The Image Seeker

by Amanda Hughes

  Max’s black eyes flashed. “Absolutely not, Bassett! It’s too dangerous.”

  Billie scoffed at him. “Sit down, Max.”

  “I will not. If I have to carry you onboard, you will be leaving today!”

  “Honestly, Max, you are dramatic. You must have been a handful as a child. Sit down. I have something to tell you.”

  “I will not!”

  “If you don’t, I won’t tell you how I received that message about Elise.”

  Max lowered himself into a chair.

  * * *

  Billie didn’t get to bed until ten o’clock that morning. There was so much to share with Max about her assignment, and he had so many questions. She knew it was a security breach telling him, but she didn’t care. She had completed her duties, and now it was time to help him.

  Even though Billie was exhausted, her sleep was fitful. She spent hours between sleep and wakefulness, tossing and turning. And when she did sleep, her dreams were of Max, dreams of his hands sliding inside the bodice of her gown, dreams of his lips on her nipples and thighs, and of him making love to her. Several times, she sat up in bed, drenched in sweat, wondering where she was. She blamed it on late afternoon heat, but in her heart, she knew it was more. At last, she rose, put on her dressing down, and had room service bring up a pot of black coffee and rolls.

  Not five minutes later, there was a knock on the door. It was Max. There were dark rings under his eyes, and his clothes were rumpled. He slumped into a chair, poured himself a cup of coffee, and ate up all her rolls.

  “Did you sleep in your clothes?” she asked, looking at his wrinkled shirt.

  “Yes, the brandy nightcap knocked me out before I could undress.”

  She chuckled and poured more coffee. “So, what happens now, Max? What do we do first?”

  “We need to get to know Elise.”

  “You don’t know her?”

  “Not really,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “I only met her once, and to be honest, I didn’t pay a lot of attention. First of all, I think we need to contact her family and ask lots of questions. We need to know what her job was at Zweig Pharmaceutical and why the Nazis wanted to keep her in Germany. If we understand her character and background, maybe we can find out where she would hide or where they are detaining her.”

  “We were so close with that message,” Billie said. “There is someone out there who knows the answer, if only we could find them.”

  “What about the messenger that gave you the umbrella?”

  “Yes, the bellhop,” she replied, her fist to her lips. “I haven’t seen him since the day he handed me the umbrella. I’m guessing he never even worked here.”

  “How about this,” Max said, putting his cigarette out. “I’ll talk to the family tonight, and you see if you can find that boy.”

  “Very well,” Billie said, “I’ll get dressed.”

  She stood up and started for the bathroom. As she passed, Max grabbed her wrist. His hand felt hot on her skin. “Thank you,” he said.

  “Of course, I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” she replied.

  * * *

  Max changed his clothes, hailed a cab, and left Billie in the lobby of the Aldon to try to find the bellhop.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Bassett. There is no one here that meets that description,” the hotel manager said.

  “Well, perhaps I misjudged his age, he may be closer to twenty-one. But there is no question he was short.”

  Again, the manager shook his head. “All of our bellhops are my height or taller.”

  “Thank you,” she replied and returned to her room to look more closely at the documents in the briefcase. Sitting down on the bed, she opened the case and pulled out a photograph of Elise. Elise Meyer was an attractive woman with short, light-brown hair and a fresh smile. She had hooded eyes that turned down slightly at the outer corners and a slim build. She reminded Billie of the aviator, Amelia Earhart.

  Next, she read Frank’s hand-written notes about Elise. She was born in 1906, the oldest of three children, raised in Potsdam, the first woman admitted to the chemistry program at The University of Heidelberg, hired out of school by Zweig Pharmaceutical, and of Jewish descent. Billie knew this last fact may figure strongly into her whereabouts. He also had names of colleagues, friends, Elise’s landlord, and organizations to which she belonged.

  Billie shuffled through the papers looking for names of intelligence agents or private detectives, thinking possibly they may be disguised in code, but nothing seemed to stand out.

