The Great Pretender: A Hector Lassiter novel Page 3

  But about three blocks along in the chilly night air, Hector realized his shadow had found him again.

  It wasn’t necessarily the trickiest of feats, not if the man had recognized Orson. If his stalker had identified the young actor, then Hector’s mysterious pursuer or any associates had only to stake out the theaters, studios or domiciles most associated with Welles in a gambit to re-acquire Hector’s trail. Christ, it didn’t even have to require that much effort—not if whoever was following him was tied to the false telegrams sent to both Hector and Orson.

  Well, contrary to what he’d said to Orson earlier, Hector decided he now very much did want to know what the stranger’s game was about.

  His shadow was about five-ten and looked quite thin under his black overcoat, so Hector figured he had crucial height and weight advantages over the man. That was all possibly fine if it came down to something hand-to-hand, but the stranger might also have a gun or two tucked away in the folds of that long, loose-fitting coat. About any of that, Hector simply couldn’t be certain.

  Then he caught a break: a panhandler put the arm on the stalker. This new player asked the man with the scarred face if he had a light, if he couldn’t bum a smoke.

  Hector’s pursuer insisted he didn’t have a light or a spare cigarette. The scar-faced man’s accent? Was it German?

  The beggar who wanted a smoke kept badgering.

  It was just enough distraction. Hector got in close behind his shadow and pushed two fingers up tight and hard against the man’s left kidney. He said softly, “You don’t want to die here tonight, do you friend? Please don’t make me shoot you through.” Holding out his Zippo and a few Pall Malls with this other hand, Hector said to the little man who’d made his ambush possible, “There you go, old pal. Breathe deep and move on along jiffy-like, right?”

  The beggar got his first cigarette going, winked his thanks and pushed on.

  When it was just the two of them, Hector reached around, patted about the scar-faced man’s torso, and pulled out a forty-five and the stranger’s wallet. The former seemed to make more of an impression upon the stranger. He said, “And now you have a gun?” His stalker spat on the pavement. “That is how it is, isn’t it? You tricked me.” The stranger was definitely German.

  “Let’s take a little walk, buddy,” Hector said. “You out in front, at least six-feet ahead. Make your way around that corner and down that alley to the adjacent street. Do it nice and easy, or I swear I’ll cost you a kidney. Or maybe I’ll just put you down in an easy jiffy.”

  The alley was all shadows and shafts of light in which sewer gases swirled from rusting grates and manhole lids.

  As they walked from cone of light to cone of light, Hector said, “How about a name, true or even false? At very least, it would just be useful to have something to call you, don’t you know.”

  “Kaspar Barth.” The unremarkable name was offered up so readily and unaffectedly Hector sensed it might actually be the man’s real handle. Either way, Hector said, “Okay, Kaspar. I suppose, for starters, you know who I am?”

  “Of course. Don’t waste our time with the obvious.”

  “Of course,” Hectored repeated. “You—or you and some friends—drew me here to New York to meet with Orson, didn’t you? So why are you tracking me? Why try to force this rendezvous with Mr. Welles?”

  Silence. They reached the alley. Still, the man wasn’t talking.

  “Stonewalling isn’t a winning strategy,” Hector said. He flipped open the man’s wallet and found some cards that supported the stranger’s stated identity. So, Kaspar was apparently not a liar—not in that respect at least.

  There was another card inside, mostly white and decorated with this strange image: the card was emblazoned with a black sun in which were centered two crooked crosses. A single word was printed on the card. Scowling at the piece of thin cardboard, Hector said, “What, or who in the hell, is Thule?”

  More silence. Hector said, “What is it exactly you want that makes you follow me like this?”

  Kaspar said sharply, “Just this. Do you still have it? Does Herr Welles perhaps have it instead?”

  Hector shrugged. “Do either of us still have what? What the hell are you after?”

  His captive put his hands into the pockets of his greatcoat. He looked dejected. “If you have to ask me that then it’s clear you don’t possess it.”

  “My patience has never been much worth remarkin’ on,” Hector said. “That’s by way of a warning in addition to a lament, partner. Call it a warning — the polite part of our discussion is very near to drawing shut, I fear. I’d really like not to hurt you, you know.”

