ALMOST A DEAD MAN - CHAPTER 30

Vanessa had lost track of time in a hunger-driven fever of reveries.

Every once in a while she hallucinated the door opening, but the sounds came from the shifting of the old house and she was beginning to think that she would never leave this bedroom. A car wheels crunched up the driveway. She prayed it was Kurt and weakly hobbled to the window.

An Audi sedan splashed through the rain puddles.

She banged on the rain-beaded glass and screamed for help, then the car pull up before the bunker. Whatever wasn't right about this picture got worse, when a blonde man in a leather suit exited from the car. She had seen him the fight between the American and him and sagged against the wall. He was not here to rescue her.

SS Tommy shut the door of the Audi, which he had stolen this morning from the parking lot near the Congress-Centrum. His own car was a half-kilometer away in a grassy meadow. The wet wind slopped through the trees and the raindrops wet his face. He checked the yard for anything odd, then lifted his eyes and caught sight of the blonde woman framed by the second-floor window. The blonde pimp smiled with his head filled with how much fun it would be to visit Lukas' wife later, but first he had to take out the trash.

The big man trudged through the thick underbrush to the bunker's secret entrance. He lifted the steel door and climbed down the concrete steps, his 9mm before him. While Willi was probably in no condition to put up a fight, but it never paid to take chances.

The hustler lay on the floor, a needle sticking out of his vein. For a second SS Tommy thought the little bastard might have OD'd, except he was still breathing. SS Tommy stuck the pistol behind his back and slapped the drugged youth's face, saying, "Wake up, you Schwule. I am not carrying you up the stairs. Get up on your feet before I kick the shit out of you."

Coming to slowly, Willi pulled the needle from his arm, muttering, "Shit, how many days have I been here?"

"Does it matter?"

"No, I guess I haven't missed anything." Willi tongued his swollen lower lip and felt a missing tooth without recalling the circumstances of its disappearance.

"No, you haven't, now get to your feet. You are going home." SS Tommy nudged Willi with his cowboy boot.

The junkie crinkled up his face, as he straightened up. His muscles were still bruised from his beating, but upon until seeing the grimace on the blonde pimp's face, Willi said, "I'm getting to my feet. Give me a minute."

SS Tommy waited impatiently, as the young junkie gathered himself, then sneered, "In a few hours you will be back with your boyfriend. I bet you will be happy about that."

"Yes, I can barely wait." The young junkie may have been loaded, but understood wherever the blonde pimp was going to take him was not home. Willi grabbed the used syringe off the floor and mustered whatever he could from his senses, for he would only get one chance to get away.

The two men climbed out of the bunker.

After three days in the dark, even the diffused sunlight hurt his eyes. Willi lifted his arm and cringed like a vampire meeting the sunrise. SS Tommy pushed him from behind and said, "Walk."

It was now or never.

He stumbled back into the pimp and swung his arm down, jabbing the syringe so hard that the needle snapped off in SS Tommy's thigh. The pimp's screamed and the teenager ran for the trees. No way SS Tommy could catch him, once he had a lead. Another twenty meters and he was in the forest.

SS Tommy shouted for him to stop.

Willi kept running.

Another second and he would be safe.

Whatever hit his shoulder knocked him face down into a puddle. Somehow SS Tommy had caught up with him. Willi choked upon breathing in two nostrils of dirty water. He rolled over on his back and groaned. A thick salty liquid swelled into his mouth and he coughed it out without being able to clear his lungs. A shadow filled his shrinking vision. Several seconds later, the young man expelled his last breath.

"Schiesse. You should not have run, you little queer." SS Tommy pulled the needle from his thigh and threw it into the underbrush. He kicked the hustler several times, but nothing was going to make him get up. "And now you're dead."

SS Tommy went to the Audi and took a big plastic bag from the trunk. He wrapped Willi inside the bag with electric tape, till he resembled a mummy. Lifting the corpse into the trunk, SS Tommy was struck by how heavy the body was, but then the dead always weighed more than the living.

Wiping the rain from his face, he spotted Lukas' wife by the window. Her witnessing this murder made her a bigger problem than before and one he would have to take care of immediately. When the blonde wraith vanished from the window, SS Tommy grabbed a crowbar from the trunk, then stomped to the mansion's front door. Where the needle had stuck into his thigh stung a little, but he knew a good way to kill the pain.

He smashed the crowbar against the window, only to have it bounce out of his hands. His several other attempts to shatter the glass failed as well as any effort to jimmy the door, which was reinforced with steel under the mahogany surface.

