Friday, June 29, 2018

ALMOST A DEAD MAN by Peter Nolan Smith - CHAPTER 11

Sean's first week in Hamburg the Malchek was packed every night from 9pm till 2am with young people, artists, and transient models working the catalogues, businessmen, and their girlfriends, most of them celebrating Germany's triumphant march into the World Cup Finals. After 2am the crowd changed with the arrival of Cali's henchmen flaunting their wealth with silk shirts unbuttoned to display thick gold necklaces and the leather pants belted with 22K buckles. The pimps ordered cases of sekt, which they swilled like cowboys off the range. Their aggressive behavior drove away the normal patrons, so by 3am the club was filled with the hard-core deviants, drug dealers, and whores.

It was an ugly scene threatening to become uglier.

Kurt was out of town and Sean turned to Jonny Werth for advice.

"Ah die Zuhalterei. They are a big problem in the club, but getting them out of a club is an even bigger one." The crippled day manager tapped his bad leg to reiterate the danger of dealing with his ex-friends. "Wait for Kurt to return. He will get Cali to take care of it."

"What if he does nothing?"

"We will burn that bridge, when we get to it." Jonny drained his sekt and then asked, "Are there any other problems?"

"None that I can think of."

"Then enjoy life and don't worry about the pimps. It's summertime and the living is easy, nicht war?""

It was good advice.

Especially after New York.

He woke at noon, ate breakfast, walked to the Hotel-Intercontinental for the Herald-Tribune, read the newspaper on the Alstersee ferry to Jungfernsteig, after which he wandered around the shopping district.

Most owners and waiters treated him as an outsider or 'auslander'. Only the owner of a small English bookstore showed him kindness. She pointed out George Steiner's THE LAST JOURNAL OF A.H., Stanley Elkin's THE LIVING END and Maxie Laing's RUNNING. Each book took him a single day to read and he sought other diversions.

Once he visited the Kunsthalle and was struck by David Kaspar Friedrich's tableau of a ship wrecked in the frigid Arctic. THE SEA OF ICE brought home how alone he was in this city. Despite having a car, a penthouse, a job, and money, he still came up short on the company of a woman.

Petra shunned him and he told himself he was better off without her, but the women at the nightclub avoided him like he belonged to someone else. Sean came close to asking Cali to find her during their first English lesson at the Schlaterei restaurant near the city slaughterhouse, but was deterred by that fear that the pimp would enlist her into his employ. It was better she remained lost than join the ranks of the Huren.

Cali was more interested in slang words for cars, women's body parts, and racist epithets. He got a kick out of calling Sean 'Honky', then told Sean, "We are going to be good friends, you and I."

"Friends aren't so easy to come by here."

"Yes, Bertram is dating a junkie skinhead model. Kurt is never in town for more than three days.

The bouncers at the Malchek ignored you, because you stole a job from one of their friends, and you are too old to appeal to the young people at the bar."

"Old?"

"Thirty is old for anyone under twenty, so forget making friends at the bar, but why do Americans want to make friends with everyone?"

"We want to be liked, but my mother liked to say if you had one friend you were lucky. If you had two you were blessed." Cali displayed three fingers. "And anyone who says they have three is a liar."

"My only friend is Kurt, so maybe you'll be lucky #2."

And you my # 1."

Sean explained the other meanings for # 1 and #2 and Cali laughed loudly saying, "Germans like shit jokes."

"I can't think of any off my head."

"I can't either, but we must have heard hundreds."

"Yes, I'm completely blank."

"We are not so different, you and I."

"Not we're not."

After the lesson Kali went to the Reeperbahn. This close to the solstice most of the day was sunlight. The Malchek opened in eight hours. He got in his BMW and examined the map. The parrot's beak of West Germany vee-ed deep into DDR. He pointed the BMW east passing through the farming villages of Blekede, Katemin, and Dannenburg to Lauenburg. The dirt road skirted the Elbe. This was the border with East Germany. Watchtowers and barbed wire guarded the other bank. He parked the BMW under the trees and walked to the river.

The slow-moving water was an uninviting brown. Several British soldiers waded in the shallows. Other squaddies fished with handlines. Sean dipped his feet in the Elbe. An East German soldier watched him through binoculars. Another soldier aimed a rifle at him. This was the edge of the Free World and he went back to his car.

Upon returning to the village Sean suffered a panic attack about the total destruction of the world, yet people on the front-line went about their business unconcerned with the potential Armageddon. Sean decided to live like there was no tomorrow. He had nothing to lose, but his sadness. Back in Hamburg he stopped at the Hotel Intercontinental for the Herald-Tribune and was tempted to see if Petra was in the Spielhalle, but left to make telephone calls at the Malchek.

Despite being two hours before opening, the club was crowded with a birthday party for under-aged teenagers. The kids were chaperoned by several adults. The bartender served sekt. He entered the office without knocking. Jonny Werth grabbed the account book off the desk, then relaxed, saying,

"Oh, it is you."

"Who did you think it would be?" Sean sat at the desk. "The police?"

The day manager maintained his grip on the ledger.

"The police would only come here, if we asked them." Jonny intoned that the club had some arrangement with the local authority.

"So they no problem with fourteen year-old kids drinking?"

"This is Europe. Not America. How old were you when you had your first drink?"

Twelve and it was vermouth."

"Widerlich." Jonny made a face and locked the ledger in a drawer. "It's only good in Martinis and only a little of it."

"My first real drink was at a bar called the Sugarshack in Boston. James Brown was playing an afternoon show. The bartender had served me a gin-tonic. I was 13."

"So no worries about fourteen year-olds drinking sekt." Jonny stuck the key to the desk in his pocket.

"As long as I don't have to drink it, no."

"What are you doing here this early?"

"I thought I would call some friends in New York."

"Ah, homesick, yes? What about your new friends in Hamburg?"

"Friends are a little hard to come by here."

"Not so open, right? Everyone in Europe thinks Americans are, how you say, phony for being so friendly, but better phony friends than no friends." Jonny poured two gin-tonics.

"To our youth."

"Jugendzeit."

"So have you had sex with Petra yet?"

"Is nothing a secret in this town?"

"People in small towns talk about each other."

"So do you think I have a chance?" Sean stopped lying to himself about his desire for Petra.

"With Petra? Vierleich. She is a woman who likes to gamble. At a casino and with men. She likes anything with a risk attached, so don't play it safe."

This was the exact opposite of the advice Sean had given Kurt, but then there was a world of difference between Vanessa and Petra. The manager limped to the door and blew a kiss to the Persian busboy behind the bar, then turned to Sean and said, "Herr Tempo, there are some things you have to find out for yourself and the first one is whether you are interested in Petra, nicht war?"

The day manager hugged the young boy, leaving Sean sure of one thing and that was that nothing was simple in Hamburg. Neither was it in New York.

Sean dialed several numbers in the States. No one answered Lisa's number, but the phone was still in service. None of his friends or family picked up the phone.

"Immer allein."

Always alone and he opened the Herald-Tribune to the crossword puzzle. It was easy for a Thursday.

With fifteen minutes he jotted in the last entry and skimmed over Rob Hughes article on the upcoming Italy-Germany World Cup match, then read about Brezhnev's deathwatch. Maybe the Soviet Premier's long-awaited demise was the inspiration for his dreams, but that was too easy an answer.

Folding the paper, he left the office to get a glass of water. The party had broken up over and the busboys were setting up for the evening. Sean picked up a glass from behind the bar. The door clanged open for a breathless Bertram. The Frenchman dropped a cheap traveling bag on the floor, saying. "Merde. Merde. Merde."

"Girlfriend troubles?"

"Ouais, but Hanna is no girlfriend. I come back this afternoon and find her with two Nazis. One white and another black. Who ever heard of a black Nazi?"

"Not me," Sean answered, then recalled seeing a Blaxploitation film BLACK GESTAPO on 42nd Street.

"Hanna's a junkie. What do you expect? A saint?"

"They were smoking my 'heroin'. I tell them to leave, but they pretend they do not understand my German." Bertram fumbled with his cigarette. "I swear at them in French and my 'girlfriend', she throws out me."

"Nice." Junkie girlfriends' only predictability was their habit."

"Now I have nowhere to live." Bertram was more disturbed by the eviction from the rat-infested Hafenstrasse squat than the loss of his woman.

"You can sleep on my couch a few days." Sean could use the company.

"No, no, no, I will stay in a hotel near the Reeperbahn. Only 30 Marks a night."

"Are you sure it isn't 30 Marks an hour." Most of the hotel around the Eros Center specialized in short-time stays.

"No, a bed and a window on the action. All I really need." Bertram shrugged, then carried his bag to the DJ booth and cued up Marvin Gaye's SEXUAL HEALING. The front door opened and the giant Bavarian bouncer entered the club. Rolf eyed the bar and waved to Sean.

With a half-hour the Malchek was ready for business.

Jonny had to have been the best pimp in Hamburg, gay or not, if this was how he ran a club. Sean returned to the office to dial his parents.

Nothing.

He leaned back his head to douse his eyeballs with pharmaceutical eyedroppers in preparation for the burning sensation from the club's heavy smoke. As the liquid soothed his eyes, Bertram entered the office.

"What is it now?"

"On a une petite problem?" The Frenchman stuck a cigarette in his mouth and mumbled, "A problem at the door."

"Rolf can handle it." The huge Bavarian's vicious countenance usually deterred any troublemakers.

"No, it is a 'special' problem."

