"Very happy, indeed," said her husband, bowing and smiling; and the gendemen Seerose, Rotaug, Ziller, and Lester were
smiling, too. Mama was dressed as outlandishly as ever—a blue knit suit with a sleeveless knit jacket that hung down below her rear (blue with her shocking violet hair!), innumerable strings of pearls, and a brown, mannish hat with a wide brim. On the top, in the middle, the hat had a deep crease.
"Well," said Herf ord. "We haven't been idle here either. Show what youve got, Leidenmuller."
The cadaverous old whore-fucker spread his sheets on the conference table. He got more and more excited. His hour had come! Everybody went over to the table; and Leidenmuller, bowing and scraping, began to explain. "The—these sheets have already been approved by Herr Lester and Herr Ziller. I have— n
"We can see what youve done," said Lester, short and sharp, our little Caesar, and we certainly did see. Leidenmuller had enlarged the negatives Bertie had sent and had had prints made in the various sizes he had in mind, and had pasted them on the sheets. Headings and captions—all there. He had photocopied them and pasted them where he wanted them.
They had been working feverishly since yesterday on this issue. Color printing is very complicated and takes time. It can take four or five days. But Herf ord had decided to go ahead with it for the story, my story!
"This issue was to come out on Thursday," he said. "Can't be done, they told me. Would have to one day later. So Herford decided to go along with it. General astonishment when Blitz isn't on the stands on Thursday. Big mystery! No ads announcing the delay. Then, a day later—bang! The bomb!"
"The atom bomb!" said Mama.
"The hydrogen bombl" said Lester.
"Knock on wood," said Dr. Helmut Rotaug, tugging at his Hjalmar Schacht collar.
Next Friday? In exactly one week? I admit I was excited as I leaned over the press sheets. So was Bertie. This time it was our—it was my story that was being announced! The headline on the left side read:
TREASON!
in wild, ragged, bright yellow script which Leidenmuller had designed, and running across the whole page at the top, in typewriter face, the word
clsive - exclusive ~ exclusive ~ exclusive — exclusive — ex
On the right, in the same script and color as TREASON:
THE NEW ROLAND
THE STORY OF AN INTERNATIONAL SCANDAL
THIS MOST EXCITING FACTUAL ACCOUNT IN THE HISTORY OF OUR PUBLISHING HOUSE STARTS IN THE NEXT ISSUE!
And below this:
PHOTOS—BERT ENGELHARDT
The photo I had hoped would come out well Leidenmiiller had used to cover both pages—the moment when the volley had hit the boy Karel and catapulted him up in the air. It was a fantastic picture. You got the feeling that the boy was really flying across the pages—his face facing death, his body hurtling by... the gold, glittering trumpet that had slipped from his hand, almost too bright, too clear, flying right along with him. Trees and shrubs black against the flaming sunset, a fiery red wall under a stormy sky. And the many people, adults and children, who had thrown themselves on the ground, panic on their faces. I had never seen a photo like it.
"Herf ord would like to congratulate you on this picture," said Herford, and shook Bertie's hands. "Herford congratulates you on every one of them, Engelhardt. Best thing youve ever done."
"Well, now..." said Bertie, with an embarrassed smile. "I was lucky."
"And Herford wants to congratulate you, Roland, for the research youve done," said Herford, and shook my hand. "Gentlemen!" Whereupon Mama and the other men, except Hem and Bertie, shook my hand, too. Rotaug's felt like leather, Lester's like a cold fish; Seerose's hurt as he pressed mine. He was dressed more elegantly then ever, and his eyes—as he looked at me—sparkled.
"This is going to be the super-success of all time," said
Herford. "Herford can feel it in his balls. Excuse me, Mama. Is going to raise the circulation by a hundred thousand."
"Two hundred thousand!" cried ass-kisser Lester.
"Amen," said Mama.
"Not so high, please," said Herford. "A hundred and fifty thousand will do nicely. Think of the advertising!" he grunted. 'But I want to be numero uno with this, and with Total Man/ Show the bastards what Herford can do."
