Thomas Ochiltree (13 page)

She returned to the door of the salon, where stood a man in his mid-fifties, who kissed her hand. On the collar of his uniform glittered two gold stars on a gold-lace facing. The guest was a lieutenant-field marshal.

Something for everyone. From the next room came waltz music. Von Falkenburg gazed in and saw more girls sweeping around the room in the arms of officers in their best uniforms and civilians whose vase expanse of snowy starched shirtfront contrasted with their ebony-black tailcoats. The music was provided by a six-piece ensemble, not a clattery piano like the one that graced the shabby brothel in distant Czegarny-Brodny which von Falkenburg had visited once out of boredom while there on maneuvers.

The girls were all stunning, but von Falkenburg realized that Helena had nothing to worry about. Any enjoyment he experienced tonight would be of a purely physical nature. Seeing these beautiful women here – some of whom, objectively, were as lovely as Helena – and wishing he were back with her, made him realized how much he loved her.

Yes, he loved her. For the first time in his life von Falkenburg saw that he was capable of love, and indeed was in love. He had always viewed himself as having far too detached and cynical a personality for such things, but now Helena, the “superb woman” he had first seen in the Sacher, was “his” woman in the sense that no other woman had ever been his.
She
was
his
because
he
belonged to
her.

The thought was at once delicious and frightening. More the latter, in fact, than the former. It was one more change in the well-ordered existence that he had led up to the moment of Major Becker’s accusation of treason, and which had been crumbling ever since.

“The captain does not want to dance?” a gentle voice asked.

Von Falkenburg looked around and saw a very slender young woman with big eyes and a surprising air of innocence, given the place she was in. Well, as Madame Rosa had said, her establishment catered to all tastes. He took the girl in his arms and began to waltz, feeling her breasts press against his tunic. She seemed frail and defenseless, and von Falkenburg hoped that Madame Rosa was protective of her.

The waltz had only a few more measures to run. When it finished, von Falkenburg led the girl to the buffet and ordered some champagne.

“Do you like me, Captain?” the girl asked. “I’m so skinny! I wish I were more like Lotte there.” She nodded her head in the direction of a woman who was the very personification of female opulence.

“Don’t worry, you’re
very
pretty. Are you new here?”

“Yes. I’m from a village in Mährisch-Weisskirchen. I was working as a seamstress in the Leopoldstadt before I met Lotte. She introduced me to Madame Rosa.”

“Lotte has been here longer?”

“Oh yes. She’s one of the most popular girls. She’s a particular friend of mine,” the girl said with pride.

She took another sip of the champagne.

“I’m glad you ordered champagne,” she said.

“You like it?”

“Not really. But Madame Rosa likes for the guests to buy it.”

“Are you here on approval, so to speak?”

“Yes,” the girl said, “but I’m good. I really am. A cavalry officer told me that yesterday.”

“Well, let’s see how you please the infantry. Come on.”

He had to begin his inquiries somehow, and if this place was frequented by his enemies, it was best to be discreet. No one could suspect him of going after information if he took the most recently arrived girl. And she was a “particular friend” – whatever that implied – of the popular Lotte, who might actually know something.

Besides, she
was
pretty, even though the idea of bought intimacy had never appealed to him. Helena had his love. But physically, a man was still a man, he told himself with a slight twinge of guilt as he remembered Helena’s wish that he “not enjoy himself” if he could help it.

The girl led him up a broad flight of stairs and down a long corridor. Through one of the closed doors came the sound of a whip cracking, and a yelp of pain.

“That’s Franzeska,” the girl said with a nod, proud to show that she already knew all about her place of employment. “The doors are thick, but she’s
really
big. Sometimes I think her customers get more than they bargain for.”

The room she led him to was small, but with ornate gilt plaster-work on the ceiling. Perhaps it had been a private study when the house was built, long ago.

“What’s your name?” von Falkenburg asked.

“Stasi. It’s really Anastasia, but everyone calls me Stasi.”

“You said you’re from Mährisch-Weisskirchen?”

“That right.”

“But you’re no peasant.” Mährisch-Weisskirchen was not far from Falkenburg, and the girl did not speak at all like the peasants who worked the mortgaged remains of the von Falkenburg estates.

