Free The Cook by Harry Kressing Page A

everyone and no one.
    Conrad stood inside the door for a few seconds, then walked over and pulled up a chair to the table and sat down facing Brogg.
    Brogg had large heavy features. His eyes were small and piglike. One of his huge hands surrounded a stein of beer.
    Only his eyes had moved when Conrad entered.
    The customers at the bar backed away, and joined the men who had followed Conrad in and who remained standing at the door. The fat tavern-keeper—the man who had first told Conrad about the Prominence and the Hills and the Vales—started to say something, but before he got more than a word out Brogg hurled the stein of beer in his direction without even bothering to look around. “Shut up!” he shouted.
    His voice was brutal, animal-guttural.
    A nasty smile began to curl Brogg’s thick lips.
    “I was just about to go looking for you,” he growled. “You saved me the trouble.”
    “I got tired of waiting.—Something bothering you, Brogg? Do you have something to say? If you have, say it. If you haven’t—get out.”
    Murmurs of astonishment rose from the group gathered around the door. Conrad’s voice sent a chill down their spines: it was flat, cold, without a trace of feeling, and his challenge to Brogg was as direct and unequivocal as any challenge could be. It could not be ignored or misunderstood, and the blood mounted slowly to Brogg’s face. At the same time his hand moved stealthily toward his belt: “This will tell all I have to say.”
    From his belt he produced a heavy boning knife with a black handle. The blade was about eight inches long. Originally it had been about three-quarters of an inch wide at the base, but years of use and sharpening had narrowed it to about half that width. Under the bright overhead light its blade glittered with marks of recent sharpening.
    Brogg held the knife up for a few minutes, as if to let Conrad examine it. Neither man took his eyes off the other. Then Brogg laid it on the table midway between them, with the point facing Conrad. With his right hand—the same hand with which he had drawn the knife—he turned the knife a quarter circle. He did this very slowly, his beady eyes all the while exuding hate. The knife then rested with its point out to Brogg’s left and its cutting edge facing him. He then slowly placed both hands on the table in front of him, the handle of the knife about four inches in front of his right hand.
    Conrad placed his hands on the table, his left hand about the same distance from the knife handle as Brogg’s right hand.
    For several seconds the two men just stared at each other. From the way the knife was lying Brogg had an obvious advantage—assuming he was right-handed and wanted to use the knife in a certain way. But if he was left-handed, then it was equal between them—assuming Conrad was right-handed and wanted to use a downward thrust. But Brogg had withdrawn the knife with his right hand, which indicated . . .
    Like lightning Conrad grabbed the knife with his right hand and plunged it with great force into the back of Brogg’s left hand, pinioning it to the table, while Conrad himself was half catapulted to his feet, so great was the force of his downward thrust.
    A loud gasp of astonishment arose from the men at the door.
    Conrad sat down and folded his arms, while Brogg stared in stupid wonder at the knife sticking through his hand—and at the blood beginning to run around the blade and ooze over his hand onto the table. Three red rivulets started slowly toward his lap . . .
    Slowly, as if he might hurt himself, Brogg’s right hand touched the knife handle, and then closed around it. He seemed to have forgotten Conrad’s presence completely. Gingerly, very gingerly, he began to pull at the knife handle. Beads of sweat formed on his brow. Now the red rivulets cascaded silently into his lap—
    The witnesses gathered silently around the table. Not a word was spoken.
    The moisture from Brogg’s brow dropped onto the