A Deadly Dealer Read online

  A Deadly Dealer

  by J. B. Stanley

  For my husband, Tim, with love

  I’m your biggest fan

  “There is a group of walking sticks called gadget canes . . . They have existed from time immemorial, ever since man has tried to conceal something in his stick to give him an advantage over an unsuspecting fellow man (weapon cane), or to smuggle something in or out of the country, or to ease the carrying of more than one item at the same time (tradesmen’s cane).”

  Francis H. Monek, Canes Through the Ages

  A village west of Dusseldorf, Prussia, 1805

  Heinrich listened in rapt attention as the village’s new minister spoke the words of the Scripture. The man had astounded them when he had arrived just after dawn, walking up the dirt track and calling for all to wake and attend a sunrise worship service. The stranger’s commanding voice had stirred the groggy into wakefulness, and the rhythmic clanging of the hand bell he carried easily echoed throughout the whole of the tiny village.

  Once a crowd had gathered outside the church, the stranger introduced himself as Pastor Francke and solemnly announced that he had been sent as a replacement for the recently deceased Pastor Klein. Their former minister, who had fallen gravely ill a fortnight prior and had never regained consciousness, had been a kind and gentle soul with a skill for healing. It had been weeks since the peasants had attended a worship service and few noted the difference in routine; they were poor farmers and simple tradesmen whose main concern was the endless whining of their hungry bellies. However, unlearned as they were, the villagers recognized a figure of authority when they saw one and mumbled nervously to one another as they took their seats inside the church.

  Unlike their previous spiritual leader, Pastor Francke was young and sturdy and spoke with a firmness that unnerved most of the villagers. After his parishioners had all warily settled into seats, he demanded silence and then declared his intention to bring his wayward flock closer to God’s grace through toil, sacrifice, and long hours of prayer.

  The only person out of the congregation who seemed satisfied by the new minister was Heinrich the Smith. He was pleased to listen to a youthful voice filled with such boldness and strength. Heinrich agreed that his fellow villagers needed to be taught a few lessons in obedience and felt that he had found a brother in Pastor Francke, as Heinrich was an angry man with a propensity for bullying the weak. He savored the biblical passages about revenge or bloodshed as a child relishes a fresh honey cake. Heinrich fixed his gaze upon the flickering candles on the altar and listened as Pastor Francke stared down from the pulpit and practically shouted at the villagers.

  “The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Perform a miracle,’ then say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh, and it will become a snake.’ So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.

  Yet Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the LORD had said.” Heinrich looked over at his wife, Gerta, but she was sitting demurely with her eyes cast downward, focusing intently on the lap of her brown homespun skirt. Heinrich felt his ire rising. He clenched his fists into tight, bloodless knots. Gerta was deliberately avoiding the lustful looks of her lover, Jacob the Miller, who sat across the aisle from them. Heinrich was no fool. He had seen the couple steal off into the woods together early yester morn. Gerta carried a pile of clothes to wash against the rocks, but Jacob had followed her empty-handed, without even bothering to pretend that he had some genuine errand at the stream.

  Heinrich had hobbled after them, his Hazelwood cane supporting the weight of his twisted right leg. When he was a boy, Heinrich had been trampled by a horse as his father tried to shoe the frightened beast. After many weeks in bed, Heinrich was finally able to stand, but he could not walk without a crutch. One day, his father took him into the forest and showed him how to cut a long branch from the Hazelwood tree. They cut the limb below the trunk and down into the dirt so that the gnarled and fistlike root clump was still attached. After boiling the wood for an entire day, the bark came off in feathery strips and Heinrich was given a small knife with which to carve out a handle from the root clump.

  Throughout the winter he perfected the artistry of his first cane, delighted to discover that he was a natural woodworker. He carved an incredibly realistic horse head out of the root ball, boring holes for the eyes, which he later filled with two matched, white pebbles from the streambed. The white eyes made the horse look crazed. One half-expected froth to bubble from between the beast’s wooden lips.

