Naked Cruelty Page 24
“Didn’t I tell you Helen was wonderful?” Kurt demanded.
The Baron flipped his fish over to enjoy the more buttery, lemony underside. “What we do not know,” he said, scraping away, “is who kidnapped Kurt. Your getting him back unharmed and saving our money were laudable, Helen, but the crime is not solved.”
“Actually,” said Helen, waving at a footman to take her plate, “it is solved. I know who kidnapped Kurt and tried to steal your ten million, Baron.”
“Nonsense! How could you?” Josef asked sharply .
“Not nonsense, Josef, as you well know. She must be a most expensive mistress, the woman who lives with the young man in that big house. Is he your son too?”
The silence was palpable; the four genuine von Fahlendorfs were staring now at Josef, trying to seem unaffected.
“A joke, Helen?” Kurt asked, face the color of ashes.
“Unfortunately, Kurt, no. It’s the truth. Josef masterminded your kidnapping, which was carried out by a cruel and ruthless woman who is either Josef’s mistress or his real wife. Her assistant—a rather unwilling one, I think—was the young man who looks too much like Josef not to be his son,” said Helen.
Josef broke into a stream of German that dried up when the Baron smacked the table with the palm of his open hand.
“Halte die Klappe!” he roared. “Speak in English, or not at all! Since the day you married my daughter, you have been a leech! I have tolerated you because of Martin, Klaus-Maria, Annelise and Ursel—” Suddenly he floundered, eyes rolling wildly.
Dagmar was howling noisily and Kurt fully occupied in trying to calm her, but the Baroness was behaving most strangely of all, scratching at her chin and throat. The brilliant light of the overhead chandelier showed the beads of sweat breaking through her careful make-up; Helen saw the light. The Baroness was a junkie. Morphine, probably.
It was Macken and Helen who took charge. Kurt was ordered to take his sister away and help her in her own rooms, and the Baroness’s maid summoned to deal with her mistress and her habit.
“Brunhilde knows what to do,” said Macken, revealing that at least the senior staff knew the family secrets. “My lady had a back operation several years ago, and cannot deal with the pain,” he said smoothly.
In a pig’s eye, thought Helen. “Josef can’t be allowed to communicate with his woman,” she said to Macken, “and that means locked in guest quarters like mine, with all the phone jacks unplugged and no one in contact with him who might be susceptible to a bribe. It’s up to the family what they do with him and his accomplices, I’m butting out—going home, I mean.”
“This is all nonsense, Helen,” Josef said as two footmen prepared to march him away. “You spied on me and discovered my sister and her son.”
“Sister?” Helen laughed. “I saw the lip-locker you and Frau Richter—shall I call her that?—exchanged this afternoon.”
Kurt walked in, looking grim. A swift conversation passed between him and Macken; Kurt looked relieved. “You are a woman in a million, Helen,” he said to her. “I must take Papa to his room. He will recover in a moment, then we will decide what to do with Josef. Poor Dagmar!”
“I’m going home tomorrow,” she said.
“I will be coming with you,” said Kurt, and led his father away: a curious business. The old man shrank, muttering about bombs—that much Helen got, even in German—then seemed to cave in and allowed Kurt to assist his faltering attempt to walk.
“You’re a treasure, Macken,” she said to the butler when they were the only people left in the room.
“Thank you, Miss Helen.”
“What did your father do to make a living?”
Macken looked surprised. “He was butler to the Graf.”
Old retainers! “And your son or sons, Macken?”
“One son. He is the head of a government department in Bonn.”
Dagmar begged for admittance as Helen was packing the next morning. “I must thank you,” she said stiffly.
“It’s not necessary. You realize, I hope, that I’m not going to marry Kurt? I came to see if I could solve the kidnapping.”
“That relieves me. You would drive my Kurtchen insane.” She sat on a chair out of the way and watched the jeans-clad Helen work, smoothly and swiftly. “We will save the family name, that is all-important.”
