Ross Thomas - The Eighth Dwarf

“It will only take a minute to change,” she said.

It took her twenty minutes, but when she came out of the bedroom she looked far different from the way she had looked when she went in. She looked, in fact, Jackson thought, almost beautiful.

She had done something to her hair, although he was not quite sure what except that it was no longer worn in her usual maiden-lady fashion. Instead, it fell in soft waves almost to her shoulders. She also had done something to erase the evidence of her tears — perhaps a skillful application of makeup, Jackson thought, but wasn’t sure, because there was no evidence of makeup except for the faint touch of lipstick that she had added.

The dress helped, too. It was a plain black dress. Your simple, basic black, Jackson decided, which probably cost a hundred dollars. It was cut low and close enough to show off her breasts to good advantage, and for the first time he wondered how it would be to go to bed with her. He was faintly surprised that he hadn’t wondered about that before, because, like most men, he usually speculated about it shortly after meeting a woman. Any woman.

She stood there in the center of the room, almost shyly, as if she were not at all sure that he still wanted her to go.

“You look very nice,” he said. “Very pretty.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Yes.”

“What do they call this in the States?”

“Call what?”

“What we are doing.”

“I think they call it going to dinner.”

She shook her head. “No there is another word that I’ve read. They call it a — a date, don’t they?”

“Sometimes.”

“Is this like a real date?”

“Absolutely,” Jackson said, praying that she wouldn’t simper.

Instead, she smiled shyly and said, “It will be my first one, you know.”

“Your first one ever?” Somehow, he managed to keep the shock out of his voice, if not the surprise.

She nodded gravely. “My first one ever. Do you still want me to go?”

“Sure,” Jackson said, and smiled as though he really meant it and was rather amazed to realize that he did.

Although the beer was no better than usual, the Golden Rose was crowded that night. It was so crowded, in fact, that the printer had to share a table with two other people, a man and a woman, who had almost nothing to say to each other. Bodden decided that they were married.

He had been waiting nearly thirty minutes when Eva Scheel came in. She stood at the entrance just past the heavy curtain, one hand clasping her fur coat to her neck as she tried to spot Bodden in the crowded, smoky room. He waved. She nodded and started toward him.

She sat down at the table after first giving the silent couple an automatic “Good evening,” which they muttered back, their first words in nearly twenty minutes.

“You have eaten?” she said.

Bodden nodded and smiled. “Earlier. A fat chicken. Very tasty. The sour one down in the cellar cooks well. And you?”

“At the American officers’ club. A steak. They recently decided to let Germans in. Proper Germans, of course.” She looked around the room and frowned. “We must talk. But not here. Is your room far?”

“Not far.”

“We’d best go there.”

Bodden smiled. “It’s a cold place; no heat, you know. But I managed to locate a bottle of brandy.”

“We’ll warm ourselves with that, then,” Eva Scheel said.

There was only one chair in Bodden’s room. One chair, a bed, a pine table, a wardrobe, a window, and a bicycle that he carried up and down three flights of stairs to keep it from being stolen.

“Home,” he said as he ushered her into the room.

Eva Scheel looked around. “I’ve seen worse.”

“And better, too, no doubt. You have a choice — the bed or the chair.”

“The bed, I think.” She walked over and sat down on it. “I see you found yourself a bicycle.”

“At the DP camp in Badenhausen,” Bodden said as he opened the wardrobe and took down a bottle of Branntwein and two mismatched glasses. “There was a man there. A Czech called Kubista. Apparently he’s the resident forger. We talked. For a price, he might sell me some useful information. I would have bought it on the spot had I had the funds.”

“How much?”

“A hundred American dollars.”

“This Czech. He has done business with Oppenheimer?”

Bodden nodded as he handed her a glass of brandy. “He hinted as much.”

She took from her coat pocket a small purse, opened it, and counted out ten $20 bills. “Buy it,” she said. “After that, you will be going to Bonn.”

“And what will I find in Bonn?”

“Oppenheimer, if you’re lucky. He has killed another.”

“A busy man.”

“He has a list. The next one on the list is in Bonn.”

Bodden smiled. “Your young American officer must have been in one of his talkative moods.”

“Very. I heard it all for the first time when he came to see Oppenheimer’s sister this afternoon. I heard it for the second time, plus his theories, over my steak. Now when I tell it to you I’ll be hearing it for the third time.”

She told him then, everything that Lt. LaFollette Meyer had told her, including his disappointment over the fact that the search for Kurt Oppenheimer would now be centered in Bonn and under the jurisdiction of the British and Major Baker-Bates.

When she was through, Bodden refilled their glasses. “It will be a miracle if I find him first.”

“Berlin doesn’t expect miracles.”

Bodden nodded thoughtfully. “You have heard from them?”

“This morning. A courier. She brought instructions plus an enormous amount of money.”

“How large is enormous?”

“Twenty-seven thousand dollars.”

“You’re right; that is enormous.”

“Two thousand is for our expenses.”

“And the other twenty-five?”

“With that you will buy Oppenheimer from the dwarf, should the dwarf find him first.”

“But I am still to try to find him myself, since Berlin, no doubt, is as economical as always.”

“You are to try very hard.”

“You have met the dwarf?”

Eva Scheel shook her head. “No, but I have met his colleague. The American called Jackson.”

“What did you think?”

She took a sip of her brandy and frowned. “I’m not sure. He is not your typical American. He lacks ambition, I think. An American without ambition is rather rare, you know. If he had it, or a purpose that he believed important, I feel he could be very hard, very ruthless.”

“How old is he?”

“In his early thirties.”

“Intelligent?”

“He is no fool. He also has some interesting theories.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the theory that Berlin — or I suppose I should say, Moscow — wants Oppenheimer in Palestine. Jackson came up with the unusual suggestion that a renegade Jew could be quite useful to the Palestinians. And to Moscow.”

“Your Mr. Jackson has a complicated mind.”

Eva Scheel nodded. “Yes, I thought you’d think so.”

Bodden clasped his hands behind his head, leaned back in his chair, and gazed up at the ceiling. “The dwarf is playing a double game, of course. That’s to be expected. He’s a Romanian, and they must learn it in their cradles. But what about this Jackson? You say he is without ambition. Deception requires a certain amount of that.”

“A good point. The dwarf, I suppose, could simply be using him. My young American tells me that Jackson has some unofficial but very influential connections with American intelligence in Washington. I would say that the Americans are letting Jackson run to see where he goes. My young American had a very unusual description for Jackson. How good is your English?”