Larry stood in the doorway. She stared up at him from her bed in horror. Terror misted her eyes. She could only make out his menacing bulk: his face was out of focus.
“Ma’am… don’t be frightened of me. Please, ma’am. I can explain. Please listen to me.”
She made the effort and fought down her terror. His face swam into focus. Fear, misery and despair made him look helplessly immature and childishly harmless.
She lay there, staring at him, unable to form any words.
“When the phone went,” he said, “I picked up the receiver. I did it automatically, ma’am. I wasn’t spying. I heard what Ron said. It’s all lies. I swear everything he told you are lies! Please believe me.”
“Go away,” Helga said huskily. “Go away.”
Instead, he moved into the room, keeping away from the bed and he went over to an armchair by the window and sat in it. Then he put his hands to his face and began to cry. His soft blubbering lessened her terror. She wondered if she could get to the door, take out the key, get out and lock him in, but she decided that wouldn’t be possible. She knew how quickly he could move.
“Stop it!” She tried to harden her voice. “Please leave my room!”
“I don’t know what I’ll do if you won’t believe me, ma’am,” he mumbled. “You’ve been so kind to me. I’m so unhappy. You don’t know how unhappy I am!”
The Hamburg Strangler! she thought. Five prostitutes! Yet, seeing him crouched in the chair, his hands covering his face, he looked so defenceless she began to gain confidence. He had said he was grateful to her, she reminded herself. Why should he harm her if she didn’t show fear or irritate him. She would have to be very careful how she behaved to him and she must somehow get him out of the room so she could lock the door.
“I didn’t know you were so unhappy, Larry,” she said gently. “Will you tell me why?”
He took his hands from his face. Tears had made his face puffy and his misery touched her.
“I’ve been snowing you, ma’am… all this time. After what you’ve done for me, I wanted to keep your respect.” He hesitated, then lowered his head so he didn’t look at her. “You’d better know the truth now… I don’t go for girls…” He paused and mumbled something that Helga couldn’t hear. “What did you say?”
He gripped his knees with his huge hands.
“Larry… what did you say?”
“I go for men.”
Helga regarded him unbelievingly.
“For men?”
He nodded miserably, not looking at her.
“But you said a girl took your money,” she said after a long pause. “Archer told me when ho first met you you were trying to pick up a tart.”
He looked up then and she saw the shame and misery in his eyes.
“It wasn’t a girl who took my money… it was a man.” He spoke so quietly she could scarcely hear him. “That other girl… I was trying to get her boy friend from her.”
Helga suddenly understood. This was, of course the answer to his indifference to her. In a perverse way what he was telling her pleased her. It meant that she hadn’t lost her sex appeal, but she instantly dismissed this trivial thought. It would also explain why he had murdered five prostitutes. Certain homosexuals loathed prostitutes.
“You see, ma’am, Ron and I were close.” Larry looked away from her. “He’s like me. He wanted me and I wanted him, but I guess I’m restless. I don’t like anything permanent… I don’t want to be tied down. A week with Ron was enough. I did desert from the Army, but what he told you were spiteful lies. I’ve never killed anyone.” He thumped his knees with his big fists. “I guess I’m stupid. When you said you would pay my fare to New York and give me five thousand bucks, I just had to tell Ron. He had sworn I would come crawling back to Hamburg because I wouldn’t be able to live without him. I wanted him to know I wasn’t coming back and why. I told him how kind you had been to me and is going back to the States and about the money.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “That was stupid of me, ma’am. Ron flipped his lid. You see, ma’am, he just hated the idea you were helping me and he couldn’t. He got in this terrible rage and he called me names. He was yelling and swearing at me. He said he would fix me. I couldn’t stand listening to what he said so I hung up on him.”
“When did you call him?” Helga asked.
“When you went to the village. I just had to tell him… I was stupid.” He stared miserably at her. “But I didn’t think he would do anything. He often got wild, but he never did anything. I never thought he would call you and tell you all those lies. I heard him tell you to call the cops. That’s what he wants. If they come here, they’ll find out I’m AWOL. Ron knows if they pick me up, I’ll be sent back to Hamburg and after I come out of the Stockade, he will be waiting for me. The fact is, ma’am, Ron likes me more than I like him. He can’t live without me… I know he can’t. That stuff about me being in the papers was all jealous lies… lies to make you call the cops.”
Helga drew in a long, deep breath. She had had many dealings with homosexuals. Her hairdresser in Paradise City was one. The Captain of Waiters at her favourite New York nightclub was another. Her Couturier in Paris and the simpering little artist who had decorated this bedroom… dozens of them in every walk of life who she loathed and despised and who she knew could be viciously jealous, envious and unpredictably spiteful to each other and yet, at times, so marvellously gentle and kind.
“Yes, she could believe this story. She relaxed back on her pillow. God! How terrified she had been! The Hamburg Strangler! How stupid to have believed such a malicious story, let alone allow it to have frightened her so!
“You do believe me, ma’am? You won’t call the police?”
So he was one of those! It was hard to believe as she looked at him, but where had she heard some all-in wrestler, wearing a cloak and a top hat, had been a pansy?
She suddenly hated the sight of this big, hulking boy. She wanted to scream at him to leave the villa this very moment, but then she remembered those awful moments when Archer had escaped. Larry had to remain here to control Archer until the photos arrived. With a sinking heart, she thought of the long day and the long night ahead of her before the photos did arrive.
“Yes, Larry, I believe you,” she said. “I didn’t understand… I do now.”
“You don’t know what hell it is in the Army when you’re like me,” he said, half to himself. “I couldn’t stand any more of it.”
She didn’t want to hear: he was a neuter thing to her now and he bored her. All right, Larry… now go to bed.”
He got reluctantly to his feet.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t want you to know. You’ve been so good to me.”
Yes… go to bed!” She could scarcely conceal her impatience to get rid of him.
“Yes, ma’am.”
He walked to the door, hesitated, looked hopefully at her, then went out, closing the door gently behind him.
She lay still listening to his receding footfalls, then she put her hands to her face and began silently to laugh.
What a joke against her!
She had picked up this lump of maleness, longing to take him into her bed. She had spent money on him, fed him, dangled her charms before him, risked her reputation, risked sixty million dollars, had been blackmailed because of him and had had to listen to glib lies from another of his beastly breed who had terrified her as she had never been so terrified… and for what? For trying to inveigle a loutish, immature, brainless queer into her bed!
What a goddamn joke!
Finally, her bitter laughter ceased. She got out of bed and locked the door. Going into the bathroom, she swallowed three sleeping tablets, then she got back into bed.
She thought of Nassau and its miles of golden beach.
There would be lots of men there… real men. She would have to be careful, of course, but during the day, Herman would be fully occupied.
There would be opportunities… there were always opportunity
She reached up and turned off the light. She lay still in the darkness, willing herself not to think while she waited for the tablets to send her to sleep.
It wasn’t until 10.25 the following morning when Helga emerged from her bedroom. She had slept heavily, but
