The Deadly Embrace (13 page)

“One mistake in the intricate pattern and you’ve bought it. That’s what happened to me. I wasn’t very good, I’m afraid.”

“After shooting down seven Huns,” repeated Charlie.

Her heart went out to Nicholas for the disfiguring wounds he had suffered. She had to fight the impulse to reach out and stroke his maimed hands. At that moment, the waiter arrived with their menus.

In compliance with strict rationing, the fare was limited to four choices, including roast mutton, Lord Woolton’s vegetable pie, broiled salmon, and Colchester oysters. As they finished ordering, she looked up to see a young man enter the room and advance toward the bar. He ordered a drink and then turned to look over at them. For some reason he looked familiar to her.

“Thought I might find you here, Nicky,” he called out.

Hearing his voice, Charlie looked over at him and then back at Liza, rolling his eyes disparagingly as Nicholas responded, “Des… come join us.”

Pulling a chair from the next table, the man sat down between Charlie and Nicholas. Unlike the two of them, he wasn’t in uniform, and wore an expensive double-breasted suit and a red patterned tie.

“Des, meet Liza Marantz,” said Nicholas. “Liza … my old roommate at Trinity, Desmond Sullivan.”

Physically, they were very different. Whereas Nicholas was tall and slender, Des Sullivan was short with a deep chest and broad shoulders. In looks, he was probably as handsome as Nicholas had once been, with thick, wavy brown hair and a thin, aristocratic nose.

“How’s the boy?” he said to Charlie, who merely grunted in acknowledgment.

“Barrett,” Nicholas called out to the waiter, “another round of gimlets, please.”

Des pulled a silver cigarette case from his breast pocket, removed a cigarette, and lit it with a silver Ronson. As soon as he did, Liza remembered him. He had been the man standing in the hallway when Nicholas came to pick up Charlie for the country weekend during her first week at SHAEF.

“I’m heading over to the Palladium to see that new dance revue,” he said with a distinct Irish brogue. “There is a new girl from Istanbul with an ass that...”

“Don’t get yourself in a lather, Des,” interrupted Nicholas. “Anyway, we were just about to have dinner. Perhaps we can catch up to you later.”

“Suit yourselves,” he said, gazing at Liza for the first time.

Over his shoulder, Liza saw an elderly woman in a long white dress sit down at the piano. A few moments later, she began to play a slow, melancholy version of “Something to Remember You By.”

“And what do you do?” asked Des Sullivan, continuing to stare at her with his intense black eyes.

“Hands off,” said Nicholas. “She works with Charlie.”

“Yes, of course… old Wainwright,” said Sullivan, as if he had just heard a new joke and wanted to pass it along. “If you haven’t heard already, your friend Bobby Machem resigned his commission in the Irish Guards.”

Although Charlie showed no visible reaction, Liza saw his hands clench into fists under the rim of the table.

“Wasn’t he at Eton with you two?” asked Nicholas.

Charlie nodded.

“I gather he was always dropping out from some kind of infection, poor chap,” said Des, his lips curling disdainfully. “Then he missed his posting for some reason or another—stomach virus, toe infection, that sort of thing.”

“You mean he flaked out?” asked Nicholas.

“Not so anyone could take notice and do something about it,” said Sullivan.

“At least he volunteered to serve,” said Charlie, almost belligerently.

From the way Charlie was glaring at the Irishman, Liza was afraid he might actually punch him.

“Would you like to dance?” asked Nicholas, breaking the tension.

“I would love to,” said Liza.

He stood up and began limping toward the piano, remarkably graceful in spite of the prosthetic leg.

She was about to follow him when Des Sullivan said, “Pity about Joss… Tasty piece, that.”

Charlie picked up Nicholas’s half-full glass and downed the entire contents.

After crossing the floor, Liza stepped into Nicholas’s arms. In spite of his injuries, he danced with self-assured confidence, holding her casually and smiling down into her face as they moved around the room. When the song ended, the pianist effortlessly segued into “Moonlight Serenade.”

“You dance magnificently,” said Nicholas, holding her closer.

“You, too,” said Liza, feeling totally relaxed in his arms.

The first course of food was waiting when they finished the dance and returned to the table. Charlie and Des Sullivan were embroiled in a heated discussion about the state of European politics. Without waiting for the others, Liza picked up her spoon and began eating the savory mushroom soup with relish.

