Roll the Credits: A Hector Lassiter novel

by Craig McDonald

  “Of course,” I said softly. My voice didn’t sound my own. It was now thin and trembling.

  “We may still get to that. As I am trapped by the city’s fall, perhaps I should stretch this out.”

  “You have had a long time to hate me,” I said.

  Höttl laughed. “Indeed, my friend. Indeed. I did toy with taking my time.” He was looking at the end of his cigarette again. He did that with something like intent, it seemed to me. I felt my sweat running in cold rivulets down my spine.

  “But now, Lassiter, I find I have little zeal for the slow build. Of course I could delegate the early phases of your torture, but then there is the possibility of my men learning my secret, the fathering of that little Jew bitch. I think we will subscribe to that old movie axiom of ‘getting in late and getting out early.’ ‘Cut to the action,’ so to speak.”

  I said thickly, “Good. I concur. Kill me now and be done with it. If I knew where she was, of course I would resist telling you as long as I could hold out. But the bad news for both of us is I honestly don’t know where the girl is. I turned her over to American adoption authorities and never looked back. She could be anywhere between Wildwood, New Jersey and Seattle, Washington. Between El Paso, Texas and Detroit, Michigan. Hell, she may have been moved to Mexico or Canada. It’s a big goddamn continent, Werner, and American adoption records are sealed so tight J. Edgar Hoover himself would be hard-pressed to access them.”

  Höttl smiled. “Your legs are shaking very hard. Your heart rate is so elevated I can see the pulsing in your chest. Your ears are red with your spiking blood pressure. You stink of fear, Amerikaner.”

  He reached over and ground his cigarette out in my thigh. I tried to bite back my scream and failed. He swung a fist into my mouth. Through bloodied teeth I said, “Typical director, abusing the writers who give you the material you need to realize your precious visions.”

  “That’s right, Lassiter. You are a writer. You have to have dexterity to type, yes?”

  God. I imagined him breaking my fingers, one a time, and maybe in multiple places. My writing was keyed, so to speak, to my fingers’ ability to pace my mind. At forty-four, would my hands ever heal correctly? Would all those fractures to bone invite in the arthritis I constantly feared might someday rob me of my ability to slings words onto paper at white-hot speed?

  Höttl was watching me closely. He lit another cigarette, then leaned over to the table and picked up a long knife. “Now, even though I promise you you’re going to die here, today, in that very chair, even though I swear to you that is the truth, you still haven’t reconciled yourself to the fact, have you, Lassiter? You still imagine some future for yourself. As a writer, you must have your hands, your fingers.”

  He turned the knife so the movie lights glinted along its blade. “I’m going to cut your fingers off, one at a time. If you’re still holding out after your fingers are all gone, then I will set fire to your hands to cauterize the stumps. Then I’m going to castrate you.”

  I believed him. Oh, I believed every bloody word.

  “For the love of God, Höttl, I don’t know where that child is. I swear to God, I don’t know where to find her!”

  Höttl wasn’t having any of that. He said, “It’s that holding out of hope that always makes these sessions so sadly tedious in the early going. Once hope is taken from the subject, things continue apace. But it’s shattering that fruitless sense of hope that there is a future that is so critical to obtaining results.” He ground his cigarette out again in the same burn wound he’d made with the first cigarette.

  When I stopped screaming, he said, “I know you still harbor illusions of hope, of escape, because you’re still clutching to that pill my officer gave you last evening. Somewhere in your mind, you’re hoping you pricked his conscience, and he perhaps got word to the outside world of your predicament.”

  I looked back at him, knowing I looked stricken but unable to suppress it.

  Höttl was beaming. “Dear fellow, that suicide pill you were given last night is nothing more than a laxative. Günther is not American and he’s not OSS or a spy of any kind whatever. He was, how would you put it? He was a plot complication. For our film together, you see?”

