The Grandfather Clock Page 18

  I followed the tree line around to the back of the house, to make sure there were no signs of anyone there. There seemed to be worn tire tracks where the grass had been driven over recently. I left the cover of the trees and walked confidently toward the house. I thought if I moved with certainty, and observer would think that I knew what I was doing there. Another set of tire tracks running down toward the water looked to be used frequently, perhaps as a boat launch. There were signs of minor repair work. Scraps of wood, sawdust, and a caulk gun. The house had belonged to the family of an Argentine banker since the 1970s, but hadn’t been officially lived in for many years. I began to feel more comfortable. I wasn’t far from my vehicle. For all anyone knew, I was just another tourist checking out a tourist spot in my Nazi guide.

  I made my way to the terrace facing the lake. Before two partially enclosed porches facing the water, there was a door. I looked around. No people, no boats. I tried the door. Locked. I looked over the short wall into the porch. Firewood. Someone was definitely using the house. The two porches had a covered space between them with a larger door. If this door was locked, then whoever was living here had keys.

  I peeked onto the other porch. My heart raced when I saw a large netted bag containing about a dozen soccer balls. I moved to the door. Also locked. I quickly continued around the front of the house to the side that I’d first approached. I knew there was another, smaller doorway on the corner. Locked again. It was time to pick a window. Then I noticed the way a fallen section of fence leaned away from the upstairs terrace railing. I pushed it back against the house and it was an easy climb to the second floor. The door was unlocked. I swallowed hard and entered.

  My eyes adjusted to the darkness and the dusty, knotted wood floor. In the corner of the large room was an air mattress, sleeping bag and a duffel bag. I check the bag and found nothing by clothes.

  Leaving the room I found a long upstairs hallway overlooking the living area and another bedroom door. It was partially shut. I eased it open. The room was darker with only one small, high window. A broom leaned against the wall, and there was another air mattress. Next to it, a candle, and a large rolling suitcase. And a very familiar tennis bag. I unzipped it. There was the blunderbuss.

  11

  My adrenaline was pumping so hard, it felt like a dream. I needed to get out and my legs wouldn’t carry me fast enough. Just four days after the gun was taken, I had it back. And the story I had to tell only added to the intrigue. It had traveled from the hands of Napoleon, to the museum of Hans Christian Anderson, to Hitler’s collection – followed by decades lost inside a grandfather clock – was then stolen and taken to the rumored home of Hitler after the war. It was a sensational journey over three continents.

  My elation vanished when I smelled a burning cigarette. I was no longer alone, if I was ever alone at all. Someone was in the house. My mind raced. Had I been quiet after I entered the second floor? Should I hide and wait it out? Was it Oskar and Marco? A full thirty seconds passed and I was still frozen. I pulled out my phone and looked for a signal. Nothing. I heard the person move a step or two. I couldn’t tell if they were upstairs or down. The windows of the bedroom were small and high. And even if I could get out, it was a long fall to the ground. I needed to get back to the master bedroom and out onto the terrace. The floorboards were suddenly noisier than they seemed when I was alone. I crept to the door, imagining the story I might give when confronted.

  I looked out the door and over the banister downstairs. I could see nothing but a thin plume of cigarette smoke winding up the staircase. I took a step through the door toward the master bedroom. I had a choice. Continue to try to creep silently, and hopefully get out unnoticed, or run like hell, climb down the terrace, dash into the trees and scramble to my car.

  The choice was made. I heard a bump at the bottom of the stairs and I didn’t wait to see who was coming. I ran through the bedroom and out the door. I couldn’t tell if I was hearing my own echo or the footsteps of a pursuer. It was fight or flight, and my brain was in flight. I was moving so quickly when I reached the terrace railing that I had hold on to it to keep from flinging myself completely off the balcony. My legs slung down hard against the side of the terrace and I looked for the foothold on the fence. It wasn’t there. I had left it in place, but whoever was downstairs had moved it. I didn’t give myself time for second thoughts.

