by Gil Brewer
Baron listened, his memories pulsing in time with the throbbing ache of his tooth.
“Was she pretty? Baron?”
“Who?”
“The wife. Remember?”
“Who are you?”
“Not now, Baron. Was she beautiful? Patricia?”
Baron was tense in the chair. He leaned forward. “Who are you?” he said again.
“Not now. After, Baron—after. Answer me. Was your wife, Patricia, beautiful?”
Baron looked at him and Gorssmann’s eyes did not blink. Gorssmann turned away, fished momentarily among the papers on the desk, came up with a large photograph. He held it by one corner, waving it in front of Baron.
He felt the knot twist a little inside him, twist and wrench and then go away. He recognized the picture. It was a snapshot, blown up. A picture of Patricia that summer in Maine when she had worn the Bikini for the first and last time, wearing it that once out there on the rocks, while they swam. She had large breasts. She had been unable to control them. Yes, just for him. He had taken the picture and there had been only the one. He had not been able to remember where it was himself. How could these people have that picture?
It was blown up as far as it would go without distortion.
“I will answer for you. She was a beautiful woman. And your daughter, Bette, is a beautiful young girl, too, Baron.”
Gorssmann looked at him and waited.
Baron did nothing, thought nothing. This was becoming evil.
“You’re thirty-eight now,” Gorssmann resumed. “You married early—at twenty, to be exact. Your first and only child, Bette, was born in the first year. That would make her seventeen? Close enough. Ah—well, so. Of course, Bette is with her mother?”
“Yes.” The single word came from his lips inadvertently.
“Of course. Just now Patricia is in Bermuda. With a Spaniard. She admires the dark texture of his skin and he thinks the very world and all of the white texture of hers. You recall, of course, she did not believe in sunbathing for its own sake? Consequently, she remained natural. She is no longer quite so natural. A bit worn around the edges, Baron. But”—he shrugged, waved his hand—”aren’t we all? Aren’t you, Baron?”
Gorssmann laid the picture back on top of the sheaf of papers. Baron sat there staring at the light glinting across the photograph, an oblong of reflected light, nothing more.
“You love your daughter, very much, don’t you?”
He did not look toward Gorssmann. He stared at the floor.
“A year—over a year—since you have seen Bette?”
Something cold and cruel began to cut him up inside. He closed his eyes against it. What was Gorssmann trying to do? It had been a little over a year since he’d seen Bette. She was a wonderful kid. It had hurt him plenty to leave her with Patricia, but that was the way of things.
“Ach, so. The war. You did the right thing then, too.”
“About my daughter. What are you trying to say about my daughter?” There was a touch of anxiousness in his voice now; it only seemed to make things slightly worse.
“Later, Baron—perhaps.”
“Damn you!”
Gorssmann raised his eyebrows slightly. “You contracted to build airplanes for the war. Bombers. You did well there, too. Your father had done well during World War Two. I imagine you recalled your father often. Perhaps summoning up his ghost now and again, to sit in judgment on one thing and another. Am I correct?”
Baron sat there, floating in misery now.
“Yes, eh? Deeply affected, troubled waters, Arnold. We were right from the very start, of course. So! You went along that way, Baron, working for the war—building airplanes. You learned much. You were a student. You met people; people from all over the world. Your contacts are enviable, believe me. You went to Washington. You sat in on conferences. In other words, you became somebody, so to speak. You were happy. You imagined your wife too was happy. You did not know that she dreamed of dark Latins with gold earrings, did you? Here nor there.” He leaned back in the chair and the chair creaked, the sound driven into the very foundation of the building.
Arnold coughed three times, into his hat.
Gorssmann came forward again. He held his black gaze on Baron, picked up the leather brief case. “And then, Baron—what?”
Baron didn’t speak. He felt like the cobra watching the little tinkling silver bells.
“Then calamity!”
