Back from the Dead by Peter Leonard Read Free Book Online Page A

hard at work, and I see you have an apprentice.”
    “I still have an eye, is the hands that no longer function.” His arthritic knuckles looked like red grapes, swollen and painful. “My grandson is learning the profession.”
    The kid resumed his task, running the blade along the edge of a metal ruler.
    Leon Halip, with a heavy Hungarian accent, said, “You think I am out of the business, so why are you here?”
    “What name did you use on Ernst Hess’ passport?”
    “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
    The grandson glanced at Leon like he wanted to correct him, but didn’t say anything.
    “Interesting you can remember me from eight years ago, but not Ernst Hess from less than one month.”
    “It is impossible to remember something that did not happen, Herr Benz.”
    Zeller drew the Makarov from the side pocket of his leather jacket, aimed it at the kid. “Now you see I’m serious.”
    “You point a gun at my grandson. You don’t think I would tell you if I knew?”
    Zeller took the suppressor out of his coat pocket and screwed it on the end of the barrel.
    “Gerd Klaus,” the old man said.
    “You’re sure?”
    Leon Halip kept his eyes on Zeller and nodded.
    “When was he here?”
    “Twenty-eighth of September,” he said, pulling on the end of his mustache.
    “Where was he going?”
    “We don’t get involved beyond the papers. You should know that.”
    Zeller raised the Makarov and shot the boy first and then turned the gun on Halip and squeezed the trigger.
    “Klaus flew Stuttgart-London-Detroit the twenty-ninth of September, arriving in the morning of the thirtieth,” customs agent Fuhrman said by phone. “Five days later he took a flight from Detroit to West Palm Beach, arriving the fifth of October.”
    “Anything else?” Zeller said.
    “From what I can see that was the last commercial flight Herr Klaus has taken.”
    Zeller was now convinced that Hess leaving the country had nothing to do with the Der Spiegel article. He was going after the Holocaust survivors. Taking out the witnesses would dilute the prosecution’s case. That’s why he had not withdrawn or transferred any large sums of money. He had been planning to come back, but something had happened.

“We’ll stop here for lunch,” Brank said.
    The Hatteras was in turquoise water about five meters deep when they dropped anchor near a small deserted island with a white sand beach. Brank took off his shirt and folded it over the back of a chair on the aft deck. The blue shorts he was wearing were swim trunks. Brank raised bent arms, flexed his biceps and grinned. He was a hairy little ape wearing a gold chain with a gold horn on it, the mano cornuto, worn by superstitious Italians to ward off cuckoldry. And he was married to an erotic film star. It couldn’t have been more incongruous. Brank strode across the deck, climbed up on the transom, arced his arms and hands over his head, and dove into the ocean, swimming under water and then surfacing, floating on his back. “You’ve got to come in. It’s wonderful,” he said, kicking along the side of the yacht, grinning at Hess. Ernst was thinking he should fire up the engines and speed off with the erotic film star, leave Brank frolicking in the water.
    Brank swam for ten minutes, climbed back in the boat, sucked in his stomach, dried off with a towel and went inside. Denise came out and set the small round table on the aft deck. First she put down a white tablecloth and then brought out napkins and silver, plates of shrimp salad with sliced tomatoes and grapes, and a bowl of apples.
    The apples reminded Hess of shpil, a game the SS had played on the Jews of Miedzyrzec. He had been sent to Poland, arriving May 1, 1943. The next day all of the Jews in the Miedzyrzec Podlaski ghetto had been rounded up for deportation, and forced to squat in the marketplace for hours on a hot day. Hess thought of a way to relieve the boredom and entertain his men. He told guards to toss