my tie in my hand I walked toward the door that led to the salon.
"Where are you going?"
"To drink whiskey," I said. "I've had as much champagne as I can take. Stay where you are. I'll take my blanket and pillow back to the salon."
"Walter!" She sounded distraught.
"Yes, yes," I said.
"Don't—don't go away like that. Sit down here again."
"What for?"
"Please!"
So I sat down on the edge of the bed again and asked, "So... what?" I didn't sound friendly.
"I'm so sorry," she said, and now she began to cry again, but this time I didn't give her my handkerchief. "You don't have to be sorry," I said. "I'm evidently not your type."
"No!" she cried. "That's got nothing to do with it. I think you're awfully nice—"
"Yes," I said. "I'm sure."
"I really do. And I'd made up my mind to—to—well, that's why I got drunk."
"Aha!"
"I kept telling myself: I'll dp it! This time I'll do it. I was determined to, Walter, but then..."
"Hm."
"Then I was suddenly so terribly ashamed, and I just couldn't."
This was too much for me. I got up and began pacing up and down. "You were determined to. And what do you mean by that? Why were you determined to? Out of gratitude?"
"No," she whispered, but it didn't register with me.
"And if you were determined out of gratitude, why get yourself and me all excited and then push me away and start behaving like somebody crazy?" Which was what she had done. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before.
"It wasn't out of gratitude," she said, still hugging her knees. "It didn't have anything whatsoever to do with gratitude."
"Then, why—"
"Because of Jan."
That was all I needed. "What did you say?"
"Because of Jan. Yes. I was—I was drunk. I had something absolutely crazy in mind."
"What?" I was putting on my tie.
"I—I thought that if I gave in to you, you'd tell me the truth."
"The truth?" 406
"About Jan."
"I see. Practicing psychology. Now I understand. Psychology 101. I should have thought of that. Not very experienced yet. After all, it's only the first semester."
"Please, Walter! Pleasel You're lying to me. All of you. Even Bertie. All this whispering... that French waiter... Mr. Largent—Where is Bertie now? Why are you so nervous?"
"Nervous?" I couldn't even knot my tie properly, my hands were trembling so. If I didn't drink a full glass of Chivas right away, the jackal would be there. "I've never been less nervous in my life!" I said, fumbling with my tie.
"I'm so terribly worried about Jan. Walter, I can't help it. Please, please, tell me what's really going on. Where is he? What are they doing to him? Take back your money. All of it. I don't want it. You can write whatever you like about me—but please, please, tell me the truthl"
I was stunned. "So you still love him so much?"
She didn't answer. Our eyes met. A few seconds of silence, then the phone beside the bed rang. I sat down and lifted the receiver. It was Heintze. He only said a few words, but I could feel my stomach heaving. It was all I could do to give a sensible reply. "Yes," I said dully. "Yes. Tell him to come up," and I hung up. I looked down at my shoes and nothing made sense anymore. To Irina I said, "He is here."
"Who?"
I'm no better than Fraulein Louise, I thought. What sort of a trap was this? And Bertie had the Colt. My head was swimming.
"Who?" Irina asked again.
I turned to face her and said, "Bilka."
"Jan?" she screamed. All I could do was nod. "He's here, in the hotel?"
"Here in the hotel," I said, and pressed both hands against my temples.
"How can he be here? That's impossible! But he is here... and he's coming up!"
She jumped out of bed, slipped into the robe I'd bought her, and the slippers, ran her fingers through her hair to smooth it down, and went to the bedroom door and opened it. I rose and followed her. But in the doorway she suddenly stopped dead and screamed: "Walter!"
I had already seen him. He was sitting in one of the low armchairs, his legs crossed, a man of about fifty, with a high
forehead, silvery hair, and a pale face. He was wearing a smartly tailored tuxedo and the elegant evening shoes I had admired once... in front of the suite next to ours.
10
Irina spoke in a whisper. "Who—who are you?"
"Call me Monerov," said the Russian, who spoke without an accent. "Jossif Monerov. One false name is as good as any other."
"And whether one is a neurosurgeon or not," I said, and he smiled.