Gorssmann swung the shiny brief case up and down hard. He smashed it into the sheaf of papers on the desk. Papers flew wildly into the air, fluttered around the desk to the floor. Gorssmann brutally flung the brief case at the desk. It skidded across the top and slipped to the floor.
Gorssmann was breathing hard. “As I said before,” he went on, “those papers are you, Baron. You!” He straightened, glanced over at Arnold by the door.
“Arnold,” he said, “pick those papers up and arrange them in their proper order. Merci.”
CHAPTER 4
Arnold picked up the papers, arranged them, thumbed through them. He stacked them neatly on the desk in front of Gorssmann. He retrieved the brief case, lined it up with the papers, and returned to his chair.
“Thinking?” Hugo Gorssmann said.
He could not speak, could not bring himself to say the words.
“Not now, Baron. I know well enough what you are thinking.”
Baron reached nervously for the cigarette box. He noted the way his hand trembled, tried to still it, failed. He lit another cigarette, sat back in the chair, waited. He wondered foggily where Elene was. He hoped she was all right. He wanted to avoid thinking in circles. He knew he might as well face it. These boys were playing a game and it was not cards or even marbles.
Bette. Just now he did not even want the thought of her in his head. It was a worry, sharp and clear. Patricia did not matter. It had been a wrong marriage from the start, held together only for the child’s sake. It had taken the sharp jar of financial jeopardy and scandal to take Patricia away—when he needed her most, for the first time in his life.
He looked over at Arnold. Arnold returned the look without smiling, or even blinking.
“Am I permitted to leave here?” he asked Gorssmann.
“Baron, dear Baron—have I underestimated you?”
“Then I’ll leave.”
Gorssmann changed his face slightly. This was a smile.
The big man said, “Calamity. Very bad, a shame, indeed, awful. Considering what I know of you, I can understand the shock. It must have been a tragic moment when you learned that over in Korea planes were beginning to fall apart. It must have been much worse when you learned that only the planes coming from your plants fell apart. This was a bad thing.”
Arnold coughed. “The light,” he said. “All right if I turn off that light and you light the desk lamp?”
Gorssmann nodded. Arnold touched a wall switch and the overhead light went out. A desk lamp came on and Gorssmann’s features were tinged with watered blue. The desk lamp poured a broad lake of the watered blue light all around the desk. Baron sat there bathing his feet in the light.
“In my eyes,” Arnold said. He coughed again.
“Some even fell apart before they got there,” Hugo Gorssmann said. “There was great confusion after a time. It took time, too. Committees had to be formed. There was voting and more confusion, inspections, discussions—red tape. Clerks worked overtime with second endorsements, and third and fourth endorsements. Delegates were appointed. And all the time the planes continued to fall apart. A pity. Because”—he blinked—”when the planes were inspected they looked all right. Just like any other planes. Then after many deaths and a great deal of confused running hither and thither, it was discovered that you were to blame, Baron.”
He sat there with the remembered echo of the verdict rising anew in his ears, suffering the sharp pain in his chest, the confusion once again a part of him.
“Inferior grades of material an
d so forth. Here nor there. But you knew it was not your fault. You purchased the very best of materials. Everything underwent rigid inspections. Then what? Sabotage, Monsieur Baron. Sabotage.”
The cigarette burned between his fingers. He looked at Gorssmann.
“Go ahead, on the floor. It’s good we picked this time, instead of waiting any longer. Your manners are disintegrating. The rug must be cleaned anyway.”
He ground it into the rug with his foot. He did not know what move to make. All he knew was that he should make some move.
“You knew you were not at fault,” Gorssmann said. “But they found you at fault and you lost everything you had. Your wife, your homes, your money, your business. You very nearly lost your life. They ripped you apart. They destroyed you. You screamed sabotage. Certain people high up believed that to be true, that you knew nothing. But they were high up in the wrong way. They could not help you. You managed to stay out of prison, but you had little left. At the first hint, your wife left you. To many you are a murderer of valiant men who went to war in planes that fell apart.” Gorssmann chuckled. “They said you were careless. You were money-mad, living on blood. Ah, politics!”
