He looked at me for a moment, then I saw him make the connection, too.
I drew my gun and got out the right credentials for this dicey moment. I hauled one of Schmidt’s attackers off him and said, “Allied intelligence. This man is my prisoner. Stop before you hurt his head. He knows things I need to know.”
One of the bastard’s got in a last kick, despite my orders to the contrary. I zeroed in on that one. “Help him to his feet,” I said nodding at the prone German. “You can help me take him to headquarters,” I said to the Frenchman. I sized him up with my eyes: he’d do.
None too gently, the Frenchman helped Frederick to his feet. I motioned with my pistol. “This way.” I led the two down an alley, then pistol-whipped the Frenchman.
To Frederick I said, “One good turn…” I pocketed my gun and then bent to task and pulled off the Frenchman’s shoes. “He’s about your size, so the clothes should fit,” I said.
Wincing and gripping his ribs, Frederick helped me strip the man, then wadded his German uniform into a trashcan. As he dressed, I sorted through my various documents. I found the ones I was looking for. I passed the sheaf of papers to Frederick. “My government made these and they are excellent. They’ll get you through at the border. Between here and there, you’re Günther Hess.”
Frederick nodded and I helped him on with the man’s coats. “Those ribs broken or just bruised, you think?”
“Not broken,” he said. “I don’t think so anyway.” We shook hands. He said, “You’ve saved yourself a trip to Germany for that drink. We’re more than even… Lassiter, wasn’t it? I’ve thought about that day outside the church, often.”
“That’s right Frederick. I’ve thought a lot about that day, too. Stay alive, old pal.”
***
Duff padded into Gertrude’s bathroom, wearing a silk robe. I was in the midst of my second Duff-ordered bath. She handed me a glass of whisky over ice, then shrugged off her robe. Nude, she pinned up her strawberry blond hair. All curves and milky skin, she slid into the hot water with me.
She said, “So, how is it out there, heady? Intoxicating?”
I shook my head, savoring the whisky’s first burn. “Few days from now, it may be all that. But just now? Now it’s very messy and chaotic. A very bloody Sunday.”
“Could I get out to see a little? I have the urge.”
“I’d resist it,” I said. “Hell, it’s crazy enough, I’m loathe to go back out there just now. Barring something new on the Höttl front, I think I’m staying in for a few days. On one street you have Parisians partying like the war is all but over. A street over from that, you might find diehard Nazis still rounding up Jews. Most of the Germans are just sort of exercising due diligence, laying down random fire but not with much zeal or intent. Those know it’s the endgame. Despite all that, it still makes for a hell of a lot of bullets zinging around out there. What do the British call it? Death by misadventure? In Paris, as things stand now, that’s an all too real possibility.”
I savored some more whisky and tipped my head back against the tub’s rim. “On the trip back here, I had three Germans try to surrender to me, despite my vaunted correspondent’s insignia.”
“What’d you do with them?”
“Directed them to some loitering resistance types, who probably promptly shot them.”
Duff’s hand was suddenly there, under all the suds. “Like you said, Hector, some Sabbath.” She stood up and handed me a towel. “We have a while before dinner is ready,” she said. “I have sinful notions about how to pass that time.”
25
On Wednesday, the 23rd, I was again drawn out of Gertrude’s salon, lured away from Duff.
One of “my” Maquis, Jules Poincaré, excitedly pounded on Gertrude’s door, shouting, “Grand Capitaine! Grand Capitaine, I come with news!”
Through the door I yelled back, “It’s Hector, remember? I have no commission and no title. I need you to remember that if asked by anyone.”
Duff rolled her eyes at me.
I opened the door a crack, confirmed it was just Jules and his battered Sten gun. I let him in.
“Bernard sent me,” he said, smiling and awkwardly bowing a bit at Duff. “The man with the camera, he tells me to say, we have him!”
I could suddenly feel my pulse in my ears. “Höttl? You captured Werner Höttl?”
Now Jules looked dejected. “Non, the man with the camera you spied from the roof a few days ago.”