The word 'special' disturbed Sean and he left the office, warning Bertram, "This better be good."

Three teenage blondes were dancing to Captain Sensible's SAY WHAT and he continued to the ice-blue entrance, where the Bavarian bouncer was braced against the door. Sean stopped at the hallway and asked Bertram, "It's the Nazis, right?"

"Yes, but why are they here? I am gone from 'her' house."

"I don't know." Whatever Bertram had told him earlier probably was only half true. The other half was on the other side of the door. He walked up to Rolf.

"They want to beat him up." Rolf pointed at Bertram.

"Maybe it is time to call the police." Bertram suggested, a scared sweat breaking out on his pale face. Rolf frowned with disapproval. "The police only make bigger problem."

"So no police." Sean peered through the door's spyhole.

Out on the sidewalk Anthony Burgess' CLOCKWORK ORANGE's predictions for the future had materialized in the form of skinheads dressed in the ubiquitous uniform of green nylon jackets, braces, high-water jeans, and Doc Martin boots.

A young black boy with a closely cropped hair dictated orders to his three cronies. With most of the Third Reich Nazis pushing sixty-plus, this gang had to be the replacements.

The leader screamed at his underlings. Two skinheads grabbed their comrade and smashed him against the door. The three aggressors jumped on top of him, kicking and punching, then lifted him to his feet. Blood ran from the battering ram's nose, as he sang a song off-key. Sean made out the words 'Auschwitz-luge', which was the term for 'denial of Auschwitz'. Most neo-

Nazis didn't believe that the SS had killed 6 million Jews. They didn't count gypsies either.

"Don't let them in." Bertram had no interest in meeting these skinheads.

"They can't break down the door. Bertram, go to the DJ booth. I'll take care of this." The Frenchman left and Sean asked the muscled Bavarian, "What should we do?"

"Keep the door shut."

"I intend on doing that." The door was steel.

A few seconds later the door vibrated with a resonating thump, then a second and third. Each thud was enjoined by a pained moan. Sean re-opened the spyhole. The two larger skinheads had resumed smashing their friend into the door. His skull would give way long before the door.

"Shit."

"Was?"

"Take a look." Sean told Rolf to look out the spyhole.

"Schiesse, yes." The bouncer shrugged with disinterest. "Nicht unser Problem."

One of the primary rules of nightclub security was only to be involved in whatever was your problem and nothing else. Sean listened to the muffled shouts from the skinheads' fuhrer, then their charge, and a louder scream from their comrade.

"This is fucked." Sean peeked out the spyhole. The skinheads were shoving their bleeding comrade back and forth. Their black leader glowered at the door, his face a practiced mask of hatred. At this rate no one would come in the club tonight.

"I want you to shut off the music, clear off all the glasses and take Bertram and everyone else up to the roof, then call Cali at the Eroscenter."

"This is a bad idea."

"Just do it."

Several minutes later Rolf returned to the hallway. "Cali says he'll be here in a half-hour."

"I'm not waiting that long." Sean put his hand on the deadbolt and Rolf stopped him, saying, "Going outside is a very bad idea."

"If I knock on the door three times, open up."

"Three times," The big man indicated he would do what he had been ordered, then said, "Gluck."

"Thanks, I could use some luck." Sean yanked the door open and stepped outside.

The two larger skinheads were huffing an inhalant from a paper bag. Their faces registered a stupefied amazement, as Sean started to speak in halting German. Any chance to complete his sentence ended with a barking command from the black boy. Sean bobbed and weaved through the first punches. He kicked one punk's feet from beneath him and elbowed another in the face. Several hands seized his arms and propelled his body into the wall, knocking the wind from his lungs.

"Wo ist der DJ?"

"He's not here."

"He is here. I can smell the garlic on the shitty Frenchman here."

"He's not here and, if you do not believe me, you can search the place yourself."

The leader explained the offer to his comrades. Their grip on Sean's biceps and wrists eased, though without allowing him to break away. Sean knocked on the door three times. No one answered, so he kicked the door hard three times. The spyhole slid open and Rolf's eye filled the space.

"Alles ist klar," Sean said and the squidlike eye blinked with doubt. Sean smacked the door again and Rolf slid back the deadbolts. The door swung inward, as if blown by a winter wind. Rolf stood aside, allowing the skinheads frog-marched Sean into the club. He was on his own.

The music was off and no one was in the bar.

Sean turned the leader of the skinheads and said, "See, he's not here." The smell of smoke betrayed the recent presence of people and the leader snapped his fingers. Two of his comrades searched the club. They confirmed the club was empty. The leader walked over to the bar and picked up a single glass from the counter and examined the rim. His finger wiped at a lipstick stain.

"She's gone." Sean indicated the back door. It was locked. Only Jonny Werth had the key.

"I can see that." The leader leaned on the bar. "We will have one drink for the road."

The skinheads conferred quickly, then the leader snapped, "Whiskey-Coke for everyone. You too."

"Coming right up." Sean lifted a bottle of Dewars. This offering met with their approval, though at the same time he slipped the eyedropper vial into his left hand and squirted the pharmaceutical liquid into each glass before mixing the drinks. He put them on the bar and the skinheads seized them with a triumphant cheer to toast their victory over America. The glasses clinked together and were downed in one go. The leader struck the counter with his open palm and demanded for another round.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I want one and my friends want one." He was about to say something, but burped loudly inside.

"Da wasst etwas in der Trinken."

"Something in the drink?" Sean gathered the glasses.

The bloodied skinhead announced that he was feeling ill. The two larger thugs turned threateningly to Sean, but it was too late. The first one rushed to the bathroom, while the other bent over with a groan. Sean shouted for Rolf to throw out the ill skinheads. They offered no resistance and raced down the sidewalk for someplace to relieve their bowels.

Cali's Mercedes braked in front of the club in time to witness the skinheads' exodus.

"What did you do to them?"

"Nothing much. I just gave them a drink. Something that didn't agree with them."

"You poisoned them?"

"Yeah, three years ago a gang from Staten Island had come into an uptown club at which I worked the door with a fifty year-old Harlem gangster. Jack Flood had been a heavyweight and recognized their winning a fight against twenty or more Italian kids was not a sure thing. He invited them all to bar and muttered to Sean, "When you outnumbered, you offers them a 'drink', puttin' some eyedrops in the 'drink'. Only two, cuz sure as shit they be shittin' in their pants before they finish their drinks and they goin' to stink. So you gotta act fast, once they goin' to go."

"Ach, our first shit joke. Let’s drink champagne."

"Not sekt."

"Champagne."

The club-goers came down from the roof and applauded Sean.

No one was more grateful than Bertram. The DJ played Sean's favorite song Human League's DON'T YOU WANT ME, BABY and promised to spin the seventeen-minute version of David Porter's HANG ON, SLOOPY later. Sean loved the mournful rap ballad.

The club filled fast and the clientele bought drinks a record pace. Everyone was in the mood for tomorrow's big game. Germany versus Italy for the World Cup. Kurt arrived with rich people from Frankfurt. Upon hearing the story, he saluted his manager by buying sekt for the entire club. When Sean picked up cash from the bar register, he noticed SS Tommy, Cali's right-hand man, hitting on a teenage girl. The redheaded nymphet was definitely under eighteen. She should have been with boys her age, instead of a killer like SS Tommy.

"Tommy." Sean called to the blonde pimp. Neither had really spoken to the other before, so he approached with caution. "Was ist los?"

"This girl."

"What about her."

"She is a little young. Why don't you get one a little older?"

The pimp misunderstood what Sean's words, until he repeated it a second time. SS Tommy's bony face froze with the comprehension. Sean could have easily mistaken the blankness on blonde pimp's face as a mark of stupidity, except his pinball blue eyes reflected an intelligence extremely gifted at deciding when he could get away with murder.

"First the Nazis and now me. What are you, an asshole hero?"

"No, I just think she's a little young for you." Sean should have walked away, except the tone in

SS Tommy's voice set him on edge.

"If you want to fuck her, then just tell me," SS Tommy shouted for everyone to hear over the music.

"But it will cost you one thousand marks. One time. Oh, I forget, you are with Petra. She is a good fuck too."

SS Tommy turned to pour the young girl another glass of champagne.

"She's under age." Sean took away her glass.

"Arseloch."

Something snapped inside Sean and he laced SS Tommy's face with two quick punches.

"Sehr gut, Schiessekopf." The pimp flexed his muscles to demonstrate that he was unhurt. The crowd cleared out a space, as SS Tommy's hamboned fist moved in slow motion to impact on his American's temple.

Sean heard an egg crack and collapsed into a universe of stars. He was in deep trouble, but Kurt and Cali held back SS Tommy. The pimp told his side of the story and Kurt snapped his fingers to order a bottle of French champagne for SS Tommy. He grabbed the bottle and the redhead.

"Next time, Ami." Kurt Oster came over to Sean, who was daubing a hand towel on the cut above his eye.

"It's only a scratch."

"Fighting SS Tommy was a very stupid. He could have killed you."

"He wants to make her a whore," Sean studied the abstract blood splotch on his shirt.

"This is not America. If a woman wants to be a whore, it is up to her. Not you.""

"Maybe, but the pimps are driving away the other business." Sean quickly glanced around the club, the peoples' faces were fading out of focus. Kurt lifted his finger to silence Sean, then motioned for him to come outside.

"The math makes this decision very easy. Is Cali a problem?"

