Read Games of the Hangman Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
"Aren't
you worried about security there?"
"Not for
a moment.
There is major terrorist
activity in
the Brits, or variations thereof.
Even
in the North foreigners are left alone, and the rest of
peaceful.
If I may draw a parallel,
being worried about the crime rate in
What a pity
he's going away so soon, thought the assistant; he's almost hooked.
The softly-softly technique was working, but
a month apart could overstrain it.
Well,
she still had three weeks or so to land her catch.
She crossed her legs slowly and with a
perceptible rustle.
His eyes flicked up
to hers.
Good.
Now she had his full attention.
*
*
*
*
*
Absentmindedly
Ivo circled his right wrist with the fingers of his left hand and felt for the
silver bracelet Klaus had given him.
He twisted
the bracelet backward and forward against his wrist until the skin was
red.
He didn’t notice the pain.
He was thinking about the man he had seen
with Klaus, the man who had disappeared with Klaus, the man who had probably
killed him.
Over the last
few days he had talked to everyone he could think of who had known Klaus in the
hopes of identifying the man with the golden hair, but without success.
Now he sat in the Hauptbahnhof waiting for
the Monkey to return from
The Monkey had worked much the same market as
Klaus, and from time to time they had sold their services together when that
was what the customer wanted.
The Monkey
had one great talent apart from those he displayed in bed:
he had a photographic memory for numbers —
any sort of number.
Klaus used to say he
could keep a telephone book in his head.
His record of the license plates of all his past clients could be a gold
mine when they got older and fading looks forced them to diversify into a bit
of blackmail.
Ivo couldn't imagine being
older.
The only
trouble with dealing with the Monkey was that he wasn’t just stupid; he was
stupid, stubborn, and a congenital liar.
If he wasn’t treated just right, he might clam up even if he did know
something.
And if he didn't, he might
pretend to, and that could be just as bad.
The Monkey could well need some persuading to tell the truth, thought
Ivo.
He didn't like violence and wasn't
very good at it, but finding Klaus's killer was a special case.
He stopped rubbing the silver bracelet and
put his hand in his pocket.
He touched
the half meter of sharpened motorcycle chain nestled there snugly in a folded
chamois.
He would threaten to scar the
Monkey for life.
The Monkey would listen
to that; his looks were his stock in trade.
Passersby gave
the grubby figure sitting cross-legged on the floor a wide berth; his clothes
were ragged, he looked dirty, and he smelled.
Ivo didn't mind.
He didn't even
notice.
He thought of himself as a
knight-errant, a knight in shining armor on a quest for justice.
He would succeed and return to Camelot.
Sir Ivo.
It sounded good.
*
*
*
*
*
She kept her
eyes closed at first; her head throbbed and she felt nauseated.
She was conscious of something wet and cool
on her forehead and cheeks.
It gave some
slight relief, thought the effect was transitory.
Confused and disoriented as she was, it
struck her that her position was uncomfortable.
She thought she was in bed, or should be in bed, but when she tried to
move, she could not, and it didn't feel like bed.
A wave of fear
ran over her.
She tried to make herself
believe it was a dream, but she knew it was not.
As calmly as she could she made herself come
fully to her senses.
She began to accept
what initially her mind had rejected as impossible:
she was bound, hand, foot, and body, to an
upright chair — and she was naked.
The damp cloth
was removed from her face.
She had
expected to feel it against her throat and neck, but its cool caress was
withheld.
Instead, she felt something
cold and hard around her neck.
There was
a slight noise, and it became tighter.
She could still breathe, but there was some constriction; it felt rigid,
like a collar of metal.
Panic gripped
her.
For a moment she choked, but as she
fought to bring herself under control, she found she could breathe, albeit with
difficulty.
She tried to speak, but no
words came out.
Her mouth was sealed
with layers of surgical tape.
She
recognized its faint medicinal smell.
It
was an odor she associated with care, with the dressing of wounds and the
relief of pain;
for
a
moment she felt reassured as she tried to believe what she did not
believe:
that she was safe.
The seconds of sanctuary passed, and suddenly
her whole being was suffused with terror.
Her body shook and spasmed in panic but to no avail.
Her bonds were secure, immovable in the face
of her every effort.
Resistance was
pointless.
Slowly, reluctantly, she
opened her eyes.
Kadar — she
knew him by another name — was sprawled in the Charles Eames chair in front of
her.
His legs were stretched out, feet
up on the matching footstool.
His hands
were clasped around a brandy snifter.
He
lifted the glass and swirled the contents around, then sniffed the bouquet
appreciatively.
He sipped some of the
golden liquid and returned the glass to his lap.
He was wearing a black silk shirt open to the
navel and Italian-cut white trousers of some soft material.
His feet were bare.
