It was after two by the time she had finally taken up pos-ition at the alley dwellings where she had been on Monday. Workmen unearthing water lines at the mouth of the alley had built a fire of old timbers and were roasting pork chops on their shovels over the flames. She stopped momentarily to snap three quick candid shots before the men became aware of her and began posing artificially. The smell of roasting pork per-meated the air as she entered the alley, leaving behind the busy thoroughfare.
The snow had gone unploughed here and stood in great filthy clumps all about. An occasional pathway had been cut to one of the shacks, but in other places there were only footsteps in the snow to mark the path.
She found the dwelling she was looking for immediately. No path had been cut to it, but there were footprints in the snow. Following the impressions in the snow awkwardly, for the steps were long, she reached the door more or less dry.
Once at the door, however, she did not know how to proceed. It had been her intention to ask the woman if she might photograph her. Catherine had brought money along, as well, in case it took that to convince her. But now on the scene, Catherine felt suddenly cheap. She could not simply pay the woman to photograph her misery, and then run off with her prize photos to develop. She would need to establish trust somehow; to share, however fleetingly, in the life of this woman and her baby.
Then there was the question of available light. Catherine saw now that she had not properly considered that. Surely she would need flash equipment to photograph inside the shack. Even with the door open she doubted there would be enough, for the afternoon light was blocked here by the front buildings.
I’ll come back in the morning, she told herself, beginning to back away from the door.
At that very moment it opened, a huge man in shirt sleeves with stubbly face and brown teeth gaping at her.
‘What do you want?’ he demanded.
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I must have the wrong place. I was looking for a woman, and a little child.’
She felt so foolish standing there in her expensive fur coat, trying to catch a glimpse of the woman in back of the man. She heard no baby.
‘They’re gone.’ He looked at her shoulder bag, saw the cameras inside.
‘What you doing here? Slumming?’
His manner frightened Catherine, but also challenged her. She was suddenly tired of placating men, of feeling guilty for her actions, of being frightened by male bluster.
‘I came to photograph her, if you must know. For a book.’
‘A book, is it?’ The man laughed. ‘You’ve come to see how the poor live, have you?’
She realized too late that she had underestimated the man: his menace was real, not merely vocal. He grabbed her wrist before she could move away and literally lifted her over the threshold and into his arms. Her hat fell off in back of her.
‘Well, I’ll show you how we live, miss rich lady,’ he hissed in her face as he tried to kiss her. ‘I’ll even let you photograph me … afterwards.’
She was paralyzed by fear for a moment and went limp in his arms, but was finally awakened by his lips on hers, his hands groping her breasts.
‘No!’ she screamed and bit his lip.
He yelped with pain and threw her onto the sawdust-covered dirt floor, closing the door behind him. A kerosene lamp illuminated the small room and she watched him put the back of his hands to his lips and look at the blood there.
‘Why, you bitch! You little bitch. You want to play rough, do you? Is that how you like it?’
Before she could move or think he threw himself on top of her, his legs between hers, his right hand tearing at her stockings, his left holding her down. She struggled under him, screaming for him to stop, but this only seemed to excite him more. Now his hand found her underwear, a finger was digging underneath, touching her skin, and his fetid breath was in her face.
Oh God, this can’t be happening, she kept thinking. Not to me. She began to sob and hated herself for such weakness.
The man laughed at her. His eyes were wild and his mouth open as he entered her suddenly with a finger and probed her. He began biting her neck and she cried helplessly.
‘No, please.’
Suddenly the man’s weight was lifted from her; she vaguely saw another figure over her and heard a hollow plonking sound, and then the big man fell to the floor next to her, blood at his head.
She could not see for her tears; sobs kept coming uncontrollably; she felt she would burst from shame and fear. Another man’s face loomed over her. She blinked several times, clearing her eyes.
‘It’s all right, ma’am,’ a voice was saying to her. ‘All right.’
She looked up into his eyes and saw a kindness and caring written there, and then, for a moment, fainted.
SEVEN
Catherine had no idea how much time had elapsed. When she came back to her senses he was still there, looking down at her with those seeking, penetrating eyes of his.
She heard regular breathing to her right; looking about quickly she took in the miserable conditions of the shack at one glance. The pig who had tried to violate her was the source of the breathing: he lay unconscious on the earthen floor where he had fallen.
And it all came back to her, the fear and pain. The man’s finger entering her. She avoided the eyes of the man who had saved her; her hands went to her skirt front, but it had already been pulled down and straightened.
‘Better?’ he said.
She nodded.
‘Can you walk? We should leave here.’
‘I think so.’ She sat up, felt dizzy, and allowed herself to be helped up by the man.
‘Come,’ he said with a smile. ‘This is your hat, I believe.’
She put it on and he led her out of the shack, carrying her bag full of cameras. They walked through the snow and back past the workmen to the main thoroughfare. They did not speak as they stepped through the snow; she glanced at him occasionally.
‘Thank you,’ she finally said.
But he shook her words away. ‘The man was a swine.’
‘I need to find a taxi. I have to get home.’