"No, Cali's cool." Sean touched the weeping blood. His head was light to his touch, almost as if it were dematerializing.

"Then I will talk to Cali. He does not care for the other pimps being here either." Kurt put the paper in his pocket and asked, "Is that all?"

"I understand, if you have friends, who deal cocaine, and it helps people drink more, but no heroin. That drug is in direct competition with the bar." Sean had been catching dealers in the bathroom and wanted them out too.

"I'll go along with whatever you think best." Kurt examined Sean's cut and said, "It looks worse than it is."

Sean sucked on his gums. One of his teeth was loose and he winced with pain and said, "I think my tooth is fucked up. You're right. That was a stupid."

"Do you want to go to the hospital?"

"No." Having worked at a terminal ward during university, Sean had an aversion to doctors and believed you should first try curing yourself before visiting them.

"Listen, go home tonight. I'll close the club. Petra will give you a ride home. Tomorrow you have off, because the police will be coming for you."

"Why would they?" "Poisoning someone is a felony anywhere in the world. I do not want you being thrown in jail." "Is that a possibility?"

"Maybe, maybe not, why take the chance?" Kurt arched his eyebrows to accent his point.

"Wait here. Petra will be right out."

"I'm not going anywhere." Sean's feet were nailed to the pavement.

Several minutes later the brunette exited from the club in a manner suggesting she was ready to leave with anyone who had the price. Perched on high heels, the brunette wore a leather vest with a laced front and hip-hugging pants, her belly scars revealed for all to see. She smiled at him wistfully, then said, "You'll have to be careful these next days. SS Tommy is no teddy bear."

"I just found that out."

"I will get my car."

"I know the next line."

"What is it?"

"Don't go anywhere." A spin of dizziness pinned him to the wall and he hoped Petra returned soon. Sean wavered against the wall, then noticed a bearded blonde man down the sidewalk. He had been the driver of the Opel.

"Du."

The man disappeared into a thickening fog and Sean tried to pull on his leather jacket without success. The Porsche pulled over to the curb and he staggered over to the convertible to and collapse into the front seat. As Petra drove away, she said, "That was a stupid trick with SS Tommy."

"That's what everyone is telling me."

"That girl comes from Hannover."

"So?"

"So she was after SS Tommy."

"How do you figure that?" His head lolled back and he spotted Orion in the night sky, then the constellation dropped into a black hole.

"She has come here to be a whore."

"She's so young."

"She knows what she is doing. Believe I know."

"I thought I was helping." Sean sank back into the seat. The wind baffled in his ears like a thousand half-words demanding to be heard at the same time.

"You Americans think you can save the world. That girl thank you for saving her?" Petra coldly stared at the road ahead, disappointed that SS Tommy had not been beaten.

"No."

"Are you okay?"

"It only hurts a little."

"He could have killed you and now you have an enemy and one who bears a grudge."

"What he was doing wrong."

"Who are you to say what is wrong or right? Do you want to ban prostitution? Control what we women do with our bodies? That girl wants to make money in exchange for sex. Why, because men want to prove how much they are worth without being challenged. There is no love in sex. Not on the Reeperbahn."

Petra's words jumbled up into an indecipherable maze. The adrenalin was fading from his blood. Nobody had elected him town marshal. From now on he would mind his own business.

"Was ist los?" Petra had tired of speaking English.

"Nichts." The passing cars' headlights seared into his eyes. When they pulled up before his building, Sean thanked Petra for the ride without hearing the words.

Once out of the car he stumbled across the sidewalk to smack face-first into a store's plate glass window, then bounced back and fell on his side out cold. Once Sean surfaced from the rabbit hutch, in which he'd been resting, he was surprised to have been magically transported from the street into his apartment. Somehow Petra had carried him upstairs. She was now on the telephone and he heard the word 'doktor'. He reached over and cut off the connection.

"No doctor."

"Ich denke, dass du brauchst einen Doktor."

"Kein Doktor. Sleep. All I need is sleep."

"Wie du willst." Petra put down the phone.

"Why are you smiling?"

"Because you used the 'du'." Sean turned his head on the pillow.

Across the street the moon was setting between the twin spires of St. Johannis. For once he had arrived home before dawn.

"Dummkopf."

"Maybe, but I'll always be 'du' to you and me to you."

Germans used 'du' with foreigners and children, since both had less trouble understanding that informal pronoun for 'you'. Still he was in no condition to be left alone. When she asked, if she could stay, Sean whimsically told her, "Yes."

She patted his forehead and told him to go to sleep.

"And dreams."

He closed his eyes and Petra kicked off her shoes, relieved to be out of the high heels. She sat on the couch and rubbed her feet, then looked at the sleeping man in the bed.

Few men in Hamburg would have stood up to SS Tommy. The Church might condemn the pimps and the police attempt to prosecute them, but condemnations and investigations had not put them out of business. The Eroscenter was as much a civil institution as the State Opera and had a greater attendance record than the concert hall on Gorch-Fock-Wall.

Her hand wiped at the table, then rubbed the dust from her fingers. Clothes were draped haphazardly over the furniture. She was not tired yet, and decided the best way to kill time was cleaning up the apartment. She started searching for a mop and broom, then heard the squeal of women next door.

After placing her ear close to wall, Petra was fairly certain what was going on in the neighboring apartment. Many office buildings in Hamburg had been set up as private bordellos by the pimps. While the state is meant to protect the prostitutes, it is the pimps who rule their lives and their meddling in her life had taken its toll. She had wanted the women to hire their own security guards and rent their own apartments, so the money they earned with their bodies went to them, instead of the pimps. Her attempt to unionize the women of the Reeperbahn had led to a near-deadly beating and no one had told her who had ordered the beating by three masked men.

One day she would find out who.

For tonight she would watch over this man. He was not a devil. Of that she was sure, but he was a man and having confidence in any of them had always been a losing proposition, for she had been on the wrong end of the stick enough for one lifetime.

Thursday, June 28, 2018

ALMOST A DEAD MAN by Peter Nolan Smith - CHAPTER 10

The wind off the North Sea rifled over Sylt Island. The long strand was pockmarked by the dugouts to protect beach-goers from the stinging sand. These shelters served to guard the nakedness or intimate acts in these beach pits from prying eyes. This was total freedom; no cars, houses, jobs, or autobahns, simply the meeting of sun, sea, and air on the body.

While nudity was accepted in Germany, examining another person body was considered an infringement of privacy, yet Kurt studied Vanessa's naked body, as she spread her arms and legs to the sun. Her skin was blemishless. Her muscle tone was faultless. Her breasts were round without being too big. Pale aureoles surrounded her auburn nipples. Her belly was defined without being muscular and the taut tendons of her upper thigh accentuated the gap between her legs. The wispy blonde hair around her vagina hid a hint of soft pink labia. Her platinum hair streaked in the warm wind and she bit into the apple in her hand. Her teeth cracked through the peel and her tongue licked at the fruit. After finishing the apple, she dropped the core for the late afternoon tide to take it into the sea.

All day Kurt had followed the non-committal advice of the American and had received neither a kiss nor caress from the blonde.

Vanessa carried herself differently than these previous conquests. She was the daughter of a professor and house maker. Her good family, Echt Burgherleute, was a step down for a Von Hausen, but should have been an attainable heaven for a bastard from Hafenstrasse.

Only Vanessa was in sight. It was Ruhezeit or that time of the afternoon during which all Germans observed the rite of quiet.

Kurt stood up and wrapped a towel around his waist to hide his erection, then cross the sand to Vanessa. She turned to him and said, "It's a beautiful day."

"Unlike the first day we met. The rain was pouring down and I sought shelter under an arcade by the Alsterfleet with some twenty other people. Most were muttering about the weather. Typical Germans, then I see a woman in a tan raincoat exit from the U-bahn station. Unlike everyone else she walked erect against the slashing slant of rain. I called out to her."

"I thought you were someone I knew, but you weren't."

"I saw that and feared you might run away like Cinderella, so I invited you inside a cafe."

"We had cake and tea and talked about Paris. Why did you call to me?"

"Like you I thought I knew you. I was wrong?" Kurt stared admiringly at the blue veins threading underneath her alabaster skin. "But you were a stranger like me, however you resembled a woman in a painting I once saw at the Louvre."

"I bet you have used that line before." She lifted a hand to push back a damp wisp of hair. A diamond engagement ring graced her finger.

"Truthfully I might have, but then I was lying."

"And now you are not?"

"Never to you." Vanesa ran to the sea, her feet flicking through the shallow waters of the North Sea.

Kurt chased her.

Within seconds his lungs told him that he had to quit smoking cigarette.

Vanessa playfully kicked water at him. Kurt responded by splashing her with handfuls of water. Her arms covered her breasts, as she dashed through the shallows, throwing back her head in delight.

He dove into the shallow water, scrapping his chest on the sandy bottom. The cold water partially suppressed his erection. When he rose from the water, Vanessa turned to a commotion on the shore.

People were yelling at a dark figure in the dunes. A clothed man had been watching the sunbathers through his camera. A chorus of voices shouted for him to leave. Kurt joined in, till seeing the expression on Vanessa's face. He ran over and asked, "What is wrong?"

"That man," Vanessa announced in a distressed sob. "I think he was taking pictures."

Kurt could not see the man in the distance, but said, "I will go up and give him a beating."

Vanessa stopped him from leaving and pleaded,, "No, don't go."

