I had just gotten into bed with Marlene, just begun to feel the throbbing warmth of her body against mine, just started to turn my impatient hand around the arc of her white hot hips, when the damned phone rang...
"Look, man, I can't. Get someone else." I hung up.
I reached for her. "Now where were we?" I said.
"Oh, no," she said. "I'm no tan American electric toaster. A toaster you can heat up and not put in the bread and then expect it to stay hot... I'm cool, my dear... "
I could smell the exotic scent of her ivory-white Nordic skin. It sent my head whirling. I bent lower and began to trace my wet lips across the silkiness of her thigh. She was lying.
She wasn't cool.
CHAPTER ONE
I'd just gotten into bed with Marlene, just begun to feel the throbbing warmth of her body against mine, just started to turn my impatient hand around the arc of her white hot hips, when the damn telephone rang.
"Hello?" I said angrily, into the mouthpiece. Marlene leered at me with wild frustrated eyes. She seemed to be saying "Why didn't you let it ring?"
"Mr. London?" the voice on the other end inquired.
I knew who it was: Ernst Habe, a press agent for Deutchekunst, a German film company in Munich, which, at the moment was my home town.
As I stroked Marlene's long shapely leg, I listened with considerable annoyance to Habe. I wasn't paying much attention to his heavily-accented voice, but suddenly I realized he was asking me to interview Rina Miller, the German film star who was about to begin a new picture on location in Paris. It was a pleasing prospect. Rina Miller is one of the most beautiful women in the world. But, as I explained to Habe, under the circumstances the interview was impossible. I was flying to Copenhagen that afternoon to cover an important NATO conference. And from there, it was back to the states for a long vacation I'd waited two years for.
"But Herr London," Habe insisted, "Fraulein Miller wishes to talk only to you. An exclusive story for American News Service."
"I'm flattered Ernst. Tell Rina Miller I'm really flattered. But I can't do it." I looked at Marlene's eager body and shrugged.
"But Herr London - "
"Look, man I can't. Get someone else!" I hung up on him. I turned to Marlene. "Sorry," I said smiling, "but let's forget it and pick up where we left off." I reached for her. "Now where were we?"
"Oh, no, my liebchen," she said. "I am not like an American electric toaster. A toaster you can heat up and not put in the bread and then expect it to stay hot. But I am not that modern, my darling. I'm cool, my dear. I'm sorry. But I must go now, Steve." She sat up and swung her legs across the bed and onto the floor. Her expansive womanly back was facing me. As she bent for her stockings, I stared at her broad sensuous hips and her delightfully rounded rump perched at the edge of my bed. I wasn't about to let that get away from me so easily. Slowly, I moved close to her, and began to kiss her bare narrow waist. She'd crossed her legs loosely and was busily working the nylons over her tiny foot, across her ankle, around her knee, up to the flesh of her thigh.
My lips traveled restlessly around her waist to the softness of her belly.
"No, Steve," she said absently, "that doesn't mean a thing to me now. I told you. I'm cool."
I could smell the exotic scent of her ivory-white Nordic skin. It sent my head whirling. I bent lower and began to trace my wet lips across the silkiness of her thigh. She was lying. She wasn't cool; her body was burning feverishly. With the flat of my hand, pressed against her stomach, I eased her back into the bed. The moment her head touched the pillow, her legs flew up and against me with a violent force that nearly hurled me to the floor.
"I said, no," she cried. "I want to go!"
I lurched quickly to her side again fighting off her flailing arms. Now we were wrestling, her long sharp nails raking my back, my hands floundering - trying to subdue the savagery within her. At last I found her lips and pressed mine hard against them - biting and sucking, trying to enter her mouth with my tongue. And when our tongues did meet, when they explored each other first ferociously then tenderly, Marlene relaxed, yielding her quaking body to passion. And to me.
"Do you still want to go?" I whispered hotly in her ear.
"Oh, no, liebling," she sighed in a throaty tremulous voice. "Make love to me. Schnell!"
That was all I needed. Again my lips struck out for hers and found the precious rubies in a single motion. I caressed her hard firm breasts with one hand, and with the other I smoothed her hot thighs. Marlene sucked air as my mouth moved spasmodically around her ear and down the side of her neck to the billowy roundness below, and at last to her magnificent melon-like breasts, on downward to pinkish nipples that stood high and hard and young. Marlene responded wildly, clawing like an untamed animal. She turned and writhed and began to crush me in her arms.
Suddenly, I pulled away. I wanted one last look at every beauty nature had given her. Marlene, her arms extended expectantly looked at me questioningly. She seemed unable to understand why I was beholding her exquisite body at the very moment I could be possessing it.
"I want to see all of you, my darling," I explained, "so that I can make love to every part of you."
Marlene smiled to let me know she was pleased. And with a ribald puckering of her lips, she suggested that she was pleased with my body too.
I continued to gaze at her. The woman was beyond belief. She belied every vision I had ever had of woman. She was far better than my imagination could ever conjure. The tone, the hue, the lines of her body, singed the core of my soul. The lovely breasts, which dipped and rose in two graceful strokes, guarded by two firm sentinels seemed to have a life of their own.
The slender receding cut of her trunk broke at the narrow waist and arched and swelled into swirling hips and proud fine buttocks. From her well-turned ankles, my eyes moved up along the long silhouette of her legs.
"Do you enjoy what you see, my dear?" she asked softly.
"I enjoy," I said, "but may I do more than just look?"
"I don't know what you mean," she teased. "Tell me first what you want to do, my dear."
She laughed gaily. Then, with pleading eyes, she said: "Oh, Steve. Now. Do it now."
I lowered myself into the bed and moved inexorably toward and upon her. In a moment I was soaring - aloft in a turbulent, crushing storm - spinning, reeling, rising higher, higher, higher, together with Marlene lifting to the heights of desire. Then-and I knew it was happening to both of us -- an intense paroxysm grabbed me once, twice, a third time, and hurled me to a dizzy foamy calm, where lovers sleep.
When I awoke, Marlene was gone. Though later events proved I was wrong-very definitely and dangerously wrong--it saddened me to think she'd left with no chance for me to say a special 'auf widersehn'. But I was vain enough to think I'd given her a going away present she'd remember until my next trip back to Munich, though at that time I had no idea when that might be.
Suddenly realizing I had to catch a three o'clock flight to Copenhagen, I leaped from the bed and checked my watch. There was still time, but I'd have to hurry. I dressed, packed sloppily, pausing only momentarily to look wistfully at the bed -- where only an hour or so before a gale of desire had struck and ravaged fiercely. Now, all that was left of that storm was an empty calm-and wrinkled sheets-and a faint trace of Marlene's intoxicating essence.
I flipped a five-mark note tip for the chambermaid on the bureau and went downstairs to the hotel lobby and checked out.
"Will you be with us soon again, Herr London?" the room clerk asked.
"Not for a long while, Walter," I said gaily. I'm going to Denmark and from there it's home-the good old U.S.A."
He rang for a bellboy, but I shook my head no, and scooped up my bags and my typewriter and took off. As I swung through the hotel's revolving doors and into the blinding sunlight, I literally bumped into two men outside. One suitcase of mine flew from my hands and onto the pavement, its contents-mostly dirty laundry-spilling onto the walk.
Embarrassedly, I quickly tried to shovel the clothes back where they belonged. One of the men I'd hit bent to help me.
"I'm terribly sorry, Mr. London."
I looked up. It was Ernst Habe, the Deutchekunst press agent.
"It's my fault, Ernst," I said brusquely. I was somewhat suspicious. Habe might have purposely tripped me up, trying to make me miss my plane-so that I'd have to stick around and interview his client: Rina Miller.
"Look, Ernst," I said. "I'm sorry about the interview. But I really have to run. Some other time, okay?"
"Why, of course, Mr. London. You have to go to the airport, nicht wahr? Please let me take you there. Franz and I have our car right at the curb. The motor is even running."
"That's all right, Ernst. I'll catch the limousine. It's just leaving."
"Ah, but I insist. Courtesy of Deutchekunst. We were going that way besides."
When a German insists K would be terribly poor manners to argue. Anyway, I could use the lift. I agreed. Still I had my doubts as to Habe's motives. What the hell was he doing at the hotel entrance at the precise moment I came out?
Franz, Habe's assistant, I guessed, took my bags and put them in the trunk of the Volkswagen, then climbed into the back seat of the car. I sat up front with Habe, who drove. Habe maneuvered the VW down Bayerstrasse speedily then got on to the Autobahn-the highway to the airport. It was two-thirty, still plenty of time to make my plane.
Habe, pushing the VW at the 100 kilometer mark on the speedometer spoke glibly for a while about the motion picture business, filling me in on the details of Rina Miller's next picture.
"It's going to be an international sensation" he said. "You know, of course, it's a film of the great novel, Love of Men."
My curiosity piqued, I found it annoying that Habe did not say any more. He was speeding the little car down the road as fast as it could go, staring straight out into the brilliantly blue horizon. Coming up on the right was the sign that pointed to the airport. Habe wasn't slowing for the cutoff.
I dislike backseat drivers, but I knew that for Habe to take the upcoming turn at the rate of speed he was going would put us into a ravine. So almost apologetically I said: "You've got to make a right up ahead."
He didn't bat an eye.
I looked into the rear view mirror. Where earlier I had seen Franz in the left corner back seat, now he was out of view-sitting directly behind me. Aware of that now, I could feel his breath on my neck.
Habe whizzed past the sign.
"Hey!" I shouted. "You missed the cutoff."
No answer.
"Ernst, what the hell kind of a stunt is this? You'd better get me to that plane in time. You just better, man."
"Do not worry, Herr London," he said calmly. "You are in safe hands."
I was boiling anger in me. "Look," I said knotting my hands into trembling fists. "I don't care if Rina Miller is going to tell me she's Adolf Hitler. I don't want to talk to her. If I miss that plane I'll miss the NATO conference in Copenhagen. And if I miss that conference I lose my job. And if that happens, Ernst, I swear to Christ, I'll kick the living hell out of you! Now turn this goddamn thing around!" I spoke slowly and deliberately. I meant every word of it.
"Herr London," Habe said without a hint of fear of my threat, "you will be so kind as to--how do you Americans say it?--'hold on to your horse.' Hold on to your horse, Mr. London. Everything will be explained."
I was blind with rage. I kicked my foot into his, trying to knock it from the accelerator and with my other foot I tried to stab at the brake.
"Watch out you crazy fool!" he screamed.
The car began to waver. It seemed about to go out of control. Suddenly a powerful arm hooked tightly around my neck. It was Franz. He closed his grip around my throat like a vise. I thought my eyes would pop out of my head. Everything began turning blood red. The veins in my forehead were near the bursting point.
Summoning all my strength, I raised my arm above my head and reached back, locking my fingers into Franz's thick black bushy hair. I pulled violently. I could feel the hairs being ripped from his scalp. He screamed and relaxed his iron hold on my windpipe.
Now I tried to pull away. But suddenly I felt a soft dull thick blow at the base of my skull. Then another.
And the whole world faded quickly.
CHAPTER TWO
Pain. Turgid, throbbing, grinding pain revolving in my head like a hand drill. Blurry consciousness slowly replaced the blackness in my eyes. I could see an overhead light beginning to take shape on the ceiling. The shadow of a woman's face bent over me. Her soft hand dabbed at my forehead with something warm and wet. She was smiling. The sound of voices speaking German reached my ears.
I stared at the woman leaning across me. She was beautiful. Her almond limpid eyes shone like pearls and flashed vivaciously as she continued to soothe my brow. I smiled at the angelic figure above me. I was not yet aware of where I was. Nothing was in my mind except the pearly goddess who was tending my wounds.
"Are you awake?" she asked. Her voice was soft and mellow. It caressed me. But there was a familiar note in its sensuous tone-a note that sent recognition surging into my brain. And with it, recall. I remembered everything at once.
"You're Rina Miller," I said. I could see Ernst Habe and Franz standing off to the rear of the large room.
"Yes," she replied, "and you are Steve London."
I tried to get up, but the ache in my head stuck me like a knife and I fell back.
"You people are in a lot of trouble," I said. "You'd better be able to explain this little kidnapping."
"In time," Rina Miller said, "in time, Mr. London." She turned to the two men and nodded. They departed quickly.
"Would you like a drink, Mr. London?" she asked when we were alone.
I nodded sharply, to convey my anger. But somehow, alone now with Rina Miller in the warmth of her spectacular presence, it was hard to stay angry. I watched her with delight as she moved to the bar to fix the drinks. I'd never seen her in the flesh before - only on the screen. She'd been called the most alluring sex kitten ever. And there was no one who disputed that she was one of the most ravishing women in the world.
She was wearing a tight-fitting black sheath molded to her voluptuous form. The neckline plunged deeply, allowing the fullness of her large round breasts to shimmer with every motion of her body. The dress was cut away at the back, exposing her creamy flawless skin clear down to her tiny waistline. Her full hips, her rounded pendulous rump, the gentle curve of her belly, turned gracefully and blended at her robust thighs. She had long-very long--shapely legs, strong but delicate and, with the hem of her dress barely brushing the top of her knees, very inviting.
"Would you like some champagne or cognac or Mosel wine?"
"Bourbon and water, if you have it."
I watched her pour the liquids with a style all her own. And when she bent for a moment to get some ice my eyes leaped to the darkness between her breasts, which fell limply forward now and almost free of her dress. She caught the torrid look in my eyes and smiled seductively. I suppose I blushed.
"Look, Miss Miller," I said trying to sound businesslike, "you've made a serious error in judgment here. It's obvious this is some kind of publicity stunt for your new film. Well, I don't mind telling you it's in poor taste. But I'm willing to forget it. That is, if your henchmen can get me to the airport in time for the next flight to Denmark. I believe there's a plane leaving at six this evening."
"Mr. London," she said, passing me my bourbon, "I'm afraid you don't realize just how long you--shall we say- napped on that sofa. It's almost midnight, my dear."
I gulped the drink to keep from spouting every four letter word, in my vocabulary. "Well, you'll just have to call my editor and explain, Miss Miller. Or I may have to reward you with some very bad publicity."
"I'll explain, Mr. London. But to you." She sat in an oversized and overstuffed chair across from me and opened a cigarette case on the low table between us, offering me one. I refused, then waited for her to light up. With a burst of flame from the match I could see the finely etched lines of her exciting face flare up in the red glow.
"You see, Mr. London," she said, pausing to drag deeply on the cigarette, "Hermann Huessing is still alive."
My eyes widened in disbelief. Hermann Huessing. The reichfuehrer high up in the Nazi hierarchy. The venomous propagandist who had been an important cog in the very center of the Nazi death machine.
Huessing was believed to have killed himself when the Allies liberated Bavaria early in 1945. He'd been one of the top war criminals. Had he been captured he'd have most certainly been sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials, along with men such as Guering, Ribbentrop, Streicher, and Jodi. But it was incredible that he was still alive. Not even a rumor to that effect had been heard in all the years since the war.
"I don't believe it," I said. "I believe you've been given a bad piece of information. Huessing blew his ugly brains out. seventeen years ago in a small village some ten miles south of here, Miss Miller. I happen to know because I myself came through that town as a correspondent attached to the Third Army about three days after Huessing killed himself. There were at least half a dozen witnesses who'd seen his body. And we caught two men who admitted they'd soaked it in turpentine and burned it to a crisp-at Huessing's own last request."
"Hermann Huessing still lives, Mr. London. Where in the world he is, I do not know. But that he is alive, I am absolutely sure."
"Even if that's true--which I doubt-why me, Miss Miller? Why pick on me to tell this story to? And in such a crazy way-and at such a wrong time." Even before I'd asked the question, I knew the answer. If you knew anything about me, you knew where I stood about Nazis. I'd already captured one of the top Nazis thirteen years ago in the Middle East. I hated all of those bastards insanely. I'd seen too much in the war not to. And up until now I'd go anywhere in the world to catch one.
But everything was different now. I was through fighting a war that was over so long. For me it was going to be a simpler life. There was that vacation I'd waited two years for-along with a promise from American News Service that I'd be reassigned permanently to the states. Slotted in some soft job in New York, where I could spend a part of the day girl-hunting. And maybe, after all these rotten years, find one girl in particular. One who'd want to live the rest of her life in my bed and in my arms and in my heart. God, how I wanted that!
"Miss Miller," I said, at last finding enough strength to lift myself to the floor, "you've got yourself the wrong boy. If Huessing is still alive and you can prove it, call the cops. Then call American News Service. Tell them you had me lugged and brought here. You'll help save my job. They'll put someone else on the story. And they'll let me go home. Because that's where I'm going, Miss Miller. Home. Even if you've got old Adolf locked in the cellar, I'm going home-right now."
I flicked a half-salute and went to the phone.
She reached out quickly and clasped her small, soft, warm hand around mine, trapping the telephone in its cradle. Her hand lingered unnecessarily as she curled her long thin fingers into mine. I could feel her pale red nails. The sensation sent a shiver across my back. She turned up to me, looking deep into my eyes, her own shining with the light of truth.
"Hear me out, Mr. London," she said with infinite patience. "Listen to my story. And then, if you want me to, I shall call whomever you ask. Is that not fair, my dear Mr. London?"
I nodded. And I listened.
Rina Miller told me that she'd first found out that Hermann Huessing was still alive only forty-eight hours earlier. The producer of her next film, which they were going to begin shooting the following Monday in Paris, had been her informant. He and Miss Miller, both of whom had been to a party, had gone later to his apartment for a nightcap- the producer had apparently taken too much, and without warning had suddenly told her about the Nazi.
"What makes you think it wasn't a gag?" I asked.
"One does not joke about such things. One does not rave he has protected Hermann Huessing's secret all these years. It was not a 'gag,' Mr. London."
And just how was Herr Huessing faring these days, I asked.
Very well, according to Rina Miller's producer. He was healthy, spry, sixtyish and the kingpin in an international narcotics ring. A millionaire, she said. After spilling this lurid story, the producer had vomited and regained his composure. He warned Miss Miller not to repeat what he had told her-under the threat of death.
Rina Miller told me she had immediately made plans to kidnap me. At least it had to be that drastic, when she learned that I was leaving Europe-most likely for good. Why me? Because of my reputation. And because of my being a top newspaperman, she believed I could get myself assigned to doing a story about the new film and thus be close to the producer-in a position to perhaps pump something out of him. Something that would lead me to a top Nazi, the mastermind of a dope trading syndicate, and the biggest surprise story of the decade.
It was tempting.
"Why don't you go to the police?" I asked.
"My career, Mr. London. I can't get involved."
"What makes you such a criminal chaser?"
"The answer should be obvious. But my personal reason goes much deeper. I cannot tell you yet, Mr. London. But, never mind that. Will you do it? Will you help me to catch Hermann Huessing?"
"No." I wanted desperately to tell her that under other circumstances my answer would have been a very loud and strong yes. A year ago-even a month ago-I'd have jumped at the chance; I'd have given up everything to catch the murderous Herr Huessing. But now there was that promise I'd made to myself: the safe and easy life back in the States. I wanted to tell her all things. But how hollow they would sound!
The actress stared at me with pitying eyes. She seemed to understand my torturous conflict. To her I must have looked like a pathetic dog. I found compassion in Rina Miller-and, what was to me unbearable, disillusionment.
"Look," I said defensively, "even if I said yes, where would that leave us? I just can't get assigned to go to Paris and watch you make a film. I'm supposed to be in Denmark-right now. But even if I could go to Paris what would I do then? Walk up to your producer as a friend and say, 'Hey, Fritz, heard from Hermann lately?' " She looked at me sadly, disappointedly, with a knowing half-smile that tore at my ego. Suddenly anger flared up in me.
"Hey!" I cried, "what's in this for you anyway? I still think this is some kind of screwy publicity stung. I think you're a--" With volcanic force, her whole body began to rock at my insult. Tears welled in her eyes and began to roll down her white cheeks. She was trembling all over. I extended my hand in a gesture that begged forgiveness. But she continued to weep spasmodically. "I'm sorry," I said weakly, touching her hot wet face, as tenderly as I knew how.
"It's not you... Mr. London," she said in a voice broken by sobs. "It's... Hermann Huessing. You see, Mr. London... Herman H-Huessing... is... m-my... father."
She began to shiver. Her face turned crimson. Her hands rolled into white rock fists, she raised them to her head and pounded them into her forehead.
"Oh, God!" she cried. "He's my father... he's my father."
Now her body became limp. She bent her head low into her lap and wept. I tried to calm her. Standing beside her, I pressed her head to my side and stroked her soft blond hair. I could feel the warmth of her quaking body through my clothes.
After a while she was still.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
She nodded. "I want to lie down." She stood, wavered a bit, but before she could take a single step, she toppled like a pile of blocks into my arms. She'd fainted.
I lifted her lithe body. And with my arm behind her knees and the other around her back and under her arm, I carried her to the sofa and lowered her easily to the cushions.
As she had done for me barely an hour before, I sat at her side now soothing the moist flesh of her face with a light touch of my fingertips. My hands were icy. I could not help but look lustfully at the sensuous position her sleeping body had taken. Her dress had risen high, exposing the dark shade of her stocking-tops an inch or so of the white flesh of her glorious thighs, pressed inward at the elastic of her garters. Her long legs were parted slightly, her knees bent forward, toward me. Her lovely breasts seemed to be rising out of her decolletage. I watched the motion of her breasts, falling and lifting to her deep breathing. When she expelled air, there was a narrow gap in her dress and I could detect the darkened flesh around her nipples. I looked away. In her long graceful neck I could see the pulsating pounding of blood through her arteries.
At last her eyes flickered once or twice, then opened and stared into mine. She was awake. She smiled and grasped my hand, which had been near her cheek, and she nestled at her neck and cuddled dose to k with delightful abandon. She seemed pleased with me-as if I had rescued her from some horrible menace.
"You are good, Mr. London. You are good."
Suddenly black fear ran through her eyes. Her whole body twitched. I knew the memory of what had crushed her into unconsciousness had seized her mind. She shook like a frightened child.
"Oh, hold me," she cried offering me her arms.
I fell beside her and embraced her strongly.
