A Slow Death (Max Drescher Book 1) (27 page)

48

Max approached the doorway that was cut into the base of the water tower with a kind of sideways half-skip. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a group of youths ambling along in the distance. One of them was waving a bottle in the air while screeching out the chorus of “Another Day in Paradise” at the top of his voice, egged on by his mates. Absorbed in their musical soiree, none of the drunken revellers paid the policeman any heed.

At the door, he reached for the rusting handle. Gripping his fingers around the cool metal, he turned it slowly, listening intently for any noises coming from the other side.

Nothing.

Conscious only of the jackhammering of his heart, Max scanned the metal sign that had been bolted into the brickwork by the side of the door by the Works Department of the city council. Even with half its letters faded or missing, the message was clear:
DANGER. KEEP OUT. DANGER OF ACCIDENT OR DEATH. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.

Max gave the handle the gentlest of tugs, applying just enough pressure to confirm that it was still unlocked. Inching closer, he felt his right toes kick something metallic across the paving stones. Looking down, he noted a flimsy-looking metal padlock, alongside the broken links of a chain that had been sliced open by a pair of shears. Stepping back from the door, Max kicked the lock and chain fully into the shadow created where the curve of the water tower’s exterior wall drifted away from the streetlights. Trying to regulate his breathing, he reached for the Makarov, checked the clip and flicked off the safety before slipping inside.

Pulling the door firmly shut, he immediately left the familiar sights and sounds of the city behind. Holding his pistol at arm’s length, he took a moment to let his senses adjust to their new environment. While the almost total silence gave him no clues as to the location of his quarry, the darkness eventually relented sufficiently for him to make out his options. On either side, a narrow corridor ran away from the door, following the curve of the base of the tower. Directly in front, a wider passage ran along its diameter. Edging forward, his nostrils were assaulted by the distinct smells of damp, stale shit and ammonia. The latter was so strong it caused him to gag.
So much for ‘keep out’,
Max mused, wiping a tear from his eye.
Apart from anything else, this is obviously a lavatory for the local dossers.

From somewhere in the darkness, he thought he caught an indistinct sound.
Was that real, or did I imagine it?

Stepping briskly away from the stench, he felt the crunch of broken glass under his foot and froze.

Slow down. Take your time. Execute your plan and stop talking to yourself.

By now, his eyes were fully attuned to the darkness. Breathing through his mouth, Max inspected the corridor that ran through the centre of the building. Maybe three metres wide, he could make out six doors on either side. From somewhere deep in the recesses of his brain, he recalled that the ground floor had originally housed the tower workers’ accommodation. Each apartment had a small window looking on to the corridor. The glass in each had been long since smashed and various random, unsalvageable pieces of domestic detritus had been strewn across the concrete floor. Squinting hard, Max caught sight of what looked like the remains of a sewing machine lying on its side in one doorway. In another, a solitary workman’s boot stood next to a soot-filled frying pan.

From above his head came the sound of angry voices struggling to make their way through the ceiling. This time, Max was sure that they were real and not imagined.

Where were the stairs? Moving stealthily back to his entry point, he began following the curve of the outer wall of the tower in an anti-clockwise direction. After about twenty-five metres, Max came to a set of metal stairs leading to the first floor. Taking a firm grip of the handrail, he placed his right foot on the first step. He had been walking away from the argument, so wasn’t surprised that he could no longer hear any voices. That was no bad thing: if he couldn’t hear them, they couldn’t hear him. Even so, he crept up the stairs with exaggerated caution, silently lowering the sole of his shoe on to each step in turn.

Reaching the first floor, he found his way illuminated by a small rectangular window cut into the stone above his head. His right bicep began to twitch; the Makarov was now beginning to feel heavy in his hand and Max flexed his arm before moving on. Now he was basically moving back the way he had come, albeit one floor higher up. Moving quickly, he stepped into a large open space, filled with rusting machinery that looked like nothing so much as the insides of a giant clock. This was the machine room, from where the engineers would pump the water up to the massive storage tank, which was located near the top of the building.
No wonder this place didn’t make it past 1952,
Max thought.
It looks like a mad inventor’s wet dream. Every piece of machinery specially made to fit the available space.

