ALMOST A DEAD MAN by Peter Nolan Smith - CHAPTER 7

The noon sun burned through the grim overcast and the Porsche convertible sped along the harbor. Petra was at the wheel. The sports car hit 100 and Sean clung onto the passenger door, fighting the urge to plead, "Nicht so schnell."

Across the Elbe huge machines loaded and unloaded ships with thousands of containers. Sunlight sparkled off the river and Petra accelerated through narrow streets surrounding a bombed out church, explaining, "St. Nikolai was destroyed by the British bombers."

"Bomber Harris believed in total war."

"So did Hitler."

"Both of them failed." The Rathaus or city hall and buildings around the old canal system of the downtown looked like they had been there since Goethe.

"St. Nikolai is just a reminder that no one wins a war."

She shifted into top gear and Sean was pinned to his seat like an astronaut strapped to a V2 rocket.

The sports car broke free of the city and skirted a lake.

"The Aussenalster," said Petra, turning up the music.

German punk.

"Die Toten Hosen."

"Dead Sox. I liked telling Brits that Feldfarben were better than the Sex Pistols."

"You know them?' "And what's that?"

"A punk bar."

Sailboats skimmed the surface and children chased one another in the lakeside playground. along the park. Petra passed a truck with millimeters to spare. He was certain that Petra's right eye was fake.

She turned up the stereo. Industrial noise blared over the back speakers, as the Porsche Targa raced along the park.

"You like this music?"

"Yes, it's very calming."

"Really? You are not telling me the truth."

"This is NTL."

"You know them."

"I worked in nightclubs. DJs play everything. Some good. Some bad. Rechtig?"

Ja, rechtig."

Petra glanced at her passenger. His face bore scars from fighting. The damage was nothing in comparison to hers. She turned off Harvestehuder Weg onto a small street lined by cafes and high-class stores, then swung right on a wider street.

"Now I show you the club."

Her right foot stamped on the gas and the Porsche illegally passed a line of cars at a red light. The road curved left into a commercial zone and Petra pointed out of two-story building painted an icy blue.

"There."

A jagged slash of red streaking across the wall and an unlit neon sign spelled out 'Malchek'.

"The club was designed after CLOCKWORK ORANGE."

The movie based on Anthony Burgess' apocalyptic novel on the collapse of civilization had proved more prophetic than the author could have imagined, considering the advent of punks and skinheads exploiting the emptiness of western civilization.

"It's no Milk Bar."

"It is inside. Very 1969.” The music segued Kraftwerk's AUTOBAHN and the Porsche bat-turned across the pavement. On-coming traffic swerved aside and horns blared, as they headed in the opposite directio, even faster this time.

Sean gripped the dashboard.

"If you have a death wish, gut, but I want to live a few more days."

Petra stamped on the brakes and the car screeched to a halt.

"Maybe you can drive better?" Her nose had been broken more than one place and her chin was unnaturally flat.

"Slower, yes."

Denn du bist in control."

Petra squirmed onto his lap and the curve of her ass melted into his crotch.

An elderly couple walking with a dachshund muttered how this was not the Germany of a half-century ago.

"Ja, besser mitlos Hitler. Sieg Heil."

The old couple regarded him with all the hatred reserved for race traitors.

Sean flipped the finger and squeezed from underneath the brunette to get out of the car.

Petra laughed, "Are you going to walk?"

"No, I'm getting behind the wheel."

Sean pushed back the front seat two inches.

"I didn't think that Americans were so uncool." Petra took off the white leather jacket.

Her nipples were erect under her gossamer silk shirt.

"I've never been cool." Her playing easy to get was just a game to which he didn’t know all the rules.

"Too bad. I like cool."

"I'm sure you do." The steering wheel was cold, almost as if Petra possessed no body heat. His right hand encompassed the stick and his foot goosed the gas.

"So I've seen all the tourist sights. What about the Reeperbahn?"

"Every man wants to go to the Reeperbahn. You are all so predictable."

"What about Times Square?"

"Drugs, pimps, whores, and suckers."

"Sonderboch? That's what we call 'suckers'. The Reeperbahn is better at night, but I bet you that you cannot find the Reeperbahn. How much money do you have in your pocket?"

"Two hundred Marks. All the money I have in the world."

"Then this is the bet. Your two hundred versus making love with a beautiful woman. Believe me, you are getting a good deal."

"Sounds like a bargain to me, but I can't remember the last time I've been lost."

"You know where you are, but being lost has nothing to do with where you are going. Most men never want to admit they're lost."

"That's because sometimes we don't want to be found." Sean looked to the sky. The cardinal points of the compass set in his mind. The Reeperbahn could only be in one direction. "So I'm ready to go."

"One last condition. You have to find it in five minutes."

"No problem." Sean stomped on the gas. The whirling rear wheels scorched the street and the Porsche accelerated away from the curb. The wind blew back Petra's short hair and she said, "Now it is your turn to kill us."

"Not until after the Reeperbahn."

She reached to the console, her hand ready to yank up on the emergency brake. The light ahead turned yellow and her fingers tensed on the grip. Sean's foot pressed down on the gas and the Porsche breezed through the intersection.

"Yellow means fast."

"And red means schneller."

Sean shifted into fourth.

Opposite a concert hall he overtook a queue of cars delayed by a red light.

The malicious glare of every driver reinforced the old myth of how deeply the Germans respected order.

Sean responded by running another light. The Porsche approached a square with the road leading past a large gray statue of a very grim man and he turned the wheel to the right.

"Fucking Bismarck."

"Ehrlich? Bismarck led a Kulturkampf against the rich and the church."

"Realpolitik. I studied that at university. I do like his saying "Politics is the art of the possible" and impossibly we have arrived at our destination."

The street sign said Reeperbahn.

"A very good guess."

"I was my mother's navigator on long trips."

"Momma's boy, park there." Petra pointed to an open spot next to the St. Pauli U-bahn station.

"So I guess I won."

"A lucky man."

"Luck can compete with a good sense of direction."

Sean got out of the car and helped Petra to the sidewalk.

"So where first?"

"Like I said it's too early for the Reeperbahn. We'll go someplace much better."

"Show me the way."

She led him away from the broad avenue to a high metal barrier. A flock of female tourists scrambled to escape water thrown from the other side of the wall. The women shrieked down the street, as if they had just finished an amusement ride. Petra glared at them with disdain.

"Anything wrong?"

"The Reeperbahn was a free-zone for medieval workers. Sailors' brothels were established on the side streets and after World War II the pimps industrializing the sex trade. Herbertstrasse is been sealed off for the prostitutes to work out of windows in small houses. Normal women are denied entry, since they gawk at the whores like freaks, instead of women, who chose to be paid for sex outside of marriage."

"And the government doesn't try to shut it down? In New York the police harass streetwalkers and their 'johns', as if prostitution was a worse crime than murder or drug-dealing."

"Yes, they are hypocrites here too. In 1927 the Weimar government tried to close it. They failed and even the Nazis couldn’t shut it.” Petra pulled him through a narrow opening. Three overweight dominatrixes grabbed Sean, but their menace melted upon their seeing Petra. Each woman greeted her with a hug, then eyed Sean and one commented gutturally in German, "Ein drecksack."

Sean translated the words thanks to Bruder Karl and said, "Die Teufel."

"Die Teufel mit einen kleinen Schlange."

"Satan doesn't have a small cock."

They all laughed and Petra beckoned with an index finger.

"Follow me."

"To heaven or hell."

The brunette escorted him down the cobblestone street. The first-floor picture windows of the two-storey building were inhabited by women appealing to various libertine fantasies from the encyclopedia of sex. Several waved to Petra.

"Everyone seems to know you."

"In a small town there are no strangers, only people you avoid."

