The Copenhagen Connection, page 17
“But she doesn’t know.” Cheryl’s voice rose shrilly. “I don’t like this, Joe. And I don’t trust that dumb ox Eric.”
“He’s in this as deep as we are,” Schmidt said.
“No, he’s not. He hasn’t got a record like…well, like some of us. And he’s goofy about his dumb brother. If he knew what you’re planning to do—”
A sharp slapping sound interrupted this speech. Cheryl yelped.
“Shut up,” Schmidt snapped. “He doesn’t know, and he won’t, if you watch your mouth.”
“All right, Joe. All right. I never said nothing to him.”
“Just see that you don’t. Oh, hell, let’s play another game. There’s nothing else to do.”
The slap of cards resumed.
Feeling herself on the brink of a gigantic sneeze, Elizabeth backed out of her hiding place. Christian was still asleep. She was tempted to wake him up and tell him what she had heard, but his peaceful face disarmed her, and for fear of disturbing him she settled down on the floor, her back against the side of the bed.
The conversation had confirmed a number of their theories but had not contributed much in the way of new or useful information. The silent Eric might not be a genuine member of the gang, but he was too deeply involved to be counted on for help.
Christian’s suspicions about Margaret had been well founded. She had learned of—whatever it was (Margaret’s bathrobe? Absurd.)—by means of a letter from Eric’s brother Wolf; and Wolf could be none other than the very large person in the knitted cap who had been running on and off the stage like a character in a Pinter play. Was that why Margaret had been rambling around in what had seemed an equally aimless fashion? If her unfortunate informant was slow-witted, with a child’s mind lodged in his massive body, some of his peculiar behavior was explicable. At least he had sense enough to be afraid. Perhaps he was now the only person in the world who knew the location of the mysterious object they all wanted so badly. Either he was the one who had found it in the first place, or he had taken it with him when he ran away.
As the afternoon wore on and Christian slept like a man with not a worry in the world, Elizabeth returned again and again to her listening post under the bed. The first time only silence rewarded her. Apparently her captors had left the room. Half an hour later she tried again. Still silence; she was about to withdraw when she heard a door open, and Schmidt said irritably, “Nothing yet?”
“No,” was the calm reply from Radsky.
“Damn. Maybe one of us ought to go to Copenhagen.”
“We were told to stay here and await news.”
“Who the hell does he think he is, giving orders? You and I were doing okay till he butted in.”
“He can be a valuable addition,” Radsky said in the same cool voice. “And in this case he is right. We have two chances to get what we want. If Margaret Rosenberg has obtained the information from Wolf, she will give it to us in exchange for our prisoners. Our message is waiting for her at the hotel; it is the logical place for her to seek news. As for Wolf—our attempt to catch him did nothing but frighten the idiot into mindless flight. If we keep out of sight and leave him alone, he may be simpleminded enough to come home.”
“A nice, neat summary,” Schmidt sneered.
Elizabeth had to agree with him. Christian had been correct in his assessment of the gang’s strength. There were only five of them, including the unknown “he” who was watching developments in Copenhagen.
Cheryl was the next to enter. “God, I’m bored,” she announced. “How much longer do we have to stay in this hole?”
“Till the job is finished,” Radsky replied. “Find something to do and stop complaining.”
“There isn’t anything to do. I can’t go outside, and even that boring television doesn’t come on till night. What a country—not even decent TV.”
“Have a beer,” Schmidt said. Apparently he and Cheryl had made up their differences; his tone was conciliatory.
“The beer’s all gone. We’re practically out of food, too. Why can’t Eric go to the store?”
“I do not feel it would be wise to let Eric go off alone,” Radsky said. “I am not completely convinced of his loyalty.”
“Loyalty!” Cheryl laughed shrilly. “That’s a good one. I wouldn’t trust your loyalty to me and Joe if we stopped being useful to you.” Radsky did not reply to this statement, and after a moment Cheryl went on sullenly, “When’s dinner? That’s the only thing to do around here—eat. If there’s anything to cook.”
