Sight Unseen (13 page)

He grunted and said something about sleep.

She laughed and said, “My exhausted stallion.”

He didn’t answer. Shortly, they both slept.

“None of these places looks quite—elegant enough,” Lockwood complained, and then tossed the travel folders back across Hilda’s
desk.

Hilda smiled her sullen smile, not an expression that relaxed anyone.

“I keep thinking I’ve seen you somewhere before, Mr. Parker,” she said.

“Were you in Paris last fall?” Lockwood asked.

“No.”

“In the Alps—skiing?”

She shook her head. Her eyes shone.

Lockwood frowned. “Perhaps last spring—Costa del Sol?”

Hilda sighed heavily. She could work here at the embassy amid those who moved elegantly through the larger world, but none
of it was for her.

“No, I’m afraid my work keeps me at this desk.”

Lockwood gestured towards the travel folders. “And these are the best that Argentina’s got?”

“We have a new resort going up near Mar del Plata,” she said. “Don’t tell the ambassador I said so, but you’re right —Buenos
Aires does get dull after a few days.”

In Monday afternoon’s harsh daylight Hilda looked more grim and warrior-faced than she had Saturday night when Lockwood and
Myra had bumped into her and Heatherton. The man that Dave had put onto the foreign couple had trailed them to her place in
Queens, and then had followed Heatherton back to the Waldorf-Astoria at four in the morning. At breakfast the next day Lockwood
had given his new legman, Billy French, another ten-dollar bill and had told him to keep an eye on her for the next day or
so. Billy had called in this morning to say that she’d gone to work in the travel section of the Argentine embassy on 63rd
between Fifth and Madison. Lockwood had decided to pretend to be a wealthy playboy named Parker and feel her out.

Outside Lockwood waited in the Cord for her to leave the embassy. He felt silly following her up as a lead, but surely something
nutty was up—would a hot dog like Heatherton be seeing Hilda only for her favors? Couldn’t he do much better? But maybe the
man just had a perverse taste for Viking warriors with hatchet faces.

About a quarter to five, Hilda came out of the embassy and looked about in a half-bewildered fashion and sauntered across
the street into a shop called Ernie’s Ice Cream Parlor. Lockwood got out, locked the Cord, and followed her in. He gritted
his teeth. This wasn’t going to be a part of this case that he liked.

He walked in, pretended not to be able to easily choose which flavor nickel cone he wanted, and she called to him.

He bought her a soda and offered to run her home in his car. She offered him a drink to cool him off before his drive back
to the city. They climbed gritty stairs framed by filthy walls that had been painted dozens of times. Both pretended there
was nothing disgusting about the hallway.

“You can see it’s not much,” she said about her apartment. “The Hinkelmanns fell on hard times after the war.”

“Your father?”

“Yes. He went to Argentina, saying there was nothing for him in Germany. There wasn’t much for him in Argentina either.”

“You’ve fixed it up very well.”

“Do you think so?” she said, and for a moment he had the feeling tears might crack the mask of hardness, grim determination,
and powder that lay on her face like concrete. “Let me fix you something—perhaps a little Rhine wine with soda? Very refreshing.
I have ice.”

They drank, and discovered they had much in common —principally a love of an easy life lived in the most interesting parts
of the world, a life lived with money and a penchant for moving on when a place got boring. Lockwood drove her to Manfred’s,
an international restaurant he knew in Brooklyn, and there he stuffed her with squab and more Rhine wine. He became a terrific
listener, only interrupting the flow from her to him to give her fictitious stories of his life as a playboy in various resorts
of the world. It gave the impression, he hoped, that they were swapping intimacies, getting close to each other. He wondered,
as he smiled and leaned close to that heavy face, just how much he was being set up by her, and for what.

He’d circled around her work at the embassy, but she was cagey, not giving what she sensed he wanted. Lockwood bought a couple
bottles of the Rhine wine, and they drove back to her place.

By the time they returned, it had been dark for several hours. From across the street the lights from the Bijou Theater flickered
across the walls of the small living room. It didn’t take long, in the dim light of the apartment—she turned on only one lamp—to
have her talking about her work.