"My mother was a Jewess," she whispered into my ear. "In 1930, before the Nazis came to power, Huessing was a Brownshirt-a Storm Trooper in Hitler's service. A hooligan. One Friday night an angry mob of drunken Brownshirts raided a synagogue in Munich. Most of the congregation escaped. Except a few women. Huessing was one of the leaders of the mob. He was given the most beautiful, the most fragile of the women. With his monstrous friends looking on he raped her. I am their ungodly child.
For a moment, she began to cry again, but with a powerful effort held back the tears. I could feel the softness of her face against mine and the terror in her body, as she continued.
Huessing, after I was born, continued to plague my mother. He enslaved her as a mistress. In a way, I suppose he helped us. During the worst days of the Hitler regime, he was able to keep us from being taken to a concentration camp. But my mother always hated him. One night she tried to kill him with a bread knife. He threatened to personally shove the two of us into the gas chamber. My mother picked up the knife again and threw it halfway through his shoulder. He shot her dead on the spot. Huessing sent me to Switzerland, where I was cared for by a family until I was old enough to run away. Not a day of my life has passed without the burning feeling of vengeance searing my heart. When I heard Huessing had committed suicide I prayed to God that it was not true. And I have prayed every day since. Now God has heard me. I will have my revenge." Her nails dug into my back.
Rina Miller's body had tightened in fury. Her hatred for the monster could be felt as a living thing. I caressed her, trying to somehow ease the pain that was tearing her apart.
I began to press my lips softly into her neck. I kissed her bare shoulder and the billowy area just below her collar bone. I felt her relax in my arms.
"Yes," she said softly. "Do that. Do something to drive the hate from me. I am not human, when I am like this, Mr. London. Do something for me, Mr. London."
My mouth traveled downward to the soft dewy valley between her breasts. I caressed them with my wet lips and I brought my hand to the part of her breast that was clothed and pushed it upward to my face, urging it to escape from her dress and into my palm. I could feel the weight and firm fullness of her naked breast and I was suddenly overwhelmed with desire, for this beautiful anguished princess of love.
The passion within her exploded without warning. Her body responded with urgent eagerness. I looked up and saw her head thrown back over the edge of the sofa, her long blond hair dangling-reaching almost to the floor. Her eyes were squinted in sensual pleasure. I could hear her drawing air against her teeth, making a familiar hissing sound.
Now my lips struck out for hers and they met perfectly, as if guided by Eros, the goddess of love. Our tongues touched wildly, probing for sweet sensations.
"Oh, Mr. London," she whispered huskily, "make love to me. I need it. I need love. I need you."
With fumbling hands I worked feverishly to free her of her clothes. She rolled her body to me, and I lifted her dress over her buttocks and hips, and with a sweeping motion, across her waist, her breasts and over her head and arms. I dropped it to the floor. She was clad now only in black sheer lace panties. Through the meshwork of the fabric I could see white diamonds of flesh. My hands slid behind the elastic and around the fine curve of her rump. Pressing against those proud buttocks for leverage, I pried her loose from her underpants. I kissed her ankles, and sat back and began to remove my shirt and tie. She sprang behind me.
"No," she said. "You don't want to take away a woman's pleasure. Let me undress you, Mr. London."
I was about to say call me Steve, but for some curious reason I enjoyed the incongruous formality of the situation.
As she undid my shirt, I could sense the heat of her naked body against my back. When she had bared me to the waist, she scraped her fingernails through the tangle of hairs on my chest, sending ripples of passion down the length of my back. I reached behind me and gripped her body, swinging it into my arms. Once more I began to fondle her breasts, putting my lips to her lovely body.
Both of us were seated now, she with her legs tucked under her, continuing to undress me, pressing her mouth to more and more of my body as it became uncovered.
She stared at me. I stared at her. I could not bring myself to believe that this woman, who was ablaze with anticipation of my body, was Rina Miller. Rina Miller, internationally celebrated for her beauty and her talent. Rina Miller, the living personification of sex for millions of men, including myself. Rina Miller, whom I had seen countless times only as a shadow on a screen, an unreal, but nonetheless exciting, figure of love. I shuddered with desire at the thought that I would now possess all of her.
"Come to me, Miss Miller,' I demanded, but not without tenderness. "Come into my arms."
She obeyed. And I scooped her to the level of my chest and returned her to the sofa, to the place where I'd make her mine. I lay beside her, kissing below her breasts. The single light in the room threw a diffuse beam across her body. Her body writhed in passion.
"Oh, please," she cried aloud, "now."
Now in unabashed ecstasy she came to me and at last I could bear it no longer. The fire in me had been stoked to oven heat. Licks of flame struck out at my loins, sending rising surges of passion through me with shocking power. The all-embracing urge to be with her took hold of me. And even if my mind were to will otherwise, I was helpless against the primeval need now controlling me.
The circular motion of her hips, the urgings of the upward bend of her legs, the pressure of her arms and hands which had suddenly gained bestial strength, electrified me. Every muscle in her heaving body, was now moving to a rhythmic pattern born of its own sensation, imploring me to find the most of her desire.
At last I could seek no further. There was a greater need in my own body. Somehow, perhaps through a subtle shift in motion, she understood and with delicate physical finesse she altered her position in such a way as to join me in my journey. Together now we rose to a crest of intense passion, then rose to a steeper peak, then paused and climbed still higher. It was at times difficult for us to keep up with each other. When she'd go ahead, she'd find it hard to wait for me to catch up. Then I'd pass her and have the same trouble. But, hand in hand, we scaled the steep and rapturous climb. And at last at the pinnacle, at the height where the air is thin and breathing comes hardest, a surge of joy and deeply felt pleasure gripped at the very center of our being, tightened, tightened, and then released us, sending both of us off on a magic carpet of the sensations we had labored so hard to erect.
Now we were lying apart, our bodies limp from exhaustion, wet from perspiration. She took my hand and clasped it to her breast.
"You were wonderful, Mr. London."
"You were pretty good, yourself, Miss Miller."
We laughed merrily at the sound of the formalities with which we were still addressing each other. Though unspoken, we knew now we'd never have to be formal again.
Perhaps it was understood too, without a word of mention between Rina and I, that I would, after all was said and done, go after Hermann Huessing.
CHAPTER THREE
When I finally left Rina later that evening, I hadn't definitely committed myself to hunt down Huessing. To her question, "Will I see you in Paris on Monday, Steve?" I'd answered, "If you see me, Rina, you'll know why I'm there." She had smiled and kissed me goodbye and then had blown me another kiss. She was obviously pleased.
Now, riding back to the center of Munich with Ernst as my driver, I couldn't say that I too was as pleased as Rina. Frankly, I was scared.
If I'd catch the morning flight to Copenhagen, there was still an outside chance I'd be able to bluff through the conference and get that vacation and stateside reassignment. If I opted to chase Huessing down, I'd have to go it alone. There was no doubt in my mind that I'd lose my job and the fourteen years of tenure I'd worked so damn hard to construct-not to mention an income of better than two hundred U. S. dollars a week. Rina's idea that I might be able to get myself assigned to Paris was out of the question. The office would never go for it-unless I told them about Huessing. But capturing the old Nazi depended on secrecy, on doing it my way. If I reported Rina's story to American News Service, it'd be all over Europe-and all over the world-inside of twenty-four hours. ANS would never buy the undercover angle. And exposing the news that Huessing, now a dope trafficker, was still alive, would thrust into the picture the top intelligence agents of at least half a dozen governments, sending Huessing deeper into hiding. The news might even provoke an international crisis. Not that I gave a damn, but I-wanted Huessing for myself. I wanted to bring him in alone. And I knew exactly in whose lap I'd dump him. If I went after him.
I was still debating the possibilities, when Ernst pulled the car into the alleyway of the Hotel Bavaria.
"Well, Herr London," Ernst said before getting out of the car, "I'll see you in Paris."
"Not if I see you first, Ernst."
He laughed. "I'm sorry about the detour. But as you know now, it was necessary."
He got out of the VW and walked around the front of the car to get my bags from the trunk. I slid out from the left side and went to help him. As I did, I glanced down the driveway into the unbroken blackness. Suddenly the high beams of a car went on and blinded me. The car was no more than fifteen feet up the alley. I threw my hands in front of my eyes to escape the painful glare. And even as I did that I heard the engine of the car roar loudly.
"Watch out!" Ernst cried.
I looked toward the sound of his shriek. I could see the car bearing down on me--and, in the brilliant globes of light, the silhouette of Ernst rushing to my aid. Suddenly, Ernst's hands were upon me shoving me out of the path of the oncoming car. I flew back and fell to the ground. The car sped forward, its engine grinding loudly. It struck Ernst with a powerful force, sending him soaring about twelve feet into the black night. At the impact I could hear the bones in poor Ernst's body being smashed. He'd been catapulted so high, the car had already passed under him when he fell. The car screeched to a halt and the driver got out. We raced to Ernst who was lying limply on the pavement.
I opened the door of the Volkswagen to get some light on the spot where Ernst had fallen. Now I bent to his twisted body, and lifted his head into my arms.
"Get an ambulance!" I shouted to the driver. He ran off. I turned to Ernst. His face was crushed and bloody. His nose was flattened. A line of blood trickled from his mouth indicating internal injuries.
"Is it very bad?" I asked. He looked like he was dying.
"Herr... London," he gasped. "Never... never... believe... that was... an... accident."
"Don't talk, Ernst. Save your strength."
The blood began to flow rapidly from his mouth now. I could make out a growing circle of blood staining his shirt.
"It... it is," he sputtered on, coughing blood, "it is the work... of Hermann... Huessing."
I held his head close to my stomach. My clothes were already drenched in his blood. Suddenly his whole body began to quake violently. He groaned in a final agony.
I put my fingers to his wrist, just to be certain. It was pulseless. I stood and looked at the dead man as if I were seeing my own lifeless body. For if it had not been an accident (how could it have been-and yet it might have been), then the killer had been aiming at me By now the driver had returned with the police. There was an exchange of identification and all the cold meaningless questions and the order to make myself available for further developments. But I paid little attention to what was being said. I knew only that Ernst Habe had saved my life and had gotten himself killed in the process. I kicked over one of my suitcases and sat on it, beside Ernst's body, guarding the dead man until he could be taken away.
If it were a planned murder-my murder--why had the driver stopped? I wondered. How did the killer know I'd be returning to the hotel? How did he know what Rina Miller would tell me? There were endless unanswerable questions. But a powerful instinct in me warned me that now, to stay alive, I would have to find the answers to all of them. I would have to find Hermann Huessing.
From my pocket, I took out the scrap of paper on which I had noted the name of the driver who had killed Ernst. It meant nothing to me. If it were murder (there still was a slight possibility it was not), he was probably a hired killer.
When the hearse came, I said my final farewell to Ernst Habe and went into the hotel.
"Good evening, Mr. London," said the room clerk, "I thought you were not returning for a long time."
"Yeah," I said. "I thought so too."
The following morning, as I'd expected, ANS canned me. I didn't even bother to offer an excuse-any old story I might have concocted possibly would have deterred ANS from "blacklisting" me as an unreliable reporter, which meant I'd have a rough time finding another job. But I failed to defend myself. I was still quite shaken up about Ernst's violent death. Yet I knew the "blacklisting" was only a temporary affair. When I'd bring in the biggest story in years, when I'd bring in Hermann Huessing and help smash an international narcotics ring, then I'd be ANS's fair haired boy. But now I bad to do all those things. The mental ping pong game I'd been playing, should or shouldn't I, had ended permanently.
That afternoon I went to the library and did some checking. Using my press pass, illegally I suppose, I was able to get immediate access to many of the old documents cap- turned after the fall of the Nazi regime. I pored over everything that mentioned Hermann Huessing. He had been more evil than I'd ever imagined. Then I read whatever I was able to lay my hands on about Rina Miller. While her past, as recorded in various magazine articles and press clippings, was somewhat hazy, there was nothing in it that was at variance to what she herself had told me. I made a mental note, however, to continue looking further into Rina's past rather than Huessing's. His history was well- documented and irrefutable. Rina (I had to think of everything) might have been lying to me.
Between five and six o'clock, before the library closed, I read a copy of Love of Man, the novel Rina was to film in Paris. It was a short book, but a damn good one. I understood why the critics had praised it so highly. It was the story of a woman, to be played by Rina I guessed, whose intense, almost insane, hatred of one man leads her to love all men, that, is mankind. I didn't know then, of course, how much that story was to figure in my own life.
After leaving the library, I took the tram out to Marlene's house. I had my suspicions about her. The was the only other person, outside of Poor Ernst, Franz, and Rina herself, who knew I'd been asked to interview Rina. She'd been present in my hotel room, when Ernst had telephoned me a day earlier.
It was dusk when I reached Marlene's apartment on Kinderstrasse in the south part of the city. She lived in a narrow cobbly street in a shabby building that was once white, but now was a very dirty streaky grey. I'd been there only once before; the night I met her at a party some weeks earlier. I knew very little about Marlene other than that she was a photographer's and artist's model who dreamed of being in motion pictures.
I climbed a single, badly lighted flight of stairs to apartment seven and rapped twice on the cracked door. There was no answer. I knocked again.
"Jar It was Marlene's voice on the other side. I was about to call out my name, but I heard from the room the shuffling of feet on the floor. It was a heavy sound; not one that would come from Marlene's delicate floaty walk.
Quietly, I moved past Marlene's door and on down the corridor, where I went up another set of stairs. From the second landing, I could look over the railing to Marlene's apartment. I saw her open the door and look up and down the hall, then return her pretty head inside.
In a muffled voice, though unmistakably Marlene's I heard her speaking to someone in German. There was no reply, but a moment later the door opened again and a man came out. He was really not much more than a boy; an emaciated sickly youth. I watched him walk, with some difficulty, downstairs and out of the building. I felt I'd seen him before. But I knew I was wrong. It was his condition, the way he carried himself, the horror in his eyes, that I'd seen before-a million times, if once. He was, I was absolutely certain, a junkie-a confirmed drug addict.
I hurried down to Marlene's apartment and pounded once again on the door. She opened it a few inches and stuck her head far out, as if expecting no one to be there. When she saw me, a look of fear struck at her eyes like a lightning bolt.
"Ah, Steve," she said, attempting to regain her composure, "what a delightful surprise. I thought you were in Denmark."
I pushed my way in and kicked the door closed behind me.
"My, you're such a brute, my dear. I didn't even invite you. But now that you are here, I am glad. I'm so lonely."
"What about that little boy who just left here? Isn't he good company, Marlene?"
"Ach! Just like an American. My sweet jealous lover. If I wanted another man, my dear. I would not choose a child. I think this body can bring better results than that." She issued a subtle roll of her full hips that almost made me forget why I'd come.
The way she was dressed too, was beginning to work on my hormones. She was wearing a black, turtle-neck, long-sleeved sweater that was as tight as her skin, and revealed every sensuous line of her melon-like breasts. I could see the whiteness of her brassiere pushing through the closely-knit fabric. The sweater was all she was wearing. At least that was all you could see. It was pulled down low over her hips and backside, hugging those curves like any man would. Probably she was wearing a pair of very short shorts, but with the sweater coming halfway down her fleshy thighs, I couldn't be sure. But in the next moment, because she had seen my gaze, Marlene rolled the sweater to her waist and displayed the blue denim pants that came down only as far as the crease of her legs at the very top of her thighs.
"You didn't think I was naked?" she asked. "Or did you?"
"As a matter of fact," I lied, "at the moment I'm not interested."
"Knock it off!" I said angrily. "I want to know what that kid was doing here."
"My, you are rude, today. I shouldn't tell you. But I can see you are impossibly jealous. He was bringing me news of my family, if you must know. He's a university chum of my brother's."
"Your brother a junkie too?"
"Junkie? What means junkie? I don't understand?"
"You're a liar, Marlene. You know damn well I'm talking about drugs."
She stared at me incredulously.
"Drugs! Dope, stuff, boo, H, you know, heroin."
"Steve, are you out of your mind?"
I grabbed her arm and forced the sleeve up over her elbow. Even as I did that, though, I knew it'd be clean-no needle marks; her arm had been a flawless lovely white just yesterday and by her eyes now I could tell she was not high on drugs at the moment. But I knew too, that the shoddy young man I'd seen come out of her apartment was stoned to the gills.
Her arm was clear. She stared at me, seemingly terrified of me. I held on tightly to her wrist.
"You're lying to me, Marlene!" I cried. "What do you do? Sell the stuff? Don't lie to me. I'm going to find out?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Steve. That boy might be a drug addict, but I don't know anything about it."
I believed it was impossible that she could be telling the truth. Slowly, I began to turn her arm at the wrist. She cried out in agony. I thought of poor Ernst-dead, when it was I whom they wanted to kill. It could only have been Marlene who told the murderers of the phone call from Rina. I continued to twist her arm until she sank to her knees, wincing in pain at my feet.
"Tell me the truth, Marlene. Or I'll-"
"I know nothing, Steve. Oh, God, I don't know what you want me to say." She groaned.
At last I could hurt her no longer. I was still convinced she was lying, but the weight of the guilt of what I was doing pushed open my iron grip on her. And she fell in a whimpering, trembling heap.
I bent to her. She was sobbing and rubbing her wrist, which was red and already livid.
"What's the boy's name, Marlene?"
"Bruno."
"Bruno what?"
"Bruno--that's all I know," she said still weeping, staring at me with frightened cat eyes. "He stays at a student house on the corner of this street."
I stood and began to leave.
"Steve," she called out.
I turned to her, waiting for her to speak. There were tears streaming down her flushed sanguine cheeks.
"I... I... I didn't lie, Steve. I know nothing about drugs." She began to cry again.
I left her, still sure she was lying. Yet a knife of doubt pierced my heart. At that instant I hated myself.
I ran down the street to the student house, looking for the Bruno kid. The student house was like a YMCA, only it looked more like a bordello. A fat old hag answered my ring. In my own brand of pig-German I asked if she knew someone named Bruno. She nodded angrily. She told me he'd just skipped out on her without paying the bill. I asked her where he was headed. She shrugged, but I knew exactly what the gesture meant. I handed her a five- mark note. She smiled, tucked the money in her massive bosom and said he'd probably gone to Paris-to the Latin Quarter, the seamy part of the city frequented by streetwalkers, pornographers and drug peddlers. I asked the crone if Bruno was on drugs. She shrugged her meaty shoulders very hard-two times. I passed her a ten-spot. She said in very understandable English, "I think-yes, I'm sure."
From there I caught a taxi and went to Rina's house out in the country past the airport. I'd spoken to her earlier in the day and she'd invited me for dinner and an evening with her. After what I'd gone through during the day I was relishing the thought of returning to Rina's passionate embrace. And I was hungry too.
It was a little past seven when I arrived. Rina herself greeted me at the door. There were no servants or visitors about the huge Bavarian villa, as there had been yesterday. The house seemed strange. And immediately I noticed trouble in Rina's expressive eyes.
"What's cooking?" I asked cheerfully. "I'm quite starved."
"Oh, yes," she said absently. "I'm afraid, Steve, today is the cooks' day off. And I'm not very good at that sort of thing. Will a sandwich of some kind do?"
"Sure, Rina, sure." I was extremely disappointed. And my suspicion that something was wrong grew stronger.
"I have some excellent Westphalian ham and Lowenbrau beer."
"Fine."
She went off to the kitchen and I wandered into the spacious Victorian-styled living room and fixed myself a bourbon and water. Some minutes later, Rina returned carrying a tray with one sandwich, a half-filled pitcher of beer and two tall glasses.
"Aren't you eating?" I asked.
"No. I--I'm not hungry." She took one of the beer glasses, but walked to the bar and poured several inches of scotch into it.
"What's wrong, Rina? You seem so troubled. Is it Ernst?"
She looked at me as if I'd startled her. 'yes," she snapped, "it's Ernst. That's right. It's Ernst." She gulped hard on the scotch.
I didn't believe her. There was something in the way she reacted when I mentioned Ernst's name, as if she hadn't been thinking of him at all, that made me think that it was something other than the dead man that was disturbing her.
While I ate, Rina was silent. She stared into her glass and appeared to contemplate the liquescent cubes of ice in her drink. And I stared at her. Was this the same woman I had made love to? There seemed to be a change in her -a basic change. The surface beauty was the same-if not heightened by the garment of brilliant green that clung to her exquisite body, gently caressing her thighs and her breasts, lying against the flat of her stomach and sweeping under her rounded rump. Yes, she was even more beautiful that night than I'd ever seen her before. But in the pliancy of her elegant lustrous face, in the pearly mist across her eyes, she bore scarifying gashes of fear.
I stood and walked to her and took her into my arms. Her hands gripped tightly around my back. I could feel a tremor in her body.
"What's wrong, Rina? What's wrong, my darling?"
"It's nothing, Steve. I told you, it's nothing. And one roll in the hay with me doesn't entitle you to call me 'my darling'."
Her words hurt me. And yet she did not break from my embrace; it seemed she held me tighter still.
"You shouldn't use American slang, Rina. It doesn't become you. And you know last night was more than a 'roll in the hay'."
There was no reply. I could feel her breasts crushing against my chest, her legs pressed against mine from thigh to calf. I kissed her neck.
"I want to make love to you Rina. Right now."
"I've invited some people over, Steve. Some of the people who are going to work on the film."
"Good," I said. "But let's make love first." I lifted her and carried her to the doorway. "Where's the bedroom, Rina?"
She pointed with her head. In her eyes, now, though the fear had not receded, I saw love-love for me. In my heart, there was love for her.
"You like me don't you, Rina?" I said, moving toward the bedroom.
"Yes, dear Steve, I do. Perhaps I could love you. Perhaps I already do love you-the first man in my life I have ever loved. But after tonight, my dear, you will hate me."
"Why, Rina?" I kicked open the door. In the darkness I could see the large bed. I lowered her gently and repeated my question. "Why, Rina, why?"
"You'll see, sweet Steve London. You'll-" I interrupted her by smothering her words with my lips. "Hush," I whispered. With my fingertips, I rolled over the parts of her body that I knew, having learned yesterday, would bring passion to her soul; the line where her neck joined her shoulders, the semi-circle where the top of her dress crossed her breasts; the small of her back; the swell of her buttocks; and the inner softness of her thighs. And all the while I kissed her neck and behind her ears.
But Rina failed to respond. Oh, the writing of her body allowed me onward, but she seemed to be restraining herself and her desire.