"I am not going nowhere." Kurt was paralyzed by the adoration emanating from the blonde. He had been in love several times or so he thought, but nothing like this. He held Vanessa in his arms, shielding her from anyone watching. Her flesh was hot from the sun, and she pressed her silky thighs against his leg.

Vanessa shivered in Kurt's arms and she sighed, feeling his penis against her belly. Sex was no mystery to her and she knew how to satisfy Kurt. She lifted her head and kissed him on the lips. They tasted of the sea

Kurt lifted her gently off her feet and carried her effortlessly back into the dugout, laying her tenderly on the blanket before settling to her side. Kurt cupped her right breasts and softly toyed with her nipple. Her face flushed with the blush of blood and she murmured, "I always thought it would be like this."

Me too."

Somehow the chorus of Serge Gainsbourg's song SEA, SUN, AND SEX played in Kurt's head, as the soft down of her belly skimmed his flesh and a tingling sensation rippled through his body. His heart skipped a beat, when her hand sheathed his cock. He stopped breathing, as he came. This premature ejaculation had never occurred before.

The white semen on her belly was pearl-white for a few seconds, then melted to a clear liquid. His penis wilted in her hand. She kissed him and he rehardened instantly feeling together with Vanessa, but also so very alone and he recalled where he had heard the words to match the sentiment he was feeling.

From Wim Wenders' KINGS OF THE ROAD, when the two men sit in a derelict bunker surveying the border between the East and the West. One says to the other that the most extreme loneliness he had ever experienced was, when he was in a woman. And now, Kurt's being so close to a woman without ever having penetrated her mirrored that cinematic moment.

He was about to explain this to her, but she stilled him with her lips. The loneliness evaporated like it had never existed before. Only a fool could believe that was true, then again only fools fall in love.

Monday, June 11, 2018

ALMOST A DEAD MAN by Peter Nolan Smith - CHAPTER 1

Greta showed for an evening rendezvous in Hamburg’s harbor district. She was dressed in slick leather and arrived on time in anticipation of a sordid evening of sex with her lover. The tall blonde got out of her car. Willi was not on the desolate street. She heard footsteps and a black man and a white associate dragged her into a shadowy warehouse and sat the blonde on a battered chair.

Twisted claws scurried across the floor and the well-dressed woman lifted her black stiletto heels in horror, but rats were the least of Greta’s problems and she begged, “Please let me go, I haven’t done anything wrong?”

"Nothing wrong?” The black man in the spotless jogging suit circled the chair. Aviator sunglasses hid his eyes and he asked, “Are you a saint?”

“No, I'm not a saint.” The expensive wig flopped off her head. Hans Roth was less a woman without it.

"Are you an artist?" The man swatted the 40-watt bulb dangling from the rafter. "These shots are very kunstlich. I can’t see that you are a man and your friend’s skin is as white as ivory.”

“They are only souvenirs.” The thirty-two year old banker shivered in the slick leather dress.

“Expensive souvenirs, nicht war?”

“Yes, they are.” The weekend in a St. Pauli hotel had cost over 2000 Deutschmarks or half his monthly salary.

“And now you are in trouble.” The black man was as tired of his role as any actor performing Hamlet for the ten-thousandth time. Still his audience flinched on cue, when he flopped the lurid snapshots on the man's lap. “You know who I am, yes?”

"You are Cali Nordstrum. I have read about you in the newspapers." Hans lowered his head. The man was the city's most notorious pimp

"And how someone tried to kill me last week?" Cali fingered the 5-Deutschmark coin hanging from his necklace.

"Yes."

"And I bet that you are thinking you were lucky that they were unsuccessful, but you are wrong. If I was dead, I could not help you."

"With what?"

"You have been money stealing from the bank to pay for your romance. Yes, Willi told me everything and this is not a crime you can get away with forever."

"Es tut mir lied." The part-time transvestite buried his veiny hands into the fallen wig.

The black man handed the transvestite a handkerchief.

"Stop your sniffling. You did not steal from me and we are not here to hurt you or blackmail you, but to help you."

Cali backed away and his scarred face melted into the gloom.

For ten years Hans had protected his name, job, and family from disgrace. Liaisons with street boys lasted one night, but the last months with Willi had incarnated his true persona and he asked hopefully, "How?"

Cali whispered in the man's ear and mapped out his scheme with the persuasiveness of a CIA officer selling the last helicopter seat out of Saigon, since the desperate always bet on long shots. “This is your chance to earn enough money for you and Willi to disappear from Germany. No one would think of searching for you in Thailand. Not as a woman. Were you lying about your commitment to Willi?"

"No." His Adam’s apple gulped in hope of redemption.

"Your first name is Hans, yes?"

"I prefer Greta."

"Greta, I am a better friend than enemy. You can contact me at this number. Tell Willi nothing. This is 'our' secret." He gave the banker a business card and a wad of DM notes. "This will come out of your cut later."

“I’ll follow your every command.”

When his hand reached for the money, Cali snatched the man’s ear so hard that the cartilage partially snapped from the skull. A butcher at the city slaughterhouse had taught him the trick. His stepson was Cali's partner.

"Greta, you understand there's no backing out?"

"Yes," Hans said through watery eyes and Cali released him. The banker arranged his wig and smoothed out his dress. "Thank you."

"Thank me, when this is all over." Cali nodded and his friend opened the basement door for a black leather angel with platinum hair. Heroin had got the better of Willi’s beauty and the black pimp shook his head. He hated drugs. They cut into his employees’ productivity. His associates became sloppy. These weaknesses cost time, money, and lives in his business.

The banker was blind to Willi’s deterioration and they embraced as man and woman.

“Let’s leave the lovers alone.” Neither his friend nor he needed to witness the hustler’s performance.

At the entrance Kurt Oster pulled out a cigarette. The flame from a gold lighter illuminated a rugged face.

"Are we really going to cut in the banker?"

"Just because we are criminals doesn't mean we have to be dishonest. Everyone will get what their fair share, since it’s always luckier to believe you aren’t going to hurt anyone in the beginning.”

Cali stepped into the street to avoid the smoke. Cigarettes killed thousands of people every year.

The police never arrested the manufacturers. Pimps were better headlines. On the warehouse loading dock he surveyed the street. Only three cars were in sight.

“Anything wrong?” Kurt flicked the cigarette on the cobblestones.

“Someone is out there.”

“No one comes to the harbor at night.” The two walked to a brand-new silver Benz.

“We did.” Premonitions served as Cali’s early radar warning.

“And we haven’t done anything wrong.” Kurt’s hair had been recently cut in Milan. The jean jacket had been purchased on the King’s Road and the gold-buckled loafers had been hand-stitched in Italy. Only one shop in Paris carried the 501 jeans. Kurt drove a 1961 Thunderbird. He had expensive tastes in women too.

“Yet we will and things always have a funny way of going wrong.” Cali spoke German, ate sausages, liked Schlager rock, but the stares and pointed fingers at his black skin verified he was an Auslander to nearly every German, except one and that person wasn’t his mother.

“Which is why I will enlist the American for the Sonderboch. German police love arresting international criminals and a sucker holding the bag might buy us a few hours or even days to flee from this life.

“Someone from Hamburg might suspect something, but he won’t.”

"So, this American, is he stupid?”

"No, even better. Broken-hearted." Kurt added the missing link, "Plus Petra will act as the lure."

"Are you mad? She is a danger to us all."

"The greater the risk, the greater the gain.”

"Just once I would like someone to lie to me."

“I’ve never lied to you.”

“Not once?”

“Not about anything important.”

“Like your debts to the loan sharks.”

Cali was putting his life in his friend’s hands again.

“I never lied about them. I just never told you how much. If you don’t want to do this, I understand.”

“I didn’t say that. I want to get out of this life.”

“Not many live to tell the tale.”

“I know that all too well. Last week I walked out the the restaurant. I bent over to pick up this coin." Cali tapped the coin on the chain. "A second later shots go over my head. I return fire. Only hit the wind. Five marks saved my life. I’m 27. No one retires from this work alive, besides stealing millions isn’t any different from stealing an apple. The trick is not getting caught.”

"At least not by the wrong people."

Neither man was worried about the police, but Cali’s Reeperbahn compatriots. SS Tommy, his right-hand man, controlled half Hamburg's prostitutes with sociopathic violence. Mack 'Die Alte' beat the smaller pimps into submission. Cali’s fellow pimps controlled Hamburg's streetwalkers, girls, gay rent-boys, and underage 'Strichmadchens' with ruthlessness and fear was his greatest defense against their turning him. In their eyes he was always a 'Schwartzer'.

The black pimp opened the trunk of the Benz. Cali loved the new car smell. He reached into the trunk's secret compartment and handed over a manila envelope.

“That enough money?”

“More than enough to open an account in Switzerland.”

Kurt tucked the envelope inside his jacket.

“We can tell no one about this.”

Cali checked the street again.

“It’s me and you against the world.”

“Like always.” They shook hands to reseal their childhood pact. Cali drove away and Kurt followed in his electric-blue T-bird, lost in a better world money can buy.

Two seconds later only the exhaust fumes from the Thunderbird remained on the street and a bearded man emerged from the shadows.

The thirty year-old had seen enough. He would catch up with Kurt at his nightclub. Like most criminals

Kurt Oster was a creature of habits. Some good, some bad, and the bearded man knew which ones were which.

After all he was a policeman.

