The Eighth Dwarf

29

After the girl had gone, her shabby briefcase almost stuffed with marks, Jackson paid off the last would-be informer in the corridor and came back into the room. The dwarf was standing near the table brushing his hands together. The smile on his face made him look almost ecstatic.

“Tell me how brilliant I am, Minor. I must hear it.”

“You’re brilliant.”

“More.”

“Shrewd, clever, cunning, smart, crafty, and a credit to your race. How’s that?”

“Better. Sometimes I need praise as others need drugs. It’s my one failing. Otherwise I’m quite perfect.”

“I know.”

“Now, then, you understand what we must do.”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

“When?”

“They used to lecture us that the wee hours of the morning were best.”

“The OSS, you mean.”

“Right.”

Ploscaru nodded thoughtfully. “Around four, I’d say.”

“Let’s make it three-thirty. Oppenheimer might have heard the same lecture.” Jackson looked at his watch. “It’s twelve-thirty now. That’ll give me time to wake up his sister and tell her what we’re up to.”

“I’m not sure that that’s terribly wise.”

Jackson stared down at the dwarf for several moments. All friendliness had deserted the gray-haired man’s face. In its stead was a cold, hard wariness.

“Up until now we’ve done it your way, Nick,” he said. “I’ve been Tommy Tagalong, not too bright, but loyal, plucky, and loads of fun. Now we’re going up against some guy who wears dresses at teatime, but who also just might know how to use a gun. And then there’s Oppenheimer, although I don’t have to tell you about him. And finally there’s you, Nick, and that double-cross you still think you’re going to pull off. That worries me too, so I’m going to tell you again just what I told you at the train station in Washington. Think twice.”

The dwarf nodded, almost sadly, and started brushing his hands together again. His gaze wandered around the room. “I’m sorry to learn that you still don’t trust me, Minor,” he murmured. “It comes as quite a blow. It really does.”

For a moment, Jackson almost believed him. Then he grinned and shook his head. “You’ll recover.”

“Yes, of course,” Ploscaru said. “But you’re quite right about Oppenheimer and the Gloth person. Caution shall be our watchword. Now, just what do you plan to tell Miss Oppenheimer?”

“That she’d better have her bag packed, because her brother and I might be heading from hither to yon very quickly.”

“In the roadster?”

“Uh-huh. In the roadster. That’s why we bought it, wasn’t it?”

“To be sure. Now, we all know where hither is. But where might yon be?”

Jackson shrugged. “Holland, maybe. It’s close. But she must have some safe spot in mind where she can stash him for a while until things calm down. I’ll ask her.”

The dwarf looked up at the ceiling. “You said, I believe, that you and Oppenheimer will be speeding off. Just what will I be doing in the meantime?”

“You?” Jackson said with a grin. “Why, you’ll be sitting on his lap, Nick.”

Eva Scheel sat up in bed in the room at the Gasthaus that had been established in 1634 and looked down at Bodden. It was chilly in the room, and she covered her bare breasts with her arms and hugged herself. Bodden watched the smoke rise from his cigarette.

“So, printer,” she said softly. “Killing does not excite you.”

He sighed and shook his head. “It was a bad business.”

“You have a conscience,” she said. “I’m glad.”

“And you?”

She shrugged. “He’s dead. Perhaps he deserved it. Perhaps not. But I feel nothing.”

He looked at her. “Are you really quite so hard, little one?”

“No, but I pretend to be. There will be time for remorse later — when we can afford it. It’s quite a luxury, you know.” She shivered again and wondered whether it was really the cold that made her do so.

Bodden sat up in bed and reached over to a small table for the bottle. “Here,” he said, pouring some clear Schnapps into a glass. “This will warm you up.”

She accepted the glass gratefully, drank, and shivered again as the harsh liquor went down. “We could, of course, just run with the money we have.”

He drank from the bottle. “They would find us. You know that. Your plan is better.”

“Yes, if it works.” She rose and turned. Only the cold made her conscious of her nakedness. He stared at her with interest, if not with desire.

“You still like what you see, printer?”

“Very much.”

“We must find something that will excite you.”

“Counting a great deal of money might do it.”

“Has it before?”