"Let yourself go, Rina," I said gently.
"I can't," she said. "Please- "I love you, Rina."
"Don't love me, Steve."
I removed her clothes, peeling her dress slowly to excite her; first away from her breasts freeing the firm nipples which greeted me by coming to attention, then away from her waist and slowly edging it over her hips. When she was naked she lay limply, covering her eyes with her arm, as I undressed. For a moment I thought she was crying.
I lay myself beside her, making love to her body, worshipping every part of her, trying desperately to break the reins that were holding her back. She wanted me, that much I did know, I could sense the need of her passion by the tenderness of her flesh. Emotionally, she demanded my maleness, but some demon in her mind tried frantically to defeat my quest for fulfillment. And it succeeded.
Abruptly and angrily, I got up from the bed and began to dress.
Rina said nothing. She dressed too, with haste. Afterwards, she rose and whispered in my ear, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything." Then she walked to a wall mirror and combed her hair.
I was furious, but I did not overlook the mystery that now had enveloped Rina. I tried to comprehend what forces had worked this sudden change in her. I believed she was worth the effort.
Rina, too embarrassed to speak to me, left the room silently and without me. I arranged my clothing and redid my tie several times, looking blankly in the mirror as though searching for answers. I was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell, and returned to the living room to meet Rina's guests.
Only Franz and another man I didn't know were in the big room. Rina was at the bar, fixing four drinks. I nodded to Franz and the stranger.
"Steve," said Rina, "I'd like you to meet Erich Ritter, the producer of my next picture.
Again I nodded to him. Ritter bowed, clicked his heels, and extended his hand. I shook it, feeling his thick fingers grip me tightly-almost painfully-in a strong and somehow unfriendly clasp.
If there's such a thing as a typical Prussian German, Erich Ritter, in his appearance, was he. He was short and stubby-looking. He had a thick, bullish neck and a shiny, completely bald head except for a few bristles of grey hair around fat folds at the base of his skull. His eyes were round and wide and ice blue. All that was missing was the monocle.
"I am pleased to meet you, Herr London," he said very correctly.
I smiled-not quite politely. So this was the man who was Hermann Huessing's pal. I controlled a naked impulse to smash his furrowed face. Rina came up with the drinks. Her eyes avoided mine. The same fear I had seen earlier had not faded-it had intensified.
"Is this a let's-have-the-kids-in-the-film-over party?" I asked.
"I'm afraid not, Herr London," said Ritter somberly.
"Well, Rina," I said ignoring the fat man, "who else is coming?"
Rina didn't answer. She turned to Ritter, who spoke for her. He threw his words at me like poison darts: flicking them one by one--point first, of course.
"Herr London," he said, "there will be no one else here this evening. I'm afraid it is not a party of any kind. It is rather a sad occasion." He sipped whatever it was he was drinking.
I stared at him expectantly. It seemed incredible to me that he had come to mourn Ernst Habe. A moment later I knew he hadn't.
"You see, Herr London," he continued, "Rina-more accurately Poor Ernst Habe and his assistant, Franz Ehrlich --have committed a most unfortunate blunder."
"Oh, and just what is that?" I asked.
"I think Fraulein Miller had best tell it. Rina? Please explain to Herr London the gravity of this situation."
I turned to her and again she avoided my eyes. "What is it, Rina?"
"Steve, I think you'd better be seated."
"C'mon, now. Quit stalling, Let's hear it!"
She swallowed hard on her drink. "Steve, you were right" she said fast. "It was all a publicity stunt." She turned her head to the side and began to sob violently. Dumbfounded, I looked back at Ritter.
"It's quite true," he said. "Tragic, but nonetheless true."
CHAPTER FOUR
On Monday morning next, I flew to Paris to look for, among others, a drug addict named Bruno. What else could I do?
I hadn't bought any part of that "publicity stunt" story. It seemed clear that Erich Ritter had somehow coerced Rina into that dodge to get me off Hermann Huessing's trail. Yet, when I called Rina the following morning to try to worm the truth out of her, she insistently stuck to the line that I'd been duped in an effort to call attention to the new film and to help build a sympathetic public image of Rina herself; a pitiful illegitimate child--a waif who had climbed to international fame and stardom. She begged me not to go to Paris now and warned me that if I did I'd only be making a fool of myself. She even offered to go to ANS and help me get my job back. She said she was sorry for all the trouble she'd caused me. But the hoax had failed--or had gone too far-and they had to put a stop to it. I reminded her that a man had been killed. She hung up on me.
But just as I'd had to believe Marlene had lied to me, I had to think the same of Rina. She was, I sensed, trying to protect me. Ritter had probably threatened to have me killed unless she went along with the lie. I had to believe all these things. For if my assumption were correct it meant Rina loved me and Ernst had not died for me in vain and I'd one day nab Hermann Huessing; my life would have meaning. And if I believed otherwise, then where would I be.
Lufthansa's Caravelle jet dropped through a thick wet grey cloud cover in its descent to Orly Field. When we got under the murkiness I could see all of the great city splayed from the Champs Elyssee, the Arc de Triomphe, the Toure Eiffel, L'opera. Paris, even in the aura of a dirty sunless sky, was as beautiful as ever. When the plane touched down on the runway, I was half-dozing, thinking of the sexy long- legged brunette I'd picked up on the Madelaine on my last trip about six months before. For a guy who'd lived in Europe as long as I had, I should have known better. She had taken me to her flat on one of those crooked streets that lead out of the Place St. Michel and before the evening was out this little fille dejoie had cost me forty francs.
I took a cab at the airport to a hotel on the Rue Lafayette, showered and changed my clothes to something rugged and comfortable and began my search for Bruno. I knew exactly where to begin, too. Right on the street where I'd shacked up with that forty-franc wench. In this area there are dozens of cheap flea-bitten hotels where impoverished students live on less than a dollar a day. This was the Latin Quarter, the Moslem district. I'd been there many times and I knew many strange and fascinating people.
There was Denise, a junkie herself, who earned her daily requirement of heroin by being an "actress" in a sex show-a pornographic exhibition arranged by pimps for lusty tourists. Night was coming on fast now and I decided to find Denise before the "busy" hours. Perhaps she could lead me to Bruno.
I walked over to a club called "le Fez," a hole-in-the- wall nightspot owned by a Moroccan woman who had one leg and wore a black patch over an eye. Though it was barely past seven-thirty and the place had been open only half-an-hour, the room was already thick with the eye-singing smoke of Turkish and Egyptian tobacco. A red-gelatined spotlight threw a dull beam on a barren rectangular stage, which was no bigger than a fully-opened road map. There was no other light. The faces of the customers were hardly visible behind the cloy of smoke, but almost immediately I picked Denise out of the crowd. She was hard to overlook. Her hair was bleached silver blond, which crowned her heavily mascaraed face-a luminescent orange with purplish eyelids. At close range, she appeared to be wearing a waxy mask. She needed it to cover the seedy coarseness of her skin. Once, not too many years ago, Denise had been a beautiful woman. But today, pounds of drugs having flowed through her veins, she was, without the mask of paint, hideous. Still her body retained most of its sensuous shape. She was wearing a black sweater that held tightly to the swell of her enormous breasts.
"Bon soir, Denise," I said as I walked up to her. She was sitting alone at a tiny table, drinking beer.
She turned to me, and as if she had seen me only yesterday, she said, "Sit with me, Steve. Have a beer."
"How's it going?" I asked as I pulled a rickety cane chair to her side.
"Ah, com ci, com ca. Et vous?"
"I'm looking for a German boy named Bruno. Know him?"
"Junkie?"
"Yeah. Do you know him, Denise? It's very important."
"I will take you to a hotel, Steve. I will point to a boy. You will know if it is he?"
"I'll know. When will you take me?"
"Later. I must work first. You will come with me."
"I'd rather not. I'll meet you afterwards."
"No, mon cher. I do not know where I will be or when I will be finished. I know it is very painful to see your sweet Denise when she is working, but you must."
I agreed. She said we'd have to wait around for "the man." He'd tell her just where and when she was to go and do her stuff. We sat silently and drank.
After a while, when the club became unbelievably hot and crowded and had taken on the odor of a high school gym, the spotlight brightened somewhat and the show began. A Moslem trio playing exotic wind instruments began to give forth an overture of squealy Arabic music, after which a brown-skinned North African dancer, wearing only pink silk pantaloons wriggled onto the stage and began to roll her supple hips in erotic gestures. Within a few minutes her body began to glisten in her own sweat. Her firm upstanding breasts were gleaming bronze globes rippling to the swaying ethereal sounds. Her eyes blazed brilliantly in the red glow as if they were windows on the raging fire inside her.
- The tempo of the weird music quickened and the dancer's body responded wildly. Tremorous waves shook through her body and across the flesh of her breasts in passionate rhythms. The circular grinding of her hips, her quivering buttocks, increased to a maddening almost violent pace.
I watched the dancer hypnotically, spellbound to the movement of her body. So enchanted had I become by the dancing girl's performance, I failed to notice the man who had edged up to Denise and whispered in her ear. I saw him only after Denise had tugged at my coat sleeve and said: "Come, Steve, we go."
As we pushed our way through the dense pack of humanity, I turned for one last look at the belly-dancer. Someone had stuffed the curled end of a five-franc note into her navel, and now, in repayment, she was nonchalantly working her undulant body out of her pantaloons, leaving nothing for the eye to desire. I turned and left "le Fez."
I followed Denise out into the street, which was alive with the yellowish lights from other clubs and the animated jockeying of the shills working the tourists.
Denise motioned to me to catch up to her. "It does not look right that you follow me," she said. "You will wait ten minutes by yourself, then go to number twenty-two Rue de Blanc, apartment F. You will knock softly three times. When you are let in, stay at the door until I am through working."
She walked off and after a few steps glanced back at me flashing a toothy smile. I threw her kiss and crossed the street to the dark side.
In the shadows, idly watching the business around the clubs, I smoked a cigarette, then another, and walked over to the address Denise had given me.
The halls at twenty-two Rue de Blanc reeked of urine and marijuana. There was enough reefer smoke to put a small jag on. I found the apartment I was looking for and tapped on the door. It was opened immediately by the man who had picked up Denise at Le Fez. He was the producer of the exhibition - and the pimp.
The room was dimly lit, but not nearly as dark as Le Fez. The pimp and I stood back against the rear wall in the shadows. It would have been in poor taste to disturb the small but eager audience. There was a low double bed in the center of the floor and half a dozen chairs arranged around it in a semi-circle. Denise and the other female performer, a full-breasted brunette, were standing off to the side both fully clothed chatting idly to one another. Apparently everyone was waiting for the star - the male actor in the sex show.
The customers consisted of five men - obviously Americans on a business trip to Paris. They looked nervous, fearful of the unknown, excited by the forbidden spectacle they were about to witness.
"Bah!" the pimp muttered angrily under his breath. "Where is Henri? Always late." He slipped out into the hall, apparently to search for the male performer.
While they waited, Denise and the other girl stripped and went around to the businessmen and introduced themselves.
"My name is Denise," she announced. "And this is Francoise. If you like what you see, you may applaud. If not, we will feel hurt."
With that, they began to parade past the men. Denise was wearing only her long-sleeved sweater, most certainly to cover the hypo punctures on her arms. The other girl was completely nude. She had a spectacular body. Overall, she was short, but her long shapely legs made her appear much taller than her five-feet, two-inches, or so. She had sharply breaking hips which burst curvaceously outward and blended sensuously into her strong firm thighs. Her skin had a pinkish virginal hue, that was virtually unmarked. Her large round breasts were pointed high and forward and you could see the fullness below the darkly-contrasted nipples. Francoise, as she ambled past the men, brushed her gorgeous breasts right under their noses, laughing - almost mocking - all the while.
At last the star arrived. It was grand entrance. With a pompous theatrical air he swept through the doorway and tipped his beret to the delighted audience.
Holding a lit cigarette between his thumb and forefinger and allowing the smoke to curl into his aquiline nose, he said, "Gentlemen, I am Henri." Graciously and in exquisite detail he explained to the voyeurs exactly what they would see. I watched the lusty eyes of the men brighten as he described the various scenes he would play with the two women. After he had completed his discourse, he promptly demanded, but not without tact, an additional one hundred francs as pourboires - tips for the girls. The spokesman for the customers adamantly refused. They argued for several minutes and finally settled for fifty francs extra, in advance, of course, which included the cost of renting the room.
Now it was show time. Henri, Denise, and Francoise went through their performance with practiced efficiency.
When it was over, Henri dressed and departed quickly. Denise and Francoise for an extra fee invited the men to join them on the bed. They debated the question for a while and said no. It seemed the leader of their group - the boss - was tired and did not wish to wait around. At this point the "producer" suddenly appeared, and ushered the audience outside. A moment later I found myself alone in the room with Denise and the youthful temptress, Francoise, who still was very naked and very appealing. But I stared not at her, but through her. My mind was elsewhere. I was thinking of Bruno. If I could find him, I felt he would lead me to understand how Marlene fit into this picture. I needed to know. I needed answers to questions that were by now spinning in my head like a rapacious tornado.
I walked to Denise, who was dressing now. For a moment I could not help staring at the contour of her naked hips as she bent and rolled her stocking across her legs. There was a trace of flabbiness now in what once, I was certain, had been a high-toned body. Denise must have seen the look in my eyes, for she remarked: "You do not want to make love to me, do you, Steve?" I didn't reply. What could I say?
"That is all right, non cher. I do not want you, either. I can not enjoy sex anymore. A junkie can not love anything - except heroin."
" "Francoise," I whispered, "is she a-"
"Ah, no, dear Steve. She is but a child. A sweet babe." I turned to Francoise. She was fully dressed now, looking like a college coed. She smiled ingenuously, blew a kiss at Denise and departed, calling softly, "Aurevoir, Denise. Until tomorrow."
"Let's go find Bruno," I said after she'd gone.
"Ooo la la," Denise said, "don't be so impatient. There is something more important at the moment."
She went to her purse and removed a cosmetics bag. Only she wasn't putting on makeup. From the small bag she removed a vial, a bent spoon, a cigarette lighter, and hypodermic needle.
"If you do not wish to see, Steve," she said, "you can wait for me in the street."
"I don't judge you, Denise," I did not move. I did not look away. Denise was a destroyed human being, an object of compassion. Not someone to be condemned.
"You are a dear man."
Denise opened the small glass capsule and poured a pinch of its white powdery contents into the bent spoon, returned the vial to the bag. Now, balancing the syringe in her lap, she struck a flame in the lighter and held it under the spoon until the drug melted to a viscous liquid. She then poured it into the hypodermic and with the cold business-like adroitness of an anesthetist, she held the instrument to the light and slid its piston upward so that the heroin came to the top.
"One must be cautious not to inject air into the vein" Denise said as if speaking to a group of freshman medical students.
Now she closed her hand in a tight fist and flexed her flaccid biceps to pump up the vein at the inner bend of her elbow. A second later she plunged the needle into her body and released the hot drug into her bloodstream. Her eyes locked shut.
With swift expert movements she disassembled her paraphernalia and returned it to the bag, shut her purse, and took my arm.
"Let's go, beli ami," she said smoothly. "We will look for your Bruno."
Before we left the room, I could see the pupils of her eyes open wide behind a glassine mist. The muscles in her face were totally relaxed and her cheeks seemed to be softly falling backward. Her lips were puffy and parted. She looked asleep - or in a waking death.
Outside, the cool dampness of the night clashed against the hot sweat of my brow, sending a rapid chill through my body. Denise's easy hold on my arm steered me down the dark streets, through filth-strewn alleys, where prostitutes lurked in every grimy doorway. We walked in silence. Only the clacking of our footsteps against the cobblestones broke the strange quiet.
At last, on the darkest, stillest, most narrow street, we stopped at a heavy steel door. Denise rang the bell. A peephole swung open and a black eye peered out on us. We were allowed to enter. As I crossed the threshold, following Denise and the lookout, I felt deep inside me I had passed over into hell.
How right I was!
We walked down a long dark sweet smelling corridor to a large heavily-carpeted room filled with men and women, who were standing, sitting, or lying about lethargically. I was in a narcotics den.
A man came up to us and asked if we wanted to make any purchases. Denise waved him away. I wandered off a few steps, looking around for Bruno. I could barely penetrate the heavy cloud of smoke from marijuana and hashish that rolled through the air like floating cotton.
"Is that your Bruno?" Denise whispered. She pointed to a young man who was off in a corner flailing his arms listlessly, as if trying to shunt the odors into his lungs.
I couldn't make out the face. I moved closer to the man. His head was bowed, his chin resting on his chest. Suddenly he looked up at me and smiled, gesturing for me to join him at his side. He was sitting on the floor. I dropped to my knees to get a good look at him. It was Bruno all right.
"Sit with me," he said patting the rug beside him.
I crept close to him.
"These people," Bruno said waving his arm as if to embrace everyone in the room, "they are not sick. It is the system they live under that is diseased. Don't you agree, Mr. London?"
I was startled. How did he know my name? I was sure he hadn't seen me that afternoon he'd left Marlene's apartment.
How did Bruno know me? The question struck at my gut like a battering ram.
CHAPTER FIVE
"You're Bruno?" I asked. I was angry now. It seemed everyone was ahead of me, as if I were being driven by forces beyond my control.
"Yes," he said, "I am Bruno, Mr. London."
"How do you know my name? Did Marlene tell you? You better tell me, kid. You just better!"
"You will find out, Mr. London. You will find out everything."
"When?"
"Will you come with me tomorrow night?"
"Where?"
"To a cafe. In Montparnasse."
"Why can't we go tonight, right now?" I stared into Bruno's eyes. He didn't seem drugged.
"Not tonight. I did not expect you so soon. I have to make the arrangements. Meet me at the Cafe Roget, in the Rue Vavin at eight o'clock. All right, Mr. London?"
"I'll be there."
"Now you must leave," he said, "you are not one of them. You will be noticed."
I stared at him. The puzzled look on my face must have been growing more intense every moment. "Why all this secrecy, Bruno? Why don't you tell me what this is all about?"
He leaned to me and whispered harshly in my ear, "Because, Mr. London," he said swiftly, "I protect your life." He rose immediately and walked over to the man who had offered Denise and me drugs when we had entered. I saw them talking to each other and suddenly bursting into laughter as if they'd heard a good dirty joke.
Now, infinitely more confused than before, feeling the oppressive weight of incomprehension bearing down on me with a crushing force, I found Denise and said dully, "C'mon, let's get out of here."
Denise, sensing my depression, took me to a lively crowded street, where we sat in an outdoor cafe and sipped espresso coffee.
"You are sad, mon ami" Denise said, after a long silence. "I'm mixed up, Denise. Very mixed up."
"You need a woman, mon cher." She touched my hands with tenderness. "Do you want to sleep with me tonight?"
"You said sex means nothing to you, Denise."
"Ah, that is true, dear Steve. But I will feel the warmth of your body. And that is still good for me. And you, my dear, will press your head to my breasts and pretend. You can pretend I am a beautiful movie queen. And I will hold you tightly in my arms. And you will say, 'I love you, Denise.' Only, for you, Denise will be a gorgeous queen of the cinema."
"Like Rina Miller?"
"Ah, yes, she is the best, the most beautiful woman. You will make love to me tonight, Steve. Only, I will be Rina Miller.
I laughed loudly and stopped abruptly when I saw a pained look in Denise's eyes. "I'm not laughing at you, sweet Denise. I'm laughing at myself, I suppose."
"Come then," she said, gay once again, "we will go to my bed and make love."
"No, Denise," I said compassionately. "I don't want to make believe you're Rina Miller. I really don't." We sat in quiet again, both of us staring idly into our empty cups, and, I suppose, our empty lives. Suddenly, I heard the sound of a smooth mellow feminine voice calling from behind me.
"Denise! Hello, Denise!"
I turned around to the sweet sound. It was Francoise. She was strikingly pretty even more so, it seemed, than two hours ago. She was wearing a blue beret pulled to one side at a rakish angle that drew my eye to the high cheekbones and the smooth shallow skin of her Gallic face. Her fine small body was wrapped in a tan trench coat that, bulky as it was, could not conceal the shape of her breasts, the fullness of her hips and thighs, and her tiny waist.
"Ah, Francoise!" Denise cried with motherly affection. "Sit with us. We are unhappy. And you, my little flower, will cheer us."
Francoise dragged a chair to our table before I could help her. She perched herself between us and threw me a devastating smile. She was so child-like in her manner, so innocent were the playful movements of her body, I could scarcely believe that Francoise was a clever and experienced performer of sex exhibitions and a world-wise, purse- swinging streetwalker.
"Oh, Denise," said Francoise pursing her lips sadly, "I am unhappy too, I am afraid."
"Why, mon petite?" Denise asked almost tearfully.
"All the men of Paris pass me by tonight like I am a gendarme. I have not earned a single centime."
Denise and I laughed uproariously. Francoise remained sad and pouting for a moment and then joined us with a vigorous burst of gaiety. Francoise was like vintage wine for my soul. Her blithe carefree spirit erased all the thoughts that were plaguing my mind in a single mirthful swipe.
I liked Francoise. I liked her a lot. And Denise - good old Denise - must have sensed how I felt, for in a little while Francoise and I found ourselves sitting alone; Denise had excused herself saying that she was tired and that "The night is for young people."
Francoise didn't talk much. I offered to buy her a drink - something stronger than coffee - but she refused, preferring to look wistfully at the lively people who crowded the cafe.
I studied her face as she watched a young couple who were obviously in love. Francoise's face sparkled in animation and changed in a hundred different moods as the lovers laughed and looked at each other, held hands, conversed, and stole a kiss or two. Francoise seemed to thrill at their every movement as if, even from afar, she were an important part of their lives.
"Were you ever in love like that, Francoise?" I asked.
"No, monsieur," she said unhappily, still watching the couple. "Who loves a whore? Not even a mother. Only Denise. Have you ever loved, monsieur? Or been loved like that?"
"No." I thought of Rina. But I didn't really love her. And she didn't love me. At least not the way Francoise meant it.
I suddenly felt guilty, sitting and talking aimlessly with Francoise. I had nothing to do, but to her, time was money.
"Would you like me to leave, Francoise?" I asked. "I mean, am I in your way?"
