Page 52 of Double Shot
I felt an upwelling of anger in my chest when I saw what they had done. Her hair was almost gone, and what remained was a bright almost silvery blonde. Her makeup changed the contours of her face, and the lipstick was wrong, too dark. She looked like a completely different person, not my Shady but some bookish dry woman, ten years older, and the outfit was awful. Beige stockings, a twill skirt, conservative old lady’s blouse and a button-up blazer to match the skirt.
“What the fuck, mate.” I felt my throat get tight.
“First, calm down,” Roan said. “It’s a bloody wig, nothing’s been permanently changed.”
“I bet you wouldn’t have recognized me if I came and sat at the table next you at the biergarten,” Sadie said with a little sass.
“No.” I clenched my fists.
“Yes, I sat behind you for a good fifteen minutes. You barely touched your gallon of beer or your appetizer. Not that I blame you, pickled onions are gross.” She smiled. “I guess that means that the mission is on?”
“Aye, it is,” Roan said, grinning.
I felt the anger subside; this could actually work.
* * *
It took lessthan four hours for Malmaison to respond to Roan’s pictures and query to visit the gallery and have him authenticate a British timepiece recovered from Dunkirk. He seemed most interested, and setting up the meeting was astoundingly easy. He made a show of how luckyFraulinewas that he was even in town.
An hour after that, Roan and I watched as Sadie,FraulineIsla Schneider, lately of America, visited the gallery. We were staked out in the plaza, close enough to keep a line of sight to the doors, and stay in range of the earpiece she was wearing. It was Bluetoothed to our earpieces so we could all hear everything that went down. Roan was ready to feed her any information she needed, something he called his millionaire plan; some game show bullshit.
I would have killed for a video feed, but the handful of video-capable devices we could get our hands on were either incredibly obvious, or the resolution was only good enough for filming first-person sex in public videos. Her legs looked great as she mounted the steps to the gallery, and the door opened promptly after her two police knocks. Malmaison greeted her personally and walked her inside.
He spoke a quick and fluid German, but Sadie interrupted him politely to forgive her for being an American and only speaking one language. He himself apologized, no doubt pausing to take in that flash of cleavage visible through the top of her blouse. They discussed some of the art he had hanging in the gallery, and we both listened.
Art was worth more than gold, more than platinum. Some old paintings were priceless, and the Nazis stole a ton of the shit. Roan seemed to be making a catalog of the pieces Malmaison was telling her about. Periodically, Roan would prompt her to stall him, get him talking about a piece while he did more of his computer stuff.
It was maddening. There was nothing for me to do but try to sit and not look like I was ready to attack.
There was a smattering of talk about the guns on display. The pride of the Third Reich, trophies taken from defeated Allied soldiers, commandos, and pieces of destroyed equipment. He mentioned more in his collection, outside of town. That the tanks and vehicles he had here were for general public viewing, but that he had several Allied warplanes and tanks, shot up and left in that condition. He bragged about how the airplane collectors and museums would be sick if they knew what he had.
Roan grumbled in agreement.
He gave a thumbs up, and I saw lights on his screen turn green, and video feeds booted up. I was able to see a CCTV of Malmaison and Sadie standing in front of the intimidating profile of a tank, slab sided and brutal, flanked by flags and stolen artwork.
“How does he not get busted for this?” I asked, out loud. Sadie repeated my question to him. My heart froze, and Roan gave a look that would have curdled milk.
Malmaison laughed.
Then he told us. The people that would be most concerned about this being here, they were always welcome in his gallery. They attended the same monthly meetings and saluted the same flag. Everyone in power was corrupt. The trick was getting them to be on your side, rather than on any side of perceivedgood.
Sadie said that if those fine gentlemen in the Carolinas had such a passionate and intelligent leader, things would have been so much different back in the States. “Don’t put too much butter on that bread,” I said softly.
Malmaison’s anti-Semitic and racist monologue was cut short by Sadie offering him the GSTP. He inspected it, and condemned the engraving on the tag, having defaced a valuable historical artifact, and confirmed that it was indeed a British General Service Time Piece, but that it was not, in fact, from Dunkirk, and made a number of observations that placed it much closer to the disaster that was the Axis defeat at Normandy.
The smile on Roan’s face was small, but I knew it went down to his soul.
“I’m getting hard thinking about how I’m going to kill this guy,” I said, trying to cover the earpiece so that Sadie wouldn’t hear.
He invited her upstairs for some wine and polite conversation. It was so rare that he had the privilege of speaking with an American who had the right side of history in mind. She politely declined, stating that she unfortunately had evening plans with friends that couldn’t be put off. I felt my jaw hang open when she suggested that maybe tomorrow, she could wear something more befitting his pleasure, and would take him up on his offer then, if he wasn’t too busy.
I was ready to bolt through the door and sock this joker like Captain fucking America.
When we made it back to the rented room, she was already there, wig removed and stripped out of the outfit Roan had her dressed in. All of her undergarments were a uniform beige color and seemed a bizarre mix of practical and vaguely erotic.
“Not now, I have to shower. I feel fucking diseased just being that close to him,” she hissed, removing the last of the undergarments and tossing them on the floor. “He tried to kiss me, fuck,ugh.” She ranted all the way into the shower.
Roan stayed at his terminal, using the new links he had to explore Malmaison’s entire setup. “Electronic door locks and mechanical ones, I can pop the electrics, but someone will have to pick the manual ones.”