“Well, go get the old lady and tell her we want to eat,” Schmidt said. “Where is she anyhow?”
“Scrounging around in the garden. Maybe she can find some food. Looks like a lot of weeds to me.”
“Damn it, she wasn’t supposed to go outside!”
“She is too feeble of mind and body to constitute a danger,” Radsky said. “Besides, she is a regular member of the household, and normalcy is the impression we wish to create. If I had been here when Eric sent her away, I would have told you that was a mistake.”
“Anyway, she came back,” Schmidt said. “A good thing, too. If I’d had to eat any more of his cooking, I’d have choked.” A chair scraped across the floor, and footsteps crossed the room. “Yeah, there she is,” Schmidt said. “God, what a picture—she looks like a witch, collecting her poisonous plants. Hey, old lady—yes, you. Get in here. Time for chow.”
“For God’s sake, Joe, she barely understands her own language, let alone English,” Cheryl exclaimed. “I’ll go get her.”
“Don’t leave the doorway,” Radsky cautioned.
The bedsprings over Elizabeth’s head creaked, and she slithered out. Christian was sitting up, his eyes wild as he surveyed the empty room.
“Oh, there you are,” he said, as she emerged, dusty and perspiring. “Hear anything interesting?”
“Interesting but not useful.” Elizabeth repeated the conversation.
Christian’s first reaction was to crow about his superior insight. “I told you that letter was important. I told you Margaret had ulterior motives in coming to Denmark. I told you—”
“You told me a lot of things, most of them wrong. Nobody took a shot at you. They were shooting at Wolf that time at the Cathedral.”
“Maybe so. I’m surprised they would risk killing him, though. If your ideas are right, he’s the only source of the information they want.”
“I suppose they were getting exasperated,” Elizabeth said. “Schmidt doesn’t seem to be the world’s most patient man. Besides, one bullet wouldn’t kill Wolf, it would just slow him down a little—and I don’t know of anything else that would.”
Christian dismissed this calloused assessment with a shrug. “So Eric is having second thoughts, is he? I wonder if we could make use of that.”
“You mean try to win him over to our side instead of climbing out the window? After all that work?”
“It isn’t the safest exit in the world. We’ll be pretty vulnerable dangling from a rope. How are you at rope climbing?”
“I’ve never tried it.”
“I could lower you.” Christian pondered. “But I had planned to be the first one down. And if something happened and one of us got busted up, we’d be in trouble.”
“So what are you suggesting? There are three of them here, even without Eric.”
“There are two of us.”
“Gee, thanks. I guess I could handle Cheryl—if she didn’t shoot me first.”
“We have a knife.”
“Both the blades are broken.”
Christian refused to be discouraged. “There’s a file on the pocket knife. Suppose I sharpen the picklock?”
“Could you really stick that into somebody’s back?” Elizabeth demanded.
“Into Schmidt’s I could,” was the unhesitating reply. “If we unscrew the lightbulb, the room will be totally dark. As soon as he came in I could stab him.”
“And I could persuade Eric to join the good guys,” Elizabeth said. “Which wouldn’t be too easy even if I could speak Danish. In the meantime Radsky would come up the stairs with his blackjack in one hand and his gun in the other.”
“No, no. You hide behind the door and hit Eric over the head. We haven’t time for debate.”
“What do I hit him with?”
“The chain,” Christian said triumphantly. “It’s heavy. As you ought to know.”
“Speaking of the chain,” Elizabeth said, overcome by a horrible qualm.
“No problem. That’s where my handy picklock comes in.”
“If you sharpen the picklock into a knife, you can’t use it to pick a lock,” said Elizabeth, leaving unvoiced her suspicion that this latter activity might not be as easy as Christian believed. “Oh, this is ridiculous! Control your bloodthirsty impulses and face reality. We’re much better off with the window. Speaking of which, don’t you think maybe we ought to start working on the chain?”
“No, I don’t. Eric opens and closes the lock when he takes you downstairs. We don’t want any signs of tampering.”