She looked hurt. "Oh, no," she said, "I am, so to speak, off duty. But I am tired. I think I will be going home."
"May I walk with you?"
"If you like, monsieru-."
It was well into the night by now - past one - and the streets were relatively quiet. We walked in silence and at last we arrived at Francoise apartment in a run down building with a large eerie-looking courtyard.
"This is where I live," she said.
I had the strangest feeling. I liked being with Francoise. I liked her. I didn't want to leave. I took her soft small hand in mine and kissed it gently allowing my lips to linger with deep affection. She looked into my eyes. There was warmth in hers - and loneliness. Still holding her hand, I drew her close to me and held her in my arms. I tried to bring my lips to hers, but she pulled back.
"No, monsieur" she said. "I must go."
"Why, Francoise? We are two lonely frightened people. Why shouldn't we be together?"
"Because there is love In your heart. And in mine too. But it is wrong. I am a whore. I cannot love. And you must not love me. If you do, you will come to hate me; for when we make love, you will wonder if I am going to ask you to pay me."
"You are very wise, Francoise. But if you tell me that there is love in your heart for me, I will never think that question."
"You will want to change me, monsieur."
"That's for me to decide," I said holding her tightly now. "And it's for you to decide what you must do. I'll never question that."
"May I call you, Steve?" she asked.
I smiled. "I would be honored." I could feel her body relax in a sigh. It was as if she were breathing easy for the first time in her brief life.
She turned and began to climb the stairs. I followed her, for I knew that was exactly what she wanted me to do.
The apartment was a small two-roomer in very poor repair. But it was surprisingly neat and dean and pleasantly scented. I say surprisingly, because I'd been at the flats of even the highest price call girls and those places invariably were sloppily kept and smelled from a combination of perfume, sweat, and male hormones. But Francoise place was quite homey; there was even a vase of freshly-cut roses perched on top of - of all things - a sewing machine.
Francoise took off her trench coat and beret and asked me if I wanted to remove my jacket. I did and sat on the sofa and lit a cigarette.
"Would you like some cognac, Steve?"
"If you have some with me, and sit beside me."
She poured the drinks into two gleaming snifters and came to me, kicking off her shoes and snuggling beside me with her legs tucked under her.
"To love," I said tinkling her glass against mine.
"A l'amour," she replied. And we drank.
"Do you know, dear Steve," she said, "I am a virgin." I smiled. "If you say so, Francoise, you are."
"No, no. You don't understand. I am really a virgin. When I work in a sex demonstration, men touch my body all over. But it is meaningless to me. There is no feeling - nothing. And when men sleep with me and lay all over me, it is without love. I have never in my life felt a sensation. Only a heavy moving weight on my body."
I looked at her in wonder. "But surely," I remarked," once in your life you have been aroused - you've responded sexually."
"Not once. Oh, once, when I was a child of thirteen, fourteen, I - how you say - petted, I petted with a boy, a schoolmate. And he brought strange sweet sensations to my body. But I became frightened and ran away. I have never felt anything like that since then. I know it must be wonderful. But, it is not for me. I have read about love in books. But I have never known it. I feel cheated, Steve. But I guess what must be, must be."
It doesn't have to be that way, Francoise. You are a beautiful passionate woman. A man who really cares for you will be able to blow life into the tremendous passion that must be locked inside your lovely body."
"I dream of him, Steve. Every night I dream he will come to my side and make wild love to me. Oh, how I dream of him."
"I want to make love to you, Francoise. Real love." I gazed at her body hungrily. Though I had seen her nude earlier in the evening, it was different now. I wanted desperately to see her body again, to touch the firm youthful flesh that was concealed now behind her clothes. She was wearing a man-tailored shirt that hugged her breasts and the narrowing lines of her torso. It was open at the neck and when she leaned forward I could sec the darkness between her breasts. Tiny droplets of sweet perspiration were forming there and I could see the throbbing pounding of her heart. I opened a button of her blouse and kissed the softness there, running my tongue in her cleavage.
"Oh, Steve," she sighed. "It is only for tonight, I fear, but I think we are in love."
"Why set a time limit?" I asked. And with that, I brought my lips to hers and entered her delicious mouth with my tongue, finding hers and continuing the passionate kiss as my hand slipped inside her blouse and caressed her breast. Her skirt had ridden high up over her legs revealing the sensuous whiteness of her thighs.
My desire rose quickly and I could sense in her irregular heavy breathing that she was as passionate as I.
Abruptly she pulled away. I looked at her questioningly. "First I must take a bath," she explained. "Would you like to help me?"
"What shall I do?"
"Undress me first, silly man."
She stood and presented herself to me, standing erectly, making her breasts strain at her shirt. Slowly I opened the buttons and when I reached her waist I bent and kissed her.
Then I threw the blouse over her shoulders locking her arms at her side.
"Now I have you prisoner," I said kissing her neck and the area below her brassiere.
"Ooo la la," she said, "how will you treat me as your slave?"
"Savagely." I undid her bra and her two lively beautiful breasts rose high, the stiff nipples, like succulent cherries, pointing directly at my eyes.
With a gentle touch of my fingertips I traced the circle of dark erected flesh at the points of her breasts. She squirmed at the sensation, but pushed me away.
"Wait," she demanded playfully. "First the bath."
I continued to undress her. I went behind her and opened the zipper at the back of her skirt. The pinkness of her panties came into view. They were very sheer. Now in a sweeping motion I brought the skirt over the swell of her hips. And, with the pressure of my hands at her sides, I drew the panties down with it. I stared at her buttocks. The light from the ceiling set in relief her golden supple flesh. Now I spun her around and stared at her flat stomach and the soft turn of her belly.
"You're magnificent, Francoise."
She laughed and ran away. A moment later I heard the bath running full blast.
"I'm coming in," I called.
"Only naked men are allowed in my bathroom," she cried merrily.
I dropped my clothes on the spot and went to her. I opened the door. Steam from the hot water plunging into the tub rose in a dense mist to cloud the tiles and the window and the mirror. I could barely see her through the fog, but I felt her eyes staring at my naked body.
"I have seen a thousand men, Steve," she said, "but you are different. Tonight everything is different. Mon Dier, I am excited tonight."
With that she turned off the water and went slowly into the hot bath, first dipping the point of her toes to test the water, then withdrawing it quickly at the shock of the temperature, then quickly she got into it completely. Her body reddened. And sweat formed on her brow. I bent to her beside the tub and wiped her face with a towel. I stared down at her breasts, which were floating on the surface of the water - two white lilies on a pond. I kissed the stems.
"Wash my back," she said passing me a bar of soap.
I lathered her. And when her back was scrubbed clean, I soaped her breasts, watching the white foam run between them down the flesh of her stomach to screen the part of her that was submerged.
"May I join you?" I asked.
"But the water, it is dirty now."
"But it is from - you, Francoise. It doesn't matter."
"No, wait," she said, pulling the plug from the drain. A few minutes later the tub was emptied and refilled with fresh clear water and I got into the tub.
With the two of us in there now, the level of the water rose flush with the top of the tub and when we moved it overflowed onto the floor. But quickly it drained off and we relaxed our bodies in the liquid warmth and the heat of the room. We washed each other very carefully, treating and fondling one another's bodies with special tenderness. Soon our hands moved over each other tremulously. I could see desire swelling swiftly in Francoise dark loving eyes.
"Oh, Steve," she whispered huskily, "this is the most wonderful night of my life."
I didn't answer. I rose and lifted her buoyant body from the water high into my arms, and stepped onto the tile floor. We were dripping wet, of course, and I grabbed a towel from the bar and dropped it into her lap. Now, leaving a trail of wetness behind me, I carried her to the bedroom.
In the darkness, I rubbed the towel briskly across her back, her breasts, her hips, thighs, rump, and legs. Then I dried myself.
"Hurry," she gasped staring at me, "I want you to hold me. I want to feel you, my lover."
I tossed the wet towel somewhere into the long shadows that ran through the room and swept Francoise from her feet again. I could feel her hot flesh trembling excitedly in my embrace.
I eased her onto the cool bed and at once began to caress her.
"But, Steve," she protested mildly, "I want to put talcum on and perfume. I want to taste sweet to your tongue."
"No," I said clutching her, "your love is all I need."
"Oh," she groaned passionately under my eager hands, what are you doing to me? I feel so wonderful inside me. I feel like... like... like a woman!"
The stone of sorrow that had petrified in the core of her being suddenly seemed to melt. The love she had guarded all the days of her life was now mine. She erupted into a passionate untamed tigress, clawing fiercely at me, demanding her womanly rights.
I kissed her lips, biting the fullness. Then I coursed my mouth along her neck and down the inner softness of her breasts. She moaned at every touch. Her breathing was very rapid and loud. Over and over again she sighed, "Oh, oh, oh!"
My wet lips continued to trail along the rim of her body, down, down, down. And always I could hear, spilling from her heart, "Oh, oh, oh!" The fire in me grew more and more ravaging, striking at me with tremendous bursts of flame, with a force that seemed able to consume me entirely.
Suddenly, almost rudely, she cried, "Now, Steve! Now!" I understood the enormous need for fulfillment that must have been grabbing from within. I went there. With almost brutal ferociousness the harsh movements of her body urged me forward. I submerged in the river of her love, whirling and spinning in the rapids, feeling myself being pulled by a current through eddies of desire into a hot stream of sensations.
The motion of the swift flowing river accelerated, driven by our mounting passion. And at last in a Niagara of emotions we felt ourselves being lifted over a ridge and cascaded downward, adrift now, floating in a pool of contentment, where we kissed each other with new tenderness.
We lay now quietly in the darkness for a long while. I smoked a cigarette, then a second, watching the red glow bob in the night. When I crushed the cigarette, I turned to Francoise to see if she were asleep.
Striking like a cat, she grabbed me in her arms and blanketed me with a thousand sweet kisses. She was crying with joy.
"You have given me something I will always remember. I cherish you. I thank you. I am glad to live. For the first time in my life, I am glad to live."
Before falling asleep, I recall that I felt pretty good.
CHAPTER SIX
Hermann Huessing. There was a little matter of nabbing him. And if I was feeling pretty good with Francoise, I was feeling exactly opposite, very lousy, the next day.
Unable to sleep after seven in the morning, I left Francoise and went out into the street for a cup of coffee. Afterwards I went to my hotel room to think. But I managed only to smoke two packs of cigarettes as I wrestled with my mind and watched uneasily the slow hands of the clock crawl through the day.
Bruno. I couldn't get the strange German kid out of my head. What the hell was his story? Whose side was he on anyway? In away, I wanted him to be an enemy. I wanted to know at least one of my enemies. But he had said, "I protect your life." What had he meant by that? I had that date with him at eight o'clock on the Left Bank. I swore to my self that I wouldn't leave Bruno until I found out what I wanted to know about him.
In the late afternoon, I went out and bought a paper. There was a story on the theater page about Erich Ritter starting to shoot the film version of Love of Man. The reporter, Chuck Richards - ANS man in the Paris bureau- was a good friend of mine. I called him. For no special reason. I just wanted to hear a familiar voice.
"Hey," Chuck said, after we'd exchanged greetings, "I'm not supposed to be talking to you. Strict orders from the front office. No one's supposed to help you get a job."
"Want me to hang up?" I asked.
Chuck laughed. But I got the message. He was letting me know how washed up I really was in the news business.
"Man, you really fouled up on that NATO assignment," he said. "Was it a woman?"
"Yeah, a woman."
"They'll do it everytime. Women and booze. They'll--"
"What's new on the Love of Man set, Chuck?" I asked, interrupting his philosophical comment.
"Hey, I'm glad you asked me that. A funny thing happened there yesterday."
"What's that, Chuck?"
"This kid comes up to me and asks me if I'm an ANS reporter."
"What's funny about that, Chuck?"
"Wait a minute, man. I told the kid I was with ANS. And the next thing, he asks me if I know you - Steve London. I said I know you. Then he wants to know where you are. Well, I didn't even know you were in town. I'd heard you'd been canned and I figured you'd scooted back to the states. Anyway, I didn't like this snotty kid asking me questions while I'm working. So I chased him."
"What'd he look like, Chuck? It's important."
"I don't know. Kind of like a beatnik. About twenty- one-"
"Was he German."
"Yeah, yeah, German. What's it all about, Steve?"
"You said he was on the set. Was he talking to anyone? Like to Erich Ritter?"
"No. I mean, I don't know for sure. He just seemed to pop up under my nose. And when I told him to cop a walk, he disappeared. What's it all about, Steve?"
"I don't know, Chuck. But maybe I'll find out tonight." Chuck said something but I didn't hear him. "Look, pal," I said hurriedly, "I'll be talking to you." And I hung up.
Bruno again! I knotted my fist and crashed it down to the table. The kid was like a horsefly--buzzing into my life everywhere I turned. I looked at my watch: three hours before our date at the Cafe Roget. If he didn't tell me then everything he knew, I'd wring his little neck.
* * *
The Cafe Roget in the Rue Vavin was a dark little grotto that smelled of wine and cheese. I arrived there exactly at the appointed hour. Bruno was no where in sight. I ordered a split bottle of Burgundy, then sat drinking the wine and staring at the entrance in wait for the mysterious Bruno.
The place was almost empty except for a group of bearded student-types who were gathered around a table not much bigger than a silver dollar, discussing the Existentialist writing of Jean Paul Sartre and the late Albert Camus.
As the minutes rolled by I became edgy and very angry.
I kept glancing at my watch every thirty seconds or so and I began to look around impatiently. Off in a corner I noticed a beautiful flaxen-haired woman sitting alone and reading by the light of a candle that had been forced into the mouth of a wine bottle. I saw her in profile. She had angular features etched sharply against the flickering light, which was off to the side. A thin vertical line of illumination ran down her forehead, the ridge of her straight nose, through the center of her soft lips, her chin, her long graceful neck, and the fullness other breasts. She was dressed in black, which provided a striking exciting contrast to the stark whiteness of her skin.
Suddenly she turned to me. She offered a knowledgeable half smile that might have meant a million different things, depending on how you felt at the time. I passed up a return smile. I merely checked the time again. It was past eight- thirty. I looked back at the blonde in black. She looked at her watch, closed the book she'd been reading, and stood up. I thought she was going to leave. But instead she came up to me.
"Mr. London?" she asked in a low throaty voice.
"How did - who are you?"
"Never mind that. Come with me."
"Where?"
"To Bruno." She began walking toward the doorway.
I got up and followed, catching up with her when she hit the street.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"Not far."
We walked for awhile, then I asked, "Why did you make me squirm for half an hour? Why didn't you take me to Bruno immediately?"
"I had to be sure it was you."
"And just how could you tell that?"
"The way you squirmed for half an hour."
Three quarters of the way down the street, she stopped and led me down a flight of stone steps into the basement entrance of an old building. With a key she removed from her purse, she opened the door and bolted it once again when we were on the other side.
We were in a dark cellar now. A single overhead bulb lighted the concrete room when she pulled a string near the entrance. There were the usual things you'd find in a cellar; a coal bin off to the side, various types of superintendent's implements, wooden boxes, a rusty old bicycle, a baby carriage covered with a torn dusty sheet, and a large wet terror- stricken rat that leaped across our path when the light went on.
"Well, I said, "what do we do now?"
"You wait, Mr. London. I go find Bruno."
She went to another door at the rear and tapped on it lightly.
"Brigitte?" a voice inquired from the other side.
"Yes," she said softly, "it is I. And I have Mr. London with me."
The door opened a crack and held there for a moment. Whoever was behind there wanted to be doubly sure it wasn't a trap. At last he came out. As last I was face to face with Bruno.
"Well, Mr. London," Bruno said issuing a broad grin, "so nice of you to come." He extended his hand and I shook it briefly, noting the softness.
"So nice of you to invite me," I said sarcastically.
Brigitte went into the back room and closed the door. I could hear the snap of the lock being turned. I wondered what was in there that was being so closely guarded.
"Pull up a box and relax, Mr. London," Bruno said. "We talk a while."
"Why don't we go back there with Brigitte? I'll bet it's more comfortable."
"It is quieter here, Mr. London. But later, perhaps, we will go in there."
I looked into Bruno's eyes, which were alert and definitely not the eyes of a man under the influence of drugs. I brushed off a wooden box and sat on it. Bruno did the same. He offered me a French cigarette. I shook my head and lit one of mine.
"All right, Bruno," I said, not knowing exactly where to begin, but wanting desperately to know something, "what's this all about? Why are you-as you said it-protecting my life?"
"You are - if I may be permitted and American idiom - jumping the gun, Mr. London. I will explain. But let me do it in my own manner."
I nodded.
"You see, Mr. London, things are not always as they appear to be. You saw me leaving Marlene's apartment the other day. I know that, because I called after you had been there and she warned me that you were looking for me. Which saved me a great deal of trouble, because I was looking for you."
"You went to Marlene's to buy drugs, didn't you?"
"That is quite true. But wait. You are jumping the gun again."
"Then Marlene was lying to me. She is a pusher." It was a relief to know that I had twisted the arm of a drug peddler and not an innocent woman.
"Please, Mr. London. Let me talk. There is not too much time."
"I'm sorry. Go ahead."
"It is true," Bruno continued, "Marlene is an agent of an international narcotics syndicate. But, though you may have assumed otherwise, I am not an addict."
"But your eyes. I saw you."
"One fix does not an addict make, Mr. London. I had to prove my good intentions to Marlene. I had to prove my need for drugs. I had to show her that my arms were pocked with needle holes. But as you can see now, Mr. London, those marks were only makeup." He held out two long white clear arms for my inspection.
"Why, Bruno? Why are you doing this?" I was quite sure I knew his answer. But I had to hear it from him.
"I think it is rather obvious, Mr. London, that I am seeking to find the man behind this dope ring."
"Are you some sort of a cop, Bruno?"
He laughed. "No, Mr. London. I am only a student."
"And breaking up drug trafficking is your hobby. Come off it, Bruno. Stop beating around the bush."
"I think we both know why I am in this, Mr. London."
"Say it, damnit!"
"Let me put it this way. Are you, Mr. London, still interested in finding Hermann Huessing?"
"Yes." So that was Bruno's story. He was looking for Huessing too. But why? And how did he know Huessing was still alive? And how much more did he know than I did?
"I am glad," Bruno said, "that you are still interested in the swine Hermann Huessing. I will help you to find him. Now, Mr. London, we go in the back room. I want you to see my stepsister."
Bruno had an annoying way of nursing me along step by step as if I were learning to walk. Now what was this about a stepsister? He stood, brushed the seat of his pants, and motioned for me to follow. He knocked on the door.
"Bruno?" It was Brigitte's voice.
"We come in now, Brigitte," he said.
With the same caution Bruno had used, Brigitte opened the door and peered out. Then she let us in.
Things are not always as they appear to be. That was what Bruno had said. Man, was he right! I'd assumed that Brigitte was the stepsister. But I was wrong. There was another woman in the room. She turned to me and smiled warmly. It was Rina Miller.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Rina!" I cried, staring at her, wide-eyed and in disbelief. She was more glamorous, more beautiful, more alluring than ever. Her natural golden hair which had always been loose flowing, was spun up high, crowning her sensitive face with a measure of royalty.
She was smiling brilliantly. She took a half-step toward me. I opened my arms and she came to me quickly. We embraced tightly; deep feelings of tenderness and sensuality exchanging through the firm contact of our bodies.
She drew back and still held my hands. Bruno and Brigitte, both grinning, watched us proudly.
"Now you understand, dear Steve," Rina said, "the reason for all this secrecy. I have to make Erich Ritter believe that you are no longer interested in Huessing. If they thought for one moment that you are pursuing Huessing, they will not hesitate to kill you."
I turned to Bruno. "You were protecting my life, weren't you, kid?"
"I still intend to, Mr. London. That is, if you continue to search for Huessing. It is a risk, you know."
"One has to live the way he has to live." I looked back to Rina. "But surely, Rina, Erich Ritter didn't really believe I'd fall for that story about the publicity stunt?"
"He did," she said, "because he did not know how much I had told you. But, my sweet, to Ritter, whether or not you believed him does not matter. If he knew that we were together, we would all of us be in very grave danger. The only one he is not suspicious of is my dear brother, Bruno - and, of course, his most beautiful and loyal friend, Brigitte."
"Have you found out anything more about Ritter- about anything?"
"Nothing. You know everything there is. Ritter has not mentioned the matter since the night both of you were at my house. But he has spies, of course. They are watching, I'm sure."
"But maybe they saw me come here."
"It is possible," Rina said. "But Bruno has taken every precaution. He has traced your footsteps to see if you were being followed. So far he discovered nothing. You see, Steve, after we told you that the Huessing story had been a publicity stunt, I contacted Bruno. I had to find some reasonably safe way to get to you, without endangering your life. Bruno posed as a drug addict to pick up information, of course, and also on the assumption that you would continue to search for Huessing. Bruno knew he would sooner or later cross your path. As it happened, it has worked out well - so far."
I began now to feel that among the four of us present in that room, I had emerged as their leader. It was a strange new role for me. I had never led or guided anything or anyone in my life. Not even myself, at times. I was just an ordinary guy caught in the flotsam of the tide of time. I d have to swim hard or sink.
"What we have to do next," I said with a tone of command in my voice that surprised me, "is to somehow get at Erich Ritter. We've got to pump out of him all that he knows about Hermann Huessing."
"That's quite logical," said Bruno. "But how do we manage that?"
"Well," I said, "apparently Ritter's lips loosen up when he has a couple of good stiff drinks and a beautiful woman around." I turned to Rina for confirmation. After all it had been she who'd come across the Huessing story in exactly that way.
She looked at me scornfully as if I were accusing her of having slept with Ritter - which, in a jealous way, I suppose I was.
"In other words," Rina said, "you are proposing that we use a woman's charms to get Ritter to talk."
"Exactly."
"Impossible," she said adamantly, "I certainly cannot do it. And Brigitte, who is but a child and without guile, cannot do it."
"I will try, if I am asked," Brigitte broke in.
"Hush!" Rina said. "Brigitte is a virgin. Ritter will know it is a trick."
I agreed with her there. Brigitte appeared to be too innocent to play the wily seductress. But I had someone else in mind. At first I had thought of Denise. But she was an addict and unreliable. But Francoise, beautiful, clever, compassionate Francoise, could win any man's heart. She had the power to squeeze from a man's mind his deepest secrets. She could get Ritter to talk.