  He lit a third cigarette. “This one,” he said as he fired it up, “I’m going to put out in your left eye.” He shook out the match. “It’s like this. I arranged for Günther’s little drama with you last night because I wanted to give you that fraction of hope, and then tear it from under you now. To hasten your reconciliation to the hopelessness of your situation and your inevitable death. I wanted you to see how completely you are in my hands, here. And, of course, I filmed the whole exchange. Now, on the subject of hands, this is your last chance to tell me where the girl is before I take both of your thumbs.”

  I was gagging, already visualizing him slicing off my fingers. And I was reeling from the disclosure last night’s scene with the guard was just that, a bit of cruel theater. A put-up job and a nasty con. I was losing all control now, felt myself slipping toward the impulse to beg for my life.

  Höttl grinned and stroked my cheek. “You’re very nearly broken. But not quite. Therefore, I’m going to cut off your left thumb now. Only after, I’m going to put the question to you about where I might find my child.”

  The cigarette hung between his lips as he rose and held the knife up to my face.

  He said, “It was perhaps thoughtless of me not to let a writer compose a few last words, to set down his last thoughts on paper while he still had the tools—the fingers—to do so. I suppose you could give some dictation to Günther. Some last true sentences.”

  Höttl gripped my wrist. He was surprisingly strong for such a scarecrow of a man. “Now, don’t fight this, Lassiter, or else you might lose two, even three more fingers.”

  Although I knew the chair was fastened firmly to the floor, I still struggled to tip it over. I was bathed in sweat, trying to twist my damp wrist free from his grip; aiming to slam my forehead into his face as he clutched at my fingers and pried my thumb away from my fist for a clean cut.

  There was gunfire outside, screams.

  Höttl snarled, pivoting around to face the door. Someone was pounding at the door now, demanding in English it be opened.

  Something about the male voice was vaguely familiar.

  Now whoever was on the other side of that door was shooting at the lock.

  Werner Höttl turned on me, wild-eyed, then slashed the knife across my chest. He raised the blade to plunge it into my crotch when the first bullets actually penetrated the front door.

  Höttl tossed aside the knife and ran up a flight of interior stairs, screaming something to his cameramen in Polish. The two men exchanged looks, then got down on their knees and raised their hands, apparently opting to surrender rather than doing their fleeing master’s bidding. There were more shouts from outside, and then the door was kicked open.

  29

  The first three through the door were our boys, machine guns at the ready, all business.

  Two more soldiers came in behind them. The five of them made sure I was alone in the room, then waved in Duff and a medic.

  When I saw Duff, I said, “Höttl, he just ran up those stairs! Send these boys after him. If they hustle they can maybe still get him!”

  Looking stricken, staring at my sliced open pectorals and the burns in my leg, Duff shrugged off her coat and covered my lap. I said, “Damn it, Höttl can still be caught if we hurry!”

  Duff stroked my cheek. “No, Hector. We were only allowed to come and get you if we promised to let Höttl go.”

  What?

  My mounting rage at the prospect of letting Höttl escape was swept aside by a voice. From outside, his voice called, gruff and urgent. “Duff, is Lasso okay?”

  Hemingway.

  Duff and the medic locked eyes. He nodded. Duff yelled back, “He’s okay, Ernest. We got here just in time. Hector will be okay thanks to you. You saved him.”
>
  “That’s good,” I heard Hem say. “That’s really good. I’m going now, gotta get my fat ass out of here. I’ve got my own hearing board to sweat after all. Can’t be caught doing things like this.”

  This long pause, then Hem yelled back, “Tell Lasso I hope he kills that Kraut son of a bitch someday. Tell Lasso I said that, won’t you?”

  ***

  They got me untied and up on my feet.

  I shrugged off their hands.

  Still naked, still seething, I kicked over the movie lights and tore open the cameras. I pitched the film reels of my interrogation out into the punishing sun.

  30

  I woke up in Gertrude’s bedroom. Duff was sitting in a bedside chair. She put down the book she was reading, a French translation of my novel One True Sentence, and smiled.

  She said, “Six stitches in your chest, a cigarette burn that will probably leave a small scar, one that won’t show much under your leg hair, and a bruised kidney. Could have been so much worse.”

