Joe Bones, Mariucci had learned tonight, worked at Coney now. Ever since his retirement from family-related activities, he’d been the night man at the Wheel. Since it was a Friday night and not quite midnight, Mariucci figured his best chance of finding Joey was at Coney. The rides closed at midnight, so he was probably still here. He’d got on his cell and called in the homicide as they ran down the stairs of the rest home. The meat wagon was already en route to Bide-a-Wee. He figured Lavon wasn’t going anywhere. The big man was still standing over the corpse and weeping when they ran out of the room.
Chapter Thirty-four
Bad Reichenbach
FRAU IRMA WORE JACKBOOTS UNDER HER LONG BLACK skirt, Stoke was pretty sure. Shiny black ones, right up to her chubby, pink little knees. She wasn’t the prettiest girl in Bavaria. She had her wispy grey-blonde hair pinned up in two big doughnuts on each side of her head. She had a square, flat face with a beaky nose right in the middle of it. She wore some kind of heavy white face powder, although she was already quite white enough, in Stoke’s humble opinion. She had a short, compact body, and one good thing you could say about her, she looked very strong for a woman.
“Zo,” Irma said to Jet, looking down at her registration book, “we had no idea you were coming.”
“We’re hiking,” Jet said, repeating what she’d already said twice when they were still standing outside, hot and thirsty in the blazing sun at the front door. The Frau was obviously very surprised to see Jet without her boyfriend the baron. And when Jet had introduced Stokely Jones as her personal trainer, she’d looked at him as if he were some giant alien specimen of another life-form. Stoke had smiled and said Guten Tag, but she didn’t seem to understand his German too well. GOO-ten TOG. Had to work on that one.
“Ach. Hiking,” Frau Irma Winterwald said, but not in a warm, welcoming way. The way she said it, Stoke thought maybe hiking was strictly prohibited in these mountains. The gasthaus, Zum Wilden Hund, was a little spooky inside. Thick velvet drapes kept out most of the sunlight. The carved furniture was heavy and dark and there were a lot of shaggy heads with beady glass eyes mounted high up on the walls. Dead stags and deer and bears all staring down at the huge man in hiking shorts as if it were him who should be up on the wall and not them.
The guest house, Stoke decided, was a Bavarian version of the Bates Motel.
Another weird thing was the music. There was very loud piano music coming from a great big grand piano at the far end of the room. The guy playing, Herr Winterwald, was too old to be Irma’s husband so Stoke figured it must be her father. He was blind and wore dark glasses and a dark green felt jacket with buttons made out of bone. His white hair stuck straight out from his head as if he were permanently undergoing electrocution. The music he was now playing sounded like new-wave Nazi marching tunes, if there was any such thing.
Irma noticed Stoke staring at the guy and said, “He is a genius, no?”
“Yes,” Stoke said, “I mean, no.”
“Zo,” Irma was saying, “It will just be for the one night, ja?”
“One night,” Jet said with her best actress smile.
“Und, ein Zimmer? You will need only one room?” the frau was looking not at Jet but at Stoke when she said this. She gave him her most suggestive look. Lascivious was the word. Stoke gave her his biggest smile and held up two fingers.
“No,” Jet said, “We will need two rooms, Frau Winterwald.” Stoke could tell it was taking all of Jet’s considerable acting skills not to jump over the counter and rip this ugly toad of a woman’s head right off. You can tell when two women don’t like each other much. It’s not pretty.
“Zo, zwei Zimmer. One for Fräulein Jet, und one for Mr.—”
“Jones,” Stoke said and she wrote it down with her big fat ink pen. Real ink, Stoke noticed. These people didn’t mess around.
“Jones,” she repeated, drawing the word out as she wrote it. “Such an American name, ja?”
“I’m an American,” Stoke said, shrugging his shoulders. Jet gave him a quick wink.
“Zo, alles gut. No luggage at all?” Irma asked. She stood on tiptoes and peered over the desk as if luggage was about to magically appear. She had fishy eyes, Stoke noticed, man-eating fish eyes.
“No luggage,” Jet said.
“Still no luggage,” Stoke said, unable to stop himself.
“Und, tell me, how is Baron von Draxis, dear girl? We have not seen him much since the skiing is over,” Irma said. “Have we, Viktor?”
Viktor shook his head and kept playing his piano. It suddenly hit Stoke who he looked like. Albert Einstein. Just goes to show you that a bad haircut can make anyone look dumb.
“He is very well,” Jet said. “He and I have been traveling in the Mediterranean aboard Valkyrie. You’ve heard perhaps, Frau Winterwald, that Baron von Draxis and I are getting married in September?”
It was a very different Frau Irma Winterwald who looked up and answered that question. “Nein, my child, I had no idea! How splendid! I am delighted for you, dear girl. He is the most marvelous man! And so rich! What a catch, you lucky girl! Would you and your friend like to have lunch in the garden?”
They ate in a fenced-in garden on the sunny side of the house. Frau Irma, now a smiling, benevolent creature, brought them each a glass of cold white wine with their menus. Stoke ordered the Wiener schnitzel since it was the only thing he recognized and he thought he liked it. Jet, no surprise, ordered a green salad, and Frau Winterwald bowed and scraped her way back inside the house. You could hear Viktor banging out his neo-Nazi marching tunes even out here in the garden.
“Irma La Not So Douce,” Stoke whispered to Jet after she’d disappeared back inside.
Jet smiled. “Yes. That old bitch has always hated me. I think we’re okay, though. You did well.”
“I’m great as long as I don’t talk. You know what’s funny? They’ve got one page of food on this menu and thirty pages of wine list.”
“You should see the wine cellar,” Jet said, looking at him carefully. “Maybe tonight when they’ve gone to bed.”
“I knew there had to be a reason you brought me here,” Stoke said, smiling at her. “Other than the hospitality.”
“She reads to him after supper. They usually go to sleep at ten,” Jet said. “I’ve brought a little something to put in their tea. I’ll make sure they’re out and knock on your door sometime after midnight.”
“They don’t keep the cellar locked?”
“I know where she hides the key.”
It was sometime after two in the morning when Stoke and Jet descended into the funky-smelling gloom of the gasthaus cellar. The steps leading down from Frau Irma’s kitchen were old worn stone and slippery, and he had to hold Jet’s arm to get them down without falling. He had the little Swiss army flashlight he’d put in his knapsack and he kept it aimed at Jet’s feet so she didn’t slip.
On the wall at the bottom of the steps was an iron fixture with a candle, and Stoke found a box of matches on the shelf under it. He lit the candle and took a look around. He’d never seen so much wine in his life. The little room they were in had shelves up to the ceiling full of dusty bottles and there were corridors leading off in every direction, both walls lined with shelves full of wine.
“Schatzi’s pride and joy,” Jet said. “The largest collection of prewar Bordeaux in Germany. Come on, it’s this way.”