"I wasn't thinking of Brigitte," I said to Rina. "I know someone else, who I think might cooperate with us."
"It is still impossible," Rina insisted.
I was beginning to wonder why Rina was so stubborn. Did she have something to hide? Was there something Ritter might say that would... ?
"Why is it so impossible?" I asked.
"Yes, Rina, why?" Bruno said with me.
"Because Ritter is too busy filming Love of Man. He rarely leaves the set. He is constantly working. How would we get this girl to him? And how do we know we can trust her?"
"If she'll agree to do it," I said firmly, "we can trust her. And as for getting Ritter and her together, it's quite simple. Ritter never leaves the set. We'll put her on the set. I can arrange that very easily."
"And then what?" Rina asked.
"I smiled. "I'm surprised at you, Rina. And then we let nature take its course."
It was agreed that Francoise would hang around the set. I could get Chuck, my reporter friend at ANS to get her a press pass. In the meantime we'd bug Francoise's room and run the sound down to the basement where their conversations could be taped. When Ritter went to Francoise, she was to get him to her apartment. And the rest would be elementary.
There was only one hitch: Francoise, of course, knew nothing about this. She'd have to be in on everything. And then I'd have to use her for a job that spelled danger... death-dealing danger. I'd said Francoise was trustworthy and would be with us all the way. That's what I told them. But I wondered about that. It's all right to risk your own neck. But when you begin asking others to put their heads on the chopping block, you'd better know what you're doing.
We sat around to near midnight discussing our assignments. I was to deliver Francoise and set up the monitoring post in her basement. Bruno would continue to pose as a junkie to see if he could pick up any leads as to what part of the world the drugs were coming from; for if we knew that, it would almost certainly follow that Huessing was in hiding there. Rina would go on making Love of Man, of course, where she'd be in a position to keep a watchful eye on Erich Ritter's movements - and Francoise's progress. Brigitte, pretty little virginal Brigitte, would make it possible for Bruno and I to trade messages.
Bruno said it'd be best if we left in pairs, at an interval of at least fifteen minutes. A couple looking like lovers strolling seldom arouses attention, and especially not on the Left Bank of Paris.
"Walk close together," Bruno said eyeing Brigitte affectionately, "clutch your hands about each others waist, a few kisses at the neck, and you are home safe and sound." He put his arm around Brigitte, letting his hand rest on the soft curve of her backside, and the two of them departed, wishing us farewell.
As I heard their footsteps trail away, I became aware of the dampness of the cellar. A chill rushed through me and at the same time a sobering realization of what had occurred over the past two hours or so. The four of us had taken the vows of conspirators - on the just side, it seemed - but still violators of the norm. The cold fact that we might be killed - that I might be killed - struck me with lightning force. The blade of fear cut through me.
I looked at Rina. The lines of her womanly body pressing every ideal way against her clothes deadened the fright in me somewhat. Yet, like an infant, I wanted to seek the comfort and security to be found in her tender breasts.
"You look so strange," Rina said.
"Do I?"
"And you seem cold to me, Steve. What is wrong?"
I couldn't tell her I was scared. Or that a part of me still distrusted her. I merely looked at my watch and said, "We can leave in ten minutes. Where shall I take you?"
"In your arms. Why don't you take me in your arms and smother me with your sweet kisses? What is wrong, Steve? Do you think I have forgotten so soon the joy you gave to my body and my heart? Is that what's the matter, Steve? Do you think it was roll in the hay? Well, not for me. There has not been a single moment since last week that your kind face and your passionate body has not been before my eyes.
"This morning, when we were filming, I kissed a man for the cameras. But you know, my dear, that man just wasn't there for me. I was kissing you. I acted the scene with you in my eyes. And when it was over, do you know what the director said? He said it was the most realistic love scene he had ever shot. I laughed at him. 'Why not?
I said. 'For me it was real, because I was not kissing the actor, I was making love to my lover.' The director understood. Do you understand, Steve?"
I moved to her. Her touching speech had melted all the icy terror in me. I took her into my arms and held her very tightly feeling the throb of her breathing and her rapid heartbeat. Her breasts crushed against me, firing my desire. She pushed her broad hips and her full thighs against me with a growing pressure. I kissed her lips, our tongues instantly seeking and finding each other. Her body bent toward me still more almost singeing me with its burning frenetic passion.
Feeling raw desire gorging me, I wanted her too - immediately. But it was seemingly impossible. Where in that dingy barren cellar could I possess her? The cold stone floor was sweating with dampness. Even as my fingers undid the front of her dress, boldly unloosing her large creamy-skinned breasts, I thought of stretching out my raincoat on the ground and taking her quavering body right on the spot. But I knew it would be impossibly uncomfortable, especially for her.
But our need could not be restrained. Rina, sighing erotically, pulled my shirt from my trousers to get her hands at the flesh of my back. She held me still tighter. Her breasts, which had escaped to the open air, were pressed against my chest, the smooth roundness rising like two dunes of desert sand. I brought my hands to her breasts feeling each of them grow hard at the touch of my excited fingers.
She was wearing a grey knitted dress that opened down the front like a coat. I unbuttoned it entirely now, but did not remove it; the chill in the basement air would have cooled her feverish body and the passion inside it. Kissing the softness around her waist, I slid her panties over her hips and buttocks and let them drop to the floor. She stepped out of them; seeming to sense what I was leading toward.
"Oooo, I'm so cold," she cried. "Hold me tighter."
It seemed to be growing colder. But the blaze in my soul radiated warmth in me from within.
"Oh, Steve," she whispered, "it's useless. How can we make love like this? We are only torturing ourselves. You will be sick."
I covered her mouth with my lips to silence her and lifted her into my arms.
"Can't you guess what I'm going to do, my darling?" I asked, kissing her.
"Oh, do something," she demanded sensually. "I can't wait any longer. I think I will burst."
Still holding her high in my arms, I sat on one of the wooden boxes, lowering her slowly and gently into my lap. She smiled.
"You're wonderful. I love you for your soul. You are the best lover I have ever had."
The tempo of our love, heightened quickly to an agitated frenzy, and at last after an awesome spasmodic tensing of every muscle in our bodies, we relaxed in a wondrous physical sigh.
We became aware once again of the cold. Rina's teeth began to chatter. We dressed rapidly and went out into the street. On the Boulevard Montparnasse I hailed a passing cab and kissed Rina goodbye. It was a sad farewell, for we did not know when we'd be able to see each other again. It could be tomorrow. It could be never.
I walked a block or so until I came upon another taxi, which carried me through the quiet streets of the waning Paris night to my hotel.
The room clerk was fast asleep on the job and the self- service elevator wasn't working. I climbed the four flights of stairs to my room. And on every step a new question flashed through my mind. I'd picked up a great deal of answers this night. But a million new problems remained to be solved. And behind each one of them lurked the possibility of the final answer - lurked the possibility of death.
On the fourth floor, two of the dim lamps that lighted the hall were out. Long shadows spilled mystery down the corridor that led to my room. At my door, I fumbled in my pocket for the key. Fear again welled up inside me. What if someone were waiting behind that door, waiting to kill me? Anything was possible now. As I put the key in the lock and turned it, I tightened my free hand in a bloodless fist. Wherever I'd go now, I'd always have to be prepared for violence. I hated violence.
I swung the door open with a force that made it hit the wall. If someone were behind there he would have been startled. But there was nothing, only the smashing sound of the doorknob against the plaster. I switched on the light and looked around. The maid had been in the room and now it was tidy and inviting. I was anxious to get to sleep, to be able to blot out for a few hours the real cruel world.
I began to undress, but before I could unknot my tie, my eye caught something on the floor. It was a note. I picked it up. It had been written in French by the room clerk. My knowledge of the language was not especially good and besides the message had been scrawled in an illegible handwriting. The only thing I could make out was the name, Charles Richards.
It was almost three o'clock and on the chance that Chuck was working the graveyard shift, I called the ANS Paris bureau. I'd been wrong. He was home in bed, the sleepy- voiced desk man said. But my curiosity had been pricked by now and I couldn't contain it. I asked for his home number. At first the ANS man wouldn't give it to me but with bluster I wrung it out of him.
I called Chuck at his home. The phone rang on the other end about eight times and he finally picked it up and groaned an angry hello.
"Chuck, it's me, Steve London," I said impervious to his obvious discomfort.
"Are you nuts?" he screamed. "What the hell are you waking me up in the middle of the night for?"
"The message," I said. "You called me, didn't you?"
"Christ! It could've waited till morning. It wasn't important."
"Well, what was it?"
"I got a good mind to hang up on you Steve. You don't - "
"C'mon, man! Give me the message. The lecture can wait." I'd never been so rude in my life. But things were different now.
"All right. It was that kid - the one who was asking the questions about you the other day."
"What about him?" Bruno. It was a message about Bruno.
"Jesus! Wait a minute. The kid showed up at the newsroom tonight. He's still looking for you. That's all. I told him to beat it -"
"Tonight?" How could that be? Bruno was with me. "What time, Chuck? What time did the kid come around?"
"Oh, about nine o'clock - a little past."
"That's impossible. I was with him. Are you sure?"
"Sure, I'm sure. Look Steve "What'd he look like?"
"I told you last time. In his early twenties, German, bearded -"
"Bearded? Bruno doesn't have a beard."
"Bruno? Who's Bruno?"
"Never mind, Chuck. Go back to sleep. I'm sorry. I'm awfully sorry." I hung up without waiting for his goodbye.
So it wasn't Bruno who'd been looking for me. It was someone else. But who?
CHAPTER EIGHT
I didn't sleep much that night. Only in restive fitful snatches of nightmarish unconsciousness. And when the sun slashed its way through the slats at my window, I got out of bed and called Chuck again.
I apologized first, then made him repeat what he'd told a few hours earlier. His story was the same. Someone wanted to find me real bad. Chuck, a newsman first, began to smell intrigue. He tried to pick my brain, but I begged off. Still, I suspected I'd pushed him too far. He was bound to start investigating on his own. That worried me. I needed this story for myself. It was my only ticket back into the fold. But I wanted Chuck to help me locate the bearded kid.
"Why didn't you tell me the first time," I said, "that he had a beard?"
"I did. I told you he was a beatnik. They all have beards. Why is this guy so important, Steve?"
"I'll tell you someday. Meanwhile do me a favor. If you see him again, tell him where to find me. Okay?"
"Sure, Steve. Only I'd wish you'd tell me "And do me another favor, pal. Get me a press pass to get on the Love of Man set."
"No can do. You'd be seen. And we're not supposed to help you."
"It's not for me. Make it out to Francoise Cartier."
"All right, I'll do it," Chuck said. "Who is she? Someone important you're trying to impress?"
"Precisely. How'd you guess, Chuck?"
We said goodbye and I dressed quickly and went out. There was someone I had to see; someone important who I was trying to impress.
* * *
Francoise looked different from the way I'd thought of her. Maybe it was the early morning sunshine splashing over her beautiful unmade face. Maybe it was the wildness of her black hair, twisted and thatched in sleep, now draping around her neck and to the whiteness of her breasts. Whatever it was, she looked like a reigning nymph.
I'd awakened her when I'd rang her doorbell and was surprised to find that she had rigged up by herself a device that could open her door while she remained in bed. It wasn't much more than a string and a hook, but it was immensely clever. After I'd identified myself, she'd let me in and called to me to enter her bedroom. When I did, I found her in bed, her eyes still heavy with sleep.
"You're an inventor," I said staring at her beauty which radiated as brilliantly as the sun itself.
"I am in bed so much, you know. Necessity is the mother of invention."
I frowned. The thought of this exquisite woman, selling her precious body to the highest bidder, bothered me.
"You see," she said perceiving my emotion, "you are already trying to change me. You are showing me that you are hurt and you want me to feel guilty."
"I'm sorry, Francoise. I'm a fool."
"You're not anything like that. You are a wonderful man."
She sat up straight and leaned tome. Her breasts jumped up from beneath the sheet and stood high and firm as the covering she'd been holding to her neck fell into her lap. I was startled to see her so naked in the light of day.
"How magnificent you are!" I said loudly, staring at a thin line of sunlight that blazed across her nipples and shimmered as she breathed.
"Do you want to see all of me, Steve?" she asked kittenishly. The justifiable pride she had in her body was beaming in her eyes. She must have known what my answer would be, for without waiting even a moment, she leaped from the bed revealing her completely nude gorgeous body.
"Wait," she cried and dashed by me to the window. She drew the drapes and the blinding light gushed into the room explosively. "Look at me now." She opened the paned doors that led out to a small balcony.
I walked to her, my eyes transfixed on every delicious curve. "Someone will see you," I said jealously, pointing to the open doors.
"Let them," she said running her hands along her sides up to her breasts. "I want the whole world to see my body. Why not? It is something beautiful, no? Look, Steve, not a mark on me. Not a dot. Artists, they paint women like me. Therefore I am art. N'est-cepas?"
"Francoise. You are art, a dream, a priceless painting." I suddenly knew how wrong I'd been to try to involve Francoise in my life. What could have possessed me, I thought shamefully, to have wanted this beautiful bubbling bohemian to risk her neck with a pig of a man like Erich Ritter? Sure, there was the principle of bringing evil men to account for their heinous crimes. But I was the one who'd gain. I was trying to buy back a way of life - nothing special, true - but I was playing the hero for personal reasons no matter which way you looked at it. And for that, I'd thought I could ask Francoise to imperil that elegant enchanting work of art in which she lived. I knew now though that I'd forever rue the day harm would visit a single downy hair on Francoise's dazzling naked form.
I turned from her vivacious beauty and walked away. "What is the matter, Steve?" she cried running to me. "I'm going now, Francoise."
"You do not want to make love to me? In the morning it is better. We will watch ourselves."
"No, Francoise, I'm unworthy of you."
She laughed. "You tease me. I am nothing but a whore. Are you unworthy of a whore? It is I who am unworthy of you."
"Whatever you say. I'm going anyway."
She pressed her nakedness to my back and gripped my shoulders to keep from leaving. I turned and looked at her. "I can see you are not teasing me," she said compassionately. "You are very troubled. Tell Francoise what is eating you. Come, I make coffee. I have croissants too. We have breakfast together and you will tell me."
I knew that if I were to reveal to her what was on my mind, I would in reality be asking her to do the very thing I knew was wrong. "I must go, Francoise," I insisted. "Please."
"If you leave, mon cher, you will never return. You will never be able to see me for fear that you will say what you are holding inside you now. If you walk out I will lose you. And then I will die. You have brought so much joy to me my heart is blossoming. If you leave me now, I shall whither like an autumn leaf."
"I'll have to leave your life sometime," I said truthfully.
"I know. But wait until I have flowered. Don't walk out on me this morning."
She came to me offering her lips. I kissed them lightly, breathing in the aroma of her skin, as one would smell a rose.
"You are a remarkable woman, Francoise. I cherish you."
"I make coffee," she said bouncing into the kitchen, her naked buttocks swaying and undulating in rhythmically.
We ate breakfast together and I told her everything: from the moment I'd gotten that first phone call from Ernst Habe until this morning when I'd been reluctant to ask her to help me. Francoise never failed to impress me. As a child she'd suffered under the Nazi occupation of France--she'd seen her parents murdered by SSmen--and she hated Fascists as much as I. She'd never heard of Hermann Huessing, but she understood why he had to be captured.
And because she loved Denise, she especially despised anyone who sold narcotics. She said she'd do anything to help. I told her how she could. Without a flicker of doubt or fear in her eyes, she agreed.
I explained in great detail exactly what she was to do. She was to use the press card to get on the set of Love of Men. She was to make a play for Erich Ritter and somehow bring him to her apartment. She was to get him drunk and voluble and, if need be, allow him to make love to her. I'd be in the cellar, I told her, listening in with recording equipment.
"When do I begin?" she asked with brave eagerness.
"As soon as I get the press pass, which should be today or tomorrow. I'll bring it to you."
"Ah, wonderful. It will be like a vacation from my regular work."
"It's dangerous, Francoise. We're dealing with killers."
"My darling," she said wisely, "I deal with killers every day of my life. Did you every try to cheat a pimp?"
I laughed. "You're wonderful, Francoise. The greatest."
She stood and went to the stove for more coffee. When she came to me, I took the pot from her hands and held her naked body to me, easing her into my embrace. I kissed her lips, her neck and her breasts with tenderness.
"Do you want to make love in the sunshine now?" she asked.
"And watch ourselves?"
"But of course. That is the excitement. Did you notice? I have a mirror on the wall facing the foot of my bed. In the light, I can study a man. I have learned a great deal about men that way. I can tell a good lover from a bad one by watching him in my mirror. I can tell if he is interested in the woman's feelings or only his own."
"How do you think I'll make out?" I asked.
"I do not have to watch you. I know you are interested in my feelings. You showed me how much the other night."
I was just about to grab her, when the telephone went off. Francoise, bumping her bare fanny teasingly, went to answer it.
"Allo?" she inquired. Then a moment later: "It's for you, Steve."
I was startled: the way you feel when the phone rings in the middle of the night. Who knew I was at Francoise's? I picked up the receiver. Francoise retreated, but I caught her arm and drew her to me for comfort.
"Hello?"
"It's me. Chuck."
I breathed easily. And as I listened to him, I stroked Francoise's bare body. Chuck had gotten the number out of directory, when I hadn't answered at my hotel. He'd called to tell me that the press pass was ready. He was going out to the Rina Miller film location in half an hour. He said he'd give Francoise a lift. I told him to hold, and turned to Francoise to ask her if she were ready to begin her undercover work immediately. She nodded eagerly. Chuck said he'd stop by and pick her up. He didn't want me anywhere near the ANS office. I asked him if he'd heard anything yet from the bearded guy who was looking for me. Nothing. We hung up.
Francoise began to dress hurriedly. Suddenly she stopped and gestured toward the bed. "But what about the mirror?" she asked pouting sensually.
I shrugged in apology.
"Ah," she said sadly, "Cest la vie."
After she dressed we went into the street to wait for Chuck. All the while I kept thinking, this is it; things are really going to move now. I was also aware of the danger. My gut knotted in excitement.
"In case I am asked," sand Francoise while I looked out for Chuck's car, "why am I at the filming of the picture? What am I to say?"
"Just shake your hips a little and say something vague - in French. No one's going to mind having your lovely provocative body around the set."
She laughed. "You mean I should do something like this." She struck a sexy pose: thrusting out her young rump, pushing her breasts high and forward with a deep breath and puckering her lips passionately.
"That's the way," I said. "A lot of that stuff and your job'll be a cinch."
At that moment Chuck came by. His eyes nearly leaped from his head as he caught Francoise's lovely body in a very inviting attitude. He screeched the car to a stop and ran out and around it to open the door for her.
"Hey," I called to him. "Don't be so anxious. She's my girl."
Francoise liked my display of jealousy, which turned out to be more genuine than I'd intended. She got into the car and blew me a warming kiss. I returned it.
"And keep your eyes on the road," I said to Chuck as they drove off. I watched them fade away behind a screen of black smoke that poured from the Citroen's exhaust. I wondered if I'd done the right thing. I wondered if Fran- could would end up like Ernst Habe. I wondered if I would end up like Ernst Habe.
* * *
I spent the rest of the morning and all of the afternoon bugging Francoise's apartment with recording equipment.
I was not inexperienced at the task. I'd done it many times before to get some pretty sensational stories. I deplored the whole idea of tapping someone's private life. And most times I'd hated myself for doing it, even though it had paid off for me with regard to my career. But this day I had no qualms. I delighted in the notion that I was moving closer to my prey.
First thing I did was take a cab to the Champs Elysee and cashed a check at American Express for five thousand francs - a thousand dollars - which to me was a very sizeable sum. It made a big dent in my bankroll. But it was necessary, Then I went straight back to Francoise's building and for five hundred francs and the promise of another five hundred if all went well, I bought "permission" from Francoise's landlady to set up my gear. I told her I was a private detective in the employ of a very rich American woman who suspected her husband was cheating by shacking up with the local prostitute and especially Francoise. Probably the landlady couldn't care less, but she seemed to fall for the ruse and gave me a pass key that fit both Francoise's apartment and the basement, and swore herself to secrecy on her Rosary beads, provided I came across with the second five hundred, when I'd gotten a couple of tapesful of evidence.
I then went to the Rue de Rivoli and bought a recording machine, whose microphone could be activated at the controls, and about a hundred feet of cable. I also purchased two bottles of a good brand of scotch.
Back at Francoise's I set up the mike beneath her bed and ran the wire under the carpeting to the steam pipes, and through them, to the cellar. With the landlady's help I tested the equipment. It worked perfectly. I set the scotch in a convenient place to be sure Francoise would be able to keep Ritter well liquored up and loose-tongued. I checked and double checked the room to be certain I'd left nothing suspicious around, and then locked the front door and departed. Now it was just a question of time.
The sun was falling westward swiftly, dragging the day with it. A pang in me recalled that I'd not eaten since morning. I took a quick dinner and returned to my hotel to see if there were any messages and to await a call from Francoise. I could barely contain my curiosity as to how she'd made out the first day on the job.
When I arrived at the door to my room, I was struck with that same queasy feeling I'd had the night before: as if terror were lurking behind my door. I was holding a newspaper in my hand. I folded it in half and then in half again. With the butt end up, it became a lethal weapon, able to smash a man's jaw with an easy flick of my wrist. I held it that way, put the key in the lock, turned the knob, and flung open the door. Nothing. Only still darkness.
I felt foolish again - until I switched on the light.
There was a man sprawled across the floor.
I slammed the door shut and rushed to him and bent to his side. He looked lifeless. His face was a gory mess, clubbed almost beyond identification. Two neat little holes, from which seeped a small circle of blood, showed at the back of his coat.
At first I thought it was Bruno. He appeared young enough. But at a closer look I saw it could not be him. This man had a beard.
It was the kid who'd been looking for me. He'd finally found me. And two bullets had found his back.
