The 747 from Miami coupled with the passenger tube at Frankfurt terminal.
Lukas Von Hausen was one of the first passenger's off the plane. A further benefit of his first-class ticket was swift passage through immigration and customs without a suspicious regard from the customs officers. His travel bag held over a hundred thousand dollars. While bringing money into the country was not a crime, the fewer people knowing about his business in the Caymans the better.
Lukas crossed the massive terminal and caught the connecting flight to Hamburg.
The short trip to Futtsbuttel was uneventful as was the de-planing.
Everything had gone according to plan.
He was once more a rich man without a care in the world, then he saw REEPERBAHN RIOT splashed across the morning newspapers. He bought a Morgenpost and swiftly read the article. The Hurens had rebelled against the Zuhalterei and demanded more control of the business. The Polizei had quelled the uprising with a promise to conduct hearings on forming unions in the Reeperbahn.
Lukas thought, "Petra."
Neither her name nor photo were in the report.
Strangely Cali was also absent from Morgenpost's account.
Lukas went to the nearest telephone booth and dialed a series of numbers. There was no answer at any of them and he exited from the phone booth, then walked outside and looked up at a blue sky sulking north.
Something was definitely not right.
He picked up his Dino Ferrari 365 from the airport parking lot and drove north to Trittau. Men in their production line cars stared enviously at the Italian classic, but Lukas ignored everything, as he practiced his role as the distraught husband for an audience of family, newspaper reporters, and police in the weeks to come. The tears spilled on cue, his face tensed with grief, and his voice shook with emotion. One rehearsal was enough, for he was master of his own destiny again.
Several police cars were parked at the end of the forest lane. He wheeled past them and stopped before his house.
A large group of uniformed officers loitered under the porte-cochere. They turned their heads in unison to accusingly eye the driver. Alex Brucken waved them away and walked toward the sports car, Lukas hauled himself out of the Ferrari, demanding, "What are you doing here?"
Alex Brucken saluted Lukas and said, "There was a murder-suicide down the road."
"How does that involve me?"
"Look at your door."
The door had been splintered by an ax.
"Who did that? Where is my wife?"
"There is no sign of her."
"No sign?"
"We have searched the premises and she is nowhere to be found. Come with me, I will show you her room."
Alex Brucken led the baron inside. The other police maintained a deferential distance to their better. Lukas examined the deep gouges in the wood of the doorjamb. He sobbed, "My wife?"
"We know nothing yet," said the bearded Stittpolizei inspector. "Please come this way, but do not touch anything."
Several forensic detectives were gathering blood droplets off the wooden floor, the stairs and the second-floor hallway.
When they reached the shattered bedroom door, Lukas closed his eyes for show. He opened them to discover no bodies.
Only small pools of dried blood and a busted bathroom door.
Lukas asked urgently, "Where's my wife?"
"We were hoping you could tell us, Herr Von Hausen." Alex Brucken asked, then signaled the other officers to leave the room. Once they were alone, the police officer abandoned the facade of never having met Lukas. "What happened here?"
Lukas was displeased by the police detective's lack of respect and said, "I would prefer you call me Baron."
"The aristocracy was abolished long ago, so you will have to be satisfied with 'Herr' like anyone else," Alex Brucken retorted and regarded the baron, as if he was the only man in a line-up.
"As you like, Officer Brucken."
Looking at the bloodstains, Lukas visualized Vanessa's futile struggle against SS Tommy. If the Reeperbahn thug lived up to his word, then she would never be seen in Germany again. "I am aware of my place in the modern world."
"As am I, Herr Von Hausen. Where were you yesterday?" Alex Brucken was asking these questions more for the sake of self-preservation than in the interests of justice.
"In the Cayman Islands on a business trip. I've been gone two days. You can check my passport and the airline."
"I most certainly will." Alex Brucken understood the baron had created an alibi for himself and that someone else had acted on his behalf.
"Have you received a ransom note?" .
"What makes you think this was a kidnapping?" Alex Brucken demanded, for he suspected something much worse.
"People think I have money. She was alone. An easy target. Someone must have taken her. I love my wife and want her back. You should understand that, because I paid you to tail her. Kurt Oster must have been involved. Where is he?" Lukas faked indignation by raising his voice in both volume and pitch. "My wife and her lover are missing. There is blood on the floor and you suspect me, the husband, even though I was out of town."
"Herr Von Hausen, save your act for a more gullible audience." His indignation rang as falsely as a cracked bell to the police officer's ear. "The two bodies were discovered in the park nearby. Both are dead from gunshots. They were the men Cali and Kurt met in the warehouses district. You remember them, yes? You had me check up on the banker's license plate. Why?"
"I do not like your tone," Lukas groaned inwardly, asking himself what SS Tommy could have been thinking by leaving the bodies for someone to find. The answer was very simple. They were a Reeperbahn-style warning.
"You do not have to like it. I asked you a question." Alex Brucken was not going to discover the reason the baron had wanted the dead man's license number simply by asking him and changed the subject. "You missed a busy day yesterday. There was also a big riot on the Reeperbahn."
"Yes, I read about it in the newspaper."
"Your mistress, Petra Wessel, instigated the disturbance by cutting up a pimp in revenge for her beating."
"That wasn't in the paper." Petra must have finally discovered who had attacked her a year ago and satisfied her vendetta. That too would have been ecstasy to film.
"Not all news is fit to print, Herr Von Hausen."
"Yes, you are right, but that has no connection with my wife's disappearance?" Lukas asked, uncertain how much the detective knew.
"She is your mistress."
"What Petra Wessel does, she does on her own. She is only a whore I use to satisfy an appetite my wife can not feed." Lukas sensed the detective was fine-tuning his focus, but he was missing too many pieces of the puzzle to paint the full picture.
