Messenger of Death (33 page)

“I have some
pot,” Claude said. He sat down on the grave and put his hand in his
breast pocket. “Let’s smoke a bit.”

Hans crouched
nearby and took the weed from the small metal box that Claude held
in his outstretched hand.

“Let’s get out
of here,” Hans said, his voice trembling. “Let’s fuckin’ get out of
here, Claude. I don’t like it at all.”

“We did a good
job, Hans.” Claude slapped his back with appreciative laughter. He
lit a joint and gave the lighter to Hans. “Just a few tokes, Hans,
then off we go. Just a few tokes.” He took a deep drag himself.

On the way
back, they didn’t speak. Silence filled the car like black, choking
tar. Claude wasn’t laughing anymore. He realized that he had pushed
Hans too far. Hans was visibly shaken; his pale face looked dead
even in the darkness of the car.

“Here,” Hans
said, bringing the car to a complete stop. His voice was coarse and
broken. He stepped out of the car, leaving the engine running.
Bending over, he grasped the open door with both hands, his body
shaking while he vomited.

“We have to go
a few blocks more,” Claude said.

“No. I ain’t
going anywhere, Claude. You go yourself.” He straightened up,
wiping his mouth.

“What the fuck
you are talking about?” Claude had lost his temper. “Help me unlock
the door in the house.”

“I won’t. You
don’t need me there. Just break the window and get in. For sure,
there’s no alarm system. It’s a biker’s house.”

Hans began
walking down a side street.

“Motherfucker!”
Claude shouted at his back. Hans vanished into the night.

Claude got
behind the wheel and continued toward Stanley’s house. He pulled up
on the opposite side of the road and walked across the street,
scanning the neighborhood for any suspicious activity. Nobody was
in sight. Stanley’s house seemed uninhabited. Its windows, like
large black eyes, were staring at him in menacing silence. Claude
went behind the house, holding the wrench in his hand. There, he
knocked out a basement window and crawled in, careful not to
scratch his skin on the glass shards that remained in the window
frame.

Stretching his
hands ahead of him in the total darkness, he made his way through
the basement, until by pure chance he touched a wall and found a
light switch. The light was too bright for him at first, and he
squinted as he looked around. The space was nicely finished, with a
bar, cozy chairs, and some coffee tables. In the corner, where the
money was supposed to be, stood a huge vase with artificial flowers
in it.

Claude went
upstairs first, trying to make as little noise as possible. If
anybody was there, he would have to be killed. The staircase
squeaked under his feet, loud unnerving sounds in the dead silence
of the house. Claude turned the lights on in each bedroom, three of
them. Nobody was there. Even in such a stressful moment, Claude
managed to notice that the furniture was very expensive. The owner
must have lived a good life, no doubt. Then he rushed to the
basement again. Only now, he realized that there were no tiles on
the floor. It was covered by a gray carpet. Claude moved the vase,
tore the edge of the carpet up, and saw bare concrete under it.

Stanley had
cheated him.

“No damned
money,” he whispered, fuming. “Sucker.”

He got up and
went upstairs to the ground floor, without looking back. When he
unlocked the front door and stepped out, he saw a police car on the
street, parked directly in front of him.

“Hands up,”
shouted someone from behind the car. “Don’t move. Police.”

Claude obeyed
the command. Now, he understood what Stanley had hoped for. His
house was under surveillance. That was why it had taken so little
time for a squad car to arrive. Two huge policemen jumped on him,
twisted his arms behind this back, put handcuffs on them, and then
dragged him to the police car, pushing him inside.

The game was
over. Now, he was back to square one.

V

Claude couldn’t
sleep. His cell, built like a concrete box, didn’t have a single
piece of furniture, or even a rug, to rest on. His face was swollen
from the punches the policemen had given him in response to some
abusive words he had offered while he was being handcuffed. He was
the only one in the cell. Sitting on the cold floor, he thought
about his situation.