  Duff rose, parked her shapely bottom on the bed, then leant forward and kissed my forehead. “All things considered, not much to signify, and thank God for that.”

  She kissed me on the mouth. “It’s your head I’m worried about, Hector. The terrible time you spent in Hottl’s hands. I saw the stuff he’d set out on that table. To come so close to that kind of torture has to have done things to your mind. I tried to put myself in your place. Tried to imagine having to endure that. I can’t. I couldn’t. I’d break for certain.”

  “Oh, he broke me,” I said flatly. I could feel my chin trembling. “He had me terrified, you’re right. I was close to falling to pieces.”

  “You didn’t tell him anything though, right?” Duff gripped my hand hard. “The important thing is he didn’t win. Isn’t that so? You didn’t given up Marie?”

  I searched her blue eyes. “I might have talked. I told myself I’d die first. But he’d nearly broken me and maybe I would have betrayed Marie if you hadn’t come.”

  “I don’t believe that, Hector. Not at all. Neither do you, deep down.”

  I said thickly, “We’ll never know that for certain.” I ran my fingers through Duff’s ginger hair. “Goddamn wonderful Hem… How?”

  “I sought Ernest out,” Duff said. “I won’t apologize for doing that, Hec. I don’t know what happened between you two. He’s not talking, and I suppose you’ll never tell me, either. Despite it all, Ernest saved your life, Hector. I was at an utter loss to help you. Hem could.”

  “The brass wouldn’t throw in?”

  “Not at all. They were apparently willing to sacrifice you. One said it was what you earned yourself by playing soldier—yes, that very phrase again. I didn’t know where to look for you. All my OSS connections pleaded ignorance.”

  Wincing, I shifted the pillows and sat up straighter. “So you went to Hem?”

  “Word of mouth was pinpointing Papa’s progress into Paris,” Duff said. “He’s a phenomenon, and the news of his arrival preceded him. I went to the Ritz, which is where Hem went almost immediately upon reaching the city. He was very gracious to me. He listened to my story. Papa has his own connections, sources. Despite everything, he didn’t hesitate to help you, Hector. You two really should talk. He was thrilled to help save you.”

  When I didn’t respond to that, Duff said, “Ernest pulled strings, found his own OSS source that confirmed Höttl was under observation. Our boys had seen you snatched and knew where you were taken. Because of Hem and pressure from a general friend, we were allowed to attempt a rescue on promise we’d let Höttl go, unmolested.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “That’s just what Ernest said when he heard the terms of your rescue. Would you rather I hadn’t done anything?”

  “Christ, no! You saved my life. You and Hem.”

  “Hemingway really did all that. I was just along.” She smiled. “Hem’s arrogant, headstrong and juvenile in perplexing ways. Suspiciously too-macho and a terrible narcissist, I can tell. He’s probably slightly mad now. But you know, I think I adore Ernest anyway.”

  “Hem has some great qualities,” I said. “If you can get word to him, thank him again for helping me.”

  “He’s still at the Ritz,” Duff said. “He’s liberating it. We can go together.”

  I shook my head. “No way. I was naked in a chair, about to be cut into pieces, Duff. Hem saved me from that, yes. But if he wouldn’t walk through a door to talk to me when he was in the role of über hero…?” I shrugged. “Clearly, our central issues stand.”

  “I am your wife. You could tell me what caused this rift.”

  “Ancient history,” I said. I waved a hand. “You know, I just want a drink.”

  “I have pain medicine for that.”

  “No, I want a drink.”

  Duff slid off the bed. “Okay. You’ve certainly earned one.”

  I said, “I did learn one important thing from the past couple of days. Regardless of anything else in this mad, bad and burning-down world, Werner Höttl is still committed to murdering Marie. She’ll never be safe until Höttl is dead.”

  31

  Most of that Friday, Liberation Day, I remained in bed. We found a radio station playing American tunes: I’m Gonna Love That Guy, Kitty Kallen’s They’re Either Too Young or Too Old, and You’d Be So Nice to Come Home to. Saturday, I couldn’t resist the raucous sounds of celebration filtering up from the streets.