"I am fully aware of what Petra Wessel does for you. There is something strange about all this and I will get to the bottom of it."
"Are you sure about that?"
"It is my job." Alex understood that Lukas Von Hausen expected to get away with whatever crimes he had committed, because he thought his type was never caught doing anything wrong.
"And that is exactly what you have to lose should you fuck with me." Lukas was tired of dealing with this little man. It was up to criminals like Cali or SS Tommy to take the fall and, if one nosy policeman should get in the way, then he would join them in the descent. "You may not want to call me 'baron', but keep in mind that I have very important friends in positions of power over you."
"Should I take that as a threat?" Alex Brucken was certain that the murder-suicide up the road, the disappearance of the baron's wife, and the riot on the Reeperbahn were all tied together.
"You will find fucking with me much different than the pimps and whores of the Reeperbahn. Get on with your investigation and find the right answers to satisfy the press and your superiors, and above all help me find my wife." Reading the rebellious expression on the detective's face, Lukas softened his voice, saying, "You have much more to gain by being on my side, then being against me. As I said, I have 'friends'. If they can help me, then I can have them help you. All I am asking is that you find my wife. Is that too hard to understand?"
"Like I said before, I am only doing my job," Alex answered politely, though he had become keenly aware that Lukas' offer of friendship had only come, because he posed more of a danger to Lukas Von Hausen than the baron did to him.
"Then we should have no problems. Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"For me, no, but there are some officers downstairs who would like to ask you a few questions. I think you will find their manner more comforting." Alex Brucken clicked his heels and left the room.
Lukas followed at a distance. The police detective introduced him to an older man in a suit, a senior member of Schupo. They went through every room in the house and the inspector asked, if anything was missing. To each question, he would reply, "Only my wife."
Soon the detective was as tired of his answers as he was of their asking them. Lukas Von Hausen apologized for being no help, then covered his face with both hands. The senior inspector placed a hand on the baron's shoulder and waved the other men from the room. The other policemen overtly scorned their superior's gloved treatment of the baron, especially since there would be no gerichtfreien recess for these officers.
Due to the riot at the ErosCenter, the murder-suicide, and this disappearance, all vacations had been canceled, so none of the policemen were in a good mood.
In their minds the husband was guilty as sin, if only for being the first person to show up on the scene. If it were up to them rather than the Amtsgericht, the lower court dealing with criminals, then the conviction rate for defendants would be over 100%. No matter how innocent you are of one thing, you are guilty of something else.
Everyone is.
"Herr Baron, just a few more questions and I will let you go." The older police officer took out his notebook and read the facts as he had them. "As far as you can tell us, your wife has been seeing this Kurt Oster for several months and he had been threatening to take her away. You locked her up, in order to prevent this. Someone broke in and now she is gone."
"Correct." Lukas had been counting on some Germans to regard him as their better and said, "I was wrong to keep her locked up, but what other choice did I have?"
"I understand, Herr Baron. We are very sorry this had happened and will do everything in our power to get your wife back to you, although it could be months before we find her."
"I do not want this splashed across the papers."
"Understood, we will do our best, Herr Baron." They had already put out an alert for Kurt Oster without stating why he was wanted and Kripo would establish a Press blackout on this case.
"I would except nothing less from you, Herr Inspector." Lukas rose from his chair and clasped the older man's hand, their eyes locking with the tenacity of an age-old bond between master and servant. "If you are through with me for now, I will be at the Atlantic Hotel, Herr Inspector. You can understand my not wanting to stay here tonight."
"Indeed. We will be in contact as soon as we learn anything else, Herr Baron." The Chief Inspector clearly reminisced about the good old days of law and order, where everyone had their place.
"Thank you for all your help." Lukas bowed graciously, then exited from the house, passing the under the portraits of his long-dead relatives. His actions had saved their paintings from being auctioned to strangers and his illustrious ancestors should be grateful for his sacrifice of honor.
Outside Lukas withdrew the small briefcase from the back of the Dino Ferrari. The sports car was far too obvious for whatever he had planned next. He went to the garage and got in the Audi station wagon with smoked windows, first checking, if the suitcase filled with the Petra’s videotapes was in the back. They were worth their weight in gold.
At least to him.
He was soon speeding down the deserted road with the repetitive corduroy plantings of pine singing out chorus of "Alles ist in Ordnung." into his head, although this mantra was far from the truth.
His not being trailed by the police came as no surprise. Obviously they had bought his grieving husband routine and he vowed to perfect it over the next few days. Putting Rimsky-Korsarkoff's SCHEHERAZADE on the car stereo, he stepped on the accelerator and opened up the Audi on 404 into the city.
As the violins repeated the symphony's theme, Lukas reflected on his new world. He had money and freedom once again. With Fassbinder out of the way, he could take over that niche in German cinema, even going so far as to internationalize the way he viewed the world. If RAMBO could make millions, then so could he.
Hollywood.
California.
A few days at a spa.
The glow of sun and health on his flesh.
Meetings with writers, directors, and producers.
With Petra at his side, stardom, fame, money, and resurrection would be his. He could see it all as clearly as if he were driving down the Pacific Coast Highway, instead of the Autobahn.
Lukas traversed the city without seeing any of Hamburg's inhabitants. To him there were merely blurred faces in the background of his life. Commoners or those straining to attain a higher status through the German work ethic, but they were all coddled children two generations removed from the plow. If these peasants chose to believe the lies of society, then more power to them. Lukas Von Hausen was the product of several hundred years of breeding, and that alone set him apart from these drones of the semi-socialized republic of West Germany.
The morning traffic on Ost-Weststrasse was light and the Audi accelerated in a smooth transition between gears. There was no guarantee that Petra would be home other than his hunch she still had business in town and not at a bank.
