The Hunt (aka 27) Page 14

  And it was over. Somehow, the performers were gone and the lights were up. The audience began murmuring.

  "Now you know the secret of the Gold Gate," Keegan whispered, but she was too entranced to answer.

  They drove back to the hotel along deserted streets, the SA predators having finished their foraging for the night. She clung to him and he took her mouth between a thumb and forefinger, puckering it up and softly kissing the swollen lips. She responded with a moan, her tongue searching for his, her arms wrapped around his waist, pulling him to her.

  "I want to see your room," she whispered.

  "It's just like yours."

  "No it isn't. Deenie isn't in it."

  "You know, the Our Gang kids were right. Your father would drop dead on the spot if he saw us now."

  "Who's going to tell?"

  "How about Deenie?"

  "No way."

  "Why not?"

  "I'd rip her little heart out and she knows it."

  A bottle of Taittinger champagne wallowed on its side in half-melted ice in a silver bucket. A towel was thrown casually over it. She poured a glass but there was not a bubble in it.

  "Flat," she moaned.

  Keegan got a lemon from a plate in the kitchenette, pared six or seven inches of peeling from it, and dropped the yellow curl into the champagne glass. It began fizzing crazily the moment the peel hit the wine.

  "How clever," she said.

  "I used to be in the business," he smiled.

  "I keep forgetting."

  "No you don't. Not for a minute."

  She snuggled against him, put her hands in the small of his back and leaned into him, staring up, her mouth slightly ajar. She unbuttoned his shirt and ran her tongue across his chest and around his nipples. "They get hard, just like mine," she said with surprise. She dropped the slender straps of her dress over her shoulders and wiggled out of it. It fell around her ankles. She was naked underneath, her body youthfully trim, her breasts full, and she stood on her toes and rubbed her hard nipples against his.

  She reached up and put her hand gently behind his head, drew it down and kissed him, her lips soft and full. He wrapped his arms around her, lifted her slightly and, slipping his leg between hers, lowered her on his thigh.

  She whimpered and looked at him through smoky eyes. "Oh yes. Oh yessiree, Francis."

  She moved his hands with hers, cried with joy every time they found the perfect spot, her response reckless and candid and open. She moved with her feelings, unhampered and uninhibited, embracing and coddling her own passion without a trace of modesty or conscience. She asked him what to do, followed his whispered instructions and then experimented on her own. And she transferred her joy to him. Stroking, kissing, touching, she finally rolled over on top of him, squirming to his touch until suddenly almost by accident he was inside her.

  She was stretched out on her stomach beside him, propped up on her elbows.

  "Frankie," she said earnestly, "that was even better than I imagined it would be all these years."

  "You mean you coveted me as a child?" he said, feigning shock.

  "I was thirteen. That's not such a child."

  "I'm glad I didn't know," he said. "I probably would have had a terrible guilt complex."

  "Why should you have had a guilty conscience over the way I felt?"

  He stared up at the ceiling for a moment and said, "That's a good point. Something subconscious, maybe. I don't think I care to pursue it."

  She laughed and ran her fingernail very lightly across his bottom lip and he almost jumped out of bed.

  "Tickle?" she asked.

  "My nerve endings are still twitching."

  "I know, isn't it terrific! Want to do it again?" she suggested eagerly.

  "Give me a little while to recuperate."

  "Humph," she said, pretending to pout. She leaned closer to him and put her chin on his chest.

  She lay across him, her legs straddling his, her warm body pressed against him, smelling of expensive perfume. He stroked the small of her back, caressed the perfect swell of her buttocks.

  "No one's ever made love to me like that before," she murmured, suddenly.

  "Made love to a lot of men, have you?"

  "Two," she confessed. "Little boys, always in such a hurry. I didn't know you could make it last that long, or that it would get better and better . . . 'n better . . ."

  She closed her eyes, squirming a bit to get comfortable. In a few moments her breathing was deep and constant and he felt her body soften in sleep.