  “Feh, just shoot me now if that is so,” Kaspar said. “I’ll not talk, so why waste anymore of your time, or mine?”

  “I’d do that because I think you’re underestimating how far I might go to compel you to cooperate,” Hector said.

  Kaspar said, “And you’re underestimating me if you truly think I’m alone.”

  A gun at Hector’s back. Another German accent ordered him to keep still, then a gloved hand reached around him. “Surrender your weapon,” a new voice said to Hector.

  Cursing, Hector did that.

  But then there was a third voice and this one was female. “You drop your gun, now, bekannter,” the woman said to the second German. “Do it gently!”

  Hissing, the second man did that, stooping to place his gun on the ground.

  Hector started to half-turn to get a better look at this providential female stranger. She handed Hector back his gun. As she did that, the scar-faced German suddenly dove for one of the discarded guns. Hector fired and the back of the scar-faced man’s head disintegrated in a pink spray, splashing a tattered poster touting The Cradle Will Rock at the Windsor Theatre.

  The second German raised his hands in surrender, but the woman shot him cleanly between the eyes. She turned the gun on Hector.

  He raised his hands, said thickly, “So he wasn’t your friend, after all? Not either of them?” His mouth was suddenly very dry, his underarms damp. “Am I next in line?”

  “Don’t be absurd,” the stranger said, her voice all silk and smoke. She was apparently American, but Hector, who’d spent many years in Paris after the Great War and through the early 1920s, thought he detected a little French accent in there, as well. She said, “Isn’t it clear I’m here to save you? I rearmed you, after all.”

  “It is clearer now, but only for you having said it,” Hector said, forcing a smile. “Can I please put my hands down? Might I fetch a fresh smoke?”

  “Of course,” the woman said. “You speak some German?”

  “Some,” Hector said, pocketing his gun and getting another Pall Mall going. “A little, here and there. Strong on Spanish and French, got some Italian… and I have a smattering of German. At least know the word ‘friend’ in Kraut.”

  The woman was backlit, so Hector couldn’t make out much yet other than the fact she was slender yet shapely. And very tall. All-in-all, she presented an enticing silhouette.

  The woman slid her gun into the pocket of her Black Watch tartan overcoat and put her own cigarette between her lips. She leaned into his lighter, grasping his hand to guide it there, then said, “Tell me, Hector Lassiter who knows at least a little German, are you familiar with the name Rudolf von Sebottendorf?”

  “Definitely not,” Hector said carefully, slipping his Zippo back into his pocket.

  “What about Adam Alfred Rudlof Glauer?”

  “Not that fella, either.”

  “They are the same man,” the pretty stranger said. “Dear Lord, we really do need to talk it seems.”

  “So let’s do that before cops or pedestrians start finding us, or worse, finding these corpses.” Hector pointed at the dead men. “Ever been to the Cobalt Club?”

  “Never,” the woman said. “Certainly sounds better than the Pink Rat.”

  “Never heard of that joint,” Hector said. They were shrouded in sha
dow and it was still hard for Hector to get a clear look at the woman. Hector said, “This Pink Rat sounds like the perfect dive.”

  “Oh, it’s more than that,” the woman said. “It’s on the West Side, near the wharfs. These,” she pointed at the corpses they’d just made, “seemed to favor that dump.”

  Hector offered an arm and the woman slipped hers through. “So we’ll find a cab before anyone else finds them,” he said of the dead Germans. “The Cobalt Club it is.”

  CHAPTER 4

  THE WHITE LEGION

  The rain pounded harder as they drove through the glistening streets of Manhattan; the thunder and lighting stepped up their pace, too.

  On the cab ride over, Hector tried to study his savior in the gloom of the cab, but he was still unable to get a good look at her.

  A bit later, inside the lobby of the tony New York night club, Hector could at last get a much better view as he helped her off with her stylish coat.

  The woman wore a black dress that emphasized a generous bust. The dark dress was cinched at her trim waist with a wide, black patent leather belt adorned with an Art Deco-style buckle emblazoned with ziggurats. Crisply pleated, her skirt reached half way between knee and ankle of her long and shapely legs.

