Heroes by David Hagberg (reading cloud ebooks TXT) 📗

turned at the corner before the square. The town was alive. He could hear the sounds of laughter from the Hansa Haus, but there were no lights. It was another blackout.

He hurried around the square, then out the opposite direction from the railroad station. It was going to be complicated, coming back to her like this. She’d be thinking all sorts of things. But it would be less complicated if she hadn’t found the tickets. If somehow he could distract her and find them. He could say he just came back … to see her again.

Christ. He knew he was fantasizing. It was possible, though. It was even possible that the tickets weren’t there, after all. They could be lost in the snow. It wouldn’t matter then. No one would connect the tickets to him. At least not until it was too late. He could return to the station, buy another ticket, and be off.

The thought stopped him in his tracks. He looked back toward the square. It was tempting. Yet if the tickets were up in Maria’s apartment, he’d have to get them.

He hurried the last few blocks to the apartment, left his suitcase and radio in these shadows, then tramped up the stairs and knocked loudly on the door.

“Katrina,” he called. “It’s me. Edmund …” His voice died in his throat as the door opened and Rudy Schlechter stood there, smiling, a Luger in his right hand, the tickets in his other. He held them up.

“I believe you are looking for these?”

Without thinking it out, Deland batted the Luger out of Schlechter’s hand, and it hit the door frame and went sliding across the living room floor. He charged forward like a bull, knocking the unsuspecting German off his feet.

Deland got the briefest of images of Katrina and Maria by the kitchen door, but Schlechter had gotten his balance and was pounding his fists into the side of Deland’s neck and head.

Schlechter had more experience, but Deland was younger and much stronger so that he was able to roll over. He brought his right knee up into Schlechter’s groin.

The breath whooshed out of the German. Deland reared back and slammed a right hook into the man’s face, breaking his nose, blood gushing everywhere.

Still Schlechter would not give up. With a powerful thrust of his body, he managed to shove Deland aside; then they both went crashing into the coffee table.

Deland twisted around and managed to get his fingers around Schlechter’s throat. He began to squeeze, his powerful hands crushing Schlechter’s windpipe.

The German’s face began to turn blue as he continued to pummel Deland’s ribs with blows that quickly lost their strength.

Katrina and Maria were both screaming something, but Deland hung on, even after Schlechter’s body went limp. A few seconds later, the German shuddered, and then he lay totally still, his eyes open.

Slowly Deland ‘released his grip and got off the man. He started to get to his feet, when Maria snatched up the Luger and started to swing around.

Deland lunged toward her, the distance impossible, when Katrina raced out of the kitchen, holding a large butcher knife over her head.

“No,” Deland shouted, but it was too late. Katrina swung downward, her face screwed up in a grimace, and she buried the blade to the handle in Maria’s back.

The woman fell forward without a sound, and lay absolutely still.

Katrina stepped back. “Oh, my God,” she cried. “Oh, God … oh, what have I done?”

/* N Schey went back to the bedroom and looked at Montisier’s body. He had been a big man. Six feet or better, and something over two hundred pounds, with a gut.

“We’re going to have to get him out of here,” Eva said.

Schey turned to her. Their faces were inches apart. “How many people know that you two were … together?”

“In this building tonight or in the city?”

“Anywhere.”

“A lot of people. Hell, he told everyone we were going to get married.”

It was curious, Schey thought. But she didn’t seem worried about any of this. If anything, she seemed merely vexed, perhaps inconvenienced. “Were you and he … in love?”

“What do you take me for?” she said indignantly. “He was nothing but a big Palooka.”

“You’ll have to leave as well,” Schey said. “They’ll find his body sooner or later. And even if they don’t, you will be the first person the Missing Persons Bureau will ask questions of.”

She shook her head. “I knew this was going to come sooner or later. But it’s just been a big game to me, until now.” She looked at Schey. “I got nowhere to go.”

“Where you from?”

“Milwaukee. Jones Island, actually. My grandfather was a fisherman.”

“Go back there.”

She shook her head. “My name really is Eva Braun. If they start looking for me, they’ll trace me there easy,” she said.

“Besides, my folks and relatives are all dead or gone. There’s no one back there.”

“The Bund here in Washington?”

“Was dissolved more than a year ago,” she said. “Where the hell have you been? In isolation?” She shook her head again.

“I’ve got nowhere to go, except maybe South America.”

“How about back home … to Germany?”

She laughed. “We’re losing the war, in case you hadn’t heard.”

“You can’t stay here,” Schey said, raising his voice in frustration.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Eva said. She looked down at the body.

“Why’d you have to hit him, anyway? Why didn’t you stay in the closet like I told you?”

There was a nagging thought at the back of Schey’s mind. He didn’t want to dwell on it, but he knew he was going to have to deal with the issue now. She had seen his face. She knew him.

What’s more, she would be providing him with a new identification.

If and when she was picked up for the murder of Montisier, she might cave in. It was only a game to her, she had admitted.

“You’d better pack a bag,” he said.

She looked sharply at him. “Where am I supposed to go?”

“With me.”

“And where’s that?”

Schey bent down and flipped the big man’s topcoat