It was clear to
him that long years in jail were in the cards now. Lady Luck had
not been kind to him tonight. The question was, What would the cops
be able to find out about the hit? Had Hans been arrested? If not,
they would never know about Stanley’s death. Even having a wrench
with Stanley’s blood on it, they would not be able to lay charges
against him. Claude had worn gloves during the ordeal with Stanley
and had instructed Hans to do the same. As far as his other hits
were concerned, they didn’t know anything about them, that’s for
sure. For breaking into a house with the wrench . . . Well, if it
hadn’t had blood on it, the only charge against him would have been
breaking into the house. It wasn’t even a robbery, since he had
taken nothing.

At 7 o’clock in
the morning, two policemen unlocked his cell. They took him to a
room where a detective in civilian clothes sat at a desk, his face
bearing traces of little sleep. Claude recognized him at once as
Serge Gorte, the one who had talked to him in the hospital.
Naturally, Claude thought, he’d been awakened early because of this
important event: A biker had been arrested during an attempted
robbery. One cop took a position at the entrance, the other sat
beside Claude. Both of them carried guns.

“My old
acquaintance,” Serge said with a smile. Claude shrugged his
shoulders.

“Tell me, how’d
you do it? How’d you kill Stanley? Who was your accomplice?”

“I ain’t killed
nobody. What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking
about murder. You’ve been after him for quite awhile. And, now
you’ve done it. We have all the evidence.”

“What fuckin’
evidence do you have?” Claude asked in a rough voice.

“A wrench with
his blood on it. Your arrest in his house. Where did you bury
him?”

“You shove your
fuckin’ evidence up your fuckin’ ass,” Claude barked. “No court
would find that good enough to lock me up. You have to move your
ass to find more.” He uttered his usual rowdy laugh.

Serge remained
calm and composed. He even smiled in false sympathy with Claude’s
arguments.

“Funny,” Serge
said, “you’re right. We don’t have sufficient evidence at this
moment. Mind you, it’s only half past seven in the morning. Suppose
we just give the court our insufficient evidence. The court would
charge you with the attempted robbery. But the Iron Ghosts would
quickly figure out two plus two. They have far better methods than
we do for discovering the truth.”

Serge paused
for a few moments, enjoying the effects of his words. Claude ground
his teeth. He knew how the Ghosts would find the truth.

“Exactly!”
Serge continued with the same air of understanding and sympathy, as
if he had read what was going on in Claude’s mind. “Your guess is
correct. They’d find you and do the same to you. I doubt that you
would be able to escape their revenge. There are too many of them,
these Iron Ghosts. What would happen to you in jail? Stanley wasn’t
just an ordinary guy. They’ll hunt you the rest of your life.”

Claude stared
at Serge, trying to cool himself down. With the handcuffs on his
wrists, he contemplated jumping forward and biting Serge in the
throat.

“Actually, it
won’t be that hard for the Iron Ghosts to find the missing
evidence,” Serge interrupted Claude’s train of thought. “You had an
accomplice. We’ll find him. They’ll find him, too.” Serge’s stare
became intense. “He’ll talk.”

Claude
nodded.

“Fuck you.”

Serge
sighed.

“You remember,
I showed you the photograph of Norman and his wife, the woman you
killed. He’s now in our custody. He’s prepared to testify against
you, and Marcel. Life without parole—that’s what’s waiting for you
around the corner.”

Is he bluffing?
Claude thought.

“By the way,
the Devil’s Knights will be after you, as well. You probably think
that we’ll put you in a jail where they hold the upper hand. Not
necessarily so, Claude. But even if we didn’t, they’d kill you
eventually anyway. You know too much. Marcel wouldn’t take the risk
of having a potential witness against him serving a life sentence.
Your gang, or the other, it doesn’t make much difference when you
consider your future.”

He’s not
bluffing; it would be better to commit suicide than face any of
those choices, Claude thought.

“That’s not
all. You have a girlfriend. She’ll talk. Most likely, she’ll be in
jail, too. You’ll never see her again.”

That thought
caused Claude to blink. He cleared his throat.

“What’s your
point?” he croaked.

“We want your
cooperation. Putting you in jail isn’t a big deal for us. We’re
after top-ranking Devil’s Knights. Particularly, your boss, Marcel.
We need you as a witness against him.”

“What would you
offer for that?” Claude asked. Serge straightened up with a jolt,
fixing a gimlet-eyed stare on Claude.