I picked up his limp wrist and felt for a pulse. I thought I detected a faint beat but I could not be certain it was his. It might have been my own fear-pumped throbbing pushing my blood through my tingling fingers. I rolled the kid over and put my ear to his chest. There was no mistaking it now. A flicker of life was still in him. I was about to get up and call for an ambulance when I heard him gasp. His eyes opened wide, seemingly in preparation for ugly death. His lips began to quiver, shaking loose clots of blood from the hairs of his beard. He was fighting off death for a few moments more. He was trying desperately to say something to me.
His hands, moving in jerks, beckoned me to move closer. I bent over him. I could smell his torn guts. I wanted to vomit right there.
"Uh... uh... uh," he gasped.
"Go ahead, kid," I urged. "Say it. Who did it to you?"
He shook his head no. He wasn't trying to tell me who his murderer was. There was something more important that he had to get out on his dying breath.
He began to rock convulsively. I thought I was losing him. I gripped him tightly at the shoulders, as if I could hold onto another second of his life.
"Say it, kid. Say it." I put my ear to his mouth. He gasped again and a gusher of blood came out of him and splattered across my cheek.
Sound rolled over his tongue now. "Ma... Ma. .
Oh no! I thought. I believed he'd had it. It seemed he was going to start calling for his mama - which is always the end. But still I listened hard.
"Ma... Ma... Marlene... Marlene. .
An eerie unearthly noise erupted in him. He was very dead.
I stared at the corpse. Marlene, he'd said. Marlene. What about Marlene? This poor dead bastard had looked for me for days to tell me something about Marlene. I'd have to fine out. I sensed I had to find out about Marlene to keep me from ending like the wretched body lying at my feet.
CHAPTER NINE
I had to get rid of the body. There was no time now to get myself involved in a police investigation. Things were popping too fast.
I dragged the leaden dead man to the door, then checked the area he'd been lying in for any tell-tale bloodstains. Luckily there was none. He'd been shot in the back and had fallen face down. He'd done all his bleeding on himself - there wasn't much from the two little bullet holes. His face had been bloody - his killer had mashed it to pulp. There were some dried clots on the floor, which I swept onto a piece of cardboard and flushed down the toilet. Now I sat and waited with the dead man until well after midnight.
At last, when I believed it was reasonably safe, I went out and looked up and down the hall. It was clear. I'd have to work fast. I pulled the corpse out of my room and a third of the way down the corridor to a large dumbwaiter that was used to transport spoiled bedding to the basement laundry. With considerable effort, I stuffed the body in there and sent the lift down several feet where it would be between floors. I worked with superhuman strength pumped into me by my adrenals, which had been fired by fear. If I were caught hiding the body, I'd be in serious trouble. But I had to take that chance to avoid questioning by the police.
Now I raced back into my room and locked the door behind me, leaning against it, breathing hard. I was drenched in the sweat of exertion and anxiety. But I was safe. Some poor innocent chambermaid was in for quite a shock when she went to use the dumbwaiter. But that would be hours away. And I'd be many miles off by the time police arrived. I'd be flying to Munich to see Marlene.
I packed my bags and checked out of the hotel. It was two-fifteen a.m. I had a full night's work ahead of me before going out to the airport.
I taxied over to Francoise's house. Before going upstairs, I let myself into the cellar with my pass key and listened in on her bedroom on the sound equipment to be sure she wasn't with Erich Ritter - or any other man. I opened the line. I heard only the sweet purr of her sleep- breathing. I went upstairs and rang her bell. I could have let myself in with the key but I didn't want to frighten her.
After several rings, and when I'd identified myself, Francoise let me in by opening the door with her invention.
"How'd it go?" I asked, kissing her forehead gently.
She'd been sleeping nude and flashing red neon light from across the street kept breaking into the room flashing torridly across her bare breasts.
"It went well," Francoise said sleepily. "I didn't speak to Mr. Ritter, but I know he is interested in me. His eyes jumped down my dress a thousand times. He could hardly work. It is fun to watch them make a film."
"Good girl," I said. "Keep working on him."
"But what shall I do?"
"Wear a sexier dress tomorrow."
She smiled in the red glow. She looked devilish. I wanted to get into bed with her beautiful naked body. But there wasn't time. Instead I explained to her what had happened during the day. I told her I'd have to go to Munich for a while and that she should keep shaking warm invitations at Ritter. I told her about Bruno and that he'd get in touch with her if need be. In any case I'd be back in a day or so.
"But what if our man decides he would like to spend a night with me?" she asked.
It was a good question, for even if I were available, Francoise might not be able to let me know Ritter would be at her place. We worked out a signal. If Ritter were coming, she was to leave a lamp burning at her window, which either Bruno or I could see from the street below.
I kissed her goodbye, my mouth lingering at hers for several warm moments, my hand caressing her breasts. My heart began to pound.
"You'd better go," she said. "Or you will be here for many more hours."
I tore myself from her embrace. "You're right, Francoise. But remember, we have a date with that mirror of yours."
She laughed and lay her head deep into the pillow. "Goodbye, my darling. Hurry back for me. Adieu."
I went over to Montparnasse now. To Brigitte.
I told the cabbie to take a circuitous route - to go out of the way and then back again, to cut down narrow streets and double back. I had to be certain I was not being followed. By the time we reached Brigitte's, I was satisfied of that.
The light of dawn was nudging a grey line over the eastern horizon, as I waited at the steps to Brigitte's house for her to answer the door. At last she let me in and led me to the kitchen where she perked some coffee. I told her the messages I wanted to convey to Bruno and gave her a second pass key I'd had made up. But all the while I kept watching the movements of her fine body. She was wearing a thin black negligee that fell against the contours of her form, outlining the swell of her breasts and the turns of her hips and buttocks. The nightie barely crossed midway down her full thighs. I wondered how it was possible that she could be a virgin. And I wondered who'd be the lucky man to get that prize inside her. I hoped it would be Bruno. She was just right for him. Too young for me. Besides, virgins, after they've given you their love, require too much of your time. Yet there is one satisfaction. They remember you until the day they die.
"You like Bruno?" I asked fatherly.
"I love him," she said and a glow in her eyes said that was true.
"How old are you, Brigitte?"
"Twenty."
"It's none of my business, but how come-" I stopped in mid-sentence. It was none of my business.
"I know what you were going to ask, Mr. London. Well, I'm not a virgin anymore." She embraced her hand around her breasts and sighed. A wisp of a loving smile crossed her full lips.
"Bruno?"
"Oiu. He is wonderful."
"Congratulations." I took her hand and kissed it affectionately.
"Love is wonderful," she said dreamily. "Did you feel that way when you were young, Mr. London?"
"Yes, my pet. I seem to recall that when I was young, I enjoyed making love." I kissed her hand again, wished her a pleasant day, and took off for the airport. I was chuckling all the way, but I felt like a hundred and fifty years old.
* * *
The morning sun was showing half its fiery face when I left Paris. It was overcast and raining at Munich - a fine drizzly European rain.
I checked my bags at the airport and went directly to Marlene's apartment in the Kinderstrasse. The door was unlocked but she wasn't home. Stale bread on the table and sour milk in the refrigerator suggested that she hadn't been around in days. And by the looks of things - an unmade bed, a half-filled tub - whenever she'd gone, she'd done so in a hurry.
I asked a neighbor - a hausfrau who flinched when I mentioned Marlene's name. She shrugged and slammed the door in my face. I hunted around the old building until I found the janitor. He tried to give me the same brush off as the neighbor and he acted as equally as scared. I offered him money, but he stood mum.
"You'll get what she got," I threatened, sensing Marlene had met with foul play, "unless you tell me where she is." He shuddered. "In hospital."
"Which one?"
"Please, mein herr. I don't know. Please go. They watch the house."
"Who's 'they'?"
"I don't know. Men. Bad men."
"What do they look like?"
"Big. Ugly. Please. Go."
I left the old guy alone and began calling nearby hospitals. I figured Marlene had been roughed up pretty bad and had to be taken to the nearest city hospital emergency ward. The first two hospitals I called, had no record of her. The third, St. Paul's, had Marlene. She'd been on the critical list for three days, and still was. Only she wasn't in the emergency ward. Marlene was confined to the mental section.
St. Paul's was close by. Half-trotting, I got there within five minutes. At first I was told I wouldn't be allowed to see her. But I pushed my way passed two nurses and fast- talked the young ward psychiatrist by telling him I was in the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and that Marlene held certain very important information. He led me down a long white-tiled corridor to the psychiatric ward. We paused at the entrance and a guard, on a signal from the doctor, threw a switch that opened two four-inch thick steel plates of sliding doors.
Now we passed through a large room filled with beds and emergency patients suffering from D.T.'s, drug withdrawal, and the effects of the last stages of syphilis. Farther on down, closeted in a tiny windowless room, was Marlene. The doctor went in first, and when he opened the door, I could see poor Marlene, lying flat on her back, staring emptily at the ceiling. Only it didn't look like Marlene. Her head was completely bandaged except for two slits at the eyes.
A moment later the doctor came out.
"You can go in now, he said. "But only for a minute or so."
"What happened to her face?" I asked.
"Acid. Burned the flesh off. She'll be hopelessly scarred."
"Oh, God!" I said. "That beautiful queenly face." I trembled with hatred for whoever had done it to her. "Is that why she went mad?" I asked the psychiatrist.
"She's not mad sir," he said, impatient with my use of the non medical word. "She saw her face before it was bandaged. A few hours later she tried to kill herself. That's why we had to bring her here. She's still in a state of very deep depression. I don't think she'll talk to you."
"Did you tell her my name?"
"No. But she hasn't spoken with anyone since she was admitted - except a bearded young man who came to visit her the first day." He opened the door for me. "Just one minute - remember."
I nodded and went inside, the door clicking closed behind me. I stared at Marlene, supine against the white sheet. There was no pillow and no blanket; just Marlene stretched out like a corpse on a slab of marble. Not only was her head swathed, but her arms and hands were wrapped in bandage too, and they were tied to the bed to prevent her, I guessed, from smashing them into the delicate tissue of her mutilated face. She was garbed in a white robe that resembled a shroud. It fell against her body revealing the still beautiful flow of her breasts, her belly, and her thighs.
I imagined the hideous mangle that lay aching beneath her bandages. I knew no one would ever make love to Marlene again.
Her long legs, exposed beneath the cut of her hospital gown, seemed to tense up. And I sensed that she knew someone was present with her in the room. Her head remained still, however; her eyes stony and unmoving.
"It's me," I whispered. "Steve. It's Steve London, Marlene."
Her whole body lurched forward in greeting, her hands straining at the straps. It seemed she was beckoning me to come closer; so that she could make herself heard through the muffling gauze that covered her mouth.
"Is it - is it really you, Steve?" she gasped. "Stand over me so that I can see you. I can't move my head."
I moved closer - hovering over her. Her eyes lighted and darted excitedly.
"Thank God," she sighed. "Hans found you. Where is my dear brother? Is he here with you? Hans!" She shouted his name.
Her brother! The bearded kid was her brother. I shook with sorrow. How could I tell her he'd been shot dead, and that I'd stuffed his corpse into a dumbwaiter?
"He's not here," I said. "He's... he's still in Paris."
"There's nothing wrong, is there? They didn't get him too? Oh, why isn't he here? Oh, I'm so frightened, Steve."
"You wanted to tell me something, Marlene. What is it? There isn't much time. You have to rest. You have to get well.
"I shall never be well again. I shall kill myself the moment my hands are free. Do you think I could live one day with the rotting foul-smelling flesh under these bandages? Death will be kind to me."
"They can fix you up, Marlene. Doctors can do wonders these days. You'll see."
"Forget about me, Steve. I'll be happy soon, because I'll be dead. But before that I must tell you where the drugs come from. You see you were right in twisting my wrist that morning. I should have told you then. Perhaps if I had -"
"Never mind that, Marlene. Tell me now. I shall have to leave you soon."
"The drugs," she said, "they come from Mexico. From Tijuana."
"What about Hermann Huessing? Where is he? Is he in Mexico?"
"I know nothing about him."
"Is he alive?"
"Yes. But I do not know where."
"Then it was you who told Ritter I'd gotten that call from Ernst Habe."
"Yes. It was me."
There was a tapping at the door now and the two of us were startled. The information she'd given me was dynamite and either of us could go up in smoke at any moment.
"Your time is up," the doctor said poking his head into the room.
"Is there anything else, Marlene? Anything more you want to tell me?"
"You must tell me something, Steve. I must know it. Did you enjoy making love to me?"
"You were the best I've ever had, sweet Marlene."
"I won't ask you if you would still make love to me. I am not that cruel. But will you do me one favor?"
"Anything, Marlene."
"Kiss my body. Kiss me goodbye."
I bent to her. The only part of her that showed was her legs. I pressed my lips at her ankles, then lifted the robe and kissed the cloth that draped over her heaving breasts. The doctor waited for me to finish. Then I turned and walked to the door. "Goodbye, Marlene"
"One moment," Marlene cried. "If you see my brother, tell him to hurry to me. He is all that I have now."
I didn't answer. All I could do was repeat, "Goodbye, Marlene." But in the hall I wiped tears from my eyes. I knew I'd never see her again. I knew she had meant what she had said. She'd kill herself.
But everyone has his own life to follow; he must go his own way. For me there was only Hermann Huessing. I felt nearer to getting him now. Maybe he was in Tijuana, Mexico.
CHAPTER TEN
I flew back to Paris that same afternoon. By evening the entire Hermann Huessing story had blown wide open. The whole world was talking about him.
When my plane landed in Paris at four-thirty-five p.m., I stopped first at a newsstand kiosk to pick up an afternoon paper. I scanned through it, while waiting for my baggage, looking for an item about the police finding Marlene's brother's body. The story was on page thirteen. It hadn't gotten much play - only about three or four takes. A chambermaid had discovered the dead man early that morning and he hadn't as yet been identified. Police believed he was a victim of a gang-style slaying and were searching the hotel for clues. I felt relieved that they were completely off the track and was certain I'd never be linked by the cops to the case. Still I was worried about what Chuck would do. He'd surely sooner or later put two and two together and figure the bearded guy who'd been looking for me and the murdered man were one and the same.
I went to a hotel in the Opera District, stopping first at Brigitte's to see if there were any messages from Bruno. There was none, Brigitte said still dreamy-eyed with love. I told her the name of the hotel I was headed for.
I hadn't slept in thirty-six hours and when I finally was alone in my room, I hit the bed like a weighted sack and conked out.
The cacophonic clang of the telephone awoke me some time later. By the sour paste in my mouth, the turgid emptiness of my stomach, and the pressure at my head and eyes, I knew without looking at my watch that I hadn't been asleep more than an hour or so. I felt sick.
But the phone rang relentlessly. I managed somehow to shake off my lethargy and lift the receiver to my ear. My eyes were heavy and I would have dropped off again - had the voice at the other end not been so harsh and excited.
"Steve! Have you heard what has happened?"
I said, "Who the hell is this?" I had to be certain, for Bruno was not supposed to call me. Apparently he was acting under unusual circumstances.
"It's Bruno here," he shouted. "Have you heard what has happened?"
"What is it, kid? What's happened?"
"It's Huessing. Hermann Huessing. It's in all the newspapers. He's Dead, Steve! Hermann Huessing is dead! Kaput!" I was stunned, paralyzed-frozen by the unexpected. The best I could do was say weakly, "Are you sure, Bruno?"
"It is in all the newspapers. He was killed in an accident in Mexico. But that is not the whole story. There is much more. I come to you and tell you. I will be there in twenty minutes."
"Wait a minute. It might be some kind of trick. Don't come here. Meet me at the basement of Francoise's building. It's safe there. Be there in half an hour."
"I'll be there."
I was suddenly numb to the exhaustion in my body and I sprung from the bed and hurried downstairs to get a late paper. There it was in big black bold headlines that screamed at me like a madman:
HERMANN HUESSING FOUND
Top Nazi Believed Dead Seventeen Years
Meets With Fatal Accident in Mexico;
Spent Time Expiating His Crimes
That was it. And it hit me like a pile driver. At one and the same time I felt relieved, happy, cheated, frightened, and, above all else, doubtful.
But the biggest shocker of all, the "much more" that Bruno had referred to, was in the body of the story itself. "It was revealed tonight," the news report said about half way down the column, "Herr Huessing was the author of the book, Love of Man, an anti-war epic now being filmed in Paris."
Huessing - the anonymous writer of Love of Man- the book that had been acclaimed as the most humanitarian novel ever written. It was incredible!
The more I read, the less I believed the dispatch. According to the story in the newspaper, Huessing had fled Germany in the last days of war and had gone through Switzerland to South America. There, he assumed a new identity and with the help of friends he went in a manufacturing business and amassed a fortune. Always, the story said, he bore a tremendous sense of guilt for the atrocities he'd helped to perpetrate as a reichfuehrer in the Hitler regime. And as the heinous details of the Nazi tyranny became more and more known, Huessing's hatred of himself was said to have grown more and more intense. He lived in various countries of Latin America as a recluse, giving every penny of his vast wealth to charitable causes as quickly as he earned it. And, the newspaper account went on, he spent the majority of his time writing Love of Man, which he hoped would in some small way demonstrate his mental rehabilitation. There followed a long list of churches, schools, hospitals, recreation centers, and other public welfare facilities mostly for the poor said to have been built by Huessing's money in ten countries of South and Central America. Of late, the story concluded, Huessing had become deeply religious and had been living alone and unnoticed in Tijuana, Mexico, "Close to the United States - the country he had grown to love, because of its freedom and democracy, but was unable to set foot on."
"Bull!" I cried out loud, flinging the newspaper aside. By the time I'd finished reading it, I didn't believe a single word. Somehow newsmen had been duped into whitewashing Huessing's filthy name. I thought of poor Ernst Habe, and Marlene and her dead brother; I thought of the flourishing international dope racket that was based in Tijuana and had spread its wicked tentacles throughout Europe; I thought of Rina Miller and her violated mother and the millions of human beings Huessing had sent to the gas chamber. And I knew I was right. I knew that the new Huessing was a venomous lie. I believed all this, but, perhaps, it was because I wanted to. Above all, I knew I would never rest until I found out for sure.
* * *
Outside Francoise's building, Bruno was waiting for me in the shadows. We said nothing in greeting and went directly into the cellar. I went over the recording equipment for a few minutes to be certain no one had discovered it and tampered with it. I switched it on to see if there were anyone upstairs. Francoise's apartment was silent.
"Do you think we still need that?" Bruno asked when I'd closed the line.
"Do you think we don't"
"Well, Steve, you saw the papers."
I ignored his remark. "Does Rina know about this? Have you spoken with her yet?"
"No. But - "
"I must see her tonight."
It is impossible, Steve. She is giving a party at her apartment."
"I like parties."
"Are you crazy, Steve? You will be discovered."
"If the Huessing story is true, that doesn't matter. If not, it's a chance I'll have to take."
"But what about Rina?"
"If she believes in what she says, than it's time for her to take chances too. I'm going all out to get to the bottom of this, Bruno. At all costs. Are you still with me?"
He looked at me hard and long. Then: "I'm with you, Steve."
"Good boy. Now, I want you to keep monitoring this equipment. Keep Francoise working on Erich Ritter - no matter what."
"But where will you be?"
"Me? I'm flying to Tijuana, Mexico tomorrow."
I left Bruno behind to wait for Francoise and went to Rina's place near the Champs Elysee.
The party was going full swing when I got there. I was in luck; Ritter wasn't there - not that it really mattered anymore.
I spotted Rina before she saw me. She was leaning on a piano holding a tall drink with both hands, singing some saccharine German song, while the piano player looked down her dress. The position she was in - her elbows supporting most of her weight - pushed her large breasts tightly together and forward against the low decolletage of her skimpy black sheath. And with each breath those two firm lemons dipped farther outward - only a hair-breadth away from the piano player's pointy nose. His eyes bulged with avarice.
I took a quick look around the room, which was crackling with low human voices and alcoholic smells and waves of cigarette smoke. There were twenty or more very beautiful people - young men and women who decorate the film world. It seemed I'd seen them in London and Rome, in New York and Hollywood: misfits in the real world of violence, in the world of Marlene's ugly face, Denise's punctured swollen veins, Francoise's abused body.
Rina saw me and stopped dead in the middle of her song. Everyone in the room turned and stared at me as if I were some kind of curiosity. I wasn't dressed as smartly as they. My face was cut with haggard lines of weariness. They knew I was an intruder, and thus unwelcome.
Rina rushed to me and led me off to a corner where she fixed me a drink. The party picked up again.
"What are you doing here?" she asked worriedly.
"I want to talk to you."
"It is dangerous."
"It's more important that I talk to you."
"Come with me," she said taking my hand in hers, and squeezing it reassuringly - as if to say that I should disbelieve what I saw here - that she was not one of the shallow people at her party.
We went to a bedroom.
At last we were alone in a small room that Rina used for an office. We stared at one another for a moment and then fell into each others arms. We kissed, forcing our bodies together firmly. I could feel her breasts pushing against me and the hollowness between her hips accepting my body and her full thighs running and moving along mine. The excitement I found in Rina was beyond compare. Not that she was any better at love than Francoise or other women I'd known, but the idea that Rina - forbidding sex symbol of the world - had been mine and would be so again, drove me wild with desire. But I held back.
"Well," I said drawing away from her, "what do you think of the latest news?"
"I am happy... and sad. I feel my day of revenge has been stolen from me."
"You mean you believe that story about Huessing?"
"What else am I to believe?"
"That it's a lie, a trick to call off the wolves."
"I don't understand, Steve."
"Do you think that Hermann Huessing could be the author of Love of Man? Do you think that the movement of drugs throughout the world is the figment of someone's imagination?"
"It is incredible, I know. But "Don't you see, Rina? They're running scared. Even if Huessing is dead, it's gone far beyond that now. There's a narcotics ring that has to be smashed and a man named Erich Ritter that's still on the loose. Huessing, dead or alive, can never be brought to account for his crimes until this is all cleared up. Until the truth is known to all the world."
"I bargained only for Hermann Huessing," Rina said. "If he is dead, what remains is a matter for the police."
"Then you wash your hands of the whole thing. If Rina Miller cannot get her revenge, then to hell with the world. To hell with Ernst Habe. To hell with the millions who died under Huessing's iron hand. To hell with a hundred thousand wretched dope addicts. To hell with Rina Miller's mother! If Hermann Huessing's evil deeds can continue to harm one single man of this world, then your mother died in vain, Rina. You can't do that, Rina. You just can't be that way."
