someone move on the veranda but a moment later I couldn’t see anybody.

  “You’re smart,” the Baroness said grudgingly. “That’s the way it happened. Laxness killed Brandvik, and Laxness killed Wally Baker. He’s used dynamite before. He’s an expert.”

  “And Laxness killed Jorgen Kolding?”

  “Of course. Laxness killed all three of them.”

  “Sure. That’s why you’re going to shoot me.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Laxness didn’t kill Jorgen Kolding. Laxness didn’t enter the picture until later. You killed Kolding.” My lips were dry. My throat ached with the effort to talk. I watched her finger tightening on the trigger, mesmerized by it, aware of my life running out with the tensing of the tiny muscles in her hand.

  “You killed Kolding,” I repeated. “Laxness couldn’t have got near him. I know it and Gustaf knows it now.”

  “That’s a laugh.” And she laughed to prove it. “Why don’t you get down on your knees and beg for your life, Drum? It’s all you have left. I want to see you beg.”

  My eyes were caught again by movement on the veranda. She saw me staring over her shoulder and then back at her gun-hand. Her own eyes moved. I rushed her.

  Her gaze swung back before I could reach her. She fired the automatic. A sledge hammer hit my shoulder, spun me around. But the kick of the big hand-gun surprised the Baroness. Her hand jerked up and to one side as I reached her. My left arm was a dead weight at my side, dragging me down.

  I slapped the gun out of her hand and fell to my knees. She got that much satisfaction anyway. I grabbed the automatic and pointed it at her. The gravel tilted beneath me, gray coal pouring down a chute.

  Freya ran down toward us from the house. She had the rifle. “I couldn’t shoot,” she said. “You were in the line of fire. Are you all right?”

  “I’m just fine,” my voice said. Freya was a neon sign flashing on and off.

  “Why, you’re bleeding!”

  “Shoulder shot,” I said. “Where’s Kolding?”

  “In the house. He’s got Axel.”

  “Who the hell is Axel?” But I knew, of course. Axel was the last of them.

  “Chet, you better …”

  “I better go inside and see if Kolding can handle him. Can you use that rifle if you have to?”

  “I can use it.” Freya looked at the Baroness. “I heard you talking. Did she really kill Jorgen Kolding?”

  “I think so. Why not ask her?”

  Freya nodded. Her eyes looked strange. “You go in the house,” she said. “I’ll watch the Baroness.”

  I went over the gravel and climbed the hill to the house. It was very quiet. “Kolding!” I called. “It’s me, Drum.”

  Inside, I met him in the dim hallway. “You get Laxness?”

  “He’s on the breakwater with a broken arm. He’ll keep. What about the others?”

  “Hans is dead.” There was a cut over Kolding’s left eye. He had been in a fight. “I’ve got the other two of them tied up.”

  “Maja?”

  “Inside. Doped up with that drug. I’ve been such a goddamn fool.”

  There wasn’t anything I could say to that. “You better call the cops.”

  “There’s a radio phone. I already—”

  That was as far as he got. We both heard a single shot, flat and loud down on the beach.

  We ran down there. The gravel dragged at my wet shoes, and Kolding took the lead. He ran into the dazzling ball of the risen sun, and for a moment I couldn’t see him. But I heard his cry of anguish.

  The Baroness Margaretha lay on her back on the gravel, one knee up, the skirt of her. blue robe fluttering in the morning wind. Freya stood over her with the rifle.

  Kolding ignored her, kneeled
at the fallen woman’s side. Freya said, “She tried to get away.”

  I looked down at the Baroness. Her lips were moving. Her eyes were shut. Kolding called her name, his voice choked with grief. It was as if their argument in the beach house had never happened. “I just wanted to love you,” he said. “I only wanted to love you. I didn’t care what you were.” The Baroness’ eyelids fluttered, and I thought, or imagined, I saw the ghost of a smile flit across her lips.

  Freya gave me the rifle. “She tried to get away and I shot her.”

  Blood had darkened the front of the Baroness’ blue robe. “What was she doing,” I said, “running away backwards?”

  “She tried to attack me.”

  “You said she tried to run away.”

  “I’m all mixed up. Please. I only did what had to be done. Please don’t question me like that.”

  I squatted on my hams near the Baroness and lifted the collar of her robe. The bullet had entered her chest just above the heart. It was a small-gauge rifle, and blood pumped from the small round hole the bullet had made.

  Tearing the skirt of her robe, I made a compress and tried to stem the bleeding. It wasn’t any use. A major artery had been severed.

  “Margaretha,” I said gently.

  Her eyelids fluttered again, then opened.

  “Drum,” she said. “I wish … you had never come to Sweden.”

  “I had to come,” I said.

  “I know … I just wish …”

  “Leave her alone,” Kolding told me. “Just leave her alone.” His voice was a hoarse whisper. “Can’t you see she’s dying?”

  “I wish … it didn’t hurt … so much,” the Baroness said. “I hate pain. I hate it.”

  “You’re going to be all right,” Kolding told her.

  The ghost of a smile touched her lips again. “Silly Gustaf. I’m dying. Don’t you think I know … I’m dying?”

  “We’ll take care of you. You’re not going to die.”

  She looked at him, and her eyes glazed. She tried to raise her head. “Jorgen?” she said. “Jorgen darling?”

  Gustaf Kolding turned away, his face a tragic mask. Dying in the presence of the son she thought she saw the father.