“I have a dictator for a boss.”

“Like the Fuehrer?” he said with a smile.

“It’s no joke. Many of us Germans emigrated to Argentina after the war, including my papa.”

Lockwood was surprised. “Your boss is German?”

“He thinks he’s better than us ‘half-breeds.’ My mother was Indian.”

He nodded and smiled. Now he understood. In her life, having a dark mother was what she was trying to beat. She’d just confided
her worst secret. She was trying herself out on him. He gave her a deeper smile and felt like a heel.

“Even though he’s an Argentine diplomat, he still thinks of himself as German?”

“Are you kidding? He belongs to the German-American Bund, goes to all their meetings, and I think if he had his way, he’d
make Argentina into another district of Germany.”

“And the Argentines let him get away with it?”

She shrugged and took another large slug of wine. “The Germans buy their way into the Argentine diplomatic corps. It gives
them freedom of movement.”

Something clicked for Lockwood. He got up and poured her another drink and sat next to her on the sofa.

“I admire Germany tremendously,” he said. “Thank God somebody is going to keep the world from getting overrun by little yellow
and brown men, and all the crazy Yids.”

He saw ambivalence ripple across her concrete mask. She was German, and she was dark.

“You don’t look all that political,” she said. “I’m surprised. I thought all you were interested in was skiing and tennis
and nightclubs?”

With a burst of easy enthusiasm, Lockwood said, “Those are the
important
things in life.”

He fixed them another drink then, making hers mostly wine and his mostly soda water. He got her back into a jollier mood by
dancing with her. She encouraged him to take off his tie and jacket, and she changed into a loose summer robe. She teased
him, and he felt her up in a tentative, gentlemanly way. Shyly, she encouraged him. She’d become a 160-pound tease; Lockwood
felt more and more like a mouse or a small fish being tickled along into a hard trap. He wanted to get what he’d come after
and get out.

What bothered him as the hours wore on and he had a bit more wine—he was sure he wasn’t drunk—was that she began to look slimmer
and more attractive. Her hatchet face evaporated; she looked girlish and as playful as a kitten. Where before her hard flesh
looked as if it would fling and pound him like a cement mixer, now she seemed somewhat comfortably firm and solid, someone
on whom he could rest for a few hours.

By midnight they were down to a single candle flickering on the mantle, his shirt and pants, and her silk nightie. She was
so looped that it wasn’t hard to get her to talk about the men in her life, and she talked about “a certain very aristocratic,
and very rich, English gentleman who takes me out.” Lockwood could see she was hoping to make him jealous, and he pretended
to be upset by the revelation that she had a lover of high social and financial station.

He discovered that Nigel Heatherton—it had to be him —belonged to the same German-American social clubs that her boss belonged
to, and that the two were close buddies.

Payoff! Just what he’d been looking for. He’d known that Heatherton was no good, and now he had him linked up with the German-American
Bund. If Vinnie could come through and they could pinch Heatherton, this case might get solved very quickly.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Matter?”

“You just went away, my little choufleur,” she said with a pout. “I don’t take the Englishman seriously.”

Lockwood thought he saw a way out of here, and he gave her a smile that he hoped looked phony through all the wine she’d drunk.
He looked at his watch and made an expression of dismay.

“I ought to be going,” he said.

“What a pretty watch,” she said in an attempt to distract him. “What kind is it?”

God, she was drunk if she thought that would work. He pulled her hand off his wrist and stood up.

The flesh on her face looked as if it had started to run. She looked frightened and desperate that he might leave.

“You’re not going?” she whimpered. She huddled up as much as possible inside the silvery nightie.

“It’s late,” he said.

“You’re upset by the Englishman,” she said. Her placating smile looked like a grimace. “He is nothing to me. I like you ever
so much more. Sit down for a while with me.”

She stretched out her hand, and Lockwood suddenly wanted to crack her one across her jaw, but restrained himself and simply
felt guilty over the impulse.

“Give me your phone number,” he said. “I’ll call you. I’ve had all I can handle for one evening.”

“No!” She picked up her glass and slurped the wine down. “You won’t call me, I know it.” She looked at him with one of the
ugliest faces he’d ever seen on a woman. “Tell me the truth.”

