by Rick Blechta
I smiled (I hoped) disarmingly at the Austrian. “If the chance comes up, I will ask Tory if she knows anything about the whereabouts of the manuscript.”
Schatzader stood. “That is the best that can be hoped for. I am sorry to have imposed myself upon you. I am afraid that collecting can very easily become a mania, and I have always been an impatient man.” He again stuck out his hand. “Thank you for coming, Herr Lukesh, and I wish to offer any help I can give to you or your wife. Call on me any time. Now, Emil will return you to your hotel.”
Schatzader touched a small control panel on his desk, and Beethoven’s 7th started up where it had left off, then he returned to his window watching, so I shrugged and headed for the door, feeling as if I’d just been dismissed. Before reaching the door, however, it opened, and one of the most stunning women I have ever seen walked into the room.
Statuesque is an overused phrase, but it must have been coined to describe the kind of person I now faced. Her hair, worn up at the moment, was jet black and her skin the colour of fresh milk. Her make-up had been artfully applied to draw attention to her dark eyes, which were large and liquid with a smoldering fire at their core. Her body? Suffice it to say that even hidden under a rather restrained suit and with her unbuttoned overcoat still on, enough showed to make me want to see a whole lot more.
“Heinrich?” she said in English. “I did not know you had a guest.”
I turned around and caught an odd expression flitting across Schatzader’s face as he crossed the room to where we stood. “Gertrud, Liebling, ich dachte, du seiest heute abend in die Oper gegangen.”
The woman stuck steadfastly to English, which told me she knew who I was. “I did not feel like sitting through an opera, after all. Puccini always takes such a toll on me.”
Schatzader switched back to English again. “My guest was just leaving.”
“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” she asked with a coquettish smile.
“This is Oscar Lukesh, the husband of Victoria Morgan.” Schatzader turned to me. “And this, Herr Lukesh, is my wife, Gertrud.”
Her mouth smiled, but her eyes certainly didn’t as she took my hand. “We are so sad about everything that has happened. Poor Victoria, such an...entertaining person. Who would have believed that she was capable of such a terrible thing? I am so sorry for you!”
“It remains to be seen whether she was capable of anything other than running away,” I returned rather stiffly.
“Ah, the steadfast husband, gallant to the end.” She looked me over from head to foot. “Your wife is a very fortunate woman to have you as her champion.”
Schatzader interrupted. “Gertrud, we really should not keep Herr Lukesh. It is a long drive back to the downtown at this time of day.” He walked over to the door and held it open. “Herr Lukesh?”
As I walked down the stairway, I heard Beethoven thundering forth from the room I’d just left. This time, though, the first movement of the Fifth. An interesting choice...
Something had upset Schatzader. Was it something I’d said—or his wife?
***
When I finally got back to my hotel room, my brain was as sore as my feet. This time I had been waylaid by the press since I’d been dropped off at the door—“no comment” was my standard response. Flopping onto the bed, I picked up the remote and turned on CNN . Tory was still one of the big stories, and an “up-to-theminute report” said she was still on the run. Taken that way, no news was good news.
I called Ohio to commiserate with her parents. My father-in-law was still apoplectic, and my mother-in-law sounded as worried as I’d ever heard her. I had nothing to report to them, and they unfortunately had nothing to report to me. A quick call to my parents in Brooklyn managed to worsen my depression, since my mother (who has never liked Tory) demanded that I come home at once and live with them until I could get a divorce. Lovely.
With no appetite and sleep a mile off, I had a choice of watching TV in German (I was already amazed at how well the actors on American sitcoms can speak the language) or waiting to see the axe fall on Tory via CNN . On a mere whim, I pulled the laptop over from the other side of the bed, plugged the modem cord into the side of the hotel phone and switched the machine on. Might as well amuse myself on the Internet. A couple of keystrokes got me the local access number from the database Tory keeps for her travels, and I logged on. Among the usual dross of jokes and chatter from friends, I had an overwhelmingly important email waiting.
At long last, my darling wife had seen fit to check in.
In retrospect, I still feel like a total dummy. How else should I have expected Tory to get in touch? Since she’d gone on the road fulltime, email had been the way we’d communicated most often. Call me totally preoccupied with other things or just plain stupid, I should have seen it sooner.
Even though I pretended to be doing other things while waiting for Roderick to return, my evening was spent rereading Tory’s email at intervals until I could have recited it from memory.
Franz Zimmermann, Tory’s and my mentor while he was conducting the Potomac Symphony, always said to look for the deeper meaning in a piece of music. “Good composers write good music. Great composers insinuate their genius deep into their music. Their art is not always obvious. Look deep. Look at the inner parts. Look for the meaning that lies at the heart of things!”
I tried to follow that sage advice with the words Tory had sent. Her email told me a great deal about what had happened but did not communicate much about what she was feeling. Even though it must have been horrific to live through, her telling of finding a dead body next to her in bed seemed rather detached and clinical. Was this the way she really felt, or was it simply a defense mechanism? Several comments made it obvious she thought I’d still be back in Canada. Did she honestly believe that I wouldn’t come to try and help her? Her closing words—“If you just walk away, I will completely understand. In fact, I encourage you to do it. You don’t deserve any more heartache from me”—could they have been Tory in self-pity mode, or truly the way she felt?