Sean was familiar with the distance people created for themselves, though her explanation was far from the truth, for passing a cluster of men discussing prices with a naked woman on her windowsill, they turned to follow Petra’s passage. She had once been one of these women and entered a house with an air of ownership. Tens of thousands of men had preceded him inside. Hundreds had been with her.

"Is this yours?"

"I own part."

"Another house."

"Not a house. Not a home. A brothel."

"And why are we going here?"

"Remember you won the bet."

She climbed the rickety stairs to an unlit landing and stepped into a small room wallpapered with scarlet brocade and furnished with baroque furniture. The drawn drapes were lush satin and he paused to take it in like a schoolboy on a field trip.

"Hast du ein problem?" Petra tilted her head to mask the more damaged side of her face with the half-light and threw her jacket over a chair.

"Ich habe kein problem?"

"Ah, so du konnst ein bissen Deutsche zu sprechen?" Petra pulled Sean inside.

"Enough to understand what that man was saying this morning."

"He is only getting what he paid for." Petra pushed him onto the bed. Her bracelets clanged together, as she undid his shirt.

"I figured as much."

“Is that wrong or right?" She spun on him. "No man can judge my sins, but every trick wants an explanation about how I had started in this business, almost as if the story could make me a better person. I tell them the truth."

"The truth?"

"It's different every time, because mostly what men want is a dirty fairy tale. When I graduated from high school, I understood society sentenced the women of my class to the slavery of 'Kinde-Kuche-Kirche' or 'child-kitchen-church'. Most of my girlfriends daydreamed about marrying rich, but they ended up working at the stores at Jungfernstieg and getting pregnant from their boyfriends before they were twenty. I had vowed never give it away for free. In Hamburg that means taking to the street.”

"Being a prostitute?"

"A whore or Huren." She pushed back her hair. "You can call it what you want. I serviced the car trade around Lange Reihe as a 'Streichenmadchen' or girl of the streets'. I hid my new career from my parents, though no nice girl ever earned the money they found in my pocketbook. Not in a week, let alone a day."

"So you told them a story?"

"Yes."

"A lie?"

"Not a lie, but not the truth. No parent wants to hear the truth."

"Which was?"

"I liked it."

"The sex?"

"No, I liked fooling the men into thinking I liked the sex. I had no trouble closing my eyes, when the man was on top or behind me. I practiced pants of pleasure, faked orgasms, and told the men they were the biggest. One day an electric-blue T-Bird stopped by the curb. The handsome man in the front seat was a welcome change from the usual rut of married men out for a short-time fuck, though I almost walked away, when he asked, "What is a girl like you doing here?" then he flashed a 1000-DM note and said my beauty was wasted on these streets.” "Yes, that evening he brought me to a high-class party. The women regarded me like a tramp, but he told me to stop being scared, because even these women pulled their pants down to go the bathroom. He introduced me to several men, and within minutes I was the queen of the ball. Later Kurt took me aside and said, "These are your new customers. The rich. The famous. It is just as easy to be with a rich man as it is a poor one?"

"Especially if you don't love them."

"Love is for children and dogs. I had no interest in anyone living off my back and Kurt said he wanted nothing from me. Maybe a favor one day. That night he arranged a date with an Exxon executive. That man moved me from the street into an Eppendorfer duplex, where I discreetly entertained Freier or customers. I out-earned all the girls on Lange Reite and I thought it could last forever."

"And it didn't?"

"No." Petra touched the right side of her face and opened the door for an older bleached-blonde woman in a leather harness. She rattled off several sentences in machine-gun German, then announced, "Marta will take care of you."

"Yes, but I thought...." Sean stammered, as Marta stroked his thighs.

Petra asked derisively in a husky voice, "You didn't actually think that we were going to have sex?"

Yes, we had a bet."

"Number one, you are crazy, if you think I cost two hundred marks." she explained what he had said to the girl on the bed, who chuckled harshly in unison with Petra.

"Well, what would I get for two hundred? Ten minutes, five, one?" Sean gently pushed away the older woman. "What about a kiss?"

"A kiss is a such a small thing." Petra signaled Marta to leave and once they were alone, Petra said, “Tell me why you left New York?”

Sean could have just said for a job, but had nothing to hide from Petra and confessed the truth.

“Six months ago I was opening a nightclub. After-hours. We took on a Russian gangster to finance the final touches. It had all sounded good, until he walked into the Continental with my ex-girlfriend.”

“Did you still love her?” Men liked to talk, because it took longer than sex.

Meeting Lisa had played like a badly-written remake of CASABLANCA.

“Yes, and I was too blind to not understand what was happening, until it was too late. I paid off the police. Internal Affairs investigated those cops for corruption. The Russian investor lived off counterfeit money and my partner wore a wire for the FBI. After the Russian's partner was shot dead in front of the club, the police raided the spot and arrested everyone. I had been with my ex- at the Russian's apartment. I fled the country and she said she would join him in Paris.”

“And you believed her?”

“Every word. She said she loved me. I waited in Paris. A week went by, then another, till a month passed without her arrival. Every day I called New York, leaving messages on her answering machine. She had lied about leaving the Russian gangster and I treated the pain of her desertion with cocaine and heroin, each drug taking at a shot at killing me. One April morning I woke in a decrepit shooting gallery on Rue de l'Ouest. I couldn't smell the garbage, hear the wheezing of my lungs, or see the shadowy hands undoing my shoelaces. I had reached the bottom and went cold turkey for five bone-crushing days, then headed south to the Luberon to hike through the ancient villages. At the beginning of May I returned to New York with only one thing on my mind."

"Lisa?"

"Yes."

“Men are fools.”

"About love we are."

“So you came here to forget?”

“Like joining the Foreign Legion,” Sean sighed, then was surprised by Petra's kissing him for the briefest of seconds. "So tell me how much?"

"To fuck me, Herr Ami?"

She leaned against the brocaded wall, hands resting on her hips.

"The price is five thousand Marks."

"Three thousand dollars."

"More or less."

"Then I'll start saving my pfennigs."

"And I’ll hold my breath." She pushed him onto the bed and said in a dusty voice, "You must be tired.”

“Where are you going?”

"Just to see some friends outside. Go to sleep." Her command had a hypnotic effect and his eyelids grew heavy with weariness. He stared up at Petra one last time and closed his eyes.

The brunette walked to the door. She had not lost her touch, but most men would not have refused Marta. She glanced at him again, thinking maybe he wasn't like everyone else, then laughed at even thinking he could be different from all the other men in the world. The slam of the door marked her conviction that all men were dogs even if they dressed like a prince, because Hamburg was a funny way of killing fairy tales and Petra knew all too well how stories ended without happy endings.

ALMOST A DEAD MAN by Peter Nolan Smith - CHAPTER 8

The dream transported the dreamer to Moscow. Sirens sent crowds into the Metro and they exited at another station in an orderly fashion. This was the end. A flash took everyone away with a white strobe.

Sean woke with a start.

A woman screamed in German.

His eyes slowly adjusted to the subtle boreal light pouring through the window and he was at a loss where he was, until he saw Petra seated in a chair.

"You were having a bad dream. I thought it better not to disturb you."

"I have these recurring dreams about getting killed by an atomic bomb. Once was in my old hometown, Boston, another time in New York, and now is Moscow."

"You are not supposed to die in dreams."

"I died in all of these. Atomic dust."

"The missiles are just across the border. There are missiles here too. We Germans don't want them, but who can say no to an American, but who cares about death and destruction? Get up, we have to go." Petra drew back the curtains and pulled the American to his feet. She was stronger than she looked. "Hurry up. My friend has a customer."

"Just a second." Sean went to the window.

The sun's reflection off the distant North Sea tinted the western sky. The rooms on the opposite side of Hafenstrasse had no curtains and revealed several sordid tableaux of sex.

"This place would make millions in New York."

"Hafenstrasse makes millions here, but mostly for men. They own everything, but not this place." Petra grabbed his arm, saying, "You can admire the view someplace else."

