The cold Vienna sky was red with flames, and they were huddled breathless against a line of low bushes, Jack with his Argus camera, Billie with her notebook and her keen eye, recording every detail. All around them was the violent crashing of glass and crackling of fire, shocking shouts and screams as mobs of civilians and SS soldiers gleefully smashed windows along the street and torched the shops within. All over the city it was the same, ferocious mobs spontaneously joining together—or was it planned, Billie wondered? She’d entered the synagogue briefly, moving with the crowd, Jack at her side, the two of them following the activity when it first began, and, seeing the smashing of the pews and the curtain of the ark torn to pieces, they’d retreated once the mob lit fires and the synagogue had filled with smoke. Now hidden outside, obscured by the row of bushes across the street, they watched as a German soldier in those high leather boots kicked a man of about sixty to the ground just a few feet from where they were hidden. He was in his nightshirt andheld his hands aloft, pleading and unarmed, and with horror they watched helplessly, soundlessly, as the man was set upon by angry Austrians, men no fewer than twenty in number, who took turns to viciously kick and stomp, cheered on by the soldier, reducing what had moments before been a human man, wailing and crying out for help, into something Billie had not seen before, something broken and bloody, shattered and pushed into the cobblestones on which they’d stood only minutes before.
She closed her eyes.
Open them. Open your eyes.
Something woke Billie Walker with a start, long before the usual time, long before it was decent for a Sunday morning. It was still dark and the birds were resting their songs. Only the faintest sunlight came into her room. Yet she’d needed to wake. Was it something in her dream? She’d been dreaming of Kristallnacht again, she realized. The Night of Broken Glass.
Billie was no morning person, and on this particular morning her head was heavy, so heavy. Somewhere far off in her mind suspicions were continuing to form about just how tired she was, just how tired she’d been. She could hold her liquor. It wasn’t like her to collapse into bed or, conversely, to wake with the dawn. Through the heaviness she detected something out of place, some shift. Breath held, she listened, still prone. Not a sound. Not a movement or creaking floorboard. Something else. She swiveled her head. Her bedroom door had been ajar when her eyes had closed, but the angle was different now, by a few degrees. She grabbed her Colt and sat up, holding it out in front of her. The movement brought a most unpleasant throb to her temples, and, involuntarily, her eyes closed again.
Something...
When she forced her eyes open seconds later she found herself awake. A startlingly sober kind of awake, with freight trains running across her nerves. She was not alone. A man was on the floor next to her bed.
With a jump she was up on bare feet, standing over him in her wrinkled slip with her little gun poised in her hands, her finger positioned lightly over the trigger. She was momentarily confused, then lowered the Colt to her side.
Con Zervos, still very much dead, was sprawled on the Persian rug.
Fifteen
When Billie knocked on thedoor at the end of the hall one floor up, clad in her peach robe and matching slippers, her hair tousled and the mascara of the night before smudged around one eye, it was Alma who answered. Such was the early hour, the baroness’s lady’s maid was not yet neatly put together. Her eyes were watery from the rude awakening, and she wore a quilted robin’s-egg-blue robe, hastily tied with a sash and buttoned at the neck. Alma’s hair was in pin curls, held under a brown net, and her thinly plucked brows were pulled high in surprise.
Billie pushed past her, aware from Alma’s expression that her countenance was alarming. She was aware, too, that her hair had not been brushed and had gathered on her head in something like a dark bird’s nest. That was unimportant.
“Can you lock the door? I need to see Mum right away,” Billie instructed urgently, forgoing niceties. Alma did as requested, unspoken questions on her tongue. “I’ll need you, too, I think,” Billieadded. At this, Alma’s already wide-eyed expression exaggerated further. She moved off to Ella’s room without a word.
Her mother took some time to be roused. There was little doubt where Billie got her sleeping genes. Billie turned on some lights, then paced around the living room, trying to think the situation over. After what felt like half an hour but was probably closer to five minutes, the baroness emerged in hair scarf and curlers, a satin eye mask pulled up to her forehead and a belted black silk robe embroidered with flowers hanging from her slender form. Her feet were bare, black satin slippers in her hand, and her eyes were unfocused and bloodshot. She had no eyebrows to speak of, having plucked them away when it was the rage.
