The Parsifal Pursuit Page 9

  Cockran finally got a good look at the quiet one once he was out of the car. He was big. Real big. How did I miss that? Cockran thought. Good thing he drew the .45, when he did. Otherwise, it would have taken more than a little effort to cut him down to size.

  “Tell whoever sent you that no one threatens me––or my family,” Cockran said and paused, “unless they want to deal with Bobby Sullivan.” The quiet one‘s face grew pale. “You ever hear of Bobby Sullivan?” Cockran asked

  He nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “If anything ever happens to my son, if he so much as trips and skins a knee, I‘ll tell Bobby it was you two who did it. Got it?”

  His eyes grew wide. He gulped. “Yes… yes sir, Mr. Cockran,” the boy said, his voice now an octave higher.

  “Get out of here.”

  The boy got in the car and shut the door behind him. Cockran watched the car drive away, down Park Avenue. When it was five blocks away, Cockran relaxed, shoved the extra pistol into his jacket pocket, and then holstered his .45. As the adrenaline faded, his left elbow began to throb quietly, and he rubbed it. Smooth, Cockran, he thought. Real smooth. He was more out of practice than he had thought. His old instructors at MID would have chewed his ass over tonight‘s performance. Still, one thing was clear now that he had decided to take Hampton‘s case.

  It was time to call Bobby Sullivan.

  13.

  Dinner in the Clouds

  On Board the Graf Zeppelin

  Tuesday, 26 May 1931

  MATTIE looked down out the window of her small cabin, hoping she had caught Cockran‘s eye when she waved as the airship rose silently into the sky, faces below fading into dots. She sat on the cushioned surface which later that day would convert to her sleeping berth.

  Mattie had wanted to cry when she said goodbye to Cockran because they hadn‘t made up from their two arguments. But she didn‘t. Mattie rarely let anyone see her cry, not even Cockran. She had decided that early on, in her first job at the Daily Mirror. She knew men considered it a sign of weakness. But her father taught her to never consider herself the weaker sex. Girls could be as tough as boys. Now, alone in her cabin, she did cry, sobbing softly at the thought their arguments had not ended in the usual way—one of them making the other laugh. This wasn‘t what she had wanted. She wished she could take back almost everything she had said, especially about Patrick. She might not be able to openly admit it, but there were times when she wished she were his mother. Times when she longed to be part of a family again.

  Cockran really cared. She knew that and she was impressed he had so much insight into her. That he knew how much her work was connected to her family. Making her father proud; avenging her brothers and her late fiance Eric. But the way he had presented it last night was new. It made her feel like he was asking her to choose between him and her memory of them. He couldn‘t expect her to choose between her past and her present. They were both part of who she was. Besides, he had a past too, his late wife Nora who would always be the love of his life. Mattie knew that and she loved him all the more for it. She would never make him choose.

  Being in love was more trouble than she imagined. She had been in love only once before, but that was a lifetime ago. She‘d been so young, only eighteen, and Eric had been but three years older. They had been engaged that summer and he died that fall at Ypres in the last days of that bloody war. She couldn‘t bring herself to call it the Great War. It was a brutal, meaningless war as far as she was concerned. A war which took both her brothers, her fiancé and her mother a year later during the world-wide flu epidemic. Only her father had survived the war and then he too was gone, killed by a hit and run motorcar as he hiked on a twisting road near their Highlands retreat across from the Isle of Skye. She was left alone, as if abandoned by a vengeful God in whom she found it increasingly hard to believe, at least not in the way her father had.

  Mattie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She had work to do. She emptied the overstuffed manila envelope Hearst had given her the day before and began to read.

  Two hours later Mattie had worked her way through the Hearst clippings up to August, 1930, less than a year ago. The National Socialists were still obscure then. Only twelve seats in the Reichstag. But they were prosperous and spent as much money as the ruling Social Democrats, the Communists, or the various right-wing nationalist parties. And they did so more effectively. As one left-wing journalist noted, “None of the party election machines works with one-tenth of the wit and resourcefulness that are employed by the advertising and P.R. departments of dozens of factories, stores and fashion designers. Except, that is, the National Socialist Workers Party, whose P.R. department is the equal of any commercial concern and displays Hitler in a variety of heroic poses under the campaign slogan, ‘Hitler Over Germany‘.”