"That's right, Herr Roland." He noticed where I was looking and explained without my asking. "Yes. I came through the window. It's not closed. The balconies run all along the front, and we're neighbors, aren't we?"
"What are you doing here?" I asked, and had to think of Fraulein Louise and wondered where she was, and if she had suspected or known what was going to happen here tonight.
"I am waiting for Herr Bilka," said Monerov. "I've been waiting for him for quite some time. But now I guess he's on his way."
"How do you know that?" Irina was swaying on her feet as she clung to me.
"Well," Monerov said amiably, "your excitement. The way you came rushing in here. The telephone call a moment ago. I take it Herr Bilka had himself announced. We arranged to meet here."
"You—what?" stammered Irina.
Meanwhile I had started to walk over to the phone. Suddenly, Monerov—or whatever his name was—had a gun in his hand. A small gun. The metal gleamed in the light from the chandelier. He gestured with the weapon.
"Away from the telephone, Herr Roland. Over to the door, please. When he knocks, open and let him in. If you do anything else, I shoot. I'm sorry to have to do this, but you've caused us a lot of trouble," and he gestured with the gun again.
I am not a hero; I never wanted to be. I walked to the door. Monerov came over and stood a little behind me, so that anyone coming in wouldn't see him from the small entrance hall. "And don't lock the door behind him," said Monerov.
I nodded. After that nobody said anything. The radio was playing "Night and Day." About twenty seconds passed. They seemed like twenty hours. Then there was a knock on the door. Monerov had the gun aimed at my back. "Who is it?" I asked.
"Bilka," said a voice.
I unlocked and opened the door.
A man of about forty came in. He was ashen and looked desperate, He was wearing a wet raincoat and he was drunk.
"Come in," I said, and can't remember ever having been so bewildered.
The man who had said he was Bilka walked into the salon. Then he stopped. Rainwater was dripping from his coat. He wasn't wearing a hat; his hair was thin. He saw the Russian, bowed low, and almost fell. He was very drunk.
Irina screamed hysterically, "You are not Jan Bilka! I never saw you before in my life!"
The Russian waved to her with his gun to be silent. Then he turned to the drunken man. "What's your name?"
"Bilka." The man sounded miserable. Raindrops were running down his face.
"That's not true!" cried Irina.
"Vaslav Bilka," said the man. "I am Jan's brother."
Irina came and stood beside me and grasped my arm, a helpless expression on her face. "His brother," she whispered. "Jan never told me he had a brother."
"Jan didn't tell you a lot of things," I said, and to the drunken man: "Where have you come from?"
"From Munich. I've been living there for the last twenty years. My wife is dead. I'm all alone. Have a picture-framing shop. Used to do good business. Now it brings in nothing." He seemed to be trying to collect his thoughts, then he said, "And I have very beautiful frames. But perhaps nobody wants them anymore. I make them myself."
"Where is Jan?" cried Irina. "What do you know about him? Tell me, please!"
"My train was late."
"Your train got in an hour ago," Monerov snapped. "You stink of schnapps."
Bilka's brother raised a defiant fist. "Yes," he said. "I drank. I hate you!"
"That breaks my heart," said Monerov.
"Herr Bilka," I said, "why did you come here?"
He looked at me with his bleary eyes. "Early this morning," he said, speaking with difficulty, "two men came to see me. In my Munich apartment. Sent by him." He pointed to Monerov. "They ordered me to."
"Ordered you to come here?"
Vaslav nodded.
"How can anybody order you to come here?" I asked.
Bilka wanted to answer, swayed, saw the bottle of Chivas and asked, "What's that? It doesn't matter.. .let me have some."
I poured a glass half full; he drank it all, then he sank down on one of the armchairs, wheezing, with all of us staring at him.
"Yes, yes— How can anybody order me around like that?" But he was calming down. "You see, I love my brother. Only living relative. My wife loved him, too. Jan used to visit us in Vienna, or we visited him in Prague. He seduced my wife, goddamn him! But what could I do? I love him, the bastard!"
"Don't say that!" cried Irina.
Bilka looked up at her. "Well, wouldn't you say it was a lousy, filthy thing—running away?"
"He fled because he had to!" cried Irina. "You, as his brother, should understand that! But nobody here in the West understands it because they're all spoiled rotten!"