Lockwood was at a loss what to do in the situation. A few years ago, he might have taken her to bed and left her drunkenly
snoring, but he wasn’t that kind of kid anymore. He put his shoes on and heard the clink of glass on glass; she had poured
herself more wine. When he left at midnight, she was crying great black creeks of tears down her ruined face.

Outside, he hunted for a phone booth, but failed to find one in this part of Queens. He found one in a bar a dozen blocks
away. Guy Manners answered on the first ring.

“You got something?” Manners asked.

“Yes. How long will it take you to come in?”

“Jesus, tonight?”

“Yeah, tonight.”

“Where?”

“Here in Manhattan. Paddy’s on 43rd, between Sixth and Seventh.”

“What time?”

“Whenever you can get there. If I’m not there, I’m on my way. I’ve got one stop to make first, and maybe we can catch the
missing object in a pincer movement—from above and from below.”

“I’ll be there.”

“That’s all you got?” Manners asked.

“That’s all you can say?” Lockwood asked.

Manners sighed. “You missed the deadline for the money today, Bill. If you pay tomorrow, we’re going to expect $76,000—$1000
a day penalty for late payment. Wednesday, it’ll be $77,000.”

“Come on! You’re the guy wants the thing back—I’m handing you Heatherton on a silver platter. How many Englishmen who belong
to the German-American Bund and know military secrets can you trust?”

“I knew this was a mistake,” Manners said. For the past five minutes, ever since it had become clear where Lockwood was taking
the conversation, Manners had been turned off and hadn’t looked Lockwood in the eye.

“How come it’s a mistake?”

“If I don’t tell you, you’re liable to blow the whole thing, so I’d better,” Manners said. “But if you breathe a word of this—to
your boss or even Myra Rodman—”

“Hey! What’s she got to do with this?”

“I should ask you that. You’re the one who squired her about this weekend. Enjoy yourself?”

“You son of a bitch! What are you doing, following me?”

“Sometimes. When we think we can learn something.”

“Keep off my back, Manners.”

“I asked you first, Lockwood, remember? You’re the guy with the nose that’s impossible to keep out of others’ business.”

At a standoff, they glared at each other. Manners gave in and picked up his glass, drank off his rye and ginger, and signaled
up the bar for a refill. It was two in the morning, and Paddy’s was at a lull. Lockwood and Manners sat at the end of the
long bar, alone, and talked together in urgent hushed whispers, looking about themselves with little furtive glances to make
sure they wouldn’t be overheard. When Paddy made a gesture that asked if Lockwood wanted a refill, he nodded, and the old
man shuffled over with fresh glasses.

“Can you keep this quiet?” Manners asked. “You could get people killed if you open your yap.”

“Yes.”

“Heatherton is one of us. He’s pretending to be a Nazi agent.”

“He’s doing one hell of a job of pretending. Had me fooled.”

“He feeds them misleading information on military developments.”

“Such as the Northstar bombsight.”

“Yeah, but he’s got his ass in a crack now. He’s been feeding them the wrong stuff on it, and when it gets back to Germany
his worth to us will be over—if they don’t put an ice pick through the base of his skull to teach guys like him a lesson.”

“Jesus! And I thought he was such an asshole.”

“He is an asshole. He’s our asshole.”

Lockwood laughed, and Manners smiled wryly.

“If that’s it,” Manners said, “I think I’m going to tottle off to bed somewhere here in town. I got another twenty-four-hour
day in front of me tomorrow.”

“I guess we all do,” Lockwood said. “We’re back to square one. My boss is going to kill me when he finds I don’t even have
a decent lead. We don’t know if the bombsight is even still in this country.”

“It is,” Manners said.

Lockwood stared at him in surprise. “You’re sure?”

Manners nodded. “It’s one of the things our arrogant friend Heatherton has managed to find out.”

“Then we have a chance!”

“We sure do. From what we gather, they’re afraid to dismantle it. They want to ship it back to Germany intact for a complete
analysis.”

“And you know it’s the Germans?”

“For a day or so now.”

“You haven’t been all that giving,” Lockwood complained.