“That’s OK but I’m goin’ to see it from somewhere else.”
“The way things are going I might be in the cell next to you.”
“I doubt it. Nothin’ touches you, Harry. Shit slides right off your back.” He paused. “You don’t mind, got to run by the Ponch get my clothes.”
Harry cut over to Jefferson, the Motor City dark and quiet just after midnight on a Wednesday night, parked in front of the hotel, turned in his seat. “Need some help?”
“I need more than that. Listen, I’m hurtin’, you mind gettin’ my stuff? Best I stay here.” He let out a breath. “Go to the desk tell ’em you Mr. Sims, 521. Suite with a river view. You look presentable, Harry. They ain’t gonna say nothin’.” He closed his eyes.
“You all right?”
“Put my clothes in the duffel.” He paused. Harry could see he was in pain. “One more thing. I got money in the safe. Combination: right seven, left seven, right seven.”
“Your lucky number, huh?”
“I hope so.”
Forty minutes later he pulled up in his driveway, stopping behind Galina’s Nova. Pictured her upstairs in his bed, naked, waiting for him. It was the last thing he wanted to deal with right now. He shook Cordell and his eyes opened. “We’re here.” Harry got out of the car, went around and helped Cordell in the house, Cordell’s arm over his shoulder, taking short steps down the hallway into the foyer, and into the den, sat him on the couch. Cordell groaning, making faces till he got settled. “Can I get you something?”
“Water, Harry, you don’t mind.”
It smelled like cooked meat in the kitchen, oven on warm. He could see a roasting pan on a rack inside covered with foil. Bottle of vodka on the island counter, and next to it a low-ball cocktail glass with red lipstick on the rim. He turned off the oven, left the pan where it was. Filled a glass of water and took it to Cordell, watched him drink it down without stopping. He put the glass on the coffee table, helped Cordell stretch out on the couch, and covered him with the hospital blanket.
Harry went upstairs, his room was dark, bed made. No sign of Galina.
He went down the hall into Sara’s room, turned on the light. imagined her standing in front of the full length mirror, getting ready to go out, trying on shoes.
“Hey, Pops, which one do you think?” She said, pointing at a black flat on her left foot and a wedge sandal on her right.
“The sandal,” Harry said, looking at her outfit.
“Me too. Great minds, huh?”
“Yeah,” Harry said, wishing he could see her again.
He went downstairs, walked through the house, checked every room. Saw the broken pane in the French door, and drew the Colt from the waistband of his khakis. Harry moved through the dining room and kitchen to the back hall, opened the basement door and went down the stairs, holding the gun in front of him with both hands, expecting Hess to jump out.
He moved through the basement rooms, eyes adjusting to the darkness, hearing the creak and groan of the furnace kicking on. Harry squatting, looking under the ping pong table in the rec room, checking the dark corners of the laundry and furnace rooms. He went back upstairs to the kitchen, theorizing that Hess had come, waited for Galina to leave, broke the pane and entered through the French doors. Hess then waited for Harry, gave up and left.
But why did Galina leave her car? Maybe she’d had one too many. She wasn’t much of a drinker. Harry phoned her house. No answer. He’d try her again in the morning. Harry checked the answering machine, expected one from Colette. No messages. He turned off the lights in the kitchen. Checked on Cordell, eyes closed, sound asleep. He went up to his bedroom, laid on the bed. He had to be at the office early, set his alarm, put the Colt on the end table, and closed his eyes.
Hess was thinking about the woman, attractive, well proportioned. He liked a woman with ample hips and breasts he could grab onto. Imagined the big woman on her knees, ramming her from behind.
They talked and had a cocktail. She was from Riga, Latvia, a Jewess, not surprisingly. Her parents had been killed by the Nazis. Hess pretended to be sympathetic, furrowed his brow, patted her arm. “The Third Reich was a brutal regime. From what I’ve read on the subject, the Nazis were sadistic murderers.”
She looked into his eyes. “You are a Jew?”
Hess shook his head, trying not to smile, give himself away.
“Do you know how many Jews were killed?”
Hess was thinking, Not enough.
“More than six million.”
“Beyond comprehension,” Hess said. This could not have worked out better. Harry would come home and see her car in the driveway. He would walk in the house and smell the food. Seeing the woman would distract him. Hess would step back out of sight, pull the weapon and shoot them.
They sat on high-back chairs at the island counter, drinking their cocktails. An hour later when Harry Levin had still not arrived he could see signs the woman was getting impatient. She glanced at the clock a couple times.
“This is not like Harry. He should be home by now.”
Hess, smiling, said, “Don’t worry. He will walk through the door any minute. Have another cocktail.”
“One more,” she said. “But you must join me.”
Hess took her glass and filled it with ice, poured vodka almost to the top and handed it to her. He refilled his glass with Canadian Club whisky.
She frowned staring at the drink.
“Ray, you trying to get me drunk?”
“I am enjoying your company. Promise me you will not leave until Harry arrives.” He couldn’t let her leave, and hoped the alcohol would relax her.
“Did Harry tell you about me?’
“He spoke of you in the most complimentary way.”
Her face lit up. “What did he say?”
“You are a remarkable woman,” Hess said. “I can see that myself.”
Now she was smiling. “Harry say that, really?” She sipped her drink, and glanced at the clock on the oven. The time was 8:45. “I don’t want to, but if he is not coming here in fifteen minutes I have to go.”
“Do you have children?” Hess said, trying to change the subject.
“Two girls‚ teenagers. Visiting their father in London.” She paused to drink her vodka and said, “You are married?”
“Twenty-two years.” An eternity, Hess was thinking. Married in name only. They slept in separate bedrooms, rarely socialized together. What had he seen in Elfriede, a big unpolished, unsophisticated farm girl? He had married her because the sex was good and, at the time, he didn’t know any better.
She finished the vodka and glanced at the clock again, slid off her chair, and stood leaning against the counter. She seemed intoxicated, unsteady.
“Tell Harry I was here. Brisket is in the oven. Nice to meet you.”
“No one is expecting you. Why do you have to leave?”
At 1:22 a.m., Hess was in his car creeping along West Jarvis Avenue, a quiet tree-lined street in Hazel Park, a middle-class community with small cookie-cutter houses built in even rows. He found the address he was looking for, parked on the street and walked to the rear entrance of the house. The sliding glass door was unlocked. He entered a small room with mismatched furniture, empty pizza cartons and beer cans on a coffee table, an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. He walked through the house checking the rooms. Buddy was asleep on a mattress on the floor of a small cluttered bedroom that smelled of cigarettes and stale beer. The money he had given him was on top of the dresser still in the envelope. He picked it up and counted the bills. One was missing. He folded the money and slipped it in his shirt pocket. There was a beer can on the dresser next to car keys, billfold and cigarettes. He shook the can and heard beer slosh inside.