"Fled," said Jan Bilka's brother, and laughed angrily. "For years he let his country educate him, advance him, pay him, place him in the Defense Ministry—" He belched loudly. "And then he photographs the Warsaw Pact Nations' plans and runs and sells the plans to the Amis..
"That isn't true!" cried Irina. She looked at me. "Is it?"
I nodded. So now she knew. All right. Meanwhile, I had been trying to get to the recorder to turn it on. I stretched out my hand. "Don't touch it," said Monerov. "You're not going to turn it on. And you, Fraulein, listen carefully and you'll find out all there is to know about your fiance."
"Yes," I said bitterly. "Now you'll find out, and we could have
spared ourselves a lot." I looked in the direction of the bedroom.
Bilka's brother was looking at Irina. Now he said, "Your opinion, please, lady. Isn't my brother a bastard?"
Irina said nothing. Her lips trembled, her hands were fists.
"These two men, this morning in Munich—they told me everything. Showed me proof. No doubt about it. They told me, 'Go to Hamburg, Metropole Hotel. Talk to Herr Roland. Then we'll put your brother behind bars for twenty, thirty years. We'll jail him, but we won't kill him, which is what he deserves.'"
I opened my mouth to speak but closed it again.
"You were going to say, 'First we must have him,' weren't you, Herr Roland?" said Monerov.
I said nothing.
"You prefer to remain silent?" I looked at my watch. "You're looking at your watch. You're thinking: Jan Bilka arrived in Helsinki long ago.. In half an hour he'll be on his way to New York. The Americans are protecting him and his second fiancee. Sorry, Fraulein Indigo."
"What do you mean? Helsinki? New York? For God's sake, tell me what it all means!" cried Irina.
Monerov smiled. "In a minute." He turned to me. "You are wondering how I know all this, aren't you?"
"Yes."
He looked at the table with the built-in radio. I ran over to it. With a pocket knife I ripped off the grill cloth, revealing the inside of the radio. The music went on playing. Then I saw it. "A microphone'," I said idiotically. "So you know everything."
"Everything, Herr Roland," said Monerov. "Of course I wasn't in my suite all the time. I had a lot of other business in the city to attend to, as you can imagine. After all, we can't permit Herr Bilka to hand over our most important defense plans to the Americans after he steals them. I mean, that's understandable, surely. But when I wasn't there, somebody else was, listening to everything said here. And taping it. We're not stupid, Hen-Roland. And we're not villains. Like Herr Jan Bilka. We can understand the Americans. They would understand us if the situation were reversed. As a matter of fact, I think even you understand us, Herr Roland."
"Yes," I said, in a low, hoarse voice.
"Well, I'm glad of that," said Monerov.
"Oh, God!" Irina sat down. Her robe fell open, baring her
thighs. She didn't notice it. She was crying softly.
"Who built in the—?" I interrupted myself. "The young electrician !"
"Yes, Herr Roland. The microphone wasn't working. Fortunately, the radio wasn't working either. And you yourself called in the electrician. Funny, isn't it? For a moment we in the next room thought all was lost. But then Felmar was able to repair it."
"Felmar?" The jackal suddenly was there. I picked up the bottle of Chivas and drank from it, drank a lot.
"Who is Felmar?" asked Irina.
"Ask Herr Roland," said Monerov. "I think he knows."
Yes. I knew.
"Felmar," I said, and noticed that my voice sounded dead. "Ludwig Felmar. War criminal. Responsible for the annihilation of the population of entire cities in Russia. Fled to Brazil. But he was found. You are talking about that Felmar, aren't you?"
'That's Papa Felmar," said Monerov. "But go on, Hen-Roland. What else do you know?"
"That Felmar is to be extradited. The German government has asked for it, and Brazil has agreed... if the Bundesrepublik can produce sufficient evidence incriminating Felmar. So far the Bundesrepublik hasn't been able to do that. So Felmar is still in Brazil. I knew he had a son. Jurgen. His wife is dead. Committed suicide years ago."
"Jurgen grew up in various homes," says Monerov. "He's a good boy." He said it sincerely, without cynicism. "He's had a rough time—because he loves his father, just as Herr Vaslav Bilka here loves his brother Jan. That's the dreadful thing about love. Dostoevksy writes—"
"And you knew that young Felmar was working here in the Metropole?"
