The Diaries - 01 (37 page)

He took me after that, on the floor, his arousal
coming in bizarre waves as he cursed the Jews while he committed his acts on
me.
 
It was different than any other time
before, because normally he didn’t speak while being intimate.
 
I’d stifled my tears as I feared what might
await me if I uttered a sound.

But that incident was nothing compared to the one
I witnessed this morning.

Diary, it will take everything I have in my body
and soul to put this to paper.
 
My end
will be abrupt, because after I make this entry, I will need to bathe and have
a glass of sherry.
 
I hope and pray my
nights will be the same after seeing the unimaginable display that I saw today.

I knew this morning was already going to be
particularly difficult.
 
Aldo was hosting
a summit of business leaders, several of which I’d heard him make mention as
being—

The intercom
buzzed next to Marcel, immediately followed by Nicky’s grating voice.
 
“When the hell is he going to be here?”

Marcel touched the
button.
 
“We spoke four hours ago; he was
going to leave shortly thereafter.
 
He
should be here any time.”

“Call him.”

“That makes you
look desperate.”

“Don’t fucking
tell me what makes me look desperate!”
 
The intercom clicked off and on two times.
 
“My head is still pounding from the damned
narcotics you loaded me up with, and if I’m desperate for anything it’s to get
this over with and get your irritating ass out of my house.”

Marcel grinned,
seeing a loose parallel between Nicky and this Aldo sicko he’d been literally
sucked into reading about for the past two hours.
 
“Nicky, I can leave now if you like.”

The intercom
clicked on again; Marcel could hear an American movie playing in the background,
Gary Cooper’s overdone gangster accent bleeding through.
 
“Just buzz me when he gets here.”

Marcel was tapping
a cigarette from his pack when the intercom buzzed again.

“Is Napoleon down
there?”

“Haven’t seen
him,” Marcel answered, rubbing the dog between his ears.

“Bring him up when
you see him.”

Marcel lit the
cigarette and patted the Doberman.
 
“You
don’t want to go up there any more than I do, do you?”
 
He lifted the diary from his chest, resuming
the February entry.

This morning was already going to be particularly
difficult.
 
Aldo was hosting a summit of
business leaders, several of which I’d heard him make mention as being hostile
to his grand visions, whatever that might be.
 
The girls and I worked very hard to make sure everything was perfect,
each of us arriving in the middle of the night to prepare the breakfast buffet
and to get the place settings arranged just as Aldo wanted them.
 
He was crazed as he deliberated over who
should sit next to who, often remembering an obscure detail about two
seat-mates and then making us hurriedly rearrange everything so they could
avoid one another.

There were eleven men, several of whom I had heard
of, especially because of companies and products that were named after
them.
 
They feasted before their meetings
began, when we were told to leave.
 
Some
of the girls smoked in the cupboard by the kitchen, but when I began to hear
Aldo yelling I went back to the access door, pushing it open just enough so I
could watch.

Aldo sounded almost like the charismatic preacher I
saw in a forbidden American movie, although the content of which he spoke was
unlike anything a preacher might say.
 
I’d
heard him on many occasions decry Jews, their heritage, and their ways.
 
He was insulting me and my blood, although
I’ve never taken such insults personally.
 
When you’ve heard something your entire life, you can choose to be
offended or you can choose to let it pass.
 
I feel much more peaceful for letting it go.

He became louder and more animated, speaking of
how the only good Jew was a dead Jew.
 
His picture show he’d so meticulously rehearsed began to play.
 
It displayed cartoons of Jews, their faces
and bodies grotesque caricatures.
 
This
was no surprise because such images were rife on posters and even in the
newspaper.

But what came next literally made me lose my
stomach.

Slides displaying bodies of corpses, some of them
mutilated.
 
There was a picture of two
smiling boys, holding rifles and, hung between the two of them a dead, naked
man, presumably Jewish.
 
They were smiling
like triumphant hunters on African safari.
 
Aldo gesticulated at each slide, whipping the men (some of them) into a
frenzy as his rage and fervor grew to a fever pitch. I could see the same
arousal he sometimes displayed with me bleeding through.
 

But one image…which I will never forget for all my
days…showed an infant…oh diary…the infant’s head had been…I can’t even put the
words to paper…it was the worst thing I have even seen or even thought
possible.

The infant’s head…

I cannot write it.
 
God has blessed me with enough decorum not to repeat such a thing.

So as Aldo tapped his stick on the screen, proudly
yelling that this was the finest example of a Jew he’d ever seen, he opened his
arms widely, as if accepting rays of sun on a frigid day.

Some of the men clapped, others, to their slight
credit, seemed unnerved.

But Aldo was in ecstasy, his fit of wrath coming
back as he pounded the long table so hard that the polished silver clattered to
the floor.
 
He finished with a flourish
as I ran to the bathroom and heaved.

I’ve learned of God in heaven and Satan in hell,
diary.
 
God lives with me day to day,
helping me endure my life and assuaging the guilt over my actions.
 
But today, diary, Satan was alive and well in
that banquet room.
 
His emissary, who has
raped me time and time again (though have I done enough to stop it?) was doing
his bidding in fine fashion.

I fear Aldo is in love with me, and the greatest
fear of my life is what he will do to me if he finds out who I truly am.

Marcel closed the
diary and crushed out his cigarette.
 
The
clock ticked as he stared at the book, his hand lingering on the tattered
fabric cover.
 
He touched two fingers to
his neck, feeling his pulse.
 