“Darling, you look a shocker,” Ella said automatically, looking her daughter up and down with astonishment and a fair measure of disapproval. Billie resisted returning the compliment. “Really, darling, you look pale as the moon. What time is it?” With a confused expression, she began searching the living room for a clock. “What’s all this about? I thought it was lunch we were having. It’s practically still dark out. What time is it?” she repeated. “You can’t go out like that.”
In her days as a war reporter, Billie had seen torn-up soldiers coming out of anesthesia talk with about as much sense as her mother was now. For her part, Alma observed the muddled exchange and walked off to the kitchen. The sound and smell of coffee being ground soon emerged. Wonderful, blessedly clever woman. Though Billie preferred black tea on most occasions, the aroma of strong coffee was quite appealing under the circumstances. She could use a bucket of the stuff at this hour.
“You’re wearing the necklacenow,with... that?” It was still around Billie’s neck. She distantly remembered having been tootired to manage the clasp at three in the morning. “What do you need your gun for?” Ella continued, now with more clarity, and Billie realized she was still holding the thing at her side, gripped tightly in her right hand. She released her white-knuckled grip and placed the weapon gently on a table.
“Sorry. Mother...Ella...This isn’t about lunch today. I have to cancel that anyway. I have to attend an auction, I think... Well, never mind that for now.” Billie put her hands on her mother’s shoulders and looked steadily into her eyes. “There is a... problem. I need your help.”
“Good goddess, at six in the morning?” Ella broke away from Billie’s gaze and rubbed at her eyes. “Alma, coffee, please,” she muttered, though Alma could scarcely have heard her from the kitchen and was well ahead of that thought process. “Are you okay?” She looked searchingly at Billie.
“I’m physically unharmed, Mum. Don’t worry. I think... Well, it looks like I’ve been set up, and we have scant time to fix the situation. I’m not sure we have time for coffee.”
She paused, the reality dawning on her in increments. She’d been drugged at The Dancers. Someone had followed her to the People’s Palace, or rather followed poor Con. “Someone is trying very hard to get me out of the way. It must be the new case. Yes, I’m sure of it.”
After sharing her life with Billie’s father for so many years, Ella was more aware than most—certainly most society women—of the situations people in Billie’s line of work might find themselves in. “Set up? How?” she asked, her eyes clearing and that old steely intelligence coming back into them.
“I think you’d better come down and see for yourself,” Billie said.
She took her mother by the hand, unlocked the door, peered out, and led her down the staircase toward her flat. As they came out on her floor, she checked the corridor. Everything was unchanged, still dark, still silent, not a neighbor stirring. They crept down the carpeted hall in their slippers. Billie unlocked the door of her flat, looked both ways again, held her breath, and listened. No creaks. No breathing. It was as quiet as a grave. Once satisfied they were alone, she ushered her mother inside and locked the door behind them.
“There is a man in here,” she said in a whisper, and moved with her toward her bedroom. They stood at the open door and looked.
“Great Hera!” her mother said simply, eyes riveted to the form on the floor.
“I saw him last night, the same man. Con Zervos is his name. He was just like this, but in his own lodgings over at the People’s Palace.” The clothes were the same, even his shirt, still partially undone. The main difference was the increasing greenish-blue tinge of his skin. The past few hours had not improved things. “By the time the cops came he was gone and they tried to tell me I’d imagined it,” she continued. “Someone must have taken the body before the cops got there. Then I woke up this morning to find him. Someone switched it up so he’d be here in my flat. They moved the body in here while I was sleeping.”
She realized what she was saying. Someone had come into her room while she was passed out on her bed in her slip. Billie shivered and wondered fleetingly if she’d ever be able to sleep again.
“You are unharmed?” Ella asked, watching her daughter’s face carefully.
“I’m unharmed, just as I was when I fell asleep. Although I was slipped something that knocked me out. No one looted the place,either. Your sapphire earrings are right here...” She pointed. “No, they’re gone,” she realized with another layer of horror. Whoever was here had swiped them, the rat. “I was too tired to get the necklace off. That clasp is tricky... but it looks like someone took the earrings. I’m so sorry...”