“Then there’s nothing we can do until after they bring our dinner.”
“No.” Christian closed his eyes.
“Are you going to sleep again?”
“Any other ideas?”
“Well, we could eavesdrop some more. They might say something important.”
Christian assented graciously to this suggestion. It was necessary for them to put their heads close together, and Elizabeth found the position extremely distracting. Christian’s warm breath tickled her chin. Then she started convulsively as a high, shrill keening sound pierced her ear.
“What the hell is she doing that for?” Schmidt’s voice asked.
“I believe she is singing,” said Radsky, amused.
“It’s the most god-awful noise I ever heard. Hey, Grandma, cut that out.”
“Leave her alone,” Cheryl said. “She’s not hurting anything.”
The keening rose to a pitch that made Elizabeth want to clap her hand over her ear. “Jeesus,” Schmidt shouted. “So help me, Grannie, if you don’t stop that—”
“She does not understand you,” Radsky said. “The woman is senile, I tell you. But if that unearthly noise assists her culinary skills, then okay.”
“It smells good,” Cheryl said.
“The food is all right; it’s the floor show I can’t stand,” muttered Schmidt.
Elizabeth had to agree with him. The shrill voice had an eerie, monotonous persistence that reminded her of Satanists summoning up demons.
“Go in the other room, then,” Cheryl said. “You better check on Eric anyhow. I can’t see him from the window.”
Schmidt retreated, slamming the kitchen door.
Christian was the next to surrender. Murmuring, “I think I’m going deaf,” he pulled himself out. Elizabeth remained doggedly at her post until a great clashing of pan lids was followed by Radsky’s question, “Is it ready, Mother? Good.”
Elizabeth decided it was time to come out. “They’ll probably be up here pretty soon,” she reported, peering over the edge of the bed at Christian, who was lying down, hands clasped under his head.
“The sooner the better,” was the reply.
Even if she had not overheard evidence of Schmidt’s increasing ill temper, Elizabeth would have sensed the change in the atmosphere as soon as he appeared. He was holding his gun in plain sight, and he behaved as if he wanted an excuse to use it. His inquiries as to how they had whiled away the afternoon hours were loaded with unsubtle and offensive innuendos, and he kept watching Christian with a greedy, anticipatory smirk. Elizabeth felt sure he was wasting his time. Christian was too cool and level-headed to be provoked into a reckless move; but he was unquestionably the one Schmidt was after. When Schmidt escorted Elizabeth downstairs he didn’t even speak to her, except for a curt “Don’t take all day.” When Christian returned, Elizabeth could tell by his flushed face and tight lips that Schmidt had been needling him.
After Eric had placed the tray on the bed, Schmidt motioned him to leave. The big man would have protested, but Schmidt used the hand that held the gun to repeat his gesture of dismissal, and Eric plodded out.
“Come here, sweetheart,” Schmidt said.
“Who, me?” Elizabeth asked.
“I’m not talking to lover boy. Come here.”
Elizabeth was not afraid for herself. Schmidt was interested in violence, not sex. He was bored and tense, and like all persons of limited imagination, the only thing he could think of was to hit someone. Elizabeth considered screaming for help. Radsky impressed her as more practical than his ally; he wouldn’t want to risk damaging his hostages.
Before she could decide what to do, Schmidt started moving toward her.
“Leave her alone,” Christian said.
Schmidt laughed and made a lunge for Elizabeth. He caught her wrist and pulled on it, dragging her to her knees.
Christian hit him. It was a neat, clean uppercut to the jaw, and it was probably the most ineffectual of all possible blows. It staggered Schmidt but did not seriously inconvenience him. With a little grunt of satisfaction he reversed the gun and swung it in a sweeping arc aimed at Christian’s face. Christian saw it coming and tried to pull back. The movement gained him a vital half inch and probably saved him from a fractured jaw, but the blow was hard enough to topple him. He hit the floor with a crash and lay still.