She dragged him out of the room past a white-uniformed sailor and a naked blonde Amazon in bondage gear impatiently tapping her foot on the floor. Petra elbowed him in the ribs.

"Didn't your mother tell you it was bad manners to stare?"

"Not in cases like that," he answered and the blonde winked at Sean before shutting the door. Petra commented wearily, "That's Big Bertha. Can you guess her specialty?"

"Holding hands."

"Nothing so gentle."

She pulled him down the stairs and Sean asked, "What's the rush anyway?"

"You wanted to see Kurt and Bertram. Well, they are at the nightclub." Petra said, stepping onto the sidewalk.

The dozy late afternoon had been replaced by a circus sideshow and hordes of men wandered from house to house to search of the right destination to satisfy their specific lust. Several accosted Petra, who pushed them away with a sneer. They squeezed past a stream of men filing through the barrier.

Outside Herbertstrasse more men packed the sidewalks before the small hotels seconding as brothels. Uniformed police on the streets signified that the flesh trade was both legitimate and big business. Petra tugged Sean onward, "You can come down here on your own later.”

“I guess the Reeperbahn is not a couples' date."

"Sometimes, but we're not a couple.” Petra sat in the Porsche. “Just get in the car."

Petra drove through the city at autobahn speeds. The flat-6 whined, as she downshifted through corners and accelerated out of them to finally stop before the entrance of a modern hotel. Sean was thrown forward and raised his hands up in time to prevent his face from smashing into the dashboard.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Mit mich, nothing, but I won once and now I want to know how lucky you are inside a casino."

The brunette unbuckled her seatbelt to get out of the car.

"Here?" Sean regarded the carefully attired guests waiting for taxis and felt out of place in his jeans.

"What? Are you are scared of what people think? You win. People will love you. You love and the casino loves you." Petra pulled him out of the car through the revolving doors into the lobby, but he stopped before the front desk.

The gold jangled on her wrists and ankles and Petra asked, "What is wrong now?"

"All I have is two-hundred Marks."

"Nichts mehr?"

Nothing."

So now you have cold feet?" Petra sounded audibly disappointed in his lack of adventure, but he explained dry-mouthed, "On my twenty-first birthday I gambled across Nevada. By the time I reached Reno, I was up $500 and should have called it a day, except I went into a casino in the biggest little town in the world, thinking I could break the bank at the craps table. I wasn't doing too bad, until I had a drink."

"And you found out that drinking and gambling don't mix. I never drink anything, but water while playing anything."

"The next morning I woke up by the Truckee River with a hang-over. The sun in my eyes. I had lost it all. Since then I've stayed away from gambling." This was only partially true, since people bet all day long on small things like running a red light or telling a lie.

"Before you asked what it would take to get me into bed. I told you five thousand Marks. You have two hundred. Five turns of the roulette wheel and you will have over six thousand Marks. So I have to ask you. Do you feel lucky tonight?"

If the woman in the brothel had been test number one, then this had to be test number two. Willpower had helped him in the first and luck might be on his side, so he said, “I feel luckier than most.”

"Gut, then let's see if you are blessed by the gods tonight." The brunette's sharp nails dug into his palm and they walked hand in hand into the Spielhalle. All the croupiers greeted Petra and Sean said, "Looks like you're popular here too."

"I win. I lose. I always play." Petra stopped before the roulette table and regarded the bets on the felt cloth. "In every game there is a system to win and one to lose."

"Yes, the house wins and we lose."

"You win five thousand and I am yours."

"For?"

"An hour or two."

"Then let's play. Sean took out his stake and Petra regarded the small wad of bills.

"You were not lying, when you said you only had two hundred?"

"Yes, I'm too lazy to lie." Sean held out the money.

"I'll keep that in mind." Petra handed his stake to the croupier, who returned an insignificant number of chips. "Your play."

Sean divided the chips and placed one on red and the other on black. The croupier spun the wheel and released the steel ball. It bounced into a red slot. The croupier scrapped away the black chips and Petra squeezed his arm.

"This is not winning."

"It's not losing either."

"Unless you hit 'zero'."

The gangster Meyer Lansky had added double-zero in America and Cuba.

"Not much of an edge."

"Any edge is better than none. You want to stop?"

"No, let it ride on red." The double or nothing odds agreed with Sean. "If I win, you and I have a date."

"Not a date. One hour," Petra retorted cruelly, though the malicious smile lessened when the ball dropped into a red slot.

"Sixty never-ending minutes." Sean signaled to the dealer that he was standing pat.

Red came up again.

"You are lucky with red. Maybe you should switch to black." Petra tugged on his arm.

“Are you worried my wish might come true." He pulled her closer to him. Red popped again and his original two hundred marks multiplied into sixteen-hundred. His nod indicated to let the bet ride and was rewarded with another win. Thirty-two hundred Marks. "Once more time and you and I go upstairs. Nervous?"

"Why would I be nervous? I am a whore." Petra slyly distracted his attention, as the croupier flung the ball around the wheel. It was too late to pull back his wager, which would have paid for an idyllic summer in Maine. All for the chance for an hour with a woman he barely knew. Sean prayed for the ball to stop on red, but the steel orb ball dropped into 21.

Black.

The croupier gathered the chips with a rake.

“Someday I show you how to gamble." Petra held his hand.

"Why didn't you do it now?" He'd been so close.

"Because you had too little to lose to make the lesson worthwhile."

"Now I have nothing." This woman had cost him.

"Yes, and I bet that's someplace you have been before."

"Which is why I'm in Hamburg." Petra guided him from the Spielhalle. Her car was out front like the valets never expected for her to be more than a few minutes and Sean recriminated himself for falling into Petra's trap on the drive to the nightclub.

Sean shouldn’t be here with this woman and he was glad to pull up in front of the Malchek.

"Thanks for the tour and the ride."

"It was my pleasure, but please stop being so sad. That two hundred marks was only money. There's plenty more where that goes."

"Don't I know it." Sean looked across the street to the nightclub.

A throng of young people, mostly blonde, pressed against a velvet rope to gain entry. It was all very small time in comparison to New York or Paris, except the kids were better dressed indicating the wealth in Hamburg.

"Will your boyfriend be here?"

"I have no boyfriend."

"Only customers, right?"

“Yes.”

"What about friends?"

"Maybe me.”

"You?"

“I’m more loyal than a dog."

"I don't need friends."

"You want to bet on it?"

"With what?"

"You have nothing to bet with."

Petra dragged him across the street.

The bouncers barked for the people to step aside. They were big and strong. Sean would be working here within a couple of days. He introduced himself in German and they grunted a curt greeting. Their nervousness puzzled Sean, until realizing that he was their new boss, and he decided to show them he was here to stay.

“Let them in.” Sean introduced himself to them and pointed to three beautiful girls.

The bouncers obeyed him without question and he headed inside with Petra.

Diabolical neon illuminated the club and the furniture was a direct knock-off of the Alan Jones’ kneeling female tables and plastic molded chairs from CLOCKWORK ORANGE. The deafening electronic bass beat of Front 242 boomed against the cold blue walls before segueing to the opening beeps of Depeche Mode's 'TAINTED LOVE.

Willowy blondes in summery mini-skirts danced with tall boys with razored haircuts. A three-deep crowd at the bar ordered drinks. Along the raised lounge older men poured champagne for languid women in harsh make-up. The cash registers rang constantly, proving Kurt had not been lying about the club’s profitability. This was all beginning to look too good to be true.

Petra identified various members of Hamburg's scene

"The Schickerai are the power players with Stern and Deutschegrammaphon. A few movie stars come from time to time along with Schlager rockers, but they are the light bulbs of Hamburg's neon night life."

"Who are the bright lights?"

"You will meet them soon, maybe too soon. Excuse me for a second."