“I figured as much,” said Helen dryly.
“Josef asked me to split two of the ten million off and give it to him,” said Dagmar. “I took it as selfishness, but of course he wanted it for his natural son. His request was denied.”
“May I offer you a word of advice?” Helen asked, stopping to look at Dagmar very seriously
“No doubt I will resent it, but offer it anyway.”
“Josef’s mistress dresses like the Duchess of Windsor—both very expensively and in very good taste. You dress like old Queen Mary, with whose appearance I’m acquainted thanks to an English colleague. You’re a frump, Dagmar, but you needn’t be. Put yourself in the hands of one of those faggy guys always hanging around rich women and let him work a Pygmalion. The best revenge is to live well, so while the Richter woman rots in a German prison, you can flaunt it. You’ll be a happier woman, betcha.”
The sheer insolence deprived Dagmar of a retort.
Helen packed on tranquilly until she finished.
Dagmar spoke again. “Did you mark the woman’s house on your map?” Dagmar asked then.
“Yes,” said Helen, surprised.
“May I have the map? I will need it for the police.”
Helen reached into her enormous shoulder bag and withdrew it. “Here it is, complete with the wrong folds.” She opened it and pointed. “There you are.”
“Well, at least I know what Josef did with his salary.”
“Speaking of houses, this one—” Helen began.
“Will be sold,” Dagmar said with finality, and got up. “I will not see you again—ever, I hope. But thank you.”
***
Helen and Kurt flew home together on Sunday, and parted in the foyer of Talisman Towers undemonstrably.
“I am tired,” said Kurt, brushing her chin with one hand.
“Worse than being kidnapped?”
“Infinitely. My poor sister! She is heart-broken.”
“Give her my compliments when you talk.”
“I will.”
And, thought Helen, gazing around her attractive but austere bathroom, it may not look like mad King Ludwig of Bavaria, but I like it all the more for that. Something in between would be nice.
“Bigamy!” said Carmine on Monday morning. “It fits. Yeah, it fits like Frau Richter’s hand in her French kid glove. The brother-in-law did it to provide for his legitimate son, since his bastards had so much—and were getting more.”
“Bigamy can happen when a once-whole nation has been split ideologically, and the two parts don’t talk to each other. I daresay the von Fahlendorfs didn’t ask, and Josef sure as hell didn’t say,” Helen said to Carmine, Nick and Delia.
“They won’t prosecute,” Nick said.
“Definitely not,” Delia said.
“They have to do something,” Helen said. “Honor has been insulted, and the Baron’s not the man to suffer that without lashing back. Nor is the Baroness. And Dagmar’s even worse.”
“Well,” said Carmine, leaning back in his chair, “thank God whatever they do is German business, not American. Note, however, that the family pushed Kurt back to our side of the Atlantic with indecent haste.”
“Protecting him from whatever they do,” said Nick.
***
“Have you seen the evening papers?” Desdemona asked on Tuesday night when Carmine got home.
He was on edge; there was a faint possibility that the Dodo would strike today. “No,” he said, taking his drink.
Desdemona handed her a glass of red wine, and gave Carmine the New York evening papers; Holloman’s was a morning one.
“It’s in both papers,” said Desdemona, sitting. “The Post has the bigger article.”
It was front page, and headlines: Josef von Fahlendorf, brother-in-law of kidnap victim Professor Kurt von Fahlendorf, had been shot dead outside the von Fahlendorf factory in Munich on this Tuesday at dawn. “Holy shits!” Carmine exclaimed, still reading. What Josef was doing there at that hour no one in authority at Fahlendorf Farben seemed to know, including its managing director, Dagmar, who hadn’t even been aware that Josef was gone from their bed. According to the sole witness, a Volkswagen car eased up behind Josef and the two men in it cut him down with automatic pistols. Heinrich Müller was a factory worker on his way in to Fahlendorf Farben to fire up some new equipment, and he behaved heroically. Instead of seeking shelter, he tried vainly to help Josef, who died in his arms a few minutes later. “Kurt!” he said several times, quite clearly. Müller said the men looked like Turks, had spoken a few words in Turkish. Enjoying this news item immensely, the by-lining journalist said it was evident that Josef thought he had been mistaken for Kurt.
