He did not answer.
“A bomb,” she realized suddenly, saying it aloud. “A booby-trap kind of bomb, that’s wired so it’ll explode when someone touches it.”
“No,” he said. “What you saw is a two-watt transmitter and receiver. So I can keep in radio contact. In case there’s a change of plan, what with the day-by-day political situation in Berlin.”
“You check in with them just before you do it. To be sure.”
He nodded.
“You’re not Italian; you’re a German.”
“Swiss.”
She said, “My husband is a Jew.”
“I don’t care what your husband is. All I want is for you to put on that dress and fix yourself up so we can go to dinner. Fix your hair somehow; I wish you could have gotten to the hairdresser’s. Possibly the hotel beauty salon is still open. You could do that while I wait for my shirts and take my shower.”
“How are you going to kill him?”
Joe said, “Please put on the new dress, Juliana. I’ll phone down and ask about the hairdresser.” He walked over to the room phone.
“Why do you need me along?”
Dialing, Joe said, “We have a folder on Abendsen and it seems he is attracted to a certain type of dark, libidinous girl. A specific Middle-Eastern or Mediterranean type.”
As he talked to the hotel people, Juliana went over to the bed and lay down. She shut her eyes and put her arm across her face.
“They do have a hairdresser,” Joe said when he had hung up the phone. “And she can take care of you right away. You go down to the salon; it’s on the mezzanine.” He handed her something; opening her eyes she saw that it was more Reichsbank notes. “To pay her.”
She said, “Let me lie here. Will you please?”
He regarded her with a look of acute curiosity and concern.
“Seattle is like San Francisco would have been,” she said, “if there had been no Great Fire. Real old wooden buildings and some brick ones, and hilly like S.F. The Japs there go back to a long time before the war. They have a whole business section and houses, stores and everything, very old. It’s a port. This little old Jap who taught me—I had gone up there with a Merchant Marine guy, and while I was there I started taking these lessons. Minoru Ichoyasu; he wore a vest and tie. He was as round as a yo-yo. He taught upstairs in a Jap office building; he had that old-fashioned gold lettering on his door, and a waiting room like a dentist’s office. With National Geographics.”
Bending over her, Joe took hold of her arm and lifted her to a sitting position; he supported her, propped her up. “What’s the matter? You act like you’re sick.” He peered into her face, searching her features.
“I’m dying,” she said.
“It’s just an anxiety attack. Don’t you have them all the time? I can get you a sedative from the hotel pharmacy. What about phenobarbital? And we haven’t eaten since ten this morning. You’ll be all right. When we get to Abendsen’s, you don’t have to do a thing, only stand there with me; I’ll do the talking. Just smile and be companionable with me and him; stay with him and make conversation with him, so that he stays with us and doesn’t go off somewhere. When he sees you I’m certain he’ll let us in, especially with that Italian dress cut as it is. I’d let you in, myself, if I were he.”
“Let me go into the bathroom,” she said. “I’m sick. Please.” She struggled loose from him. “I’m being sick—let me go.”
He let her go, and she made her way across the room and into the bathroom; she shut the door behind her.
I can do it, she thought. She snapped the light on; it dazzled her. She squinted. I can find it. In the medicine cabinet, a courtesy pack of razor blades, soap, toothpaste. She opened the fresh little pack of blades. Single edge, yes. Unwrapped the new greasy blueblack blade.