ALMOST A DEAD MAN by Peter Nolan Smith - CHAPTER 2

Howling sirens accompanied East Villagers fleeing into the Astor Place Subway. A lucky few reached the shelter of the tunnel and the rest raised their eyes to the speck falling to Earth. A white flash vaporized the troposphere, as a subhuman scream ping-ponged across the tenement canyon of East 10th Street.

“Dooooonnnnnnnnnnnaaaaaaa."

Inside a railroad flat's bedroom a thirty year-old man threw off the pillow over his head and Sean Coll staggered to an open window. Sweat dripped off his face, as he looked down to the sidewalk.

“Dooooonnnnnnnnnnnaaaaaaa."

A middle-aged Polish woman fled from a dope-sick junkie mauling a parked car with an iron pipe. Glass shards flew in the sunlight. The beserker arched his face to the broiling sun and emptied the ashes of his soul from his lungs.

"DOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAA."

No woman answered his warbling aria.

A cop car rounded the corner and the heroin addict hid the pipe, but nothing short of an 'officer-down' call was extricating the policemen from their air-con cruiser.

Once the cruiser drifted out of sight, the junkie demolished another windshield.

“Shit."

Sean's Triumph was on deck for batting practice.

He hurried to the kitchen and filled a trash bag with water from the brimming tub.

Fifteen seconds later Sean heaved out the plastic sack out the window. Liquid beads sprayed from its rupturing seams. The bag of water struck the junkie’s shoulder and the impact crushed him to the sidewalk. The plastic shroud fluttered over his fallen body. He lay still. Water dropped from that height might be fatal blow, but junkies don’t die easy. The addict rose to his feet and looked up at the buildings before limping down the block.

Sean flopped on the couch. The floor fan failed to circulate the sullen air and sweat oozed from his body like he was a miraculous weeping statue. Sheet lightning crackled across the sky and the rumbling thunder echoed the tale of Sleepy Hollow, yet no rain fell from from above.

The telephone broke his trance and he grabbed the phone on the third ring.

"Tammi?"

"No, this is Kurt." A man's voice crackled over trans-Atlantic interference.

"Kurt?"

"Do you remember me?"

"From Paris."

The German telex entrepreneur lived in a house near the Eiffel Tower. Kurt showed up at bars and restaurants with beautiful women. Sean had done drugs with him twice.

"How's New York in the summer. Hell, no?"

"Pretty close to it. Only me, the poor, the depraved, and the dying."

"You speak a little German, yes."

"Ich hatte Deutsche im Hoche Schule gelernt.”

His classmates had ridiculed Sean’s reading of Kafka's DAS URTEIL, until the warty Bavarian teacher had snubbed out his Pall Mall and coughed, "Even with his stutter Herr Coll speaks German better than the rest of you hairdressers."

Most of his speech impediments had been cured by therapy and few people noticed the stammer.

"You are Irish, yes?" asked Kurt.

"American and Irish." Ireland granted second-generation descendants citizenship, which was also in the EEC. “Why?”

"Because you need papers to work in Hamburg at my new club BSirs.”

"Isn't that what Alex called his droogies in CLOCKWORK ORANGE."

"The bouncers dress just like them. Your friend, Bertram Bellepas, is the DJ. The city is beautiful. The women more so. You manage the club for two-hundred Deutschmarks a night, plus a one and a half percentage of the gross, which will come to about three-thousand marks a month. A ticket will be waiting at Lufthansa office in New York. I will meet you at the airport. What do know about Hamburg?”

“Only that the Beatles played at the Star Club and sex trade thrives on the Reeperbahn.” Sean swiftly calculated that six months of work would earn him roughly fifty thousand marks or $30,000. Still he had to say, "Ich musste zu denken." “Do you have a better offer?”

"No."

There was only one reason to stay here, but the odds of Tammi coming back the New York were nil and he said, "I'll tell you tomorrow."

"Not coming would be a big mistake.”

“It wouldn’t be my first one.”

“No, and it won’t be your last, but you should come. It’ll be fun. Call me later, but think yes.”

Kurt gave his number and the overseas line clicked dead.

Sean hung up the phone and imagined Bruder Karl hearing that his worst student might be working in Germany. His classmates could go to hell.

After a buttered bagel and coffee at Velseka’s Diner Sean shot hoops in Tompkins Square Park, losing more games than he won.

During the early evening he drank beer on his stoop. Workers walked home from a Nine-To-Fives. He should have been one of them. He had a college degree. His family lived normal lives in Boston. He had no answers to any questions about his deviation from conformity and climbed upstairs to change into jeans and a light t-shirt.

The sun was setting upon his return to street. Sean sat on his Triumph and drove up 1st Avenue to East 77th Street. He parked the bike on the corner and walked halfway down the block. Tammi's name remained on the mailbox. He pressed the buzzer. A glass bottle shattered against the brick wall.

"Bastard. Man. Bastard." A wizened woman in a shroud of garbage bags scrounged through the nearest trashcan for another missile. "I'm the only crazy on this block and you're not crazy. You're only in love with someone who doesn't love you. I've seen you and your whore. She was fucking that Russian and everyone else. All you bastards want is for us to be whores, then you throw us out on the street."

The old woman tore apart her plastic sheath. Her body was encrusted with layers of dirt.. Sean retreated to his motorcycle. The kickstart ignited the 650cc engine and a backfire of flames spurted from the exhaust pipes. Dogs barked inside the buildings and car alarms howled on the street. He revved the motor and raced to 2nd Avenue.

The old woman was right and only one thing could erase her words.

He burned the red light. A newspaper truck missed him by inches.

At 23rd Street he shifted into fifth.

Crossing 14th he spotted a blonde getting into a taxi.

She was the same height as Tammi.

Sean braked to a skidding halt.

A young businessman ran up and lifted her skirt. She laughed, while he forced her into a taxi.

The yellow Checker pulled away from the curb. Sean blasted through the red light.

A siren whooped behind him. The blonde turned and Tammi's mirage dissolved into another woman’s face.

Sean veered over to the curb and pulled off his helmet. Two car doors slammed and footsteps flapped against the pavement. A flashlight beam blinded his eyes and a voice ordered, "Get off the bike."

"What’s the problem?" Sean balanced his bike on the kickstand and lifted his hands.

"You see what I see, Kev?"

"I can't friggin' believe my eyes. Sean Coll in the flesh."

"I told you that was his bike, but you said, "Naw, Seano's in France. Guess you were wrong," the tobacco-harsh voice commented with the pleasure of being right.

The flashlight was shut off and Sean blinked away the shadows. The two NYPD officers grinned like drunken hunters discovering an animal snared in their trap. Kevin Driscoll was thinner than his partner, but still had forty pounds and a few inches on Sean. Neither cop was shy about tossing around their weight.

"Welcome back, Seano." deRocco took off his perforated summer-weight peaked cap and scratched his balding head.

"I'm leaving as soon as I can." Sean had been avoiding deRocco and Driscoll like a disease.

"You believe that, Kev?" deRocco was the brains of the pair.

"Nah, it's bullshit." Kevin Driscoll waved on the gawking drivers and deRocco stepped closer. The smell of whiskey on his breath was not a good sign in hot weather. "Drop yer fuckin' hands. This ain't no arrest. We just wanna talk with you."

"I haven't talked to no one about where you were the night Johnny Fats was killed."

“Frankie, you know this Johnny Fats?” Driscoll slapped the flashlight into his palm.

“Never heard of him.”

"Really? If I had ratted you out, would you be here now? Not a chance and a cop in prison isn't a pretty sight."

"You threatenin’ us?" Driscoll’s hand dropped to his .38.

"Not at all, just that I dis covered the precinct's bagman behind the club. A single bullet hole had perforated his forehead. Somehow a Grand Jury had ruled it 'death by misadventure'. In the ensuing IAU investigation fifteen cops from the Ninth Precinct had been fired without pensions and two imprisoned at Sing-Sing."

"So what?"

“Just I saw you leave with him and I saw him died.”

”We weren’t involved with Johnny Fat’s death." Driscoll protested, not knowing the bagman hadn’t said a single word before his death rattle and deRocco snapped, "Shut up, Kev."

“I buy you’re not killing Johnny, but someone set up the execution.”

“It wasn’t us.” deRocco's eyes blanked out with a cold-blooded gaze.

"Sgt. Ferguson thinks we three know more than we should.”

The IAU sergeant had plenty of theories, mostly of them were on the money.

"That cocksucker." deRocco venomously spat out the words.

Sean smirked, for the precinct cops spread about deRocco's sexual leaning.

"What you smilin' about?"

"Nothing." Cops had a hard job in New York City, however these two were past redemption. “Just I got a phone call today from Germany. They want me to work at a nightclub there. Maybe I should go?”

“And stay away for a while too.” deRocco lit a cigarette. "You're a lucky fuckin' Mick, Seano."

"You want to contribute to my bon-voyage fund?"

“Don’t push it, Seano. Just get the fuck out of town."

"Sure, I'll send you a postcard." The two officers returned to the cruiser and then crossed 14th Street into the Ninth Precinct. Sean had to face the truth that Tammi was gone for good.

"Hamburg," he muttered, tugging on his helmet.

He started his bike and obeyed all the lights to his apartment. By the time he reached East 10th Street, he was thanking deRocco and Driscoll for forcing him to accept Kurt's offer. Maybe the distance of a few thousand miles would help free his soul of Tammi.

Something had to someday.

He only wished it was today.