  When she removed her black fedora to pass it to the nearly as sleek but more skin-baring hat check girl, Hector saw his accidental companion wore her long, glistening blue-black hair in a loose-curled up-do. There was some natural wave in that hair, he thought.

  She had a sensual, full mouth, painted dark crimson. The woman also boasted high cheekbones and coppery skin, just shy of suggesting “high-yellow.” That made Hector wonder if she was perhaps of mixed race.

  But it was her eyes that truly startled and engaged him. They were candid, wide and the palest shade of gray. Hector found them at once unsettling and bewitching.

  “We’re about twenty minutes in,” Hector said, offering her arm as they made their way to a table, “and I still don’t know your name.”

  A smile, with dimples. “That would be Cassie Allegre.”

  “I really like that, not that it maybe matters to you. What’ll you drink, Cass?”

  “How about an Old Fashioned?”

  “Sounds perfect,” he said.

  He caught a waitress’s eye. Their server was sleeved in a metallic silver gown that bared proud shoulders and plenty of back.

  Cassie watched Hector watching their server go and smirked. “Such a wolf. It appears you do live down to your reputation as a lady’s man, Mr. Lassiter.”

  “So tell me about yourself,” Hector said, smiling and striving to look apologetic. “You’re the perfect mystery to me and clearly have all the advantages in terms of knowing something about me and my too widely reported foibles. Tell me, please, about all this tied to you. Chiefly, what terrible thing have I evidently done to Germany I know nothing about?”

  “What is it you and Mr. Welles have done might be the cannier question,” Cassie said. “Or, more exactly, what is it that you have that the Germans want?”

  Hector scooped up some pretzels from a bowl sitting between them. “Okay. Sure. I’ll bite. What might that be, exactly?”

  “And there we have it, yes?” A rueful smile, bracketed by her enticing dimples. “The fact you have to ask me what this is all about underscores you don’t even know what you may have.” A hand wave. “If you even still possess it.” Still another qualification followed with a pointed finger, “If you ever actually had it.”

  “Spoken more than a bit like our dead German friends,” Hector said. “So I’ll confess I’m at sea. On that note…” Hector reached into his pocket and showed her the wallet he’d taken from one of the dead men. “What I know I do have is one Kaspar Barth’s billfold. That, and this strange card bearing a single word, Thule. What is that exactly? Do you have any clue?”

  Cassie tapped the end of her cigarette on their shared ashtray. “Here’s where you laugh. Thule is a secret society. A malevolent one. You’ve truly not heard of the Thule?” She pronounced it differently from Hector, as too-lee.

  Hector shook his head. “Truly. Not. About tool-lee, I mean. Do please illuminate me.” He raised his eyebrows. “And malevolent? Really?” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard that adjective actually used in conversation.

  She wetted her full bottom lip, laced her fingers on the table. “You are familiar with the Nazis, Mr. Lassiter?”

  “Please call me Hector. And yes, painfully aware of those sorry bastards. The whole world knows about them, of course.” He blew smoke out both nostrils, settling back in his chair. “What I really want to know is about you and Thule.” Softer he said, careful not to be overheard, “You shot that German, summarily. Hell, your hand didn’t even shake, darlin’.”

  “Yes.” Cassie shrugged her padded shoulders. “As to shooting him, I was protecting you. They’d have killed you soon enough, please believe me about that.”

  Hector did happen to believe her about that much. He said, “You’re Creole aren’t you?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Your looks, your accent… and your last name.”

  “From New Orleans, yes. Studied in Paris a few years. But as to the rest, what’s in a name?”

  “Plenty, too often,” Hector said. “So, on that note, tell me about Thule.”

  “It begins, more or less, with that man with the two names I asked you about. The German you said you’ve never heard of. I guess he kind of started all that. Thule is a secret occult society. One filled with killers now. Nazis of all stripes. Some of them are formidable men. They view themselves as actual realizations of the übermensch ideal. They see themselves as virtually invulnerable, rather like that comic book character—you know, Superman.”

  Whispering again, Hector said, “We killed those men tonight with little to no fuss. I didn’t see any bullets bouncing off ’em. So much for German supermen.”