Petra was as much him as he was her. The two of them had not been born for each other, but become a matched pair. The hundred-thousand in the back seat would be the opening ante appealing to her best interests that staying with him was for better or worse and the worse was over.
Of course the American was a problem as was her reanimated ability to feel. Before she had been a creature of no emotions other than revenge and how he had savored her vengeance. Lukas was sure he could regain that emptiness of the soul and closed his eyes on Kaiserringstrasse, telling himself that, if he didn't hit a single parked car, he could have his way with anything and anyone.
It had been close to a year, since Cali had arranged that first rendezvous with Petra. He remembered the first word she had ever spoken to him, though 'kneel' was more a command than anything else.
There had been no conversations, for the inarticulate essence of the lash had rendered any words unnecessary and the years of intellectual pursuits had been stripped away with a single lick of the boots.
Lost in this reverie, Lukas ignored the car's inching forward, till the front end was on a collision course with the Porsche by the curb. His hands twisted the wooden steering wheel and the Audi swerved away from the vehicle with a centimeter to spare.
He laughed for the illusionary daydream had nearly been as strong as the reality of Petra standing over him, the whip raised in her hand, ready to strike like a cobra's fangs.
The station wagon's bumper nudged the driveway door open and nosed into the neglected garden.
Lukas walked through the garden. A light breeze blew through the trees and sunshine slanted through the leaves. Lukas expected Petra to greet him. When she did not appear, Lukas marched up the stairs into the house. The floorboards creaked underneath his weight, as he examined the damage wreaked upon the interior. Someone had left a message of destruction and he had a good idea who those people might have been.
Climbing the hallway stairs, Lukas could smell Petra on the stale air. He had been waiting days for this moment and didn't hesitate to push the bedroom door inward. Petra was sitting up in bed with the American was by her side. Neither was dressed and how her hand rested on the American's shoulder told him he might be too late, still he would do anything to get her back.
"What do you want?" asked Petra.
He stepped inside the room and smiled, saying, "Did you really think I was out of your life so easy? I have come back to win you away from your American."
"You have to be out of your mind?" he demanded, getting to his feet.
"Don't." Petra warned, pulling down Sean.
"Yes, listen to Petra. Your chances against me are worst than they were against SS Tommy." Lukas put the case on the floor, so both his hands would be free, though he was confident he could take care of the American with one hand bound behind his back and declared, "Believe me it would be a pleasure."
"Sean, I can handle this." Petra pushed Sean back onto the pillows. "Lukas, what do you think you can gain by coming here and threatening him?"
"I'm not threatening anyone. I just don't want your 'friend' to get hurt. After all, he has gotten beaten up several times since coming to Hamburg. The last time was most entertaining. I only wish I could have filmed the entire scene, especially the part where you saved him with the pistol."
"That was you?"
"I was not going to give you up without a fight, even if it was someone else doing the fighting," Lukas confessed, as if he expected Petra would be proud of what he had done to Sean.
Petra slithered out of bed like a cobra sighting prey. She was wearing a tee-shirt and jeans and her brown hair was a medusa's knot. Lukas had never seen her looking more normal and he was displeased with her metamorphosis from a dominating diva, until the brunette slapped him in the face.
"Is that any way to greet an old friend?" The flush of warm blood refilled the capillaries and Lukas rubbed his cheek, saying "Considering our relationship, I guess it is."
"We have no 'relationship'."
"Petra, Petra, you really think that I could end it with only woman I have ever loved. All I want is to make you a star."
"A love like yours I can do without." Petra's facial muscles were set in stone and her one good eye pierced Lukas with hatred.
"That might be true, but I cannot say the same for myself. Given the time, you and I can work out any problem." Lukas opened the briefcase, so Petra could see its contents. "This should make it right. A hundred-thousand dollar peace offering. Thirty nights at the old rates. All yours, if you come back with me."
"I told you once before that you couldn't buy me."
"What about a rental program?"
Petra tried to slap him again, but Lukas blocked her arm and deftly grasped her in a stranglehold, though without putting much pressure on Petra's throat. Sean rolled out of bed, but Lukas flexed his biceps on the brunette's larynx, warning, "Stay where you are, Herr Tempo. This is between the two of us. Petra, can you really turn down this money? This is my way of saying "Es tut mir lied." Lukas relaxed his hold, as if to reiterate his apology.
"You have a funny way of saying you're sorry." Petra was unable to break his hold.
"Why struggle, my dear? This was meant to be such a happy occasion. What can I do to make it all right? Is there some magic word? A gesture? If you like this American so much, you can bring him along as a pet. I only need you for those special moments. You two get to spend my money. Sound like a fair deal to me. Herr Coll, how does that sound to you?"
"Petra is her own person. Not yours. Not mine," Sean declared firmly and Petra loved him for saying those words.
"How modern you are and how romantic." Lukas tightened his forearm and lifted Petra off her feet. "But I think negotiations are breaking down."
Sean searched the room for a weapon. The older man yanked her head by a hank of hair.
"The best thing you can do is nothing or else I will break her neck."
Sean regretted having thrown Petra's pistol into the Alstersee last evening, for it was never too late in life to break the Fifth Commandment, especially for a good cause.
"I see you. You are not a killer. If you were a killer, I would be dead. You're just like everyone. Nothing. No heart to kill. No heart to love. No heart to hate."
Lukas picked the briefcase off the floor and retreated to the door, saying, "Maybe we will send you a postcard from someplace along the road."
"You can't get away with this."
"Get away with what? Kidnapping a whore against her will? Petra, my dear, you want to come with me, yes?" Lukas forced his captive's head to bob up and down. "I seem to be regaining my powers of persuasion."
"You're out of your mind."