When Roderick knocked tiredly on my door shortly after two a.m, I practically leaped on him to get his take on Tory’s lengthy message. He sat down at the table and took a long time at it, scrolling back several times to reread something. Finally, he leaned back and rubbed his eyes.
“So what do you think?” I asked eagerly.
“It’s much of what I expected.”
“Meaning?”
“I’m not saying that I believe Tory slit von Heislinger’s throat, but if it were to turn out that she had, there’s certainly a strong case for diminished responsibility. In any event, her overall tone sounds as if she’s handling this all right. I’ve been worried over her mental state. It’s also obvious she’s found someone with whom she feels safe. Thank God she got out of the country as quickly as she did.”
“But where the hell is she and how long is she going to be able to avoid the police?”
“More importantly, what purpose does she think her continued flight will serve? From the growing public pressure and the media hysteria, it seems to me distinctly more dangerous for her to still be on the loose.”
“I couldn’t agree more. She knows how I’ll feel about certain aspects of her stay with von Heislinger, so I can at least understand why she might not ask for help, but why the hell doesn’t she call her mother or Marty or someone? She’s not going to get out of this alone.”
Roderick looked glum. “I’m beginning to fear that the only way we’ll get an answer to that question is when she’s collared by the coppers.” Since he looked as if he were about to fall on his face with exhaustion, I regretfully told Roderick that a further report on our day’s activities would keep until morning. He did tell me that he’d managed to find out some interesting things. I told him the same.
“Keep a upper lip stiff and all that,” he said with a grin. “See you in the morning.”
“Ten o’clock okay?”
Ro
derick stopped with his hand on the door and sighed, “If we must...”
As the door shut, I sat down on the bed and pulled over Tory’s laptop. Even if I really didn’t know how I should respond to what she’d sent me, Tory at least needed to know that I’d received it.
It only took a few minutes to pound out the words. Maybe Tory would see fit to respond—wherever she was.
As I disconnected the laptop’s modem line from the telephone, I noticed that the message light was flashing. On checking, there was a message from the front desk that a note had been delivered and was marked urgent. I asked them to send it up, since I felt too exhausted to make the trip down. The bellhop was knocking on my door with the envelope in a matter of two minutes. Word was probably getting around that I was a good tipper.
The envelope was rather nondescript, unlike the quality of Schatzader’s earlier in the day. The contents, though, trumped his meagre words by a country mile.
Dear Mister Lukesh,
You do not know who I am, but I can be trustworthy. I have information that may lead to the clearing of your wife's good name. If you are interested in obtaining this thing, you will please meet me tomorrow at 9:30 Uhr at the Donnerbrunnen which will be found in centre of the Neuer Markt.
We have only this one chance to meet and strike a deal. You must make double-sure you are not followed since this is a dangerous time for us all.
You will tell NO ONE of what I have written to you and you must COME ALONE TO THIS MEETING. I will know if you do not and you will not see me again. If you do not follow my instructions then all hope for your wife is lost.
Do not try this message to trace. It will do no good and I will withdraw offer.
A friend
Was it a prank of some sort? Maybe a journalist looking for a scoop? A crackpot?
Or was it legit?
Maybe if I’d taken Roderick into my confidence from the start, had him accompany me the next morning and planted him as a lookout, we might have been able to avoid more tragedy. Maybe it wouldn’t have done a damn thing. I don’t know. The whole miserable episode in Austria is filled with “could ofs” and “should ofs.” Who am I to say why things went wrong?
At that point, at the end of a very long and stressful day, I was only worried about not letting a golden opportunity slip through my fingers. It was the first bit of good news I’d had, after all—other than knowing that Tory was safely out of Austria.
One thing was for certain: no matter what this turned out to be, crank email or manna from heaven, nine thirty a.m. would find me waiting at the Donnerbrunnen—whatever the hell that was.
I set the alarm for seven, stripped down to my boxers and tried to get some sleep, hoping that I could still my racing mind for at least a few hours.
***
Walking around the circle of the Donnerbrunnen at precisely nine thirty, I felt very smug about the way I’d handled things so far that morning and secure in the knowledge that I had not been followed. It had been quite easy, actually: grab my soft cap and sunglasses, use the loading platform of the hotel, make sure no one was watching, walk a few blocks, hail a cab. Easy. Well, not that easy.
Several cabs had passed, but none had stopped until I was next to the Opera House. I’d asked the cabby where I might find the Neuer Markt. In answer, he’d pointed over his shoulder sadly. “It is just behind those buildings.” When I asked for more complete directions, he handed me a thick brochure claiming to list all the “Grand Sights of Vienna.”
“You want to see the Kaisergruft, the place where the old emperors are buried?” he asked in the thickest accent I’d had to wade through since my arrival in Austria.
“No. I’m meeting someone at a place called the Donnerbrunnen. Do you know where it is?”