  He slid out from under her and walked to the window. The sun was ablaze at the edge of rooftops, throwing slender crimson shadows down the wet streets. The city seemed clean and innocent and silent, its solace disturbed for a minute or two by an ice truck that rattled up the street and vanished around a corner. Then all was quiet again.

  He drew the drapes and took off his robe and slid back in bed beside Vanessa. She groaned in her sleep, slid one leg across his hip and cuddled up close to him. In minutes, he too was asleep. It was eight-thirty when the phone rang for the first time. It rang every thirty minutes after that but Keegan didn't hear it. He was dead to the world.

  FOURTEEN

  A loud banging on the door finally awakened Keegan. He put on a robe and went into the living room of his suite, closing the bedroom door behind him. When he answered the door, Bert Rudman rushed past him without waiting for an invitation.

  "Where the hell have you been?" he demanded. "I've been calling you all morning!"

  "I was tied up," Keegan groaned.

  "It's almost noon."

  "It was dawn before I got to bed."

  "Look, old buddy, I need your help. Did . . ."

  Rudman stopped abruptly and stared open-mouthed over Keegan's shoulder. Keegan turned to find Vanessa standing in the bedroom doorway wrapped in the bedsheet.

  "Oh . . . I . . . uh . . . I . . ."

  "Vanessa," Keegan said. "Vanessa Bromley. This eloquent person is Bert Rudman."

  "How do you do?" she said and pulled the sheet up a little higher.

  "Now what the hell's so important?"

  "I'm onto a hot story but I can't pin anything down. I know Wally Wallingford's a friend of yours and I thought . . ."

  "Not anymore," Keegan interrupted. "Want some coffee?"

  "Great."

  "I'll call down and order it," Vanessa said.

  "What does Wally have to do with this scoop of yours?"

  "You know who Felix Reinhardt is?"

  Keegan hesitated. "Yes," he said. "I know who he is."

  "Apparently he was arrested sometime during the night, although I can't confirm it. The way I get it, he was with an American officer attached to the embassy when he was nabbed and there's a big diplomatic stink brewing. But nobody'll talk to me."

  "What was he arrested for?"

  "From what I can put together, he was editing The Berlin Conscience and a man named Probst was printing it. Yesterday afternoon the SA raided Probst's print shop. A big gunfight broke out, then a fire. Probst was shot and his place burned to the ground. They had the whole damn Sturmabteilung after Reinhardt and caught up with him about two o'clock this morning."

  "Where did you hear that?"

  "The Nazis had a press conference and announced the details on the Probst part of it. I pieced the rest of it together, y'know, a little bit here, a little bit there, but I can't confirm anything. The Nazis are staying mum on Reinhardt."

  "It didn't happen that way."

  "What?"

  "The Probst part of it. It didn't happen the way you said. He wasn't even armed. The SA kicked in his door, shot him in cold blood, then set his place afire."

  "How do you know?"

  "I pieced it together."

  "C'mon, don't be a schmuck. Where did you hear that?"

  "From an eyewitness. That's all I can tell you. Just don't print that official Nazi bullshit."

  "When'd you find out about this?"
r />   "I don't know, Bert, sometime during the night."

  "And you didn't tip me off?"

  Keegan didn't say anything. Rudman had never seen this expression in his friend's eyes.

  "You consider this eyewitness reliable?"

  "As reliable as you can get."

  Rudman's eyes narrowed.

  "It was Reinhardt, wasn't it? You talked to Reinhardt."

  "I've told you all I can. Don't push me." He looked down at Vanessa. "Why don't you go put something on," he suggested.

  "All I've got's my dress from last night."

  "There are half a dozen bathrobes in there. Take one."

  She walked out of the room, the sheet dragging along behind her.

  "Phew," Rudman sighed appreciatively.

  "Don't get any ideas," Keegan said.

  "I've already got so many ideas I couldn't . . . ah, forget that." He stopped and waved his hand. "At least talk to Wallingford, okay? See what you can find out for me."

  "Wally isn't speaking to me right now."