“I don’t know,” he said, smiling for the first time. “I’ve never tried it”

She set the glass down and started putting on her clothes. “Leah gave me the name of the hotel where the American said they’d be staying. It will be best to avoid him, so when I get there, I’ll send a note up.”

“To the dwarf?”

“Yes.”

Bodden reached down to rub his still-throbbing knee. “That one I owe a little something to.”

“Revenge, like remorse, is another luxury that we can’t yet afford.”

“Someday.”

“Someday,” she agreed, and slipped into her fur coat. From its deep pocket she brought out a pistol. She looked down at it curiously for a moment and then handed it to him.

“Well,” he said. “A Walther.”

“Satisfactory?”

“Perfectly.”

Her head tilted to one side a little as she stared down at him. “You may have to use it.”

“Yes,” he said, “I know.”

The whore awoke when Kurt Oppenheimer rose from the chair, causing its legs to scrape slightly.

“You did not sleep,” she said.

“A little, here in the chair.”

“You could have used the bed.”

“I know.”

He opened his briefcase and took out a carton of Chesterfields. “Your cigarettes.”

“Do you want to—”

He shook his head and smiled. “No, not tonight. Perhaps another time.”

She yawned. “What time is it?”

“A little past one.”

“You are leaving now?”

“I have a long walk to make.”

“At this time of night?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t it wait till morning?”

“No,” he said. “It can’t.”

Jackson watched as Leah Oppenheimer pulled on her stockings. She wet her finger and ran it along the seams, twisting her head around, looking back and down to make sure that they were straight.

“Why do women always do that?”

“What?”

“Wet their finger and then run it along the seams.”

“It keeps them straight.”

“The seams?”

“Yes, of course.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. It just does.”

She slipped the dark blue dress over her head, glanced at herself in the mirror, gave the dress a few tugs, and then turned to Jackson.

“All right. Now I am dressed. Where do we go?”

“Nowhere.”

“Then why—”

Jackson interrupted. “Sometime within the next few hours we may find your brother.”

She didn’t seem surprised at the announcement. Instead she nodded solemnly, waiting for Jackson to continue.

“If we do find him, we may have to leave Bonn in a hurry. The question is — where do we go? We need a place that’s safe and relatively close.”

“Cologne,” she said almost automatically.

“That’s not much better than Bonn.”

“I have certain friends there who are well organized. If you can get my brother to them, then your job will be done.” She moved over to her purse and took out pencil and paper. “Here — I will write their name and address.”

While she was writing, he said, “There may be complications.”

She looked up. “What kind of complications?”

“I don’t know. If I did know, they wouldn’t be complications — only problems.”

She went back to writing the name and address. “And if they do turn into problems, what will solve them?”

“Money, probably,” Jackson said, and looked at the slip of paper she handed him, reading the name awkwardly. “Shmuel Ben-Zvi?” His look was questioning. “What kind of name is that — Hebrew?”

The look on Leah Oppenheimer’s face was defiant. “Israeli,” she said.

“Well, now,” Jackson said.

“You have any objections?”

Jackson shrugged. “He’s your brother, not mine. You can hand him over to anyone you wish.”

“You said that money will solve whatever problems might arise. How much money?”

“As much as you have or can raise from your Israeli friends in the next few hours.”

“I will have to go to Cologne. That will take at least two or three hours. Will I have enough time?”

“I should think so,” Jackson said.

She nodded thoughtfully as she gazed at Jackson. “What does Mr. Ploscaru advise?”

“Well, you see,” Jackson said, “I haven’t really asked, because Mr. Ploscaru may be both the complication and the problem.”

When the sleepy fourteen-year-old boy brought the note up to Ploscaru’s room, the dwarf read it, gave the boy a tip, and said, “Tell her to meet me at the corner in five minutes.”

“Which corner?”

“By the bank.”

After the boy had gone, Ploscaru took the big Army .45 from its case and shoved it into the waistband of his trousers. He buttoned his jacket over it and then climbed up on a chair to inspect himself in the mirror. Satisfied that the bulge wasn’t too noticeable, he climbed down from the chair and stood for a moment looking thoughtfully about the room. As he thought, he automatically brushed some imaginary crumbs from his palms.

Eva Scheel watched the dwarf approach. When he drew near enough, she said, “I am Eva Scheel, Herr Ploscaru.”

