I Confess (30 page)

"Ah so," I said. "You mean we have to kill him before ..."

She nodded seriously. "Naturally."

Just then the phone rang. I picked up the receiver. It was Wilma. Yolanda knew it before Wilma spoke. She looked at me and smiled. It was a friendly smile, and it didn't change as she watched me answering, "Good evening, Wilma."

Wilma sounded embarrassed. "Please forgive me for calUng, but I've been so worried. I haven't heard from you . . ." then her self-control forsook her. "Is anything wrong? Please tell me."

"I've been ill, Wihna."

"Oh my God!"

"I'm all right again."

"You're not alone?"

"No."

"Oh. Is she there?"

"Yes, Wilma, Yolanda is right here."

"Have you ... have you spoken to her?"

"Yes, Wihna."

Now she was silent.

"I'm ... I'm going away for a few days, Wilma. When I come back, we'll talk it over."

"I'll hang up now," she said softly. "Please call me right away when you get back. And . .. please don't answer—I don't want to embarrass you, and it isn't really necessary, but ... I love you."

"Thank you, Wihna."

"And you . . . you, too?"

"Yes, Wilma."

She sighed happily. "Then everything's all right. Take care."

"Take care," I said and put down the receiver. Yolanda said nothing. She filled our glasses and handed me mine.

"Thanks," I said.

She nodded. "Drink," she said.

"I don't think I can."

"Try."

"No."

"My God," said Yolanda, "what a poor thing you are!'

26

We left .on Friday.

Mordstein declared that we shouldn't leave Vienna before noon so as to reach Salzburg after dark. "In the daytime it would be riskier for you, Mr. Chandler. In the evening you'll have an easier time getting through. And there's less traffic on the autobahn in the evening."

Yolanda looked at me. There was less traffic on the autobahn in the evening. ...

Mordstein was in good spirits. He told me to sit next to him. He was driving; Yolanda sat in the back. "So that you don't get any foolish ideas, Mr. Chandler."

"What foolish ideas could I possibly get?"

"Well, for instance, you might want to kill me," he said, laughing. "So you'll please hold your hands on your knees throughout the drive, okay?"

I nodded.

"Just a minute." He frisked me. "Perhaps you popped a little revolver or blackjack into one of your pockets." But I had not popped a little revolver or blackjack into any of my pockets. We had decided to attend to the matter quite differently, with the jack handle. It lay in the back, beside Yolanda.

We drove through the autumnal landscape of Lower Austria. By now the trees were leafless and it was raining, a cold drizzle. The road gUttered in our headlights. We

spoke very little. Yolanda seemed to be asleep. Mordstein drove fast. He had a big powerful car, a sleek Hispano. By seven o'clock we were in Salzburg and Mordstein drove me to the station. "Your train leaves at eight. At eight-fifteen I'll be looking for you at the exit of the station in Freilassing."

"Good," I said.

He handed me my small suitcase. Yolanda didn't move. I walked through the cold rain, to the station, and bought a second class ticket to Munich. Then, since there was time, I sat down in the station restaurant and drank a few cognacs. I had already been very nervous when Mordstein had dropped me, and this wouldn't do. All my difficulties still lay ahead. It was essential that I keep calm if I was to cope with them. After the fifth cognac, I was calm.

The big clock on the wall read seven-forty, I paid and walked across the dirty brick plaster of the platform to customs which was situated in a large, brightly lit room. Travelers to Germany went through customs here on Austrian soil. The next station, Freilassing, was already in Germany.

The large room was filled with people who were also taking the eight o'clock train. This put me at ease. I went and stood at the end of a long line which was moving up to and passing the table in front of the customs officers. Two men were checking passports, two others the luggage. They looked into my shaving kit, dug around among my underwear, examined my coat pockets and then stamped my passport twice. "Thank you, Mr. Frank," one of them said, and I was through.

I strolled out onto the platform where others were already waiting. It was cold and dark out there, but the cognac was still warming my stomach pleasantly and I was again in full control of myself. I bought another bottle of cognac at the buffet and had them open it for me.; I also had them give me three paper cups. It was necessary that they find alcohol in Mordstein's blood when he would be examined.