“We’ll put you
in the witness protection program. We’ll change your identity . .
.” he started. The two policemen guarding Claude exchanged nervous,
excited glances with Serge. Serge flapped his eyelashes, as if
tasting a good cognac. Claude felt a powerful urge to vomit.

“Take off his
handcuffs,” Serge commanded.

The policemen
rushed to unlock them. Claude rubbed his wrists.

“I wanna go to
the bathroom.”

“Take him.”
Serge nodded to the policemen. In the bathroom, Claude vomited into
filthy toilet. It seemed to him that his guts were coming out
through his throat. His negotiations for survival had begun.

Chapter 9

I

The flood of
information from Claude’s confession made huge headlines in all the
newspapers, magazines, and television shows. But in the midst of
the hoopla about police success in fighting the biker gangs, Serge
Gorte remained calm and as busy as ever. He actually worked even
longer hours than before, collecting material facts, supervising
autopsies, analyzing lab results, and then assembling all this
information into logical order to prove without any doubt the guilt
of those accused.

As soon as
Claude told the story of Stanley’s death, Serge sent a team to the
farm. The bodies of Stanley and Stash were exhumed and autopsied.
Stanley’s body was later released to the Iron Ghosts, and a
lavishly grand funeral was announced.

A police patrol
was placed on guard outside the graveyard that day to stave off any
possible disturbance from the Devil’s Knights or one of their
puppet gangs. The last thing the police wanted was a skirmish in
the graveyard, which would result in the police being blamed for
not being able to maintain order.

Out of
professional curiosity, Serge arrived at the cemetery one hour
before the motorcade arrived to observe the funeral. He could have
obtained reports about the event from officers in the lower ranks,
but preferred to rely on his own observations, which he felt were
far superior to those of anyone else. From his vantage point, which
was behind a huge gravestone located little more than a hundred
yards from the fresh grave, he recalled the events of that
unforgettable morning when Claude had agreed to cooperate with the
police. Although Serge had prepared himself well for the
interrogation, he had never expected it to be such a huge success.
If only Claude had known that most of his taunts and accusations
had been bluffs, or near bluffs. . . . First of all, at that time,
Norman had not been under arrest. Second, although Serge had felt
sure that Claude had killed Stanley and that there had been an
accomplice, he’d had no proof of either.

Serge’s threats
about the inevitable revenge of the Iron Ghosts and the possibility
of Claude being killed by the Devil’s Knights were real concerns,
worries that Claude understood, and that put him off balance. But
none of those had been the reason that Claude had rolled over. This
biker was so obsessed with his status and image in the underworld
that in all likelihood he would have accepted his death as part and
parcel of his gruesome profession. That’s why Serge began talking
about the girlfriend, the one he didn’t know existed.

This was
another sheer bluff on his side. He had recalled the girl only that
morning, on the way to the police station. She had been at Claude’s
bedside in the hospital. She was too beautiful to have been an
occasional broad. Serge then remembered his thoughts about the
rather strange makeup of the human mind. Very often, even the most
despicable criminals fell in love with a woman only to behave like
an inexperienced schoolboy, losing all commanding attitude and
gangster pride for a weak, helpless object of love.

So, Serge
concluded then, she must have been his old lady, the girl he was
likely in love with. If that was the case, Claude’s feelings might
outweigh all other considerations. Serge had guessed right. After
his remarks about the girlfriend, Claude’s face had grown deadly
pale. Serge clearly saw that he was devastated. That was when the
tough demeanor of this contract killer had cracked.

A lot of work
had yet to be done to lay formal charges against Marcel. The only
proof of his participation in crimes was Claude’s testimony. As
expected, the gang’s lawyers unleashed a vicious campaign that
questioned the validity of such testimonies. They were right in a
way, Serge admitted to himself. The benefits for the informer were
enormous: Along with significantly reduced sentences for all the
horrendous crimes he had committed, he would get huge financial
rewards, witness protection, and a comparatively comfortable life
in prison. However, the testimony of this one witness would take
them further than any investigation had gone before; no other proof
of participation in criminal activity had been found, or would be
found, because the gang leaders did not commit any crimes
themselves. And then Norman. For sure, he’ll be arrested. Once in
the custody . . .