"Yes. A happy coincidence. We could have found someone else, but this was exceptionally favorable. Because you see, the incriminating material that your government lacks to get Papa Felmar extradited is in Moscow. We have it. And we've been asked to hand it over. So far we haven't done so. We're often asked, but we don't often give. You never know, do you? So we told Jurgen we'd keep the material and hand over nothing if he would help us. If he didn't help us, it was curtains for his father."
The drunken framemaker from Munich sprang to his feet suddenly and rushed over to me, grabbing me by both arms, and
412
! I could smell his foul breath. "Don't write your story!" he cried. 'That's what I'm supposed to tell you! That's what I've got to get out of you! If you write your story, my brother is a dead man! If you don't write your story—"
"And give us the tapes," said Monerov.
"—then all that will happen to Jan is that he'll go to jail. But he won't have to die! He'll be alive!"
I pushed Bilka away, because I couldn't stand the stench of his breath, and he fell back on his chair. I said, "You are the second person who insists that I shouldn't write this story. I take it you know all about that, too, Professor Monerov."
"Of course," said the Russian, friendly, friendly. "I heard what Mr. Largent had to say. And what he offered you. Herr Roland, you are an intelligent man. You can't believe that Largent was speaking only on behalf of this New York illustrated magazine." He turned to Irina and Bilka, who were staring at him, wide-eyed. "Everything depends on Herr Roland now. The Americans are offering him an incredible position if he doesn't write it. We are offering him nothing. We are merely promising that Jan Bilka will not die. In our case, the decision will therefore be a humane one." I had to laugh. "Don't laugh, Herr Roland. At a time like this, laughter is foolish. Is it the word humane that amuses you?"
"Yes," I said. "I find it very funny."
"That only goes to show how little hjjmaneness you have left," said the Russian.
"For God's sake!" Bilka jumped up, but I managed to hold him at arm's length because he was trying to grab me again. "I implore you. I beg of you. I am ready to go down on my knees," and he actually did fall on his knees in front of me, wringing his hands. "Don't write it, Herr Roland! You will be responsible for the death of a man. Herr Roland! Herr Roland!"
He was clutching my knees now. I reached down and tore his hands away. He fell over and remained lying on the carpet, dead drunk and drooling. The radio was playing "Blue Skies."
"Why is it so important to you that this story isn't written?" asked Irina, who seemed utterly confused.
"Well, you see," said Monerov, "there are things that have an upsetting effect on people. And that isn't good. It's bad for peace. A story like this, if it reaches people who know nothing about it—" He stopped because the telephone rang. I stared but I didn't move. "Take the call," said Monerov.
I walked over to the phone like a marionette, a robot, and picked up the receiver. Just as clearly as if he had been standing beside me I heard Bertie's voice. "Walter, is that you?"
"Yes," I said. "But why are you calling here? You're not supposed—where are you?"
"Helsinki!" He sounded out of breath.
"And?"
"So wait a minute. I'm calling to tell you about it. Listen 1"
I listened. After the first sentence I had the feeling that Muhammed Ali—at least—had hit me full force below the belt. I couldn't stand; I actually doubled up and sank down on the couch. The receiver slipped from my hand onto the carpet. I could hear Bertie, still talking. Slowly, laboriously, I picked up the receiver and held it to my ear. "What's the matter? Are you still there, Walter?"
"Yes," I said. "I'm here. Go on, Bertie."
And he went on talking.
11
The Pan Am flight had made up its earlier delay and was arriving on time, at 10:30 p.m. Bertie was traveling first class, and Jan Bilka, his blond girl friend, and Michelsen were sitting five rows ahead of him. Seven men were sitting beside him and in the rows in front and back. These seven men had brought Bilka and his girl friend to the airport, a solid bodyguard. In Fuhlsbiittel they had walked as closely as possible to Bilka and the girl, forming a tight circle around them. A few had their right hands in the opening of their jackets. Bertie was sure they were wearing shoulder holsters and were equipped to shoot at the least sign of interference.
The Traitor Blitz Page 45
