The pups had been freed from the kennel and were playing with the boys in front of the fireplace. Max, lying next to Castillo, was whining because the moment he moved, Mädchen’s teeth told him that he was not welcome to join in the fun.
There was the clunking sound of the elevator car rising, then its doors opening.
“Are they likely to soil the carpet?” Helena inquired of Castillo.
“Unless you get some newspapers on it, they certainly will,” Eric Kocian announced as he walked from the elevator toward the dogs.
Otto Görner and Sándor Tor followed him off the elevator.
“Otto, darling,” Helena greeted him, her tone somewhat less than warm. “I was thinking I’d make a place for the dogs in the stable.”
“That won’t work, Helena,” Kocian said. “It’d be too cold for the pups in the stable. Mädchen and the pups will be in my room. For the time being, I suggest newspaper—appropriately, considering Karlchen’s recent plagiaristic writings therein.”
He squatted beside Mädchen and scratched her ears.
“Sándor,” Kocian called. “Be a good fellow and get me a little Slivovitz from the bar, will you, please?”
He held his hand over his head, his thumb and index fingers at least three inches apart to indicate his idea of a little sip of the 120-proof Hungarian plum brandy.
Then he stood and turned to Castillo. “I am after the numbing effect, not the taste.”
“It was bad in Wetzlar?” Castillo asked.
“That qualifies as an understatement, Karlchen,” Kocian said. He exhaled audibly, then went on, measuring his words, “As does this: I want to get the Gottverdammt sonsofbitches—”
“Eric, the children!” Helena protested.
Kocian flashed her an icy look, then went on: “... who did this to Günther Friedler and his family. And the Tages Zeitung newspapers will do whatever we can toward that objective. Starting with doubling that reward to a hundred thousand euros.” He took a sip of Slivovitz, then added, “And—if I have to say this—by providing our Karlchen-the-intelligence-officer and his friends with whatever we have in the files that might help them to find these bastards.”
“Eric, the children shouldn’t hear this!” Helena said, moving toward the boys, presumably to usher them out of earshot.
“They can read; they’ve seen the newspapers,” Kocian said. “And so far as Helena’s concern with my language, I remember you, Otto, and Willi teaching Karlchen all the dirty words when he was a lot younger than your two boys.”
Sándor Tor handed Kocian a water glass three-quarters full with a clear liquid. He raised it to his lips and drank half.
He looked at Helena.
“I was led to believe there would be something to eat when we got here.”
She flushed and then walked quickly out of the room.
Otto looked uncomfortable.
And so did everybody else in the room. Including Willi and Hermann.
Castillo thought: You can’t honestly say there’s no excuse for Billy’s behavior. There is. He obviously regards Friedler’s murder as far more than the loss of a faithful employee under sordid circumstances. There was an emotional relationship between the two—maybe even father and son-like—but whatever it was, it was apparently a lot closer than anyone, maybe even Otto, suspected.
Maybe Billy started out blaming Otto for putting Friedler on the story, knowing it was dangerous. But Billy has had plenty of time to think that through, time to conclude that maybe Otto didn’t know that Friedler was in the line of fire.
And if Otto didn’t, the blame for that was not Otto’s; it was his.
And now Billy knows it, and that hurts.
Otto has known the pecking order around Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., from the time he came here. He wasn’t in on Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., from the beginning; Billy was.
Even as a kid I knew that order: Grandpa—the Herr Oberst—was Lord and Master of all he surveyed. Then came Onkel Billy, Tier Two. Then Onkel Willi, Tier Three. And finally Otto, Tier Four.
Otto might’ve jumped to the top after Onkel Willi went off the bridge with Grandpa. But Grandpa’s will hadn’t left him much money—and not a single share of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H. And my mother didn’t marry him.
And since she didn’t have a clue on how to run the business, she turned to Uncle Billy, who not only knew how to run it but owned a quarter-share of it.
And the wisdom of that was confirmed when my other grandpa got in the act when my mother died. Otto moved into the Herr Oberst’s office, took on the titles and ran things—and was paid damned well for it. But Don Fernando’s bimonthly trips to Vienna and Billy’s bimonthly trips to San Antonio or Midland had nothing to do with Grandpa having discovered Wiener schnitzel or Billy having a new-found interest in the Wild West.
Grandpa controlled my three-quarter interest in the firm, and he and Billy decided between them that Otto, with the proper guidance, was well qualified to run the firm. And that they—with every right to do so—would provide that guidance to Otto.
It worked out well, and certainly a lot of the credit for its success goes to Otto. He’s paid an enormous salary and has a lot of perks. But the bottom line is that he doesn’t own any of Gossinger.
Billy and I own all of it.
Including this house.
I guess I should have gone into that when I was delivering the soap opera scenario in the car on the way here. The explanation would have helped to avoid the unease the others are feeling.
But I didn’t, and it’s too late now with Otto here.
There is, of course, a silver lining for me in the black cloud of Billy’s embarrassingly bad manners. He gave me what I so far hadn’t worked up the courage to ask him for: “The Tages Zeitung newspapers will do whatever we can toward that objective. Starting with doubling that reward to a hundred thousand euros. And—if I have to say this—by providing our Karlchen-the-intelligence-officer and his friends with whatever we have in the files that might help them to find these bastards.”
Kocian drained his glass of Slivovitz and looked around for Sándor Tor, who was nowhere in sight—probably taking Billy’s luggage to his room, Castillo decided—and then, muttering, headed for the bar, which was actually an enormous antique sideboard, obviously intending to get a refill.
Castillo got up and followed him.
“Easy on the sauce, Billy,” Castillo said softly.
Kocian raised one bushy, snow-white eyebrow.
“What did you say?”
“I said go easy on the Slivovitz.”
“You don’t dare tell me what to do, Karlchen!”
“I don’t like her any more than you do, Billy, but we don’t need to humiliate her, or Otto, and make everybody else uncomfortable. Including Hermann and Willi.”
“Go fuck yourself, Karlchen!”
Castillo shrugged.
“Suit yourself,” he said. “I know better than to argue with an old drunk wallowing in self-pity.”
“Self-pity? You arrogant little ...”
By then Castillo was halfway back to his chair.
That was not one of my smartest moves, Charley thought as he went.