The Eighth Dwarf (25 page)

“How fast did we go?” Ploscaru asked.

“About a hundred miles per hour.”

“I like to go fast. It's something to do with sex, I think. I get quite aroused.”

“This is some car you found, Nick.”

“How does it handle?”

“Better than I would've thought. Very smooth, very quick. Even a kid could handle it. I'm not sure that they remembered to put the springs in, though. Run over a marble and you feel it clear up your spine. Not to be picky, but don't you think maybe it's just a bit flashy for our line of work?”

“Flashy?”

“Yeah, flashy. We're supposed to be a trifle clandestine, aren't we? You know, sly and sneaky. This thing's about as sneaky as a parade.”

“But fast.”

“Very fast.”

“We might need it, then.”

“For what?”

“To get from here to there very quickly.”

When they got back to the big house near the Frankfurt zoo, one of the young maids was waiting for them with an envelope and the important air of someone who gets to deliver the bad news.

“He said to give it to either of you,” she said after making her curtsy.

“Who?”

“The man who brought it. He came on a bicycle. He said it was of the gravest importance. A matter of life or death, he said.”

Ploscaru's eyebrows went up. “He said that?”

“I am almost positive, Herr Direktor.”

Jackson took the envelope and followed Ploscaru into the sitting room, where a coal fire burned in the grate.

“Open it while I make us a drink,” Ploscaru said.

Jackson examined the envelope, which was made of thick, cream-colored paper. There was nothing written on its front or back, so he smelled it. There was a slight scent that he decided was lavender. He opened the envelope with his finger and took out a single sheet of paper.

He recognized the handwriting immediately. But even if it had been typed, he felt that he would automatically have identified its sender from the florid prose. There was no salutation, and the note began abruptly: “A terrible thing has happened. I am in despair and must see you at once. Please do not fail me in this hour of grave need.” It was signed with Leah Oppenheimer's initials, L.O.

He traded the letter to Ploscaru for a drink. “A maiden in distress,” Jackson said.

Ploscaru read the note quickly, looked up, and said, “She does like a bit of melodrama, doesn't she? I suppose you'd better go see her.”

“Aren't you coming?”

The dwarf shook his head. “I think not. You seem to be handling her quite well, and there is the chance that I may have an important appointment tonight.”

“She keeps asking about you.”

“Make my excuses.”

“I think she's getting tired of excuses.”

“Then take her to dinner. There's quite a good black-market restaurant that I've heard about. Here, I'll give you the address.” He wrote the address with a gold pencil on the back of the letter and handed it to Jackson. “You can even give her a ride in the car. She might like that.”

“I think I'll run her past the gas station just to see what the fellas think.”

“Sorry?”

“Nothing.”

When Leah Oppenheimer opened the door of the apartment on the third floor, Jackson lied and said, “I came as soon as I got your note.” Actually, he'd had another drink first.

“You are so very kind,” she said in a voice that was almost a whisper. “Do come in.”

As she led him into the room where she had served tea and sliced Milky Ways, Jackson had the feeling that he was being led into a funeral parlor by the most bereaved relative of the deceased. It was still cold in the room, and Leah Oppenheimer had her camel's-hair coat on.

“I am sorry, but there is no electricity,” she said, indicating two candles that burned near the table where tea had been served. “No heat either, I'm afraid, but do sit down.”

“What's happened?” Jackson said, choosing the same chair that he had sat in before.

“It's horrible. It's so horrible that I can't believe it.” Her voice almost broke, and now that she was under the candle light Jackson could see that she had been crying.

“Tell me.”

“My brother, he … he …” Then the tears started, as did the sobs. Jackson rose and patted her on the shoulder. He felt clumsy. She reached for his hand and held it pressed against her cheek. She cries the same way she writes, Jackson thought, found his handkerchief with his other hand, and gave it to her.

“Here,” he said, “blow your nose.”