  "What the hell did you do to him? Wally speaks to everybody."

  "I didn't RSVP one of his parties."

  "Ah c'mon. Take him out for a drink or something, Francis, I'm hurting for a lead right now."

  "Believe me, Bert, the guy will not give me the time."

  "Try."

  There was a long silence. Then Keegan quietly said, "All right, I'll try."

  "Thanks, buddy. I'll be at the Trib office and then the Imperial Bar."

  "I didn't know the Imperial had a pressroom," Keegan said sarcastically.

  "The Imperial Bar is a pressroom," Rudman said. "Everybody in the press corps hangs out there. Goebbels even drops by in the afternoon with his latest proclamation."

  "Well, that's a break, you don't even have to go over to the propaganda ministry to pick up his latest lies."

  "It's a starting place," Rudman said. "He gives us his lies and we boil out the truth."

  Rudman started for the door, stopped short. "You know," he said, "this is the first time I've ever known you to change your mind about something."

  "Maybe it's because I want to know the truth myself."

  "Well, that's another first," Rudman said, and left.

  George Gaines was standing inside the door of the embassy when Keegan entered. He looked up sharply, his face drawn up with anger.

  "What the hell are you doing here?" the attache asked harshly.

  "I came to see Wally," Keegan said quietly. "What's your problem?"

  "You are," the major answered. "You're everybody here's problem."

  "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

  "You know damn well what I mean. Trace spent the night in Landsberg prison. God knows what happened to Reinhardt. And poor old Wally's been recalled."

  "Recalled!"

  Gaines started up the stairs to the offices and Keegan fell in beside him. When one of the Marine guards stepped in front of Keegan, Gaines waved him aside. "It's okay," he said.

  "That Nazi bastard lifted his passport," Gaines said as they went to the second floor. "With a little help from you . . . "

  Keegan cut him off. "Look, I don't get paid to stick my neck in a noose because Roosevelt snaps his fingers," he growled angrily. "So Trace spent the night in jail. Big deal. He's okay, isn't he?"

  "He's okay," Gaines begrudgingly admitted.

  "If I'd been with Reinhardt I'd be dead now, I wouldn't just have to worry about my damn passport. I don't have diplomatic immunity, George."

  "Tell Wally about it. He's the one whose career just got flushed." Gaines nodded toward an open door. "There's his office. Although I don't think he's too anxious to talk to you."

  As Keegan started to enter the office a Marine came by carrying a large cardboard box. Keegan stepped around him. Wallingford's inner door was open and Keegan could see him in the office, taking pictures off the wall.

  "It's all right, Belinda," Wallingford said. He walked back to his desk, his arms stacked with framed photographs as Keegan entered his room. Wallingford carefully placed the pictures in an open box on his desk. The rest of the room was almost cleared out.

  "I heard they gave you the boot," Keegan said.

  "Come by to gloat?"

  "Come on, Wally, I didn't stick Reinhardt in that car with Trace. Hell, I'm going to miss you. You throw the best parties in Europe."

  "That's all it means to you, isn't it?"

  "No, I'm worried about you. What're you going to do?"

  "Go back to Washington for reassignment. It's the end of my career."

  "What the hell happened?"

  "I screwed up, that's what happened. Almost got Trace arrested for espionage. We tried to sneak Reinhardt out of the country in an official vehicle but the Gestapo stopped them. Roosevelt apologized to that little freak in the Reichstag and I got recalled. I'm going to have to quit. It's like getting court-martialed in the army. Win or lose, you're finished."

  "Didn't the intelligence people help you?"

  Wallingford stared at him for a moment, then sat down on the corner of his desk.

  "Listen, Keegan. We don't have an intelligence system. Every other country in the world is up to their ears in spies but we don't have a spy among us. And you know why? Because my boss, the mighty Cordell Hull, says it's ungentlemanly to pry in other countries' affairs. Ungentlemanlyl So, we play by the Marquis of Queensberry's rules and they play with a billy club. That's what happens when the secretary of state is a gentleman."