  A sudden rap on the door startled her. When she answered, it was Max. He was frowning and headed straight for the brandy decanter. Pouring himself a drink, he took a gulp and said, “They’re gone.”

  “What?”

  “Neighbors said Gestapo came one day last week and whisked Elise’s parents away.”

  Billie eased herself down onto the edge of a chair. “You’re kidding me.”

  “So then, I went to the sister’s house. The same thing. They took her and her family away.”

  “Under what pretense?”

  Max shrugged and scowled. “The Gestapo doesn’t have to explain anything to anyone. Just more rounding up of Jews under trumped up charges.”

  “Do you think this is what happened to Elise?”

  “Maybe. Did you have any luck?”

  “Not a bit. They say there is no bellhop on staff that meets that description. He must have secured a uniform, given me the note, and dashed away.”

  “How is your German holding up?”

  “It’s coming back,” he replied and drained his glass. “Are you hungry?”

  “No.”

  “Me either. I’m going back out.”

  “To do what?”

  “To find some of Elise’s colleagues. I hope they haven’t been taken away too.”

  “Will they even talk to you?”

  Max shrugged and was out the door again.

  Billie went back to the lobby. She had actually been hungry, but she didn’t want to tell Max. She knew he wanted to resume his search. For a change, seating was immediate at the hotel restaurant. The crowds had thinned substantially since the end of The Games.

  It was a formal restaurant with white tablecloths, potted palms, and stiff-necked waiters. As she was eating spaetzli and drinking a glass of wine, a German reporter she’d met at The Opening Ceremony approached her table.

  “Please excuse the interruption, Miss Bassett. I am Paul Gunther, a reporter with The Wiesbaden Times.”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “I know you are a photojournalist, and I thought you might be interested in this obituary. A famous German photographer in your field just died. Maybe you know her?” He set the newspaper down by her plate.

  “Why thank you, Mr. Gunther,” she replied with a smile.

  He bowed slightly and left.

  Putting her fork down, Billie opened the paper. Turning to the obituaries, she found the article he was talking about. It was a woman by the name of Clarice Bergendorf. Billie had never heard of her. The obituary was short with very little information about her career. But after Billie read the first few lines, her heart jumped. “She is survived by her daughter, Pollyanna. Memorial service 11:00. 18th August 1936 # 23 Georgenstraße, Berlin.

  She gasped and slumped back in her chair. This could be the break they were waiting for, and then she hesitated, or their worst mistake. It might be a trap.

  Billie looked around the restaurant for Paul Gunther, but he was gone. Folding it up, she grabbed her handbag and returned to the room.

  It seemed like an eternity before Max returned. “Any luck?” she asked.

  “A little,” he said. “There was only one colleague willing to tell me anything. I actually had to put my foot in the door before he slammed it in my face.”

  “What did he say?”

  Max sighed and sat down. “The poor guy was a nervous wreck. He looked one way and the other and then hissed, ‘Miss Meyer
is no longer a part of our team. Lord have mercy on the rest of us.’”

  Billie stared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It could mean the chemists at Zweig are working on something of questionable ethics and that Elise got out just in time.”

  Billie picked up the briefcase and opened it. She pulled out a piece of paper with a chemical formula scribbled on it. “Do you suppose it has anything to do with this?” She handed it to Max.

  “It’s the first thing I thought of too, but I can’t read it. Can you?”

  Billie shook her head. “Max, there is something else we need to discuss.”

  Chapter 26

  Billie and Max knew they had to ignore the risk and go to #23 Georgenstraße but not before they had an argument.

  “You stay here,” Max told her.

  “Not this again.”

  “Yes, this!” he barked.

  “May I remind you I crisscrossed the United States several times by myself in a boxcar?”

  “Oh, yes, is this the ‘I Can Take Care of Myself’ hobo story where you conveniently leave out the part about the big, burly Indian and his buddy accompanying you?”

  “I don’t care what you say, I’m going,” she snapped.

