ill-concealed hostility and familiarity before he stomped out, limping slightly.
Zuckerman’s secretary laughed. “Pay no attention to him. Mr. Zuckerman has to deal with all kinds of jerks. He’s a foreigner who runs a business and isn’t making much money at it. I think he thought that everyone would get rich off of government contracts, but it hasn’t happened in his case. He wants his rent reduced and Mort already did that once. I think that man just simply doesn’t like dealing with Jews.” She shrugged eloquently. “It comes with the route.”
“I thought he was undressing me,” Grace said, and the others nodded. Amanda wondered if he could mentally undress three women at the same time.
“He even does that to me,” Judith said and smiled. “Maybe he should get a girlfriend, or at least get laid.”
“Y’know,” Grace said. “Both Amanda and I have boyfriends. So why don’t we fix Sandy up with Prince Charming?”
Sandy scowled with mock anger. “Just now I am not that hard up. However, see me in a week.”
“Never would be better,” Amanda said. She was going to arrange a meeting between Sandy and Tim’s nephew. Sandy had been a little plump before crossing the Pacific and was rapidly gaining back the weight. Perhaps a boyfriend would help her keep it off.
Amanda continued. “Did you see the look in his eyes? Along with undressing us, he looked absolutely murderous.”
“I doubt that very much,” said Zuckerman, who’d heard most of the conversation. “He’s an immigrant having a tough time because of the war, which would make anyone angry.”
They entered his office and sat around his desk. Zuckerman and Grace lit up cigarettes. “As you probably guessed, I do have information regarding Mack’s will. First, advertising for heirs in the appropriate places has resulted in no one who claims any relationship to Mr. Garver, AKA Mack. Therefore, that is no longer a legal issue. He did have an ex-wife but the terms of the divorce are clear. She is owed nothing. The state of California, those greedy banditos residing in Sacramento, is another matter. Mr. Goldman has negotiated with them and they are willing to be reasonable. In return for thirty percent of anything over one hundred thousand dollars in cash, stocks, or anything else of value in the box, you three will keep the first hundred thousand, and seventy percent of anything thereafter.”
Amanda nodded. “That almost sounds fair.”
Zuckerman agreed. “Someone in Sacramento must be having a bad day. But yes, it does look like the best we can do. Nor are the police in any way interested in something that happened in the middle of the ocean. Mack’s death will be listed as accidental. More important, the next time you are in San Francisco could result in your seeing the contents of the box rather than having to wait years until a court sorts this out. Someone from the state will be watching over your shoulder, of course, but that’s life.”
They agreed that the decision was a good one. Like little kids, they wondered what was in the box. Realistically, they knew that it would be at least several weeks before they could manage to take the time off and arrange travel. While there hadn’t been any major battles recently, there were still a large number of casualties from previous engagements who needed their attention. The safe deposit box and its unknown contents would have to wait.
Krause was pleasantly surprised when Braun showed up with a Mexican woman who looked like she was in her late twenties. A little plump, but not all that bad looking, he decided. In fact, she looked better the more he stared at her. It had been a reluctantly celibate existence for both of them since moving to San Diego.
Braun grinned. “Her name is Juanita Morales and she’s going to entertain us tonight.”
Juanita looked around their apartment and decided she’d seen worse. After all, these were two men living together, so what did she expect? She’d come from Escondido in northern Mexico as a small child and recalled dirt floors and sharing them with a goat, so what did she care if the place was littered? The men did not appear queer and only wanted sex. As long as they paid, that was fine by her. They talked like they were foreign, but she’d been told by “Bill” that they were Swedes, whatever that meant.
“Okay,” she said. “Here’s what I’ll do. Normally I charge by the trick, but since there’s two of you and I’ll bet you want me to stay all night and play with you until you get tired, it’ll be thirty dollars and I’ll do anything you want, but I don’t get hurt. Oh yeah, you got to use rubbers unless I’m sucking your cock. It’s going to be more if you want all of us doing it at the same time.”
They negotiated down to twenty dollars and they each gave her ten. They also assured her that there would be no threesomes.
“Let’s get started,” she said and stepped out of her dress and underclothing. She was voluptuous and Krause stared, getting aroused. She had large, full breasts with dark nipples and he couldn’t take his eyes off them. Juanita laughed at him.
Braun had rank, so he went first while Krause went to the garage downstairs. Krause was second and was pleased that Juanita was somewhat exuberant when his turn came. He had the feeling that paying her ten dollars each for the night was an overcharge. Braun had found her at a bar frequented by sailors, and the idea of going with someone who wasn’t in the military and had his own place appealed to her. He also said there was no pimp in the picture to complicate matters.
Juanita didn’t get tired of their alternating until it was almost dawn. This was just as well since the two Germans were exhausted. She finally serviced them orally and asked to be driven home, and Braun said he would do it. She asked if she could come back some time and they both agreed.
Krause went to bed and slept in until midafternoon. Braun had gone directly to bed after returning. It had been a good night and they agreed that they needed a day off. Krause realized he’d left his cigarettes in the Ford and went down to the garage. He’d just put the pack in his shirt pocket when something on the back seat caught his eye. It was a woman’s purse. Damn it to hell, he thought as he realized the implications. He raced upstairs.
“Was it necessary to kill her?”
Braun shrugged. “I thought it best. She was a lot of fun, but she’d seen us, our place, and God only knows what else she might have noticed.”
“How did you do it?”
“Easy. I told her I’d give her five more dollars if she’d let me take pictures of her naked on the beach. When she thought she was posing, I shot her in the back of the head and left her there. Don’t worry, there was nobody around.”
Krause grudgingly accepted the need to maintain secrecy, but some aspects worried him. For instance, would anyone miss her? Or would someone recall her going off with a middle-aged white man in a Ford, which might be something unusual for a hooker who specialized in sailors?
Braun caught the worried look on Krause’s face and misunderstood. “Don’t worry, Gunther, we’ll get us another playmate sometime soon in the future. Maybe the next one I won’t bring back here. By the way, here’s your ten dollars back.”
Harris was pleased. For once his request for information and help from local police had gotten results. Generally there was no love lost between the FBI and the San Diego cops and he’d been afraid that his asking for cooperation had wound up in a waste basket. Most of the local cops were extremely territorial and he was the outsider. They even thought he talked funny, originally being from out east and all that.
He’d pressed the point with his local contact, a detective named Flaherty. He’d said he was looking for possible saboteurs and maybe that had gotten their attention and enabled them to look past their prickly pride. Or were they prideful pricks, he wondered? Flaherty said he’d keep an eye out. It helped that the cop was a good guy and that Harris was the one who’d told him about the possibility of sabotage and murder by Germans. Harris had worked with Flaherty before and there was a level of mutual respect.
The woman on the slab looked up at the ceiling through lifeless eyes. She was naked. Her body was pale and there were a number of bruises and cuts. Harris wondered if they were from crawly things gnawing on her after she died and decided he didn’t want to know.
“Where’s her clothing?” he asked and was informed that she’d been found naked on the beach yesterday morning by a couple of very surprised hikers.