SS Tommy took out his 9mm and fired once. The bullet ricocheted into the woods. The mansion was impregnable and he didn't have any more time to waste on cracking this egg. From what Lukas had told him, Vanessa was going nowhere. This bonus would be much more pleasurable after the wait, one with whom he could take his time, until he had to get rid of her. Even that would be fun.

Today was still going to be a big day.

And for some it would be their last.

But not him.

ALMOST A DEAD MAN - CHAPTER 32

The warm sun bathed Sean's skin, as he stood on Geneva's quai. A powerful fountain in the center of the Rade a powerful fountain spumed water hundreds of feet into the crystalline blue sky. The glaciers of Mt. Blanc gleamed to the south. The giant peak lay in France. If Sean stole the money in the case, he was heading there.

A horn blared behind Sean.

a silver Turbo Benz 500 with German plates pulled up to the curb before the rococo statue of a long-dead aristocrat. The passenger window rolled down and Kurt shouted to Sean, "I told you I would be here."

Several Swiss passers-by glared at the man inside. Yelling from a car your horn was not considered proper etiquette in staid Switzerland, then again Kurt was not Swiss and he said with a jerky voice, "Get in the car."

Sean threw his bag in the back and sat in the front.

"Did you sleep at all?" Sean surveyed the street for the police.

"An hour outside of Basel," Kurt spoke with a weary voice.

We can sleep after the drop-off."

"I want to get this money and then get over to Paris. That is all."

"Sure." Sean had no desire to argue with anyone in Kurt's state and checked his watch. "Then we better go."

The German stepped on the gas and the Mercedes sped down the street, narrowly missing several parked cars.

"Slow down." Sean hated bad driving.

"I know what I'm doing."

Kurt grabbed at his chest and struggled to gain his breath. He turned left onto Rue Vert-Fosse and braked before the bank's ornate doors.

"See. Safe and sound."

"I'll see you soon." Sean got out of the car.

"I'll be waiting."

Kurt glanced at the bank. The gray facade conveyed an eternal calm from the countless deals completed without anyone ever hearing about them, but the best way to rob a bank was from inside and that was exactly what Cali and Kurt were doing.

This was his OberSeminar, the final test for his life of crime. He had been a petty pickpocket, passed bad checks, burgled mansions for jewelry and art, sold stolen Rolls-Royces and Bentleys to Africa, dealt drugs, all of it small time in comparison to this score. In a few minutes he would be a millionaires and escape his life of crime for good. He could open a classic Caribbean restaurant on Montserrat and live well into the next century.

A guard moved nearer to the door and checked out the Mercedes. Fifty minutes remained till Three O'clock and the bank closed at Five. Hans Roth should have sent the wire at Twelve PM. Kurt had called Herr Egard to have all the money in the account ready for this afternoon's pick-up. Herr Egard told him everything was in place. Once Sean received the money, the guards would escort him to the car . He would give Sean his cut and be on his way.

By Monday the bankers would all be demanding who Sean Coll was and why he had been given the money. Kurt would be somewhere sunny and warm. He had been planning to be with Vanessa, but her interlude with him had been a sick joke on Lukas' part. They were both laughing at him now. The money he was about to receive would take away part of that sting.

The German grimaced, as an agonizing pain shot inside his chest. His hands fell from the steering wheel and he couldn't breathe again, until the tortuous wave subsided. Kurt had to calm down. Maybe he could get Sean to drive to Paris, so he could sleep. He stared inside the bank again and was annoyed Sean was taking so long.

A buzzing tunneled into his ears, but went away.

Finally Sean appeared at the doorway with the Halliburton case in his hand. He sat in the car and Kurt said, "Is that it?"

"Herr Egard said this cleaned out your account."

"How much was it?" Kurt asked with the elation of lottery winner waiting for the announcement of the sum.

"1,650,000 Swiss Francs."

Kurt calculated the exchange rate in his head and came up with the sum he had put into the account to accustom the bank to large money transactions. Kurt grabbed the case and opened it. The money barely filled the case. The driver exclaimed, "Where is the rest of it?"

"That's all I was given."

"There should be four or five million dollars."

"You want to search me?" Sean would have been satisfied with a tenth of that money.

"Go back in the bank and tell that fucking banker to call me on this number. Right fucking now." Kurt scrawled Cali's mobile phone number and passed the paper to Sean.

"Calm down, Kurt."

"I am calm,” exploded Kurt.

"I'm going."

Sean returned inside the bank and the guard closed the door behind him. A minute later the phone rang in the car. Kurt fumbled for the phone. Herr Egard asked, "Herr Oster, what seems to be the problem?"

"Where is the money?" Kurt demanded.