  Mattie was surprised to note, in reading several of Hitler‘s speeches during the 1930 campaign, that, in contrast to 1923, Hitler never attacked the Jews and never appealed to any narrow special interests, whether it be farmers, factory workers, Catholics, Protestants, whitecollar workers, or the upper class. Rather, Hitler rose above all that, calling on them as Germans to create a new society where their country was more important than their individual interests. It was in many respects a positive message. The vicious gutter-level attacks on the Jews, of which there were plenty, came from lesser functionaries like Goebbels, Hess, and Heinrich Himmler who spoke to the party faithful while Hitler took the high road with everyone else.

  The Nazis even chartered a private aircraft for Hitler so that he gave as many as four to five speeches a day throughout the country, giving truth to the “Hitler Over Germany” slogan as he flew from one cheering crowd to another. It paid off, because on election day, the Nazis jumped from twelve seats in the Reichstag to one hundred and seven, making them the second largest party in Germany. Now Mattie understood. There had been over two million unemployed workers in Germany in late 1930. In her experience watching coups d‘état in many countries, unprincipled politicians were the ones who usually benefited from a bad economy.

  It had been that way for Germany in 1923, she knew, only it had been runaway inflation deliberately fostered by the government rather than the high unemployment of today. All the Nazis had then, she thought, was armed force, not the power of the ballot box. Today they had both, an inflammable and unnatural combination for an opposition party in a democracy.

  Munich

  Wednesday, 7 November 1923

  “I DON’T understand,” Mattie said once the music stopped. “Explain it to me again, Ernst. What does a nice Harvard boy like you see in Hitler? I‘ve only met him twice. I grant you my German isn‘t as good as I would like, but he seems to me just another beer hall agitator.”

  “Please, call me Putzi,” a perspiring Ernst Hanfstaengl said as he stood up from the bench of the grand piano on which he had just finished one of Beethoven‘s piano sonatas, and bowed stiffly from the waist at the polite applause from his guests.

  The room was filled with attractive women in evening gowns and men in tuxedos. White-coated servants circulated, serving drinks and hors d‘oeuvres. Hanfstaengl was one of the more distinguished men there, Mattie thought, in white tie and high winged collar. Mattie could tell he was using his height advantage to steal a glance down the low-cut front of her backless silver gown which offered a vivid contrast to her golden red hair and green eyes.

  Mattie smiled. Men. It‘s not as if he hadn‘t seen her breasts before. The night before actually as, astride his thick waist, she had played her last card. It came up trumps when a spent Putzi had promised to keep her close to the action on the eve of what might well be a coup d‘état for Bavaria and a big breakout story for her. A brief romp with Putzi was a small price to pay.

  “Let me put it in terms of your own country,” Putzi said, removing a cigarette from a silver case. “I‘ve read Scottish history. William Wallace was a commoner, not a nobleman. Yet he inspired the Scots to rise up and thro
w off their English oppressors. Personal courage. An ability to inspire others with his words. I see the same things in Adolf Hitler.”

  Mattie stood up and smoothed the front of her gown. “That‘s interesting,” she said, “because Herr Hitler doesn‘t think of himself as a leader.”

  Hanfstaengl picked up the champagne flute he had placed on top of the piano and took a sip. “I‘m quite sure you‘re mistaken. Why do you say that?”

  Mattie smiled. “I have good sources.”

  A frown flashed across Hanfstaengl‘s face. “As a journalist, Mattie, you must realize,” he said stiffly, “that all great men have their enemies. You can‘t believe everything you‘re told.”

  “Relax, Putzi. My source is reliable. Hitler himself told me he was not a leader nor did he aspire to be one. A drummer is what he believes his role to be. He compared himself to John the Baptist, preparing people for the arrival of a great leader who would avenge the honor of Germany and its betrayal by the November criminals.”

  Hanfstaengl laughed nervously, taking a shaky drag on his cigarette. “You got me again. You and your little jokes. When did Hitler tell you that?”