  It was only an eight or ten foot drop to solid ground, but I landed awkwardly. My ankle buckled. I could feel the ligaments tearing, and then I fell hard on my back. The tennis bag and satchel tangled around me. Fumbling, I got up and ran toward the tree line, each step sending searing pain up my left leg. As soon as I made the tree line, I looked back. My pursuer was a short, barrel-chested man with a ponytail pulled from his receding hairline. He walked deliberately, but did not run, eyes pegged on me. Heading up the hill I continually stumbled. The miracle of running on my injured ankle was ending and I struggled to find the strength for each step. Branches lashed my face as I took the most direct line through the darkest brush, hoping my progress would be concealed.

  I made it to the top and slid down the embankment. Still one small hill to traverse. I hoped I would emerge near my car. I had no sense of whether I had come out they way I had gone in. I dragged my bad leg up the hill and came out into the open. My car was about 50 yards to my south. A car passed, the man behind the wheel gave me an inquisitive look and continued. I limped for the longest 100 feet I’d ever walked. I was completely wrecked. I reached the car and dug into my jeans for the keys.

  My hand was wedged into my pocket when a bald man appeared and shoved me to the ground. I landed in the road. He took two steps toward me and smirked. Then a second figure emerged from behind the rental car.

  “Marco,” I said.

  I was surprised to see a look of fear on his face.

  I knelt in the road, attempting to stand.

  “You missed our meeting,” Oskar said. “You, ah ... went to play tennis?”

  “Wait,” I said holding up my hand as he approached. “Hear me out.”

  “I know enough,” he said walking toward me, eying an approaching car. “I thought you were going to help me. This doesn’t look like help.”

  Oskar and Marco stopped their advance toward me as a car passed. I used it as an opportunity to gain distance from them. I ran back toward the hill. Oskar looked at Marco. His glance sent Marco in pursuit. The reality is that even with two good ankles, I couldn’t outrun a professional soccer player. At the top of the ridge he soccer-kicked my bad ankle out from under me in mid-stride. I fell hard. Marco looked at me, unsure of what to do next, and then looked back at Oskar. I reached into my pocket and tried to pull out my phone discretely. Oskar was still in the road where a pickup truck had stopped. The ponytailed man was driving.

  “Marco!” Oskar waved for Marco to come.

  I rolled over, with my back to the road and pulled out my phone. I typed a text to Klara: “Inalco.”

  There was shouting from the road and I turned to see Oskar and Marco gesturing. I put my phone on silent and slipped it in my satchel. I pulled out my iPhone from Paris and put it in my pocket before I gave my bag a push down the hill and I rolled back toward the road.

  Marco was now behind the wheel of the truck. He turned it around and headed back the way it had come, back to Inalco. Oskar and the man approached me.

  “Get up,” Oskar said.

  I stood, bent at the waist. I let my phone fall to the ground. He picked it up and tossed it to the other man. They spoke in Spanish.

  “Keys,” Oskar said.

  They threw me into the tiny back seat of the rented Volkwagen for the short ride back to Inalco. They led me into the house, but there was no sign of Marco or the pickup truck. First, they took the tennis bag, which I still held over my shoulder. Oskar unzipped the bag to check it and set it aside. I tried again to get them to talk to me. The man with the ponytail approached. The thought occurred to me that he looke
d like he was about to punch me in stomach. And I was right. My attempt to block it was ineffective. As I doubled over my face met his elbow. Stinging tears filled my eyes as I hit the cold stone floor.

  The blows continued. Kicks, shoves and punches. I made no further attempt to speak. They dragged me to the car, dropped me into the trunk and pistol-whipped me. Right before the gun hit me in the face, one calm thought passed through my mind: they had a gun, but they hadn’t shot me. That was the last thing I remembered.