"No, for the first time in my life, I know what I really want." Lukas dragged Petra from the room into the hallway, tightening his stranglehold.
The mention of money for the second time sparked an idea in Sean's head. Lukas' destitution was a well-established fact in Hamburg. His newfound wealth could only have one source.
Petra's face was turning red.
Seventeen seconds without air meant death and Sean said, "Give her a little air."
"Whatever you want." Lukas eased his hold and Petra gasped for air like a swimmer after a near drowning.
"It's too bad she rejected my offer for a ménage-a-trois. Where the last generation lived in total war, we new Germans believe in Total-Freiheit. We would have been like JULES AND JIM. You ever see that film?"
"Two of the lovers die or maybe it's one in a car crash. I really can't remember who or why?" Sean timed each one of Lukas' steps to match his own.
"Too bad you are not a cineaste or else I might re-issue my offer."
Lukas backed down the stairs unable to hold onto the banister.
"I guess this will have to be Adieu rather than Auf Weidersehen. The first being more permanent than the second."
"I'm well aware of the difference." Sean gauged the distance between them. Lukas's head was already beneath Sean's feet. Petra's eyes pleaded for help and he flung himself off the top of the stairs.
The baron turned his body to avoid the American and easily fended off his attacker's outstretched arm with the travel bag. Sean smashed through the banister and crashed on the first floor with a bone-crunching thump.
Lukas looked at the fallen American and said to Petra, "You really did make a beautiful couple, but we make a better one, nicht war?"
He turned her around to face a mirror. There was no one else in the world for them, but themselves. She had to see that or would once he got through with her.
Petra recognized that Lukas was no longer going to be the bottom of their sado-masochistic twosome. She tried biting his arm, but he merely applied more pressure and warned, "Like your friend found out, you can only submit to what I want. Is that such a bad thing? I promise you will learn to love it the same way I did. Only then will you be able to reciprocate my love."
His rival for Petra's attentions was out cold. He had envisioned a little more elaborate punishment for the American, but his more immediate problem was how to restrain Petra for the ride in the Audi.
Spotting a roll of duct tape on the floor, he deftly bound Petra's hands and feet. When she began to scream, he slapped a strip of tape of her mouth and hoisted a squirming Petra over his shoulder. "How could you think I would let that American or any other man have you? Yes, I am possessive. Call that a fault, but it is all for a good cause, as you shall see."
Lukas emerged from the house into the bright sunlight.
Everything was going his way. Vanessa and the American were out of the way. No sign of SS Tommy. Several million dollars in his account. Petra over his shoulder. The Audi fueled and ready to go. The Autobahn an open road to anywhere in Europe.
He gently placed Petra in the back seat and the case next to her, so she could smell the money. It had to have some effect. Walking around to the driver's side, Lukas decided they should go on a pilgrimage to de Sade's shattered chateau in France. Several miles further down the Luberon Valley was a delightful farmhouse far from prying eyes, where he and Petra could be reacquainted without any interference. By summer's end she would appreciate the rewards of her being his Justine. As he put his hand on the door, a man's voice asked, "Going someplace?"
"Well, today is a real reunion day, Petra. First, your friend Sean and now the great Nigger Cali." Lukas turned around to face the pimp. He was wearing a jogging outfit and looked more like Harlem than Hamburg. "Yes, Petra and I are thinking about taking a little holiday."
"Against her will it seems." Cali took a few steps forward.
"You should not have a problem with that. After all you are on her list?" Lukas noticed how pained Cali's walk was and that his left arm was clasped tightly to his ribs. He was in no condition for this.
"What list?"
"The list of men involved in her beating, yes? You are the leader of the pimps. It must have been you who gave the orders, right?" The approaching man was foolishly unarmed. This was going to be very interesting and Lukas was more than ready for this confrontation.
"That was a mistake and one I came her to apologize for." An agonizing jolt of pain lanced his side, as he stumbled over a rock.
Lukas opened the car door wider and bent over to face Petra.
"Did you hear that, Liebschen. Cali had come here to say he is sorry. If you forgive him, just say so."
Petra screamed with her eyes, but Cali was not looking her way.
"Let her go, Lukas. You already have caused enough trouble for one day."
"What are you talking about, my dear Cali?" Lukas straightened up. For years he had wondered how he would manage against Cali in a fight, though never foreseen having such an advantage. The grayness of Cali's face told him that it was the black man's blood on the floor of Vanessa's bedroom. If he was here, then SS Tommy was gone for good, which also meant Vanessa was in hiding with Cali as her protector. He almost laughed at the synchronicity's irony, but he had discovered that it was a long life and a small world.
"You owe me money," said Cali calmly.
"How do you figure that I owe you money?" Lukas demanded with delight. No fight promoter could have arranged such a match, only the chaos of life.
"Do you really think you can get away with it?"
"That is the second time someone asked me that today." Lukas took two steps, till he was an arm's length from Cali. "Yes, I am getting away with it and more."
Cali had come without a weapon as a show of good faith to ask Petra's forgiveness. He should have been prepared for the every eventuality, then again he had never been a Boy Scouts. He was fairly certain that neither had Vanessa's husband, so the gloves were off, except Cali was in no condition to fight Lukas and stalled for time, saying, "The police would be interested with the whereabouts of your wife."
"Cali, Cali, Cali, how the mighty have fallen. Hiding behind the threat of the police. I'm sad to be witness to that." Lukas jabbed a left at the smaller man's ribs. Cali blocked the punch, but had to retreat. "Besides I think the police would be more interested in what happened to your partner."
"What are you're talking about?" Cali thought the taller man was talking about Kurt and there was no way he could know about his death in Geneva.
Not yet.
Lukas saw an opening for a waist-high kick, which Cali barely deflected.