  Mattie laughed. “Don‘t worry. It wasn‘t during my interview the other day. The drummer comment was from my first interview last winter. Why do you ask?”

  Hanfstaengl leaned in toward Mattie and lowered his voice. “It is true he once saw himself that way. But no longer. Will you still be in Munich tomorrow?”

  “Of course.”

  “Come to the Burgerbraukeller. Eight p.m. You‘ll be my guest. I‘ll make sure you have a ringside seat. Tell no one,” Hanfstaengl said conspiratorially and placed his index finger by his nose and his sweaty left hand on her bare back, drawing her close and whispering.

  “You‘re very kind, Ernst. Thank you.” After last night, she‘d bloody well better get a ringside seat.

  “Please, call me Putzi. When will I see you again? Later tonight in your room?”

  They were still beside the piano and Mattie stiffened as Putzi‘s hand slowly snaked down her back and below her waist, fondling her bottom through the gossamer-thin silk of her gown.

  “Tempting, but not tonight. I‘m on deadline. Besides, isn‘t that your beautiful wife over there wondering what your hand is doing right now? I‘ll take a rain check.” Mattie said as she reached behind her and deftly removed his wandering hand from her bum. A rain check, Mattie thought, that will never be redeemed. She had concluded that last night would be enough to keep her on the Nazi press chief‘s good side during the next few days.

  She smiled to herself when she saw the stunning Mrs. Hanfstaengl leave the room on the arm of a strikingly handsome blond-haired man, unnoticed by her husband. Putzi should spend more time tending the home fires, she thought, as she watched the attractive couple slowly ascend the stairs, the man‘s arm around the woman‘s waist, her head resting casually on his shoulder.

  On Board the Graf Zeppelin

  Tuesday, 26 May 1931

  THERE was a tap on her cabin door. Mattie opened it to find a white-coated steward in black trousers who bowed and told her that dinner was served. Mattie hesitated. She was still dressed in her customary travel outfit of a silk blouse and tan wool trousers. She thought briefly of changing to a dress and decided it was too much trouble.

  The steward escorted her to her table in a corner of the grand salon adjacent to a window which afforded a magnificent view of the Atlantic Ocean only three hundred feet below. The room was twenty-five by twenty-five feet, with four tables set for dinner, three tables seating six and one seating two. Each table had a view out of the slanting windows on either side. All the tables were full except the one to which the steward took Mattie.

  “May I introduce your tablemate for the journey, Fraulein? Herr Kurt von Sturm.”

  Mattie was disappointed. She would have preferred to dine alone. She was still feeling melancholy about Cockran and the last thing she wanted to do was make polite dinner conversation. At least he was easy on the eyes, she thought, as the tall, blond-haired man seated at the table rose to greet her, his deep blue eyes locked onto hers. He was an inch or two over six feet with an athletic body, his pale hair brushed neatly to the side. But for the two-inch scar on his right temple, he would have been almost too handsome. “Herr von Sturm, may I introduce Fraulein Martha McGary?”

  “Pleased to meet you,” he said, offering his hand. It was warm and firm.

  “My pleasure as well, Herr von Sturm” Mattie replied, trying her best to smile even though she wasn‘t up to the real thing. He seemed familiar but she couldn‘t place him.

  Sturm was dressed in a dinner jacket, a small ribbon bar over the breast pocket, a military decoration, blue on either side and white in the middle with a tiny gold cross. She recognized it at once. As they sat down, Mattie had the irreverent thought that, compared to the diminutive Goebbels and the dumpy, round-faced Himmler, Sturm was the Aryan poster boy the Nazis preached about in their propaganda. Mattie looked around the salon and saw that all the other men had dressed for dinner and the other two women had as well. She made a mental note to break out the silver gown for tomorrow evening.

  Sturm asked if she would like a drink and then took the liberty of ordering their aperitifs, Pol Roger champagne. She was impressed. Winston‘s favorite.

  Sturm smiled. “You may not recall, but we have met before.”

  “Really? What were the circumstances?” Mattie asked. She was puzzled. How could she possibly have forgotten meeting a handsome guy like Sturm?

