Voices of the Dead (32 page)

“Don’t worry ’bout me. I’m watchin’
Soul Train
.”

“You hear anything, see any Nazis, give me a call.” Harry handed him a piece of paper that had the phone number to the main house on it.

Joyce was standing at the island counter in the kitchen, opening a bottle of Morgon, two stemmed glasses on the black granite top.

Harry said, “I remember seeing someone running into the woods as I climbed out of the pit.”

“That was me. I don’t remember you though.” Joyce cleared her throat. “But I knew your mother. She was on the last truck, forty-seven of us from the women’s camp. It was late afternoon. They told us we were being transferred to a sub-camp at Halfing. I believed them because I wanted to.”

“We all did,” Harry said. “Thinking anything was better than where we were.”

“When we got to the woods I could see SS guards standing at the edge of a clearing, talking and smoking cigarettes. I didn’t know what was happening until I saw the mound of dirt behind them. We were marched to the edge of the pit and I saw the bodies. Words can’t describe… I have never in my life seen anything like that.” She caught her breath. “Harry, where were you?”

“I had jumped off the back of the truck,” Harry said. “I was hiding behind a tree and saw everything.”

“I can still see Hess with the pistol in his hand. He told us to jump in the pit. No one moved, so he shot a woman in the face. There was a little hole in her forehead, blood coming out of it. She fell to the ground, and all at once we jumped onto the stacks of bodies. Many were still alive, the pile was moving, and then the guards started shooting at us like it was a game. I crawled between two bodies and the next thing I remember it was dark. The pit had been covered over with dirt. I couldn’t breathe. I started pushing my way through corpses until I felt the cool air. It was night. I ran to a farm and hid in the barn. The farmer found me the next morning. He and his wife kept me till the war ended.” She took a breath. “Harry, I can’t believe you’re here. How can I ever repay you?”

“Help me take down Hess.”

“Of course.” She poured two glasses of wine and handed one to him. “To us, Harry. Mazel tov.”

He clinked her glass and tasted the wine. It was dry and slightly bitter.

“Josefina, the housekeeper, got it for me. The man at the wine store said it was good. I usually don’t drink red wine, it gives me a headache.”

“Hungry?” Harry said. “I can make us omelets if that’s okay.”

“Good-looking and you cook too.”

Harry went to the refrigerator, took out six eggs and a wedge of English cheddar.

“Tell me where you lived in Munich,” Joyce said, handing him a bowl.

“Sendlinger Strasse.” He cracked the eggs, found a whisk and mixed them.

“We were near Gartnerplatz on Klenzestrasse. Remember Isaac Jacob’s store?”

“The milk dealer, right? I used to go there with my mother.”

“We were right down the street.” She sipped her wine. “What butcher did you go to?”

“Joseph Bamberger. He was a friend of my father’s.”

“I can picture the storefront.” She looked across the kitchen. “My family preferred Julius Lindauer.”

Harry said, “Where did you go to school?”

“Jewish Elementary and then the gymnasium.”

“I did too. I’m surprised we never met.”

“Harry, why did we survive?” She paused. “I’ve been asking myself that for thirty years. Why not my brother? He was better than me, smart as a whip.”

“You sound like you’re apologizing, like you did something wrong.”

“I didn’t deserve it.”

“You deserved it as much as anyone.”

“I was the rebel of the family.”

“That’s why you’re here. You’re tough.”

“I don’t feel tough,” Joyce said. “I feel guilty.”

“It’s not your fault,” Harry said. “Stop blaming yourself. Think about what they did to you. Doesn’t it make you mad?”

“I’ve never thought about it that way.”

“Do it, you’ll feel better.”

“Is that what you did, Harry?”

“You’re damn right.” He drank some wine. “Remember Dachau? All we thought about was surviving.”

“Get through the day,” Joyce said. “And don’t think about tomorrow.”

“Well‚ here we are.”