“Well… that’s good news, too,” I said. Reaching for my correspondent’s coat, I said, “He’s talking?”
“Not yet, but probably soon,” Jules said.
I swallowed hard. I’d have not had Duff hear that last. And heard it she had.
Coldly, she said, “Give me a moment before you leave, Hector. I may be able to scare-up some needle-nosed pliers in case you want to personally pull out this prisoner’s remaining fingernails for persuasion.”
“I’m not gonna do that,” I said. “Jesus, I’m no torturer. And neither are the boys. These Germans need to be focused on war crimes’ trials and the like. It doesn’t profit them to be closed-mouth now. I’m counting on this one cheerfully cooperating.”
“Perhaps I should come along,” Duff said. “I think I should tag along to provide counterbalance in case your boys haven’t been so well-behaved.” She nodded at Jules’ feet. The tops of his brown boots were bloodstained, actually crisscrossed with patterns of blood spray.
“Traveling the streets is even more unsafe by night,” I said to her. “Technically, we’re still under German curfew, you know.”
“Then you could wait until morning to go, Hector.” Duff reached for my lapels, as if to strip me of my coat.
Jules looked agitated. He said, “The camera man, he is not in good health. It’s true. And he says he will only talk to you, boss.” He fidgeted, then added, “Bernard said you should hurry.” He looked at his own feet. “He said you should really hurry.”
He smiled uncertainly at me, then nodded again at Duff. “I didn’t know you had a friend here, Grand Capitaine. I mean, Monsieur Hector. I mean, Hector.”
I opened the door for him, urged him through it. He backed out, bowing again at Duff, clutching tightly to his Sten gun. Through the closing crack, I said, “Give us a minute, Jules. I’ll meet you in the courtyard. I need to talk to my wife, first.”
Duff said, “Better you just follow him out there, Hector. You told him you’d meet him, so you’ve made up your mind to go along. Time spent talking to me is time wasted. It seems to me your prisoner—or rather, your boys’ prisoner—is bleeding to death from whatever bloody things they’ve done to him.”
***
Jules was choking down a cigarette, sweating in the moonlight. He saw me coming, said, “Monsieur Lassiter, I truly am sorry for causing trouble with your wife.”
“I just need to not drag this out, Jules. Where are we going, and how far?” I pulled out my own cigarette and a lighter. “Please say it’s close.”
“It’s very close. Rue de Vaugirard.”
“I blew a stream of smoke and slipped off my jacket, hooking it over the crook of my index finger. It was far too muggy to be running around in the thing tonight. I said, “Lead on, MacDuff.”
“What?”
“Show me the way, Jules,” I said. “And let’s do make it brisk.”
***
Two Maquis dressed in ragtag bits of foraged uniforms stood sentry outside a shuttered café at the corner of Rue Saint-Placide. Jules said to them, “We are still in time, n’est-ce pas?”
One of the Maquis said, “It would seem so. They’ve hauled no corpses out, recently.” They waved us inside with their carbines.
Moans of pain from behind a door I presumed led to the kitchen. I found I had no appetite to see the state of the man they’d been working over. I called out, “Bernard? Come out here, pal.”
Bernard backed through the swinging kitchen door, wiping his hands on a bloodstained
towel. His uniform and boots, however, weren’t splattered with blood as Jules’ were. Bernard tossed the town in a wastebasket and shoved his hands in his pants pockets. “I’m glad you made it before he expired.”
I said, “How badly have you worked him over?” Frowning, I pointed at Jules’ boots. “Figure based on those, it must be pretty nasty.”
“Non, Hector,” Bernard said, lighting a cigarette. “He resisted my men’s attempts to subdue him. As a result of that stupid resistance, he was inadvertently gut-shot in the street with his own gun. Jules helped carry him back, hence the blood on his boots. Believe me, we couldn’t add meaningfully to this man’s pain at this point.”
“It’s a bad wound?”
“Fatal anytime now,” Bernard said. “He asked for you specifically. There isn’t much time left. We’ve done what we can, but none of us are doctors.”