"That was all that was in your account, Herr Oster. I thought you would have more, but no new transfers enter your account this week."

"There has to be more."

"I am sorry. Herr Coll has examined the transaction records and he will verify what I have told you."

"Do you understand that I freed your son? That I paid for his release? That I have him in Thailand?"

"I understand all of that, Herr Oster. If more money was in the account, then I would have given it to you." Herr Egard had dealt with this situation before, when the 'customer' may think he's right, except the numbers never lie. "As it is, the sum you have is the exact amount that was in the account. I can only give you that. Maybe your money will show up Monday."

"No, it should be there now." Blood thrashed through his temples and he had to put down the phone. Someone had fucked him and it only could be someone he loved.

He pounded the steering wheel, till his face glowed a bright red and his ears deafened by a roar. Numbness prickled his fingers and toes. His hands gripped at his chest, as a stake was driven through his heart and an unbearable weight descended on his body. He leaned back in the seat and exhaled a breath from his lungs.

They would not get another.

Twenty minutes later Sean came out of the bank, holding a photocopy of the account's most recent transactions. He thanked the guard at the door and went to the Mercedes. Wearing sunglasses, Kurt appeared to be taking a nap, but Sean's opening the door should have woken him.

"Kurt, are you all right?" asked Sean asked, then saw that the German had stopped breathing. He felt for his pulse. There was none and Kurt was already losing the warm bloom of life.

"Kurt, motherfucking Kurt."

Sean expected him to come alive, except the Lazarus act wasn't working today.

Sean should have called the police, but they would ask questions, especially about the money in the case. Questions to which he had no answers and they wouldn't bring Kurt back to life, so Sean decided to leave the German where he was. Strangers would discover the body sooner or later. The police would canvass the neighborhood. Maybe Herr Egard would identify the body and maybe not.

Sean regarded the case on his lap. He had to tell Petra to get on a plane. They would meet and start a new life together. The same plan had failed with Tammi, but it had to work sometime. Sean was about to get out of the car to call Petra from a phone box, when the mobile phone rang. Cali was on the other end. "I want to speak to Kurt."

Sean said in English, "I have bad news. Kurt is dead."

"Dead. How?" This information stunned Kurt's friend.

"Heart attack in the car. He was already in bad shape, when I met him, but there seems to have been some trouble with the money and that sent him over the edge."

"What trouble with the money?"

Sean told Cali the exact sum he had received from the bank and the man on the other end asked, "Are you sure Kurt is dead?"

"He's cold as ice."

"Shit."

"My feeling exactly."

"Are the police there?"

"No."

"Good. I want you to drive to an address in Switzerland. My friends will bring him to Paris. You drive to Hamburg with the money."

"No fucking way." Cali would kill him, if he took the money in the case, but the pimp would have to find him first.

"If you don't run any red lights or crash the car, no police will stop you."

"No, I'll go to call the police and have them sort it out. That's their job, not mine."

"You'll do as I say and I give you one reason." Cali mentioned Petra's name and his address. "I don't want to hurt her, but I will. Kurt may have trusted you, Honky, but I ain't no stupid nigger."

"You motherfucker."

"I'm that and more. So Honky, is it yes or no?"

Sean warned him, "If you touch her, I'll kill you."

"I hate love stories with bad endings. Just trust me.”

"That's easy for you to say."

"Kurt was my friend. He was stupid about the drugs, but the money was nothing to die over. You have the money, yes?"

"Yes."

"Good. Drop off Kurt and then drive back to Hamburg. When you get close, give me a call." The line went dead.

When the street was clear, Sean swiftly moved Kurt into the back and buckled him upright with the seatbelt. Sean got behind the wheel and drove away. Like the dead man in the back seat he had no other choice other than to obey what was asked of him.

Maybe he never had.

ALMOST A DEAD MAN - CHAPTER 33

Sheets of rain drummed an uneven beat against the penthouse apartment's windows. Mack 'Die Alte' hated the rain, since the damp had a special way of unearthing every one of his arthritic pains. Normally he would have gone to the Hotel Inter-Conti for a good steam and massage, instead he had to guard over Petra Wessel.

As a young man the sixty year-old pimp had not been to above putting a whore in her place, although disciplining them rarely required more than a slap in the face. Nowadays all his girls considered him a soft touch, affectionately calling him 'Die Alte'. He should have taught them the meaning of respect, but he enjoyed their term of endearment.

SS Tommy was not so forgiving.

