'Parfums illimites' was located in a small brick warehouse tucked between a watch and clock repair shop and a cheese factory, on the outskirts of Gipfelhaus.
From its back door one had a view of wide sloping pastures where in the warm months cows and goats grazed, and sheepdogs lazed around snapping at flying bugs. But now in late November the fields and roofs wore cloaks and caps of snow and one did not hear the tinkle of bells.
Johann Weizel was an old watchmaker whose eyes preferred the mechanics of feminine movement along the sidewalks of Paris, much preferred it, to the tiny gears and springs within the steel cases that offered only precision sans affection. Better was the precision of the poule in her brass bed with the rag mattress, her offer to kiss for an extra twenty francs. But to indulge his preference Johann needed money, more money than his trade could be expected to provide.
And so he became a 'silencieux,' a Silent One, a man who assisted the criminal element in whatever simple things were required for the completion of an enterprise, the sort of things that were too blase for the principle players to bother with, but which must be done.
Usually Johann was a link in a smuggling operation, or in selling rosewater and other cheap or bogus fragrances for large sums, which were then channeled back to the 'investors.' But his value included the fabricating of specialized weapons of non-explosive types. It was for this reason that Drake LeCourt went to see Johann on that clear windy morning of November 20th.
Drake parked his Bronco at one of the seven guest houses that bordered the pastures. The beauty of the scene with its Christmas card quaintness made no impression on him.
He had called ahead of time, and Johann was waiting for him at the top of the ramp by the truck dock, smoking a pipe. He had met Drake a week earlier, in the Deutsch Haus cafe near the highway to Sonnenhut. Johann had been as intrigued by the commission as he was pleased with the advance payment of 10,000 francs.
He shook hands with Drake and led him into the workroom with its big potbelly stove radiating a rustic warmth near the display table.
"It is a modified Cressi speargun," Johann said, picking up the weapon, "pneumatic, so you don't have to mess with elastic bands. More powerful, too, than bands. The ski pole fits... thus... and when fired has an effective range of ten meters. I have used the Volki Phantasmik pole, fixed length, aluminum. But of course you will want to use the type of pole that your target uses."
"Black Diamond, fixed length," Drake said, "unless she's changed her brand. I shall have to ascertain that."
"Hopefully it will not be the adjustable length type. Better to be fixed. Less chance of a miscarry. Whatever the pole type, I would not recommend a longer distance than ten meters. Five would be ideal. You will want to aim for the chest. The point will penetrate the heart if properly aimed. You may practice here for as long as you wish. Into the evening, if you like. I have an appointment with Herr Benz this afternoon, if he ever confirms it."
Drake handed him the packet of francs, the final payment, and took possession of the speargun. "Yes, I will need to practice," he said, tremendously excited by the prospect. As an afterthought he said, indifferently, "Francois is usually not delinquent with his return messages."
"That is so," remarked Johann, his concern tempered by the fat packet he slipped into his coat pocket. "Promptness and reliability are essential in his line of work, as with others. But I happen to know that he has a mistress in Zurich who is very demanding. I expect he will contact me soon. Now, let me show you the targets I have set up. One of them is a dummy attached to a cable. It slides down at a thirty degree angle, in swerves, simulating a skier. You say that your target is a good skier?"
"She won the blue ribbon at Sugarbush, in the Vermont amatuer championships, two years ago," Drake said with a strange sense of pride. "She will want to ski the extreme slope at Sonnenhut. There is a stand of pines midway down, not visible from the lift areas, neither at the top nor bottom."
"I see," said Johann, leading him into an add-on room, the windows covered in tar paper. "Here are the targets," he said with satisfaction. "I have coffee and brandy. Help yourself, my friend."
Fredrico Rolgo had a time-share apartment in the town of Dubendorf, not far from Zurich.
He nurtured a romantic interest in one of the teachers who taught at the Primarschule Dorf, across the street from the apartment complex, and so it was that he met with Sanguineus at midmorning of the 20th, for brunch in the nook by the balcony. The place was convenient for both of them, and for the surveillance expert as well, who drove up from Meilen with a printed copy of 'Femme la grand femme.'