As a desultory nod to the second half of the twentieth century, a series of strip lights hung from a metal grid that had been bolted to the ceiling. All of the tubes were either missing or smashed. Moving with exaggerated care, the Kriminalinspektor daintily picked his way towards a large electrical circuit board which was hanging precariously from a stone pillar in the middle of the room. As he moved forward, Max realised that he could make out the faint glimmer of artificial light coming from the far side of the building. Crouching down behind the pillar, he imagined he was looking at some kind of control room, with a door at one end and a long window giving a complete view of the machinery. Once again, the glass in all the windows had been broken, making it easier to pick out the shadows moving high on the back wall inside.

‘Got you,’ Max smiled. Positioning himself behind the pillar, he parked his backside in the dirt and ran through his next moves in his head. Despite the cold, a large, fat bead of sweat slowly made its way down his spine.
A large glass of Glen Els would hit the spot right now,
he mused, regretting the lack of foresight that had prevented him from slipping a quarter-bottle into his jacket pocket before setting off on the evening’s adventure. In the absence of any whisky, he made do with two long, deep breaths in order to clear his head. Then, with a gentle grunt, he pushed himself to his feet. Adopting a crouching position, he skirted round the pillar and began moving fast and low towards his target.

49

Pushing through the door, Max raised the Makarov in both hands, swung round to face the closest figure and fired once.

The Makarov wasn’t much of a weapon, but the explosion it sent rattling round the derelict room made Max grimace. In the soft focus of the shimmering light, Eichel went down with a satisfying yelp, clutching his left thigh with both hands as if his leg was about to fall off. Max watched as dark blood quickly soaked Eichel’s white chinos and began dripping over the by now familiar black holdall, which stood on the ground beside him.

‘You bastard,’ Eichel wailed, ‘you’ve shot me.’ He glanced over at the spectral figure, standing immobile in the shadows. ‘He’s fucking shot me.’

‘Yes, I have,’ Max said cheerily, ‘haven’t I?’

Eichel made an indistinct guttural noise as he lowered his back onto the concrete floor. With his eyes searching for heaven, he lifted his wounded leg into the air, in a desperate attempt to try and staunch the flow of blood.

Dancing over to the Kriminalkommissar, Max put a second bullet smack into the middle of his chest. Eichel’s body jerked backwards, leaving him spread-eagled on the concrete floor.

Conscious of the immense sense of wellbeing caused by the adrenalin cascading through his bloodstream, Max pirouetted around, bringing his gun to bear on the old guy standing in the shadows.

‘Arnold Kappel, I presume,’ he grinned.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ the old man demanded. Taking a step forward, he half-lifted the cane in his right hand, as if he was about to give the new arrival a damn good thrashing.

‘Max Drescher. I’m a cop.’

Kappel shook his head. ‘Another fucking cop.’

‘That’s right.’ Max gestured towards the body at his feet. ‘I’m a colleague of Eichel’s, here. At least I was, until a few seconds ago.’

Kappel pointed the cane towards the holdall. ‘The useless bastard’s still bleeding all over my bag. Move it.’

Keeping his gaze firmly on the old man, Max carefully grasped the handles with his free hand. Lifting it up, he made a show of feeling its weight. ‘It seems like the money’s all still there,’ he observed, tossing the bag towards the doorway. ‘Is that right?’

‘I didn’t get round to counting it,’ Kappel grunted.

‘I’m sure that Eichel wouldn’t try to rip you off.’

Kappel nodded. ‘Even he wasn’t
that
stupid.’

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘Unlike you.’

‘Oh no,’ Max frowned, ‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m not here to steal your money. There might be three million bucks in that bag, but it’s of no use to me.’

‘No?’ Now it was Kappel’s turn to frown. ‘How can that be possible? That’s a lot of money. The only thing limit on what you can do with it is your imagination.’

‘It’s of no use to me,’ Max repeated.

‘What are you here for, then?’ A thought popped into the old man’s head. Bouncing the tip of his cane on the concrete floor, he started wheezing with laughter. ‘You’re not going to try and arrest me, are you?’

‘It’s an idea.’ Max chewed on his bottom lip thoughtfully. ‘You want to give yourself up?’

By way of reply, Kappel raised the cane above his head and hurled it towards the Kriminalinspektor. Ducking to his right, Max felt it fly past his ear, before clattering against the metal frame of the shattered window.

The two men eyeballed each other, the hostility between them crackling like electricity.

‘If you try and take me in,’ Kappel said finally, ‘I will be back out on the street within three hours, maximum. And, by the time my feet hit the sidewalk, you, my friend, will be a corpse. Your useless carcass will already be beginning to rot.’

‘Impressive,’ Max nodded. ‘But who will you get to do the deed? This isn’t your city. And your boy Kooy is dead.’