He put a guiding hand on her elbow. ‘What you really need is a hot cup of something. You’ve had a nasty shock.’
She was about to counter this, but then just gave in. He seemed a pleasant man and she did still feel lightheaded.
He led her into a warm teashop on Pennsylvania Avenue, neither chic nor rundown, and to a marble-topped table and two bentwood chairs by the condensation-fogged window facing the street. White-globed lamps in the brass chandeliers were turned on against the midday gloom. Catherine unbuttoned her lamb’s wool coat once seated and looked at the backward stenciled lettering on the window in front of her, finally deciphering its meaning: ‘Murphy’s Tea Room’.
Neither spoke for several moments. When the silence was finally broken, it was by Catherine. ‘Thank you again for helping me.’ She could not bring herself to say ‘save’. But in fact he had saved her. She did not want to think about how close she had come to harm.
He still carried her shoulder bag full of cameras and film in his hand; he slung it onto the table now, peering inside it.
‘Is this a hobby, or do you sell photographic equipment door to door?’
She laughed at this. The laughter felt good, dispelling the sense of fear her attacker had left her with. ‘A bit more than a hobby, I hope,’ she said. And then: ‘It really was the most wonderful luck, your happening along when you did.’
He laughed low and mirthlessly. ‘Actually, it was hardly a matter of luck. I saw you get off the tram on Pennsylvania Avenue and could hardly take my eyes off of you. I was following you into that alley, if you would like to know the truth. Hoping you would drop something so that I could retrieve it and make your acquaintance.’
She pinched her eyebrows at this, and he hurriedly explained, ‘Do not worry, miss. I am not that sort of person. Never before have I done such a thing. Neither in my native Johanne
sburg, nor in any of my travels. I do not know how to explain it, but it was as if I had known you before in a previous time, a previous life … Forgive me. I am making no sense.’
This admission gave her a small thrill, but at the same time sent a shiver of fear through her.
The waitress finally came, a rather greasy-haired young brunette in a gray muslin dress and white apron who reminded Catherine of a nurse’s helper. He placed the order: two black teas with lemon slices.
‘Is that all right with you?’ he asked after the girl had left.
‘Yes, please.’ She felt a bit of a fool, took a deep breath, and tried to calm herself. ‘Johannesburg,’ she said, deciding for the safety of polite conversation. ‘You’re South African?’
He cast a wan smile. ‘I imagine you hear it in my voice, no?’
‘But I am forgetting my manners,’ she said, putting a hand across the table to him. ‘Fitzgerald is my name. Catherine Fitzgerald.’
He took her hand in his and shook it firmly. ‘Voetner,’ he replied. ‘Maximillian Voetner.’ It was always best to keep such basics as one’s name as close to the original as possible.
‘Are you in business, Mr Voetner?’ she asked. ‘It sounds as if you travel.’
‘Business of a sort,’ he said. ‘The anti-war sort of business. I’m with the World Peace League. The representative of South Africa to the United States. I’ve been here for over a year.’
The waitress now delivered the tea on a little silver tray. She made to pour the water in the pot.
‘I’ll take care of that,’ Max said, nodding at the pot. ‘Thank you.’
The waitress shrugged. ‘As you like.’
Then she left them in peace once again. Catherine looked out the steamy windows at the traffic, both foot and vehicular, for a moment.
‘Not here in Washington, that is. New York actually,’ Max said while pouring the water slowly into the pot. ‘But there’s a meeting I need to attend here in Washington.’
He passed a cup to her. ‘Will you call the police?’ he said.
‘Why ever for?’
‘The man who attacked you.’
‘No. He’s a poor ignorant soul. He’s already been punished enough by the system.’
‘I see you have a social conscience.’
‘I try.’ And then she sipped from her tea.
They talked for another fifteen minutes, and Catherine was amazed at how free she felt in this stranger’s presence. He listened to her, took her opinion as valid, not discounting it out of hand as Edward so often did. It was with a sort of reluctance that she finally decided to leave.
‘I am grateful to you for helping me, but I really should be going now. Edward will be worried.’
She stood, and he did, as well.
‘Will I see you again?’ he asked. ‘I know it is terribly forward of me. But perhaps for a cup of tea sometime.’
‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’
He said nothing, giving only a bow of the head as if to say, ‘As you wish’.
She held out a hand to him; he took it softly in his for a moment.
‘Thank you again for the rescue. It was nice meeting you. I wish you all the best.’
She turned and walked out of the tearoom as quickly as her trembling legs would carry her. Outside, a Pennsylvania Avenue streetcar clanged its bell angrily at a horse cart plodding along the tracks. The cold stung her cheeks. She kept walking west on Pennsylvania Avenue toward the streetcar stop, in a vague way hoping that Mr Voetner would follow her, would press an invitation to tea.
She turned abruptly, but he was not following her. A large florid-faced man in a brown overcoat and a bowler hat almost walked into her as she turned; she ignored his apologies.
Max watched her from a doorway down the street. He understood what her turning around meant: she was hoping I would follow.
Good. He might be able to put that emotion to use. For now he settled with perusing the green leather notebook he had taken from Mrs Fitzgerald’s bag while she lay unconscious in the miserable alley shack.
