Peter Rabe - A Shroud for Jesso

“Danger?” Helmut licked his red lips and sat down.

“Yes. And until further notice you will not leave the house except in the company of one of my men.”

“Johannes, please. What are we afraid of? You are making it worse with this secrecy.”

Kator pulled out one of his olive-colored cigars and stroked it. “I had dealings with a man, a foreigner. The fact is, I do not know where he is at the moment. Until he is found, I must remain extremely alert. He and I have a debt of-“

“A debt!”

“What is it, Helmut?”

Helmut had started to blink with a nervous speed and he sat upright, as if suspended by the head. He opened his mouth but nothing came out.

“Helmut! Make sense.”

“Is it-is it five hundred dollars? Do you owe-”

“What?”

“Just this,” said Jesso, and he kicked the door shut with his foot. Hofer was with him, but couldn’t keep up with him. Jesso shot his hands into his pockets and stopped.

“Forget the phone, Baron,” he said, and watched Kator pull back his hand.

Kator sat still like a cat. That’s when von Lohe recovered. He jumped up and started to yell.

“But I swear, Mr. Jesso, I never came near that phone. Johannes, tell Mr. Jesso-“

“Shut up,” said Kator. “He didn’t mean you.”

Everything was still for a moment.

“I meant Superspy, here. You, Kator, you understand, don’t you, Kator?”

“Of course, Jesso.”

“I bet you do. So send everybody out.”

Kator did. He nodded at the butler and at the Baron.

He nodded at both in the same way and then they left. The two men looked at each other. Then they walked to the fireplace and sat down on facing sofas.

“You crapped out yesterday, Kator.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You crapped out. Your two medics weren’t so good.”

“I know. We found them.”

“Were they alive?”

“Partly, Jesso.”

“You know why, Kator?”

Kator waited.

“Because I didn’t half try.”

“I had assumed it was sentimentality.”

“Now hear this, Kator. You’re going to crap out once more, and that time I’m going to be trying all the way.”

“You are threatening me?”

“I’m telling you. And I’m telling you more. That message from Snell I gave you is bunk. I’ve got the right one, you don’t. How much are you selling your merchandise for?”

Kator started to smirk, dropped it.

“Hundred grand? Two hundred?”

“That information would hardly be useful to you.”

“Don’t worry about that part, Kator. Just worry about how you’re ever going to know if I gave you the right info. Just worry about losing your price, worry about selling worthless stuff, worry about what’ll happen to your business, to you, if you should pull a boner somebody else has to pay for. Those guys you’re selling to, are they gonna say, ‘Forget it, Kator, dear chum, we all make mistakes'?”

Kator didn’t bother to answer.

“They’re gonna send out a torpedo for you. A German if you’re in Germany, a Turk if you’re in Turkey, and Satan himself if you should be in hell when they find out.”

“I assume you have a proposition,” said Kator, and the formal words came out stiffly.

“No, Kator. You’re almost crapping out again. I’m giving you a chance to come in out of the rain. You show me your buyers, I show them the right dope. It’ll cost you half. Half of whatever you get. That’s the only way the deal is ever going to go straight. You know why, Kator? If I sell them the wrong goods, I’ll be as bad off as you, and that’s never going to happen to me, Kator.”

Kator’s success had come from the man himself; his fast mind, his unmuddled decisiveness, and his ability to dismiss his personal feelings. This made him remarkable, and he showed it now.

“Very well. I will begin my arrangements today. You may stay in this house in the meantime. Hofer will provide for your comfort.”

They looked at each other without even trying to hide their thoughts. One was out for the other, and each understood the game. And for the moment neither had anything to fear from the other.

“It is customary in your country to shake hands on an agreement. But you and I, Jesso, can do without it.”

“That’s clear.”

“Particularly since both of us cannot win, you understand?”

“I told you you’d crap out.”

“You will get your money, I will make my sale. I’m not speaking of that.”

“Just watch it, Kator.” Jesso got up.

“I’ll begin my arrangements today.”

“You can start right now. You owe me five hundred.”

When Hofer had taken Jesso to his room on the second floor of the villa and when he was about to leave, he was given a ten-dollar tip, which Jesso peeled off a roll of five hundred.

Renette von Lohe looked as if she belonged in the place. There were no jewelry counters, just low little tables and wide chairs. The walls were of black glass and the ceiling was held up by bronze columns. The table in front of her was almost bare; just two bracelets lay there.

“Madame has hardly a choice,” said Mr. Totanus of Totanus, Dorn, and Son. “Beauty is its own absolute, madame, and if I may be permitted-“

Renette looked up and shook her head. She smiled as a hostess would smile, with very well-mannered kindness, but Mr. Totanus stopped as if he had been slapped. Renette von Lohe, who was also beautiful in the eyes of old Mr. Totanus, gave the impression that only she might decide what was absolute.

“They sparkle too much,” she said.

Her voice sounded warm, except for the way she ended a sentence. She ended it as if that were the absolute end. That can be a shock to anyone, be it Totanus trying to sell a ten-thousand-mark bracelet or someone who has long given up trying to sell anything.

“You know, Mr. Totanus,” and Renette crossed her legs so that even old Mr. Totanus began to feel excited, “I think I like something warmer. Not diamonds. I like smoke opal.”

The firm had smoke opal. The reason it had smoke opal was that during the war the volume of diamond trading had gone down to near zero and the firm had handled a number of lesser stones, even the semiprecious. But Mr. Totanus didn’t know just where the opals were.

“Madame,” he began, but then Renette put her small feet together and got ready to leave.

“I won’t have to look at them,” she said, “because I know you will pick the most beautiful ones for me. And set them square, as you did in this bracelet. Make the same kind of bracelet.” After dangling the one she meant over one finger, she dropped it back on the velvet pad so that old Mr. Totanus quivered.

Renette smiled and stood up. She did it all in one movement, then stood to pat herself into straight lines while old Mr. Totanus looked away and fussed with the mistreated bracelet. He had started to quiver again.

“Will you send it to me?” she asked, but-it was hardly a question.

Totanus rose, doing it awkwardly, because Renette hadn’t bothered to step back. This was a rotten day. Smoke opals. She could afford both of those bracelets on the table, but she wanted smoke opals.

“Shall I bill the Baron?” said Totanus when he followed Renette to the door.

“No,” she said. “Send the bill to my brother.”

Renette got into the Daimler and told the chauffeur to drive her home. She sat back in the cushions and thought what a beautiful bracelet it was going to be. Perhaps she should have let Helmut pay for it. But that was ridiculous. Then Helmut would have to go to her brother and he would pay anyway. Besides, Johannes never argued about her bills; he only argued with Helmut.