“Can’t. I always was a gabby drunk. Last time I got tripped like this was when my wife died. Spanish flu. Have you ever wondered why they call it Spanish flu, Gerhard? It started in Kansas, you know. But the Amis censored that because of the war censorship still in force. And it didn’t make the newspapers until it reached Spain, where they didn’t have any wartime censorship. Ever had the flu, Gerhard? That’s what I feel like now. Like I got a one-man epidemic of the stuff. Jesus, I think I even wet myself.”

“You turned the tap, thickhead, remember?”

I yawned. “Did I?”

“Drink up.”

“Here’s to her. She was a good woman. Too good for me. Do you have a wife?”

He shook his head.

“With the money in that bag you could afford several. And none of them would mind that you’re such an ugly bastard. A woman can overlook almost any shortcoming in a man when there’s a big bag of money on her dinner table. I’ll bet that bitch next door, Dora, doesn’t know about the bag, either. Otherwise, she’d have had it for sure. Mercenary little nanny-goat. Mind you, I will say this for her. I’ve seen her naked, and she’s a peach. Of course, you have to remember that every peach has a stone inside it. Dora’s got a bigger one than most, too. But she’s a peach, all right.”

My head felt as heavy as a stone. A giant peach stone. And when my head dropped onto my chest, it seemed to fall such a long way that, for a moment, I thought it had dropped into the leather basket beneath the falling ax. And I cried out, thinking I was dead. Opening my eyes, I took a deep, spasmodic breath and struggled to remain vaguely vertical, but now it was a losing battle.

“All right,” said Krempel. “You’ve had enough. Let’s try to get up, shall we?”

He stood up and gathered my coat collars in his pomegranate-sized fists, and hauled me roughly out of the bath. He was a strong man—too strong for me to try anything stupid. But I took a swing at him anyway and missed, before losing my balance and falling onto the bathroom floor, where Krempel kicked me in the ribs for my trouble.

“What about the money?” I asked, hardly feeling the pain. “You’re forgetting the money.”

“I guess I’ll just have to come back for it later.” He hauled me onto my feet again and maneuvered me out of the bathroom.

Dora was sitting on the sofa, reading a magazine. She was wearing a fur coat. I wondered if Reles had bought it for her.