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

ALMOST A DEAD MAN by Peter Nolan Smith- CHAPTER 3

A rutted dirt road cut through a wooded park north of Hamburg. The moonless night deepened the darkness within the tunnel of tall pines. A wild swath of brush, brambles, and thorns sprawled along a crumbling stonewall to rusting wrought-iron gates opened wide for the evening's guests.

During the reign of the Baader-Meinhof Gang the Von Hausen estate had been guarded by electronic sensors, video cameras, and attack dogs, and armed guards. Most of the revolutionaries were prisoners, fugitives or deadand neglect served as the best security measure for Germany's uncrowned aristocracy.

Flickering torches flared before a 19th-Century mansion. Laughter echoed through the savage rose gardens. The men appeared powerful and the wives looked ten years younger than their real age. The uniformity of their faces and bodies shared the success of ageless interbreeding.

Dexy's COME ON, EILEEN blared from the speakers. Exquisite teenage girls moved sinuously, while the blasé young boys shrugged listlessly from side to side.

Behind the twin turntables Bertram Bellepas was dying to dance with several of the female guests, but Kurt had warned the DJ against fraternization.

This gathering preferred the help in their place and the older set viewed Kurt with all the suspicion the rich hold for the lower classes. Few could understand their host’s association with such Gesindel. Lukas Von Hausen simply called the nightclub owner 'entertainment'.

His young wife skated through the crowd on high heels. A shimmering silk sheath clung to her tanned body and her silver-blonde hair cast an unearthly halo around her face. Vanessa Von Hausen greeted Lucas with a kiss. Her marriage to a man over twenty years her senior and the antithesis to her ingenuous purity mystified everyone.

Lukas' golden hair had thinned to patches and his flesh was mottled from drug abuse. His bright smile had been replaced by decaying teeth. Considering how hard the baron had abused himself throughout the Sixties and Seventies, his achieving forty-two years amazed no one more than himself, but he had not always been as ruined as he was today and kissed her cheek, consummately acting the role of a loving husband.

“Having a good time, darling?”

"Lots of fun," his wife whispered in her ear and touched a red spot on his shirt. His grimace confirmed another meeting with mistress and she withdrew her hand, as if his masochism might be contagious, saying,

“Come dance with me.”

"Dancing is best left for the young in body and heart. You’ll have more fun with Kurt.”

“I’d rather dance with you.” Vanessa prayed for his salvation, but turned her turquoise blue eyes on Kurt Oster. She motioned to him. They met on the dance floor. Many of guests scrutinized their every move and Kurt asked, “You us want to dance in front of these people?”

“Lukas gave me permission, so I’ll ask again. Dance?"

"With you. Anywhere at anytime."

Vanessa swayed back and forth to synthetic-pop of Tabu’s ALLEIN. Silky strands rippled across her spine like a theater curtain closing on the stage and a lengthy gold necklace swung between her compact breasts. The melting scent of her perfume wafted in the night air. Feeling hard nipples shift across his chest,

Kurt stepped back from Vanessa.

“What is wrong?”

“These people are the upper echelon of Northern Germany. Their lineage stretches back in time to the Middle Ages and their families control riches beyond imagination, but these people only have money, because they were born rich, married someone rich, or stole it. My father vanished after Stalingrad and my stepfather was a brutal Hafenstrasse butcher. I was born with a bone in my mouth. Not a silver spoon. I will never be one of them."

Germany's complicated laws of inheritance protected any true redistribution through marriage, so Kurt could only achieve his dream by robbing from the rich to give to the poor and he held Vanessa tighter.

"Like Lucas?"

"I will never be him, but that is good, because you do not love Lukas and he does not love you"

“How can you say that? He is my husband."

"Yes, he is." He understood that it was better for him to say nothing about Lukas' arrangement with Petra. His hand slipped down her back and then he spun her in a dizzying circle. “I am not here to schmatzen with these people. They have no use for me. I am here to see you."

"Me?"

"You know how I feel about you and I think you feel the same way too. I am working on something that could change both our lives and then I will ask you to leave this all behind. Somewhere in your heart you will find a way to say, "Yes."

Her life belonged to Lukas and Vanessa demanded without any conviction, “Stop.”

"Why?" Kurt sidestepped around her, then pulled Vanessa tight like an Apache dancer. “You want us as much as me."

Bertram segued into LE FREAK. Chic's hit launched the dancers into a frenzy.

On the terrace Lukas clapped his hands in feigned delight and waved for his wife to come over. Once she was next to him, he put his arm lovingly around her and asked, "What did Kurt say to you?"

She paused for a second, attempting to tell a lie, only her upbringing wouldn’t allow anything, but the truth.

"Kurt wants to take me away."

"Oh, don't they all, my dear? What else did he say?" Kurt and Lukas had met countless times at parties, concerts, and clubs.

"That he had something big planned that could change everything for him."

"What? Like rob a bank?"

"He did not say." Vanessa lowered her head.

"Of course he would not." Lukas cautioned her like a concerned husband, "You should stay away from Kurt. There was nothing more pathetic than a lower-class fool in love with their better."

"Thank you for the warning." Vanessa was trapped playing the princess in a diabolical fairy tale. "If there is anything I have learned from you, it is that no man is harmless."

“And few women too.” Lukas walked away, as tears formed in her eyes. Only one woman could satisfy his libido and he should have married Petra, except his titled prejudices forbade such a luxury.

Entering the library, Lukas stood before the monumental 32-volume dictionary of the German language started by the Grimms Brothers and completed in 1961. Only a thousand copies were sold, since few people could afford a full set.

Books crowded the library's shelves. His father hadn’t read any of them. Lukas had upheld the tradition and lifted Thomas Mann’s Der Tod in Venedig, as if the sentences, paragraphs, and chapters could be absorbed through the power of osmosis, though not a single word passed through the covers to his hand. Lukas hated books as dusty reminders of the past, since he had come to view that his entire life as various remakes of his favorite movies; DARLING, SUNSET BOULEVARD, INFANTS DE PARADIS, SALO, and most lately Jean Renoir's black-and-white version of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

Lukas slammed his fist against the wall. He had been tricked by an addendum to his father's will that he would be left out of the inheritance, unless he married an honorable woman.

The old man had been mad to think his sacramental union with a girl as pure as Vanessa could rescue his soul from damnation and he would have disinterred his father's corpse for the forest animals to scavenge, except his designs were on the living.

Someone knocked on the door.

"Come in."

The door to the library opened for his guest.

Lukas motioned for SS Tommy to sit.

Cali's right-hand man bore a close resemblance to a boar wearing a blonde wig.

"Good evening, Herr Von Hausen."

"Yes, it is." Lukas pulled the shades shut and SS Tommy sat in a rich leather chair.

“Embarrassed by me?”

“You wouldn’t fit into this crowd.”

“And Kurt Oster does?”

“He has his uses as do you.”

“Just not socially other than right-wing meetings.”

"One day the Reich will rise again."

"Like the sun." SS Tommy leaned back to look at the party. “The rich having fun.”

"Sadly I am not rich. My beloved father had spent everything trying to save our steel mills. I inherited this 'mansion' and nothing else."

"I know your situation and that you can't pay me back. That is a problem, but the Party has asked me to give you time." SS Tommy hated the aristocrat, but the Party was in no position to exclude upper-class members. He picked up DER TOD IN VENIDIG without reading its title. "But you didn't invite me here for a social chat, so what do you want?" SS Tommy

"Besides a united Germany, what is your fondest dream?"

"To be King of the Reeperbahn."

"Those are dangerous words.”

“For you more than me.”

“Do not worry I will say nothing, but what if I could make your dream come true?" Lukas had continued associating with the Neo Nazis in case the connection might come in handy one day and today was that day.

"You? How could you help me?"

"Who stands in your way? Ein Schwartzer. Kali Nordstrum."

"Everyone knows this?"

"I hired someone to follow my wife. She had several innocent meetings with Kurt. I told him to follow Kurt. Two nights ago he reported that Kurt and Nigger Cali met with a transvestite, who turned out to be a banker. It seemed like nothing."

"Cali does nothing for nothing."

"Exactly." Lukas faced SS Tommy. "Cali and Kurt Oster might have something big in the works. Something that could help both you and me, if we were to interfere."

"Such as what?"

"A robbery worth several million Deustchmarks. The whos are connected, it is strictly a matter of finding out when and where."

“And you’re asking me to help you?”

“Asking you to be a partner is as dangerous as grabbing an egg from a snakehole.”

“I feel the same way about you, but while a snake might bite any hand stuck in the hole, no one said you had to be the one snatching the egg, but I'm no sucker." SS Tommy slammed down the book and seized the baron by his lapels.

"No one said you were. Lukas and Cali will be our Sonderboch." Lukas answered and the pimp loosens his grip. “Now I understand why the rich are rich. Because they cheat everyone.” SS Tommy let off Lukas.

“So what is next?”

"When my man tells me any new information, I will tell you."

"Is he police?"

"Yes, but he can be trusted."

"A Nazi?"

"Yes. Are you in or not?"

"If I find out you have been lying to me in any way, I will kill you."

"I hope you find that will be unnecessary." Lukas flipped his arm against the pimp's wrists, knocking himself free. His right hand struck the pimp's throat and his fingers choked off his air. "You may think me a weak man. An ex-junkie. A masochist, but I am not what you think. Not at all."

Lukas released SS Tommy and the baron slapped him on the back.

"Breathe slowly and the pain will go away faster."

The taller man could have easily killed him a few seconds ago and the blonde pimp would not underestimated the Count twice.