  I spent a day in a dream. Images of the trunk of a car. The bumps. Light. Another blow to the head. Insane dreams of Hitler, the house, Klara. The gun. The grandfather clock in the house. The dream ran in circles. Celeste and Marco. Claudette smiling. The statue of Napoleon on a horse in New Orleans. The same statue in Paris.

  I woke to blurry figures. A nurse, but little comfort. I tried to speak but couldn’t. Then I felt a coursing through my veins and I returned to the hell of my dreams. At some point, the dreams became calm. Serene. Klara again, this time it was Paris in spring with Howard Nixon. Bottles of red wine in the Touleries. I woke to a calming voice. Or was I awake? The voice was French. It was still a dream.

  “Michael?”

  My eyes felt glued shut. My tongue was sandpaper.

  “Michael? Tu m’entends?”

  I groaned. I tried to turn my head. It throbbed and I felt the neck brace.

  “Michael! C’est moi! Klara!”

  I coughed. “Kl..”

  “It’s me,” she said, still in French. “It’s okay. You are in hospital. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

  I finally focused my eyes. Her hair was coming loose from its clip, and a tear streaked down her face. She held a straw to my mouth and I took a drink.

  “The gun,” I said when she pulled the cup away. My voice was barely a whisper. “I had it. I had it.”

  “It’s okay. Don’t worry about that. You’re safe.”

  I tried to reach up and feel my face, but both of my arms had IVs in them. I felt numb below my neck. I wiggled my toes. Still moving. Klara held my hand.

  I think I fell back to sleep. When next I opened my eyes, Klara was sleeping in the chair next to the hospital bed, with her head on my stomach. This time I felt more lucid. I had more range in my arm and I stroked her hair. She turned slightly and opened her eyes.

  “Bonjour,” I said.

  She smiled and whispered it back. It was dark outside.

  “Quelle heure est-il?” I asked.

  “Six heures du matin,” she said looking at her phone.

  “Beunas dias,” came a soft voice from the doorway. A nurse had come to switch my IV bag. She murmured something in Spanish.

  “No, no hablo,” I said. “Un pequito solamente.” Only a little. She held up a pain chart with a series of faces from happy to mildly annoyed, to very, very upset. I didn’t really know my pain level. I tried lifting my arms. My whole body felt sore. I pointed the middle of the chart.

  “Quiere cafe?” she asked.

  “Oh, sí, sí,” I said with a smile that hurt.

  “Y tu hermana?”

  My “hermana”? Oh, I got it. “Sí,” I looked at Klara. “Voulez-vous du café? Ma soeur?” I winked at my new sister. Pain coursed through parts of my eye that I’d never felt.

  The nurse left.

  “My sister?” I asked in French.

  “It was the only way,” she said. “Celeste told them, actually.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I was hoping you could tell me. Inalco? You went there?”

  “Yes. Marco was staying there. I found the gun. I had it.”

  “Marco did this?”

  “No, he was there. They sent him away, although he did chase me down for them.”

  “No.” Klara was shocked by this.

  “Yeah. I know one of them. The other man, I don’t.” I felt my face again. It felt foreign. “How did I get here?”

  “They said a man returned your rental car. They found you in the trunk.”

  “Whoa,” I said, the reality of it was setting in. “That is...”

  “A police man was here. He will be back.”

  “And Marco? Have you found him? Celeste?”

  “No. His phone is off. Celeste slept at the hostel.”

  “My phone. What day is it?”

  “Monday.”

  I’d lost an entire day.

  “You didn’t have a phone, wallet, passport. Nothing. And it isn’t at the hostel.”

  “My bag. I tossed it down the hill, near Inalco. It has everything. My rented phone, laptop, passport. We’ve got to get it. It has record of the phone calls from Oskar Dietz on it. My god, we have to find the gun. They can’t get away with it.”

  “Who are they?”

  “This group, I don’t know. They want to open a Nazi museum. They think Hitler lived at Inalco after the war.”

  “I read about that theory.”

  There was a tap at the door. A trim man with a mustache stood at the threshold.

