Hess had been thinking how unlucky he was coming on the night of a party but now realized it was an advantage. He pulled the .38 out of his pocket. With all the noise who would hear the gunshot? A boat zoomed by and he turned and glanced at it and when he looked back Joyce was gone.
The music stopped at 12:28. Hess, sitting on rocks under the terrace, heard the partying homosexuals leaving the house, getting in their cars. He heard horns honking and music and tires squealing. The first-floor lights went off at 1:17, the second-floor lights at 2:15. He moved up the waterside stairs to the terrace. There was a sliding glass door that led to the kitchen. He pulled and it opened, moved into the kitchen, scanning counters lined with bottles and glasses and platters of hors d’oeuvres.
He glanced into the salon and saw a figure moving across the empty room. Hess retreated through the kitchen into the pantry. In the dim light he saw a naked man open the refrigerator and drink from a juice carton, return it and close the door. The naked man walked out of the kitchen.
It was 2:42 a.m. when Hess moved up the winding staircase. He saw what he assumed were three bedrooms, all the doors closed. The Jewess had to be sleeping in one of them. Hess opened the first door. Looked into a big white room with a wall of white drapes closed against the lake on one side. There was a man asleep in the bed, his bald head sticking out of the covers, turned facing the drapes. What surprised him was the naked man coming out of the bathroom. They surprised each other. “Who the hell’re you?” He saw the gun, moved back in the bathroom. Hess shot him, walked out and closed the door.
Joyce was in the woods at the edge of the pit, her back to the firing squad, looking down at the pile of bodies dead and dying. She heard the loud reports of gunfire and saw women falling on both sides of her, waiting for the impact of the bullet.
Joyce opened her eyes, saw moonlight slice across the room where the drapes weren’t closed all the way. Heard gunfire in the house. She got up, opened the sliding door and went out to the balcony, heard the door to the bedroom open behind her. Ran down to the far end, heard someone on the balcony behind her, opened the sliding door to Larry’s room and went in. Larry was asleep. Marty was on the floor in the bathroom. She ran out of the room, saw Armand on his stomach on the landing outside her bedroom.
Joyce ran down the stairs, heart bouncing in her chest, made it to the bottom when she heard a gunshot, and felt something sting her shoulder. Ran out of the house to the empty lot next door that was overgrown with sea grape, got down on the ground. Her shoulder ached, she rubbed it and felt something wet and sticky on her arm.
Joyce heard him pushing through the heavy foliage, saw a foot in a Docksider, looked up through the leaves at a face in a baseball cap, trying to keep pressure on her shoulder that was now throbbing with pain, trying to stop the bleeding. She heard him crashing through the sea grape and then he was gone. Joyce got up, dizzy, thought she might pass out. Saw glimpses of him walking to a car that was parked on the side of the road about thirty feet away. She moved behind the wall of foliage, saw him get in the car and saw the lights go on and read the license number.
Twenty-three
The man who had followed Colette from the train station was sitting in a paneled VW bus, the kind tradesmen drove, parked across the street from her building. Colette zoomed in on his face with her telephoto lens. It was Franz Stigler, the MC from the Blackshirt rally. She hoped he was better at electrical wiring than he was at spying.
Hess had obviously been in contact with Stigler, told him to follow her. And although Hess was a wanted criminal, he evidently still held sway with the Blackshirts. Stigler looked to be alone although the rear of the van could have been filled with armed thugs.
Colette was leaving and wouldn’t be back for a while. She didn’t know what to do with the Van Gogh, couldn’t take it with her, so she hid it in her bedroom closet. Packed a bag and carried it to the front door.
She went into the kitchen, opened a drawer and took out a cook’s knife, touched the sharp edge with her thumb and sheathed the knife in a deep side pocket of her overcoat.
Colette walked out of her apartment, carried the suitcase down to her car, which was parked behind Stigler’s van. She could see his face in the van’s side mirror, watching her. She opened the car door, folded the seat forward against the steering wheel, lifted the suitcase in the backseat and pulled the front seat into the driving position. She kept the door open and moved toward Stigler’s van, crouched next to the rear wheel and drove the cook’s knife into the tire. There was a whoosh of air as the tire deflated, rubber resting on wheel rim.
The driver’s door flew open. Stigler came charging. “What are you doing?”
Colette ran back to her car, got in, closed the door and locked it as Stigler, in a rage, banged on the window, yanked on the door handle. But Colette was already rolling, Stigler running next to the car, and then he was in the rearview mirror, receding fast.
Colette had received Anke Kruger’s address from Gunter at Der Spiegel. Anke’s relationship with Ernst Hess had raised her profile in the tabloid press. Colette waited in front of Anke’s apartment building and hoped she wasn’t as obvious as Franz Stigler, or she would never get the information she needed.
She had been waiting for a couple hours when a taxi drove up to the apartment building. Leggy Anke got out with two shopping bags. Colette raced across the street and intercepted her on the sidewalk. “Anke.”
She was taller than Colette and prettier, long blonde hair and high cheekbones.
“Do I know you?”
“My name is Colette Rizik.”
“You’re the journalist. You have a lot of nerve coming here. I have nothing to say to you.” Anke moved away from Colette as if she had been rigged with high explosives.
“Ernst Hess stole paintings during the war,” Colette said, following her to the door.
“I am going to call the police.”
“No you’re not,” Colette said. “You don’t want to get involved, have your picture in the paper for helping a war criminal.”
“I’m not helping Ernst. I haven’t seen or talked to him for weeks.”
“Tell me what you know.”
Anke unlocked the door, pushed it open with her hip and shoulder, glanced back at Colette and said, “Okay, you can come in.”
The apartment building was big and solid, pre-war, old-world. It had six floors. Anke’s apartment was a corner unit on the fifth. They sat in trim black leather chairs in the salon, Anke clearly uneasy, meeting with the enemy, obvious tension between them.
“I don’t believe what you wrote about him.”
“You think I made it up? All of the facts are documented. Hess is a murderer.”
“Ernst is a good man, kind and generous.”
“Tell that to the six hundred Jews he murdered.” That seemed to take the wind out of her protests. “The photos from the article are from Hess’ apartment. His mementos. Can you imagine murdering innocent people and keeping photos to relive the memory?”
“You don’t know that.”
“There are two witnesses, survivors who were there.”
“I still don’t believe it.”
“Well you’re the only one who doesn’t.” She brought a photo of the painting out of her bag and handed it to Anke. Colette had gone to the library and verified that it was a Van Gogh titled The Painter on the Road to Tarascon. “What do you know about this?”