“If he asked for me, he must be tied to Höttl,” I said.
“Of that there can be no doubt,” Bernard said. “That connection he doesn’t even try to deny.” Bernard took my arm, guiding me toward the kitchen door. “Truly, he has little time left. We must hurry, Hector.”
“Right.”
They had the German sprawled out on a kitchen counter. They’d spread some towels under him, but more blood was already pooling at his back. I said softly to Bernard, “You did check to see that there’s no spare cutlery in this place, right?”
“Absolument. And he’s not moving with that hole in his torso, Hector.”
The German was a bit older than I’d expected him to be, maybe pushing forty. Leaning over him, still a bit wary, I said, “You’re a bit long-in-the-tooth, pal. I know you Nazis are down now to fielding old men and little boys against us lately, but you don’t strike me as a fresh conscript. So you’re what, an idealist?”
The German was husky and blond. He had gray eyes. His skin was very pale, possibly because of all his blood-loss. I’d wager his complexion otherwise usually ran-to-ruddy. Somehow, he found a voice, surprisingly firm: “Lassiter? Is that you, Lassiter?”
“That’s right,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“Doesn’t matter, now that you’re here, Lassiter.”
Again, the voice was surprisingly loud, even strident. As he said it, he turned his head away from me. I realized he was directing his words into the discarded movie camera by his head.
Bernard was frowning too. I nodded at the camera and said, “Hand me that, won’t you?”
The French resistance fighter passed me the movie camera. I was no expert on such things, but I’d already spent some significant time around film sets. The weight and balance of the rig seemed all wrong. Not caring if I spoiled any film inside, I popped the latch and opened the camera. There was no film inside, just a radio with the transmission button taped down.
“This is a radio now, broadcasting to Höttl, I’m guessing,” I said, as much to myself as to Bernard. “The objective was to get me here,” I said. “This bastard’s a decoy duck! He’s nothing but damned bait!”
As I said that, there was gunfire outside. I was reaching for my gun when an explosion behind the restaurant blew off the rear door. The concussion from the explosion nearly knocked me from my feet. Two uniformed Germans ran through the black, billowing smoke. They strafed Bernard and Jules with machine guns, nearly cutting them in half.
They swiveled their guns at my heart. I stopped reaching for my Mauser. Cursing, ears ringing so I couldn’t hear my own profanities, I raised my hands.
Through swirling smoke and dust, a slender man in an SS uniform stepped into the kitchen, pointing a Luger at my head.
That nasty, livid scar. That wicked grin.
Werner Höttl said, “Keep your hands raised, Lassiter. Then you’ll be escorted outside by my men. We’re going to take you someplace more private even than this.”
Still unable to clearly hear even my own voice, I said, “Why not shoot me here?”
Höttl smiled. “We will take you someplace where your screams can’t be heard, but where they can be recorded without any ambient distractions. You’re going to suffer terribly, and I’m going to film your ordeal.” He smiled and winked. He said, “I hope you’re ready for your close up.”
He looked down at the German laying on the counter with his fatal belly wound. He stroked the man’s hair and said, “You did well, Hans. Now, your earned release.” Höttl raised his Luger and shot the man in the head.
26
I was led at gunpoint by nearly a dozen German uniforms with Höttl at the tail, running a handheld camera.
The interior of the abandoned café now looked like a Chicago killing floor: Bernard, Jules… all my irregulars lay strewn around the floor in bloody pools.
I squinted into the late-afternoon sunlight. The two resistance fighters who had been guarding the door were also dead on the street, both shot through the head.
Höttl said to his men, “Turn him around, quickly.” I was jerked around by both arms.
As Höttl turned his camera on me, he said, “See that setting sun, Lassiter? Observe the quality and warmth of its light. This is what we filmmakers call, ‘the golden hour.’ The shadows stand in greater contrast. The light at this hour, just as dusk is coming on, can flatter even the coarsest subject. Savor this sunlight, Lassiter. This is the last sunset you’ll ever see. I’m afraid for many reasons, your screams not being the least of them, the rest of our film will be made under artificial lights.”