  “Buenas dias,” he said softly. “Señor Chance?”

  “Sí,” I said. “Habla inglés?”

  “Yes,” he said pulling up a folding chair. “I am Detective Duardo Amato. Can we have a few minutes to talk, in private?”

  “She can stay,” I said. “Her English isn’t very...”

  “Let’s start there. You are American, no? And your sister is Armenian.”

  I looked at Klara. Armenian? That was news.

  “I don’t have a sister,” I said. “I just woke up. She must have told them that so she could be with me.”

  “She is your girlfriend? You travel here together?”

  “No. We didn’t come here together,” I said.

  “She’s not your girlfriend?” he asked.

  “She is, but we didn’t come here together.”

  He jotted notes.

  “What are you doing here, Mr. Chance?”

  “I came here to...” I hesitated. “Señor Amato, I’m sorry if I’m a little confused. Do I need a lawyer?”

  He smiled and closed his eyes. “Why would you need to speak to a lawyer? Have you done something wrong?”

  “No. I came here to get something that was stolen from me.”

  “Do you use any illegal drugs?”

  “No. Is that a joke? You have no idea. Do you know who Oskar Dietz is?”

  “Mr. Chance, when someone is found beaten in the boot of a car, we need to be thorough.”

  “Do you know Oskar Dietz?”

  He closed his pen and looked at me.

  “How about Marco Rios? Surely you know him. Soccer player? Fútbol?”

  “We can test you for drugs.”

  I gestured at the IVs. “Really? Detective Amato, is it illegal to get beaten up and put in the trunk of a car in Argentina?”

  “There’s no need to get confrontational, Mr. Chance.”

  “Are you trying to find the men who did this? Oskar Dietz and a short, stocky bald man. There was a man with a ponytail. Marco Rios was with them, too. I can take you to his sister or his father. Do you know Freda Dietz, Oskar’s mother? She has a flower shop. She can tell you everything. I told you who did this. The next step is usually to apprehend them and question them.”

  “I’m not going to involve good citizens in the dirty work of...”

  “Thank you, Detective Amato. I will be calling my embassy. If you want to talk any further, I will be finding a lawyer.”

  “Mr. Chance. Once you refuse to cooperate, you make things very difficult for yourself.”

  “Thank you.”

  I filled Klara in on the conversation. A few minutes later the nurse came to the door. This time she had a serious look on her face. “Lo siento. I’m sorry. We will have to ask the young lady to leave. Family only. Visitation is from noon to four.”

  “Diez minutos, por favor,” I said. Klara gave me a disappointed look as the nurse walked out.

  “How far are we from the hostel
?”

  “Just a few streets over,” she said. “But your foot.”

  “Is it broken?” I sized up the soft boot on my foot.

  “No broken bones in your foot. Bad sprain. Broken ribs.”

  “Is there a doctor around here?” I asked.

  “He was here once yesterday after they stitched you up.”

  “Stitches? Do you have a mirror?”

  She handed me a makeup mirror from her bag. Klara pulled the tape off a bandage above my left eye. Black thread lined a jagged wound, almost two inches long. My right eye had a purple bruise under it and my upper lip was three times its normal size on the same side. Blood crusted under my nose. Klara went to the sink and wet a towel.

  “It’s not too bad,” she said, dabbing my nose.

  “I need to get out of here,” I said, trying to sit up. The pain in my chest caused me to cough, which hurt even worse. My head spun as I righted myself. My arms were sore from bruises where the IVs met my arms. I swung my feet toward the floor.

  “Careful,” Klara said. “Go slow.”

  The nurse came in. “No, no. No need to get up.”

  “El baño,” I said, and I meant it. I felt like I hadn’t urinated in a day. I realized I was wearing a lovely adult diaper. “Do you have my clothes?” I asked the nurse.

  “Oh, no. They cut them off of you, so that they don’t move you.”

  “I’ll call Celeste,” Klara said. “She can bring your bag.”