The dwarf bowed. “You are, I understand, a friend of Fräulein Oppenheimer’s.”

“And of her brother’s.”

“Ah.”

“I think we should talk.”

“Perhaps a bar would be more comfortable. Someone at my hotel told me that there is one close by that remains open quite late. Shall we go there?”

There was no one in the bar except the proprietor and three solitary drinkers who sat hunched over their glasses.

After seating Eva Scheel, Ploscaru moved to the bar, paid extra, and brought back two glasses of what the proprietor had said was his best brandy.

“Now, then,” Ploscaru said, wriggling back into his chair, “what shall we talk about?”

“Kurt Oppenheimer.”

“An interesting man in many ways. I’m quite looking forward to meeting him.”

“You expect that to be soon?”

“Oh, yes, quite soon.”

“He needs help, of course.”

“Yes, of course.”

“I represent certain persons who would like to help him.”

“For a man in such tragic circumstances, he seems to suffer from no lack of friends. No lack at all.”

“The persons whom I represent would consider it a privilege to help him.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” the dwarf said, and sipped his drink.

“They would expect to pay for the privilege.”

“Did they mention a sum?”

“Fifteen thousand dollars.”

Ploscaru turned his mouth down at the corners. “There are almost any number of dear friends who would pay far more for such a rare privilege.”

“We could bargain all night, Herr Ploscaru, and still arrive at the same price.”

“Which is?”

“Twenty-five thousand.”

“Dollars?”

“Yes.”

“An interesting price,” Ploscaru said. “Not a fair one, but still an interesting one.”

“How interesting?”

“Interesting enough for me to consult with my colleague.”

“When will you reach a decision?”

“There are still many unknown factors to be resolved, but I would say we would reach our decision by ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“Where can I reach you — the hotel?”

“No, I think not. I will give you an address. If things work out as I anticipate, we can make our arrangements there. The address is Fourteen Mirbachstrasse here in Bad Godesberg. Would you like to write it down on something?”

“No, I can remember it,” she said. “Fourteen Mirbachstrasse, ten o’clock tomorrow.”

Ploscaru smiled and eased himself down from the chair. “I’m sorry to rush off like this, but there are still quite a few details to attend to. It’s been a most interesting discussion, Fräulein Scheel. I like the way you think. Perhaps another time we might talk about something — well, less commercial.”

“Perhaps.”

He took her hand, bowed over it, and then looked up at her with an expression that would have been concerned except for the sly look in his eyes. “By the way,” he said “do give my best wishes to your friend.”

“Which friend might that be, Herr Ploscaru?”

“Why, the one with the sore knee, of course.”

She watched him move through the tables to the door. So much cunning in such a small body, she thought. And sex too, of course. Even though he’s gone, he left his spoor behind — like an open invitation. If there were time, it might prove interesting — very interesting. A large, capable brain might indicate a large, capable something else. She smiled slightly, looked up, caught the proprietor’s eye, and signaled for another brandy. After he nodded his understanding, she took paper and an envelope from her purse and began to write. The sleepy boy at the hotel will take it to the printer, she thought. The printer can keep sleep another time. What happens at Fourteen Mirbachstrasse tonight could be more important than his sleep. Far more important.

When he got back to the hotel, Ploscaru learned that Jackson had not yet returned. He went up to his room and stood in the center of it for a moment, brushing his hands together, quite unaware of the fact that he was doing so, and wondering which one would do the watching that night at 14 Mirbachstrasse — the woman in the fur coat or the man with the damaged knee. He grinned, not quite aware that he was doing that either. That one will have her sleep, he decided. She’ll have the man go, aching knee and all. It was the real reason he’d given her the address — to flush the man out. The man was dangerous and would have to be dealt with, but at a place of the dwarf’s own choosing.

Whistling “Blue Moon,” Ploscaru went to his bag and from its lining removed a thin British commando knife and slid it into the silk sheath that was sewn to the inside of his coat sleeve. After that he poured himself a small drink from the bottle of bourbon, hopped up into the room’s most comfortable chair, wriggled back, stopped whistling “Blue Moon,” and started singing its lyrics instead.

He was still singing when Minor Jackson knocked at his door.