  Max pulled on his suit jacket and walked out the door. Billie was right behind him in her raincoat and fedora.

  Number 23 Georgenstraße was a part of Berlin the National Socialists did not want tourists visiting. It was one of the last havens for the poor in the city, and they had sanitized it thoroughly before the Olympics. Hobos, known homosexuals, Romani, prostitutes, and the impoverished were rounded up in huge numbers and put in detention camps. Inhabitants with mental and physical disabilities were taken to asylums. The Nazis wanted to show the world that they had emerged from The Great War stronger and healthier than ever, and evidence of poverty did not enhance that illusion. The result was a ghost town with empty apartment buildings, abandoned warehouses, and deserted streets.

  Goosebumps formed on Billie’s arms as they drove through the neighborhood. It was ominously quiet. There should have been street vendors, mothers with children, motorcars, and trucks. Instead, there was the occasional man standing in a doorway smoking a cigarette or a pedestrian walking with his or her collar turned up against the rain. Billie found the slap of the wipers in the taxi deafening. She looked at her watch. It was exactly 11 a.m.

  “Number 23 Georgenstraße,” the driver said suddenly, pulling over to the curb.

  Max looked out the wet window and muttered, “What the hell?” They had stopped in front of a shop called Hyde’s Taxidermy. It was a small rundown establishment with peeling paint and a dusty display of preserved game in the window.

  “Are you sure of the address?”

  “I am,” the driver said.

  “Hyde’s,” Billie said as she slid out of the auto. “Do you suppose that is really the owner’s name?”

  With a grimace, Max replied, “We better hope there isn’t a memorial service here.”

  Thinking of all the stuffed carcasses, Billie shuddered.

  It was dark inside Hyde’s, and it took a moment for their eyes to adjust. A man wearing an apron was behind the counter arguing with a tall, big-boned woman in a brown corduroy suit and rubber boots. Billie thought she looked like she had just come in from a duck blind or a deer stand.

  While they waited, Max and Billie looked around. The room was filled with displays that Billie found gruesome. There were stuffed owls with wings outstretched, a badger baring his teeth, foxes, pheasants, and of course, vacant-eyed deer mounted on the wall. The shop smelled musty and close.

  When Max bent down to examine a retriever on display. It raised its head and looked up at him. “Jesus!” he exclaimed, jumping back. “I didn’t know he was alive.”

  Billie put her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.

  “I’ll think about it,” the customer said and stepped away from the counter. “I’m not sure I like your prices.”

  The clerk leaned around her, looked at Max, and asked, “May I help you?”

  “Yes, we are looking for Clarice Bergendorf.”

  The man’s brow furrowed. “No one here by that name, sir. Perhaps you have the wrong address.”

  “Oh,” Max replied. “Sorry to trouble you.”

  The woman chimed in. “I beg your pardon. You are looking for Mrs. Bergendorf?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You are indeed at the wrong address. I know where she resides. I would be happy to show you.”

  “That would be lovely. Thank you,” Billie said.

  Without a word, they walked two doors down into a shabby apartment building where the woman led them down a dark flight of stairs. Taking out a set of keys, she unlocked a heavy door.

  Max looked at Billie as if to say, “Be on your guard.”

  They stepped into a large coal room with a massive, soot-stained boiler that resembled an oversized tarantula. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling, and the only light was from a small window high in the wall. Billie clutched her arms around herself.

  Shutting the door behind them, the woman said to Max, “Are you Frank Rothman’s brother?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I haven’t much time. Elise Meyer is in the Saxonburg Asylum.”

  Max stared at her stunned. “Where?”

  “She is hiding in an asylum for the insane.”

  “What? Why?”

  “To escape the Nazis and Zweig Pharmaceutical. She is feigning a nervous breakdown.” Opening a closet, the woman yanked a wig from her head and tossed it on a shelf. Max and Billie were now talking to a large, bald man.

