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42

Was that someone coming in the back door…?

Bern was upstairs, standing next to the piano in the room with the balcony. He hoped he’d heard the door. Hoped it was Mildred Engle, not bicycle guy. Just the woman, alone. Bern had wasted enough time on Sanibel, he didn’t want to deal with some pissed-off boyfriend.

He paused…strained to listen: sliding doors opened, then closed. Footsteps on the stairs were light, like a dancer. Yes, the woman.

Good. If she’d come through the main entrance, she would have seen the trunk that he’d lugged down the front steps about thirty seconds earlier. It would have scared her. The trunk contained the loan documents. Big old steamer trunk like in the movies. Musty with leather straps. Bern put the thing next to the door so he could bring Moe’s truck around and load it without busting a gut.

Christ, now she shows.

He’d spent nearly an hour inside the house. When bicycle guy had decided not to break the door down but hadn’t started his truck and left either, Bern figured the woman must be at a neighbor’s house and the guy knew where to find her. She certainly wasn’t out in this storm. How crazy would that be?

He spent half an hour hunting for the promissory notes, looking through desks and files—places normal people kept important papers—hurrying like crazy. He wanted to be gone by the time they returned.

No luck.

So then Bern decided, screw it, he would wait until they came back and make the woman give him the papers. Maybe have some fun with her while he was at it…which would mean taking care of bicycle guy, something he didn’t want to do. Enough shit had hit the fan today…

Bern pictured Moe’s face, as he thought about what happened that afternoon…the way Moe’s face looked after he’d been shot. Disgusting; almost as bad as being seasick.

Just one more thing not in the game plan.

Well…he would play it by ear. If bicycle guy got snotty, what choice did he have?

Bern went to the woman’s bedroom and found a comfortable hiding place next to what turned out to be a great big musty steamer trunk. He waited ten minutes…twenty minutes, the illuminated clock on her nightstand sitting right there.

Where the hell is she?

He stuck with the plan, but decided ten more minutes, no more.

After that, he would ransack the fucking house because he was not leaving without those loan notes.

Bern got so bored he opened the trunk and started snooping through the old photos, letters, and papers inside.

Bingo.

T here it was, an envelope, Loan Documents, Mr. Frederick Roth, written in ink, plus other loan documents scattered throughout the trunk. Photos of Marlissa Dorn, too. The blond guy, Roth, was standing next to her in a couple of them. The most interesting shot, though, was taken at some fancy restaurant: the movie queen sitting at a table, men on both sides of her, a couple of them wearing Nazi uniforms and gun belts, the handles of their German Lugers showing.

That was cool. Like his Luger, only these were real.

One of the guys was wearing a suit, not a uniform—holy shit—it was his grandfather, back when he was using his real name, no doubt, Heinrich Goddard. No mistaking the old man’s piggish face, that sneering expression.

Amazing—but not because of his grandfather. His grandfather was sitting on the movie queen’s right. To her left, at the head of the table, was Adolf Hitler.

Goddamn. Was there anybody famous that old bastard didn’t know?

Bern decided to leave while the going was good and lugged the trunk to the front door, ready to load onto Moe’s truck. The only reason he returned upstairs was to retrieve his reading glasses, which he’d forgotten, but then he also decided to grab a few mementos while he was at it. Couple of bottles of booze…and that’s when he heard the sliding doors open and realized it was the woman.

A small woman…that big steamer trunk. Bern thought about it. Lots of room in the trunk; the woman couldn’t weigh a hundred pounds.

Bern walked tiptoe soft to the balcony curtains, a good place to hide in a room where lights were dim.

R umbling thunder; lightning struck nearby, dishes rattled. Standing behind the curtain, Bern heard the woman stop at the top of the stairs. He couldn’t see her, but he heard her—a long silence. Maybe she was worried lightning had hit the house…or waiting for bicycle guy to follow.

He hoped not. Shit. He’d left Moe’s chrome .357 downstairs on the trunk, thinking that he would grab his reading glasses, return a second later, and be out of there.

Didn’t have his Luger, either. That was in the bay, Bern had tossed it off a bridge near Indian Harbor.