"I saw the blood upstairs in Vanessa's room. Some of it had to be yours and I would assume the rest was SS Tommy's."
"He should have been happy with what he was." Cali regained his poise, but not enough to protect himself.
"As we all should be. It takes a real man to see himself for what he is. Your friend, Kurt, suffers from that sickness as well, but not you Cali, you are a bastard and nothing else, right?" Lukas feigned with the left, then struck Cali with his right fist, driving him back into the wall. This was easier than Lukas had ever imagined. "Cali, what is wrong? I thought you had more fight in you."
"You talk too much, Lukas. Always have." Cali countered several punches without getting one inside the baron's guard. Taking a few punches on the way in had been his tactic for years and no one had ever been able to knock him out or down, but he never had to fight with a six-inch gash in his side.
The blood on Cali's shirt acted as chum on the water for the shark in Lukas and he lowered his right under the black man's left. His fist impacted on bones. Cali caved over, his face spasming in pain, and dropped to the ground. Lukas kept kicking him, till he was fully satisfied the fight had been beaten out of the black man. For a few seconds he contemplated questioning Cali as to Vanessa's whereabouts, but she had ceased to be a pawn in this game.
It was time to go.
Lukas returned to the Audi, enthralled by his newfound invincibility. He had been right. Nothing was stopping him. Not anymore. As he put his hand on the door, footsteps rushed toward him, meaning the American had recovered from his fall faster than he had thought possible.
People were so predictable. 99% would go for the skull first, not so much to attack the brain, but to scar the face, as if disfigurement was more important than unconsciousness. A benign calm covered Lukas face, as he spun to block any blow to his head, then thrusted a Buddha palm at the throat to kill the American.
Unfortunately the German was dealing with a one-percenter and Sean swung a heavy banister railing against the baron's ankles.
Lukas collapsed in a clump of dust.
Sean whacked him twice more below the knees and batted at his victim's upheld wrists. Lukas' face contorted with agony. Sean had been brought up fighting dirty in South Boston where once you had a man down, you made certain he stayed down. The first whacks had been incapacitators, the next would be for blood and Sean raised the banister railing over his head.
"Halt, Herr Tempo. Das ist genug." Alex Brucken said, then barked in English he must have learned from DRAGNET. "I'm only telling you one time. Drop it."
Sean obeyed the bearded policeman's command, as anyone would with a 9mm aimed at the center of their chest. The banister slipped from his grip and he raised his hands.
Lukas couldn’t get to his feet and the police officer looked at the bleeding Cali, then Sean. "Was ist los hier?"
"Look in the car. The motherfucker was trying to kidnap Petra."
"Help her out of the car, Herr Coll, and I warn you. No tricks." The policeman waved Sean away with his gun.
"My tricks days are long over." Sean backed up to the Audi. "I'm going to free her."
"Do so, but very slowly." Sean nodded and freed Petra from her bonds.
Lukas explained something to the policeman in German too fast and she shouted, "That is not the truth."
This comment sparked a furious exchange between the two, ending with her booting the man on the ground with her bare foot. As Sean pulled her away, the fallen baron taunted both of them in English, "That's the Petra I loved. See that fury, Herr Tempo. That's what you are getting. Sooner or later she will turn on you, as she turned on me."
"Shut the fuck up." Cali got in another boot and Lukas' head reared back, spewing a drooling filament of blood. A kick to the head would have put most men out, but Lukas simply licking at his cracked lip, then said in German, "Do not tell me that is the best you can do, Nigger."
Alex Brucken swung his aim from Sean to Cali and warned the pimp, "I told the American, "Enough." and I'm telling you the same thing."
"Thank you, officer. You saved my life." Lukas began to get to his knees, figuring Alex Brucken to be on his side.
"Stay where you are. All of you."
Enemies of the state.
"I don't think you understand what was happening here."
"I understand better than you want." Alex dropped the gun to his side and said quietly, yet firmly, "You three. I want you to leave."
"So you can let Lukas go?" accused Petra.
"No, so you can go without question, Fraulein Wessel, with your friends. I think they would be happy with this arrangement, if you are not." Alex looked at the two men to persuade Petra from doing something foolish.
"If it means saving a Von Hausen from his fate, then I am not happy."
"Fraulein Wessel, you can go now or we can settle this all at the police headquarters. The choice is up to you."
Petra clenched her fists, then grasped that her refusal endangered all their freedoms and said, "I'm only doing this, because you're a policeman."
"That's a good enough reason for me, Fraulein Wessel." Alex glanced over his shoulder quickly to ascertain whether this scene might have attracted an audience from the neighbors, then moved out of the street's sightline behind a tree. "One day you'll thank me for letting you go."
Sean hooked his arm around Petra and began to lead her from the yard. She shook him off and ran over to the Audi, grabbing the travel bag packed with the videotapes from the back along with briefcase, gambling that the policeman would not shoot a woman in the back.
She was right.
The money Lukas could replace, but not the videotapes, but as he moved forward to stop her, the police officer tripped him and he fell to the ground. The baron indignantly protested about her stealing from him without mentioning what she was taking besides the money. Alex Brucken warned him to be quiet, "You can talk all you want once they go."
Allowing anyone leave the scene of a crime before there was a thorough questioning was outside the usual Staatpolizei guidelines and Cali was puzzled by this dismissal by the policeman, but now was not the time to ask too many questions about what was none of your business. For that reason alone he thanked his stars to be walking out of here, instead of lying on the ground like Lukas.
"Herr Nordstrum, kommt hier bitte." The police officer said in a hushed tone, "You have seen nothing here today. It would be in your best interests to explain that to your friends as well. I am depending on you."
"I was not here."
