The Grandfather Clock (26 page)

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 looked 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?”