“What do you think?” Desdemona asked.
“That it’s as fishy as Julian’s fish men.” He got up.
“Off to Helen’s minus your drink?”
“Hell, no! She can wait until tomorrow. I’m going to see Delia. Give her a call for me, please? With this news humming on the aether, every hammer and teamster in creation will be tuned to the cop band, so let’s keep my movements secret.”
“Dinner?”
“I should be home in time. Otherwise, save mine.”
“Luckily it’s steak, so we’ll wait. Prunella, looks as if this might be a night for the girls to get blotto.”
“That’s a good chambertin—don’t guzzle.”
Since she didn’t mind the half-hour commute, Delia lived in Millstone, where she could afford a spacious apartment on the waterfront of Busquash Bay. Having chosen a divine color scheme of rust, blue and pink, Delia had stuffed every room with furniture imported from Oxford, where it had graced her grandmother’s home. The walls were a permanently open photograph album of Carstairses, Silvestris, Ceruttis and Cunninghams, the occasional tables boasted lava lamps next to Dresden china lamps, and there were lace-edged, daisy-embroidered doilies everywhere. It was home.
By the time that Carmine got there she had read the newspapers and listened to the local news radio station, WRHN. She also had his drink ready.
“So who did it?” Carmine asked.
“I’m not quite sure, Carmine dear. Whoever, it’s carefully orchestrated. Heinrich Müller was there accidentally on purpose, of that I’m positive. They had to have a witness to point out that the culprits were Turks.”
“Why Turks?” he asked, sipping.
“Because Germany’s filling up with them,” Delia explained. “Turks find German much easier to learn than other European languages, and penniless Turks gravitate there in search of work. I predict that in the future the trend will escalate, but it’s already marked enough to have created a degree of resentment in working class Germans. Turks make convenient whipping boys.”
“I see. And Heinrich Müller?”
“Will get a big fat promotion. Oh, he was there! I’m also sure the men he saw looked like Turks, may well have been Turks. But I very much doubt that Josef died with Kurt’s name on his lips—or that he died so slowly. I don’t know how clever Müller is, but he’s probably clever enough to suspect that he was given this special job in order to be there as a witness. If he earns a big fat promotion out of it, I predict that he won’t care who set it up or for what reason. Dagmar had him pegged as promising.”
“So who do you think set it up, Deels?”
“A von Fahlendorf. Which one is the brain-teaser. Not our Kurt, of that we can be sure, I think. The family was anxious to get him out of Europe. But whether it’s the Baron, the Baroness or Dagmar, I don’t know. My choice is Dagmar.”
“Broken heart and all?”
“The broken heart makes her more likely, in my book. A woman scorned and all that stuff? According to Helen, Josef is—was—a gorgeous looking bloke, smooth as satin, charming as Cary Grant. She’d already forgiven him an attempted scam and must have been positive he wouldn’t err again. But to think he’d kill her baby brother—! Ooo-aa! That’s blood versus love,” said Delia with a shudder. “I’d choose blood over love every time.”
“So would I, I think. What will the German cops think?”
“That some Turks did it. That it was Turks planned the kidnapping too.”
“In which case, why kill Josef?”
Delia pursed her lips. “Some abstruse Ottoman mind-set? A peculiar eastern revenge? I think the German cops will be so grateful to have a solution offered to them that they won’t ask too many uncomfortable questions.”
His glass was empty; Carmine declined a refill. “Thanks, but no. I have to get home for dinner.”
“There’s a chance the Dodo will strike tonight.”