Bern expected her to turn on more lights. She didn’t. Heard the woman begin to hum a little tune…then she was singing softly.

Nice voice. It gave him a funny feeling. Like soft thunder, vibrating inside his chest.

Bern listened while waiting to see if bicycle guy appeared. He heard the woman cross the floor near the piano…heard her voice grow softer as she entered a hallway where there was an office and a guest room.

He had searched both, left them neat.

Bern peeked. She wasn’t there.

He peeked again a moment later and she was there. Standing right in front of him.

Jesus.

“Did I scare you, kiddo? Hello…I’m talking to you, dear, behind the curtain. Are we playing hide-and-seek? I hope so, because if you’re playing hard to get, you’ve chosen the wrong playmate. And the wrong house. Move.”

Bern did, feeling stupid…and there she was, the movie queen, not an old woman as expected. The piano was behind her as if she had just stepped out of the glamorous photo, but wearing a white robe, not a sequined gown, hair up because it was wet, holding a pistol in her left hand.

Older…but those eyes, her lips, were the same…

“Why are you in my house?”

Bern didn’t hear the question. He was staring at her face, feeling the heat of the woman’s eyes, thinking, It’s really her.

“My God, man, can’t you talk? You look like something that should be saddled and fed apples. Stomp once for no, dear.”

It was weird. All the nights he’d studied her photo, now here she was. Different-looking, for some reason, maybe because she was close enough to touch…or maybe because he’d heard her sing. Peculiar, the way her voice vibrated inside him.

Bern spoke. “I was…behind the curtain,” then grimaced because it was the sort of dumb thing he always said to beautiful women, unless it was sneaking up behind them in a parking lot, in control.

“Yes, the curtain, dear, I know. But I’m not Dorothy, and this isn’t Oz. Why are you here?”

He shook his head, trying to get rid of the spooky feeling. He focused on the gun she was holding. Goddamn, it was a German Luger. Not shiny like the one he’d used to kill Moe. The barrel showed some pitting. A real Luger. He was impressed.

Bern put on his smile. “Hey, I had a gun like that. Great little weapon, isn’t it?” He took a step toward the woman but stopped when she clicked the safety off, a distinctive sound Bern recognized.

Sounding suspicious, she asked, “Have we met? I would swear I’ve seen your face before.”

Bern shook his head slowly, not sure how she did that, made her voice sound spooky. “No.” But he was remembering the photo he’d found in the trunk. Everyone said Bern looked like his grandfather. If that’s what the woman was thinking, it probably wasn’t a good thing…

The softer her voicer, the spookier. “Are you certain? You look just like a man I once knew named Goddard. A very bad man.”

Bern thought about admitting it—yeah, you used to know my grandfather—but could see that would be dangerous, the way her eyes glittered.

She looked at him hard. “Are you here to rob me? Or have you already robbed me?”

The woman took a couple of slow steps backward, closer to the piano. It gave her time to glance to her left, then her right. Bern hadn’t ransacked the place. It looked the same as when he arrived.

Except for…shit, except for the booze. He’d left it on the counter.

She noticed. “A man your age out in a tropical storm stealing whiskey? Do you realize how pathetic that is? If your name’s not Goddard, then what is it?”

“Uh…Moe. My name is Moe.”

“Charming. There’s a meeting you should attend. Stand up and say, ‘Hello, my name is Moe!’ It may save you some doctor bills down the road.”

Now she was getting irritating. “I don’t need to go to AA meetings, lady. My health’s just fine.”

“Not after I shoot you.” The movie queen raised the Luger slightly, now holding it in both hands. Aiming at him.

“Hey. Wait a minute.” Bern began to back away.

She had one eye closed now, leaning as marksmen do just before they pull the trigger. “First offenders I generally just shoot in the stomach and let God decide. With you, though, Mr. Moe Goddard, I think I’ll make an exception.”

Jesus Christ! She meant it!

Bern was wondering just how much it was going to hurt, when lightning zapped the balcony railing. The movie queen’s eyes flicked to the window for only a second.

It was all the time Bern needed…