  Lastly, after Heinrich had sanded the shaft with fish skin until it was as smooth as rabbit fur and gleamed with inner life in the firelight, he began to use it on the other boys in the village.

  It was with this cane that Heinrich learned how to command respect. If the boys called him a cripple, he lay in wait for them behind a tree in the forest or one of the village’s crude huts and then lashed at them repeatedly with his cane.

  His prey could only hope to escape Heinrich’s wrath by running away, but Heinrich never forgot a slight and was infinitely patient when it came to seeking revenge. Soon, the village children learned not to taunt him. He became a loner, but this suited him. At night, after working for his father, he would polish his horse-head cane and whisper to it intimately until even his parents were spooked by their own progeny.

  As a man, Heinrich continued to make canes. When Napoleon’s armies invaded the Rhineland and threatened to burn Heinrich’s smithy along with the rest of the town’s structures, he quickly offered the officer in charge a splendid cane with a dagger hidden within its shaft and a proud hunting hound carved into the handle. The Frenchman, who had an entire pack of hounds back on his estate, was immediately stricken with homesickness and not only spared Heinrich’s hut in exchange for the gift, but allowed the entire village to remain unsullied by his soldiers.

  Begrudgingly, the villagers proclaimed Heinrich a hero and he continued to sell canes, swords, and horseshoes to the French battalions as they traveled through the village toward Hamburg. Heinrich grew prosperous during the French occupation, but his wife became more and more disgusted with every coin he earned.

  “How can you deal with those French dogs?” she hissed one night as she sat on a low stool in front of the fire, her moss-colored eyes sparkling with angry disgust.

  “Better to let them burn our homes to the ground then take their coin. If I had any sons, I would raise them to fight instead of to kiss the enemy’s hairy arses as their father does.”

  Heinrich stood and, quick as lightning, slapped his wife’s fair cheek. A crimson handprint bloomed upon her face but she barely flinched beneath his blow. She stared at him with an intense hatred before wordlessly resuming her mending. Gerta’s outspokenness and inability to conceive vexed him greatly, and his wife made no attempt to hide her belief that Heinrich was at fault—a cripple in more than one way.

  But since he had spied on Gerta and Jacob coupling in the woods, Heinrich’s sense of impotent manhood had been transformed into a seething, quiet rage. He would not be humiliated by her brazenness and her wanton ways as well. Gerta needed to be taught a lesson.

  The words of the Scripture brought Heinrich’s thoughts back to the moment. Even after the congregation filed out of the small chapel, a particular phrase resonated within the chambers of Heinrich’s black heart: “. . . stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt—over the streams and
canals, over the ponds and all the reservoirs—and they will turn to blood. Blood will be everywhere in Egypt, even in the wooden buckets and stone jars.” The worship service had ended but Heinrich still sat visualizing a river of blood as it surged down the dirt road of his own village. As he thought about blood, an idea began to form in Heinrich’s mind. He shuffled forward to where Pastor Francke was sharing some herblore with a pregnant villager. Seeing the swollen belly on the woman who had not yet been married a year incensed Heinrich further, and when she moved away, he hastily spoke up before Pastor Francke could leave to settle into the home allotted to him and break his morning’s fast.

  “Pastor?” he began gruffly, unaccustomed to addressing another with respect.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think God believes that His followers are allowed to hand out vengeance when they are certain someone has committed a sin?” Pastor Francke studied Heinrich cautiously, taking in his crooked leg and the zealous gleam in his parishioner’s black eyes. He sensed that his answer should be carefully guarded and that Heinrich was like a headstrong and rebellious child who needed to be quickly brought under thumb.

  “Why do you ask? Do you know someone who has committed such a grave sin?” he asked warily, keeping his tone flat.

  Heinrich had a feeling that despite his volatile preaching, Pastor Francke might not be the accomplice he had hoped for. “Ah . . . no, Father.” He shook his head dumbly.