He looked easygoing and relaxed, the master
of the house at leisure; his eyes glinted with amusement.
"I would
guess," he said, "
that
you are about at the
stage where you are wondering what's going on.
You are probably backtracking and trying to recall your most recent
memories.
Nod if you agree."
She stared at
him, her eyes large and beautiful above the mask of surgical tape.
Seconds passed; then she nodded.
"We were
making love," he said, "or to be quite accurate, we had just finished
a rather energetic soixante-neuf with a few little variations, if you
remember.
You were very good, I might
even say outstanding, but then you always did have a special talent for
sensuality, and I believe I may say, with due modesty, that I taught you
well.
Don't you agree?"
She nodded
again, this time quickly, eager to please.
This was one of his bizarre sexual games, and he would not really hurt
her.
She tried to believe it.
She could hear her heart pounding.
"I'm
sorry about the gag," he said, "but the Swiss have this obsession
about noise.
I'll tell you how I first
became aware of the noise issue.
It gave
me quite a shock at the time, as I'm sure you can imagine.
"Shortly
after I first arrived in Bern — that was many years ago, my sweet, when you
were still a chubby-cheeked little girl — one evening about midnight I decided
in my innocence to have a bath.
A rather
pretty young Turkish waiter who worked in the Mövenpick was the reason, as I
recall, but I could be wrong.
The memory
plays such tricks.
"Anyway,
there I was with my loofah at hand, soaping my exhausted penis and singing the
‘Song of the Volga Boatmen,’ when there was a ring at my door.
I tried to ignore it because there is nothing
worse than leaving a relaxing bath after you've settled in, but the finger on
the doorbell would not desist.
I swore
in several different languages and dripped across and opened the door.
Lo and behold, there stood not my pretty
Turkish waiter looking for an encore but, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, two
of
finest Berps.
"Some
anonymous neighbor, overwhelmed with civic duty and obviously not a lover of
Russian music, had called the police.
They informed me, to my shock, horror, amusement, and downright
incredulity, that there is some law or other that actually forbids having a
bath or shower or using a washing machine or generally doing anything noisy
after ten at night or before eight in the morning.
So there you are.
It's now nearly two in the morning, so I had
to gag you.
I wouldn't want you
screaming and breaking the law."
Kadar drained
the brandy glass.
He refilled it from a
cut-glass decanter that rested nearby on a low glass-topped table.
There was a small stainless steel basin
containing a folded cloth beside the decanter.
"But I
was explaining what happened after our shared soupçon of sex.
Actually there is not much to tell.
You fell asleep; I dozed a bit; then, gently,
I struck you on a certain special spot on the back of your head to render you
unconscious — it's an Indian technique, if you're interested, from a style of
fighting known as
kalaripayit
— and
then I arranged you as you now find yourself, drank a little brandy, read a
Shakespeare sonnet or two, and waited for you to recover.
It took longer than expected, and in the
absence of the smelling salts so beloved by ladies of fashion in more civilized
times, I had to make do with soothing your fevered brow with a damp cloth.
That seemed to do the trick.
"You
might well ask why I have gone to so much trouble — and I see from your
expression that that very question has crossed your mind.
Well, my dear, it's all about
discipline.
You did something you
shouldn't have done — doubtless for the best of motives, but I really don't
care — and now you have to be punished.
"You have
to see it from my point of view.
You may
think my main preoccupation is our little band here in
You don't realize that I have a number of
such interests scattered across Europe, the Middle East, the
elsewhere, and the only way I can keep them under control — given that I must
be away so much — is, in the final analysis, through absolute discipline.
Discipline is the key to my running a
multinational operation, and discipline has to be enforced.
"You see,
I worked out my particular multinational management style, my objectives, and
my strategy when I was at Harvard.
It
was while studying the activities of the big soap companies like Procter &
Gamble and Unilever that I got the idea.
They have different brands of soap and cleaning powder, all competing to
some extent for different segments of the market.
I decided there was a major commercial
opportunity to exploit in the rapidly developing phenomenon of terrorism — all
that hate, frustration, idealism, and sheer raw energy waiting to be tapped and
manipulated — so I decided to do much the same thing as the soap companies,
except with terrorist groups instead of detergent.
Each little band had its own rules and
rituals and tokens to give it a sense of esprit de corps and identity, but each
little band has only one purpose, just like all the others:
to make me a profit.
"I'm very
profit-oriented.
I don't give a fuck
about the rights of the Palestinians, the ambitions of the Basques, the
overthrow of the Swiss establishment, or whatever.
I care a great deal about cash flow, return
on investment, and meeting financial targets.
It's all about the bottom line in the end."
He paused for
a moment and held his cut-glass brandy snifter up to the light.
He swirled the amber liquid and watched the
changing sparkle of golden light with concentration; then he turned his gaze
back to the naked girl.