Roll the Credits: A Hector Lassiter novel

by Craig McDonald

  “It is very tempting. Excuse me for a few moments.” Höttl rose and walked to the front of the restaurant. Because of the position of their table, Hector lost sight of the man as Höttl approached the front of the restaurant. He returned a couple of moments later, dabbing at his face with a handkerchief. His suit coat glistened with beads of rain.

  So, he’d stepped outside for a minute… Hm.

  When Höttl resumed his seat, Hector said, “That scar—it is a fencing wound, isn’t it?”

  “Ah! My good friends, I’m delighted to see you are speaking!” Von Sternberg spread his arms. He embraced Hector, kissing him on both cheeks, then repeated the action with Werner Höttl.

  “Sure, it’s been just like old home week,” Hector said. He pulled out a chair for von Sternberg. “Truth is, it hasn’t been much of a conversation, Josef.”

  The director rolled his eyes. “More sparring, you mean? You’re both good with words, so I expect I’m to be treated to more verbal jousting. Well, stop it, you two. We have a film to make. And anyway, life is too short for petty squabbles.”

  “For petty squabbles, yes, I would agree with that,” Höttl said, looking at Hector with blatant contempt.

  Hector shook his head, and inspected some other diners. “Christ’s sake,” he muttered under his breath. He scooted his chair around to face von Sternberg, essentially showing Werner Höttl his back. “Juvenile” behavior? Sure, but Hector was never too far above a bit of that.

  Hector said, “Where’s your potential leading lady, Josef, this Miss Dietrich?”

  “She called to cancel. Something about her daughter being sick.” Von Sternberg helped himself to what was left of Hector’s Riseling. He smacked his lips and said, “I begin to think she’s playing hard to get, as you Americans say. I think Marlene knows I’m leaning her way, and her evasiveness, it’s a negotiating tactic.”

  If that was so, it seemed to Hector to be working just fine. He said, “Well, as the lady isn’t coming, I’ll leave you two fellas to your film talk.”

  Von Sternberg frowned. “Again you try to leave me, Hector? It’s miserable outside, a hard cold rain. Stay and eat, and I’ll see if I can’t lead you both to one another’s more winning qualities. I’d not have you two leaving it like this.”

  Hector pushed back his chair. “Thanks, Josef, but I like the rain, and I don’t like this son of a bitch.”

  “Well, then let’s still plan on breakfast tomorrow, Hector, just the two of us. Our usual café?”

  “Sure, Josef. I’ll be there.”

  Hector took his leave without so much as a head nod to Werner Höttl.

  As he stood waiting for his overcoat’s return, Hector peered through the rain-streaked window. Those same two Nazi party members who’d been singing out front were now across the street, watching the diners leaving Horsch’s. Hector had the sense they were waiting on him.

  Hector retreated back into the dining area enough to spy on Werner Höttl. Von Sternberg was going on about something, gesticulating dramatically to drive home points. Werner wasn’t even watching the director, staring instead out the dining room window at about the place Hector figured those singing Nazis were positioned.

  A soft voice, “Sir? Your coat…”

  Hector smiled and walked back to the coatroom desk. He generously tipped the check girl. He said, “This is important, darlin’. Is there a way out of here other than that front door?”

  She handed him his coat and he shrugged it on. He said, “Really, is there another way I can get out of here, and quickly?”

  The young woman bit her lower lip, deciding. He said, “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  As he asked that, Hector glanced out the window again. One of the Nazis was checking the toggle lock on a Luger. The other had his hand in his overcoat pocket, as if he was gripping a gun hidden in there.

  This wasn’t going to be a simple tailing as it had been with the German soldiers. This might well be an assassination on the street. Werner Höttl’s brief excusing of himself, and his return with rain-stained shoulders, told their own story now.

  The coat check girl’s gaze had followed Hector’s. She had also seen the gun being prepped. “I’m Liesl. Are those men waiting for you?”

  “I’m guessing so,” Hector said. “I haven’t done anything wrong, honey, I promise you that. Those kind don’t need much in the way of excuses. Now, about that back door…” He said it with some urgency—it didn’t take any acting.