The train was punctual. It was an Express-D train that had a long trip behind it and a long one ahead. I sat down in an empty compartment and drank from the bottle again. The train would stop only two minutes in Freilassing to take on mail. I knew that so I got off hastily before the train had come to a full stop, jumping down between the tracks so as not to be seen. The train hadn't left yet by the time I was running down the steps toward the station exit. The barrier was in the front, beside the entrance. I had been told that you had to give up your ticket. That didn't fit in with my plans so, in the dark, I climbed between some high bushes over a low fence and was out on the street. That was simple. It was foggy; you couldn't see much more than ten steps ahead of you.

Mordstein was standing beside his car. He had parked alongside a freight train shed and lifted a hand when he saw me. "Well, there we are," he said as I got into the car. He sounded relieved. Evidently he had feared that I might try to escape with the train. I didn't look at him, I looked at Yolanda sitting in the back. She answered my look with the barest nod. Her white face with the big red gash of a mouth looked grotesque in the dark. Mordstein got in and we drove off. Here and there on the autobahn there were traces of snow. The rain beat against the windshield apd the wind was stronger here. I got out my bottle and drank.

"Let me have it," said Mordstein. "I can do with a drink."

He drank, copiously, then handed the bottle to Yolanda who in turn gave it back to me. I let it do the rounds three times. When it was half-empty I laid it down on the seat between Mordstein and me. At ten minutes past nine we passed Traunstein. According to Yolanda there was a large gas station after Traunstein. I was to watch out for it. We still had ten minutes to go before reaching it.

Mordstein was in a chatty mood. *'And what are you

going to do now, Mr. Chandler?" (He called me Mr. Chandler to the end.)

"I haven't made up my mind."

"No money, eh?"

"No."

"You know, I've thought it over. Fm not gomg to take all you have. I intend to leave you some."

"Thanks."

"I never found you unsympathetic, Mr. Chandler. Believe me. But life is hard; every man has to look out for himself. I am taking your money without bearing you any sort of a grudge."

"I'm glad to hear that. I was under the impression that you didn't like me."

I gave him the bottle again, then I saw the gas station. It was brightly lit and only one car was parked in front of it. I waited until we were directly in front of the pumps, then I began to count evenly from twenty-one to thirty. At twenty-nine I grabbed the steering wheel, at thirty Mordstein screamed. I didn't look at him. I looked straight ahead and bent every effort to preventing the car from skidding. Mordstein's hands were still clutching the steerhig wheel and were turning it to the right and left. His foot slipped off the gas pedal; I put my left foot on it and the car drove on.

I could feel the jack handle against my neck. Yolanda was pressing it against Mordstein's throat—she had put her arms around him from behind. Then I heard him groan and right after that an ugly snapping sound. I don't want to write what Yolanda had done with the iron bar. Anyway, two minutes later Mordstein was dead. I steered the car onto the shoulder and stopped.

It had all happened fast.

Yolanda helped me shift Mordstein to the seat which I had occupied. He didn't show any signs of having been hurt; he was not bleeding. Only his head hung forward and had the tendency to dangle from side to side. We went through his wallet for the luggage tickets and found them at once. I pocketed them and took my seat beside him at the steering wheel. "Get in," I told Yolanda.

"In a minute," she said with a choked voice. Then she ran a short distance into the trees that lined the autobahn. She. came right back. She bent down and scooped up a handful of snow and put it in her mouth, then she spat it out again. "Come on," I said.

She got in and closed the door behind her and I drove off. Mordstein fell heavily against my shoulder and slipped forward onto the steering wheel. "Hold onto him!" I hissed.

"I was holding onto him!" she screamed.

"Don't shout!" I shoved the dead man to one side; she grasped him and pulled him back until he was sitting upright.

"I'll scream as much as I want to."

"Not now. Now we need our nerves."

"You? You need your nerves? What have you ever done? Have you ever thought of me?" She was sobbing hysterically. I freed one hand and passed the open bottle across to her after pulling out the cork with my teeth. She

268

drank, also with one hand, then gave me back the bottle. "How far to the bridge?"

"Half an hour."

I stepped on the gas.