Bertie and I looked at the other two pages. Here there was room for captions and a short teaser: "Continued on page 96." On page 96—the text I'd dictated over the phone. And the pictures! Karl Concon, dead on his bed in the Paris Hotel. Irina (big). Irina and Fraulein Louise screaming at each other in the barracks. Very coarse-grained but still recognizable—the window in the lit-up front of Niendorf erstrasse 333, and behind it the face of Jan Bilka and his girl. The two cars tearing away from the area in front of the camp. Fraulein Louise, her arms raised imploringly to heaven—front and back view. The two phony Americans sprawled on the street in front of Eppendorfer Baum 187. I hadn't even noticed that Bertie had taken pictures after he'd been beaten up... and so on. Four wild pages.
"Elegant job!" I told Leidenmiiller, and Bertie, grinning, slapped him on the back.
"Th—thanks," stammered Leidenmiiller.
"Your attention, please!" Herford had stepped in front of a big board lying on a table. We turned and looked at him. He was pointing with a stick—the field marshal in front of his map at the start of a battle. "So this is how things look today. Weve just sent out number 46. Next Wednesday, November twentieth, is Day of Atonement. Herford does not intend to come out with number 47 on the twenty-first, as just mentioned, but on Friday, the twenty-second. In number 47, Herford has the racial unrest article and these four switched pages. A week later, on November twenty-eight, in number 48, Herford will feature the first part of Treason/ You're going to have to pull yourself together, Roland! All of us are going to have to! Herford is making you personally responsible, Leidenmiiller, for the title page with the unconscious boy being ready on time."
"Yes, Herr Herford. Of course, of course—"
"In number 48, Roland will give us a transition from the current sex series to Total Man/" I nodded. "Total Man' will start in number 48, and again, a week later, on December fifth.
we've got to have that title page as soon as possible, too. Herr Ziller has a great idea, which we're going to have to discuss in detail. It's going to be a long night, gentlemen."
I noticed suddenly that Irina was staring straight ahead. She looked tired and pale. Nobody paid any attention to her. None of us had anything on our minds but the issues being discussed. One of the four telephones on Herf ord's huge desk rang a few times before anybody noticed it. Herford hurried across his vast carpet and picked up the phone that was allegedly gold. He said, "Herford," then waved me over. "It's for you."
"Who wants to speak to me?"
"Herford doesn't know. Didn't understand the name. Somebody in Neurode."
I took the receiver from him. I said, "Roland," and heard a calm voice. "This is Pastor Demel. I didn't know where I could reach you in Hamburg. I've called your publishing house several times. They told me they expected you this evening."
"What is it, Herr Pastor?"
"Fraulein Louise—"
"What's the matter with her?"
He told me. His voice wasn't calm anymore. He talked fast, sounding harassed. He had a lot to tell. Herford was still holding forth at the conference table. I could hear him and the pastor at the same time. "What's the matter, Roland? What are you talking about? What's happened?"
"Fraulein Louise," I said, covering the receiver with my hand. "She's in the psychiatric clinic, Ludwigskrankenhaus, Bremen."
"Who?"
"Fr&ulein Louise Gottschalk."
"Who's that?"
"The social worker who—"
"Oh, I see. Damn it. Had to be committed at last, right?"
"Yes, Herr Herford."
"Shit! Had to happen right now. Tell them to put her in a private room, at our expense, of course. Lester, attend to that right away. Call the hospital."
"Can one visit her? Question her further? Photograph her?"
Pastor Demel was still talking. I put my hand over the receiver again. "Not right away, Herr Herford."
"Herr Roland? Herr Roland? Are you there?"
I took my hand off the receiver. "Yes, I'm here, Herr Pastor.
Go on, please. I'm listening," and I put my hand over the receiver again.
"Why not right away?"
"Because her doctor, a certain Dr. Erkner, has put her under heavy sedation. She's in a half-sleep. Then he says they're going to try electric shock treatments."
"Goddamn it!"
"Herford, please!"
"I can start to write without her, Herr Herford. I have enough material to tide me over until she can receive visitors."
The pastor's voice in my ear. "Dear, unfortunate Fraulein Louise. Isn't it shocking to see how hard Almighty God tries those who should be His favorites?"