Every criminal organization employed a berserker like SS Tommy, though he had moved beyond the realm of muscle and it was simply a matter of time before he challenged Cali for the dominant position on the Reeperbahn. When that battle began, Die Alte hoped to be far away rather than choose sides, because once SS Tommy smelled blood, only a bullet could stop the bodybuilder. Die Alte had tried to stop SS Tommy from whipping Petra with a wire hangar. A solid right had broken his jaw and Die Alte had never interfered with the upstart again.

Mack shifted the automatic pistol stuck behind his back and stretched his legs. He had to give it to Petra. She had taken the beating better than most men, not crying out once, as the fists and feet pummeled her.

The back of Petra's arms bore the marks of her desperate attempt to defend herself during her near-fatal beating. The skin around her bad eye was puckered, but the lifeless orb in the socket hauntingly seemed to never leave him. She could not have recognized who had attacked her. They had been hooded and no one involved had ever spoken about it to anyone outside their circle, though the list of people who had something to gain by squashing her union of whores was very limited.

Mack should have tied up Petra, except Cali had a soft spot for the whore and said it was unnecessary to restrain her. So far he had been right. She remained on the couch and read a book, as if she knew how spooky he thought this silent treatment was to him.

An hour later, Mack got to his feet and announced, "I have to go the bathroom."

"I am not stopping you, am I?" She laid the book on her lap.

"I can not leave you alone, so you have two choice. Be tied up or come into the bathroom with me. It is up to you."

"I will go into the bathroom with you."

"I warn you. Do not try anything funny. I may be old, but I am still a man."

"I never said you weren't." Petra stood and led the way to the bathroom.

For a second he thought she might attempt to flee out the door, but she stepped inside and said, "Do you want me to hold it for you?"

"Yes, you can help Die Alte." Mack undid his zipper and spread his arms. No matter how hard they try, a whore remains a whore. Her body rubbed against him, as Petra snaked a hand inside his pants and took out his cock, which responded by hardening. She still had her touch and he jokingly said, "Shake it twice, when I am finished."

"As always," Petra said before extracting the gun from behind Mack's back with her left hand. Her thumb expertly flicked off the safety. Mack realized what she was doing and started to turn.

Petra pulled the trigger and the bullet smacked into the tiles inches away from his head.

"That was the only warning you will get."

"Don't shoot me." Mack gauged the five feet between them. If he were younger, he would have tried to get the gun out of her hands. The hatred in her eye begged him to try it. He rejected calling her bluff and lifted his hands in the air.

"You were there that night, yes?"

"No, I was not."

Another explosion filled the tiny room. Plaster sprayed Mack's back.

"You tell me 'No' once more and I will kill you. Were you there?"

"Yes, I drove the car."

"And who was with you?"

"SS Tommy and Klaus." This violation of the pimp's code finished him in Hamburg.

Just as good.

He had been secretly selling off his shares of the Eroscenter to finance a move to Thailand. The girls were beautiful, the cops were corrupt, and fleets of sailors and tourists flocked to that Asian Babylon by the thousands, but his getting out of Hamburg unscathed was looking grim, unless he told the truth.

"Klaus threw the hood over your head and punched you once. SS Tommy did the rest."

"Cali, what did he do?"

"He was told to order the beating."

"By whom?"

"The bosses."

"I thought Cali was the boss."

"He is, but everyone has a boss."

Petra lifted the pistol and her finger tensed on the trigger.

Mack raised his arms, as if flesh and bone could stop steel.

"Die Alte, today is your lucky day. Take out the adhesive bandage from the cabinet, then pull down your pants and kneel with your back to me. Remember, I will use this and the only thing keeping me from shooting you is your doing exactly what I tell you. Do you understand?"

"Yes." He obeyed her explicitly and five minutes later he was securely bound by hand and foot to the toilet.

His fellow Zuhalterei might ridicule Mack, but this humiliation was scant payment for his role in her beating. Her eyes locked on the shower hose. Taking off the head, she told Mack to lift his behind in the air.

"What for?"

"Because I say so." Petra put the gun to his head.

Mack winced, as the plastic hose entered his rectum and groaned with each inch Petra forced inside him. It took her several seconds to decide between the hot or cold-water faucet. Mack was getting off lightly as it was, so she went for the hot. He protested, until she smacked him in the head with the gun barrel, knocking him out, so his face drooped into the toilet bowl. His unconsciousness was only temporary, for the hot water filling his entrails revived him.

After a minute he begged for her to release him, but mercy had been erased from her vocabulary. She dressed in her favorite leather outfit and high lace-up stiletto boots, the reincarnation of her mistress of evil. "Die Alte, you needed to go the bathroom. Well, now you can."

Petra left, as Mack relieved himself only to be pumped with hot water again.

His whores were right.

He was definitely getting too old for this job.