Baron did not move now. He could not. It stunned him. He felt certain of what he was faced with. He did not know what to do.
“So we come to the interesting part now—don’t we, Baron?”
Baron looked at Gorssmann. The big man was grinning. It was a kind of all-knowing, hateful grin that embraced the world, and it was heartless.
“You see,” Gorssmann said, “I know what you’re thinking. Shall we wait? All right, the newspapers, then. They say you have gone to hell. You did have a small bit of money that nobody knew of. A year ago you saw your daughter for the last time, and of late you’ve been in Europe, finishing your debauch. So the papers say. But the money ran out.”
Gorssmann took a series of long breaths. He fished a blue silk handkerchief from his side trouser pocket and blew his nose with a kind of fiendish gusto.
“Of course, Baron,” he said through the handkerchief, “it was sabotage. You know it, I know it.” He blew harshly. He shrugged. He wiped his nose carefully, stuffed the handkerchief away. “Instead of working toward the right end, opening their minds to sabotage, sifting it out, they went crazy. They would rather pick on a businessman with a great deal of money, a success, and wring him dry, destroy him. Yes, even during the war when they needed you, Baron. You know the business, you have studied, you are smart enough. You have a good mind. But you were vulnerable because you were rich, you see? Scandal. People love scandal. They thrive on it. Would eat it instead of thick steak or chicken three times a day. Gossip. The same thing. They would not listen. They finished you. Almost.” Gorssmann chuckled.
“Are you through?”
Gorssmann clucked his tongue. “Baron, Baron,” he said.
“What is it you want?”
“They destroyed you, Baron, remember that. No more planes came from your factories afterward. They were turned into other hands, but nothing was accomplished. They cut their own throats painstakingly, because your plants supplied plenty of planes. It could have continued, if they had listened to you.”
“And you?” Baron spoke softly.
“All right. You think I am the one, don’t you?”
Baron heard the words, and he was prepared for them. It was a shock, just the same.
“For months,” Gorssmann said without changing his expression, “you have continued to make a fool of yourself.” His voice rose slightly. “You think we are all idiots? No, Baron, I’m not the man you’re after. You are not even close, Baron. Listen.” He leaned forward, the chair creaking. “For nearly a year we have led you around by the nose, while we readied matters. Just sit quietly and listen. Don’t strain so! We knew what you were doing when you began your silly questioning, your quest.” Gorssmann wiped his nose with the back of his hand and belched faintly. “You’ve been sitting here, thinking more and more that I am the man you’ve been trailing all this time. Baron, you are in many ways a king among fools. We let you spend your money. We sent a man out to leave a trail for you to follow. A trail that would end in Marseilles—here!” Gorssmann paused, seemed to hesitate in his thoughts. “All right. I will tell you this: The man you seek lives. But he is so big you could never touch him, Baron. All you have done is to aid him toward the largest enterprise of his career.” Gorssmann went sober. “And of mine, too, I might add.”
Baron listened and felt the walls of panic grow around him. He had read of how they worked. Now he was experiencing it. Using all his will, he controlled himself, fought down the wildness that seethed inside him. For a brief time he thought he would go mad. He wanted to stand and lash out, fight against Gorssmann. Gorssmann represented days and endless days and nights and weeks and months and, yes, years of sworn endeavor. Yet Baron found he could sit here and look at Gorssmann and nod and agree and listen. He wondered if perhaps his subconscious was working for him. Really working, the way it was supposed to. He needed time. Time to think, time to sort out the devilish cunning of these people. For he was completely trapped and he knew it.
“What do you want?” he said softly.
“First, you must cease, as of now, to continue throwing your life away. Consider that you have wasted over two years of your life in a vain search for something that can never exist for you.”