“We should have stopped Hitler at Munich in 1938,” said Charlie, his voice rising. “Instead, we sold the Czechs out when they had a steel ring of fortified defenses in the mountains and the best-trained army in Europe…. Hell, even the bloody Frogs were ready to fight…. We could have strolled into Berlin and put the match to his house of cards once and for all. Instead, Chamberlain went to Berchtesgaden and got down on his knees to the bastard.”

“It would appear that someone is ravenous at this table,” said Nicholas, grinning at Liza.

“It’s delicious,” she said, smiling back at him.

“I’m surprised at you, Wainwright,” said Sullivan with a laugh. “Tell me the difference between Germany taking Czechoslovakia, and England invading Ireland or annexing Scotland. It is all about survival of the fittest. England invades India. Hitler invades Russia. Empires come and go. Read your Hegel. Hitler is no different from Caesar or Napoleon.”

“You’re still a cynical bastard, aren’t you?” said Charlie, starting on another gimlet. “I remember you holding a similar brief for Hitler back at Trinity. I can’t believe you’re still pushing it now, considering everything he has done since.”

“The ruling dynasties in Europe are finished once and for all,” said Sullivan, “and as the rot of that old order fades away, it gives birth to a new type of leader—men capable of cleaning out the rot.”

When he finished his soup, Nicholas dabbed at his mouth with a starched napkin. “Des is right about one thing,” he said. “The old Europe has disintegrated. After two centuries of rule by the Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns, along comes Adolf Hitler—a small-minded, bigoted Austrian who was nothing more than a tramp, a vagabond living in a flophouse in Vienna, begging on the street, and eating in a soup kitchen. Yet, a decade later, he was riding in triumph through the streets of Berlin. Remarkable.”

“He is an unmitigated monster,” said Charlie, heatedly. “The personification of evil in its most malevolent form.”

“Hitler has committed crimes on a monumental scale, that’s true,” said Nicholas calmly. “But Stalin takes the prize as the greatest mass murderer of the century, at least so far, and no one raised a peep when he slaughtered millions of Kulaks. Now he’s our stalwart ally. Actually, there’s not a shilling’s worth of difference between them. National Socialism … communism… they’re just words to mask a ruthless drive for total world domination. Is there any difference between Hitler’s concentration camps and Stalin’s concentration camps?”

He was looking at Liza, apparently waiting for her to answer, but she was finding it hard to pay attention. Not used to alcohol, her normally active brain had slowed to a crawl.

“I don’t know,” she said, dully as the main course was served. “Thank goodness, we don’t have any concentration camps in America.”

“Oh, really,” came back Sullivan in his lilting brogue. “What do you call the places where you sent your American Japs after Pearl Harbor? And what about your so-called Indian reservations? Your founding fathers systematically slaughtered the red men to take over the whole continent in the name of Manifest Destiny. Americans should be the last to talk.”

“What we did to the Nisei is horrible,” said Liza angrily. “But there is no national policy to murder them.”

“She makes a good point, Des,” added Nicholas. “We English aren’t all that different either, after two thousand years of so-called advancement.”

“I’m not bloody English,” growled Sullivan as Liza sampled her salmon.

“Nobody’s perfect,” said Nicholas, grinning at him. “Anyway, do you think we would allow a Jew in our best clubs here in London? Or allow them to mingle with our daughters?”

“You Americans are the worst hypocrites,” said Sullivan, going after Liza again. “Roosevelt has been president for ten years. How many Jews did he allow across your borders back in the thirties, when they could still have escaped the whirlwind?”

Liza’s appetite had disappeared. She only wished that Sullivan had never shown up to spoil the evening. Looking at her watch, she realized that she needed to get back to the office anyway.

“Well, the war’s almost over now,” said Charlie, his words as thick as pudding as he stared at his empty cocktail glass. “Another year at the most, and the monster will be gone … defeated by sheer numbers.”

“That’s what Montezuma probably said before the whole Aztec Empire was plundered by Cortés and his handful of dedicated butchers,” said Nicholas. “And how big was Macedonia when Alexander conquered the known world?”