“Why film me at all, Höttl?” Something wet was trailing down my cheek. Not tears. When it reached my lips, I realized from the coppery taste it was blood. But not my own blood; perhaps bloody spray from Jules or Bernard.
I said, “Hitler will be dead before he can ever screen your damned movie. And you? I figure another forty-eight hours, seventy-two at the outside, and your side will be routed. It’d be a better use of your time to try and get out of this city before it’s locked down for your sorry types.”
Höttl smiled from behind his camera. “Heh! All of this you speak of is hypothetical. Here is the one certain thing, Lassiter. You will be dead soon. That is coming, without question. The only mystery attached to any of this is how much pain you will suffer, how much of your body you will vaingloriously sacrifice to ruin, before you inevitably break down and tell me what I want to know. The faster you answer the question between us, the more swiftly you’ll earn the gift of death, like that aide of mine back there.”
He fiddled with his camera a bit, still filming me struggling against the quartet of Nazis gripping my arms. Höttl said, “As to me recording your agonies, well, that is a film for my private collection. At least at first. You see, I have built quite an array of such, we shall call them, short subjects. I don’t have it readily handy, or I could actually screen for you the film I made of Jean Moulin’s last hours. It would give a taste of what’s in store for you.”
Höttl smiled again. “Moulin endured longer than nearly any of the others. His fortitude almost pushed the duration of my film from what my peers would regard as a short subject into the approximate length of a feature film. My good friend, Herr Barbie, was most scientific in his handling of Moulin’s torture. It was quite prolonged.”
The notion of Jean Moulin’s torture and death being preserved on film made me nauseous. I said, “Don’t remember you being so sadistic in the old days, Werner.”
“Sadism? Pah. I’m practicing my craft, Lassiter. The cinema is truth at twenty-four frames a second. When I film the agonies of Germany’s enemies, I’m capturing another facet of life, that’s all. One day, I mean to put some of these private films together for a public showing. Perhaps you’ll make the final cut, Lassiter. I think I shall call the film The Garden of Suffering. Perhaps I will set the images against the music of Prokofiev. I fancy the Dance of the Knights. Say what you will about the filthy Soviets, but they certainly can write stirring music.”
Höttl lowered his camera, frowning at the sky. “The light is failing. The
magic hour is gone.” He jerked his head at this men. “Load him up now.”
***
I was hustled into the back of a truck. A black hood was pulled over my head and my hands cuffed behind my back.
Under the circumstances, I was hoping for a longer, more leisurely drive. Anything to postpone Höttl’s bloody attentions.
What I got was a flurry of neck-snapping stops and jack-rabbit starts. We made turns that threatened to take the truck up on two wheels and that twice threw me from my seat.
Yet I had the sense we traveled less than four blocks.
***
I was tossed into what seemed to be an abandoned meat locker. It was cold and dark and stinking of the ghost aromas of stale blood and old meat.
The walls looked thick, probably good as soundproof. As torture chambers went, Bernard would likely have approved.
***
There was a single, overhead bulb. For perhaps the thousandth time, I checked my watch by its light. I’d been in the room for perhaps four hours. The place was stifling. I doffed my coat and later, my shirt. The room’s furnishings consisted of a stained mattress and a bucket for a slop-jar. Peeling paint and lots of cobwebs. Next to the mattress, there was a canteen of water that might not be tainted.
I’d expected immediate torture. Maybe Höttl was being the consummate auteur, ulcerating to get his “film set” and lighting just so before he set to work on me.
At midnight, overwhelmed by rising and falling blood-pressure, low blood sugar and an inability to soldier on awake in the face of mutilation and murder, I pulled back on my shirt and sacked out on that soiled mattress, tucking my boots and coat under my head for a pillow. I could hear the drip-drip of water from somewhere behind a rear wall; the soft scuttling of mice or rats.
I was nauseous, scared and cut off from any prospect of rescue.
Roll the Credits: A Hector Lassiter novel Page 16