Baron did not speak. He waited. The shock of knowledge was so far out of hand as to be almost bearable. He wanted to laugh abruptly. But he did not laugh.
“You will work for us, Baron. You know aeronautics well. You are on friendly terms with many great people who are in the airplane industry. Steven Lang, for instance—the American. Gustav Stroyer, Lewis Strickland. But the one we are concerned with is your very old and dear friend Paul Chevard. The Frenchman. You remember Chevard?” Gorssmann smiled now.
It was all unbelievable, yet horribly true. Baron’s mind seemed to dash off in every direction. How could you fight a thing like this? How could you even stand against such a quiet, insidious worming out of fact?
“Certainly you remember Chevard. He has been a close friend of yours for years. Odd that you haven’t looked him up, Baron. He is right here in Marseilles. He will appreciate seeing you once again.”
The room was still. The blue lake of light caked like blue ice. The shadows became a threat. Gorssmann seemed to become grotesque in his hugeness.
Baron stared at Gorssmann. He could only stare. He could not speak. He could not move.
Gorssmann stood abruptly. He began to curse. His swearing filled the room like burning rocks hurled across weeping mourners’ heads in a funeral hall. He swore and slammed the desk with both fists, thundering, his face turning crimson, then flat white. He was like some monstrous fat baby, screaming in its crib.
“Arnold!” he yelled. “Arnold, get Joseph. Get him, bring him. Get him!”
Arnold rose from his chair, tendering the brim of his hat. “But Hugo—you said there would be no need.”
Gorssmann swung on Baron. The big man’s face was like mountainous terrain in the midst of an earthquake.
“He is still the fool! He sits there! I can tell what he is thinking. His attitude is still bad. Still not what it must be!” Gorssmann was panting heavily, his breath hissing like a nest of snakes. He sat down, stared stupidly at the desktop. His voice bubbled wetly from between his lips now and there was a purple tinge to his lips. “Get Joseph, thanks. Get him, Arnold.”
Arnold rapped on the door. Soon it was unlocked and he left the room and Baron still stared.
“This thing. It is yet funny, eh?” Gorssmann said.
“No. No, not that.”
“You will change, Baron. This to think about while you are in the other room with Joseph. Listen carefully, Baron.” Gorssmann was obviously controlling himself with strong effort. His eyes were glazed with whatever flamed inside him. “Several hours ago in America, your daughter went boating on a lake in Florida.
She was not with your wife, see? She went boating with a friend. It is in the papers now, of course.” Gorssmann paused, still panting rapidly. “You will read it, perhaps. The friend drowned, the boat tipped over, see? According to the news, to what you will hear, your daughter also drowned and they have not found her body. They never will, Baron. Never. She is already on her way to France. We have her. Understand that? Let it sink into your thick skull, Baron. We will keep her. Think deeply about this.” He stopped abruptly, stood up again, hissing faintly. He was like some enormous animal in clothes. “Here is Joseph. Arnold, explain to Joseph that he is to take this man into the other room and show him how to change his attitude.”
“Wait!” Baron said. He moved toward the desk. “There’s no need of this.” He heard his small voice beating like a small single wave against a cliff. “What have you said? What’s this insane business about Bette?”
“Ah, but there is need,” Gorssmann said. He swallowed forcefully, still hissing, breathing rapidly, trying to regain the lost breaths. “It is the core that counts. I waited to tell you about your daughter, to see how you would react to the other. The barest hint and you went sly, Baron. I saw it in your eyes, in the way you listened. So now—Joseph.”
New doubt and fear welled up within him.
“But I’m willing to listen!”
“Of course,” Gorssmann said. He spoke calmly now and as calmly sat down in the overlarge chair. He breathed slowly again and was obviously pleased. “But not a few moments ago. Listen. When you return to this room you will have made up your mind. One way or the other.” He paused. “There are only two ways, Baron—only two.”
