That was a well-known teahouse on Alawa Heights overlooking Honolulu.
"Well, hell, Wooch-that would give the little bastard a ringside view of Pearl Harbor, and Hickam Field to boot."
"The only view that amiable buffoon is interested in is the teahouse girls, like that one he escorted here, tonight. He's taken half the geishas in Honolulu on glass-bottom boat rides around Pearl Harbor."
"Sounds to me like he makes a habit out of socializing around battleships."
Fielder gestured with his cocktail in hand, sighed smoke. "Ed, a certain amount of espionage is to be expected. How can we keep the Japanese consulate from studying local newspapers, and listening to local radio broadcasts? … As for the ships in Pearl Harbor, all a 'spy' has to do is perch someplace and watch. It's legal-we do the same damn thing to them."
Arching an eyebrow, Burroughs said, "You'll notice that smiling, sociable Mr. Morimura keeps bis distance from our German friend, Mr. Kuhn."
"Your point being, what? That they're in league, helping each other spy? Those playboy clowns?"
The writer shook his head. "You don't read enough pulp fiction, Wooch-ever hear of the Scarlet Pimpernel, or Zorro?"
"Kuhn and Morimura are harmless fools-not that I don't agree with you, Ed, that all this… fraternization … is unsettling."
And with that statement, Wooch Fielder's expression shifted, or had Burroughs simply not noticed the anxiety in the man's narrow eyes?
The colonel moved near Burroughs, his manner more intimate, his tone a near whisper. "Ed, your son and my son are close … as close as we are."
"I'd say so."
"Would you ask Hully if he's heard anything about Bill and that… that little Japanese singer?"
Burroughs, who knew damn well Bill Fielder had been dating Pearl Harada, said only, "Be glad to check."
“This morning, I had an anonymous call to that effect. … I don't usually pay much heed to such things, but… Christ, Ed, you don't think Bill could be that foolish, do you?"
With General Short visible in laughing conversation with the Japanese vice consul, Burroughs said, "Wooch, she's a pretty girl. If you were young and healthy, would you think about politics, or that Hedy Lamarr face and figure?"
Fielder drew on the cigarette, nodded, dropped the spent butt to the grass and heeled it out. "I think I'll peek in there and see for myself. Bill and his pals are in listening to her band-maybe it's time for me to do a little espionage work of my own."
Burroughs put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Don't be hard on the boy, Wooch. You were young once. Hell, even I was."
Fielder nodded, barely, and strode toward the Niu-malu lodge, from which emanated the muffled sound of the band playing "I'll Remember April."
Burroughs, cup of wine in hand, wandered, stopping now and then for conversation. A few guests were chatting in the hotel courtyard-not a spacious area, particularly since the hub was taken up by a rock-garden, and standing room was compromised by the yawning fronds of potted tropical plants on the periphery. The dining room was open onto this rock-garden courtyard, and the loud, lively dance music of Pearl and her Harbor Lights limited conversation, as well.
But Burroughs was amused to find Otto Kuhn-his blonde wife on his arm, "playboy" or not-chatting with secret adversary Adam Sterling of the FBI.
Kuhn-even at six foot, still towered over by the strapping, brown-haired FBI agent-had blue-eyed bland good looks, dark blond hair and wore a white linen suit with a silver tie. Elfriede Kuhn was of medium height, with a nicely slender shape, and one of the few women present not swimming in a muumuu or wrapped up in a kimono-she wore a simple black cocktail dress, rather low-cut. Both husband and wife were attractive individuals in their dissipated forties.
The conversation was focused on an upcoming battle: the annual Shrine-sponsored football game tomorrow, in which the University of Hawaii would meet Willamette. The German favored Hawaii, while the FBI agent-a Willamette University graduate, it happened-not unexpectedly argued for the out-of-town team.
Burroughs, who didn't give a damn either way-he was a boxing and wrestling fan-stood on the fringes of the conversation, politely; then the German-his blue eyes languid-changed the subject, drawing Burroughs directly in.
"I feel my countrymen owe you an apology, Edgar," Kuhn said, his accent thick, his manner smooth. "It is something I have long meant to bring up."
"Why an apology?" Burroughs asked, already amused.
"Like so many German men, when was it… ten years ago? I was a devoted fan of your Tarzan novels. What a sensation you were in my homeland!"
Burroughs sipped his wine, offered up a wry smile. "That is true-my first German royalty check was the largest single foreign payment I ever had."
"Every man and boy in Deutschland caught Tarzan fever," Kuhn said, admiringly, eyes as bright as any young fan of the Jungle Lord's adventures.
Mildly chagrined, the writer said, "Well, like most epidemics, it ran its course. Or I should say, got cured."
"What was done to you was most unfortunate," the German said, shaking his head, "most unfair."
Her pretty features pinched with sympathy, Kuhn's wife said, "Oh, yes, how foolishly the press behaved."
The FBI agent, confused, said, "What was done to you, Ed?"
"Well, it was my own damn fault, or my agent's-after we did so well with the first four Tarzans, a rival publisher bought the rights to a book my regular German publisher had skipped over-Tarzan the Untamed, a thing I did during the world war."
Eyebrow arched, Kuhn glanced at Steriing. "It was published as Tarzan der Deutschenfresser.… It too caused a sensation."
Sterling still appeared confused, and Mrs. Kuhn further translated, her manner as delicate as her words were not: "Tarzan the German Devourer."
Now the FBI man got it-perhaps, as the Tarzan fan he had often professed to be, he even recalled the plot of the noveclass="underline" Tarzan-his beloved wife Jane apparently murdered by a German officer-goes on a blood-lust rampage against the Hun, including setting loose a ravenous lion in the German trenches.
"You can't give my stuff away there, now," Burroughs said, with a laugh. "As Mrs. Kuhn said, the German press lambasted me-one article advised readers to throw their Tarzan books into the garbage can."
"Sanctimonious nonsense," the German said. "Were you expected to soft-pedal your honest convictions, at the height of a bitter war?"
"Well, I should have seen it coming, and blocked publication in Germany-it was dated material, wartime propaganda, and shouldn't have been reprinted, anywhere."
Sterling said, "I guess politics and entertainment don't mix. You've never regained your footing over there, in all this time?"
Kuhn answered for Burroughs, "Adam, you don't realize the extent of our friend's popularity-the fever turned into a furor…."
Sterting frowned. "What does Hitler have to do with it?"
Burroughs laughed, almost choking on his wine. "Not 'f?hrer,' Adam-fur-or."
Embarrassed, the FBI man said, "Sorry."
"An understandable confusion," the German said urbanely. "After all, there were public burnings of your books, Edgar."
Mrs. Kuhn asked the writer, "Did your German publishers ever ask you to offer an… explanation, or apology to your readers?"
"An open letter from me was published," Burroughs said, and Kuhn-aware of this-was nodding. "I didn't apologize, exactly. The novel reflected what I thought and felt at the time I wrote it. I wasn't about to assume a spineless attitude and retract and apologize ad nauseam."
With a nod-though stopping short of clicking his heels-Kuhn said, "Well, please allow me to offer an overdue apology myself, on behalf of the German people."