Colette into her coat and led her merrily out of the beer garden, his two friends trailing behind them, laughing uproariously.
Younger let them pass out of the garden before setting off after them. He and Luc got to the street just in time to see Colette entering the back of an open-roofed four-seater. Gruber got in next to her, and the car drove off. Gruber sang loudly — and not badly, Younger had to admit — his arm draped over Colette's shoulder. Younger hurried to the motorcycle.
Six-pointed stars and Hebrew letters on storefronts indicated that they had entered a Jewish quarter. Younger could not have said exactly what he was doing — surreptitiously trailing Colette and her beau as they drove through Prague — but he kept at it. Younger had followed Gruber's car on a meandering, inebriated path. More than once, the car rolled up onto the sidewalk before rediscovering the street.
They were now on a boulevard called Mikulasska Street, lined with trees and art nouveau facades lit capriciously by gas lamps. An old woman scurried across the street, carrying something heavy in her arms, as if running for cover.
'What's she doing out at this hour?' asked Younger, speaking his thoughts aloud.
Shouts came from unseen precincts. Packs of boys could be seen running down side streets. Up ahead was a commotion. Gruber's car stopped just past the disturbance. Younger came to a halt as well, next to a ring of more than a dozen young men on the large sidewalk. At the center of their circle, a gentleman in evening clothes — a slight man with glasses and a walking stick — was being pushed and taunted. Someone yanked away his cane and threw it at a shop window, breaking the glass.
'Festive,' said Younger.
Gruber hopped out of his car and ran toward the crowd. He pulled aside one gawker after another to reach the center of the circle, where the taunted gentleman in evening clothes stood.'Jiidisch?' asked Gruber.
The frightened man didn't reply. The onlookers seemed as suspicious of Gruber as they were hostile to the gentleman.
'Jiidisch?' Gruber repeated, not malignly, but as if it were an important point of information.
Luc looked at Younger, who explained quietly, 'He asking if the man's Jewish.'
The bespectacled gentleman in evening clothes evidently understood the German word. He nodded just perceptibly: perhaps he nursed a hope of rescue from the foreigner. The admission was costly. Gruber removed the man's glasses, let them fall to the ground, and crushed them under his shoe. The crowd erupted with approving shouts. The gentleman tried to back away, but Gruber caught him by a lapel and punched him in the face, causing him to fall backward through the broken windowpane. The crowd cheered still louder. Hans, wiping his hands, pushed through the circle of onlookers and returned to his car.
Younger considered going to the aid of the assaulted man, but Gruber was even then climbing back into his car. Probably Colette had no knowledge of what he had just done. Younger could see her in the backseat, letting Gruber throw his arm around her again. The car restarted and drove away. Younger left the fallen man to his fate.
Gruber's car rolled slowly up the boulevard. Younger followed, keeping his distance. After several blocks, they entered an old square in the center of which a bonfire burned. People clapped their hands and sang around it. Others, loaded with piles of heavy tomes, emerged from an old and considerable building on the opposite side of the square. When these people reached the bonfire, they fed it with the books.
'It's a good old-fashioned pogrom,' said Younger.
Gruber's car crossed the square, circumventing the revelers, and about a half mile farther on, pulled up at the gate of a small, grassy park. Younger stopped a block or so behind him. The interior of the park was dotted with wrought-iron lampposts and scattered trees, whose russet leaves shimmered silver in the moonlight. Gruber and Colette got out. His friends remained within, drinking and carousing.
'Wait here,' said Younger to Luc.
Younger dismounted and slipped through the darkness to the perimeter of the park, where he encountered a high, barred, iron fence. Through the bars, he could make out Colette and Gruber strolling arm in arm. Younger moved along the fence, watching them penetrate farther into the center of the park. Gruber was carrying on in rapid German; Colette laughed flirtatiously, although Younger had trouble believing she could understand what he was saying. To Younger's disgust, Gruber twirled Colette every now and then as if they were still dancing in the beer garden.