And the voice of my publisher. "Shit! Miserable goddamn' shit! Enough material for the first article! What if she's in shock for weeks and can't have visitors? What do we do then, Roland? Isn't it the damndest thing that the old bag has to lose what little sanity she had left right now?"
I took my hand off the receiver. "Yes," I replied to my publisher and to Pastor Demel simultaneously.
Vaslav Bilka fell on the stone terrace under my suite. He had jumped out of the fourth-floor window, landed on his head, and was killed instantly.
The terrace was directly outside the bar. Charlie the bartender heard the loud thud outside. He didn't show it. He waited a second or two to see if anyone else had heard it. The bar was fairly full, a small combo was playing "Blue Velvet," and Charlie withdrew unobtrusively. He walked through an anteroom and a small door, out onto the terrace, saw what had happened, and at once informed Heintze. Ten minutes later the homicide squad was there.
They went to work quietly and efficiently. I was standing on the balcony of my suite in the rain and called down to the men. They played one of their spodights on me, then three of them,
with Heintze, came up to us and opened the door, and I told them what had happened and how. That Monerov and Jules Cassin had disappeared, had already been established. The officers wanted to know what it was all about, and just before I began to lie, the two men I had been expecting all along turned up—tall Herr Klein and Herr Rogge with the strong glasses, from Security. They looked tired and disgusted. I could imagine that they were thoroughly sick of this assignment, which didn't even belong in their jurisdiction.
In the meantime Heintze had called in the icily polite hotel manager. Irina, exhausted, was dozing in the bedroom; the rest of us were in the salon; and once, when I looked out of the window, I could see that the men on the terrace had evidently finished photographing and searching for clues, and were shoving Bilka's body into a van. The people in the bar hadn't noticed a thing. The little radio in the salon was playing "Stranger in Paradise."
"So what happened, Herr Roland?" asked Klein, looking at me as if I were a bad smell.
"I'm as happy to see you again as you are to see me," I said.
"Let's not get fresh, OK?" said Rogge.
"Who's fresh?"
"You are. And God knows you've got no excuse for it."
"Frankly, I don't understand. What concern is it of mine—"
"Shut up I" said Rogge; then he evidendy decided to be less hostile and explained that he had nerves, too, and let me say all I had to say. I interrupted my story once with, "I'm sure you know what happened in Helsinki."
"Yes, yes," said Rogge; "We know. What we don't know is what happened here."
"Of course not," I said. "The only thing you were able to listen in on was my conversation with Engelhardt in Helsinki. You tapped my phone, didn't you?"
"Yes," said Klein, amiably.
"If you'd built in a microphone like the Russian," I said, "you'd know a lot more."
"Our mistake, granted," said Rogge. "By the way, young Felmar gave himself up and confessed everything."
"What are you going to do with him?"
"We don't know. Right now we're holding him. He'll go before a judge tomorrow—that is, this morning, and it will be up to him." 450
"Poor devil," I said.
"We're all poor devils," said Klein. "And now, go on."
I went on, they listened; so did the men from homicide, to whom Klein had explained that all this was top secret. Nothing was to go to the press or news agencies. Klein and Rogge demanded that the whole thing be suppressed. Case of suicide by jumping out of a fourth-floor window would have to suffice for the general public. The officers shrugged. To which I would like to add that not a newspaper, radio station, or television broadcast even mentioned the event, not on the following day, not ever, and the big news agencies evidently found the item that a hotel guest had jumped out of a fourth-floor window uninteresting. In such respects, we still have law and order in the Fatherland!
After they had got all there was to get out of me, Klein and Rogge asked what I intended to do next. I said, "I'll wait until Engelhardt gets back from Helsinki, then Til go to Frankfurt and start working. You're against it, aren't you?" I asked. I was sure they were going to forbid me to write about it, and that they would demand that I hand over my tapes and Bertie the pictures he had taken in Helsinki. But I was wrong. They nodded and smiled and said they were only doing their duty on a job that wasn't theirs to begin with. And they sympathized with me—
"So I may leave? Take the girl with me? Write about it?"
