“I don’t know.”
“Come again?”
Harry passed the Breakers, pulled over and turned around. “I’m going the wrong way.” They went back along the water, south on the beach road to 1960, the address Joyce had given him. The island was narrower along this stretch, the estate property extending from the beach road to the intercoastal. There was a decorative iron gate closed across the driveway. He went right on a narrow lane just past the house, and drove along a white seven- foot-high wall bordering the property. Another paved lane behind the estate led to a four-car garage.
He went back out to the front gate and rang the bell. A woman with an accent-Spanish or Italian-answered the intercom.
“Yes, who is this, please?”
“Harry Levin.”
The gate opened. He drove in and parked on the circular drive. A plump dark-haired woman, mid-thirties, wearing a light-brown uniform, came out the front door and approached the car. Harry got out.
“Welcome Senor Levin. You must be tired from your journey. Please come in. My name is Josefina.”
“Nice to meet you. Where’s Joyce?”
“I am sorry, the Senora is not at home.”
“Where is she?”
A Nazi might be coming to kill her but she wasn’t going to skip her maintenances. She could see her auburn hair starting to turn gray at her temples. Joyce had been getting her hair colored for about ten years, freaking out when she saw the first signs of gray when she was thirty-eight.
She would have Josefina drive her to the salon on Peruvian, and pick her up. If Harry Levin called, tell him where she was. She would wear a sun hat with a wide brim, hide her face, slip in and out of the salon without being recognized.
No one except Lenore knew about her situation, or where she was staying. Joyce had to confide in someone and trusted Lenore. They were good friends. They had talked a couple of times since she went into hiding. Lenore was showing an oceanfront estate to one of her customers, a referral, Southern gentleman from Atlanta. “Sounds like Clark Gable doing Rhett Butler,” Lenore had said. “Heard you’re wonderful.”
“That part’s true,” Joyce said. “What’s his name?”
“Emile Landau. Nice guy, very friendly.”
The name didn’t ring a bell. “Who referred him?”
“A friend from New York was all he said.”
Joyce had sold a property for a man from Manhattan, Bob Meisner, but he hadn’t called and recommended anyone. “What’s he look like?”
“Fifty, six feet tall, hair slightly gray, wears a golf cap,” Lenore said.
“You just described half the men in Palm Beach. The other half is older. He have a goatee by chance?”
“Not that I noticed.”
Hess followed her for the remainder of the afternoon. She met buyers at houses on Seabreeze and Brazilian, each showing lasting forty-five minutes to an hour. He was getting impatient, imagined the woman talking in her annoying, never-ending stream of consciousness.
At 4:30 p.m. he saw her white Cadillac sedan appear coming out of the driveway on Brazilian. He followed her back to the real-estate office, parked on Worth Avenue and waited.
At 5:10 he saw her come out of the office and walk east to a restaurant called Ta-boo. She made her way to the far end of the crowded bar, joining a group of friends. The noise level seemed to rise with her arrival. He sat at a table near the entrance and could hear her voice over the din.
Hess ordered a Macallan’s neat and two appetizers: shrimp cocktail and smoked Norwegian salmon with capers and onions. He was hungry. He had not eaten since breakfast, eight and a half hours earlier. He wolfed down the appetizers, finished the single malt and ordered another. At 6:15 he saw Lenore moving along the bar, coming his way. She noticed him and stopped.
“Are you following me?” Lenore smiled, seemed looser than she was earlier, face animated. “Just kidding. What you don’t know about me, Mr. Landau, I’m a natural-born kidder.” She took a breath. “This is my favorite restaurant. Great food. The owner, Jim Peterson, is a good friend. Would you like another drink? I’ve had enough myself but I’m happy to buy one for you.”
“I am good,” Hess said.
“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow. Is ten a.m. OK? We can meet at the office. I’ll take us around.”
And with that she was out the door. Hess left fifty dollars on the table and walked out after her, keeping his distance, followed the woman to her white Cadillac parked across the street from the Town Car. Not as concerned about being seen-it was dark. People strolling on the sidewalk. Lights from the storefronts aglow.
Lenore Deutsch lived in a modest house on Queens Lane, situated at the north end of the island. No lights on. Hess had noticed a wedding ring, but could not believe she was married. Who could listen to her? She parked in the driveway and went inside and turned on the lights. He parked on the street, opened the glove box and took out the Walther. He waited a couple of minutes, then stepped out of the automobile, crossed the street and knocked on the door.
The maid, Josefina, had given Harry directions to the beauty parlor. He went there and waited in the lounge till a petite woman, five two, with reddish-brown hair walked through the beaded curtains. He had never seen Joyce Cantor in his life but he knew it was her. “Joyce!”
She turned and looked at him. “Harry?” Moved toward him, put her arms around him. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
Now two hours later they were at the estate owned by a rich guy from New York named Frankel. Harry was checking on Cordell in the pool-house living room. He brought him a turkey sandwich, cottage cheese, chips and a Coke. Cordell was stretched out on a couch, watching TV, a nineteen-inch console.
Harry said, “You don’t have to stay out here like the hired help.”
“Think this is slummin’, Harry, never been to a slum. Check it out.”
He already had, asking himself how many two-bedroom pool houses with a cathedral ceiling and a big living room he’d seen? Appointed like the main house. Sixty-foot Italian marble pool right outside.
“Don’t worry ’bout me. I’m watchin’
“You hear anything, see any Nazis, give me a call.” Harry handed him a piece of paper that had the phone number to the main house on it.
Joyce was standing at the island counter in the kitchen, opening a bottle of Morgon, two stemmed glasses on the black granite top.
Harry said, “I remember seeing someone running into the woods as I climbed out of the pit.”
“That was me. I don’t remember you though.” Joyce cleared her throat. “But I knew your mother. She was on the last truck, forty-seven of us from the women’s camp. It was late afternoon. They told us we were being transferred to a sub-camp at Halfing. I believed them because I wanted to.”
“We all did,” Harry said. “Thinking anything was better than where we were.”
“When we got to the woods I could see SS guards standing at the edge of a clearing, talking and smoking cigarettes. I didn’t know what was happening until I saw the mound of dirt behind them. We were marched to the edge of the pit and I saw the bodies. Words can’t describe… I have never in my life seen anything like that.” She caught her breath. “Harry, where were you?”
“I had jumped off the back of the truck,” Harry said. “I was hiding behind a tree and saw everything.”
“I can still see Hess with the pistol in his hand. He told us to jump in the pit. No one moved, so he shot a woman in the face. There was a little hole in her forehead, blood coming out of it. She fell to the ground, and all at once we jumped onto the stacks of bodies. Many were still alive, the pile was moving, and then the guards started shooting at us like it was a game. I crawled between two bodies and the next thing I remember it was dark. The pit had been covered over with dirt. I couldn’t breathe. I started pushing my way through corpses until I felt the cool air. It was night. I ran to a farm and hid in the barn. The farmer found me the next morning. He and his wife kept