“I know. That means early to bed.”
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5
to
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30
1968
CHAPTER VI
He hadn’t struck a week early after all; when push came to shove, he just hadn’t felt like it. What was the point in moving up to murder if simultaneously he made life easier for himself? The big, muscular cop Carmine Delmonico was a hazard he knew he was capable of beating, but the victory must be worthy of Catherine dos Santos, she of the prison bars and multiple locks.
She had told him the story as they huddled together on Mark Sugarman’s couch, giggling.
“The realtor told me,” she confided, violet-blue eyes shining. “Such a joke! Simons built the apartments and reserved mine for himself. He hoarded money, you see. Can you imagine it? No one tried to rob him because no one knew he hoarded money, so when he died, the bars and bolts became his executioners. The firemen took hours to break in. And there he was, on his bed, surrounded by stacks of bank notes, swollen up—disgusting!”
“You don’t mind living with that history?” he asked, smiling.
“Heavens, no. I’m safe, that’s the main thing.”
One by one he had picked the necessary details out of her; when the party broke up he saw her to her car like the gentleman he was, lightly kissed her hand, and never bothered to see her again in case she remembered what they had talked about. Had she cried for him? Sat by her phone hoping that he’d call? If she had, a fruitless wait. In those days he had merely been making up his list, hadn’t even started raping in the clumsy, amateurish way he’d tackled Shirley Constable. Well, a man had to learn by experience, didn’t he? And the list had to be complete, so far back in the past that none of the women would remember.
When Didus ineptus parked his Chevy on Persimmon Street in its usual spot on election day, Tuesday, November 5, his mind was filled with his own brilliance. No coincidence that he had begun his career on a leap year and a presidential election year: luck favored the bold, and he’d sensed what a disastrous year 1968 would be.
He always parked there, yes; he had been doing so for long enough now for his fellow Persimmon Street parkers to recognize his car. The moment he got out, he couldn’t help but see the cops. They were everywhere: cruising in squad cars, strolling the sidewalks in pairs, holsters open, cuffs easy to get at. As he turned in the direction of Cedar Street he had a sudden impulse to abandon his foray, then
grew angry at his own cowardice. Plan A was clearly impossible, but Plan B was just as good. He limped down Persimmon Street dragging his right leg, and in the instant when no cops were visible he leaped off the sidewalk into Plan B’s bushes, which flourished in fits and starts right along the back fences of the blocks facing Cedar Street. The sun was lowering, a month and more past the equinox now, and the shadows at ground level were heavy, darkly dappled.
His blood was pumping hard; the thrill of the chase had invaded him, and he knew how and where he was going better than these uniformed idiots could imagine. In a gap, he lay full length and walked it on his elbows, his combat camouflage ideal, until the next profusion of low-slung leaves permitted him to rise to a squat, peer toward Cedar Street or the back of a building. Catherine’s apartment block lay nearly 300 yards from Persimmon Street, but the worst of it was that the Hochners were beyond her, closer to Cranberry Street. His shelter was thickest where he could not use it, with Plan A discarded.
Mountain laurels grew along the back fence of Catherine’s block—good, sturdy evergreen bushes that no one tended. And there, right opposite him, was Catherine’s door at last! He put on his ski mask just in case, eased his back with its load of knapsack, and pulled the three keys from his pocket. The Hochners, he saw, had finished their iced tea and were going inside, and the cops weren’t smart enough to extend their patrolling off the street sidewalks. He would have to trust to his luck that while he ran from the bushes to the awninged back door, no one upstairs was gazing into the backyard.
The sun plunged down into the foliage of an old oak growing behind the Hochners, and with its going the light decreased; the Dodo checked using his peripheral vision, saw nothing, and ran for Catherine’s door. The keys went in and turned in the same order as hers; he felt the last lock relax and did what she did, leaned his shoulder heavily against the door and pushed it open.