“Take your time.” Sean watched her greet an elegantly dressed man with silver hair. It was the man from this morning. They appeared to be neither friends nor lovers and Sean doubted their relationship was as simple as her explanation. He was about to look for Bertram and Kurt, when two arms bearhugged Sean. The people laughed, but his ribs were buckling inward and crunched his booted heel on his assailant's instep. A scream of pain accompanied his release.

The crowd stepped back for a full-out fight and Sean wheeled to punch out whoever had attacked him, except Kurt Oster held out his hand and said through a grimace, "Enschuligen, I took you off-guard."

"You did.” Sean shook the German's hand. “Sorry, I reacted that way."

"No apologies necessary, it shows you are ready for action."

"I waited for you at the airport."

"I thought you would be happier with Petra,"

"I would use a different word than 'happy'." Sean examined the German.

They were about the same height and weight, but Kurt Oster had this club, money, women, whatever he wanted when he wanted, while Sean simply had a broken-down motorcycle to his name. Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest was rammed right down his throat and it tasted like refried crow.

"But you're happy to be here." Kurt tested his foot.

"Out of New York? Yes."

"So what do you think of the club?"

"It looks like it's making money."

"You think I would fly you over here to waste your time or my money. No, we will all have a good time." Kurt ordered a bottle of champagne and led them to a table, where Bertram sat with a trio of thin blonde women in filmy dresses. Kurt hissed, “B-grade models from Paris working the catalogues. Bertram fell in love with one. A junkie from Frankfurt."

"Trouble?"

"For Bertram, but Bertram likes trouble."

"Better him than us. Here he comes now."

The unkempt Frenchman rose from the seats and greeted Sean with a kiss for both cheeks. Kurt ordered more champagne and a few more people arrived at the table, Petra and her ‘friend’ among them. His gray-blonde hair swept back over his scalp lent his face a predatory mien and he said, "So this must be the famous Sean Coll."

"This is Lukas Von Hausen," Kurt said, as though the last name meant something.

"We met briefly without a proper introduction."

"Herr Coll, your accent says you're from Boston, maybe Maine."

"Across the harbor from Portland. My father's family has been there in the 1600s."

"Ah, the extermination of the Indians. We Germans have so much in common with America. Petra told me about your visit to the Herbertstrasse. Most educational, yes?"

"It depends on what you call educational?" Hamburg was obviously a town where nobody kept a secret, unless its disclosure threatened them personally and Sean vowed to avoid Petra during his stay in Hamburg.

"Do not be so mad.” The German laughed at Sean's discomfort and Petra left the lounge. “She just thought an American’s first day in Hamburg was an amusing story."

"I'm sure it was a good laugh." He noticed a dazzling blonde in a mini-skirt on the dancer floor. Lukas followed his gaze and excused himself. “Duty calls.”

When he joined the blonde, she stopped dancing and Sean stepped closer to Kurt.

"So who's your friend?"

"Not a friend or even an acquaintance. Lukas is an aristocratic artist and thinks himself a great director, despite having only shot home movies. Most people deemed him a failure, but he is the last of the Von Hausens." Kurt re-empathized importance of the last name, though Sean’s fascination was relegated strictly to princesses in distress. Petra re-appeared from the crowd, then motioned for Kurt to join her. The German excused himself. Sean took a sip of the champagne, wincing with displeasure. "What is this?"

"It is the merde they like to call champagne. You’ll get used to sekt. I have."

Bertram lit a Gitane in the manner of a very young Yves Montand.

"So mon ami, what do you think of Hamburg?”

"It's not New York or Paris." Sean toasted the city with a glass of ersatz champagne. "But I can handle it for a couple of months."

"My sentiments exactly." Bertram slowly inhaled his cigarette, as if it might be his last breath. His pinned pupils were hooded by heavy lids lowered by heroin, showing how things had worsened since they had last see each other in Paris. Deep in Sean's veins the old urge to forget everything hummed a few bars of the drug’s siren song and he inadvertently scratched the inside of his arm.

"So I hear you're in love."

"Not in love, but Hanna is exciting. Very radical. Very anarchistic."

"Good for you." Sean had had his fill on girls like Hanna in Paris. Bertram was less concerned with the collateral damage attributed to drugged-out beauties. "Why aren't you spinning?"

"My assistant took over." Bertram indicated the young boy at the turntables. “He’s sixteen.”

"A bit young, no?"

"When you were that old what were you doing?"

"Pretty much the same."

"The drinking age in Hamburg is eighteen, but if someone has money, then it’s an open-arms policy. Anyway Johnny only drinks juice. He loves spinning records and his mother will pick him up at midnight.”

Bertram fought off a nod and went to the turntables, cueing up 1999, Prince's homage of Sly Stone and Chic. Sean surveyed the crowd of the young girls and boys, until being drawn to the platinum blonde woman to whom Lukas had been speaking.

She danced in a world apart from everything and everyone around her. Prisms of light sparkled from her diamond studs and engagement ring. The skin of her lean boyish body was honeyed from the sun. She wore a simple white shirt and jeans with flat sandals, so she was only as tall as she had to be. When her sapphire eyes swung his way, Sean could have sworn she was looking at him. Almost every other man seemed to share the same notion.

Sean rose to his feet and matched her movement. She reached out a hand. Sean stepped forward to join her on the dance floor, but she pulled Kurt from the crowd. The German tried to move away, but Vanessa danced closer to Kurt.

“Let everyone talk. We are only dancing. There is nothing wrong with that, is there?"

"I want more than just a dance someplace far away from all these people.” Kurt had been dreaming about that day from the first time he had seen Vanessa. “Come away with me. For an afternoon. Just you and me. We can go to Sylt. Say you will."

"I am not a free woman." Vanessa couldn’t believe she was even contemplating such a sin and broke away, gyrating to Captain Sensible's SAY WHAT for a few seconds before backing into Kurt with her long hair trailing down his chest.

Up in the lounge Sean wished he could have been the club owner, for the blonde belonged on the stage or in a painting not real earth. Petra stood next to him and explained matter-of-factly, "One of the few weapons a woman has against a man is her beauty, but this one’s her main weapon is her innocence."

"If she is so innocent, what is she doing with Kurt?"

"Some say she is still is a virgin. No one can say for sure other than Lukas or the Ice Queen herself, but our friend, Kurt, would like to find out in the worst way.” Petra melted into the crowd at the song's end the song ended. The blonde enigma went to over to a small group of young people. Kurt joined Sean at the bar and asked in a low voice, barely audible over the music, "What do you think of her?"

"She is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen." Lisa hadn’t been as beautiful, but he had loved her all the same, because of the glow she shared with Vanessa. Falling in love with Vanessa was dangerous and not just because of Lukas.

Kurt lit up a cigarette and his lungs rejected the smoke. He coughed like he was losing a lung, but he did not stub out his cigarette.

“She’s very different from all the other women I have been with; smart, a good heart, and she didn’t go to bed with me the first time we met. I keep thinking, "Tonight is the night.", but tonight never comes. A woman who says, "No.", when she wants to say, "Yes." can drive a man crazy."

"She is also married." Vanessa was no Reeperbahn whore or Paris model.

"She doesn't love him." Kurt nervously fidgeted with his shirt like an awkward teenager asking a girl to be his first date.

"Her being married might not matter to you, but maybe it does to her." Sean thought it was unlikely that any woman would leave a titled baron for a nightclub owner.

"How would you make her fall in love with you?"

"My luck in love has ruined my belief in happily ever-after." Sean hated giving romantic advice, since if anyone adopts your suggestion and it blows up in his or her face, then you are to blame.

"Then we learn through failure and you can tell me what not to do."

Sean examined the young woman and offered, "My advice is, when in doubt, do nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Absolutely nothing." Sean took a sip of sekt, then looked up to find himself facing Lukas' wife.

She squeezed around Sean and kissed Kurt's cheek. The club owner fought off an expression of disappointment and a wave of pubescent yearning surged over Sean, when the woman extended her hand.