  “It is just that I cannot read but I would like to see for myself what the word looks like.” Perplexed, the minister asked, “Vengeance?” Heinrich nodded in assent.

  It was a singularly odd request, but Pastor Francke was proud of his learning and eager to show off his skills, even if it was only to the benefit of an ignorant peasant.

  “Come outside. I shall show you.” Heinrich followed the pastor to a patch of dirt next to the church. The pastor retrieved a stick and began to scratch letters into the soil. Heinrich could write his own name, but did not recognize all of the letters etched into the dust. He was fortunate, however, in that he could remember any symbol once he had seen it written out before him.

  Thus, he committed to memory every stroke made by the pastor’s skeletal stick.

  “That is the word?” Heinrich asked eagerly.

  Tossing the stick aside, Pastor Francke nodded. “Yes.

  That is how you write vengeance . I am curious as to why you are so interested in that particular word. Perhaps you could join me for a personal prayer session in order to enlighten me?” He brushed some dust from the hem of his dark robe. “But not now. I shall be quite busy for the remainder of the day. I will send for you when I am ready.”

  “Thank you, Pastor. Good day to you,” Heinrich said, limping away hurriedly.

  “What is your rush, husband?” his wife called after him. When he failed to respond, she turned back to the bevy of women gossiping outside the church. The sound of her laughter mocked his uneven gait as he headed for the woods.

  Stopping by his smithy to collect an axe, Heinrich journeyed deep into the forest. He sought an ash tree blackened by a tongue of lightning many years ago. It had flourished despite its wound and Heinrich wished to capture its strength. As he approached the tree, he raised his sharpened axe blade into the air. “I shall take the very heart from you and you will die,” Heinrich addressed the tree with a reverence he felt for few living things. “But with your wood I will make my finest cane. This cane I shall call Die Rache (Vengeance).”

  Chapter 1

  “Then, of course, there is the typical German walking stick, which is purchased on vacation, decorated with cane nails and brought home as a souvenir. Its decoration, vanity and actual uselessness is what makes the walking stick a strolling stick.” Ulrich Klever, Walkingsticks

  “ Ridiculous!” snorted Clara Appleby in disgust as she roughly smoothed a miniscule wrinkle in her paprika-colored cardigan. “Look at that woman!” She turned to her daughter, Molly, who was lost in the charms of yet another Agatha Christie novel. She had been reading the Hercule Poirot novels all summer long, but had yet to figure out which character was the killer until the eccentric little Belgian announced his findings. Jabbing at her daughter’s flank with a sharp elbow, Clara was pleased to see a pair of gray eyes framed with long, curling black lashes look up at her in irritation.

  “Ma! Hercule was just about to announce the murderer,” Molly complained. “And I’m positive I know who it is this time. What are you grumping about, anyway? We haven’t even left the tarmac yet.”

  “That,” said Clara, pointing down the narrow airplane aisle at a mammoth woman coming toward them, wearing a chartreuse sack dress. Two yellow-and-tangerine-spotted giraffes were embroidered on the dress pockets and a wooden giraffe pendant dangled from a chunky bead necklace circumnavigating the woman’s nonexistent neck. Fluorescent orange lipstick matched a set of acrylic nails, which flapped about like zealous monarch butterflies. The woman dragged a bulbous carry-on suitcase behind her as she babbled animatedly into her cell phone.

  “Why don’t they force people to check bags of that size?” Clara demanded. “You could fit a small child in there. Ugh. We’ll never leave on time at this rate.” Molly tucked her book into the seat pocket in front of her and sat back in order to observe the source of her mother’s distress with amusement. As a reporter for Collector’s Weekly, frequent trips were a necessity for Molly and she was all too familiar with the trials of modern travel. Of course, most of her excursions were taken by car, but she noticed that a motorist’s bad manners, whether it be tailgating or talking on a cell phone while veering across three lanes of traffic with no turn signal, were shortcomings that easily translated to aerial travel. Molly sighed, noting the long, stagnant line of passengers held up by Giraffe Lady as she searched for an overhead compartment large enough to hold her gargantuan carry-on. Spotting a bin, she transferred her phone to another ear and made a feeble attempt at lifting her bag. After uttering an impish

  “Oh!” it was clear that she did not possess enough strength to even raise it an inch off the ground.

