“Depends on who’s asking,” Keegan said cautiously.
The man moved into the light.
It was Werner Gebhart. Avrum Wolffson’s chief lieutenant in the Black Lily.
“Perhaps you remember me?” he whispered from the shadows. “We met in Berlin.”
Keegan was astounded to see the young German. “My God, Gebhart, of course I remember you,” he said, motioning him into the open. “Come in, come in.”
Gebhart moved quickly. They shook hands as Keegan led him through the private entrance and down the hallway to his private elevator. Gebhart looked frightened, his eyes frantically checking the street as they entered the hallway.
“Is something wrong?” Keegan asked.
“Yes,” Gebhart answered. “I am an illegal.”
“Not here you’re not,” Keegan said with a reassuring smile.
“Mazel tov,” Gebhart said, and there was relief in his voice.
When the elevator doors closed, Gebhart relaxed. Keegan remembered him as being an innocent, slender man-boy, youthfully arrogant and suspicious. He had put on twenty hard pounds and his face was ridged by hard times. He had tortured eyes, half pleading, half angry, the kind that had seen too much suffering, had lost too many friends and had seen the kinds of things that rob the young of their innocence. His black beard was already streaked with gray. How old was he, Keegan wondered? Mid-twenties at best. Looking at the toll the Nazis and Black Lily had taken on Gebhart in four years, Keegan wondered what the years had done to Avrum Wolffson.
“Avrum?” Keegan asked.
“Alive.”
“And well?”
Gebhart nodded. “He has become too hard. It shows.”
“And what of your other friend . . . ?“
“Joachim Weber?” Gebhart answered. “Joachim was murdered by the Nazis.
Keegan’s shoulders sagged. My God, he thought, the madness never ends. “I’m sorry, Werner,” he said.
Gebhart simply nodded.
“When did you get here?” Keegan asked.
“About ten o’clock.”
“You’ve been waiting here for five hours?”
“Yes.”
“How long have you been in the country?”
“Since ten o’clock. I came on a steamer from Portugal.”
“Good! You must stay here. It’s perfectly safe and all my people have closed lips.”
Gebhart held up his hand. “Please, ire, that part of it is taken care of. I have a place. Someone who has worked with us for years. On Fifth Avenue. I understand there is a park across the street.”
Keegan smiled. “Central Park. Pretty fancy digs up there, Werner.”
“So I have heard.”
“You haven’t been there yet?”
Gebhart shook his head. “I came here first. It was Avrum’s wish that I see you first.”
“God, it’s good to see you again,” Keegan said finally. “I haven’t heard from Avrum for all these years. I thought. . . hell, I thought everything.”
“It is dangerous even to send out letters. But I have a present from him. And a message for you. He said to tell you it is the one you owe him.”
Keegan laughed. “He has a helluva memory. The last thing I said to him, That’s one I owe you. It was a joke.”
“Avrum doesn’t joke.”
Keegan thought for a moment before he nodded. “I had forgotten.”
He was avoiding the big question, almost afraid to ask. The elevator reached the penthouse and he led Gebhart into the kitchen. “I have a cook,” he said, “but she won’t be here until seven. I’m sure we can scrounge up something. How about a steak and some eggs?”
“Such a lot of trouble.”
“Peel off the coat and grab a chair. It’s no trouble at all. I can scramble a mean egg and burn a steak.”
Keegan opened two bottles of German pilsner and put one in front of Gebhart. Gebhart reached into his duffel bag and took out a package. He laid it on the table and slid it in front of Keegan.
“From Avrum.”
Keegan picked it up. It was flat, about the thickness, size and shape of a sheet of typewriter paper and bound with twine. He held it in both hands for a moment as if it were emitting some kind of psychic energy.
“All right, how about Jenny?” Keegan finally asked as he reached into a drawer, took out a pair of scissors and cut the string.
“It’s ... probably . . . in the letter,” Gebhart answered haltingly.
Keegan stared at him but Gebhart averted his look, stared down at the beer bottle, took a long swig of beer.
“Werner?”
His visitor stared slowly back up into his eyes.
“Is she dead, Werner?”
The moment seemed to poise in the air before Gebhart finally said
“Yes”
and stared away again.
Keegan said nothing. In his heart, he had known she was gone. He felt no tears, no numbing pain of reality. He felt only outrage and the galvanic anger which had consumed him for almost five years. He looked down at the table, nodded very slowly. There was very little expression on his face. He remembered what Beerbohm had said once about getting even. But how? There was no way to really get even. Get even with whom? That was part of the frustration, there was no one to fight, no one to take on.
“I am sorry,” Gebhart whispered.
Keegan sat down and held the unopened package tightly between his two hands, then he put it back down on the table.
“Excuse me a minute,” he said in a voice that was just above a whisper. He walked over to the sink and, holding cupped hands under the tap, splashed his face with cold water. He sat back down at the table, his hands splayed out on either side of the package, staring at it.
“I’m sorry for you, too, Gebhart.”
“Why, Ire?”
“Because you were in love with her too. It was obvious—the way you talked about her, the way you looked when you spoke her name, your concern. Your obvious dislike of me. You did love her, didn’t you, Werner?”
The German did not answer for a full minute. The lines in his face seemed to grow harder. Then he shrugged and smiled for the first time.
“Ire, I fell in love with Jenny the first time I saw her,” Gebhart said softly. “I was fourteen and she was seventeen. Her family moved to the house next door. Avrum and I became best friends but she always loved me as sister to brother, so that is what she was, my good friend. My good, good friend. But I do understand how you must feel, Ire. To hope for so long
“I gave up hope a long time ago,” Keegan said. “But I kept hanging on to a fantasy.”
He went to the stove, cracked two eggs on the griddle and threw the steak on beside them. He put bread in the oven to make toast. When it was all ready, he put the food on a plate and set it in front of his visitor.
“Coffee? Milk? Anything else?”
“This is quite grand,” Gebhart said. “The food on the ship was . . less than desirable.”
“So,” Keegan said, sitting across from him. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“Are you sure you want to hear, Ire?”
“Yes. I want to know everything you can tell me.”
Gebhart ate like a starved man, talking between mouthfuls in a monotone, bereft of emotion.
“There was an attempted escape from the camp. Half a dozen of the younger men attempted to breach the fences. They used steel rods they made in the foundry to short-circuit the electricity. Three of them actually got out. The others were shot down on the wires. But the cleared area between the fence and the trees was mined. One of them stepped on a mine and … and it. . . blew off his legs.”