He shook her hand and paused for Kurt to introduce her, however the German had left to greet some people by the entrance.

"I'm Vanessa Von Hausen and you are the famous Mr. Coll." The blonde smiled like a goddess holidaying on Earth.

"Infamous, yes, famous I don't know."

"No, you are being modest." She put her arm around Kurt's waist and he shone with satisfaction, as if this embrace was a giant leap forward in his romance. "Kurt told me how you destroyed a Deux-Cheveaux single-handedly in Paris."

"Oh, that. I really only kicked in the windows after the driver threw a bucket of paint on me. When he took off, a taxi totaled the car." Sean could live without this dubious celebrity, but he had learned long ago how hard it is to outrun the tales of the past.

"Oh, you are is so precious." She clapped her hands with delight. "You must have many such stories from New York."

"Probably too many," Sean was slightly nervous to have turned his back to the door, then again no one in Hamburg could possibly have it in for him yet.

"What you two talking about?" Kurt was visibly displeased at her attention to Sean.

"New York and destroying cars with a single blow."

"A good story. Let's join the rest of our party." The nightclub owner led the way to the rear of the club, where they joined Petra, Lukas, and three couples.

As they sat down at the table, the strangers suspiciously eyed Sean before resuming their conversation in German. He scrambled to grasp a thread of what they were saying and grinned, while the rest of the table tittered about a man who had been caught with his ex-wife. Noticing the American's unease, Kurt pulled him out of his seat.

"I want you to meet the day manager."

The two men went to the small, but tidy back office. The bass from the sound system thudded against the wall. A slight man with an impish face grunted a greeting and stuffed a stack of Deustchmarks into a brown manila envelope.

"This is Jonny Werth. Now you are here, he will become the day manager."

“I never thought I would ever dream about being in bed at a reasonable hour, but boredom has become a paradise with the passage of age," Jonny lisped through a grin of gold caps on his lower bridge.

"You are getting old.” Kurt shook his head.

"We all get old one day, sometimes sooner than we think." Jonny grabbed a cane from the corner and hobbled out of the office, saying to Sean, "If I can be of any help, let me know."

Once the door shut, Kurt took out a vial and poured cocaine onto the desk. Kurt offered Sean some. He refused, since most the cocaine in Europe was heavily laced with speed designed to explode your heart.

"Jonny is a good man." Kurt cut himself a thick line.

"What happened to his leg?"

"You should be careful with questions in Hamburg.” Kurt huffed a line of cocaine with a frown, then said, "Jonny was a Zuhalter or pimp. A few years ago the police arrest in Spain, for what is unimportant. He was sentenced to prison in the Canary Islands, where Jonny discovers he is a homosexual. The boys from the Reeperbahn find out this and they break his legs upon his release. One didn’t heal so good."

Sean's younger brother was gay and Sean had defended him through high school. His best friend in New York, Johnny Darling, had been a hustler and died of this new sickness, AIDS. Many more in the East Village had joined him, though he didn’t think this plague was a curse from God like the Bible-thumpers. Just a bad thing happening to people, giving straight people another reason to fear gays and Sean said half-seriously, "I thought homosexuality earned the death sentence from gangsters."

"Cali stopped them,” Kurt replied, rolling up a Milla bill and huffing a line thick as a 100mm cigarette.

"Who's Cali?" Sean ignored the warning about questions.

“A long-time friend, who protects the club no matter what. Don’t worry about nothing.”

Those words always had a tendency to bite you on the ass and Sean changed the subject by asking, "What about working papers?"

"If you want to go through the hell of the Behorde, be my guest. First stop is the Bureau of Order, then Immigration, where you apply for a residence permit. You have an Irish passport, but any German could do your job, so they will tell you that you can't get a Resident Permit, till you have a Work Permit and you can't get one without the other."

"Sounds like a ping-pong."

"More like shuffleboard at which the German bureaucracy wins gold medals." Kurt mimicked the old German phrase, "'Papers, please.' No, it is better I pay you cash."

"I'm cool with avoiding taxes."

"Better the money in your pocket than the coffers of the State."

I agree." Every extra DM would shorten his stay, though his next destination was a mystery.

"When do I start?"

"Whenever you want." Kurt clapped him on the shoulder a little too hard. Germans obviously enjoyed playing rough and Sean responded by pushing the German off-balance with a simple shove. Regaining his balance, Kurt said, "Tomorrow I will get you a car. Sounds good, no?"

"Almost too good to be true. Why you really hiring me? I mean you could have found a German, who could do this job."

"I do not want anyone in Hamburg knowing my business," Kurt spoke in a low voice.

"Why?” Sean’s bad feeling blossomed into a mushroom cloud. “Are we laundering money?"

"No, this club is legitimate, but I have a second job for you.”

"I won't do anything illegal." Sean wished that last turn of the roulette wheel had come up in his favor, then he could have left Hamburg tomorrow morning or even tonight if there was a late train.

"I'm not asking you to commit any crimes. You want to just work the club, then that is fine, but I’m in the process of selling off my telex businesses across Europe. The money comes into a bank in Geneva. I need someone to bring them these deposits to Hamburg. Nothing illegal other than keeping this liquidation from the tax people. You will stay at a nice hotel, fly first-class and get a break from the club. Believe me, Hamburg can get very small."

"How can you be so sure I won't steal your money?"

"Because you’re not the type.”

"I'm not?"

"You are violent, you do drugs, and you have robbed a bank, but I don't see you as someone who steals from friends."

"No?"

"I know thieves when I see them, but I’d hate to be proven wrong."

"I never break any Commandments with friends.”

"Good."

"One more thing. I'd like to stay someplace other than Petra's."

Sean's afternoon with Petra had not achieved the desired effect, but few women could manipulate men better than Petra and he would have to trust in her methods.

"I understand. Petra lives alone. Last night was a favor to me, tonight I will put you up in the Atlantic Hotel. A touch of luxury, then you can move into a penthouse apartment. Anything else?

All these proposals were coming fast, but then again so little had been happening for such a long time, so any movement would seem rapid. New York was a great city for walking. Hamburg was more like a suburb and he asked, "Do I need a car?"

"No one walks in Germany. I will deduct your rent and your car payments from your percentage.”

Kurt blew away the cocaine residue and opened the door. Jonny re-entered the office, while Kurt and Sean went to the bar to order drinks over Grandmaster Flash's THE MESSAGE. “Of course you will have to check the numbers, since you should trust no one with your money."

“Least of all myself.” Money never lasted long in his hands.

Petra came up behind him and slipped a cool hand up his back, sending a chill through his bones. "Alles roger?"

"Warum nicht?" Sean was out of New York, away from the police, had a new job, and was surrounded by an entirely new cast of characters. The club-goers looked at him, as if he were an upcoming attraction and he was extremely grateful to the anonymous author, who had rewritten his life. He could only hope that he would never use an eraser.

The threesome was filled out by Vanessa, who embraced Kurt with unexpected warmth.

Everyone else in the club disappeared from his sight, when she told Kurt, “I’ll go with you to Sylt.”

“You will?”

“I had a talk with Lukas. He said I could go wherever I wanted as long as he had the same right.”

She glanced over Kurt’s shoulder at Petra. Vanessa no longer suffered any delusion about her relationship with her husband. The Von Hausens never divorced, only disregarded their vows of marital chastity. In the past a woman would have stayed home, but Vanessa was too young to surrender her life to outdated morals. She was free again and announced, “I told him there was nothing between us. Just friends.”

"Even Adam and Eve had been friends in the beginning," said Kurt, but Lukas was not a man to give up something so easily and he asked, “Where is your husband now?”

“Gone painting.” Lukas had been her Prince Charming and now Kurt would be the Robin Hood. "And left you with me."