  Guns drawn, the Germans were waiting for a break in traffic to cross the street.

  “Liesl, I really don’t have much time here, darlin’, please.”

  She pointed. “Through the kitchen doors, at the back of the room.”

  “Danke, sweetheart.” He lifted and kissed her hand.

  Hector couldn’t help himself. He risked detouring to von Sternberg’s table. Josef smiled up at him, and said, “Hector! The foul weather has changed your mind! I’m so pleased.”

  “Sorry, Josef, no. This is where you’re apt to fire me, friend.” Hector reached over, grabbed Höttl by the scruff of the neck, then slammed his face into the table’s top, twice.

  Hector dashed toward the kitchen. Cooks frowned as Hector weaved between their stations and crashed through the back door and into the alley.

  Running in the cold, stinging rain, Hector made his way to Kurfürstendamm, where he finally caught a cab back to his hotel.

  11

  Duff said, “Between your file’s biography and these stories of Paris and Berlin, I wonder when you ever go home. You’re very well-traveled.”

  I gave her a taken-aback glance, acting a bit hurt. “You mean I look haggard?”

  Duff shook her head. “No, I mean you’ve traveled, a lot.”

  “I do seem to get around.”

  “You lived many years in Key West,” she said. “That sounds like a place I’d perhaps like. Sounds a fine place to live—sunny, tropical weather. Good seafood. Always a tan. For those who tan anyway. With my complexion, I’d be a goner there. But it sounds perfect for a man like you. Why’d you leave Florida?”

  “Lost too bloody much there,” I said. “That smallish island got to be positively crowded with loss.”

  “For instance?”

  “I lost a wife there. A lover or two. And a best friend. And a whole way of life vanished there, right before my eyes. For that last, I blame FDR and his damned New Deal schemes. Those federal boondoggles all but ruined the Keys. FDR turned the island into a tourist trap. I’m no Roosevelt fan, quite the contrary.”

  Duff changed the subject. “And Puget Sound? You lived there, too.”

  “Souring, also, in some ways of late. I’m looking for someplace new.”

  Duff smiled. “I’ve been finding myself drawn to New Mexico. Something really foreign-looking and new. Not too many people to stir up trouble. Quiet and solitude. You chased Pancho Villa with Jack Pershing and Patton. You know the desert. Does it appeal to you?”

  “In measures. And more so since they invented air-conditioning.”

  “Exactly.” Duff sipped more whisky. “Downside of that is I’ve heard the military is looking at New Mexico as the place for some kind of bomb test site.”

  ***

  The sun rose bloodily over the quiet, dew-kissed countryside. While there was still a little darkness, I pulled over under some trees.

  “Here in the boonies, I think we’re at some risk with those swastikas on the doors,” I said. “These uniforms Jimmy and I are wearing are a real risk, too. We’re vulnerable to scrappy farmers. Independent or self-styled resistance types. Maybe to Maquis.”

  Duff climbed out of the car and stretched. Pancho followed her out, then promptly raised a leg at a tree.

  She said, “You being ex-cavalry, I’m going to presume you can make a campfire, Hector.”

  “I can do that,” I said, looking around. “Don’t see any chimney smoke, so it’s probably safe enough to light one. I’ll get a fire started,
then change.”

  “And then I’ll make breakfast.” Duff reached in and gently shook Marie awake. “Come on, honey, your kidneys must be in danger of bursting by now,” she said in French.

  Marie said she was hungry. Blinking, she rubbed her eyes, then slid out of the car and hugged Pancho. After that, she walked through the shimmering grass, almost knee-high to her. Her fingertips trailed across the tops of the blades of dew-kissed grass.

  Of course it had been a while since she’s been outdoors. But watching her, I began to wonder if Marie had ever been outside a city. She paused and touched a tree as if to confirm it was real.

  ***

  It was good to doff those Nazi duds. Now I was wearing my ancient leather jacket over a fisherman’s sweater; gray flannel pants and work boots. Duff said, “That’s a much better look for you.” She eyed an ancient lipstick stain on the woolen collar of my leather jacket, then raised an eyebrow. That stain: Brinke, February 1924. I shrugged at Duff.