Sanguineus had asked Tertia to go shopping for a couple hours, "So the adults can talk," he said.
She had snorted a laugh and punched his arm, but had no objections to a shopping spree. The euphoria of the night before, of the fierce lovemaking that he had subjected her to, and in which she had given as good as she got, stayed with her through the morning. Sanguineus, on the balcony, watched her drive away in the Land Rover, remembering her bite on his neck and her last gasping kiss, her head falling back on the pillow. They had a good sleep after that, in the Marriott that Benz once recommended.
Rolgo set a plate of roast beef sandwiches on the table, and four 1-liter bottles of Trois Dames fruit beer, with glass mugs. Sanguineus sat in the chair nearest the partly open door to the balcony so he could smoke a cheroot. Madeleine Woolf, the stout brunette he had met for the first time in Meilen, wrinkled her nose at him but aired no complaints.
"Did you like the story?" she asked, sniffing her mug of beer and smiling.
"I'm afraid it was a bit too factual," replied Sanguineus. "It was almost like a police report. You should have exchanged motor vehicles for horse-drawn carriages, and telegrams for phone calls. And the names you chose were too similar to the real ones."
Rolgo nodded, but said diplomatically, "Your points were well made, Madelaine, and I for one think that Prima's death was coincidental, a lucky stroke for LeCourt. But Secunda's death was almost certainly murder. Tertia is not being paranoid about her brother."
"Hmm," said Madelaine, "I think Prima was murdered, but I tried hard to be objective. A mugger breaks both of her ankles, which is not a common M.O. for muggers. Then she gets the gift of an electric wheelchair from the brother she had never seen before her injury. And then the wheelchair drives her off a cliff! Well okay, shit happens. The runaway wheelchair is not an unknown occurance, but this was the first time that a malfunctioning Blue Bolt motorized wheelchair has caused a fatality. I think it was rigged. What do you think, Mr Cruor?" she asked, using Sanguineus' surname.
"This is all about easing my conscience," he said drolly. "That being so, I agree it was premeditated murder. As for Secunda's death, passing out in the bathtub and drowning is an old trick. Pull up and back on the victim's legs so that she is dragged under the surface with an inrush of water up the nose, and she will pass out. And drown. The police just wanted to get out of an investigation that would probably not have won over the district attorney. It was a case too hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt."
"And too," said Madelaine, "Secunda was a drug addict and kleptomaniac. A jury would not have found her a sympathetic victim."
"About accomplices," said Rolgo, refilling his mug and handing the bottle to Sanguineus, "and associates, we can scratch Francois Benz. Tanya has been avenged. But we have... who else, besides the Napolitano clan from Italy?"
"Some Corsican thugs from the Unione, in Marseilles," said Madelaine, "who are connected with Bastio in central France. He is in some hot water from the Napolitano gang in the south. LeCourt made his contacts through a writer on L' Figaro newspaper, who was in a shady deal a few years ago with Maurice LeCourt, the father of our boy. But at present, now that the third hit, or the second, is ready to roll, I think it's just the old watchmaker, Weizel, and the Corsican thug, 'Iceman,' who are still active accomplices."
Rolgo arched his brows over his horn rim glasses and smiled at Sanguineus. "Well? Think the clock tinkerer is much of an obstacle?"
"Not him personally," Sanguineus said thoughtfully, lighting his cheroot. "But whatever it is that Weizel has supplied to Drake LeCourt will not be easy to recognize. It will be some sort of weapon or device that will facilitate an 'accident.' I'll have to be clever and quick to find out what it is." He blew a stream of smoke from his nostrils. "I'm hoping the Iceman, who is certain to be a stupid fuck, will inadvertantly lead me to it."
"That will depend on how close he stays to LeCourt, I suppose," said Madelaine. "He's there to watch LeCourt's back. Probably too dumb to be trusted with anything else."
"We'll see," said Sanguineus. "Care for a cheroot?" he asked her.
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