Comforting by this robbery from the rich to the poor, Vanessa curled around Kurt like a snake coiling on a hot rock, praying for the sun to never go down below the horizon and on the longest day of the year that was always around midnight in Hamburg.

ALMOST A DEAD MAN - CHAPTER 26

Sean picked up nearly eight hundred thousand Swiss Francs at the bank and Herr Egard regarded the American, as if he never wanted to see him again. His wish would come true today, if Sean could get up the nerve to steal the packet. The banker accompanied him to the Volvo followed by a guard.

"Is anything wrong?"

"No, just making sure the money get to the car safely. Have a good trip."

"Thanks. See you next week."

"Looks like they're worried about someone robbing us," Murah commented, as he wheeled the car into the street.

"They might have a point."

"How so?"

"We haven't changed our routine from day one." Sean checked for anyone following him or her, except the street was empty.

"Yes, with this much money at stake, the risk becomes less of an issue." Murah's tone warned that last week's hesitancy on the bank's steps last week had not gone unnoticed. Thankfully he left it at that and they proceeded to the airport in silence.

The day passed as slowly as any other they had spent in the airport.

Sean buried himself in Isaac B. Singer's THE SLAVE until his flight was ready for boarding. Murah surprisingly showed a ticket at the gate.

"You're going to Hamburg?"

"I have to speak to Kurt in person."

Sean didn't ask what, but it seemed like Kurt wasn't taking any chances on this trip.

Inside the plane Murah signaled for Sean to take the window seat, while he sat guard on the aisle, signifying any chances Sean had for taking this money had been those few seconds a week ago.

After the plane took out, Sean browsed through STERN and stopped on a page advertising diamonds.

A handsome man offered an engagement ring to a lovely woman. He thought about how happy Petra would be to get such a ring. Even with the liquidation of everything he owned, the old BMW, 4000 marks, and his motorcycle in New York, that ring was beyond his means. Sean pondered the possibility of convincing the Yugoslav to split the money between them, but suspected at the mere mention of a theft he would be thrown from the airplane without a parachute.

The plane landed in Hamburg on time and Murah escorted him through the terminal. No one stopped him for questioning and Kurt had met him outside in the T-Bird. One glance told Sean the German was still doing drugs and he looked ready for a return visit to the hospital. His death wish was his own business and Sean handed the aluminum case to Kurt, thinking how all this money wasn't making anything better for him and Sean's stealing it probably wouldn't have benefited him either.

"No problems this time?" Kurt asked, his hands shaking on the steering wheel.

At first Sean thought the question was directed to him, but Murah answered from the back seat, "No problems. Not in Geneva. No here."

Kurt expressed his gratitude to his courier by paying him an extra thousand Marks, then informed him, "Only one more transfer left, probably Friday, then you're free again."

"I can hardly wait." Sean exited from the car and went to his own.

Each week the money from the bank had doubled in amount. Now 800,000 was about what most normal people earn in a lifetime. Next week was probably going to be 1,6000,000 Swiss Francs. How much didn't matter, because there was no way he could pull off this heist by himself. He would have to be satisfied with his courier fee and that fact that Petra and he were now lovers and that was something money couldn't buy.

When he arrived at the apartment, Petra demonstrated how happy she was to see him without resorting to any of the tricks of her previous career and relied strictly on the tenderness of someone who was in love. Sean could only reciprocate in kind. He suggested they go out to eat.

Petra would have preferred to remain where they were, yet didn't argue, since he seemed so happy. Sean dressed in his black suit, while she changed into a light shirt and tan shirt. The gold chains remained in the dresser and the leathers stayed in the closet. "No leather. No gold," asked Sean.

"No, the only way I can be someone new is not be who I was before."

"I wish I could do the same."

"Once we leave here, maybe we can."

"We'll see soon enough." Sean was willing to try with Petra.

They walked outside hand in hand. The spire of the church across the street was a slender needle into the night sky and a few leaves rolled down the sidewalk.

"Autumn," said Sean.

"Not yet." Petra let the warm breeze off the lake blow through her day. "Summer still has some life in it."

Three young girls in mini-skirts passed them and Sean followed them with his eyes, until Petra's fingernails dug into his flesh. He turned sharply to her and said, "Sorry, I didn't know it was against the law to look."

"It isn't, but just remember that when you're with me."

"How could I forget?" Sean held up his palm. "You drew blood."

"Only a little.” Petra took his hand and kissed where the red half-circles.

When they reached the Porsche, she stopped and said, "Funny I should want you so much now after not wanting you at all."

"Me, I wanted you from the first time I saw you." Sean replied, as he sat in the passenger side of the convertible.

"Lusten oder Lieben?" Speaking English all the time was exhausting, since she used at most three hundred words, but Sean's German was worse than a three-year old.

"A little of lust and a lot more of the love."

"Is that what you mean by love at first sight?" Petra slipped behind the wheel of the Porsche.

"Maybe I do." Sean's obsession for Tammi had been cleansed by his love for Petra, because nothing cured a broken heart faster than to falling in love. She caressed her cheek and he asked, "And you?"

"Moglich Ich auch." Sometimes it was too soon to say more than 'maybe', but for both of them the time to say more was not far away.

They drove to St. Pauli under a velvet sky dotted with distant stars and Sean lifted his head.

"Wishing on a star."

"Looking for a meteorite. August is the time of the Pleiades. Where I come from in Maine, the sky is dark enough to see scores of them."

"Too much light in Hamburg."

"Same as New York." The only movement above was a jet plane heading north. "Maybe we could go to the Alps first. I'm sure we can see them there."

"Sounds beautiful."

"Same as you."

"Genug romantik, bitte."

"As you wish."

Petra parked the car on the Reeperbahn and they strolled arm in arm to the Italian restaurant near Herbertstrasse.

Every table in the front was crowded with noisy customers. The maitre de greeted Petra with four kisses on the cheek and gave her a table in back. Several groups of diners spoke in hushed tones and Sean had to ask, "Are you famous or something? Every place we have ever gone, people recognize you. Why?"

"It is an old story and why my face is the way it is. I am amazed you never ask me what happened."

"I thought you would tell me one day."

"And no one else did?" Petra unfolded her napkin and put it on her lap, showing she had been brought up with the same middle-class manners as Sean.

"They said something about a beating, but never why or who."

"Yes, that is the short story of what happened." Petra fingered her left eye.

Glass.

"And the long?"

Before she could answer, the waiter came over with a bottle of wine from the chef. Petra thanked him and allowed Sean to taste the wine, which was exceptionally chilled, if nothing else. When the waiter left, Sean said, "And you were saying?"

"I was organizing the prostitutes to get rid of the pimps. I had some success at first, but then the pimps stopped my campaign by beating me up." Petra kept it short. Telling Sean the gory details about the savage attack would have been too close to reliving the actual event. Her good eye twitched, as she said, "The newspapers made a big deal about my 'crusade', though they were only interested in selling newspapers."

"And what about the girls?"

"The girls? They got the message and so did I. No union, so I went back to being a whore."

"Hollywood would buy the rights to your story." Sean reached over to hold her hand, though she coldly replied, "This is not Hollywood. It is an old story and one I wish to forget."

She lifted her other hand and touched the most damaged side of her face. The pain generated from her empty eye socket served as a reminder of her vow of vengeance. Her face hardened for a second, till she released the thought. "What about you? Why are you here? A bad love story or wanted by the police?"

"A little bit of both. Actually more than a little." Sean told her about Tammi, the cops, and the nightclub, then said, "I've always been unlucky in love."

"Maybe that was only in New York."

"Maybe," Sean answered without telling her of other disasters in Paris, LA, and Miami.

"Maybe your luck will change." "It has so far." Sean kissed Petra on the neck.

A frisson cascaded down her spine.

"Mine too."

"At the roulette wheel."

"Not yet."

The waiter delivered their linguine and the conversation broke off, until Petra asked, "What kind of name is Coll."