  Glancing around helplessly, her riotous chatter uninterrupted by her predicament, the woman’s eyes fell upon a young businessman reading the newspaper. Sensing that he was being watched, the man looked up, took a quick glance at the line of aggravated travelers clotting the aisle, and leaped from his seat to assist. In one flourish, he hauled the bag into the air and into the compartment, where it stuck firmly halfway in and halfway out of the space. He gave it a gentle shove, turned it on its axis, and finally began to force the carry-on roughly into the overhead using his shoulders as leverage.

  “Be careful! My makeup’s in there!” the woman squealed in a high-pitched voice, and then began to complain vociferously to her caller that airplanes did not provide adequate service when it came to assisting the handicapped.

  Clara raked her eyes up and down the woman’s physique and muttered, “Handicapped? Her only handicap is that her phone seems to have been surgically implanted onto her ear.” Molly laughed heartily as the suitcase was finally wedged into the bin and the businessman collapsed into his seat with relief.

  The woman mouthed a neon orange, “Oh, thank you, dear,” to the perspiring young man and waddled beyond the row where the Appleby women sat, who both shot daggers in her direction. Of course she was unaware of their hostile stares as her attention was entirely focused on her interminable phone conversation.

  “We are going to be late taking off,” Molly griped, checking her watch. Their plane was scheduled to leave the gate in five minutes.

  “Well, we’ll still be there in plenty of time for the preview party,” Clara assured her, opening an auction catalogue featuring folk and outsider art.

  “I can’t wait to get to Nashville,” Molly said, perking up. “I’ve always wanted to stay at the Opryland Hotel.”

  “It’s an awesome place. That is, if we ever get there.

  Look, here’s another character holding
us up.” A squat man with a ruddy complexion barreled down the aisle, knocking into all of the seated passengers with either his laptop case, which was slung over his shoulder, or the trench coat folded over his other arm. Every few rows he had to stop and apologize to another mildly wounded passenger.

  “Ow, watch it!” complained an elderly lady who sustained a harsh blow to the shoulder from the leather computer satchel. “This is why I hate the aisle!” she complained pointedly to her husband. “You always get the window or the middle seat and I get accosted by nincompoops and drink carts.”

  “Sorry, so sorry,” the red-faced man apologized, smiling and coming to an abrupt halt next to the old lady. “This laptop gets filled with more and more data from Monday to Friday. It just keeps getting heavier and heavier!” he bellowed as he looked around to see if he had an audience. He then patted his rotund paunch expansively. “Guess it’s just trying to keep up with me! Ha, ha!” His grating guffaw reverberated inside the stuffy cabin.

  One or two other passengers offered polite grins in response to his self-deprecating joke, but Molly groaned.

  “Oh no, this guy is a major talker. He’s going to be in the seat next to me, I just know it. How did I get stuck in the middle, anyway?” she asked her mother accusingly.

  Clara gave an innocent shrug of her shoulders. “You know I need to stretch my left leg into the aisle. Ever since that knee surgery, I’ve been stiff as your grandmother’s fruitcake. Uh-oh, I think you were right. Mr. Big Shot is eyeing our row.”

  “Ladies!” The boisterous man greeted them in a horrendous attempt at a gallant English accent. “I do believe I shall be joining you!” And without waiting for either woman to stand, he began pushing himself forward into their row.

  Clara grabbed a commanding hold of his arm and dug her long fingers into his flesh. “You can just wait until we get out,” she admonished him.