"Secondly, I want Vanessa Von Hausen brought to me. Her story will help me and you at the same time," the policeman whispered, his hand gripping Cali's wrist.
"Tuesday morning. Not before." Cali saw that the two of them had entered an agreement meant to clear up whatever the rest of the world might think about what was going to happen. The policeman bowed his head in assent, then said, "Now be so kind as to shut the door, when you leave."
"Yes, officer, and thank you."
"For what? You have not seen me." Alex Brucken's words struck a flat note in Lukas' heart. He pleaded, as the door to the yard was shut behind the departing trio. "Stop her. She has...."
"Whatever she has was not yours to begin with."
"Herr Detective, I can explain everything. This here has all been a private matter. Nothing more."
"Save your breath."
"Why?" Lukas had no intention of going to a police station for questioning. "My lawyers will straighten out everything."
"I am sure they would." Alex Brucken had no right to detain a private citizen, then again he wasn't here officially and told the fallen man, "You and I have matters to talk about first."
"Such as what?"
"Such as your connection between Hans Roth and Willi Stief."
"None at all."
"Seems Hans Roth embezzled a large sum of money from his bank yesterday. Putting his crime together with your trip to the Cayman Islands says a lot, when you consider that you blackmailed Hans Roth into this crime."
"You are grabbing at straws." The muzzle of the 9mm assured Lukas the best way out of this was to keep on talking, but if the chance came to take out the policeman, he was a dead man.
"Maybe it doesn't add up, but the mysterious disappearance of your wife helps the math."
"I told you she was with Kurt Oster. You have seen them together."
"Yes, I have, but it has come to our attention that Kurt Oster was found dead in Paris this morning either of a heart attack or drug overdose." Alex allowed this information to sink into Lukas.
One less parvenu in the world was a pleasant thought for Lukas and he broke into an inadvertent smile.
"So my wife is still in Hamburg."
"Yes, but where I do not know, but something tells me Cali Nordstrum knows."
"Then why are you letting him go?"
"Because she is safer with him than you and, when the time comes, she will have an interesting tale to tell."
"It will be her word against mine."
"No, it will her word and mine against yours."
"Alex, my dear Alex, you think you can make an arrest based only on your suspicions. I will be out of jail this afternoon and you will be checking exhaust emission on the autobahn. You are ruining your career and for what? My whore wife, a nigger pimp, and two dead Schwules."
"They have just as many rights as you do."
"You really think that?" Lukas lurched to his feet, ignoring the pain in his ankle and wrists.
"Yes, I really do. Now turn around and put your hands on the car." Alex took out a pair of handcuffs.
"You're making a serious mistake.
The policeman was out of his mind, if he thought he was going to cuff him.
"Just as you did, when you thought you could get away with this."
"Why are you doing this? I could make you rich."
"Not everything is about money. Now just turn around without trying anything stupid."
"Make me." Lukas Von Hausen lowered his hands and wheeled around, ready for a fight. He could still catch up with Petra, if he got away now.
Alex Brucken had been waiting for this move and pulled the trigger, saying, "No problem."
The 9mm bullet hit the baron in the chest. Lukas Von Hausen tumbled to the ground. He vainly struggled to rise only to find his power whirlpooling away.
"Why?"
"Because you left me no other choice," Alex Brucken holstered his weapon and put a spare weapon in the dying man's right hand. Pulling the trigger covered Lukas' skin with gunpowder.
Alex Brucken would face a hard interrogation from the investigating officers. Given the fact that Lukas Von Hausen had been involved in at least two murders, a large-scale bank embezzlement, plus the kidnapping of his wife, Alex Brucken had a story that any policeman would accept from another. They might not like it, but they would believe him, because they themselves would have expected the benefit of the doubt from any other policeman,
>Upon hearing the first shot, Cali had grabbed Sean's arm, almost dragging him down, and said, "Vergesst es. It is none of your business. None of mine too."
The second report of a different weapon unconvinced Sean and he struggled with Cali, until Petra stopped him.
"Cali's right. This is none of our business."
"Someone was just shot in there," Sean protested, though he was too weak to break away from Petra.
"Yes, and it was not one of us." Now she understood why Cali had told her to go. "The farther away we are from here the better. The sooner too."
"She is right," Cali said weakly behind them, then sagged against his Mercedes. The left side of his shirt was drenched with blood and his face was the color of an ashtray's interior. Sean boosted him upright, then suggested that they take him to a hospital. Cali protested, "Kein Hospital, bitte."
"You need a doctor, Cali."
"I'm fine, " Cali announced, but the pained expression on his face indicated that he was hurt more than he was willing to admit.
"We're taking you the hospital. Petra, open the door."
Petra's eyes revealed her lack of enthusiasm to help the man who had authorized her beating. Both Cali and Sean could read her mind. The latter understood that no amount of pleading on his part could persuade her from erasing her last debt to the Reeperbahn. Her refusal to drive him to the hospital technically was murder or something very close.
Cali looked at the American for deliverance, but Sean said with a voice he thought came from someone else, "I think this is between you and her. I don't have a dog in this fight."
Sean let Cali go.
In the distance the ululating whoop of the German police cars neared. The pimp could see himself in their hands. They would have the ambulance go around in circles, until his vital signs were as flat as the calm Baltic Sea.
Petra was swimming in and out of his vision. He coughed once, his ribs on fire, then said slowly, "I am to blame for what happened to you and many other women. Yes. Am I sorry? More than you will ever know. Can I stop what I had been? Perhaps. I pray that I can. You have the power over me now, as I had over you before. I was wrong to ever let SS Tommy touch you. I don't care whether I live or die as long as you forgive me."
Too many people had died in the last few days for one more to be added to the heap, even a whoremonger like Cali, plus Sean was hurting as well and she ordered, "Shut up, Cali. Penitence doesn't suit you. Sean, help him in the car. I know a doctor to take care of him."