"I am Rina Miller," she said defiantly. "I do as I please." I knew she hadn't meant that. Her face was red with anger. I had plucked at deep emotions in her and it hurt her bad. I sensed she was being ripped in two. A part of her was trying to be Rina Miller, the internationally renowned actress. Another part of her was trying to be Rina Miller, the human being.
"Each man is in the service of all men," I said. It sounded corny. It wasn't my words. I'd heard it somewhere. I'd forgotten where. At any rate it was true.
Her eyes flashed with discovery. "What did you say?" she asked excitedly.
"I said you can't let Huessing's dirty work go on this-"
"No, no. After that. You said something after that."
"I was just quoting someone. I said, 'Each man is in the service of all men.' "
"Yes that's it."
"What about it?"
"Where did you hear that. Think. I must know. It's very important."
"I don't know. I just heard it somewhere. I - Wait, I know. I read it recently." I paused and thought for a moment. I'd read that in a book. But which one? "Why is it so important?" I asked.
"How could you know that?" Rina said. "My mother used to say that. 'Ein man ist von alle mann.' How could you know that?"
Suddenly I knew where I'd read that. "Rina," I said, "that's a line from Love of Man.
She shuddered. "Yes, of course. I remember now. I've read it a hundred times and it has meant nothing to me. But the way you said it, I could almost hear my mother's voice. Don't you understand what that means? Hermann Huessing did write Love of Man. He must have heard my mother say that and he put it into the book."
As she spoke, my head was shaking no. I knew the truth now. Rina had made a tremendous discovery, but she'd twisted it to an ugly shape. I took her hands and held them tightly to buff the shock of what I was about to tell her.
"Isn't it more likely, Rina," I asked softly, "that the author of Love of Man is your mother? That Herman Huessing stole the manuscript from your mother after he killed her?"
Her whole body erupted in volcanic quaking. I held her tightly to subdue the tremors, feeling her breasts fluttering to the quickened pace of her heartbeat.
"Oh, Mother," she cried releasing a torrent of raw emotion. "Oh, Mutte, Mutte, Mutte. God forgive me."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I was going to the United States after all. It wasn't exactly as I had planned and dreamed it over many months, but it was only for a brief stopover, but I was going home. And I felt pretty good about it.
I slept all the way on the morning jet from Paris to Los Angeles. And before the day was half gone, I was breathing delicious, home-made smog. I rented a car at the airport, got on the Santa Ana Freeway, and headed to Tijuana. I was on my way to Hermann Huessing's funeral.
When I'd left Rina the night before, I'd left a woman who loved me very much. Unhappily, I couldn't say the feeling was mutual. Oh, I cared for her a great deal, but I knew I could never truly love her. Her beauty, her body, the crowning glamour that elevated her above all other women, could be possessed by no one man. The symbol of desire and love which she embodied, belonged to the world. Yet in her parting words to me, she said she wanted only to be mine. It was a supreme compliment that put a high gloss on my ego, but I had to be truthful and tell her that, for the time being, I was interested only in the job at hand. I asked for her continued help. She agreed to do whatever was possible.
I was thinking of Rina and all the wonderful joys she'd already given to me, as I continued south on route 101, which stretched out a clean ribbon of a road along the low brown naked hills to the green Pacific waters on the coast and on down through San Diego to the border.
Tijuana marches right up to the U.S. and stands there waiting for you. I parked my rented car before going into Mexico. The moment I put one foot across the border I was surrounded by a group of "social directors," who inquired how I would like to spend my day. Would I like a taxi or a set of French postcards or a clean young beautiful local girl - or all three? To everyone's dismay, I settled for only a ride into town. But I could see they held no grudges. They immediately turned to two foreigners who had been walking behind me and offered them the same service.
My driver, a young man with a flamboyant mustache, spoke English well. He knew everything that was going on in Tijuana. And he could get it for me wholesale. For twenty dollars (Mexican currency is unknown in Tijuana), which he informed was the wholesale price, he would be my faithful guide. I asked him if he knew where Huessing's body was. He did. I hired him.
"My name is Juan," he said grinning broadly. "Where do you want to go first?"
"I already told you. I want to see Huessing's body."
"I cannot do that, senor. I know where he is being kept. But the cadaver is being guarded. No one can get near it. Besides, you would not want to look at the body. It has been floating in the ocean for many days. It will be very-"
"I must see it, Juan. Isn't there some way?" I had to get a look at Huessing. There was something Rina had once told me that demanded, at all risks, that I view Huessing's corpse.
"I am afraid you ask Juan to do the impossible, senor. He is to be cremated in the morning and his ashes will be scattered to the winds. Until then, no one is allowed near the house where he is being watched. There is only one person I know who can help us."
"Who?"
"Julietta," Juan said. "She is the sister of the one who is a servant in Senor Huessing's ranchero."
"Why can't we go directly to the servant?"
"Ah, we cannot do that. She is a deaf-mute. We must go to Julietta. Perhaps she can get you into the house. But I do not know why she would do it."
"How much will it cost?" I asked cynically.
"No, no, senor. That is just the problem. She will not take your money. She hates the yanqui and his dollars. I do not understand why but-"
"Take me to Julietta," I said.
"Ah, si, senor. But not now. Julietta is sleeping. I cannot wake her. We will have to wait until night. Then I take you to the Club Sierra, where Julietta dances." Juan shook his head sadly. "But I do not think she will like you, senor. I'm afraid she will call you a gringo."
"She dislikes all Americans, huh?"
"Not all. Only North Americans."
I smiled. I had a job to do for my country. It was a matter of foreign relations.
I asked Juan to drive me to where I could buy American newspapers. When he did, I sat in the back of the taxi bringing myself up to date on the latest developments in the Huessing story.
It seems Huessing had been lost at sea while out fishing on a pleasure craft. When police had found the wreckage of the boat and the drowned man, they checked through maritime registrations and identified the body under Huessing's assumed name. They then notified the person Huessing had listed as an emergency contact. This person, an officer of a large corporation in Argentina, claimed the body and volunteered the so-called truth about Herman Huessing. He said he had been instructed to this by Huessing's own secret papers which were to be read in the event of his death. Legally, all of what had taken place was beyond questioning. The body was said to have been positively identified through fingerprints and dental work. That Huessing had written Love of Man, was proved by his possession of the original manuscript and voluminous notes. His so-termed philanthropies were recorded under numerous pseudonyms. His cremation was to be carried out under the terms of his own will. It was all very pat. Too pat.
If I could get a quick look at the body that bore the odious name of Hermann Huessing, I'd know the whole truth.
Juan and I had dinner together: tacos, chili relleno, enchiladas, tortillas, guacamole salad, and Mexican beer. He was a quiet sober man, who didn't speak unless he was spoken too. But I managed to find out he was almost a scholar in Aztec culture and that he enjoyed his work with the naive Americanos. I told him a little about myself and my mission - only what was safe, of course. At one point I asked him what he knew about narcotics smuggling. A look of terror flared in his face and he said he knew nothing.
I didn't push him any further. I knew I'd get nowhere with him - or anyone else - on that subject.
After night had set in, we went to the Club Sierra to see the fiery Julietta. Outside the club, where shills practically dragged you inside - like in Paris - there were photographs of the dancing girls.
"Which is Julietta?" I asked Juan before going in. "Is it this one?" I pointed to a wildly-seductive brunette who was wearing a bikini of leopard skin - only without the top. She'd posed with her hands cupped under her massive breasts as if she were going to give them to the cameraman as a birthday present.
"No, senor," Juan said. "Julietta does not let them put her picture outside. "If one wants to see Julietta, one must see her in the flesh."
It was an interesting prospect. We went inside.
The Club Sierra reminded me of le Fez in Paris--the place with the exotic belly dancer. Only here the girls wore less and they moved to cha cha and mambotime. You couldn't call them strippers; they were already stripped when they came on. And another striking difference was, the men were allowed to touch all the girls. That is, as I found out later, all the girls except Julietta.
We sat in a booth drinking Carta Blanca beer, waiting for Julietta to come on and do her act. She was preceded by three other girls; each of them on for about fifteen minutes and each doing three numbers, while a sleepy-voiced narrator, described the various parts of her body that were in motion.
The first dancer was a short, copper-skinned Indian girl, who had firm thighs and small, but perfectly formed, breasts that stood away from her chest like party hats.
Her name was Rosita.
"Do you like Rosita?" the commentator drawled over a p.a. system. "Would you like to take her home with you?"
The customers, mostly U.S. sailors and marines from nearby bases at San Diego and Camp Pendleton, roared eager yesses.
"She will like to make you very happy," the Mexican droned on, as Rosita sent rhythmic ripples across her body. "But you can't have her."
"Why not?" a navy man cried.
"Because she is my wife."
Everyone laughed gleefully extending their arms across the stage in effort to grab Rosita into their embrace. Several succeeded.
"Is she really his wife?" I asked Juan.
He chuckled. "In a way, senor. He thinks he is married to all the girls in Tijuana."
It was the same routine with the second and third girls. The only differences were in their names and in their bodies. Maria was tall and slender and could not have been a day past sixteen. Her not-yet-quite-matured body was a delight to the eye. The long shapely legs blended softy into hips and buttocks that would one day very soon blossom splendidly. The high-toned youthful flesh was firm and womanly. Maria's breasts were large globes with pink virginal nipples that rose proudly, almost cockily, at all times.
Carmelita, on the other hand, had had it. She should have been retired a long while ago. She was chunky and flabby. Yet the years had taught her tricks the other girls would still have to learn. The men liked Carmelita best of all. That is, until Julietta came on.
At the Club Sierra the show is always on. There is never an intermission that lasts longer than thirty seconds. But before Julietta's performance everything stopped in anticipation of her magnetic presence. There was a quick shuffling of chairs and seats as the audience strove to improve their view. The waiters cut through the crowd, shining flashlights at the tables in a hunt for empty glasses that needed refilling. They had to work speedily, for Julietta allowed no table service during her act. And Juan told me that she was the only girl in all of Mexico that could get away with that.
"And now," the emcee said lazily (he was the only one who was not excited), "we give you the most beautiful girl, the most wonderful girl, the girl who knows how to make you very happy: Julietta. And remember, Amigos, don't touch!"
The band began to pound out a fierce mambo. And Julietta, in quick graceful steps, flowed onto the stage. She was a voluptuous Latin, with blood red lips and shining black eyes against the deep-hued olive skin of her face. Her body was hidden under a long meshed robe, as sheer as a nylon stocking but in the dimness, as opaque as grey steel. And yet when she moved against the loose fabric one could make out the strong sensuous contours of her stimulating body. She danced at first easily, moving pliantly to a soft pumping beat of the drums. Then, as the drums began to pound thunderously, she increased the tempo of her movements to a feverish pitch. Her flesh began to glow like fire her arms and legs darting like licks of flame.
With subtle rolls and turns of her hips, with forward offerings of her breasts, Julietta continued to work her body, driving wild desire into the eyes of the men who stared unblinkingly at her.
Suddenly, unmercifully, the dance was over and Julietta was gone in a momentary blackout.
"What do we do now, Juan?" I asked when the lights came on again. "We've got to get Julietta's help right away. There's not much time. They're burning Huessing's body in less than twelve hours."
"It does not look well at all, senor. I do not think Julietta will help you. But I will send a note to her dressing room and ask her to come to our table."
Juan sent the message with a waiter and in a few minutes, Julietta emerged from behind the stage wearing a cerise silk dress two sizes too small for her full curves. She slid into the booth beside Juan and, apparently having sized me up immediately as a yanqui, leered at me. I ordered her a tequila. It was a rule of the house; if you sat with one of their girls you had to buy them the most expensive drink, which, of course was only sugar water.
Juan began speaking to her rapidly in Spanish.
Oh, no! I thought. If she could not speak my language it would be extremely difficult for me to get her to cooperate with me. I'd known as an American I had two strikes against me. But the language barrier seemed to knock me out of the box completely.
"What did you tell her?" I asked Juan, when he paused to allow her to sip her drink.
"I said you were an American newspaperman who had come all the way from Paris to get a look at Huessing's body before they made ashes of him. I said it was very important."
"What did she say?"
"I am afraid, senor London, Julietta has not said anything as yet."
"Well tell her it's much more than that, Juan. Tell her there's a girl lying in a hospital in Munich, who was once as beautiful as Julietta, but now her face has been burned off with acid. Tell her that girl's brother was murdered, shot down dead in the back, because he knew something about Hermann Huessing that he wasn't supposed to know. Tell her another man was run down by a murderous car which crushed his body like you would a bug. Tell her that Huessing never wrote Love Of Man that he robbed the manuscript from the hands of the woman he had violated then killed. Tell her-"
"Enough!"
I looked up to see where the sound had erupted from. The last inflection had not yet left Julietta's lips. She could speak English after all.
"I will help you, Mr. London," she said in accentless speech. "I hate Americans. But I hate Nazis even more. I will take you to see the body. But first you must come with me."
"Whereto?" I asked.
"To my house. You will have to dress as a peasant, who is bringing religious candles from the church for the funeral ceremony. But we must hurry. If we go too late the guards will be suspicious." Julietta rose. "Come, I have the peasant clothes at my house." Juan drove us to her house at the south end of town. Then Julietta sent him back to the city. "Peasants do not ride in taxis," she said to me. "I will have to drive you to the German's house myself."
We went into Julietta's place and she took me to a small room used for storage. There she handed me a tattered tunic and some other threadbare clothes and told me to dress quickly.
"Thank you," I said as she turned to leave. "Thanks for everything, Julietta."
"There is no cause to thank me, Mr. London," she snapped coldly. The whites of her eyes gleamed in stray light that entered the darkened room, catching the fury in her soul. I wondered why there was so much hatred pented up inside her. I wondered how she had suffered. "Why do you hate me so?" I asked.
"I do not hate you, Mr. London. I am angry inside me. And I show it. Someday I will find a man - perhaps he will be very much like you - and I will tell him why I am so angry. But it will not be now. Now we must go to the German." She stepped outside the room and waited for me to change clothes.
When I dressed I went to her and presented myself, thinking I looked like an authentic Mexican peasant. Julietta laughed. And for the first time I saw her majestic smile.
"You're beautiful, Julietta," I said awesomely.
"You're silly, Mr. London," she said still smiling. "You think you look like a native, but you have dressed all wrong. You would be spotted instantly as an imposter- even in the dark. I see I shall have to help you."
She proceeded to rearrange my tunic and my trousers, changing the manner in which it draped. The feel of her long graceful fingers on my body aroused in me amorous feelings for this woman. She sensed it to her touch. And she didn't mind. She smiled still. I wanted to hold her close to me. To feel her warmth against me. But I merely stood there like a small boy whose mother prepared him for the first day at school.
When at last we were ready to go, she instructed me not to say a word, to merely follow her and to do as she signaled. We went out into the moonless night and rode in her 1946 Ford out to the countryside. We spoke of many things and the more we talked the warmer our words became. When and the more we talked the warmer our words became. When we arrived at the dead man's house, we had gotten to the subject of love. But now, at Julietta's command, we became silent.
She got out of the car and told me to wait until she returned for me. I watched her being greeted at the door by a young girl, whom I took for her deaf-mute sister, and then she disappeared into the house.
I waited for a long time in absolute darkness and unearthly quiet. Only the call of crickets could be heard incessantly. It struck me as odd that no light emerged from the windows of the house, not even from the crack under the door. I'd never felt lonelier. I craved a cigarette, but I was afraid to draw attention to my presence.
I had no way to judge the time. And even so I would not have been able to read the dial in the total blackness of the night. But in what I guessed to be a half hour the door of the house opened and I could see now Julietta kiss and embrace her sister and begin to walk to the car.
My heart sank. It seemed I would not be able to get inside. I would not get my look at the body. Julietta, crunching her feet over the gravelly earth, came up to the car and slid into the driver's seat. Without a word, she fired the engine and drove away. "What happened?" I asked.
"Have no fear, Mr. London. You will be able to get a look at the body in the morning. There were men in the house. They did not want the candles. They did not want to be seen. They said we could come back in the morning."
"But they are cremating him at dawn." I said worriedly.
"Then we shall have to be here earlier and hope that they will let us light the candles before they take him away. In the meantime, it is useless for me to try and sleep. If you like we can go back to my house and I will serve some coffee. And," she said smiling pixishly, "we can talk some more. I find I enjoy talking to you, Mr. London. And we were at a very interesting subject. We were talking about love."
We rode back in silence, lost in our own thoughts. About half way to her house, I lit a cigarette. In the flare of light from my match, I could see a smile on Julietta's lips.
At her place she did her best to make things cozy. There was a chill in the night air and she lit the fireplace which crackled romantic warmth into the small living room. She served hot coffee mixed with tequila. It was quite a drink. And all the while my eyes followed the fine movements of her exquisite body. She had removed the loud colored dress and had gotten into a more comfortable simple cotton with ruffled sleeves. It embraced her torso as closely as I would have liked to.
"Why do you do this?" she asked when she had seated herself close to me on a stuffy sofa. "Why do you hunt a man whom you believe is a murderer, who, if that is true, may kill you too?"
I suppose I should not have, but I told her my story. Everything. It was, I knew, blind faith. Julietta could have been a clever enemy. But, one has to trust his instincts at all times. And so I trusted Julietta. I believed in the warmth that radiated from her. Just as I believed that the anger inside her was born of a passion for justice. And in placing my faith in her, Julietta opened her heart to me.
And before too long she was in my arms. Not that I'd planned it that way - though of course I was immensely pleased - but it just happened. She'd reached across to me to put out a cigarette. Her breasts had brushed lightly on my chest. Our eyes had met. We smiled and then embraced. Now my mouth was pressed firmly to hers, exchanging, in sweet and passionate kisses, the fondness we held for each other. It was just one of those electric things that unite two people with a physical and psychic force that forms an unbreachable, even though temporary, bond of human feeling.
Holding Julietta in my arms, feeling her firm round breasts against me and the excitement growing in her body, filled me with almost uncontrollable desire. Where I wanted to be tender and patient, I was suddenly working furiously at the buttons of her dress to undo the precious secrets beneath her clothes. At last I freed her magnificent breasts and held a part of them in my eager hands, caressing its softness, feeling the nipples swell at my touch. My mouth coursed a tortuous line along her neck and at the tender flesh below.
Julietta responded quickly under my savage desire. She pushed her hips and thighs to me, beckoning me in an unspoken way to make her body naked.
I worked the dress across her full hips and over her rounded high rump, along the full length of her legs, and away. That was all there was to it. There were no clumsy undergarments to remove. She was nude, and in the slight rolling motion of anticipation. I kissed her once again, feeling her hot skin against me.
"Oh," she whispered, "it has been so long."
I paused for a moment to look at her eyes, which were expressive of the sensations gorging her body. With a soft smile, she relaxed in my arms, sensing the question that was on my mind.
"You wonder," she said knowingly, "why I say it has been a long time since a man has made love to me. You find it hard to believe that Julietta who dances at the Club Sierra, does not have a different man for as many days as there are in the week."
Though it was true, I opened my mouth to deny it. But she quickly brought her fingers to my lips to stop me from lying.
"I sleep only with those whom I love," she said softly.
"And love is a funny thing. It can last a lifetime or only a fleeting moment. This moment I love you. It may sound crazy to you, an American. But it is the truth. I love you for what you are to me at this moment. But in the morning, my love may be gone. Only with you I think it will last a long time, until you forget me. But now my love is as strong and as real as any love on earth."
I believed her. The same feelings had happened to me, was happening at that very second. I covered her with passionate kisses once again, caressing every part of her body, raising the pitch of our passion to a yearning for quick fulfillment.
I grew dizzily intoxicated by the delicate aroma of her essence. I smoothed my hands around the heights and depths of her breasts, along the warmth of her hips and to the moist heat between her thighs. And at the moment the tips of my fingers rested, she said hoarsely.
"Love me as I love you. And we will become one."
She helped me undress myself, moving against me with untamed impatience. And at last, with a mighty effort we achieved the purification of our emotions and sank into a dewy calm - an Eden that caressed us even as we caressed each other.
The flame in the fireplace receded, leaving only the glowing embers of logs and a signal that time had passed. I stared at the dying redness for a while watching it fade, when suddenly I became aware that dawn must soon be approaching. I turned to Julietta. She was asleep. I looked at a clock on a mantle. By the light of the hot charcoal, I saw it was past four. Sunrise was only minutes away. I shook Julietta from her sound contented sleep.
"We must be going," I said, already dressing myself. "It'll be dawn soon."
At first she seemed not to understand, but when she did, she jumped from the couch and hurried, pausing only to kiss my naked back.
Again she arranged my clothes, more carefully this time for we would be visible in the morning light.
Again we got into the old Ford and bounced over the pocked dirt road to Huessing's ranchero. In the east, murky clouds were beginning to reveal themselves and the mist that covered the windshield spoke for the oncoming dawn.
When we arrived at the ranchero the cap of the pale sun was just at the crest of the hills. There was a busyness inside. I feared we were already too late.
Julietta braked the car and nudged me under the ribs. "This time you come with me. They expect us now. Have you the candles?"
I nodded, holding up a brown paper bag she had given me earlier.
"Do not hear anything. Do not move to sound. I have told them you are a deaf-mute like my sister. Come. We go now."
I followed her with my head bowed and my shoulders hunched forward. I saw my shoes. My shoes! No Mexican peasant ever wore twenty dollar Italian-made shoes. I stopped for a moment and pushed my feet into a puddle of mud up to my ankles. Julietta saw me and understood immediately what I was doing. She smiled appreciatively. We went inside the house now, Julietta greeting her sister as she had before. There were two policemen standing off to the side and a number of others dressed in black. I did not look at them. I kept my chin pressed to my chest, always aware that I must not under any circumstances respond to sound.
We passed through the front room and down a long corridor to a room at the end. I heard a heavy car pull up outside. It was, no doubt, the hearse which would take the body to the crematorium. I suddenly thought of the millions who had been reduced to ashes in Hitler's concentration camps of death.
Julietta's sister led us into the room. The corpse was lying on a bier covered with a sheet. Julietta motioned to me to take out the candles from the bag and place them on a small table in the corner. Suddenly a man appeared at the doorway and shouted something to Julietta in Spanish. I nearly lurched at his voice. She spoke to the man softly, apparently explaining our presence, while I lighted the candles and continually made the sign of the cross. The man waited, his arms folded across his chest.