‘So what? Kooy is completely replaceable. There are plenty of people who can step into his shoes. Hundreds of them. And cheaper too. The Dutch are expensive; and so opinionated! Go to Moscow or Kiev, Bucharest. Even here in Berlin. Everywhere you look, there is no shortage of professional, trained men in search of work. That is the great thing about the Wall coming down, the collapse of Communism – the opportunities are immense. Europe is going to be one big market for us.’

‘For criminals,’ Max scoffed.

‘It’s basic capitalism,’ the old man shrugged. ‘Everyone wants to do business,
my
kind of business. For men and women who want to work hard, earn some money and make something of themselves, this is a great time.’ He paused, adopting a rueful grin before adding: ‘If you’re a cop, however, it’s maybe not such a great time.’

‘Oh, I dunno.’ Max waved the gun in the air. ‘From where I’m standing right now, things don’t look so bad.’

‘Don’t be an idiot. You have one chance and one chance only. Walk out of here, right now. Leave me. Leave the money. Don’t look back. Find the nearest bar, have a few drinks. Make a night of it. Go and get yourself laid. Whatever’s your thing; just make sure that you forget you were ever here.’ Kappel gestured towards Eichel’s lifeless body. ‘Forget you killed a brother officer in cold blood. Let him be just one more unsolved murder in this wretched city.’

‘They all get solved in the end.’

‘Do they? Do they really? Well this one can be the exception that proves the rule.’ Kappel pointed towards the door. ‘Get out of here. Otherwise, by this time tomorrow, you will be flat on your back with a bullet in your brain.’

Max shook his head. ‘I’m sick of people calling me a dead man.’

Kappel spread his arms wide in a
It’s a tough life
gesture. ‘But that’s what you are. We all are. All that’s up to you is how quickly you die. Are you tired of living already? Surely you want to die slow, Mr Policeman? There’s no rush; everyone wants to die slowly. Very slowly. One day at a time.’

‘We’ll see.’ Careful to keep the Makarov trained on Kappel, Max squatted down and began rifling through Eichel’s pockets. After taking the Kriminalkommissar’s department issue Heckler & Koch HK4, Max was relieved to recover his own service weapon, the Beretta he had surrendered in the alley in Turmstraße.

‘Two guns,’ Kappel said drily. ‘It looks like your friend came well prepared … if not quite well prepared enough.’

Max stuffed the Beretta into his jacket pocket. ‘He wasn’t my friend.’ Cocking the HK4, he trained it on the old man, before carefully placing the Russian pistol on the middle of Eichel’s chest.

‘What? Are you going to try and frame me for his murder?’

‘Nope,’ Max grunted.

‘So, what, you think you can make it look like a suicide?’

That’s not the plan, either.
Max listened to his knees click alarmingly as he stood up. Switching the HK4 into his right hand, he let his finger slowly tighten around the trigger.

‘The police won’t buy it,’ Kappel scoffed.

‘I
am
the police.’ 

‘Not for long.’

That’s right. For about another seventy-two hours to be exact.
‘Long enough.’ On the brink of giving the HK4’s trigger a final squeeze, Max was distracted by a low moan coming from a hidden corner. Careful to keep one eye on Kappel, he peered into the darkness. ‘Who’s there?’

‘That’s Carolina Barbolini,’ Kappel muttered, ‘Volkan Cin’s partner in crime and supposed leader of the hopeless organisation that almost lost my damn money.’

Max ignored the old man’s moans. ‘Come out, where I can see you,’ he demanded.

All he got by way of response was another moan.

‘Move.’

‘She can’t,’ Kappel chuckled, ‘she’s handcuffed to a radiator.’

‘She’s been demoted then?’ Max wondered where this left his plan. He hadn’t counted on anyone other than Eichel or Kappel being present at the handover of the cash. What should he do with her?

‘The stupid bitch thought she could
negotiate
with me.’ Kappel shook his head at such unbridled impudence. ‘Now that I’ve finally got my money back, maybe you can do me a favour and shoot her, too. It’s about time that she finally caught up with her father.’

‘You first, I think.’ Max jerked back the trigger but his aim was poor, hitting the old man in the shoulder and throwing him against a brick wall.

‘Argh! You damn fool.’ Slumping backwards, Kappel reached inside his jacket as he slowly slid down the brick wall behind him.

Not waiting to see what type of weapon the old man might be carrying, Max quickly stepped forward and put two shots into his head.

‘That’s for Carl Beerfeldt’s kids,’ he hissed.