“Thank you.” She blew her nose, wiped away the tears, and looked up at him. “You're always so very kind. I feel I can trust you. I—I've always felt that from the first moment we met.”

Jackson tried not to gimace. She's reading it, he decided. She has this mental script that some idiot has written for her and she reads from it.

“Better?” he said, freeing his hand and using it to give her shoulder another pat.

She nodded.

Jackson resumed his seat and said, “Tell me about it. Tell me about what's so horrible.”

She folded her hands in her lap and looked away, as though it would make the telling easier. “My brother.”

Jackson waited. When she said nothing after several moments, he said, “What about him?”

Still looking away, she said, “They say he has killed somebody else.”

Jackson sighed. “Who're they?”

“Lieutenant Meyer. He was here earlier. He said my brother shot and killed a man at the Opel plant. What could he have been doing at the Opel plant? It's at Russelsheim, you know.”

“Who did he kill?”

“A man. He held a trial, found him guilty, and then killed him.”

Jackson took out his cigarettes, thought about offering Leah Oppenheimer one, decided against it, lit one for himself, and said, “I want you to do something for me.”

She looked at him then. “Of course. Anything.”

“Tell me exactly what Lieutenant Meyer said.”

It took her a while, nearly half an hour, what with her asides, rhetorical questions, and the several long periods during which she said absolutely nothing, but instead gazed silently down at her hands.

When Jackson felt that she was through, he said, “That's it? You've told me everything he said?”

“Yes. Everything.”

“Where is your friend?”

“Eva? She and Lieutenant Meyer went out. It will be their last night together for perhaps some time. They will probably be out quite late. She wanted to stay with me, but I told her no, that it wasn't necessary, that it might be better if I were alone with my thoughts.”

She's reading again, Jackson thought.

“So I was alone for a time, and when I could no longer bear it, I sent you that silly note. You were so very kind to come.”

“Why isn't Lieutenant Meyer going to be around for a while?” Jackson said.

“Why? Because he feels he had to go to Bonn, of course.”

“Of course. But why Bonn exactly?”

“Because that's where my brother's going. Didn't I mention that?”

“No. You didn't.”

“It's important, isn't it?”

“Yes,” Jackson said. “It's important.”

It took Jackson a while to convince her that she should accept his invitation to dinner. Several times he almost gave up, but instead persisted, and when at long last she accepted, she suddenly found she couldn't go the way she was dressed.

“It will only take a minute to change,” she said.

It took her twenty minutes, but when she came out of the bedroom she looked far different from the way she had looked when she went in. She looked, in fact, Jackson thought, almost beautiful.

She had done something to her hair, although he was not quite sure what except that it was no longer worn in her usual maiden-lady fashion. Instead, it fell in soft waves almost to her shoulders. She also had done something to erase the evidence of her tears—perhaps a skillful application of makeup, Jackson thought, but wasn't sure, because there was no evidence of makeup except for the faint touch of lipstick that she had added.

The dress helped, too. It was a plain black dress. Your simple, basic black, Jackson decided, which probably cost a hundred dollars. It was cut low and close enough to show off her breasts to good advantage, and for the first time he wondered how it would be to go to bed with her. He was faintly surprised that he hadn't wondered about that before, because, like most men, he usually speculated about it shortly after meeting a woman. Any woman.

She stood there in the center of the room, almost shyly, as if she were not at all sure that he still wanted her to go.

“You look very nice,” he said. “Very pretty.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Yes.”

“What do they call this in the States?”

“Call what?”

“What we are doing.”

“I think they call it going to dinner.”

She shook her head. “No there is another word that I've read. They call it a—a date, don't they?”

“Sometimes.”

“Is this like a real date?”

“Absolutely,” Jackson said, praying that she wouldn't simper.

Instead, she smiled shyly and said, “It will be my first one, you know.”

“Your first one ever?” Somehow, he managed to keep the shock out of his voice, if not the surprise.

She nodded gravely. “My first one ever. Do you still want me to go?”

