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.
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