"When would this happen?"

"Maybe a month. Maybe two."

"Will this cost me any money?"

"Only time and your special talents." Lukas adjusted his jacket, strangely aroused by the confrontation. SS Tommy pointed a thick finger at the count, trying to regain some of his confidence.

"Remember. If you fuck with me...."

"You will kill me." Lukas displayed no fear of SS Tommy’s threats. “So are we in agreement?” The blonde pimp nodded and the two men shook hands. Lukas opened the door.

"You'll understand, if I ask you to leave by the back."

"No offense taken," SS Tommy fantasized about paying back this insult and walked through the woods to his car parked on the nature park’s road. He rubbed his throat and drove his Ferrari from the state forest.

The title of King of the Reeperbahn appealed to him, not because of money. He had more than he needed as well as every type of woman in this world. He craved the power to strike back at everyone who had ever stood in his way and that list was topped by Cali, because as much as he enjoyed the sound of 'King of the Reeperbahn', it would even sound better once SS Tommy was ruled the street and Cali was floating in the Elbe.

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

ALMOST A DEAD MAN by Peter Nolan Smith - CHAPTER 4

Hamburg's Hotel-Intercontinental casino was quiet on weekday afternoons. A single woman in gold leather stood at the roulette table bracketed by two rival factions of Japanese businessmen. Her short hair spiked out like a crown of thorns. Her right eye moved independently of the left and her facial bones seemed to have torn apart by forces beyond her control, so the woman in her mid-twenties resembled Ava Gardner, if the movie actress had crashed a Porsche into a wall.

The two Tokyo bosses in Saville Row suits glanced at the brunette, as they emotionlessly placed bets.

The Japanese company men considered all Occidental women ugly, but their opinion was inconsequential, since their respective bosses' had ordered them to proposition this extraordinary onno-tojin. Money was no object, as their companies footed the expense, yet none could muster the courage to approach this formidable foreign woman.

"Faites votre jeu." The croupier expertly flicked the steel ball against the wheel's outer rim. Its orbit decayed to be caught by a slot. The brunette in a filmy silk shirt and short leather skirt swore under her breath, "Schiesse" and suspected that the house might have rigged the wheel, but refrained from complaining, since most casinos in Germany had banned her for 'counting' at the blackjack tables, which was why she played roulette in her hometown.

Petra had excelled at Math at high school and could recall every winning number of the past hour.

Seventeen had been blanked over fifty times. At 36 to 1, a win would put her back in the game. She laid her last hundred on that number.

"Machen Ihren Spielen," the croupier said, setting the ball on its course.

The Japanese followed suit and she muttered under her breath, "Slitauge."

It wasn't a nice word to use, but she wasn't in a 'nett' mood.

Twenty-one.

Another loser.

The brunette sarcastically thanked the croupier and departed before the businessmen propositioned her to be a naked sushi platter. As the brunette passed the front desk, the concierge coughed and she asked, "Was ist es?"

The concierge passed a piece of paper.

She read the note and headed out to the swimming area, where she slipped on newly bought sunglasses to shield her one good eye from the bright sunlight. Her right hand idly played with her heavy 22K gold necklace, then her once-worn high heels snapped on the concrete patio.

Several men followed her every step.

She saw none of them.

Sitting next to Kurt Oster the brunette took off her sunglasses and unveiled hatred of men filled her right eye. The two neighboring men changed their lounge chairs. She had grown accustomed to their expressions ever since waking in a hospital bed with an IV drip in his arm and a bandage over her left eye. Before falling back into a narcotic daze, the doctor had gazed down and said, "It won’t be so bad." It had been a lie she wanted to believe, until seeing her face in the mirror several days later.

Bad only covered the surface damage.

"Have any luck at the tables?"

"There are good days and bad days and thankfully tomorrows."

"That sounds like you lost everything." Kurt Oster cinched the belt of the cotton-bathing robe, so he resembled a dissolute tycoon at Swiss spa.

"It makes no difference, winning or losing." The brunette leaned back in the chair and regarded three blondes in bikinis at the end of the pool. They were obviously disappointed by her arrival and she asked in a very businesslike manner, "Why did you want to see me?"

“Petra, I can remember when you used to be fun." Schlange was an understatement of her perpetual foul mood.

"So can I and that person is someone I want to forget."

"If you want to forget for good, there's a packet in my cigarette case." Kurt rarely went anywhere without a stash of coke and heroin.

"No, thank you." Revenge was the only stimulant running in her veins.

"Could you use some money?" Kurt winked at the stewardesses in the pool.

"Do you need it back?"

"No.”

"Then I'll take it,” she said, knowing that borrowed money was a loser at the tables.

"There are a thousand marks in my pocket. Maybe your luck will change."

When Petra had been a whore, Kurt Oster had treated her as a lady, plus he had visited the hospital every day and paid for all the bills not covered by the German health service without ever asking anything in return. Still no one in Hamburg gave away money for free and her eyes narrowed with practiced suspicion. “No one in Hamburg gives away money for free. Was ist der Fang?”

"I have this American coming to town and I want you to take care of him."

"I don’t fuck men anymore." Petra Wessel’s repugnance to the other sex had not resulted from her life on the Reeperbahn.

Disinterestedly watching a stewardess dive into the hotel pool, Kurt pulled her closer and Petra stiffened, for the Zuhalterei’s lesson against organizing a union for the girls of the Reeperbahn had scarred her to the mere touch of a man. Kurt apologized and whispered in her ear, "All I am asking you is to entertain him."

"Why me?"

"Because who else can I trust in this city?” Petra on the team completed the equation and Kurt Oster lifted his gaze to the sky. The clouds were so clean and the sky so blue, he wished the afternoon could last forever.

"Will he end up dead?" It was a question she had to ask, though another man dead or alive was no skin off her back. Kurt's face conveyed mock horror at her suggestion.

"This man will be my safety valve should anything go wrong."

“A Sonderboch?"

"Yes, as sucker, but to what purpose I can not tell you other than it will worth your while."

"I want something other than money." Petra leaned back and said, "I want names."

"Why can't you forget the past?"

" I see out of one eye." Petra's lacquered fingernail tapping her glass eye created a disconcerting artificial click. The gesture was a disturbing reminder of her vendetta and Kurt said, "I can't promise anything. I've told you that before."

"And I didn't believe you then anymore than now. Either give me names or I won't take care of your American." Petra began to stand, but Kurt's hand gently touched her arm.

"You play tough, Petra."

"I've had good teachers."

"I suppose you did." Kurt had not been in town during her beating, but had a short list of suspects. “I will give you those names, when this job is through."

"So you’re planning to leave town after all this?" Petra smiled with a wicked premonition of her dreams coming true.

"If I tell you those names, my life wouldn't be worth a pfennig. Not here and maybe a few other places too." He arched an eyebrow to show he understood the danger of her payment. Petra regarded Kurt closely.

He was her only friend in Hamburg and she nodded, saying, "I'll do your little dirty job and I'll take that thousand marks. Maybe my luck will change."

Petra Wessel reached inside his robe for the money, then left for the parking lot. At her peak she had been the number one call girl in all Hamburg and even as damaged goods the tall brunette possessed a devastated wantonness few men could resist.

The blonde undercover police officer by the cabanas recognized the brunette from the newspaper story of her beating and imagined their conversation had been about drugs or money, although this week's surveillance of Kurt Oster had turned up nothing suspicious other than his consorting with various criminals around Hamburg and his connection to top artists, Schlager singers, movie stars, the rich and the powerful, passing from one world to the other without a stutter step.

While there might be guilt by association, Alex Brucken was being paid to watch the nightclub owner breaking a Commandment and the policeman had yet to see him commit adultery with Lukas' wife.

Not once.

He was beginning to think that the baron's suspicions were only paranoia, but the money was the baron's to waste and Alex's time was expendable. At least for the next month of his vacation, then it was back to work and his Schupo bosses never liked wasted time or money. Not on the State's clock.

ALMOST A DEAD MAN by Peter Nolan Smith - CHAPTER 5

The Lufthansa flight from Frankfort descended through the gray dawn. The plane landed smoothly and taxied across the tarmac. The pilot welcomed the passengers to Hamburg. The doors opened and the other travelers deboarded the plane. Sean remained seated and asked himself, "What am I doing in Germany?"

The word conjured up the Black Forest, Mad Ludwig's castles, the Rhine, beer, knockwurst, koo-koo clocks, lederhosen, Goethe, Bach, Beethoven, Schiller, Mann, Hesse, Wagner, Marlene Dietrich, LILI MARLENE, Rommel, the Wehrmacht at Stalingrad, Ilsa of the SS, and inescapably Hitler and his gang. Before leaving New York, several friends had revealed their slim knowledge of Hamburg by asking, "Didn't the Beatles play there?"

A male steward approached his seat and asked in perfect English, "Are you alright, sir?"

"Yes, just a little disoriented, that's all." Sean stood up with his bag in hand and walked off the plane down the ramp into the near-empty terminal, then proceeded to customs and immigration.

"Passport, bitte."

The officer stamped his passport with a six-month visa and motioned for him to continue through the arrival doors. Neither Kurt nor Bertram were on the other side. He changed $40 into Deutschemarks and went to a phone booth, where he dialed Kurt’s number. Ten rings later he hung up and called again.

No answer and Sean sat on a bench.

A pale-faced police officer in a green uniform passed Sean twice.

The struggle to keep his eyes open lasted a few seconds.

