Stardust(190)
“And then had someone waiting.”
“Another strong head, it turns out. But here we are. So. Did you tell Polly?” He tilted his head. “Or are you just trying to buy time. Waiting for the marshal.”
“No marshal. Just us. But you don’t want to kill me here.”
“No?”
“Carl has orders not to open the gate. My orders. So it would be a lot easier to have me drive you off the lot.” Picked up by Henderson’s tail. “You don’t want anyone finding bodies lying around.”
“More Kino,” Dieter said, almost sneering. “And then the fight and you save yourself. Not with that fist anyway.” He nodded to Ben’s hand.
“You won’t get through the gate.”
“Change the orders. Call.” He jerked his head toward the phone behind Ben.
“What if—?”
“There are no what-ifs. Say one thing wrong and I’ll put a bullet in your head. Mine, too, if I have to. So it ends here. No need to explain anything.”
Ben looked at him, thrown. “Why?”
“Make the call.”
“You’d kill yourself? You can’t really believe in it anymore. Not after everything.”
“I did believe in it. So that’s something. You don’t—betray that.”
“Just your own people. And kill them. What did that feel like, killing Danny? All those years.”
“It will be easier to kill you. You wouldn’t keep out of this. Daniel—” He stopped. “I don’t know why he changed. ‘I won’t do that to my country.’ Foolishness. What country? We don’t have a country.”
“Not Russia?”
“Russia,” he said, a hint of scorn. “No, no country. The future. The rest is—politics. They want to scare themselves to death here. Look under your bed, what do you see? A Communist? No! So give the fools a few Communists. But not the weapons. You don’t give weapons to children. You can’t put guns in their hands.”
“Just yours.” He looked at Dieter, suddenly weary, something seeping out of him with the blood. “Do you listen to yourself anymore? The future.” He shook his head. “It was a mistake. You wasted your life on a mistake. Like my father.”
Dieter stared back, surprised, as if he’d been struck.
“And Danny.”
Dieter said nothing for a moment, then motioned the gun toward the phone. “Make the call. Slow steps. Not too fast.”
Ben turned, feeling Dieter following behind. A fire alarm lever he could pull, but that would be a suicide move, the bullet in his back before the lever was down. Overhead light switch, but not the master switch, a fuse box farther away. The phone itself, some kind of coded message out? But Dieter had already thought of that, reaching around to pick up the receiver himself, the gun close to Ben. He asked the switchboard for the front gate, then handed the phone to Ben.
“Carl? Mr. Kohler,” he said, a name all the émigrés still thought he used. “You can open the gate again.” But would Carl hear the name change or simply recognize the voice and move on? “Sorry for the inconvenience,” Ben said, but Dieter was waving him to finish and hang up, and Carl didn’t reply.
“Over there,” Dieter said, indicating the stage door, the smaller one people used, not the huge sliding wall for the sets, activated by a button switch.
“You can’t hide a body in here,” Ben said.
Dieter pointed to one of the large black storage cases stacked by the wall. “Move the light out of the way.” A flood lamp, heavy.
Lights. He looked back to the nightclub set, the floods already set up, spotlights hanging in rows from the high rigging, a boom set up for a mike, the camera at the top of the ramp, pointed down toward the dance floor. Lights, camera, action. A phrase he’d never actually heard on set. All right, people, let’s go. Okay, Jimmy? Action. But never the full phrase. Why was he even thinking about this? A case big enough for a body. Do something. He’s going to kill you. Lights. Already connected, ready to go tomorrow. Action.
He flicked the switch on the lamp, swerving to face Dieter, a blinding light in his eyes, like a flashbulb that kept going, so that he raised his arm against it. An automatic response, a second, enough to let Ben duck and roll away to his right, into the set, hidden by one of the tablecloths.
“Don’t be stupid,” Dieter yelled, but the flash had disoriented him. He headed toward the door, the logical place for Ben to have gone. Ben moved farther into the set, a kind of desperate table hopping, until he was under the platform for the band, then out behind, moving slowly counterclockwise. Lath and plaster. Dieter moved over to the flood lamp, still bright, and tilted it down, beginning to search the tables, a lighthouse sweep to the bar.