Part 7 (1/2)

'Course you do. We all do. Wouldn't be human if we didn't. There are those who say that all crimes can be ascribed to one of two motives love or money but I don't believe that. In my experience, everything we do is predicated on one of two other things: greed or fear. Oh, sometimes they get mixed up, just like my brandy and milk, but mostly you can keep them separated. We feel greed for what we don't have, and fear because of what we might lose. A man desires a woman who isn't his wife, and takes her that's greed. But, deep down, he doesn't want his own wife to find out because he wants to keep what he has with her, because it's different, and safe. That's fear. You play the markets?'

'No.'

'You're wise. It's a racket. Buying and selling, they're just other names for greed and fear. I tell you, you understand that, and you understand all there is to know about human beings and the way the world works.'

He sipped his milk.

'Except, of course, that isn't all. Look at those pictures from the camps. You can see fear, and not just in the faces of the dying and the dead. Take a look at the men in uniform, the ones they say were responsible for what happened, and you'll see fear there too. Not so much fear of what might happen if they didn't follow orders. I don't hold with that as an excuse, and from what I've read the Germans understood that killing naked Jews and queers and gypsies wasn't for every man, and if you couldn't do it then they'd find someone who would, and send you off to shoot at someone who could shoot back.

'But there's still fear in those faces, no matter how well they try to hide it: fear of what will happen to them when the Russians or the Americans arrive and find out what they've done; fear of looking inside themselves to see what they've become; maybe even fear for their immortal souls. There will also be those who feel no fear of that at all, of course, because sometimes men and women do terrible things just because they gain pleasure from the act, but those ones are the exceptions, and exceptions make bad law. The rest, they just did what they did because they were told to do it and they couldn't see much reason not to, or because there was money in gold teeth and rendered human fat. I guess some of them did it out of ideology, but I don't have much time for ideologies either. They're just flags of convenience.'

The man's voice was very soft, and slightly, sibilant, and held a note of regret that most of the world could not see itself as clearly as he did, and this was his cross to bear.

'You hear that woman on the TV?' he continued. 'She's talking about evil, but throwing around the word ”evil” like it means something don't help anyone. Evil is the avoidance of responsibility. It doesn't explain. You might even say that it excuses. To see the real terror, the real darkness, you have to look at the actions of men, however awful they may appear, and call them human. When you can do that, then you'll understand.'

He coughed hard, spattering the milk with droplets of blood.

'You didn't answer my question from earlier,' he said.

'What question was that?' said Lenny.

'I just can't figure out how they know that those two old men are the ones they were looking for. I seen the pictures of the ones they say did all those things, the photographs from way back, and then I see those two old farts and I couldn't swear that it's the same men sixty, seventy years later. Jesus, you could show me a picture of my own father as a young man, and I wouldn't know him from the scarecrow he was when he died.'

'I think there was a paper trail of some kind,' said Lenny. To be honest, he didn't know how Engel and Fuhrmann had been traced. He didn't much care either. They had been found at last, and that was all that mattered. He just wanted this conversation to reach its end, but that was in the hands of the man at the bar. There was a purpose to his presence here, and all Lenny could do was wait for it to be revealed to him, and hope that he survived the adumbration.

'I can't even say that I've heard of the camps that they're supposed to have done all that killing in,' said the man. 'I mean, I heard of Auschwitz, and Dachau, and Bergen-Belsen. I suppose I could name some others, if I put my mind to it, but what's the place that Fuhrmann was at, or the one they claim is Fuhrmann? Ball Sack? Is that even a place?'

'Belsec,' said Lenny softly. 'It's called Belsec.'

'And the other?'

'Lubsko.'

'Well, you have been paying attention, I'll give you that. You had people there?'

'No, not there.'

'So it's not personal, then.'

Lenny had had enough. He killed the TV.

'I don't want you to mistake me,' said the man, not even commenting upon the sudden absence of light and sound from the screen. 'I got no problem with any race or creed: Jews, n.i.g.g.e.rs, spics, white folk, they're all the same to me. I do believe, though, that each race and creed ought to keep to itself. I don't think any one is better than the other, but trouble only comes when they mix. The South Africans, they had it right with apartheid, except they didn't have the common sense, the basic human f.u.c.king decency, to give every man the same privileges, the same rights. They thought white was superior to black, and that's not the case. G.o.d made all of us, and he didn't put one above another, no matter what some might say. Even your own folk, you're no more chosen than anyone else.'

Lenny made one final effort to save himself, to force this thing away. It was futile, but he had to try.

'I'd like you to leave now,' he said. 'I'm all done for the night. Have the drinks on me.'

But the man did not move. All this was only the prelude. The worst was yet to come. Lenny felt it. This creature had brought with him a miasma of darkness, of horror. Maybe a small chance still remained, a c.h.i.n.k in the wall that was closing in around him, through which he might escape. He could not show weakness, though. The drama would play out, and each would accept the role that had been given to him.

'I haven't finished my milk yet.'

'You can take it with you.'

'Nah, I think I'll drink it here. Wouldn't want it to spill.'

'I'm going to be closing up around you,' said Lenny. 'You'll have to excuse me.'

He moved to take the drawer from the register. Usually he counted the takings before he left, but on this occasion he'd leave that until the morning. He didn't want to give this man any cause to linger.

'I'm no charity case,' said the visitor. 'I'll pay my own way, just as I always have.'

He reached into his jacket pocket.

'Well, what do you think this is?'

Despite himself, Lenny found himself looking to see what had drawn the man's attention. He glimpsed something small and white, apparently drawn from the man's own pocket.

'Jesus, it's a tooth.' He p.r.o.nounced it 'toot'. He held the item in question up to the light, like a jeweler appraising a gemstone. 'Now where do you suppose that came from? It sure ain't one of mine.'

As if to put the issue beyond doubt, he manipulated his upper row of teeth with his tongue, and his dentures popped out into his left palm. The action caused his mouth to collapse in upon itself, rendering his appearance stranger still. He smiled, nodded at Lenny, and replaced his appliance. He then laid the single tooth on the surface of the bar. A length of reddish flesh adhered to the root.

'That's certainly something, isn't it?' he said.

Lenny backed off. He wondered if he could get away for long enough to call the cops. There was no gun on the premises, but the back office had a strong door and a good lock. He could seal himself inside and wait for the police to come. Even if he could make it to a phone, what would he tell the operator that a man had produced a tooth for his inspection? Last he heard, that wasn't a crime.

Except, except ...

Like a conjuror, the customer reached into his pocket again and produced a second tooth, then a third. Finally, he seemed to tire of the whole business, rummaged for a final time, and scattered a full mouth's worth of teeth on the bar. Some were without roots. At least one appeared to have broken during extraction. A lot of them were still stained with blood, or trailed tails of tissue.

'Who are you?' asked Lenny. 'What do you want from me?'

The gun appeared in the man's hand. Lenny didn't know from guns, but this one looked big and kind of old.

'You stay where you are now,' said the man. 'You hear me?'

Lenny nodded. He found his voice.

'We got next to nothing in the register,' he said. 'It's been quiet all day.'

'I look like a thief to you?'

He sounded genuinely offended.

'I don't know what you look like,' said Lenny, and he regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth.

'You got no manners,' said the man. 'You know that, you f.u.c.king kike?'