"It was Coll, but my great-great-great grandfather wound up on the losing side of the American Revolution. His family disowned him and he fled to Canada, shortening his name to 'Coll'." Sean recounted the story his grandfather had told him. It was a lie, but the tale of murder in the North Woods, which was the truth, was too complicated for one dinner.

"So you are Canadian?"

"No, I am American. My grandfather served as a doctor for the British in World War I and met my grandmother as a field nurse a hospital in France. She was from Maine and after the war they returned to the States." Sean looked across the table.

Petra was staring over his shoulder. A heavy-set man stood up from a table of men and approached them. Sean grabbed a fork. Petra said, "Don't."

The man spoke swiftly in German. Sean didn't understand the words, but read Petra's eyes.

"Listen, we're having dinner, so please return to your table."

"Hah, an American. Why aren't you at a fast food restaurant."

The dark-haired man explained what he had said to his friends in German and they laughed, slapping the table.

Unwilling to start a fight, Sean responded jovially, "Some of us do and some of us don't."

"Amerika, Kulturlos Leute." One of his friends sneered loudly.

Several diners swiveled their heads at the sound of the disturbance. The waiter tried to interfere, but was pushed away by the fat man. While most Germans were good people, but Sean kept running into the worst. Considering where and for whom he worked, he could expect nothing less.

"Petra and I are old friends, are we, Liebsten?"

"We were never Liebsten." Petra remembered this man, his nakedness, what he had wanted, how much he had paid her, how many minutes he had taken. She looked at Sean to warn to make any trouble, but he said, "We have plenty of culture. cowboys, the blues, and pizza."

"That is not Kultur." The man's face was warped by superiority, as he spat out, "Beethoven, Goethe, Schiller. Das ist Kultur."

"Ancient history," Sean replied, resisting the urge to add bombing German cities into rubble to the list, though any reason to be polite had disappeared several seconds ago and Sean didn't give a rat's ass who this man was, where he came from or anything else, for a sliver of a tear shined in Petra's eye.

"Ancient history?" The man pushed away the hands of another waiter. "Better ancient history than 'nigger' history."

"You said what?" Sean put his clenched fists under the table, then said, "Maybe you prefer to talk about the new German culture. Dachau, Buchenwald, and Auschewitz."

Those four words wipe off the drunk's smug smile and he would have thrown a punch had his friends not wrestled him away, muttering something about there never having been a Final Solution, but that he had one designed for an 'Auslander'.

The waiters and maitre de hurried over to apologize for the men's behavior.

"Es war nichts. Rechtung, bitte?" Petra asked for the bill and the maitre de said the dinner was on him before retreating from the table.

"Sorry." Sean shrugged. "I guess I shouldn't have mentioned the Nazi thing."

"It wasn’t about Nazis. I fucked that man and hundreds of men just like him in Hamburg. This is not the first time or the last time that will happen."

He handed her a napkin.

"You think a napkin will make me feel better." Petra threw it on the floor and left the restaurant

Sean quickly followed her and found her leaning against the barrier of Herbertstrasse. He touched her hair, then caressed her face. She slapped away his hand. Seeing a meteorite streak across the sky, he wished Petra would forget what had happened in her restaurant and he said, "Petra."

"What?" She demanded with a heart-crushing hostility that cut into his heart.

He swallowed a lump of hurt, then said, "Just that neither of us have been saints, but that's not saying that we can't start over with a clean slate."

"I thought it was possible to change, but those men and the people in the restaurant see me as what I am. A whore and that is all I am."

She was right, but Sean wasn't giving up so easily and told her, "You don't have to be who they want you to be."

"What? You want things to be right, so I can come back to your house and fuck you. For free too. You think you do not have to pay for a woman. You pay, every man does. It could be dinner or flowers or jewelry, but no woman will give it away for free. Or maybe you want to be the whore. I will give you one-thousand DM for a night. That was my fee before they destroyed my face." Her hands struck out to drive him away for his own good.

"I'm not talking about sex. I'm talking about you and me. Us." Sean seized his wrist, twisting it hard and finding himself angered by his inability to help her.

"Us? There is no us." A cynical snarl leapt from her throat, then she attacked him. Sean defended himself as best he could without hurting her, but that meant letting down his guard. Petra clipped him with a hard fist and he stepped back to bump into someone.

"Arseloch." It was the fat man. Two other men emerged from the darkness. They were taller than Sean, but he had one advantage. They would want to talk first. Sean was all action.

"So, was jetzt?" The German demanded to the chuckles of his friends. This must have been their idea of a good ending to the night and the man shoved Sean backwards, saying, "Was denkst du?"

Some people might call a 'sucker punch' unfair, but nothing is fair in love and war, so Sean grabbed hold of the drunk's wispy forelock and his right fist impacted on the man's face with the sweetness of driving a baseball over the outfield fence. The man fell back into his friends' arms, while Sean stared at the clump of hair in his left hand. Pinpoints of blood speckled the man's forehead.

Caught off-guard by the scalping, Sean momentarily forgot the other two assailants, but one of them smacked Sean in the head and he dropped on his knees and not to pray. He tried to get to his feet, but his legs were too weak to support him, so he instinctively contracted into a ball. The punches became kicks to his ribs, legs, and back. One boot snapped his head back with an explosive flash strobing into his sockets. He was about to lose consciousness, when a hollow shot rang out.

Sean flinched, but no bullet burned into his body.

Running footsteps replaced the blood roaring in his ears, then the click of high heels. Sean opened his eyes. Petra stood over him, a small-caliber pistol in her hand. She stuck the gun in her purse, then pulled him to his feet and said, "We have to go before the police come."

"Just point me in the right direction." Sean stumbled to his feet and Petra helped him walk down the street. This was the second bad beating he had received in Hamburg and the three men had hurt him, though he had escaped without his nose being broken or a tooth knocked out. At least he had something to be thankful for.

In the car Petra cleaned the blood off his face and said, "Tut mir lied."

"You don't have to apologize, unless you're telling me you want to end this now." Sean gazed into both her eyes. That one of them was glass was unimportant. To Sean they were still the gateways to her soul.

"I've been around the world. I’ve been with many women. I told you. I'm no saint, but with you I'm willing to try. I love you, Petra. I have for a while. I love you. There I said it again."

Petra still couldn't tell him the same thing too, but kissed him tenderly on the lips before asking, "You said you would leave here with me?"

"Yes," was all Sean could say, because it was the truth.

Petra turned on the engine and shifted into first, saying, "Then let's go home."

From a nearby BMW SS Tommy and Lukas watched the couple drive away. The blond pimp turned to his passenger and asked, "Are you satisfied?"

"For now, yes?" Lukas put down the Leica R5 with a 200mm zoom. He had hoped for the beating to go on forever, but had forgotten how tough Petra could be and desired her more than ever.

"You'll be even more satisfied next time," SS Tommy promised, because then he would be the one doing the heavy work and then there would be two targets instead of one. He did some calculating in his head, then added another person to this number. There was no reason to leave Lukas out of that little party.

None at all.

In his mind they were all almost dead men.

ALMOST A DEAD MAN - CHAPTER 41

The pulsing agony from Cali's wound kept him awake. Luckily the penthouse apartment on Mitterlweg was stocked with videos. Throughout the night he watched SUPERFLY, SHAFT, and RAGING BULL without concentrating on any of the dialogue or subtitles, though during the last film's fight scenes, the blows body-punched his body.

By dawn Cali felt like a million Lira in a dirty bag. He should have taken the doctor's advice and gone to a hospital, except a six-inch gash was long enough to have the hospital call the police and he wasn't in the mood to answer questions.

"Not today.

Not tomorrow.

Cali bit his lip and gazed enviously at the sleeping woman on the bed. The Valiums had blessed the blonde with a quiet night, although her lips mouthed indecipherable words. He should have left the apartment in favor of a more secure safe house, but he owed his dead friend the favor of watching over Vanessa, if only for being his first real friend.

Cali's earliest contact with the outside world came through visits from his Grossmuti. Her flinty stare warned him to keep his distance. Every visit the old woman muttered Nigger under her breath and his mother hushed the gray-haired lady. The word meant nothing to Cali and he hoped it might be a term of endearment. He found out soon enough how mistaken he was.

When his mother was hired by a small shipping company, she left the young boy alone and instructed him to never go outside without explaining why. Being a dutiful son, he obeyed her edict and day after day Cali watched the other boys of his age playing in the rubble of the reconstructed quayside.

Soon he thought of little else other than joining these hooligans in throwing rocks at the scraggly rats lurking by the garbage, setting the derelicts' shacks on fire, hurling cats into the harbor, or being chased by the shopkeepers after they stole candy.

Finally their endless cries of delight lured him to open the apartment door. The hallway was empty. He was a good son, but the laughter from the street was an irresistable siren song. He shut the door and crept down the stairs, as if he expected a policeman to arrest him for escaping his cell. When he reached the ground floor, he stepped outside on his own for the first time in his life.

He was four years old.

Upon seeing him, the boys stopped what they were doing and sauntered over to his doorway. At first he thought they would hug him like his mother did, except their eyes were icy cold like those of his grandmother.

He heard the word 'Schwartzer' and understood that they were talking about his skin color. Worst names flew from the mouths of the children, for Hafenstrasse was a tough street and its children were all older than their years. One blond boy emerged from the pack. Cali held out his hand and the boy pushed it away with a laugh. The other boys joined in and so did Cali, until the other boy slapped his face.

The sudden smack came as a shock, though nothing could have prepared him for the combined attack of the street gang. Cali went down after the second punch, then sat helplessly, as they all gleefully took shots at the young black boy. After a few minutes they were exhausted or bored and the pack of boys returned to their games.

Even a six-year old's fist hurts, when there are too many of them. No one helped Cali to his feet. He crawled upstairs and lay on the couch, waiting for his mother to come home. The sight of the bruises horrified her and she scolded him for leaving the house. Her son said he was sorry. She told him he was not to blame. When he asked why the boys had attacked him, she said it was their way of playing. Later in life she would believe she had not lied to him, though that was only because she had not told him the truth.

Instead of remaining inside, he bravely ventured out to endure the same beating day after day.

While the ten-on-ones rarely varied in intensity or length of time, this regularity gave him a chance to throw two or three punches before the collective pummeling buried him. Each day he returned for more and picked a new face to hit, although he never gave out worse than he got.

One day, as the weather was getting colder, Cali came out of the apartment building, wearing the new coat his mother had bought him. The street boys discussed who was getting the first punch. The tall blond boy decided he should have the honors and ordered Cali to give him his coat.

"No."

"No? That is a mistake. I tell you what, little man, I will give you the first punch."

"Okay." Cali swung his fist and hit him in the jaw. The tall boy dropped like a sack of potatoes , his nose bleeding. The felling of their leader by the smaller boy momentarily stunned the pack, because no one had seen Cali pick up a rock with which he had struck the older boy.

He attacked them before they had a chance to regroup, hoping to avenge all the previous beatings in one day, but within seconds a flurry of punches and kicks swarmed over Cali. The young boys' knuckles popped against his head and Cali joined the blond boy on the cobblestones. Booted feet thudded into his body and he soon felt like he was drowning.

Suddenly the beating ended when someone broke rank to help him.

At seven years-old Kurt Oster had witnessed hundreds of fights on Hafenstrasse.

Sailors used knives. Boys fought with sticks and stones. and couple battered each other with firsts and frying pans.

At first the street urchins' daily attacks on the young black boy had been an amusing diversion. Nothing out of the ordinary for the harbor street, except the younger boy never shed any tears. Soon he respected the black boy's courage and realized that the younger boy would never break, so he jumped into the fray to stop the one-sided beating.

The butcher's stepson flailed at the black boy's persecutors with the thick leather strap his stepfather used on him. The strop sliced through the air and cracked indiscriminately on the pig pile of young boys. They lit out like rats with their tails on fire, taking their fallen comrade with them. Kurt Oster stood victorious without bragging, since no one on Hafenstrasse won all their fights and tomorrow he might be the one on the bottom.

"Thanks," Cali said, then tongued his lip, tasting the salty blood.

"You know why they did that?" Kurt grabbed the young boy's hand and lifted him to his feet.

"No." Cali swiped at his nose.

"Because you are a nigger. A black man." Kurt led him upstairs to the apartment over the butcher shop. "They hate you for being different. For not being 100% German, but none of them are 100%. Me too."

"Why did you help me?" Cali fought back the tears of gratitude.

"I was getting tired of seeing you get beaten up." Kurt washed away the dirt and blood with an old towel. "Plus you are a bastard and so am I."

"I thought you had a father." Cali had seen Kurt working at the butcher shop for the thick-necked man cutting meat off the bone.

"That pig is my step-father," Kurt announced with disgust, then went to the icebox and took out a hambone, savagely slicing off several slabs of pink meat to make the younger boy a sandwich. "He tells everyone what a great soldier he was. If he was a Nazi, then I hate all Nazis. Someday I will kill him."

"Then who is your real father?" These were the most words anyone other than his mother had ever spoken to him.

"He died on the Eastern Front fighting with the Wehrmacht." Kurt poured two glasses of milk and sat down at the table. He picked up his sandwich and took a bite, chewing the meat like a dog gnawing an old bone.

"I never knew my father," Cali mumbled through his first bite. It was the best sandwich he ever tasted and the young boy remembered his mother telling him that the butcher always saved the best pieces of meat for himself.

"He was probably an American. Maybe from Harlem."

"Where's that?"

"America. You'll learn all about it in school. They killed millions of us and ruined the cities with their bombs."

Later once Cali learned to add and subtract, he discovered the numbers between the war and Kurt's birth was out of synch. Cali forgave his friend this lie, because he too made up a story about his mysterious father, which he believed more than the people to whom he told the tale.

Cali always remembered Kurt's help and the two had remained close friends throughout the years. The boys in the neighborhood called them Salz und Pfeiffer. In later years the Hamburg Kripo would borrow the title of a Michael Jackson/Paul McCartney duet, EBONY AND IVORY to describe what they viewed as a criminal partnership. Now only EBONY was left and it was only now Cali realized how great a loss he had suffered.

During the night he had been told that his friend's body had been placed in the house on Rue de la Tour. In the morning the maid would discover him. She would scream and call the police. The 'flics' would take him down to the morgue along the Seine. He would have someone identify him. The body would be taken up to Pere-Lachaise and the cremated ashes spread over Chopin's grave. They had each discussed their deaths and their burials hundreds of times and Kurt had never wavered from his wish.

Cali reckoned if he was going to die, yesterday would have been the day, for it's not every day you survive an ax attack. He weighed out the pros and cons of his failure. His ribs were staved in. Kurt was dead. SS Tommy had killed Willi and the banker. The Eroscenter was in chaos. The police were after him, as they always were, when something bad happened in Hamburg. SS Tommy's being dead and his being alive were about the only pluses along with Vanessa's being saved from whatever his ex-associate had planned for her.

Kurt and Cali had underestimated the baron and paid dearly for that mistake. What was worst was that Lukas had a good shot at getting away with it all. If the baron had been someone of Cali's class, murdering him would not be a problem, however the government came down heavy, whenever one of the privileged class got what coming to them.

As disastrous as yesterday turned out, Cali fully intended on preventing today from being the second bad day in a row. His main concern was that Petra was still after him. Everyone else involved in the beating had paid their pound of flesh. There was very little he could do to make everything right for Petra, but if it meant going down on his knees, then that was what he would do, even if there was no guarantee begging would grant him forgiveness. Not because it was the right, but it was the only choice he had left.