  As he changed his shirt, he said, “As you have probably guessed, Meyer is one of Germany’s most gifted scientists. She was coerced into working on a project morally and ethically repugnant to her, a project that she adamantly opposed.”

  “Which is?”

  The man shrugged. “We can only guess.”

  “Do they suspect her breakdown is a ruse?” Max asked.

  “Not yet.” The man pulled on a pair of trousers, dropped the corduroy skirt around his ankles, and said, “Meyer knows how to play it. All her life, she has been plagued by bouts of lunacy and is familiar with its symptoms. She is duping the authorities. She has had two actual episodes in the past three years, so they believe this is just one more. Her idea is to buy time until she can be smuggled to the United States. At long last, the malady serves her.”

  Max asked, “Does she know about Frank’s death?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “The research at Zweig,” Billie said, “did she ever speak out against it to anyone?”

  “Not that I am aware of,” he replied, slamming the closet door. “And now, to make matters worse, Zweig has begun to use the inmates at the asylum for drug experimentation.”

  Billie’s jaw dropped. “What next!”

  “Indeed. The only reason Meyer has been spared thus far is that they are hoping she will emerge from her “darkness” and rejoin the team.”

  “How far along in her pregnancy is she?”

  “Almost eight months. I must go,” the man said, taking out his keys. They left the boiler room, and he locked the door again. “You leave first. I’ll follow in a few moments. Watch the obituaries. Your regular contact will be in touch soon. Now, go!” the man barked.

  Max grabbed Billie’s arm, and they rushed up the stairs and out onto the street. Looking one way then the other, Max stated, “And now we have to try to get a taxi in this God-forsaken place.

  * * *

  Back at the hotel, Max and Billie burst into action, discussing what they had learned and examining every detail. Billie dashed off to the Berlin Public Library to do research on The Saxonburg Asylum while Max went to the Taverne, an establishment frequented by foreign correspondents, to find an acquaintance. He wanted to ask him what he knew about Zweig Pharmaceutical and the experiments on asylum inmates.

  When
Max returned to the hotel room late that afternoon, he tossed his fedora on a chair and asked Billie what she had found out.

  “Well, the Saxonburg Asylum is a former palatial estate about thirty miles outside of town. It was built by some baron or other, and about twenty years ago, the government acquired it. The manor house was razed, and the institution was built. The staff is large. The facility appears to be well-managed. There have been few complaints.”

  “How about layout?”

  “No blueprints, but the librarian showed me a brochure with a map.” She handed it to Max.

  He opened it up and looked at it. “This will help,” he said, nodding. “She gave it to you?”

  Billie smiled a crooked smile. “No.”

  “Naughty girl.”

  She handed him a notebook too. “I wrote down everything I could find. How about you? Any luck?”

  “I spoke with Roger,” Max said, and he sat down with a sigh. “He said he’s heard rumors all the big German pharmaceutical companies, not just Zweig, are infecting inmates all over Germany with diseases and then testing the effectiveness of new vaccines on them.”

  “Oh, good Lord!”

  He made a face and nodded. “Ah, but there’s more. They are conducting research on new and efficient ways to sterilize the mentally and physically handicapped as well.”

  Billie gasped. “And there is Elise sitting in the asylum about to give birth. My God, Max, what will they do to her baby?”

  “I shudder to think. No wonder Frank was frantic. We just have to get her out and fast.”

  The rest of the afternoon, Max stretched out on the bed, smoking cigarette after cigarette, trying to come up with a plan to help Elise escape.

  “There’s little we can do until we meet with the contact,” Billie said. “I am thinking he’ll have a plan.”

  “Yes, but what if he doesn’t? Or what if it’s foolhardy? We should have at least a few ideas ready.” He slung his arm over his eyes and sighed.

  Billie slumped in a chair, staring straight ahead. They were both fatigued. She looked over at Max. He still had his arm over his face, and his breathing was growing heavy. She reached over and opened a box of candy. Picking up a chocolate, she turned it over and pushed her finger into the bottom.