The Devil's Opera(157)
Gotthilf made notes.
“Thanks, Doc,” Byron said.
The doctor began directing his assistants to pick up the bodies. Byron turned to the waiting patrolman. “What do you have, Friedrich?”
The patrolman pointed across the street. “The two shopkeepers there say they saw everything. These three men tried to attack an old guy with a cane, but somehow the guy with the cane hammered them instead. They said it didn’t last very long.”
Gotthilf saw something on the corpse as it was carried by. He stopped the medical examiner’s assistants and reached over to turn the head of the corpse so he could see the temple area better.
Dr. Schlegel moved up on the other side of the litter, and Gotthilf felt Byron step up beside him. The doctor reached down and touched the indentation of the skull that had caught Gotthilf’s attention.
“Blunt force trauma, I believe your up-time doctors would call it, Lieutenant,” the doctor said. “I’ll determine if it is pre- or post-mortem in my examination.”
The assistants moved on.
“Metzger?” Gotthilf asked.
“Almost got to be,” Byron responded. “Like the doc said, this was done by someone who knew what he was doing, and if there is anyone in town who knows how to deal out punishment, it’s Hans Metzger. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
The up-timer turned to the police photographer, who had just finished packing up his gear. “Nathaniel, as soon as you can, get some prints of those men done. I want someone to take them to the warehouse of Andreas Schardius and see if anyone recognizes them.”
“Right, Lieutenant. I’ll see to it.”
Byron resumed rocking on his feet, whistling softly. After a little bit of that, Gotthilf said, “So what are you thinking?”
His partner looked around. “I’m thinking that now we know why Hans Metzger left.”
Gotthilf raised his eyebrows.
“He’s bait.”
Chapter 60
Hans turned his head to see two of the Schardius warehouse crew ducking under the doorway. He set the walking stick on top of Veit’s counter and straightened to his full height. One of the warehousemen spotted him and nudged the other. They circled around him.
“Hans?” Veit’s voice held a strong note of concern in it. “What is going on?”
“You’ll find out in a minute,” Hans murmured as he turned to track the movements of the warehousemen. “I suggest you duck right now, though.”
The two warehousemen were standing about ten feet apart. They had said nothing since they walked in. That was all right with Hans; he really had nothing to say to them anyway.
One looked at the other, then back at Hans. He waited, and predictably the two men tried to rush him at the same time. He heard Veit hit the floor behind the counter. At the last split-second Hans stepped to one side. One of the men blundered by him into the board on trestles that Veit used as a counter, knocking it over. Veit yelped as the board landed on him, then yelled in earnest as the assailant landed on top of the board.
Hans cursed as his walking stick went flying, even as he kicked the other warehouseman in the side of his knee. There was a snap, and the man fell to the floor screaming with his left leg bent in a direction it wasn’t supposed to bend. He immediately forgot Hans and clutched his knee, curses pouring from his lips alternately with moans.
Hans pivoted to find the other assailant trying to get to his feet. This effort was impeded more than a little because Veit was squirming for all he was worth, yelling at the top of his lungs as he tried to get out from under the counter.
Wasting no time and no breath, Hans grabbed the assailant by the collar and back of his jacket. With one step and a twist of his powerful body, ignoring the sudden sharp pain in his ribs, Hans swung the man in a semi-circle and launched him into the nearest wall. Then he picked up a nearby chair by its back and slammed it across the head and upper shoulders of the assailant, who dropped instantly to sprawl across a nearby tabletop. From the looks of his head and neck, if he wasn’t dead at that moment, he would be soon.
The hard oak of the chair was still intact when Hans dropped it and turned back to the other man, who had struggled to sit up and was rocking back and forth holding his knee, tears trickling down his cheeks as he moaned.
“Wh…why?” the wounded man stammered. “We’re just supposed to take you to the boss.”
“Sorry, Max,” Hans said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I don’t work for the boss anymore.” He considered the man for a moment, and decided there was no need to inflict any further damage on him. From the looks of that leg, Max wouldn’t be walking for weeks—and would probably walk with a limp thereafter.