“Hitler wants to meet me?” he breathed.
“And why not, my friend”, Otto said, laughing with joy. “As Hitler himself says, you are a national treasure. Enjoy the moment, it is just the beginning.”
Outside the studio, Vierhaus settled back in his Mercedes and smiled. The man was bedazzled, he thought to himself. Everything we have learned about him is true. He is the perfect choice.
Done!
And now Der Führer would complete the transformation. The first step in the fiendishly conceived plot Vierhaus simply called Siebenundzwanzzg—27—was complete.
Ingersoll sprawled on the chaise lounge in the living room of his town house, freshly bathed, swathed in his silk robe, sipping champagne and staring out at the Helgestrasse. The events of the day raced through his mind. He had awakened that morning feeling unusually stressed and tired. There were a lot of reasons. The picture was three days over schedule and there was another week to go. It had been a difficult shoot from the start. That new girl, whatever her name was, had been tense and insecure since the first day, requiring take after take - His makeup was more difficult than usual to put on and became painful after only two or three hours. Every muscle in his face ached after nine hours encased in the twisted mask of rubber and aluminum.
But the visit from Hitler’s envoy had made up for all that. Only two years before, Ingersoll had been one of the millions of dispirited, homeless Germans scrambling for a living. Now here he was, rich and famous, and Germany’s new savior wanted to meet him, indeed had invited him to the Eagle’s Nest!
Mixed blessings.
He felt both exhausted and elated. And restless. And the more champagne he drank, the more restless he became, the stronger the familiar stirring became. He knew the symptoms, just as he knew that before the night was over he would know both ecstasy and humiliation.
As always, he tried to fight off the compulsion. He thought of taking a sleeping pill—except the nightmares that accompanied his strange obsession were sometimes worse than the reality.
He held up the champagne glass and stared at it. His hand was shaking, an almost imperceptible tremor. He put the glass down and squeezed his hands together. The compulsion became stronger. The stirring began. Finally he buzzed for Heinz.
“I’ve changed my mind about dinner,” he said. “Will that be a problem for you, Heinz?”
“Of course not. I’ve just started cooking.”
“Good. Call the Ritz and get me a suite on the second floor, will you? Tell them I’ll be ordering dinner for two.”
“Right away. Will it be Mr. Sanders tonight?”
“Yes. And lay out my tuxedo, please. I feel a bit elegant tonight, Heinz. I feel like celebrating.”
“As well you should, Hans.”
“Yes. It has been a significant day, hasn’t it?”
“I’ll get things ready.”
After Heinz left the room, Ingersoll downed the rest of the champagne and went to a corner of the room. He slid back a tall bookcase and opened the safe behind it. Inside were thick envelopes of cash: American dollars, British pounds, French francs. Everything but German marks. With inflation as high as it was it would take a safe full of marks to buy a bowl of soup. He opened one of the envelopes, counted out five hundred British pounds and stuffed them in a pocket of his robe.
Two hours later, Ingersoll checked into the hotel where he was known as Harry Sanders, a fiftyish English art dealer with thick white hair and an elegantly trimmed beard. Sanders was a welcome guest. He usually arrived with only a small, black suitcase, ran up impressive bills, stayed only one night and always paid in British pounds. He went up to the suite, checked it out, then left the hotel immediately to begin cruising the Helgestrasse in his Mercedes.
Driving through the dark streets, he was light-headed with anticipation. Less than two blocks from the hotel he passed four brownshirts standing in front of a jewelry store. One held an old Jewish man by the collar while two others stood with their faces inches from his, berating the old man, who was wearing a yarmulke. The fourth uniformed storm trooper was painting a six pointed star on the wall beside the display window. Ingersoll stopped his car, turned off the lights and watched as the SA troopers began pushing the old man from one to the other, in a circle, spinning him around as they did. They pulled the skull-cap off and threw it in the gutter. Then they began punching the crying old man, spinning him and punching him until he fell to his knees. The biggest of the storm troopers stepped back and kicked the man in the chest. He fell to the ground, drawing up into a fetal knot with his hands over his head. The storm troopers were laughing as they circled their cowering victim, taunting him, kicking him, screaming insults at him. Then the big one picked up a garbage can and shattered the display window with it. The glass showered down in a rain of gleaming daggers and splashed across the sidewalk. The SA stood back and appraised their destruction. Satisfied, they went off down the Street laughing and singing.
The old man did not move. He lay curled on the sidewalk, shaking. Ingersoll sat for a few minutes watching him. Finally there was a stirring in the shadows; two men scurried out and helped him up.
Well, the actor thought bitterly, that old Jew learned his lesson.
For a moment, Ingersoll wondered about his dispassionate response, for he felt no pity for the helpless old man. Certainly he despised the drunken, brawling brownshirt louts. They were animal-like in their stupidity. But these were extreme times and extreme measures were necessary. Sooner or later the Marxist Jews would get the message. While the rest of the Germans wallowed in debt, the Jews grew richer, hoarding their money, controlling the banks, supporting the Communists who wanted to destroy the economy.
Sooner or later they’ll figure it out, Ingersoll thought as he drove on. Sooner or later they would all close up shop and get the hell out of Germany. And the sooner the better.
She had long, dark hair which was tied with a bow in the back but her skin was fair, almost pale, and she had exquisite deep brown eyes. She could be Italian, he thought, or Spanish. She definitely was not German. She wore very little cheek rouge and a modest amount of lipstick, not the heavy theatrical makeup the German whores troweled on. Greek maybe. He had been driving around appraising the whores on the Street for almost an hour and he was getting impatient. He stopped the car and studied her as she eyed the men entering and leaving a bar called the Happy Club.
Twenty-three or four at best. Nice legs and a trim little ass. His groin tightened. He drove up beside her and stopped the car. She leaned over and looked in the window.
“Well, now ain’t you the fancy one,” she said. The accent was cockney. He was surprised but it was definitely cockney. Ingersoll was an expert on dialects and accents.
“And aren’t you the English one. London I’d guess.” “Well ain’t you the smart one, too, ducks. East End, actually.”
“What are you doing in Berlin?”
“Now what does it look like I’m doin’, dearie?”
“I mean, why here,” he said caustically. He could not deal with street whores pleasantly, as hard as he tried.
“Say, you’re an English toff, too, ain’t you?”
He ignored the question.
“What are you doing over here?” he repeated.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m on holiday and
I’ve run a bit short. And let me give you a hint, sweetie, I can show you a few tricks these German ladies ain’t never heard of. Why, I doubt they could imagine the kind o’ time I can show you.”