Both men sagged against one another in the back seat. Petra sat behind the wheel and drove away, passing two police cars. With one of her passenger's near-death, she made record time to Sean's penthouse.
The doctor came prepared with a nurse and IV, setting up a small ICU unit inside the studio for Cali's recovery, while strongly advising his patient to go to a hospital. Cali reacted to the counsel with a weak shaking of the head. Any contact with authority would put him and the others at risk of further involvement in this affair. Anyone official would have to guess or make up the truth as it best served them.
The doctor informed Sean that he had numerous contusions and went over to Vanessa.
Even with the loss of weight giving her face and body a gaunt appearance, she was as beautiful as the first time Sean had seen her. The blonde looked at him, as if he could tell her something about her lover's demise. She was right, but those words would have to wait.
When the doctor was finished with his administrations, Petra sat with the newly widowed woman, though none of her sorrow was dedicated to Lukas. He was a loss to no one in the room and even fewer people outside of it. Kurt was the one she was mourning.
Cali beckoned to Sean, as if he were going to give his last words on Earth, except the pimp was tougher to put down than an alley cat.
"What is it?" Sean asked in a low tone.
Cali's grip was like iron knives burying themselves in his arm, satisfying any doubts as to the wounded man's survivability.
"I want you and Petra...to do something."
"What makes you think we would do anything for you?" Sean's bags were packed and ready to go.
"Not for me, but Kurt." Cali chose his words with economy.
"Kurt's dead." Sean thought that the black man's loss of blood might have confused him, but Cali shook his head. "Of course he is dead. Dead in Paris."
"And nothing I can do will change that."
"Yes, that is true, but he is in the morgue. Waiting to be identified."
"His family will come and get him."
"Kurt was estranged from his family. I want you to go to Paris and get his body released."
"The French are very autocratic, when it comes to bureaucracy." Sean scratched his face, feeling the stubble. He hadn't shaved or bathed, since leaving the Hotel Beau-Rivage yesterday morning. A dead man's beard also grows for several days after his death and Kurt was probably sprouting the same beard. "They will not release a dead man to a non-family member."
"I agree. That is why you are going to be Herr Herman Oster. I have a passport for you. Another for Petra. Everything is arranged. Petra, do this for Kurt. He really did like you."
"That is enough talking." The doctor admonished Cali, but he pushed away the doctor with more strength than any of them thought possible. "One more minute."
"It's your funeral." The doctor was well acclimated to the pimp's post-operative demeanor. He swabbed the inside of Cali's elbow and swiftly jabbed him with a syringe, taking none of the delicate precautions of getting the needle into a vein. Once the drug took effect, he would be back in charge and announced, "One more minute is about all you have."
"So what will it be, Honky?" Cali gave Sean two German passports with their photos in them. "Don't look so shocked. I had them processed for just such an occasion."
"You know I can't refuse." The dead man had played him for a sucker, but leaving Kurt in the morgue grated against the grain of his soul.
"I want to be alone with Petra." Cali was aware of what was coming next. A sleep as deep as death. He would be safe there from even the dreams he never had. "I only have a few seconds."
Sean stepped away and Petra sat down, her face was grim with the disbelief that she had forgiven Cali. He smiled at her, the warmth of the drug already conquering the pain in his ribs. "You can kill me later, if you change your mind."
"We were lovers. Almost friends. How could you let them do that to me?" Petra had always suspected Cali as the leading instigator, but found it hard to believe that he would ever had her be beaten so badly.
"Because they would have thought I was weak and would have killed me." If there was anything Petra deserved, it was the truth. "If I had to relive it all over again, I would have rather be dead."
Petra leaned over and whispered in Cali's ear. "That is bullshit, Cali. You almost had me killed and knew what you were doing. You asked me to forgive you. I wish just telling the truth made it easy, but it doesn't."
"Sorry."
"Neither is sorry. Before you go to sleep, make a wish to be good, because that is the only way you will make it through this life. Just think of me as your guardian angel looking over your shoulder, haunting you, if you do anything wrong."
"I like the sound of that," Cali murmured before his eyelids drifted shut for good. No longer consciously with the living. Vanessa appeared to be in the similar condition, so they left the apartment to the doctor, who was giving final instructions to the stocky nurse.
They climbed over the concrete planter onto the terrace of his apartment, where Sean quickly gathered up anything of value. He had little to show for two months in Germany.
Some money, some books, a cassette player, a camera, and the clothes on his back.
Going to the door, Sean checked the room to see, if he had forgotten something he should be taking with him.
"Come, anything else you need, we can buy on the way." Petra grabbed his arm. She was more in a hurry to leave than he was and with good reason. Having the police find a dead man in your yard would take some explaining, even if it was a policeman who had killed Lukas.
Not bothering to wait for the elevator, they dashed down the stairs to the back of the building to Sean's BMW 1600. Opening the hatchback, he dumped his things in the back and slammed it shut. He was about to get into the driver's seat, when Vanessa came running up, shouting, "Wait for me."
"Where do you think you're going?" These were the most words he had spoken to Vanessa, since that first night at the club.
"To Paris," she said, slipping on a jean jacket that Sean had left behind in the closet. It looked a thousand times better on her than it did on him, then again a beautiful woman makes everything look good. "I want to see Kurt one last time."
"Just get in the car." Petra commanded with an authority bespeaking her year as a dominatrix. For a second Sean thought she was talking to him and he was more than willing to obey.
Vanessa also did exactly what she was told and Petra joined her in the back.
The two women were going to have a heart-to-heart talk on the way to Paris. Sean sat behind the wheel, despite having feeling like he had rolled off a cliff and he was their chauffeur through the gathering night on the way out of Hamburg.