  Jimmy slipped from behind a tree. He now wore a leather coat that belted at the waist and brown corduroy pants. He carried a brown fedora in one hand. With the other hand, he scratched Pancho between the ears as the dog loped along beside him.

  We looked like native civilians now. My French was good enough to pass, Duff’s too. If Jimmy kept his Irish inflected French to a minimum, we’d get along just fine.

  Duff said, “If only we didn’t have swastikas all over that car.”

  “I’m going to tackle that now,” I said. As Duff worked over the skillet and fire I’d set under the high canopy of the old-growth trees, I poked around in my knapsack and pulled out the four cans of paint I’d brought along. I’d chosen four shades: gloss black, matte black, olive drab and battleship gray—basic car colors.

  I selected the can of flat black paint, then started painting over those wicked Nazi symbols.

  Jimmy wandered over. Head on side, he surveyed my work. “When it dries, it should pass. Where do you think we are, Hector?”

  “I’m thinking about twenty miles west of Limoges,” I said, finishing up. Duff waved us over for breakfast.

  I hesitated. Somewhere at the edge of my hearing, I could make out the hum of an engine, not a car, but of a plane. Jimmy gave me this look. I said, “Get the girls under the trees and close to the ground! I’m going to move our car under the trees.”

  Jimmy nodded. “Should I put out the fire?”

  I shook my head, swinging into the Juvaquatre. “No. The smoke that’d result from dousing the fire would draw more attention than what it’s putting off now.”

  The aircraft was still at some distance. Now I could tell it wasn’t just one plane, but two. I pulled the car under a big old pin oak, up close to the trunk and well under the bronzed canopy. Most of the others trees had shed their leaves, the bare limbs like crooked fingers grasping at the clouds.

  I shut off the engine, then ran over to the campfire.

  As I sprawled out on the ground next to her, Duff said, “Could just be planes going here-to-there.”

  “Maybe,” I said in English. I was very aware the little girl was eavesdropping, now—not understanding, clearly, she was listening to our tones. She was holding close to Jimmy, who was on the other side of the tree trunk, keeping his weight off her, but covering most of her body with his. Now that we were in street clothes, Marie seemed to be more strongly drawn to Jimmy. Well, that was good, wasn’t it? If we succeeded in smuggling her home, he would, after all, be her uncle, and probably the doting kind.

  I grabbed Pancho by the scruff and pulled him close to me. Planes were still a novelty for him. I wanted to be able to silence my dog fast if need be. Duff was stretched out next to me. In English, she said, “If they’re looking for us, and should use paratroopers?” She drew a finger across her throat. She was clearly terrified.

  “They’re too low to the ground to drop anyone—not enough time or distance to deploy the chutes,” I said. I was getting a better earshot at the engines now. I said, “And they aren’t that big. They’re single-seater crates from the sounds of those engines.”

  Now I could see them up there, gray and yellow: twin Messerschmitts.

  Shaking my head, I placed my free hand over Duff’s and squeezed. “If they’ve come for us, it’s going to be a bombing or strafing run.”

  That was another bad sign. German pilots flying so low put themselves at risk from rifle fire, especially with those fabric-covered rudders. These were search planes, then. It was the only way they’d take that risk buzzing the treetops.

  Now it was all down to the density of the foliage; all these pin oaks that held their leaves while the rest of the trees were already well into their fall shed.

  Duff scooted closer. “You’re trying to make me feel better, I can tell. They are looking for us, aren’t they?”

  “Pretty sure that’s so.”

  “How’d they know where to look?”

  I squeezed her hand again. “Höttl has the resources of the German military machine at his disposal. For all we know, these are two of dozens of planes dispatched in every conceivable direction from Lyon.”

  “Of course,” Duff said, her voice thin and tense. “I wish now that I hadn’t cooked. That smoke may give us away.”

  “It’s nothing,” I said. “With the trees and the morning light on the dew, there’s already a fog coming off the low-lying fields around us. The smoke will just be construed as more of the same. The important thing is that they don’t see us or the car.”