They stopped under the soft light of a gas lamp. Gruber slipped her coat off and let it fall to the ground. He turned Colette around so that he faced her back. His put his hands on her stomach and seemed to be nibbling at her ear. Younger recalled an evening when he himself had done something similar: Colette had been rather less acquiescent. Roughly, Gruber turned her round again. They were face-to-face. He stroked her mouth with his thumb. Colette's purse fell to the grass. Gruber drew her in, bent to kiss her — then abruptly staggered back, palms raised in the air.
Colette was holding a small pistol. There had been no report; she hadn't shot him. But she pointed it straight at his heart with two hands. She was saying something to him in German. From her cadence Younger had the impression she was reciting memorized words, but she spoke too quietly for Younger to understand. Gruber dropped to his knees, pleading, begging. Colette was breathing hard; her shoulders heaved up and down. Then she grew still, her pistol aimed at Gruber's eyes, the range point-blank.
But she hesitated. A full thirty seconds she hesitated, Gruber supplicating all the while. At last she took a backward step, then another and another, until she turned and fled into the darkness.
Younger heard a collision and a muffled cry. A moment later, Hans's stocky friends appeared in the cone of light falling from the lamppost. Between them, they held a struggling Colette, her feet not quite touching the ground. She must have run right into them. One of the men had a fat hand covering her mouth; the other pressed Colette's own gun into her ribs.
Gruber got up. He spat, wiped his nose on his sleeve, and took the pistol from his friend. He slapped Colette across the face, called her a foul name in German, and inserted the gun into her mouth.
'You there, Gruber!' bellowed Younger, straining at the bars of the fence. 'Let her go!'
His voice took the men by surprise. They heard Younger, but couldn't see him. Gruber spun around, waving the pistol blindly in Younger's direction.
'We're coming for you, Gruber,' shouted Younger. 'We're going to rip your heart out of your chest and stuff it in your mouth and make you eat it.'
Younger was of course lying: there was no 'we.' Or so Younger thought until a little figure dashed up next to him and fought its way through the bars of the fence, which were too tightly spaced for a man, but not for a boy. Younger grabbed Luc by his leather jacket just as he squeezed through. His feet spun like a flywheel, slapping at the ground, but he went nowhere.
The sound of these footsteps had an immediate effect. Evidently believing that he was being chased, Gruber broke for the park gate, ordering his friends to bring the girl. The two men obeyed at once, dragging Colette between them. Younger, yanking Luc back through the fence, sprinted away as well, carrying the boy over his shoulder. He had farther to go, but he reached the motorcycle almost as quickly as Gruber and his friends reached their car.
'Stay when I tell you to, damn it,' ordered Younger, jamming Luc back into the sidecar and this time pinning the boy's arms and shoulders into the closed interior, so that he couldn't squirm out. 'Brave lad.'
Younger fired up the motorcycle's engine and pulled out in chase.
Gruber had taken the wheel of his car. He drove savagely through the narrow streets. He didn't slow when he sideswiped a parked car or even when he sent pedestrians diving out of his way In fact he sped up once when a man in the middle of the street had nowhere to go; on impact, the man was sent sprawling. In the backseat, Colette was sandwiched between Gruber's two friends, who held her fast.
Younger pursued, but could not close the distance between them. Suddenly they emerged onto an avenue bordering the river, where Younger, opening the throttle, was able to make up ground. Gruber turned under a Gothic pointed arch onto a medieval bridge, hurtling past twisted baroque statues on either side, again sending pedestrians scurrying away. As they reached the far side of the river, Younger was right behind him.
But Gruber made a sharp turn off the bridge, and though Younger tried to follow, the motorcycle skidded out beneath him, spinning a hundred and eighty degrees and slamming into a shuttered wooden stall. Younger had the bike going again in a moment, but he had lost ground. Down the street, Gruber turned hard again, tires screeching,