  "I'm sorry, pal . . ."

  "Hey, it's your country, too. And I'm not your goddamn pal."

  "C'mon, Wally, we've had some pretty good times together. How about those weekends in Paris. That trip down to Monte Carlo last spring . . ."

  "Christ, is that what life is to you, just one long goddamn party?! Reinhardt is dead! According to our best sources, they tortured him for hours and when he bit off his own tongue to keep from talking, they forced him to drink battery acid. Of course, we can't confirm it but it sounds right. Felix is dead and my career's in the toilet and what the hell difference does it make to you? You'll find another party to go to."

  "I'm sorry about Reinhardt. And I do care what happens to you. My friendship for you doesn't have anything to do with him."

  "I asked you to help me and all you did was worry about your goddamn plane. We could've gotten him out."

  "Maybe."

  "What's it going to take to wake you up and see what's going on here?"

  "I see what's going on . . ."

  "No, no. You don't see what's going on. You drive past the bloody storm troopers beating up some pawnbroker or doctor, but you don't really see it. At least it doesn't register. You think this can't happen back home? Let me tell you something, pal, Hitler was absolute dictator of Germany less than a month after Hindenburg appointed him president and the Nazi party had less than forty percent of the vote in the last election. Hitler didn't have a majority of anything, he was never elected to anything. He just took over. He threw out the Constitution and took over. Every time the arrogant little bastard opens his mouth he insults Americans. And he's making racism acceptable. Hell, fashionable. Not only here—everywhere, everywhere! The other day I heard a couple of our secretaries giggling over the latest Jewish joke."

  "That's human nature."

  "You call it what you want, I call it prejudice. Hitler wakes up that sleeping giant in everyone, he makes it desirable to flaunt hate. He has the key, Keegan. Pride. He appeals to their pride." He paused for a moment, then asked, "What do you want, Francis? What are you after?"

  "I don't know, Wally."

  "Well, I do know. See, I'm just an everyday jerk from Philadelphia. I planned my whole life out. The diplomatic corps, that was it for me. That's what I wanted, worked my ass off to get it. And you know where I wanted to be?" He jabbed a forefinger toward the floor. "Right here. Berlin. From the moment I entered the diplomatic service, this is where I wanted to be. Know why? Because I knew i
t was going to be the hot spot in the world. I knew it. I knew I could make a name for myself here if I played it just right. And I was doing great until last night."

  He turned back to the shelves and stacked the last of his possessions in the box on the desk. He kept out one book and opened it to a random page.

  "Collected speeches of Woodrow Wilson," he said. "My hero, Mr. Wilson. Great vision. Sold out by his own country. You know, the day Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany he also warned them not to be too hard on the losers when we won the war or they'd rise up and strike back. Had a lot of vision, Mr. Wilson. You paint a mouse into a corner and a tiger comes out. Nobody paid any attention to him. We left Germany with nothing and now the tiger is loose and America sleeps on, as fucking usual."

  "You're an angry man, Wally."

  "I'm a scared man. People like you scare me. You're sophisticated enough to understand what's happening."

  "You don't belong in the State Department. Go back home and run for the Senate or something."

  "I couldn't get elected meter reader," Wallingford said with disgust. "Nobody wants to hear what I've got to say. By the time they wake up it'll be too late."

  "People are sick of gloom and doom," said Keegan. "They've had their fill of war. Now they're trying to get over the Depression. They're looking for good times, not threats."

  "Typical attitude."

  "I'm calling it the way I see it."

  "I'll admit you have a certain roughneck charm, Keegan, but as far as I'm concerned it's all veneer," said Wallingford wearily. "I've heard about your mother being a countess and all that romantic crap and that's all it is to me, crap. Underneath it all, you're nothing. Just another crook who got rich."

  Keegan nodded ruefully and turned to leave the office.

  "I've got this theory, Keegan," Wallingford went on. "If you're not against something, you're for it. When you turned your back on Reinhardt, you kissed Hitler's ass."