Thirty minutes later Sean snapped awake, as a herd of businessmen in pinstriped suits hurried into the terminal. Nobody had touched his bag and Sean once more called the number without any response. The young policeman approached Sean, who was seized by the paranoid delusion that the NYPD had alerted Interpol to his arrival, but the uniformed officer addressed him in German, then politely asked in English, "Are you lost?"

"No, my friends were supposed to meet me." Sean showed the phone number. "I telephoned them and no one answered."

"Maybe I can help." The officer dialed the number. After thirty seconds he hung up and pressed 'O' and then spoke German too rapidly for Sean. He wrote down an address and said, "Your friends live at Ein Kaiserringstrasse. Maybe twenty minutes away by taxi. It should only cost forty marks."

"Viele Danke." Sean’s dealings with New York cops had ill-prepared him for such cooperation or the German policeman saluting his good-bye.

“Have a good stay in Hamburg.”

"I'll try."

Outside the terminal he walked to a taxi and rapped on the Mercedes’ window, waking the scruffy driver. The back door's lock popped up and Sean sat in the car, which smelled of the driver’s many hours behind the wheel. Some things remained the same from city to city. He cracked the window and handed the address to the driver, who grunted and drove away from the airport. The well-paved road orderly houses with tidy lawns. The passing suburbs could have passed for any affluent city in the western world, except the billboards were in German. Sean read a few, but he once more gave into exhaustion and nodded off, until the taxi stopped on a tree-shaded street.

"Ein Kaiserringstrasse," The driver pointed to a faded blue door in a lopsided brick wall.

"Vierzig mark, bitte."

Sean exited from the taxi and the Mercedes abandoned him to the street's unearthly quiet. A cool fog veiled the white sun and he tasted salt in the air. The house had to be close the Elbe. Unable to find a buzzer Sean pushed the door open with his foot and entered an untended garden.

Creeping ivy strangled twisted oaks. Tall weeds choked the dirt path leading to a Gothic mansion. Cracks crawled up the masonry, paint flaked off the wall in sheets, and the roof was missing sections of stone slates. Sean half-expected the timeworn building to dissolve on the raspy breeze curling through the reed-choked pond surrounded by headless statues.

A Mercedes and Porsche were parked in the driveway and Sean shouted out, "Bertram. Kurt."

The names died in the silent garden.

He climbed the limestone steps to the open front door seeping the smell of must. He yelled the names again. No reply and he stepped inside the mansion, his footsteps creaking on the warped floorboards.

Heavy curtains blocked the light and Sean groped for a light switch against the wall. His fingers tapped a greasy button and electricity blazed from a chandelier precariously fastened to the buckled ceiling.

A clutter of paint tubes and cans in the former dining room surrounded an easel. Empty champagne bottles occupied the far corner. Color-smeared rags carpeted the floor. In the midst of the chaos a painting of a nude brunette with a pageboy haircut viewed through broken glass rested on an elegant chair.

A savage growl vibrated through the house succeeded by a woman's screams. Sean picked up an empty champagne bottle and charged up the crooked stairs.

Down the hallways a woman gasped, "Nein, nein, nein. Nicht wie das."

Inside a bedroom the brunette from the painting stood over a kneeling naked man. The thigh-high black patent leather boots rose above her knees. A studded dog collar encircled her neck and a cuirass of steel chains partially hid her pointed breasts. Metal rings tightly encircled her blunt nipples. A thick belt was looped in her right hand.

A sheen of sweat shone on her skin and a spider web of thin scars latticed her torso. Her heavily made-up eyes and lips coated with a shiny black lacquer failed to mask her facial features having been catastrophically warped like the tectonic plates of the Earth. Neither her deformities nor the man with stringy whitish-blonde hair crawling at her feet detracted from the illusion of her simultaneously being an angel and whore, although Sean cringed with the crack of the belt against the blonde man’s flesh.

Her victim tensed for the next blow. The leather strap ripped across his back and the man flopped onto the floor, the woman saying, "Ich bin ein Mistvieh."

When the brunette turned her head, Sean nearly dropped to his knees to join her slave's devoted worship.

Her cold amber eyes examined the stranger without any alarm before she reached down to strangle the man with the belt. His panting was strained, yet his red face glowed with anticipated pleasure. A video camera in the corner recorded his asphyxiation and played the scene on several televisions. No one was in danger and Sean backed away from the doorway, leaving the empty champagne bottle in the hallway.

Their struggle seemed to intensify with his every step.

Back in the studio Sean cleared a space on the floor. He had slept in worst places and stuck wet paper wads in his ears to block out the noise. He lay on the carpet with his bag under his head. His eyes might have been shut, but the images of this woman unfolded in his mind like crumpled photos of pin-up girls from the ancient Playboy magazines, the creases forming the same tangle of scars across her skin.

Upstairs Petra doubled the thick belt.

"Ich bin Ein Koter," he declared himself a cur and assumed a crouching position with outstretched arms. "Schlag mir. Bitte."

Petra struck Lukas without counting the blows and the belt exploded on his back. The pain reverberated through his trembling limbs. Blood trickled from old wounds and red drops dripped from his chest onto the floor.

Petra panted from exertion and he cried out with pleasure, then murmured the safety word, “Genug.”

“Enough? I have more to give."

Petra’s thighs were flecked with blood.

“That won't be necessary."

"Up to you."

She settled into a chair and stuck her boots underneath his head. He licked them clean, as his tongue departed from the glossy leather to that first raised ridge of scar tissue just above her knee.

"Your groveling disgusts me." Petra directed his attention to whatever he might have missed with a riding crop. Finally Lukas rose to his feet, as if he had snapped out of a trance, and asked, “You ever wonder why?”

“Why what? This?” She snapped the crop against his thigh.

“Yes.”

“I am in it for the money.” Petra unfastened her heavy-metal costume like a gladiator weary from combat. She was strictly in this for the money.

"No I am talking about me.”

“I don't care why you're into it as long as you pay for the session. I am no psychologist.” Petra never asked any of her ‘freier’ questions, but they always wanted to confess their motives and Lukas was no different.

“I’ve tried everything; cocaine, heroin, homosexuality, orgies in search of the ultimate sensation, but only pain makes me feel alive. I thought you of all people would understand that epiphany.”

"I don't understand my life, so why try and to understand the lives of others." Petra touched her right eye and recalled the horror of it popping out. She hated Lukas speaking, as if these meetings bestowed upon him an insight into true suffering, and she said, "Doesn’t your wife make you happy?"

"Happy? Marrying her was a mistake." Lukas stroked the lacerations on his back, as if they were a work of art. "One I am stuck with for the moment. Your friend, Kurt, is very much in love with my wife and if she went with him, I would be free to marry you."

"You really would marry me?" she laughed.

"If Vanessa was out of the way, ja." Lukas put on his shirt. Blood stained the silk.

“You know we are made for one another.”

"I was not made for anyone." She wrapped a robe around her body. "You know the way out. I have to attend to my guest."

"Ah, yes, your guest.” Lukas pulled on his trousers and slipped on his shoes. “Who is he?”

"An American Kurt hired to work at the nightclub." Petra stuck with Kurt’s cover story. Lukas suspected that the American might be involved in Kurt and Cali’s plans and said, "Another American in Hamburg like Wim Wenders' AMERICAN FRIEND.

Petra regarded movies as a pale reflection of life and hoped Lukas spared her a discourse about his beloved cinema.

“Yes, they come and go."

“And what about tomorrow?"

"You’re paying the rent here. You can come and go as you pleased as long as you pay me too." Petra was amazed at his addiction to pain, but she kept a gun upstairs, for Lukas was rumored to have killed two men in Morocco during the 1970s. He was not to be trusted, then again no man was worthy of trust.

Lukas placed an envelope containing 5000 DMs on a table, as if it were a down payment on her soul and left the room without saying another word.

Once he was gone, Petra went downstairs to the studio and nudged the intruder with her naked foot.

Sean opened his eyes.

The brunette’s electric-blue silk nightgown hardly softened her nail-tough exterior and her icy left eye wandered out of synch with the right.

"So you must be the American. Kurt told me you could pass for a young Orson Welles playing a cop."

"That's the Irish in me." Sean stood up and brushed sticky rags from his jeans.

"I'm sorry about the intrusion.”

"Herr Coll, I heard you on the steps.”

"You could have locked the door."

"The expression on your face was too precious for words." The woman walked out of the room. "Come with me, I will show you where to sleep."

Sean trailed her to a room. The windows had a view of the river.

She pointed to the small bed in the corner.

"You can sleep there."

"What about Bertram and Kurt? They were supposed to meet me at the airport."

"It was a late night at the club and they figured you could get it here on your own." She leaned against the door and parted her legs. "We can meet them later." “At the club."

"Where else, but the Malchek?"

"And what is your name?"

The silk robe opened a few inches. A gold chain encircled her waist. The scars covered her belly. She had been spared nothing by her attacker.

"Petra Wessel."

"Wessel? Like Horst Wessel?" Sean referred to the Nazi martyr from the 1930s.

"So you are up on your history, but I am not related to Horst Wessel.”

She stepped away from the door, leaving behind the smell of another man on her skin. Her footsteps climbed the stairs and a door slammed shut to leave him alone in a foreign city.

Hamburg was not New York

Sean shucked off his boots and lay on the bed. Sleep was hardly what he experienced next, but no dreams of H-bombs invaded his dreams and he was happy.

Least for now.