“But of course! Everyone in Vienna knows the Donnerbrunnen.”
“Er...what is it?”
The cabby turned to stare at me as he waited for a light to change. “It is a fountain! ‘Brunnen’ means fountain in our language. It was made by Donner. Donnerbrunnen,” he repeated as if talking to a simpleton. Then he chuckled. “Are you meeting a woman, by any chance?”
“Ah, yes, I am.”
“One of the fountain’s statues especially appeals to the women. You will know it.”
***
I stationed myself at the Donnerbrunnen near the particular statue the cabby must have been referring to: a male form climbing into or out of the enormous, intricately-shaped bowl of the fountain, his naked behind sticking out for all the world to see. According to the brochure I’d been given, the nude and his three companion statues spaced around the edge of the fountain were “allegorical representations of each of the four tributaries of the Danube.” Idly, I wondered which tributary reminded the sculptor of someone’s posterior. The statue must have caused quite a stir when it was, ah, unveiled in the late 1700s.
Tory would certainly like it, I thought with a twinge.
At first glance, the Neuer Markt seemed an unlikely place for a surreptitious meeting: a narrow plaza full of cars and lots of pedestrians adding to the bustle of a typical urban morning. The fountain dominating the center was indeed magnificent. As I looked closer at my surroundings, though, I realized it was not such a bad location which my mysterious correspondent had picked. Stationed properly, one could see trouble a long way off, and there must have been a dozen ways out of the square if that were to happen. Besides, who would expect a private meeting in so public a place?
Even so, when the meeting began ten minutes later, I managed to be looking in the wrong direction.
“Guten Morgen, Herr Lukesh.”
I jumped about a mile and whirled around. No one was close by except for a small woman with her back to me. She must have been the one who had spoken—either that or the statue next to her, and I assumed he would have possessed a deeper voice.
“Are you the person who asked me to meet them here?” I asked the woman, suddenly aware that the assumption that my “contact” spoke decent English may have been foolish. If that turned out to be the case, we were in trouble since my German was limited to musical terms and food.
She turned and regarded me, then said in passable English, “You look very much like the photograph your wife carries in her violin case, except that you are taller than I would have thought.”
I asked, “And you are...?”
“I am a friend, and I am to be trusted.”
“Why?”
“Because I helped Fräulein Tory to escape.”
Wheels began to turn in my head. She must be the maid Tory had mentioned in her email.
She prompted me. “You have spoken to your wife?”
I stood there at a loss. The little maid tilted her head in recognition of what she read on my face and smiled more broadly. “You have spoken to your wife, I see. I hope that Fräulein Tory is well?”
I saw no reason to prevaricate. “She sent an email saying that she was, but I have no idea where she is at the moment. Do you?”
The maid was a good-looking girl in a buxom sort of way and appeared much changed from the description of her in Tory’s email.
Her hair was now cut short and smartly styled rather than done up in two braids curled around her head in the Austrian peasant way. She wore jeans, sneakers and a longish, brown leather jacket. Her clothing was topped off by a bright green beret set at a jaunty angle, and she looked altogether at home in the big city. Tory had called her a simple, country girl. I wondered what she’d say if she saw her maid now?
“You have followed my instructions exactly? I warn you again, I will not tolerate foolishness.”
“No one knows I’m here, and I’m sure I was not followed,” I said earnestly, aware that I sounded a bit too much like someone in a spy thriller.
“I know. I have been watching you since you arrived.” She pulled back the sleeve of her jacket and made a show of looking at her watch. “I notice that you have a Während Ihres Wien-Aufenthaltes Informationen in your c
oat pocket. Why don’t we talk while we appear to consult it?”
Standing at a fountain in the middle of a busy square on a sunny day while looking at a page in my tourist brochure (with much accompanying pointing and such), the maid told me things that just about made my hair stand on end.
“I do not know the whole story, but the baron had one of his special evenings planned for your wife,” she began.
“Special evening?”
The maid looked uncomfortable. “Baron Rudolph had—how do you say it?—great lust for all women, and lately, especially for your wife. He took her to his indoor garden, and they spent several hours there. When he came upstairs with her, I catch a glimpse of them in the hall. She was over his shoulder and...had no clothes. She appeared to be very drunken. Fritz, who was the baron’s personal servant, told me Baron Rudolph and your wife shared a bottle of champagne after the playing of the music that evening.”
Trying to keep my expression blank, I processed this information. Half a bottle of champagne would certainly make Tory pretty tight, but not drunk enough to require carrying—unless she wanted to be carried.
She continued, “The baron told me I would not be needed any more that evening, went into your wife’s room and shut the door. The next time I saw him, he was dead.”
“You said you had information that might clear my wife,” I said struggling to keep the dismay I felt out of my voice. “How is this supposed to help? You just put your employer alone with Tory in her room when he was murdered!”
The girl shook her head. “Your wife said you can be a most impatient man. I have not yet told you everything.” She again looked uncomfortable. “The baron liked to view his conquests afterwards. He made secret video tapes of them.”