"As far as we're concerned, certainly," said Klein. "Didn't we tell you that we are not your enemies and have no intention of preventing you from writing about this? It's a case of great public interest. Go ahead, Herr Roland. Write. But it must not be backed up by any official elucidations," said Klein.
I found all this pretty mysterious, and I had to think of Victor Largent, who had said that not a line of this story would ever see the light of day and that he was going to bring me the contract and check from the American illustrated magazine in the morning. And I also thought of the nice old gentleman in Cologne. And then I thought I'd better get in touch with my publishing house right away.
It took me another hour to get rid of everybody. I looked in the bedroom. Irina had fallen asleep with the light on. She looked peaceful; her breathing was slow and regular. I turned out the light, took my coat, and left the suite. I locked the door and took the elevator down to the lobby. I could hear the music from the bar all the way to Heintze's desk.
I didn't want to show myself in Club 88 again and asked Heintze to call a taxi. He was formal to the point of hostility, this man whom I had known for such a long time. "What's the matter, Herr Heintze?" I asked.
He was looking through some papers as he answered, his voice flat. "I'm sorry, Herr Roland, but after everything that's happened, the manager would like you to vacate your suite by tomorrow noon, you and your... wife."
"I was going to leave anyway," I said, "but listen, Herr Heintze ... I can't help it if somebody chooses to jump out of a window in my suite."
He shrugged. "It's not for me to say anything about that, Herr Roland. I'm very sorry that I have to be the one to tell you this, but the manager would appreciate it if you did not stop at the Metropole in the future. If you do come, there won't be a room for you."
"I understand," I said, "and I can understand the manager. But we can remain friends, can't we?" and I pushed a hundred-mark bill across the desk. He pushed it back and said, his face expressionless, "I'd rather not accept that, Herr Roland."
"Well, then there's nothing I can do about it, is there?" I said, took my money back, and walked outside. A taxi was just driving up to the entrance. I got in, a bellboy closed the door for me. "To the train station and back," I said.
"Yes, sir," said the driver. It was raining hard.
At the station I changed a twenty-mark bill for coins and went to the booth from which I had phon
ed Hem before. This time I called the house direct and had them connect me with Herford. He answered at once.
"Good evening, Roland. Herford is pleased to hear your voice."
"Good evening, Herr Herford," I said. "Something has—"
"Where are you speaking from?"
"The train station. A booth. A lot has happened during these past hours—" 452
"Herford knows all about it!" he said in his complacent voice.
"You know—?"
"Everything!" He laughed. "That surprises you, doesn't it?"
"Oh, I see," I said. "Herr Seerose has heard from his friends."
"Smart boy. Yes, he has. A rotten mess, isn't it? But first-rate for the story. First-rate. Seerose says so. They all say so. They're all here with me. Your friend Kramer, too. Herford has turned on the loudspeaker system. Everybody can hear you."
"But I don't think you know yet that Bilka jumped out of a window of my suite and bashed his brains out," I said angrily, and could hear Herford gasp.
"Are you drunk, Roland?"
"No, Herr Herford."
"But how could Bilka—?" He was speechless.
I threw in another coin and said, "Let me explain. Also a thing or two which I doiibt very much that Herr Seerose's friends told him."
After that he let me talk, and I went on throwing in coins, and the booth still stank of urine and perfume, the urine stronger, and I felt sick and had to take a swig out of my flask. I told everything that had taken place in my suite, not leaving out Victor Largent's visit, but I did not mention the fact that he had told me they would never print my story. As a final bombshell I asked, "So where do we stand now, Herr Herford? Do we print the story or not?"
"Of course we print the story!" he thundered. "Have you gone crazy? We've never had anything like it! Why do you ask such a damn' fool question? You want to leave us, maybe? Sell the whole thing somewhere else? I'm warning you, Roland—don't try anything on us! I'll take you to every court in the country! This is Herford's baby! Of course Herford's going to print it. You can have Herford's word of honor on that. Herford swears that—oh—wait a minute! You're thinking of the nice old gentleman in Cologne maybe?"
The Traitor Blitz Page 49