When would he leave? I wondered frantically. I fumbled with the candles. Julietta continued to talk to the man, trying to lead him out to the hall so that I could get a glimpse of the body. But he watched me intently. I knew he was not going to leave.
I thought first of clubbing the man with my fist, and after seeing the body, making a run for it. But a better tack occurred to me. I moved closer to the bier. The corner of the sheet that was draped over it was touching the floor. I stepped on it. Then I walked away, dragging the covering with me, exposing the horrible water-logged dead man right down to his rigid bluish toes.
The man shouted some Spanish curses at me. But I did not react. I merely picked up the sheet and covered the body again. I'd had my look.
Julietta and I went outside now, back to the car. The sun had risen.
"Well, are you satisfied?" Julietta asked as she headed the car back to the city.
"Very much, Julietta. That body they're going to burn this morning is not Hermann Huessing's. Somewhere in this world Hermann Huessing still lives."
"But how do you know that it is not him?" Julietta asked. "There were pictures and identification by fingerprints and witnesses."
"I can't explain that, Julietta, though I do have an idea. But it doesn't matter. There is something someone once told me about Huessing. And I know only that the body we saw was not his."
CHAPTER TWELVE
We stopped at Julietta's house to pick up my clothes and then she drove me straight to the border.
We said goodbye there as if we had been friends, who had treasured each other over many years and as if we would soon be reunited once again. Of course neither of those feelings we shared were true. She'd been right about love though. It can exist with all its passion and wonder and intensity for but a fleeting moment of time. We'd proved it the night before. Now that love was gone. Only a warm friendship that would fade to a flicker of a memory remained. But it would always be there, providing a measure of sustenance to each of us.
I kissed her with tenderness and crossed into the United States. Within three hours, I was at Los Angeles International Airport boarding a nonstop jet flying the polar route to Paris. I was carrying with me a tremendous and very deadly secret. I alone (except for Julietta and the initiators of the hoax) knew that Hermann Huessing was still alive. Yet I was no closer to finding him than the very first day at Rina Miller's house in Munich.
But as the jet roared down the runway and lifted into the sky, the burning realities fell away like the earth below me. And I soared with the aircraft - it, to forty thousand feet; me, to much needed sleep. I had the craziest dream. I dreamed I was running. It seemed to last for ten hours.
In Paris, when I got there, it was morning. Which morning, I wasn't precisely sure. Passing through endless time zones and retracing my path, I'd simply lost all sense of time. I guessed it was Saturday. I bought a paper and saw I had guessed wrong - by two days - it was only Thursday. But somehow that just didn't matter.
Riding to my hotel in the Opera District, I glanced through the newspaper. There was a small item near the back page about Huessing's funeral in Tijuana. The last line of the story, which was a quote from the priest who had given the eulogy, read: " And so closes the book on a very remarkable man, who found the Lord's way and conquered supreme evil with supreme goodness.' I turned to the theater page. There was a story released by Erich Ritter's studios announcing that when Love of Man, would have its world premiere and then be distributed throughout the world, it would be billed and advertised as Herman Huessing's Love of Man.
I doubled back through the newspaper now to check if I'd skipped over any news about the murder of Marlene's brother. I was still concerned that an investigation which would involve me would complicate my affairs unnecessarily. There was nothing in the paper. Apparently the police had either given up or were still looking for clues.
At the hotel, I unpacked my bags. The thought occurred to me that I had been to Munich and then half way around the world and back again without opening my suitcases. I then called Brigitte. I told her I wanted to see Bruno immediately. She said Bruno was very anxious to see me too. Erich Ritter had been to Francoise's apartment. And Bruno had it all on tape.
I was greatly excited; it was wonderful news.
"Did he get anything we can use?" I asked Brigitte. "I don't know. I didn't hear the tapes. I'm sure you will hear them before I. I will send Bruno to you as soon as he calls me - which should be within the hour."
After the call, I showered and shaved and sat waiting for Bruno. I wanted to go to Francoise- or at least to call her. But I was afraid I'd miss Bruno. An hour went by and at last Bruno called to say he was on his way up with the tapes and a playback machine. I then called room service for some coffee and sandwiches for two, which arrived at the same time as Bruno.
"How did it go? What did you get?" I asked enthusiastically, when we were alone.
"I'm afraid there is nothing but a lot of love making," he said unhappily. He plugged in the machine, set in the spool of tape, and switched it on.
While we waited for the recorder to warm up, Bruno asked me how I made out in Tijuana. I told him that I had learned Huessing was not dead.
"Where does that leave us now?" he asked after his initial surprise.
"Right where we started from, I guess. Let's hear the tape."
"It is not much," he said as he pressed in the playback button.
There immediately came forth a burst of crackling and shuffling noises that were harsh to the ear. Bruno turned down the volume and said, "That is when they were coming into the apartment. I had gone by Francoise's window early in the evening and had seen the signal. I went immediately to the cellar and turned on the equipment. But no one could be heard in the apartment. I began to think it was a false alarm and just when I was about to leave, I heard what you're hearing now. Francoise must have had a chance to set the signal beforehand so that I could get everything. She "Shh!" I cried as voices began to come forth from the speaker. I couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but clearly I recognized Francoise and Ritter. Luckily there would be no language problem. Francoise spoke French and English, but no German. Apparently Ritter could not speak Francoise's native tongue for he was talking in English. A moment later I began to pick up the first intelligible words of their conversation.
"I have some very fine scotch, monsieur Francoise was saying.
"Ah, good," said Ritter. "I need another drink after climbing all those steps. I am getting old."
"Oh, you are not so old, Erich," Francoise said. "You are a man who has lived. I do not care for mere boys." There was a tinkle of glasses and then a creaking sound. One of them had probably sat on the bed. Then there was a second creaking a softer one. Francoise was at his side.
Francoise giggled girlishly. "You like them?" she asked.
"Very much. You have a beautiful body. I am sure it is even more beautiful without clothes."
"Oh, Erich, you are too fast. You take my breath away. Let us have another drink first."
"And then?"
"And then we shall see."
Again there were the sounds of the scotch being poured and drunk, followed by fumbling sounds from the bed. I grew white with rage thinking of the scene that had been played in Francoise's bedroom with such a despicable creature as Erich Ritter.
"Such beautiful breasts I have never seen before," Ritter grunted. By the thickness of his gravelly voice, I guessed he had had quite a load on by then.
I could hear his wet slobbering lips all over her. It made me sick at my stomach. With every sound that came from the bed, Ritter moaned tiredly as if it were a great effort for him to make love and only the fact that he had Francoise's beauty was driving him onward. Francoise seemed strangely quiet. I imagined - because I wanted to - that she was merely lying back, flat and cold to his advance. But of course I was wrong. She had known she would have to do her best to catch Ritter off guard.
"There really is not much more than this," Bruno said. "I'm afraid it is worthless."
I was beginning to agree with him. But something in me demanded that I listen to the tape in its entirety - no matter how personally painful an experience it was.
"Now I take the dress completely off," Ritter said chuckling devilishly. "Ach, your thighs, your hips are superb. Your body makes me crazy with desire. I must have you this moment, beautiful one."
"Oh, Erich," Francoise gasped, "I cannot wait for you to be at my side. Here, let me help you undress. I want to see as much of you as you see of me."
"Wait, I put the light out, Francoise."
"No, no, Erich. I want to make love so that I can see you."
Good old dependable Francoise, I thought. She was doing everything to keep the lamp in the window burning as a signal to Bruno. She had no way of knowing he was already downstairs monitoring every word.
"No," Ritter insisted, "I put out the light. You would not want to see this old body of mine. I am fat and scarred from the war."
"I don't care, Erich. I want to see you. I cannot make love to a shadow. Here, let me open your shirt."
"You are a dear child," Ritter said.
I turned up the volume. I wanted to be sure not to miss a word.
"Oh," Ritter sighed, "it is wonderful to feel your breasts against my back. If I had arthritis, the warmth of your body would cure me. Now you see my flabby chest and my scars. It is ugly to even me. I wish you would not look at me."
"I kiss you scar, Erich. I kiss it here, at the top of your shoulder; I kiss it here, at your breast. And now that Francoise has kissed it, it no longer exists in my eyes. It has healed completely. It was a terrible scar. I am glad I made it disappear. How did you get it."
"Ach, beautiful one, the war was cruel. I am one of the fortunate ones."
"Tell me about your life, Erich. I am fascinated."
"You would be amazed, my pet. But not now. Someday perhaps, but now we make wonderful love."
That was the last word. There followed a multitude of various squeaks and grunts and sighs from the bed that would have infuriated me, only I wasn't listening any longer.
"I have more tapes." said Bruno. "But there is even less on those. After they made love, they fell asleep. I sat in the cellar for hours recording only Ritter's snores. Then he awoke at about five o'clock and went out. He said only goodbye and a few things about seeing her again. I don't think you will want to hear it. You see, Steve, I was right. It is a failure. Perhaps, if Francoise does it again, we will-"
"I don't think that will be necessary, Bruno. I think we will learn what we want to know by other, simpler, means."
"I don't understand Steve. There was nothing "I have to think. Leave the tape machine here with the recordings. I may want to listen to the first tape again. I'll call you soon."
Bruno left me with a very puzzled look on his face. I wore no expression. But inside me I was smiling joyously.
* * *
Some hours later there was a knock at my door. So deep was I in thought, so caught up was I in the swift flow of events that were sweeping me forward, that although I vaguely heard the sound at my door, I ignored completely. But whoever it was must have known I was in because he began to pound heavily until I was shaken into alertness. Just as well, I thought and went to admit the intruder. There was no longer any need for solitudenous thinking. I knew now exactly what had to be done.
I opened the door. It was Chuck Richards.
"Hi, Chuck," I said casually.
"Never mind: 'Hi, Chuck,' " he said gravely. "Let me in, man. And for God's sakes, close the door!"
"What's up, kid?" I sort of sensed why he had come. It probably had something to do with Marlene's dead brother - which, sadly, no longer was relevant.
"I'm crazy to come here, Steve," said Chuck. "But I had to warn you."
"About what, Chuck. Sit down. I'll pour you a drink."
"Forget it, man. Start packing or something. The cops are after you. They found traces of blood in your old hotel room that belonged to that bearded kid. They think you killed him. I know this is a lousy question to ask, Steve, but did you kill him?"
So the police had caught up with me after all, I thought. Well, that was no longer a problem. I hadn't fitted the police into my new way of thinking. But they would work in just fine.
"I hate to disappoint ANS and the French gendarmarie," I said to Chuck, "but I didn't kill that kid."
"Well then you'd better lam it," Chuck warned. "Because they're combing this town for you right now. And if ANS knew I was here, I'd be through."
"I appreciate that, Chuck. You're a pal. Thanks for the warning."
"Are you leaving the country?"
"I guess I'll have to, won't I?" I couldn't tell Chuck that I wasn't going to move an inch. Or that I might even drop in and surrender to the police. I couldn't tell him. It was my story, not Chuck's. I was thankful for the chance to throw him off my trail.
"Well, I guess I'd better start clearing out, Chuck. Thanks again for the tip."
"Where you headed, Steve?"
"Oh, I don't know. See you around, kid, one of these days."
"Good luck, pal." Chuck edged his head out the doorway, circumspectly examining the hallway, and a moment later he was gone.
A half hour later, I went down to the Prefecture de Police and gave myself up. It took me three hours to get through to the proper officials, but when I did, I explained my situation and enlisted their cooperation in my new plan. By evening, I would be a free man again - unless I failed to produce within twenty-four hours one white male caucasian named Hermann Huessing.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I spent the next several hours making the arrangements.
I called Rina first. Bruno had already told her about the results of my hop to Tijuana and my excitement at hearing the tapes. I filled her in on my arrest by the police and my subsequent temporary release.
"I wish I knew what you were up to, Steve." she said. "You'll find out soon enough," I said, then added: "Do you think you can get Erich Ritter to your apartment tomorrow night?"
"I don't see why not," she said. "I'll have to invent some pretext, but that shouldn't be too difficult."
"Tell him you've got to talk to him about the film. "Tell him you're thinking of quitting. That ought to make him come around."
"Yes. That's perfect. He'll throw a fit, but he'll show up. Do you want anyone else at the apartment?"
"Only the police. But they'll be waiting in another room. Think you can hide them?"
"Easily. But why. I think I have a right to know why."
"Of course you do, Rina," I said. "You see, Erich Ritter is going to tell us where Hermann Huessing is hiding."
"It seems unbelievable to me, Steve. But of course I'll do whatever you say."
"Good girl. Call me when you know for sure Ritter will come. Goodbye-"
"One moment, Steve," she said quickly. "You know, my dear, you were very correct a minute ago. I really was thinking of leaving Love of Man. I think I'm through with the picture business, Steve. I'm yearning for a fuller life.
A life with children of my own and a man whom I can cherish, a man who loves me for what I am. Not for how I look on the screen in a flimsy dress."
"Do you think you could be happy washing dishes and changing diapers, Rina? Do you really think that?"
"Is there anything wrong with those things?"
"Nothing, Rina. It's a way of life. But is it your way, Rina?"
"I guess not, Steve. I guess I was only dreaming, romanticizing. I will always be an actress. That is my way of life. That is where I belong."
"If you feel you belong there, Rina, then you would be a fool to leave."
"You know what I was hinting at, Steve. In my fantasy I wanted one man - I guess, you, Steve. But that cannot be. Nicht wahr"
"You wouldn't be happy that way."
"Yes. You are right. I will call you about Ritter." We said goodbye. I then telephoned Brigitte. Bruno was with her. I told them to be on hand for the little get- together at Rina's apartment with Erich Ritter. They would remain in the other room with the police. I called Francoise and invited her too. I didn't want to rob them of the fruits of their heroic work. I wanted them to be present when Erich Ritter revealed the identity of Hermann Huessing.
I then put in an overseas call to New York City. I spoke to the managing editor of ANS headquarters in Rockefeller Plaza. I informed him that I would be filing the biggest story since Sputnik late tomorrow night. He reminded me that I no longer worked for ANS. I asked him if he thought I ought to call the competing wire service. "Perhaps," I said, "they might be interested."
He changed his tone. He said he'd keep a line open for me all night. "This better be as good as you say, Steve," he said," or we'll send you a bill for the line charges."
"You'll send me a check for back pay," I said confidently. "And I still want that job in the states - and the vacation I lost."
"We'll see." He hung up.
I went to sleep.
* * *
Erich Ritter was already in Rina's apartment, when I arrived there the following evening. So were two French detectives, Bruno, Brigitte and Francoise; hiding in another room, as planned.
Rina's gambit, that she was quitting Ritter's film, had worked perfectly. We'd arranged it so that I'd show up only a few minutes after Ritter - men like him don't argue very long. I'd called Rina from downstairs and she'd signaled me that everything was proceeding smoothly by saying, "wrong number."
Now, at the door to Rina's flat, I turned the key she'd given me and let myself in. I was never more frightened. Anyway you looked at it, for me, it was a matter of life or death.
When I walked in on Rina, Ritter was already getting set to leave. Before he saw me, I heard him say, "I will not discuss this matter any further, Rina. You will hear from my attorneys."
"Hold it!" I exclaimed.
"What are you doing here?" Ritter asked whirling toward the sound of my voice.
"Just stay put, Ritter. I want to have a little talk with you."
"I have nothing to say to you, Herr London."
"I think you have a lot to say. For instance, where's Hermann Huessing."
"Get out of my way!" he said trying to force himself past me.
I blocked the doorway and pressed the flat of my hand to his chest, driving him backward.
He tried to take a swing at me, but I caught his arm and brought it around his back and shoved him onto the sofa.
"You crazy fool!" he shouted. "What is the meaning of this? Rina. Call the police. This man is insane."
"You had better do as he says, Erich," Rina said firmly. Ritter sat quietly for awhile. "I will have the both of you thrown in jail for this."
"I don't think so, Erich Ritter." I said fiercely. "Or would you rather be called Reichfuehrer Hermann Huessing!"
Rina gasped wildly. "Steve!" she cried.
"That's right, Rina. You are looking at Reichfuehrer Hermann Huessing "You can see he is insane, Rina," he said. "Call the police."
Rina looked at me strangely, as if she were beginning to believe I really was crazy.
"That's him, Rina," I said. "He had his face changed, But it's him. That's your father. The man who killed your mother after she stabbed him in the shoulder. Show Rina your shoulder, Huessing. Which one is it the right or the left, Rina?"
Rina was struck dumb. She pointed to Huessing's right side.
"Show us your right, shoulder, Huessing. Show us the scar left there by Rina's mother."
"You crazy fool!" he said. "I command that you stop this nonsense."
"You command nothing anymore, Huessing. Not even your dope syndicate. The police will see to that. Now show us the scar." I was livid with hatred and fear.
"I refuse. I insist you are mad. Remember, Rina, I continually insist he is mad."
"Francoise!" I called to the other room where she was waiting. "Come in here Francoise!" I caught the look of horror in Huessing's face, which increased immeasurably when Francoise appeared in the doorway.
"Tell us which side the scar is on, Francoise. You saw it. Do you remember?"
"I remember very clearly. It is on the right side." Francoise circled close to Huessing. She stared deeply into his eyes. Then she spat into his face. "Murderer!" she screamed. "Killer! Bastard!"
"Murderer!" Another ghastly scream was released. Only it wasn't Francoise. It was Rina. "Murderer! Murderer!" She came charging at him. She had removed her shoe and was now wielding the long narrow steel heel, driving it toward his head. "MURDERER! MURDERER!"
Rina lunged at him and Huessing rolled his head into his lap, bringing his grubby hands up for protection. I trapped Rina's arm in my hand. She almost certainly would have killed him. For the time being, Huessing was far more valuable alive. I subdued Rina.
Huessing remained curled in a human ball. But I suddenly saw his hand slip under the leg of a trouser. I raced to him. But I was too late. In his hand he held a tiny German pistol.
"Get back!" he ordered. "All of you to the wall."
With a gesture, I urged Rina and Francoise to obey. It was a delicate situation. The police were in the other room. But if they surprised Huessing, the gun might go off. The police would get Huessing. But one of us might get killed.
"You are very clever, Mr. London," he said backing away from us. His voice seemed to have changed - almost imperceptibly so, but nevertheless it was clear he was Herman Huessing once again. "Yes. It is quite true I am Reichfuehrer Hermann Huessing. It is quite true surgeons gave me a new identity, under which I was able to continue to live. Remarkably well, I might say. I became a producer of films. I had experience in that, you know; as a propaganda expert for the Third Reich. But more importantly I built an empire of narcotics trade - which I intend to continue. It is a pity you discovered this, Mr. London. Not only for yourself, but for these two ladies. I shall have to kill all of you." He turned to Rina now and addressed her.
"I am sorry, Rina - my daughter. I did not want it to end this way. I did my best to help you. And your career.
I hired you for my best films. I wanted to make you an international star. And I succeeded. I loved you. But now... "
Rina turned her head away in disgust. She looked sick- like she was going to vomit.
"It was Rina's mother wrote Love of Man, wasn't it Huessing?" I asked. "You stole the manuscript from her."
"That is correct."
"And you arranged the death of that man in Tijuana, who was buried in you name. And all the lies that went with it."
"Very true, Mr. London. Now prepare to be buried in your own names."
In the corner of my eye, I could see one of the detectives edging into the doorway. He was holding a gun, taking aim at Huessing's head.
Huessing saw him too, for suddenly he whirled and fired. The cop fell to the floor. I raced behind Huessing and locked my arm around his neck.
"Drop the gun!" I demanded. "Drop it."
Huessing struggled against me to bring his gun hand upward to get a shot at my head. I tightened my grip around his neck and brought him to the floor. The gun went off at the ceiling, chipping away a hunk of plaster that fell on my head and stunned me. Huessing freed himself and rolled over, the gun still in his hand. I kicked him at the wrist and the pistol went flying across the room. Now' I hurled myself on top of him closing my icy hands around his throat.
We wrestled that way. He was like a bear. I continued to hold on to his neck. I could see the other policeman standing close to us waiting to get a clear shot at Huessing, but unable to shoot for fear of hitting me.
My hands dug into his gullet. I could feel his hot blood oozing onto my fingers where my nails had broken the skin. His fist pounded my back, with tremendous force, driving the air from my lungs in sputters and gasps. But I continued to hold.
At last I felt his blows weakening. His head was a brilliant red, his eyes almost bulged out of the sockets. There was a look of final horror in his face as he sensed he was fighting a losing battle. I pressed still harder at his windpipe. I knew I was strangling the life from him, yet I was unable to release myself. There was something in me overpowering my rational will. I wanted to be his executioner. I wanted to squeeze all the evil out of him - as if that were possible. I could see a blue death flowing into his flesh. I could not halt myself.
"Stop!" It was Rina. I saw her close to me screaming at me to stop. I saw Bruno coming toward me and felt him pulling me from Huessing's throat. I blacked out.
When I awoke, all was calm and silence. Everyone was gone. The police, Bruno, Brigitte, Francoise, and Huessing. Only Rina was with me, seated at my side.
"How long have I been out?"
* * *
"Twenty - twenty-five minutes. They left immediately."
"What about the cop who was shot?"
"He was only wounded slightly. He went with the others."
I stood. I was unsteady, but I maintained my balance. "Why did you stop me, Rina. You of all people."
"There has been enough killing. Isn't that so?"
"Thank you. I thank you for everything." I kissed her softly.
"It is goodbye?" she asked.
"Isn't that the way it has to be with us, sooner or later?"
"That is so, my dear. But where do you go now?"
"I have to write a story." I said goodbye once more and walked out into the night. I didn't look back.
A chill was cutting across the city from the direction of the Seine. I walked to the nearest telegraph office and opened a press wire to New York. I sat down at a typewriter and batted out my story. It was a long story. The line charges must have been very high. But I knew I wouldn't have to pay for them.
Afterwards, I went out again. It was too cold now to walk. I caught a taxi and we drove through Paris. I had someplace to go. There was still some unfinished business. There was a little matter at Francoise's apartment. There was a little matter of a mirror that hung on the wall across from the foot of her bed.