Schmidt’s smile had the sleepy, sated look of someone who has just relieved a pressing need. He shook himself and slipped the gun into his pocket.
“See you later, sweetheart,” he said, and went out.
Elizabeth got down on her knees beside Christian. His eyes were open. One hand nursed his bleeding cheek.
“Christian!” Elizabeth cried. She raised his head in her arms. “Oh, Christian, darling!”
“Oh, God,” said Christian.
“That was not a smart thing to do,” Elizabeth said.
Christian freed himself from her embrace and sat up, supporting his back against the bed. He glared at her for a moment, his lips moving, as if he were searching for a devastating retort. Words failed him. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he pulled her across his lap and kissed her till her ears started to ring.
It was Christian who finally stopped things. Conspicuously short of breath, he remarked, “I think this is turning into a different type of movie.”
“Don’t be a pedant.”
He captured her hand and brought it to his lips—an unexpected gesture that would have destroyed her remaining defenses if they had not already lain in ruins.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too, and in the near future I hope to demonstrate it at length. Right now I’m too preoccupied with other problems to do either of us justice.”
Gently Elizabeth touched his bleeding cheek. “Does it hurt?”
“Yes, it hurts. What an idiotic question. No thanks to me that it isn’t worse. I shouldn’t have let him get to me.”
“Stop blaming yourself. If you hadn’t hit him, I would have.”
“Don’t think he doesn’t know that. I just hope to God he doesn’t get uptight again and come back for another round.”
“Let’s get started, then. The sooner we’re out of here, the better.”
Christian retrieved the broken knife blade from under the bed and handed it to her. “See what you can do with the sheet while I work on the chain.”
The single sheet was heavy old linen, coarse and stiff. Without the knife Elizabeth would have had a hard time tearing it. When she had finally braided it into a strand that looked stout enough to bear Christian’s weight, it made a depressingly short rope.
“We’ll have to use the blanket too,” she reported. “How are you coming?”
Christian’s manipulations with the picklock had been accompanied by grunts and curses. “I’ll get it,” he replied, without looking up.
“Maybe we could lift the bed and unwind it,” Elizabeth suggested.
“You can’t go running around the countryside with twenty pounds of chain draped over your arm,” was the querulous reply. “And lifting the bed wouldn’t be enough. I’d have to take it apart. Ow. Damn!”
The picklock had slipped again. Elizabeth should have been depressed by the confirmation of what she had feared—that picking a lock was a skill possible only to trained experts. But her mood was incorrigibly exhilarated. She refused to admit the possibility that her love affair would begin and end in this horrible little room. Tactfully she refrained from further comments and reached for the blanket.
In order to remove it from the bed she had to shift the tray, which she had forgotten—as, apparently, had Schmidt. When she gave it a closer look she understood why he had not been concerned. There were no plates or utensils or bottles on it, only a pile of sandwiches and a plastic container of water. The tray itself was wood, too flimsy to serve as a bludgeon.
“They ate it all up,” she remarked, lifting the tray and pulling the blanket from under it.
“What?”
“The lovely meal the singing cook prepared. They must have eaten every scrap. All we got was ham sandwiches.”
Christian did not reply. His breathing consisted almost entirely of muttered expletives.
Dismembering the blanket was a much more difficult job than tearing the sheet. It was wool, hardened by innumerable washings into a consistency resembling felt. Elizabeth’s hands were sore before she had it in pieces, but when she finished fastening the strips together, the length looked promising. She watched Christian’s increasingly frenzied efforts for a few moments before she spoke.
“If worse comes to worst, you’ll have to go for help.”
“No.”
“They won’t come in here before morning. You’ll have plenty of time.”
“No.”
His hands were bleeding from dozens of tiny cuts where the tool had slipped. Elizabeth’s throat tightened. She had to clear it before she spoke.
“Give it a rest. It’s early yet. Why don’t you eat something?”
She thought Christian was going to hurl the infuriating instrument across the room, but he controlled himself. “Okay,” he said. “That’s a good idea.”