  Duff found me struggling to put on a shirt. The blow to the kidney and the stitches across my chest had severely limited my mobility.

  “Let’s get out there and see it unfold,” I said. “We’re missing good history.”

  She smiled and helped me on with my shirt. “Sure. Let’s go do that.”

  ***

  As I’d promised, I tried to show Duff bits and pieces of my Paris as we weaved through the jubilant crowds down the narrow twisting streets I’d once walked with Brinke and Hem; later and even more fleetingly, with poor luckless Victoria.

  In many ways, our passage was reminiscent of that day I’d traversed the distance from Gertrude’s salon to the rooftop where Bernard and I first spotted that camera-toting German.

  Most of the activity was celebratory, but there were still some reprisals underway—beatings or even shootings of male collaborators and a few stray Germans who didn’t make it out of town in time. Some more women who’d consorted with Germans were having their heads shaved.

  I held Duff’s hand, wending our way to the Café du Dôme. I said, “Any word on Höttl? Did you, I don’t know, maybe ask Hem to work his network on the son of a bitch?”

  Duff stopped walking and turned me around to face her. “No, I haven’t done that. I took you at your word that the door between you two was to be closed again and locked. As to me looking, no. I’m keeping you on a short leash. Pulling you from Höttl’s clutches came at a price. I’d hoped to delay talking about this until you were feeling better.”

  It was a struggle not to put it to her in a snarl. “What price?”

  “It was tantamount to acknowledgment you’re sufficiently more than just a correspondent to justify Höttl snatching you. I’m afraid saving you strengthened SHAEF’s case that’s being built against you.”

  “I can’t think about that now,” I said. I thought, Those sons of bitches!

  I looked around, spotted a closer café. I pointed. “Looks like they have some liquor stock. C’mon, I’ll buy you some refreshment there. God, but I need a drink right now.”

  ***

  The next two days we passed indoors, holed up in Gertrude’s salon. I was working on a new novel and trying to savor my time with Duff… the good food and the wine.

  Word came with little warning that Gertrude was on her way back to the city, quite close to arriving, in fact. Duff and I hurriedly changed the sheets, straightened up the salon and greeted Miss Stein and Alice in the courtyard.

  Gertrude, looking very much her nearly seventy years, a
little gaunter than I’d ever seen her, limped up the path, leaning on a cane. Alice actually smiled at me.

  I introduced Duff and said, “We’ve been here for a few weeks, bunked on the salon floor, protecting your place and paintings from Werner Höttl. Everything’s like you left it. Except for one thing.”

  I hugged Alice then. She looked up at me frowning. I said, “That bottle of wine you gave me in 1940 is up there on the table, Alice. What do you say we all go toast the Liberation with that vino? After, Duff and I will get out of your way.”

  ***

  The rest of August we spent in a hotel. I was still trying to focus on the writing and keeping my nose clean, but it was hard to forget the SHAEF sword hanging over my head.

  That threat didn’t stop me from keeping an ear to the ground, still trying to locate Werner Höttl if he was still hiding somewhere in the city.

  The last day of the month, malaprop-prone Charles, propelled by the bloody forces of attrition to the status of my primary operative, dropped by for a lobby lounge consultation. He said, “It is a mystery, Grand Capitaine—”

  “Hector.”

  “It is a mystery, Hector. I have destroyed all my men to make infestations about Höttl’s whereabouts, but to no success. I think this German has somehow invaded capture and landscaped to some friendlier country. I can find no feetprints of the man.”

  “Deploy your men again, Charles,” I said. “Have them stay at their investigations. I’m convinced that son of a bitch hasn’t evaded capture or escaped yet. I think we can still have him.”

  32

  Duff and I wiled away the first two weeks of September in the manner of the long overdue honeymoon that the war had denied us when we married in 1942.

  During those two weeks, I didn’t play solider; I didn’t play reporter. I even gave up, for the most part, hunting for clues about where to lay my hands on Werner Höttl.