I Was Jack Mortimer (Pushkin Collection) by Alexander Lernet-Holenia Read Free Book Online

imagine that it could occur right in front of one’s eyes rather than behind the closed windows of a neighbour’s house, behind the locked door of an adjoining room, among casual passers-by in the street, or anywhere at all for that matter! It is in the nature of horror to remain hidden and for no one to discover it. Anything outrageous is generally so private that everyone involved tries to hide the fact, and it is only fortuitously that it ever comes to light. Who can ever be aware of all the awful things that happen? Least of all the police.
    He could be reported for careless driving across the Opera House junction, but that would be all, whereas to park here in this dark side street was perhaps the most reckless thing he’d done so far. Here, where without a doubt nothing happens from one year to the next, the police would patrol the neighbourhood most frequently. Surely no policeman would ever think of looking for crime in the open, in the glare of bright lights.
    Sponer turned on the engine, drove out of the side street, and crossed Siebensterngasse and Mariahilfer Strasse.
    The route he’d been driving with the dead man on board had now come full circle.

4
    H E DROVE DOWN GETREIDEMARKT , past the fish market and, just before he came to Wiedner Hauptstrasse, stopped in a kind of a passageway between newly erected trading stalls and shops.
    He got out and tried both the rear door handles.
    They were firmly locked.
    Then, leaning across the steering-wheel, he pushed shut the panels of the partition.
    The car was all right here, in a sort of semi-darkness—not where it was pitch black, which could arouse suspicion.
    He glanced at the car once more, went over to the corner of the street, turned, and found himself facing the brightly lit shops of Wiedner Hauptstrasse.
    Right there on the left was a slot-machine bar.
    He went in.
    It was a large, circular, dome-shaped room with slot machines around the perimeter and tables in the middle at which people were eating and drinking. 
    A radio was blaring.
    He walked past the machines and studied the labels.
    Over one of the taps was the inscription “Sherry”.
    He picked up a glass, held it under the tap, and inserted a coin in the slot.
    The interior emitted a hollow gurgling and spluttering sound, and sherry—somewhat unappetisingly, he thought—gushed from the metal tap into the glass.
    There are many people who don’t enjoy the luxury of having desert wines served up elegantly. Slot-machine bars are meant for the likes of them.
    He picked up the glass, turned and leant his back against the railing of the machine. He took a gulp and looked around.
    Next to him stood two girls seemingly perplexed in front of a fan-shaped, glass-covered carousel-type platter with sandwiches, so-called appetizers. Anything but, he thought. Did they want one?
    Evidently. They were carrying on as if they didn’t know what to do. They giggled and looked across as though expecting that Sponer would help them.
    One of them was slim with sharp features and brown wavy hair, neatly arranged under a hat.
    The memory of someone who had been adjusting her hair under her hat welled up in him—a lady in a dark suit with a fox fur slung over her shoulders, one foot delicately poised on the running board of his car, looking at herself in her mirror. He couldn’t see her face, he only caught aglimpse of it in the mirror. Large grey eyes gazed at him from under a short veil.
    When was that? Three days ago? He had a feeling it had been more like years.
    He emptied the glass, put it down, mumbled something and stared at the floor.
    The girls next to him laughed again.
    “You couldn’t show us,” he suddenly heard one of them ask, “how you… how you work one of these machines… What you have to do?…” And the two laughed again, teasingly.
    He raised his eyes. He hadn’t yet looked at the one who had just spoken. She was above average height, very pretty, with a strikingly pale complexion,