It was faster
than normal.
 
No surprise.
 
He closed his eyes for several moments, doing
his best to focus on what had to be done here today.

Marcel stood and
walked through the main foyer.
 
He
rewrapped the diary, hiding it again.
 
Nicky had no idea it was here.
 
Marcel felt sickened to his very core by what he had just read.
 
He was half-Jewish, on his mother’s side, but
even had he not been, the level of this Aldo’s despicably intense hate against
human beings shook Marcel’s deepest foundations.

And he couldn’t
help but draw some level of parallel to Nicky Arnaud.

The intercom buzzed
again from the front gate.
 
A voice
crackled through.

Jean had arrived.

With a clap of his
hands Marcel sent Napoleon up the stairs.
 
He removed his pistol, making certain he had a round seated and ready to
go.

Because who knew
what in the hell Nicky had planned for Jean
Jenois
?

The sun was
setting over the Arnaud compound when the electric gate opened, allowing Jean
to make his way up the drive that wended through an array of mostly dormant
flora.
 
The pink and white mansion
screamed new money, towering over the valley and impossible to miss.
 
Two cars were parked in front of the mansion
and, as always when Jean visited Nicky, he was curious, and cautious, about how
he might find the mobster.

Marcel met Jean at
the top of the front steps.
 
Jean shrugged
as he climbed the expansive entry.
 
“What’s
the urgency all about?”

“Just listen
carefully and be flexible,” Marcel answered.
 

They entered
through the front door of the mansion, going beneath the twin spiral staircases,
through the kitchen.
 
Nicky’s Doberman,
who had been watching from the top of the stairs, bounded down.
 
Marcel stopped him, petting the dog and
telling him to stay.
 
He turned and opened
an undersized pine door that led down a set of narrow stone stairs, beckoning
Jean to follow.
 
Jean felt the air get
colder as they descended, watching as the daylight was replaced by stark yellow
light from single bulbs on the basement’s ceiling.
 
At the bottom of the stairs, after going
around an oddly curved stone wall, Jean realized the majority of the basement
was occupied by a wine cellar.
 
It was an
enormous cavern cut straight from the limestone earth.
 
Five rows, each eight feet tall and forty
feet deep, were filled with dusty bottles of wine and champagne.
 
Jean paused, looking at one of the bottles
closest to the stairs, a 1961 Château Cheval Blanc.
 
His eyes widened when he noticed there were
eleven more just like it on the deep shelf below.

Marcel turned and gestured.
 
“He’s back here.”

They passed
through the center aisle, walking through another door into a smaller
chamber.
 
Behind that chamber was a giant
steel door, open, leading to a vault built directly under the house.
 
Nicky was in the vault, bathed in a purplish
light.
 
The bags under his eyes were
thicker, more puffy than usual. There was a colossal pistol in his hand.

“Well, well,
well.
 
Jean
Jenois
.
 
So glad you could make it,” Nicky said
without a trace of warmth, barely glancing up at Jean.
 
He ejected the cartridge from the pistol’s
grip, revealing long and fat rounds that Jean correctly guessed as fifty-caliber.
 
“Ever seen a fifty-cal in pistol form?”

“Sure, but
tactically they’re not much good,” Jean answered.
 
His aim, as dangerous as it might be, was to
put Nicky on a lower footing by being a condescending ass.
 
Doing so wasn’t a stretch for Jean.

“I had these
rounds made special.
 
Hollow points.
 
The gunsmith told me if I was to hit a thin
man in the leg or arm, it would take the limb clean off in one shot.”

Jean decided to throw
caution to the wind and further insult Nicky.
 
“You had to be
told
that by a
gunsmith?” he snorted.
 
Marcel turned to
Jean, arching an eyebrow.

Nicky seemed to
ignore the disrespect.
 
He twisted the
pistol before replacing it in a gray rack, dropping the cartridge on the ledge
below.
 
He removed a tightly bundled stack
of money, American dollars bound by shrink-wrap, and stepped directly in front
of Jean.
 
He was nearly a full foot
shorter than the lanky Frenchman.
 
“This
is all you care about, isn’t it?”

“Money?” Jean
asked.
 
“It may appear that way, but
no.
 
I have other pursuits.”

“Yeah, right.
 
Whores.
 
Lying.
 
Thieving.”

“Among other
things,” Jean answered, his smile existing only on his mouth.

“Where’s
Hartline?” Nicky said in a forceful voice.

“Gage
Hartline?
 
I honestly don’t know.”

“Bullshit.
 
You found him and took those valuable books,
didn’t you?
 
Probably killed him and now,
piece of shit you are, you’re going to deny everything.”

Jean took a step
backward, resting an elbow on a row of the vault’s steel drawers.
 
“I don’t know where Hartline is.
 
The entire polizei in Germany is searching
for him.
 
Furthermore, the
diaries
he has…well, you should know
more than I do about those, at least from what I heard went down in Metz.”

Nicky breathed
heavily as he eyed Jean, poking a finger at him.
 
“You found him.
 
Found him and killed him.”

“Nicky, I did
nothing of the—”

“Shut up,
Jean!
 
Just shut up!”
 
Nicky ripped the shrink-wrap open, throwing
the money upward so that it showered around them both.
 
“There, take
my
money too!
 
You fucked me
out of killing the American, and took what he owed me, so now just do the same
to me you lying prick!”

Jean frowned,
keeping calm and turning to Marcel in confusion.
 
“What is this?
 
Why am I being ambushed over something I have
no knowledge of?”