Lenore opened the door and saw Mr. Landau from Atlanta, hesitated, feeling the effects of the two drinks she’d had at Ta-boo. He had followed her, but why? He was smiling, a big Southern teddy bear. “All right, you. What’s going on?” He looked different without the cap, pale skin that could use some color, dark hair flecked with gray.

“I hate to dine alone. You are the only person I know in Palm Beach. Will you join me?”

She invited him in, wondering if it was a mistake, then thinking about the commission she’d make on an oceanfront estate. She escorted him into the kitchen, opened cabinet doors showing where she kept her glasses and liquor. “Help yourself. I’ll be right back.”

“I have to ask you something.”

He reached behind his back and brought out a gun with a long black barrel, pointing it at her. She could feel her heart race, scared to death, knowing now he was the Nazi.

“Where is Joyce?” he said, German accent, not pretending any more.

“I don’t know.”

He came toward her, aiming the gun. Lenore wanted to run but couldn’t move. She was frozen. He put the barrel against her cheek, pressing it into her face.

“Let’s try again. Where is she?”

At the commercial, Harry went out to check on Cordell. It was a beautiful night, clear sky, sixty degrees. He looked up at the stars for a couple minutes, spotted the Big and Little Dipper and the North Star. Then he crossed the yard and went to the pool house. Cordell was asleep in a double bed in one of the bedrooms. Harry turned off the lamp on the bedside table. Walked through the living room, turned off all the lights, locked the door and went out.

At 10:00 when
McCloud
was over he escorted Joyce up the stairs that wound through a turret to the second floor, dark oak planks with a Persian runner. Josefina had gone home. According to Joyce, the security company came by every few hours, checked the doors and windows, and patrolled the grounds.

Harry lifted his shirt, showed her the Colt stuck in his belt. “Hess comes—”

“Harry, you have a gun? What kind of a Jew are you?” She smiled, put her arms around him. “A tough one. What can I say? You’re a mensch. I should be so lucky.”

The master bedroom was at the end of the hall. Joyce opened the door and went in. Harry followed her, impressed by the room that had to be sixty by forty feet, with a sitting area in front of the fireplace, four-post antique bed with a canopy, two TVs. He looked out the windows at the front yard and circular drive, the view extending all the way to the ocean, flat and dark, blending with the sky.

On the other side of the room, French doors led to a balcony off the back of the house, view of the pool and pool house. “If you’re afraid I’ll stay with you, sleep on the couch.”

She smiled. “I’ll be fine. There’s an alarm system. Anyone tries to get in, the security people will be here.”

“‘If you want me,’” Harry said, “‘just whistle.’”

“Who said that? No, don’t tell me.” She glanced across the room looking for the answer. “Lauren Bacall. She said it to Humphrey Bogart. What was the movie?”

“
To Have and Have Not
.”

“Know what Lauren’s real name is?”

Harry shook his head.

“Betty Joan Perske.”

“You know your movie stars, don’t you?” Harry held her in his gaze. “Unless he has a ladder there’s only one way in. So keep your door locked.”

“Thanks for everything, Harry.”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

Harry went to his room. It was half the size of the master but still twice as big as the bedrooms in his house. The windows looked out on the back yard, and French doors opened onto the balcony. He pulled the spread down, propped pillows up against the headboard. Slipped out of his shoes, turned off the light, and got on the bed, holding the Colt next to his right leg. His eyes adjusted and he could see the dark shapes of furniture in the room and the soft glow of lights from the back yard. He started to doze off.

Next thing he heard was the deafening high-pitched shriek of the alarm—re-er, re-er, re-er.

It was 3:27 a.m. He grabbed the Colt, got up and went to the window, saw a flashlight beam sweep across the front of the pool house. He went in the hall, looked left, the door to the master suite still closed. He ran to the staircase, looked out the front window, saw a white sedan, lights flashing in the circular drive. Ran back, knocked on Joyce’s door. “It’s Harry. You okay?”

“What happened?” she said, voice muffled by the alarm.

“I don’t know.”