  “The summer of ‘29 in America. My employer and I were guests of Mr. Hearst at his home in California on the occasion of the Graf Zeppelin‘s voyage around the world. We had tea one afternoon with your president, Mr. Hoover, Mr. Churchill from England, Mr. Hearst, Mr. Cromwell, my business colleague, and one other gentleman whose name I don‘t recall.”

  “My goodness,” Mattie said. “I‘m embarrassed. We did meet. I apologize.”

  Sturm smiled. “Apologies are unnecessary. I don‘t recall saying a word that afternoon. I believe President Hoover, Mr. Churchill and Mr. Hearst did most of the talking. A beautiful woman like you, however, need say nothing and would still be remembered.”

  Mattie laughed. The guy was smooth. Ordinarily she would never have forgotten but it was the first time she had met Herbert Hoover. The other man whose name Sturm couldn‘t recall was Cockran, and their romance had barely been a week old. She smiled. Kurt was handsome, a Norse god even, but he was no Bourke Cockran with that crooked grin and boyish smile. She had been besotted with him back then in those early days and still was now.

  “I saw you again at the reception in Los Angeles for the crew of the Graf Zeppelin. I noticed your photographs that morning in the Herald-Examiner of the Long Beach warehouse explosion. They were quite spectacular. Breathtaking. But to take such exceptional photographs must have placed you in great danger. I had wanted to congratulate you at the time, but let me do so now. We were only briefly introduced, but I had never before met someone so brave and so beautiful and also so talented.”

  Mattie rolled her eyes. That was laying it on thick but no girl ever gets tired of being told she‘s beautiful. “Thank you. A wise man once told me ‘If your photos aren‘t good enough, you‘re not close enough.‘ But tell me Herr von Sturm, what is it that you do for a living?”

  “Please, Fraulein, call me Kurt.”

  “I‘m Mattie,” she said and then he smiled. She liked men who thought her beautiful. He was certainly taking her mind off Cockran and, right now, that was good.

  “I‘m the executive assistant to the president of a large German steel company.”

  A steward approached. “Our first course, Herr Käpitanleutenant, is vichyssoise.”

  “Herr Käpitanleutenant?” Mattie asked. “I thought you were a businessman.”

  “Hans served with me in the war.”

  Mattie paused for a moment before she spoke. She knew men usually didn‘t talk about wh
at they did in the war, especially if they had been in combat and a genuine hero like this man. But with all she had lost in the war, she felt like a fellow survivor. Still, she prodded gently. “I should have known. I noticed the military ribbon on your dinner jacket. What is it?” Mattie asked, knowing full well what it was.

  Sturm smiled. “ Others were equally deserving.”

  “But it is the Blue Max, isn‘t it? Imperial Germany‘s highest honor? Like our Victoria Cross and America‘s Medal of Honor?”

  Sturm stiffened. “I am not familiar with other countries‘ military decorations.”

  “What service were you in?”

  “I flew naval airships.”

  “Like the ones that bombed London and Paris?”

  Sturm didn‘t reply right away and Mattie regretted putting him on the spot. When he finally spoke, it was slowly, almost reluctantly. “I flew on three airships which conducted bombing runs to your homeland. The last one I commanded myself. Hans served with me on all three ships. He can attest that we never dropped bombs in populated areas. We did so only on military or industrial targets. Even if it meant coming home with full bomb racks.”

  “Forgive me. I should know better than to ask questions about the war. No one who was there likes to talk about it. I am sorry I asked the question.”

  “Don‘t be sorry. We were on different sides and it was a natural question. I am proud of my service and I have no apologies to make. But I know that airships as grand as this are not well suited as instruments of war and never were. Do you remember what Hugo Eckener said at the luncheon ceremony honoring the crew of the Graf Zeppelin? I had heard Hugo speak like this many times and I know it by heart: ‘Due to its light construction and the vulnerability inherent in its large size, the Graf Zeppelin can thrive and exist only in an atmosphere of unclouded peace. It is like one of those opalescent butterflies, which fascinate as they flutter in the summer sunshine, but seek a sheltered corner whenever a storm blows up. Often, when people greet it so enthusiastically as it appears in the heavens, I have felt as if they believed they were seeing in it a sign and symbol of the universal dream of lasting peace among peoples.‘”