28

Half an hour can be a long time when a dead man sits beside you and the woman with whose help you killed that man sits behind you. The road flies at you, now and then a car comes toward you, now and then one passes you, and every time you feel your armpits start to sweat, your shirt sticks to your body, your teeth start to chatter. Then the strange car has passed you and it's all over. The darkness and your thoughts wash over you again. And you have plenty to think of in that half hour. The thoughts come, nothing you can do about it; they come, they penetrate, they won't let you go.

Another drink from the bottle.

It doesn't help. You have killed a man. And you haven't done it alone. Alone wouldn't be so bad. Alone you could put it behind you more easily. But the way things have turned out, you didn't do it alone. You did it with Yolanda. You did it with a woman. A woman who thinks she loves you. Are women to be trusted? Regardless of whether they love you or not? Have you ever been able to trust a woman? Never. Could Mordstein trust Yolanda? No. She left him for me, she fled from him, and in the end she broke his neck.

So?

What next?

How do you think it's going to be? You and she. Now

you are truly one. Now you can never break away from each other. Never. Whether she loves you or not. And you don't love her. You love Wihna. You can't forget Wilma. But now Yolanda's got you where she wants you—under her thumb. But you also have her. Only you don't want her. Surely she thought of that too when she made her plans. You're a part of her plan. And Wilma. That was why she smiled when Wilma called; that was why she had nothing to say against it. She had you where she wanted you. She didn't have to do a thing, everything happened of its own accord. Now it's over, now you and she are one, whether you Uke it or not. Now you have to do what she tells you. To the end. To the miserable end.

You drink again. You stare out into the dark. The motor hums. The rain pours down, and then, slowly and eerily, a sticky, ice cold certainty creeps over you from the tips of your toes to your heart: the world isn't big enough to hold two people who have killed a third person. Wherever you choose to go, however much you drink, wherever you hide—the world isn't big enough for you and this other person. For you and Yolanda.

A half hour is a long time when a dead man sits beside you. You think: so what are you to do? Yes, what am I to do? What must I do to be alone at last, to finally be free, when I know only too well that I'm too much of a coward to free myself in any other way? Kill Yolanda. A great idea. I want to be free of her; I want it almost as much as she wanted to be free of Mordstein. Because— one way of looking at it—I'm just as subservient to her now as she was to Mordstein. And that's an unpleasant feeUng. And not a healthy foundation for the business of murder.

What would happen if I killed her?

Nothing. I would take away her false papers, the ones on which she is listed as Valery Frank. I'd sit her up beside her ex-husband, and the car would carry them both over the gap in the Bavaria Bridge into the valley below. When the two are found, if there is anything left to

find, the identification will read: Mr. and Mrs. Mordstein, victims of a car accident caused by negligent driving under the influence of alcohol. Things don't turn out quite as Yolanda had planned, still no trace is left behind. And I am free. Free for the short tune left me. Free for Wilma who is waiting for me ...

I hear a voice. It startles me. "Yes? What is it?" It is Yolanda who has spoken. The Bavaria Bridge lies directly ahead. I stop the car.

A lot of thoughts come to you in half an hour.

29

The bridge lay straight ahead. About a hundred yards away red Ughts Ut up the barrier. The detour into the valley below turned off to the right. These were dangerous moments. If another driver saw us, we were lost.

We worked fast. I shoved Mordstein into position behind the steering wheel. I let the motor run, and jumped out of the car with Yolanda. She was standing on the grass beside the road, breathing heavily. No snow here. That was good because of footprints and brake marks. I went up to her. She looked at me out of her big green eyes in their dark, painted hollows. "Kiss me," she whispered.

I kissed her. She moaned and clung to me. She didn't see the jack handle. Not until I lifted my arm did she step back. Too late. And I heard the same repulsive snapping sound again. She sank to the ground. Her body shuddered once, then she lay still.

I picked her up by the armpits and dragged her to the car and threw her in beside Mordstein who had slopped

over the steering wheel. There they were, the Mordsteins, united again. The motor was idling regulariy. I found Yo-landa's handbag in the back, found her false papers, pocketed them and threw the bag back into the car.