Read Online Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin - Free Book Online Page B

had injured it; chalky dust streaked the legs and shoulders of his expensive-looking gray suit.
    Hurrying to him, Döring said, “What’s up? What happened to you?”
    â€œIt’s you things are liable to happen to, not me!” Reichmeider said excitedly. “I’ve been stumbling through that building they’re demolishing, down the street in the next block. Listen, what’s-his- name , that fellow you told me about, the one who’s fooling around with your wife!”
    â€œSpringer,” Döring said, thoroughly puzzled but catching Reichmeider’s excitement. “Wilhelm Springer!”
    â€œI knew that was it!” Reichmeider exclaimed. “I knew I wasn’t mistaken! What luck that I just happened to—Listen, I’ll explain everything. I was coming along this street here, heading this way, and I had to take a leak, simply couldn’t hold it in. So when I came to the building, the one they’re demolishing, I went into the alley beside it; but it was too light there, so I found an opening in the doors they’ve got walling the place and slipped inside. I did what I had to, and just as I’m ready to come out again, two men come and stop right at the place where I came in. One calls the other one Springer”—he nodded his head slowly, affirmingly, as Döring drew breath—“and that one says to the first one things like, ‘He’s in the Lorelei right now, the old bastard.’ And, ‘We’ll beat the shit out of that fat prick.’ I knew Springer was the name you’d mentioned! That is your way home, isn’t it?”
    Döring, his eyes shut, breathed deeply and swallowed a portion of his fury. “Sometimes,” he whispered, and opened his eyes. “I go different ways.”
    â€œWell, they’re expecting you to go that way tonight. They’re waiting there, both of them, with sticks of some kind, caps pulled down over their eyes, collars turned up; exactly as you said last night, Springer planning to spring from an alley! I went through the building and found a way out on this side.”
    Döring pulled in another deep breath and clapped a hand gratefully to Reichmeider’s dusty shoulder. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you.”
    Smiling, Reichmeider said, “I’m sure you could lick both of them with one hand tied behind your back—the other fellow’s a skinny little nothing—but the wisest thing, of course, is simply to go home another way. I’ll go with you if you’d like. Unless, that is, you’d rather get rid of this Springer once and for all.”
    Questioningly, Döring looked at him.
    â€œIt’s a golden opportunity, really,” Reichmeider pointed out, “and he’ll only come at you another night if you don’t. It’s quite simple; you walk down there, they attack”—he glanced down at Döring’s coat and smiled skew-eyed at him—“and you let them have it. I’ll be a few steps behind, to serve as your witness, and in the unlikely event that they give you any real trouble”—he leaned close and pulled his lapel out to show a holstered gun-butt—“ I’ll take care of them and you’ll be my witness. Either way you’ll be rid of him, and the most you’ll have to pay is getting hit with a stick once or twice.”
    Döring stared at Reichmeider. He put his hand to his coat, pressed the hardness within. “My God,” he said wonderingly, “to actually use this thing!”
    Reichmeider unwrapped the handkerchief from his hand and blew at a bloody scrape on the back of it. “It’ll give that wife of yours something to think about,” he remarked.
    â€œMy God,” Döring exulted, “I hadn’t even thought of that! She’ll faint at my feet! ‘Oh say, Klara, do you remember Wilhelm Springer, Erich’s clarinet