“The Germans can hold on for years, especially if the invasion fails,” said Sullivan, “and at some point Hitler will use those rocket weapons he keeps talking about. Anything’s possible.”

“Sheer numbers,” repeated Charlie, slurring his words badly. “That and the fact that we bloody well know what they’re going to do before their own generals do.”

Liza was watching Des Sullivan, who now began gazing at Charlie with a quizzical expression.

“Charlie, we have to go,” she said. “I need to see you back at the office.”

“Sure, happy to go with you… anywhere,” he said, unsteadily rising to his feet.

As she was about to leave, Nicholas reached out and took her hand.

“May I ring you?” he asked.

His hand felt warm and soft.

She nodded her head a fraction and said, “Yes. Please do.”

CHAPTER 11

J
.P. stumbled out of the seventh-floor suite in the Dorchester Hotel at three o’clock in the morning. She was still wearing the white silk sheath that General Kilgore had bought her at Bergdorf Goodman, although it was now ripped at both shoulders.

When the elevator door opened on the ground floor and she stepped into the ornate lobby, several doormen and porters were clustered near the front desk. None of them moved to get the door for her as she crossed the lobby and went out into the night.

Standing on the sidewalk in the bitter cold, she began to cry. Her already swollen cheeks were red and aching by the time she flagged down a taxi on Park Lane and gave the driver her address.

J.P. knew right after meeting him for dinner that she didn’t want to sleep with him. She was so tired of it all. Kilgore had said, “I need you to be real nice to him, baby. Phil Gramm’s only a supply officer… but he keeps track of the booze and does Ike’s laundry. He’s also one of the guys reviewing the recommendations for Georgie Patton’s D-Day assignment, and this could help get him out of the doghouse.”

Like most of the officers Kilgore had arranged for her to sleep with, he was just another arrogant desk jockey, already drunk when they met for dinner. For staff officers, the war seemed nothing more than a never-ending party.

He wouldn’t stop pawing her, even at the dinner table, in front of dozens of people. Up close, she saw that his teeth were stained greenish-yellow from the cigars he constantly smoked. Every time he smiled, she felt nauseous.

Concerned that someone from work might see them together, she was almost grateful when he finally suggested that they go upstairs. In the lobby, she tried to beg off, claiming a headache, but he had cruelly squeezed her hand and whispered, “I know you can be had, baby. Kilgore told me so. He says you’ve seen half the hotel ceilings in London.”

As they headed into the elevator, she happened to glance toward the front desk. A young blonde woman was standing with her back to the lobby, and for a moment J.P. thought it was Joss Dunbar. No, it couldn’t be, she realized a second later. Joss was dead.

While they rode up to the seventh floor, the tiny fragment of a lost memory began gnawing at the back of her mind. She knew it had something to do with Joss. Like a small, elusive fish, it darted back and forth as she tried to reel it into her brain with no success.

At one point, Gramm stopped the elevator between floors, taking his cigar out of his mouth before attempting to kiss her. As she tried to repel him, red cinders dropped from the cigar, burning a hole in the silk bodice covering her breasts.

He was too drunk to notice or care. And then they were in his room. Without any preliminaries, he told her to take off her clothes. When she didn’t move fast enough, he began ripping at the straps of her dress. In bed, he used her like a Filipina whore. The worst part was when he repeatedly taunted her with the words, “This is for your husband, baby.”

She wondered whether Gramm might have known Lloyd in the old army before the war, and had harbored a grudge against him. Lying there after he was finished, she tried to imagine Lloyd in his Japanese prison camp, gaunt and emaciated, wondering where she was and what she was doing at that very moment. When she started to cry, the general had ordered her out of the suite.

In the corridor, she realized her topcoat was still inside. When she knocked on the door, he refused to open it to give it back to her. In the taxi, she began sobbing again, almost hysterically. The driver pulled over to the side of the road.

“You all right, miss?” he said.

“Please, just get me to my apartment.”

The cab moved slowly along the blacked-out London streets until it reached her address near Charing Cross Station. It was dreadfully cold in the street as J.P. paid the driver and headed across the sidewalk. She was pulling out her key when a little man in coveralls walked past her carrying a canister tray full of milk bottles, his breath wreathed in a small cloud of steam. She unlocked the door and stepped inside, locking it behind her.