The southbound traffic was light, though the northbound lanes were jammed with several million Germans returning from their vacations across Europe like an army in fleeing to its bastion. Heading the opposite direction than everyone else helped make Sean one of the happiest men in the world.
Three years of high school German permitted him to follow the gist of two women's murmured conversation in the back seat, but he deciphered more from the tone of their voices and the way they held their bodies. Everytime Petra noticed his interest, she barked, "Keep your eyes on the road."
Vanessa had once hated this woman holding her so tenderly for her power over Lukas. Now she was happy for the dominatrix to be here and hoped everything between her and the American worked out better than it had for Kurt and herself. She stifled back a sob, then accepted the napkin offered by Petra. "It's all my fault."
While she had oddly experienced only relief to discover Lukas was permanently out of her life, that sentiment could not balance out the loss of Kurt. The tears fell in drops onto Vanessa's shirt. It wasn't the end of the world, but it was very close.
"What do you mean?" Petra asked, unwilling to hear a confession from someone so different from her.
"Everything. Kurt's being dead. Lukas. The two men in the park. The robbery. Everything." The murder she committed in the mansion remained hidden from her consciousness like a shoe stuck under the bed.
"Nicht alles."
Petra caressed Vanessa's head and murmured the words into her ear, so only she could hear them.
"I should have seen what Lukas planned and warned Kurt. He would still be alive today, if I had." Her voice cracked like a mirror struck by a bullet.
"Vanessa, whatever any of those men did, they did on their own. Kurt died from an overdose. Lukas from greed. The other two men were also in on the deal. Everyone knew the risk." As disinterested as she was in most people's lives, she couldn't allow Vanessa to accept the blame for everything that had gone wrong.
"But I told Lukas about it." Vanessa choked out this admission.
"And believe me, both Kurt and Cali knew about it. They went for broke and that is exactly what they got. There is nothing we can do about that now. It is always darkest before the storm and I would love to tell you things will get better before they get worse, but I can not lie. Food will not taste for weeks and you will only hear the sad songs on the radio as if they were all dedicated to you. You might not laugh for a long time," Petra spoke with the conviction of someone who had undergone great suffering. "But one day will you dance again. The wind will be sweet and there will be another man. Whether you like it or not, life goes on."
Petra tapped her glass eye with a fingernail to accentuate her point, and Vanessa thought of Odin giving up his eye for wisdom. Not that what Petra had said were the words of a sage, but she had been comforted by that simple clack on glass. The young blonde rested her head on Petra's shoulder and said, "Es tut mir lied fur alles."
Any apology from the younger woman was unnecessary for Petra. Vanessa had not hurt her or Sean, though only time would stop her attacks on herself.
When the spoken words stopped in the back seat, Sean glanced in the rearview mirror. Petra was still awake and staring straight ahead.
Sean almost said something several times, but chose to remain quiet and keep his eyes on the road, repeatedly telling himself everything would be fine for the next three hundred kilometers.
Cities came and went throughout the trip south. Most existed as floating globs of light in the dark distance of the summer night. The Autobahn skirted Bremen and Munster, then traversed the Rhine once at Cologne before turning westward through the Saar Valley toward the Belgian border. Neither woman gave directions, but he instinctively negotiated the various off-ramps and cloverleaves in the direction of the nearest frontier.
Sean wished the BMW could go faster, since every other car was rocketing by at 160 or better. The only times he reached that speed was downhill and there were few hills between Hamburg and the frontier. His nerves were shot, for he had been expecting flashing lights of a green and white police car to haul up behind him since leaving Mittelweg, but each hour brought him ever closer to France and safety.
Anxiety was too weak a stimulant against the uniformity of the Autobahn. The tires thudded over the concrete sections with regularity. The three lanes separated by the painted dashes hypnotized him into a zombie trance and he succumbed inevitably to playing the old game of closing one eye to rest it, then switching to the other one. The only one who won that contest was sleep. Sean woke up, as the BMW was passing a car sideways, chucking up chunks of grass, as it swerved out of control on the meridian strip.
His high beams caught the terror of the driver's face. Sean reacted and steered the fishtailing car to a halt. It had been close call, but Petra merely asked, "You want me to drive now?"
Sean relinquished the wheel without an argument and exited from the car, surveying the long set of furrows the wheels had gouged into the sod. If this had occurred in the northbound lane with all its traffic, the police would have been scrapping them off the pavement. Sean blessed himself and thanked God for excluding them from the weekend toll of highway casualties.
Once in the passenger seat he dropped off to sleep, until a light was flashed in his face. They were at Customs and Sean froze like a jacklit rabbit, as Petra held up the passports that Cali had given them. Evidently the police officer in Hamburg had been a man of his word or else there would have been police waiting to arrest them at the frontier.
Any apprehension or fear was dissipated by the bored wave of the customs official, who was obviously more concerned with people entering Germany than leaving it. Within several seconds they were in Belgium, where they were greeted in the same desultory fashion with which Germany had said good-bye.
The official motioned them onward.
Petra stepped on the accelerator and worked the gears to fifth. Somehow the car hit 155. Sean started to say something, but Petra hushed him, pointing to the back seat.
"We can talk in the morning." Petra whispered, then patted him on the cheek. "You go to sleep too. I'll wake you, when we get near Paris."
There was so much to talk about, but she was right. They would have plenty of time for that tomorrow and the days after. For now all that was important was his getting some rest, so Sean obeyed her hypnotic command just like the first time they had met and Petra was glad to see she still had her touch. She turned in a US Armed Forces Station, comforted by its foreignness, and calculated the number of hours between here and Paris, wondering where they would stay the night, but she would leave that up to Sean.
After all he was the one who knew Paris best.
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