The alarm stopped. The door opened, Joyce was standing in the shadow, pulling her robe closed. “The security guys are downstairs. Stay here. I’ll talk to them.”

“I want to go with you.”

Hess sat 1970 realtor of the year Lenore Deutsch at the kitchen table, aiming the Walther at her‚ tears staining her cheeks blue with eye shadow.

“Okay‚ I’ll tell you, but you’ll never get in. There is a state-of-the-art security system.”

A gun pointed at her, and still she smirked, giving him her insolent tone again. He knew how alarms worked. He had a system at his estate in Schleissheim. “Who is in the house with her?”

“Maybe the housekeeper, I don’t know.”

It didn’t matter. “Do you have rope?”

“Why?”

“So I can tie you.”

Lenore Deutsch said, “You don’t bring your own rope?”

The arrogance of this woman. It was beyond belief.

“It’s in the garage.”

They walked through the kitchen. She opened the door, turned on the light. It was space for a single automobile cluttered with pool supplies and gardening equipment. She handed him a spool of heavy string.

“This is all I have.”

He picked up a shovel with a long handle.

“What are you going to do, bury me?”

It was a good idea, but he had something else in mind. Hess escorted her back through the house to her tidy bedroom and through that into the bathroom, pink tile and towels, large tub in the corner and next to it a glass shower.

“I have to wash my face,” Lenore said.

He could see her in the mirror, wiping off the blue smudges under her eyes and off her cheeks with a wet cloth, and patting herself dry with a towel.

“Get on your knees,” Hess said.

She did, putting her hands behind her back. He walked across the room, closed the window and tossed the spool of string on the floor. He wasn’t going to need it after all. Hess moved toward her, aiming the Walther at the back of her head, firing, spraying the walls with spatter.

Hess drove along the southern perimeter of the estate, parked off the road behind a green wall of foliage on the neighbor’s property. He took the shovel and walked back toward the house, feeling a strong breeze coming off the ocean, palm trees swaying, moon waning behind heavy clouds that had moved in. The estate was sealed off, surrounded by walls on three sides and a gate in front. There was a narrow lane behind the western perimeter, and a wall with a gate in the center extending to the four-car garage.

He held the end of the handle, reached up and swung the shovelhead at the phone line until it broke free from the main line, glanced at his watch. 3:17. He waited behind the wall of foliage on the neighbor’s property south of the estate. Two white security sedans arrived at 3:25. One in front, the other drove along the southern perimeter to the rear of the estate. The alarm sounded at 3:27, delayed ten minutes so the security team could be deployed.

“No sign of forced entry,” the security man said to Harry.

He looked about forty, gut bunching the shirt at his beltline, brown hair over his ears, wispy Charles Bronson mustache. He wore a dark-blue uniform shirt with red epaulets, Harry thinking except for the gun on his right hip he could’ve been an exterminator. He’d introduced himself as Tony Cloutier, a French name he pronounced in down-home English.

Now they were in the kitchen.

Cloutier said, “Did you see or hear anything?”

“Not till the alarm went off,” Harry said.

Joyce said, “I was sound asleep. It scared the hell out of me.”

“Scare an intruder too, there was one,” Cloutier said.

A second security man came in the back door now, guiding Cordell, hands cuffed behind his back. He was younger, bigger than Cloutier and wore a blue jacket over his uniform.

“Harry, will you tell this—”

“What’re you doing?” Harry said, cutting Cordell off. “He’s a guest.”

“Sir, I didn’t know.”

“Cracker see a black man, middle of the night, got to be a criminal.”

The security man unlocked the handcuffs. Cordell rubbed his wrists.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too motherfucker, I can’t pop your dumb ass.”

“Take it easy,” Harry said.

“This is Ms. Cantor and Mr. Levin,” Cloutier said. “Meet my over-zealous partner, Ted Tambke.”

He nodded at Joyce, shook hands with Harry.

“Windy out there,” Tambke said. “Phone line’s down. I have to believe that’s your problem.”