  “I knew this was going to be a dangerous undertaking, but it seems more hopeless now,” Duff said.

  “We’ve come a long way already,” I said. “My bigger immediate concern is making contact with our people to have a boat ready when we reach the coast. I don’t want to loiter in any place too long with this much attention being paid to finding us.”

  Duff said. “I’ll get us in contact when we’re in range, so no worries there. I’ve got something to do that. Unless, of course, they blow up the car now.”

  The planes were coming in close to our position. Pancho began to whimper. I wrapped my hand around his muzzle, said, “Hush,” and then stroked his back.

  The two aircraft passed swiftly over our hiding place, their shadows sinisterly sliding across the dew-beaded grass. After a few seconds, the sound of their engines changed.

  They were banking back for a second pass.

  Question was, were they doing that because they saw something, or were they just being damnably thorough?

  They flew overhead again, a bit higher than the last time and a fair piece west of our position. The planes were moving more in the direction we were headed.

  “I’m taking that as a good sign,” Duff said, as if reading my thoughts.

  “Yes, but if they mean to push on, they have to make one more pass to return to their original heading.”

  As I said that, there was again the change in sound as the planes’ motors strained in their turns.

  This third time, the planes passed by much faster and much higher. Another good sign.

  “We’ll give them twenty minutes to get further away, then we’ll eat and move on,” I said.

  12

  Marie abruptly said, “Monsieur Hector, I really need to go to the bathroom!”

  Of course.

  Hell, Pancho was showing signs, too.

  We’d covered perhaps thirty miles since those planes had flown over us in the early morning. I found another dense cluster of tall old oaks that were still holding their leaves and pulled us under their canopy.

  Duff took the little girl by the hand and led her off behind some trees. Jimmy and I parked our butts on the hood of the car and got a couple of coffin nails going.

  From somewhere, just at the edge of my hearing, I thought there was somebody playing an accordion. I searched the horizon, what I could see of it around the trees and hills, for chimney smoke, any rooftops, but saw nothing to indicate civilization.

  Jimmy s
aid, “How are we going to call for that boat?” He was tinkering with his own small shortwave radio, trying to pick up a BBC broadcast.

  “Duff’s promised she has something to handle that. If whatever she has doesn’t get the job done, I have my own gizmo, but it relies on Morse code, and so you never know who is on the other end.”

  Jimmy tsked-tsked. “Yes, it’s a crapshoot, isn’t it?” He blew three smoke rings, then said, “Hector, do you hear an accordion?”

  “Funny, for a moment I thought I had,” I said. But now I was focused on another sound. Something mechanical. Jimmy heard it, too.

  He said, “Motorcycle?”

  “At least one,” I said. “We’ll get some grenades, then send the girls deeper into the woods.”

  Jimmy shook his head, then called for Duff. He leaned in, gripping my shoulder in one big hand. “You’re going to hide, Hector. Duff and I are wild cards. You and the little girl are known to these Huns. If this is trouble, we two will talk or fight our way out of it. You take the girl and go deeper into that tree line. Wait this out.”

  Though I was reluctant to leave them, Jimmy’s logic was sound. I took Marie’s tiny hand and said, “C’mon, honey—we need to play Hide ’n’ Seek.”

  Marie said, “Are Duff and Jimmy going to play, too?”

  “Sort of.”

  “And Pancho?”

  “He’s going to help Duff and Jimmy find us,” I said.

  Once I had the child farther into the woods, I lifted her up into the branches of an old oak tree. “See if you can climb up there and hide,” I said, pointing at a recessed crook about ten feet from the ground.

  Giggling, Marie settled into her hiding place. The branches were thick where she was hiding, more than enough to stop a bullet. I said, “Get down in there as low as you can, okay, honey? Only come down for, or answer to me, Jimmy or Duff. Right?”

  “Or Pancho,” I heard her voice say.

  “Or Pancho,” I said reluctantly. If the three of us ended up dead or captured, the dog might be her only slim hope for protection, if not for survival. That tiny voice: