ALMOST A DEAD MAN by Peter Nolan Smith - CHAPTER 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Expensive souvenirs, nicht war?”

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

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

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

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

"Yes."

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

"With what?"

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

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

The black man handed the transvestite a handkerchief.

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

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

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

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

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

"Your first name is Hans, yes?"

"I prefer Greta."

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

“I’ll follow your every command.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Someone is out there.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

"So, this American, is he stupid?”

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

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

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

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

“I’ve never lied to you.”

“Not once?”

“Not about anything important.”

“Like your debts to the loan sharks.”

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

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

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

“Not many live to tell the tale.”

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

"At least not by the wrong people."

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

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

“That enough money?”

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

Kurt tucked the envelope inside his jacket.

“We can tell no one about this.”

Cali checked the street again.

“It’s me and you against the world.”

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

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

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

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

After all he was a policeman.

ALMOST A DEAD MAN by Peter Nolan Smith - CHAPTER 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 by Peter Nolan Smith - CHAPTER 9

The symphonic music blaring through the house interrupted Sean's dream about surfing the 100-foot waves created by an atomic blast in New York harbor. He opened his eyes, slightly disconcerted to find himself in a small bedroom as opposed to the promised luxury of the Atlantic Hotel, then vaguely recalled mumbling 'Ein Kaiserringstrasse' to a taxi driver.

Sitting up set the world in a whirl and Sean wished he had heeded Bertram's repeated warnings about drinking too much sekt. He lurched over to the open window and breathed in the briny air with all the greed of someone disinterred after being buried alive.

Goose bumps rose on his skin.

Silky cirrocirrus clouds striated the blue sky. Each gust of wind bent the twisted trees within the neglected garden. Summer had temporarily vanished from Hamburg, a warning of seasons to come. Thankfully he had fallen asleep in his clothing and there was no evidence of Petra’s sharing his bed. She could only complicate things and he decided to leave the house as secretively as possible.

Grabbing his bag, he crept down the dusty hallway. The music increased in volume as did the sound of someone humming along with the string section of the orchestra. His curiosity forced him to peek inside the studio. Lukas Von Hausen stood in the center of the room, wearing an ancient tuxedo. On the table scores of open paint tubes oozed into a dripping delirium of colors. His right hand posed a fine brush over the painting depicting the martyrdom of St. Sebastian, except the model was not a man, but a naked Petra.

Her hands were secured by a rope to a pole and her expression portrayed the utter submission to fate. A video camera replayed the scene with a delay of several seconds on the black-and-white television in the corner, almost as if the past were coming back to life. The stereo speakers vibrated with the movement's coda, then the needle lifted off the record with a scratch. Petra looked at Sean and Lukas grinned wolfishly without turning around. "Did we wake you?"

"No, Mendelsohn did."

"Ah, you recognize him."

"Him, but not the piece." It had been a lucky guess.

"You're an anomaly. Most tourists to Germany are drawn to Berlin’s mystique of a city split in two and Munich for the beer festivals and the Black Forests, but very few Americans other than sailors or are drawn to Hamburg." Lukas dabbed the brush on the painting. "And we all know now you didn't come for Reeperbahn, did you?"

"No, I came here to make money. I can this city is a geldstadt."

"I forget how blunt you Americans can be. What do you think of this painting?"

"It's nice." Sean had little desire to compliment a man he despised on sight, even though the painting captured every nuance of medieval sacrifice.

"Ah, nice is not a critique. You are being noncommittal, maybe because you watch too much TV to be an art lover."

"I stopped going to museums, because I don't like paying to safeguard the possessions of the rich."

Before Lukas could respond, Petra changed her position, and he barked, "Nein, nein, nein. Standst still, du kennst das."

"Ich weiss', aber ich bin mude." Petra lifted her bound hands off a nail, then wrapped a sheet around herself.

"If you are tired, take a break." Lukas threw down the paintbrush. "Petra told me about your gambling for one night of pleasure."

The baron went to the pair of VCRs under the TV and slipped a cassette. Lukas pressed the 'stop' button, and then went over to another video camera, which he aimed at Sean's face.

"You must have been very disappointed at losing all your money, but most men think they get sex for free.”

"I've had sex with women for reasons other than money." Sean re-surveyed the wire-thin cicatrix on Petra's arms and Sean wondered who could have caused such damage. At this moment Lukas was his number one suspect, but he was simply looking for any reason to hit the aristocrat.

"What? For love?" Lukas pulled away the sheet, so the arterial system of scars mapped across Petra's body was more visible. "You think these comes from love?"

"My parents have been married for twenty years." Sean answered without hesitation, for his pyramid of disappointments had not forced him to despair of falling in love.

"And they must have hated every minute."

Sean took a step forward.

Petra crossed the room to hold him back.

"Don't." Something in her voice suggested fear for Sean more than herself or Lukas.

"I would have thought that a man of your age would be much more cynical about sharing an emotion for the sake of pleasure. No, there is always someone dominant in a relationship. Anything else is a big lie.” Lukas seemed to be seeking an altercation. "Petra is my mistress and I am her slave. Could I stop her from doing what she wants? No one can, plus restraining her would go against the my generation's creed of Freiheit. The older generation thinks we are too free, but no one of my age would give up our freedom as our parents did for Hitler. We do as we want, when we want."

Sean dropped his bag to free both hands.

"The entire world has been waiting to learn ethics from the Germans."

"Ach, you suppose I am one of these people, who do think the Jews marched into the ovens on their own. The word is Trauerarbeit. Yes, I mourn them and also all the Germans who died in that war. It was wrong, but by abandoning morals entirely, even for a short time, allowed us reach point zero and achieve the present success. 1968 was much more important to modern Germans than 1945."

"Revolution against the rich?"

"Revolution against everything, but it failed." Lukas focused the camera on Petra's face. "You know she had been a very beautiful woman before her 'accident'. Hardly my type then, though once she had been destroyed, she possessed a quality other women don't and needed a man to protect her. Not a pimp, but a friend. Petra understands her powerlessness now. You should see the before-photos."

"You can spare me the photos."

"Then what about this?" Lukas pressed the Play button on the VCR.

The TV instantly displayed Lukas naked at Petra's feet, then Sean stepping into the doorway.

"The magic of the video camera is that it acts as our mirror of our conscience and your face reveals the classic stupidity of the middle-class."

Sean had a short fuse and Lukas was standing on most of it.

"Lukas, either paint or get out." Petra shut off the VCR.

"Consider it a souvenir of Hamburg to show your children." Lukas took the cassette from the VCR and handed it to Sean, who swatted the tape to the ground.

"Temper, temper, Herr Coll."

"You talk too much.” Petra pushed Lukas and the German fell into a chair, pretending to cower from Sean.

"Please don't hit me."

Kurt entered the room and asked, "Am I disturbing something?"

"No, we were just discussing the possibility of romantic love." Lukas decorously rose from the chair and clapped his hands. "Petra, your rest period is over. Back to your place."

Without the slightest protest Petra resumed the martyr pose.

Kurt grabbed the American's arm and said, "Let's leave the 'artiste' to his work."

Outside the house the nightclub owner looked over his shoulder and advised Sean, "You will be seeing plenty of Petra in the future. Lukas isn't worth the trouble."

"I feel he is." The bones of his fists were close to popping through the skin and Kurt threw him against the wall.

"Believe me, you would be doing me a favor, if you killed him, but Lukas excels at several martial arts and I would hate you to learn the mistake of fighting him the hard way, besides Petra can take care of herself."

Sean believed in the art of fighting dirty, but also only when everything else had failed, so he took fifteen deep breaths and obeyed his mother’s advice about walking away from trouble.

At least for now.

"Let's get out of here."

Kurt slipped behind the wheel of a pristine 1963 Thunderbird. Bertram was passed out in the back. Sean sat in the front. Strangely this confrontation had cured his hangover and he commented on the T-bird's concourse condition, after which Kurt informed him, "I bought it after seeing THE AMERICAN FRIEND, speaking of which you’ll be needing a car too."

"A car?"

"You know how to drive?"

"Yes." Sean had been driving since he was 12.

"Then you need a car."

Kurt drove to a dealer south of the Harbor. Sean picked out an orange 1966 BMW Sweepback 1600. Its top speed was barely 160KPH and the windows went down till a little edge remained, so hanging your arm out the window was uncomfortable, but upon his return to the lot Sean agreed to purchase the BMW, thereby owning a car for the first time, since leaving university. Sean thanked Kurt in his native language.

"You speak German better than you do French."

"I thought I spoke French pretty good."

“Yes, I remember your living on Rue Dez Ecoof. You speak French like you think you can speak it, but, sorry, my boy, the only way to learn a language is through a girlfriend. Get a German one, she'll help you with the language, but now it’s time to get you somewhere to live. Follow me to Milchstrasse. I have an apartment all picked out”

Kurt had gone to a different driving school than Petra and on the ride over the modern apartment building on Mittelweg he obeyed all the traffic laws. They stopped before a cafe and entered a modern building. Kurt pushed the penthouse button. On the top floor he opened a door.

"What do you think?" Kurt had found him a small furnished studio with a wrap-around terrace.

"I'll take it." It was a vast improvement on his tenement apartment in New York as was everything about his new life in Hamburg.

"Let us go celebrate your new life," Kurt suggested once they were outside.

"I think Bertram has had too much celebration." Sean pointed to the Frenchman, who had remained motionless.

"Yes, he has." Kurt lifted Bertram's glasses to check, if there was still life in the DJ. "But I want you to meet Cali Nordsturm. He works down at the Eroscenter."

"Isn't it a little early for the Reeperbahn?" Sean caught the apartment keys thrown by Kurt.

"Not if you know the right place to go?"

The German's T-Bird glided through downtown Hamburg. As the two cars passed the shell of St. Nicolai, Sean spotted a very plain Opel sedan hazardously overtaking a bus.

He didn't think much about it, until spotting the same car in the rearview mirror, as they entered St. Pauli. Sean was unable to see the driver's face, but immediately made him for a cop.

When they pulled into a garage off Taubenstrasse, Sean parked next to the T-Bird. Kurt slid out of the car. Bertram remained out for the long count.

"Looks like you have a new security system."

"More like a dog that will not bark." The two of them left the Frenchman to his slumber. Kurt looked both ways on the street and said, "So you have a new place to live and a new car. Tomorrow we will get you new clothes. No one will recognize you back in New York or Paris."

"Listen, I think you have a problem." Sean eyed the Opel up the street.

"Yes, the Opel is the Police and it is usually against the law to surveil normal citizen.” Kurt crossed the wide avenue of the Reeperbahn. "The police track me, thinking it will help them catch Cali. The idiots think he is the city's biggest criminal, even though they hypocritically tax him for these crimes.”

"And what are those?"

"He is a Zuhalter or what you call a pimp."

"Selling women isn't against the law?"

"It is nearly impossible to prove, which is the next best thing to being legal." Kurt said, as they walked under a red neon sign with naked women dancing atop each letter of 'EROS'. "Come with me and I will show you paradise on Earth."

Inside the lurid red neon of the factory-sized brothel, lingerie-clad women lurked lewdly around the poles supporting the tent shielding them from the sun. Most of the day shift were old veterans at the end of their careers. They greeted Kurt like he was a long-lost boyfriend paying the money he owed them.

He pinched their cheeks, kissed their breasts, and caressed their behinds before calling over a sleek Valkyrie in leather lingerie. The dyed blonde could easily handle one more decade of sex tourists before being put out on the streets and Kurt proudly announced, "Sulka teaches all the young girls the tricks of the trade."

"Maybe I teach you some ‘French’ later." Sulka tongued her heavily lacquered red lips, then growled, "All the way down. The best you will ever have."

Most of the times he had been with a woman, how she might please you remained a mystery, until the sheets of the bed were thrown back, and even then most women were afraid of letting go to prevent the man from discovering how much they enjoyed it. Sean would not have to ask Sulka afterwards, "How was it for you?" Mostly since her response would be determined by how much money she received for her services. Kurt directed her attention to Dutch tourists meandering onto the concrete floor, but a trio of whores already had their hooks into the newcomers.

"I think your American friend will be more fun than those cheeseheads." Sulka opened her bra to display her firm breasts and Kurt grabbed him. "I'll bring him back after meeting meets."

Sean trailed him to a badly constructed motel and they climbed the metal stairs into a cheaply furnished office. Two white men in jogging outfits and one black man in an Italian suit sat in the cramped quarters. The desk was piled with money on all denominations and currencies. The two white men rose to welcome Kurt with hugs and slaps on the shoulders, while the black man lasered Sean from behind aviator sunglasses. Sean met the yellowed eyes. He had seen hundreds of men, who imagined themselves tough, but the black man was no pretender.

"This is my best friend in the world." Kurt put his arm around the black man. "Cali the Ear-ripper. Whatever he wants in the club, he gets. In return, if you ever have any problem with anyone in the club, mention Cali's name and that problem will go away. And I mean any problem."

"Yes, just call me and I will be there." The two men shook hands and Cali's grip buckled Sean's knuckles, so he let his hand go limp. Cali grinned in triumph and released Sean's hand. The black pimp signaled for the two bodybuilders to leave the room and Sean was impressed any white German would take orders from a black man.

"Please to meet you."

Cali intently inspected Sean, but the nightclub owner said, "Stop being so frightening. You are both my friends. Sean, I have another job for you. Cali wants to learn English. Maybe you can help him."

"Yes, I am very interested in improving my English." Cali pulled off his sunglasses.

"I really only speak American." Sean was not deluded by Cali's hospitality or three-piece suit. This man was a merciless killer like Kevin Driscoll.

"All the better, because I want to go to America to drive in the Cannonball Run.”

Sean didn’t have the heart to tell him that legendary race was an urban myth and said, “I’ll have you speaking like Burt Reynolds within a month.”

“You two talk. I have some business to take care of.”

Kurt left the office and Cali offered Sean a drink from a fully-stocked bar to see.

"A Coke would be fine." Sean accepted the soda and watched the black man finger a scar running down his cheek like it was a guitar string. Cali noticed his interest and demanded, "Was ist los? You have not seen a nigger before?"

"Not in Germany, I haven't." Sean suspected Cali wasn't interested in any lies. “I come from Maine. It’s a state up near Canada. Only whites, so we didn’t have any ‘niggers’. In Boston everything seemed okay, but only because all the blacks were living in the ghetto. I had black friends, but none of my white friends liked that. I didn’t care. I’ve slept with black women and played basketball against them all, so I tend not to think any black man as a 'nigger'. Maybe if he puts a gun to my head, but I've only fought white men, so let's keep the 'nigger' out of this."

"Leaving the 'nigger' out is easier said than done.Everyone in Hamburg calls me ‘Nigger’ Cali. Always have and always will.”

Sean sensed he was being assessed for some future reason and suspected Cali’s involvement with Kurt’s transfer of funds. The two were friends and probably partners in crime. The profits from prostitution had to be enormous and not paying taxes would make them even bigger. Sean took a sip of his drink, then asked, "You ever think about living someplace, where no one could call you 'nigger'?"

"Where? America or Africa?" Cali laughed at the idea. "In America they would lynch me or throw me in jail. Africa? How long do you think I would last in Africa? One week? Two? I am a black man in Germany. I have two hundred women working for me each night in this fuck factory. I get over five hundred marks from each one. It's simple arithmetic. I make money and money proves my worth to most Germans. This is my kingdom. Could I have one in America?" "So you and Petra? What is with that?"

"Nothing happened between us." Sean frowned at his business being public knowledge, but Cali dismissed his disapproval with a wave in the air. "Sometimes a kiss is as good as a fuck. Do not be so shocked. Sex is my business. It pays me to well-informed about who is with who in this city and who wants to fuck who."

"So you're doing the city a public service."

"Yes, a pimp is a dirty job, but I am the best at it and I pay more taxes than most industrialists in Germany. I obey the law as best as I can, but there are always detours available for my group of business associates. His group had averted the criminality of pimping by renting out the hotel rooms to the girls working the Eros Center since 1967.

"You don't have to legitimize yourself to me," Sean replied, thinking that the American taxpayers were spending billions in defense to protect this whoremaster from Communism.

"Legitimize? I am what I am. Someone who makes excuses."

"Somehow I think that will be unnecessary." Sean was convinced that the pimp had more alibis than excuses.

"You can never be sure what will be necessary. Let me put it this way." Cali glanced out the window of the office, then leaned forward on the desk. "Maybe there is a woman or man, who resist my 'friend'. The problem could be a father, a lover, a husband, a boyfriend, or girlfriend or that the woman thinks the man is as ugly as sin. My job in this case is to assist my 'friend' in making his wish come true. No one has ever refused me. Maybe you will want my help and may be sooner than you think. You and Petra. Only one man in Hamburg is willing to pay her price. Before her beating, it was different. She would go with any man."

Sean was about to ask, "What beating?", when Kurt entered the office red-faced and out of breath. He gulped Sean's drink and made a face upon discovering it was coke.

"My boy, Sulka is refusing business to be with you. Go, take care of her."

Sean had forgotten Sulka during his conversation with Cali, but said, "Sorry, I don't pay for it."

"We all pay for it one way or the other." Cali pulled out a wad of DMs and peeled off three 100 Mark bills. "Every man pay with either with dinner or time. This way there are no flowers or candies, just sex. All nice and clean. The girls have to get check every two weeks for disease, plus you’re not paying for the sex, just for the girl to go away in the end, so try Sulka.”

"No thanks." <>"You give me lessons in American English and I will give you credit with any of my girls." Cali yelled to Sulka out the window. The leather-clad bleached blonde trotted to her master's call. Cali smiled wickedly and said, "I told her, she better be good or else I would put her on the Fischmarket."

"What's that?" Sean had to ask, as Sulka took his hand.

"When they are finished here, they go to the harbor for the free trade. It is the end of the road." Cali pinched Sulka's cheek, telling her, "Machts gut mit ihm, ja."

Cali's threat had put the love of Satan in her and Sean submitted to Sulka's tugging on his arm.

Once Sean was out of the office, the two men's jovial demeanor vanished.

Kurt locked the door and Cali shut the window. The black man took off his sunglasses, so Kurt could see that some of his doubts had been laid to rest. “He might work, but what’s to insure he sees this through to the end?”

"Because we have a secret weapon,” Kurt raised his glass in a toast to Cali. "Most men are willing to sacrifice their life for a woman faster than money or themselves. If I am right, then my friend upstairs is no different from anyone.

"Petra." Cali laughed at the simplicity of Kurt's trap. "He will never see what hits him."

"Not until it is too late," Kurt replied, wondering if he was also being set-up by Cali. It was a risk that he willing to take and leaned back in the chair.

Kali poured two glasses of scotch whiskey.

"Zum Sonderboch."

"To a sucker."

They clinked glasses and drained the whiskey.

The odds were with them.

They always were when you played by the rules of the Reeperbahn.

ALMOST A DEAD MAN - CHAPTER 12

The Eros Center was packed with an early evening crowd. Men queued before the hotels with their choices. Kali stood at his office window. SS Tommy sat at his desk. They needed to talk and Kali turned to his enforcer.

"Last night."

"Yes, last night."

"I do not want you to seek revenge."

"I have a reputation." Killers do not thrive on mercy.

"I know." Kali added nothing.

SS Tommy understood the silence and said, "

"So I will not kill your American."

"Or maim him." Cali poured his associate a Scotch and coke.

Johnny Walker Black.

"Normally if someone crossed someone our gang, they pay a pound or two of flesh."

"Not even a gram? He doesn't understand life in Hamburg. Leave him alone."

"You would have never forgiven him. Ignorant or not ignorant."

"You are right. but your one punch nearly killed him. Nobody is better with a right than you."

Other men had not been as lucky as Sean.

"It's nice to know I have not lost it. Some people do as they get older." SS Tommy cracked his knuckles, while staring at Cali. Until now he had thought the baron was making up a story about Cali and Kurt being involved in a big score, but their inordinate concern for this American's safety proved that they were planning something. They thought they were so smart, these two old friends. SS Tommy had someone smart on his side too.

"So you will do nothing?"

It was a hypothetical question. No one could control the blonde bodybuilder, not even SS Tommy himself.

"If that is what you want, then that is what I will do, but if you change your mind, then let me know." SS Tommy sipped the glass, thinking about his killing the American and then broadened his grin in anticipation of putting a gun to Nigger Cali's head.

"That won't be necessary."

"If you say so." SS Tommy had special plans for Kurt too. "But you owe me."

"I know I do and so will the American. You will have no trouble with him from now on."

"Good, then we are all friends again." SS Tommy slapped the desk, then shouted for the redhead from Hannover. She hurried into the room.

"So this is the treasure you won last night." Cali drew her closer and she sat on his lap without a struggle, as he asked, "So what do they call you, darling?"

"Vella," the redhead answered, raising her eyebrow as if she had studied the films of Fassbinder.

"So are you ready for work, my dear?"

"Yes." Vella threw her arm around Cali, as he squeezed her thigh.

"I am not here for fun and games. I am here to make money. For you and for me."

"Are her papers in order?" Cali kneaded the fleshy part of the palm. It was soft, denoting between her thighs would be as well.

"Yes, she is of age and passed the blood test." SS Tommy had faked the papers. 16 year-olds were a goldmine for at least the first six months.

"So then, put her to work."

"Do you want the first stab?"

"She's beautiful, but better she should be broken in by a stranger. I will pick out your fist customer."

SS Tommy said nothing, because Vella was a working girl now and it didn't matter who her first customer was as long as he paid.

Cali smiled at the young girl and went to the office window, scanning the men wandering through the ErosCenter's perpetual night, He called over a young sailor and explained the situation. The sailor peered over the window sash at the redhead.

"Ich hab' kein Pulver."

"No money. Go to the toilet and Onanieren," yelled SS Tommy.

"You were young once. Young like this boy." Cali motioned for SS Tommy to sit down and asked, "How much you want for her?"

"I thought you were not interested."

"How much?" Cali asked without audible interest.

"One thousand marks."

Cali handed the girl ten one-hundred DMs from a roll of bills and she held the money in her hand like a wilted fan. He led the redhead from the office and pointed the sailor to a hotel on the other side of the Eroscenter. When the couple left, SS Tommy said, "I hope you let him pay for the room."

"I may be sentimental, but I am far from stupid." Cali sat down wearily, for the night had lasted several hours longer than necessary to achieve this temporary truce. The schedule for their scheme would have to be sped up, for SS Tommy's revenge could only be forestalled so long and then he would kill Sean.

Of this Cali was certain, but that didn't prevent him from smiling at the blonde pimp to portray a mask of everything being as they always had been in the Eroscenter.

None of it fooled SS Tommy, for he had been waiting ages for a shot at Cali and he thought about how good it would be to have them both begging for their lives. As good as that dream feel, nothing would be better than being the King of the Reeperbahn. Once he achieved that goal, he would be on top of the world and no one was kicking him off the mountain.

Certainly men soon to be dead.

ALMOST A DEAD MAN - CHAPTER 29

The bells of St. Johannis rang out Seven O'clock, each hour's peal a mournful warning of a gray wet day. The final tolling died out and Sean woke with Petra's arm draped over his shoulder. Her face was buried in his neck and her leg straddled his hips. This would have passed for love in any book he had ever read and would do so now, because even Tammi had never slept this close to him. He would have loved to stay in bed, except he had a flight to catch and extricated himself from Petra's tangle of limbs, then slipped out of bed to get dressed in his black suit.

Strangely there was no noise from outside.

No cars or buses.

No jets overhead.

Sean thought he had gone deaf, but distinctly heard Petra's breathing.

He went out on the terrace. He leaned through the pelting rain and peered over the edge of the terrace. Mittelweg was devoid of human activity.

He instantly thought that the Soviets or USA had released a nerve virus killing the rest of humanity. It was that quiet and Sean why Petra and he had survived the heavenly holocaust. They were a strange choice for Adam and Eve, then again God's sense of humor tended to run on the cruel side. He was about to go back inside and break the news of the apocalypse to Petra, when an accordianized bus appeared out of the rain and he laughed to himself. He had been using his fear of global annihilation to reinforce his lack of purpose. Petra's being there had changed everything. When he returned inside, Petra sleepily asked, "Wie ist der Wetter?"

"Es regnt," Sean answered, as a harder downpour splashed off the terrace.

"Du gehst nach Geneva jetzt?" Petra murmured in bed, throwing off the sheet to reveal her nakedness. She spread her legs and covered her vagina with one hand. She knew the effect that had on men and Sean was no exception to the rule.

"Soon." Sean sat on the mattress and pushed back her hair, wrapping the thick strands in his fingers.

Petra purred contentedly, then said, "Be careful."

"Of what?" He lay his head on her belly, the pungent smell of her sex wafting in the air like an exotic perfume he was forbidden to own, but had somehow found in his possession.

"Do not trust Kurt." Her hands massaged the tendons in his neck.

"Why?" His palms caressed her thighs.<

"He is what he is."

"Which is to say?" He unhanded her and slid back away from her.

"A thief no one can trust. Now that I found you, I would hate to lose you."

"This is no different from any of the other trips other than it is the last one," Sean explained, though he didn't really need the money that Kurt would pay him. Not with her with him. They could have left Hamburg today for India, but he couldn't stop thinking about taking one last shot at taking it all. He weighed telling her about his plan to steal the money, if given the chance, then decided to keep it. " I go down in the morning and come back at night. I work two more nights at the club and then we leave. I'll be careful.

The two kissed, but Sean felt Petra tremble. No words could still her apprehension. when they broke away, she stared at him with her good eye and bit her lips, as if she had something to tell him, which he could not force from her. she dropped her eye and said, "Sean, do not get mad."

"Why should I get mad?"

"Because I will tell you something. When you first come to Hamburg, Kurt paid me to keep an eye on you."

""And that was the only reason you saw me?" Sean's heart crinkled like a stepped-on origami paper.

"At first, yes."

"And now?"

"You have to ask?"

"I'm a little thick sometimes."

"I'm not through with you yet."

"You did?"

"I hope not."

Twenty minutes later, as he left the apartment, Petra said, "I was telling the truth, when I said I want you back again."

"I believed you too. Everything will be fine. I only die in my dreams." Sean kissed her good-bye and wondered if that was true.

Ten minutes later there was a knock on the door.

Petra smiled to herself, thinking Sean had forgotten something or else had called off the entire trip. She opened the door, and all her fears for Sean were answered by discovering Mack 'Die Alte' in a dripping raincoat.

She tried to slam the door shut, but the old pimp forced his way into the apartment. Her nails raked his cheek, adding to the furrows of previous scars, but his long years on the Reeperbahn had made him an expert at fending off a woman's attack. Nothing takes the fight out a woman like a slap across the face, except for when you clenched your palm into a fist. He warned the naked woman on the floor, "Do not make this hard on yourself. Now get dressed and sit on the sofa."

Mack shut the door and then pulled on his gnarled knuckles, popping them back into a human shape, glad Petra had only needed one pop. That was all his hands could take.

Petra stalked away and he followed her into the bedroom. If there was anything he hated, it was sitting in the same room with a woman who wanted to be someplace else. It was going to be long day and nothing he could do would make it go any faster.

Hopefully nothing would, because things going too fast was always a sign of things going bad.

Always.