“My father is a village schoolteacher,” she said with pride, adding hastily, “he thinks I’m working as a nursemaid.”

She was naked now, and her fingers were deftly unbuttoning his tunic and shirt. Then they stroked his chest. Stasi unfastened his sword and laid it on a side table with almost reverential care. She may not have been a prostitute for long, but long enough to know what a fetish officers made of their swords. And when he was naked, and had taken her, he realized that she had been telling the truth: she
was
good, and did have a future in her chosen calling.

When she had gotten her breath back, she sat up in the bed and asked, “does the infantry agree with the cavalry’s opinion of me?”

“Absolutely. And there is a small favor I would like you to do for me.”

Stasi nodded her head eagerly.

“I’d like you to send your friend Lotte up here.” He handed the girl a banknote. Presumably, once she had told Lotte about the client’s generosity, Lotte would come quickly.

“You want us both together?” Stasi asked with enthusiasm.

“No, I prefer one at a time. Makes things simpler. But you were so good I wonder if Lotte won’t be a disappointment.”

Stasi went off to find her friend, and von Falkenburg dressed and sat down in a chair in the corner of the room. Soon, the door opened and in came Lotte, the exact physical opposite of her little friend.

“All dressed again?” Lotte said. “Well, you men are all alike. I’ve never met one who didn’t like being undressed by a woman.”

“Actually, Lotte, I just want to ask you something.”

She raised her eyebrows.

Von Falkenburg pulled some banknotes from the breast pocket of his tunic.

“Answering questions is easy work,” Lotte said on seeing the money.

“What do you know about Colonel von Lauderstein?” von Falkenburg asked. Wroclinski used a pseudonym when he visited Madame Rosa’s, but von Falkenburg hoped that was just a bit of romanticism on his part, and that von Lauderstein might not.

“What do you want to know?” Lotte asked.

“As much as you know.”

“‘Fraid I don’t know much, Captain. He’s a good customer, a good tipper.”

“Anything else about him?”

“He seems to spend a lot of time talking with another customer, a man whom everyone calls Putzi. That’s the only name of his we know.”

Sometimes, von Falkenburg knew, members of the highest aristocracy liked for some unaccountable reason to be known by childish nicknames, and not for the purpose of concealing their identity. It was as true in Vienna as it was in Paris.

“Can you tell me anything more about this Putzi?”

Lotte thought. It was obvious that she was hoping to lure some more banknotes out of that breast pocket of his.

“He’s tall, handsome in a stern sort of way. Must be about fifty. Hair gray around the temples. Very well dressed. Monocle.”

Von Falkenburg knew that that description could apply to dozens of Vienna’s aristocrats.
Who the devil was Putzi?
he wondered.

“So von Lauderstein and Putzi regularly chat here?”

“Yes. Off in a corner where no one can hear them.”

Von Falkenburg reflected for a moment. What less conspicuous place for Putzi and von Lauderstein to meet “by chance” than a brothel frequented by men of their social class? The very fact that it would seem like the last place for people to conspire would make it ideal for that very purpose. Lotte had noticed that they spent a lot of time together, but that was doubtless because as a professional she was used to observing potential customers closely.

Von Lauderstein. Putzi. Von Lauderstein, von Falkenburg knew, was a colonel on the Staff. But how could he find out who Putzi was?

“Anything else you know?” he asked.

“Nothing much,” she said. “Nothing at all, in fact,” she added, eyeing his breast pocket wistfully. Then she brightened. “Von Lauderstein seems…how can I put it…almost deferential to Putzi. I think that Putzi must be very highly-placed, but that’s just a feeling of mine.”

“Thank you, Lotte, “ von Falkenburg said. He handed her a final banknote. He thought of accompanying it with a recommendation to be silent about this conversation of theirs, but he decided against it. Lotte was clearly intelligent enough to guess that if it was important for him that von Lauderstein and Putzi not know about his prying, it would be equally important for them to learn of it. If he was willing to pay, they would be too, and he could not possibly trust any promises of discretion he might extract from her.

