Kiss Me Twice
Page 37
On December 21 General George Patton, who’d made no bones about his belief that ex-Nazis were needed to rebuild Germany, who wanted to invade Russia while we had the strength and the atomic bomb … General Patton died from injuries received in an accident. He was run down by a wagon or a truck … an accident. Not Me had a good laugh at the explanation. “The most predictable accident in history,” he said.
I wondered what condition the world was in now that the war was over. It didn’t look so hot to me. I sure as hell wasn’t for invading Russia. And I could see the reasons for needing some of those Nazis to help run the country. But Not Me was saying that Patton had been murdered for his views, and that struck me as cruel and unusual punishment.
Terry had drifted off to sleep again.
It was eleven o’clock.
I was sitting alone waiting for our guests. I did what I was always doing these days. I took it from my pocket and placed it on the table before me.
A gold locket. Heart-shaped. Nothing unusual.
But when I opened it I saw what mattered to Karin.
There is a picture of me, the way I used to be. I’m happy in the picture, smiling spontaneously, just a snapshot. The picture has been in the locket a long time. Did she know who it was from the beginning? When she saw me did she already know who I was? Had Terry been right, had the amnesia been a pose? Had she been so afraid that I’d have gone after MacMurdo to make him tell us where she was? Had she been so afraid that she couldn’t risk it? Well, we’d never know now.
There is a picture of our daughter. Her smile matches mine. Her hair is straight and blond and held in place by a tortoiseshell comb. I suspect she’d been about four when the picture was taken.
I will find her.
And there’s only one man on earth who can tell me where she is. …
Harry Madrid arrived about eleven thirty. He brought a bottle of champagne. He took off his hat, shucked off his coat, and put his hand on my shoulder.
Terry woke up and said something funny and Harry Madrid laughed.
Winchell came by. He brought a bottle of champagne, too, and said he couldn’t stay long. “I’ve got a blonde waiting for me,” he said.
I looked at the locket. “Me, too, Winch,” I said.
He went out onto the terrace and popped a cork out onto Park Avenue far below. “Blondie’s waiting for me,” he sang to himself.
Winch came back in and poured champagne and lifted his glass. We all did—Terry, Winch, Harry, yours truly. Winch proposed a toast.
“To Elisabeth,” he said.
We all drank to that.
Then the bells were ringing outside and horns were honking and sirens going off.
It was 1946. Soon I’d be thirty-four years old.
Winchell was gone when Not Me arrived. He’d called earlier that day and told me he was hoping to stop in. He was wearing evening clothes and a velvet-collared chesterfield. The locket was open on the table and he looked at it.
“Remember Sam MacMurdo?” he said, his monocle in place, a small smile playing on his round face.
I stared at him.
“I’ve just talked to our old friend Vulkan about the Colonel.”
Harry Madrid looked up at him. Terry Leary put down his glass of champagne, waiting. “Yes?” he said.
Not Me looked my way.
“We’ve found him,” he said.
It was my turn to smile.
Elisabeth …
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1988 by Thomas Maxwell
cover design by Michael Vrana
978-1-4532-6616-8
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