“Sure,” Jackson said, and smiled as though he really meant it and was rather amazed to realize that he did.

23

Although the beer was no better than usual, the Golden Rose was crowded that night. It was so crowded, in fact, that the printer had to share a table with two other people, a man and a woman, who had almost nothing to say to each other. Bodden decided that they were married.

He had been waiting nearly thirty minutes when Eva Scheel came in. She stood at the entrance just past the heavy curtain, one hand clasping her fur coat to her neck as she tried to spot Bodden in the crowded, smoky room. He waved. She nodded and started toward him.

She sat down at the table after first giving the silent couple an automatic “Good evening,” which they muttered back, their first words in nearly twenty minutes.

“You have eaten?” she said.

Bodden nodded and smiled. “Earlier. A fat chicken. Very tasty. The sour one down in the cellar cooks well. And you?”

“At the American officers' club. A steak. They recently decided to let Germans in. Proper Germans, of course.” She looked around the room and frowned. “We must talk. But not here. Is your room far?”

“Not far.”

“We'd best go there.”

Bodden smiled. “It's a cold place; no heat, you know. But I managed to locate a bottle of brandy.”

“We'll warm ourselves with that, then,” Eva Scheel said.

There was only one chair in Bodden's room. One chair, a bed, a pine table, a wardrobe, a window, and a bicycle that he carried up and down three flights of stairs to keep it from being stolen.

“Home,” he said as he ushered her into the room.

Eva Scheel looked around. “I've seen worse.”

“And better, too, no doubt. You have a choice—the bed or the chair.”

“The bed, I think.” She walked over and sat down on it. “I see you found yourself a bicycle.”

“At the DP camp in Badenhausen,” Bodden said as he opened the wardrobe and took down a bottle of
Branntwein
and two mismatched glasses. “There was a man there. A Czech called Kubista. Apparently he's the resident forger. We talked. For a price, he might sell me some useful information. I would have bought it on the spot had I had the funds.”

“How much?”

“A hundred American dollars.”

“This Czech. He has done business with Oppenheimer?”

Bodden nodded as he handed her a glass of brandy. “He hinted as much.”

She took from her coat pocket a small purse, opened it, and counted out ten $20 bills. “Buy it,” she said. “After that, you will be going to Bonn.”

“And what will I find in Bonn?”

“Oppenheimer, if you're lucky. He has killed another.”

“A busy man.”

“He has a list. The next one on the list is in Bonn.”

Bodden smiled. “Your young American officer must have been in one of his talkative moods.”

“Very. I heard it all for the first time when he came to see Oppenheimer's sister this afternoon. I heard it for the second time, plus his theories, over my steak. Now when I tell it to you I'll be hearing it for the third time.”

She told him then, everything that Lt. LaFollette Meyer had told her, including his disappointment over the fact that the search for Kurt Oppenheimer would now be centered in Bonn and under the jurisdiction of the British and Major Baker-Bates.

When she was through, Bodden refilled their glasses. “It will be a miracle if I find him first.”

“Berlin doesn't expect miracles.”

Bodden nodded thoughtfully. “You have heard from them?”

“This morning. A courier. She brought instructions plus an enormous amount of money.”

“How large is enormous?”

“Twenty-seven thousand dollars.”

“You're right; that is enormous.”

“Two thousand is for our expenses.”

“And the other twenty-five?”

“With that you will buy Oppenheimer from the dwarf, should the dwarf find him first.”

“But I am still to try to find him myself, since Berlin, no doubt, is as economical as always.”

“You are to try very hard.”

“You have met the dwarf?”

Eva Scheel shook her head. “No, but I have met his colleague. The American called Jackson.”

“What did you think?”

She took a sip of her brandy and frowned. “I'm not sure. He is not your typical American. He lacks ambition, I think. An American without ambition is rather rare, you know. If he had it, or a purpose that he believed important, I feel he could be very hard, very ruthless.”