Von Falkenburg left the bordello, after making a point of telling Madame Rosa how much he had enjoyed the visit, and praising Stasi’s performance. Madame Rosa would of course know who Putzi was, but no one became the proprietress of Vienna’s finest whorehouse without establishing a rock-solid reputation for discretion regarding her customers. Lotte’s blabbing would earn the girl a sharp box on the ears if her mistress ever learned of it.

Von Lauderstein. Putzi. Lasky was right: von Lauderstein was mixed up in whatever dirty business lay behind the incomprehensible plot against him. Putzi was almost certainly his accomplice, von Falkenburg felt, and probably his superior.

But what exactly was it that they were mixed up in, he wondered. Major Korda had spoken to Lasky of a “filthy political mess.” In the Austria-Hungary of 1906, that statement was open on many possibilities.

He looked at his watch. In another minute and a half, the first hour of the fourth of his seven days would have passed. If only he had more time. Time to find out about von Lauderstein. And Putzi.

Who the devil was Putzi?

“Please allow me the honor of introducing myself,” the man said, bowing and handing von Falkenburg his card.

The fellow had something of the oily courtesy of an undertaker about him, von Falkenburg thought, though it was hardly likely that an undertaker would be calling on him. After all, his week wasn’t up yet.

Whoever the man was, von Falkenburg decided, he was a damned nuisance. Von Falkenburg had walked around the dark streets of Vienna for hours after leaving Madame Rosa’s, trying to get his thoughts in order, and finally gone to bed after deciding it was too late to return to Helena’s. Now he was impatient to tell her what he had learned from Lotte.

Von Falkenburg looked down at the card. It bore the words “Th. Paul Rogge, Commissar with the Criminal Police.”

That was an unpleasant jolt, since it meant the visitor was almost certainly bringing more trouble of some kind. As for what kind of trouble that might be, von Falkenburg had no idea. One thing was certain: the army would never have allowed the civilian police to get mixed up with his case.

Von Falkenburg looked closer at the man: a bald head, none-too-elegant clothes, awkward-looking shoes. A very ordinary-seeming person indeed, except for one detail: eyes that glittered with a combination of intelligence and malice that boded no good.

“What may I do for you,
Herr Kommissar
?” von Falkenburg asked.

“Captain, I would be most grateful if you could answer a few questions of mine.” There was something definitely sinister, von Falkenburg decided, about the contrast between the unctuous tone of that voice and the hard glitter of those eyes.

“With the greatest of pleasure,
Herr Kommissar
, but they will have to be brief questions, for I have pressing business to which to attend.”

“You were, I understand, a friend of one Mordecai Lasky, now deceased, were you not?”

Good God!
von Falkenburg thought.

“I met
Herr
Lasky on one occasion only,” von Falkenburg said, trying to keep his voice natural.

“Yes, on the night he was murdered, I believe.” Rogge looked him straight in the eyes – Rogge’s were a very, very pale blue – and although von Falkenburg was able to return the stare, meeting Rogge’s glance was not pleasant.

“That is correct, the night he was murdered,” von Falkenburg said. There was no point in denying something that Rogge already knew.

“But,” Rogge went on, “you do not seem to have regarded
Herr
Lasky’s death as something to report to the police.”

Von Falkenburg nearly committee the mistake of saying that he had been too shocked by Lasky’s death to contact the police. But on the brink of the precipice he realized that to say that would have been to admit that he had been present at Lasky’s death.

“I only learned of
Herr
Lasky’s demise from the newspapers, so I had no information to report.”

“Yet you were the last person to see him alive, Captain.” Von Falkenburg realized that the look in Rogge’s eyes was very much like that in Major Becker’s when the latter accused him of espionage.

“I assume the last person to see him alive was his killer,
Herr Kommissar
.”

“Of course, captain.” But the tone of Rogge’s voice indicated more clearly than could any words his conviction that von Falkenburg was the last person to see Lasky alive because he and Lasky’s killer were one and the same.

“
Herr Kommissar
, I have things to do….”

“Yes, Captain, but this is official business. Now how could you have possibly thought it not worth our while to hear your account of
Herr
Lasky’s meeting with you shortly before his death?”