  “Those were merely foot soldiers. Grunts or minions. But still, they were Nazis, and so hardly human in that sense.” She searched his face. “It actually bothers you I killed that man? You don’t seem the squeamish type.”

  “He was in the process of surrendering.”

  “Or do you think it was just the appearance of surrender?”

  Hector didn’t answer. She pressed on, “Do I scare you then? Do you regard me as a killer now?”

  Hector loosened his tie, then decided to remove it entirely. He rolled his necktie up and shoved it into the pocket of his suit coat. He rarely wore ties, hated them in fact. Loosening the top button of his dress shirt, Hector said, “Anyway, what is this secret society all about? What binds these crazy birds?”

  Cassie settled back in her chair, quiet as their waitress brought their drinks. Hector kept all attention on his companion as their server sashayed away, the practiced swing of her hips wasted on Hector this round.

  Alone again, they tapped glasses and Hector said, “Santé.”

  Cassie smiled back and said, “Ochan.”

  “So, back to it. These Thule?”

  She sipped her drink, played with the cherry, then ate it. A sigh. “I keep hesitating only based on what I know about you from your reputation. I expect there’ll be little patience on your part for what’s to come.”

  Hector smiled. “Not necessarily. I’m intrigued as hell. And, clearly, I’m in some danger from these Germans, regardless what I might think about the supernatural or occult, which, as you correctly guess, is pretty much nil.”

  “Just not the spiritual type, Mr. Lassiter?”

  “Oh, I’m plenty spiritual, or so I like to think. Just not particularly religious.”

  “Fair enough. I think I know what you mean by that. So, the Thule Society as we know it now, as we and these Germans care about it, traces it roots back to around the time of the Great War.”

  “It is truly occult?”

  “To its black bones,” Cassie said. She leaned across the table into the candleligh
t. “You have to open your mind to this much at least, Hector. The Germans, the Nazi Party—at very least some key figures close to Hitler, and maybe even Hitler himself, if some stories are to be believed—they set real stock in the Thule Society and certain valuable religious artifacts it covets. Artifacts they believe bestow their keepers almost God-like powers. They actually are seeking the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant and the item that concerns you and Mr. Welles.”

  She was too right: everything Cassie was telling him now struck Hector as well beyond daft. Still, two men were dead because of all of this crazy nonsense. Two dead that he knew about. There was no reason to doubt others might have also been killed for this farce. He said, “And this Holy Roller item that apparently should matter to Orson and I, what is that exactly?”

  The candlelight burnished her pale gray eyes. She sipped more of her drink, then said, “Have you ever heard of the Holy Lance of Longinus? Of his spear?”

  “Nah, but that is surely an odd handle,” Hector said, sipping his own drink. “This old boy and his spear sounds more than a little like the makings of a Tijuana Bible. Who is this Longinus character?”

  “Who was he,” Cassie corrected.

  “Okay, who was Longinus?”

  “He was a Roman soldier purported to be present at Christ’s crucifixion. Some legends have it they were contemplating breaking Christ’s legs to hasten His death. Longinus thrust his spear into Jesus’ side to see if He was still alive. Blood and water gushed from His wound. So, the Savior’s blood came in contact with the spear’s tip. Ever since, that weapon has been believed to possess boundless supernatural powers. Most call the Holy Lance the Spear of Destiny. Any army or leader that controls the spear is said to be unstoppable.” She hesitated, then added, “And those who lose possession of the Holy Lance are said to die almost immediately after its loss. They always die violently.”

  “So Thule is just some kind of crazy religious cult, just as you’ve described it,” Hector said. “Just a load of mumbo-jumbo and wrong-headed faith?”

  A shake of the head. Cassie said, “A faith? No, that’s grossly understating it. Thule is an occult secret society. Its members believe their cult descends from Gods you or I would dismiss as Norse myths. But they really believe in these ancient deities and legends. They do that like all those around here in this gaudy place likely believe in Jesus Christ, I suppose. Thule is quietly but potently central to the Nazi movement, whether Hitler himself realizes it or not. The concept of Thule and racial purity underpins the whole concept of the Master Race that fuels Himmler’s vision of the S.S.”