THEY ALL SAT STILL, SAYING NOTHING FOR a long moment. Then Dino seemed to realize that the man was speaking, and that, moreover, he was talking.
Stone got out the first question. “Herr Mitteldorfer?” he said.
The man looked at him and laughed. “Nein,” he replied. “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
“Not really,” Stone said. “Your name is Mitteldorfer, though, isn’t it?”
“No,” the man replied.
“Then what is your name?”
“You are not needing to know,” he said. His accent was thickly German.
“But you are his son, aren’t you?”
The man smiled but said nothing.
Dino took charge; he shoved the pad back to the suspect. “Write down the names of the people you killed.”
“I am not knowing all these names.”
“Write down the ones you know.”
The man began writing, then stopped and read aloud from the pad. “The secretary – I am not knowing the name; the Hirsch lady, naked with the machine – ah, the cleaner.”
“The vacuum cleaner,” Dino said.
“Ja. Yes.” He continued. “Fräulein Enzberg; the man of the door on Fifth Avenue and the policeman; and the lawyer, Herr Goldschmidt.”
“Goldsmith.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you kill Fraulein Enzberg?”
The man shrugged.
“Surely, she was Mitteldorfer’s friend; why would he want her dead?”
“Who is this Mitteldorfer you keep saying?” the man asked, smiling a little.
“You know perfectly well who he is,” Dino said.
“He’s your father,” Stone interjected.
“I am orphan,” the man said, smiling.
There was another German name Stone could try, but he couldn’t remember it.
Andy Anderson spoke up. “Why did you kill Susan Bean?” he asked.
The man looked genuinely puzzled. “Bean? This is a person?”
“The woman in the penthouse apartment in the East Sixties,” Anderson said. “You followed Mr. Barrington there and killed her when he went out. Why did you kill her?”
“I am not knowing about this,” the man said.
Stone remembered the name. “Herr Hausman,” he said, “are you telling us you don’t know who Susan Bean is?”
The man turned and looked at Stone, exasperated. “I am not knowing…”
He stopped.
“Hausman is your name, isn’t it?” Stone asked.
The man shrugged.
“Your Christian name is Ernst, isn’t it?”
The man laughed.
“I got it,” Dino said. “The nephew in Hamburg, the one who works at the cigarette factory.”
The suspect shook his head. “No,” he said. “Ernst is being in Hamburg still.”
“And your mother is still in Hamburg, isn’t she?” Stone asked.
The man turned and glared at Stone but said nothing.
“Let’s get back to Susan Bean,” Anderson said. He read out her address from his notebook. “You were at this address?”
“No,” the man said. “I am not knowing this place.”
Stone took the legal pad from the table, tore off a sheet of paper, and wrote on it. “Check to see if Ernst Hausman is still in Hamburg. Find out his address and his mother’s name. Find out if there are any siblings.” He handed it to Dino, who looked at it, then handed it to Anderson. Anderson left the room.
“I don’t understand,” Dino said. “You’ve admitted killing all these people, but you deny killing Susan Bean. Why?”
“You must be listening better,” the man replied. “I am not knowing this lady.”
Anderson returned to the room. “It’s being done,” he said, handing Dino a note.
Dino read it and handed it to Stone.
Stone read it aloud. “No fingerprint record in this country. Have sent request to Interpol.”
“How long have you been in this country?” Dino asked.
The man shrugged. “Few weeks, I think.”
“Did you enter the country legally?”
“Oh, yes,” the man said. “I am being very legal always.”
“Except when you are killing people.”
“Except at this time.” He smiled.
“You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?” Dino asked.
The man shrugged.
“Let me acquaint you with a point of the law in the state of New York,” Dino said. “We have the death penalty here. You understand the death penalty?”
The man shrugged and said nothing.
“They take a needle,” Dino said, pointing at his arm, “and put it here, in the vein. That’s all; lights out; kaput.”
“In Deutschland is being no death,” the man said. “Deutschland is being civilized.”
“Well, here, we’re still barbarians, I guess,” Dino replied.” Here we still put murderers to death, and you are a murderer. You have confessed to killing seven people.”
“Six only,” the man said. “Not this lady Bean.”
“Bad news,” Dino said. “Six is enough for the death penalty, the needle. Of course, before that happens, you’ll spend many years in a small cell, talking to nobody. We have prisons like that in this country. Dangerous people like you are put into special cells where they see nobody, talk to nobody for twenty-three hours a day. One hour a day, you get to exercise alone. Once a week, you get to shower. Then, after a few years, when you’re already crazy from being alone, they take you to a little room and they put the needle in your arm, you understand?”
The man said nothing, but his face had become grim.
“Now,” Dino said, “maybe there is a way for you to live. You see, we know that you did these murders because Mitteldorfer wanted you to. You had nothing against these people, right? Maybe Mitteldorfer made you kill them. If you tell us about that, if you testify to that in court, then maybe we can ask the district attorney not to go for the death penalty.”
“But I am being in the place alone?” the man said. “I am not speaking to any person? I am not seeing any person?”
“Maybe,” Dino said. “If you’re real helpful, maybe we can make that better, too.”
“I am not believing you,” the man said. “You will be putting me in this room all the time.”
“I’m offering you a deal,” Dino said. “You understand deal?”
“No.”
“You help me, I help you.”
“How am I helping you?”
“You tell me where to find Mitteldorfer. You tell me why Mitteldorfer wanted these people dead. You say this in a court of law.”
The man shook his head. “If you are not killing me, he is killing me.”
“No,” Dino said. “We will protect you from Mitteldorfer.”
To Stone’s astonishment, the man began to cry.
Dino gaped at him, startled.
The man stood up. “I must have toilet,” he said.
“Later,” Dino replied.
The man began unzipping his fly.
“All right, all right,” Dino said. He handcuffed the man with his hands in front of him, so that he could use the toilet. “Let’s go,” he said.
Stone followed the two into the hallway outside the interrogation room. It was a narrow hallway, and momentarily crowded. Dino held the man against the wall to allow two police officers to pass.
Stone saw it coming and opened his mouth to yell, but too late. The man reached out and plucked the pistol from an officer’s belt, elbowed Dino out of the way, and pointed the weapon at Stone.
“Gun!” Stone yelled, diving for the floor. From behind him he heard two shots, and he looked up to see the suspect fall to the floor beside him. A good part of his head was missing. Stone looked back down the hallway. Andy Anderson was still in a combat crouch, with his weapon pointed at the dead man.
“Oh, shit!” Dino said.