Several pages were full of notations about what appeared to be shutter speeds and lens openings, calculations for photography. But flipping through the pages, he came across a section that appeared to be more private thoughts. He quickly skimmed these, finding allusions to the events last night at the National Theater. The last entry, made today, proved most interesting.
Poor Uncle Adrian. They are moving him today to a safer location than the Poplars. A hotel of all places. I am sure he will tax the room service staff.
So the old fool is not at the Fitzgerald house any longer. A valuable piece of information. One that made his machinations this morning worthwhile.
After leaving the hotel this morning, Max had gone to the nearby City Post Office next to Union Station – joined to it actually by a covered and elevated breezeway for mail transport – and looked up Fitzgerald’s number and address in the telephone room. Then he had taken up position at Catherine’s home. Police were everywhere; not a chance of gaining entrance even if he had known for sure that Appleby was in there.
At a little after twelve he had seen a fur-coated form appear at the bottom of the drive to the grounds surrounding Fitzgerald’s estate. He had been playing tourist again, attempting to keep watch on the house without attracting police attention, and had just about come to the end of that ruse. He had been grateful to see the figure appear, recognizing the woman immediately as the screaming face from the theater the previous night. He had followed her, taking the second wagon of her streetcar when she had gotten on, transferring as she did, and getting off finally near the Capitol. He was not sure exactly what he would do. Kidnap her and propose to trade her for her uncle? Far too melodramatic. But perhaps he could use her somehow, he thought.
He had continued to follow at a discrete distance as she had ventured into the alley dwelling; had heard muffled screams after the fellow closed the door. He hesitated for a moment, unsure what to do. But at the sound of a second scream, he burst through the door and tore the animal off the woman, bashing his head as he did so with a skillet from the primitive stove.
Max watched now as Catherine Fitzgerald climbed aboard a streetcar down the street. Odd. When that man was attacking her, Max had felt a wild frenzy of jealousy, of protectiveness. Emotions he had not experienced for many years. Not since the death of his lover, Erika, before the war. The senseless death – shot by a madman in the course of a robbery – that had sent Max wandering for years, leaving Munich and his painting behind, blindly searching for forgetfulness.
What are you searching for, my Max? the woman in Paris had asked him. Is it something you will find by moving? The woman in Arles had told him he had a sensual mouth. Another in Tangiers said there was a lost-boy look to his face that made her want to tuck him under her ample arm and protect him. Which he’d allowed her to do for several months, until setting off on his travels once more.
It always surprised him that women would be attracted to him; he felt in no way attractive. But he took their kindnesses, accepted the small gifts of their bodies and hospitality. For a while.
Perhaps I can use this woman, he thought. She has already supplied invaluable information: that her uncle is in hiding in a Washington hotel and that he has not yet met with Wilson. Indeed, cannot meet with the president until Monday.
Luck is with me, he thought. It should be easy enough to trace the hotel: simply follow the white-haired Fitzgerald to and from his home.
Max stepped out of the shadows of the doorway as Catherine’s streetcar pulled away.
At 30th and N Street in Georgetown the cab pulled to a stop. Max paid and got out. His address was two blocks from here, but he was being cautious, alert. With Wilson gone, he had time to make plans; he would also need new lodgings.
It was the sort of neighborhood that Max liked. With its tumbledown houses, mixture of taverns and shops on every street, and the bustle of students from the near
by university, the area reminded Max of Schwabing in Munich; of his own student days.
He felt suddenly as if he had come full circle in his life.
The World Peace League house was mid-block between O and P Street on 31st Street, a three-story stucco structure from the Federal period. Here and there the stucco was chipped away, revealing lovely warm red bricks beneath, the original facade. There was a half-basement and dormer windows on the attic space, a fine Georgian door – its white paint flecking – surmounted by a fanlight, and windows three abreast on the first two floors whose green shutters were badly in need of paint.
A tall bare linden tree grew out of the patterned brick walk in front of the house, reaching almost to the peak of one of the dormers, providing a natural fire escape. Most likely there would be an enormous garden in back, he thought; tumble- down and overgrown, judging by the condition of the front facade.
As Max mounted the eight concrete steps to the front door, he began planning what he would say. His cover as a representative of the league would come in handy here. He knew that the Washington chapter ran this rooming house in addition to club rooms and lending library, and that its proprietor, one Annie McBride, was a woman known for her outspokenness and lack of curiosity about guests.
He knocked at the door and waited patiently. No answer came, but he could hear voices within, and finally he let himself in.
The entrance hall was empty; beyond an arched partition the stairs led up to rooms on the second floor. He heard voices coming from the room to his right and saw a large woman of almost sixty dressed in a baggy shawl-collared cardigan and long wool skirt seated there at a table. Her gray hair was worn in a bun bristling with two pencils, and her cheeks were red and venous. She was talking to a passionate young Russian, obviously a recent émigré, about the possibility of revolution in his home country.
‘If it happens, I shall return,’ he was saying as Max entered the room.
The German Agent Page 10
