Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [119]
Night had fallen when Luc woke him up. The street was now full of light and noise from several boisterous taverns. The air was cold. Younger’s mouth tasted stale; his whole body was stiff. Luc pointed eagerly: a slim female silhouette in a lightweight coat was approaching the house with determined steps. It was Colette. She knocked on the door. This time someone answered, and she disappeared up a flight of stairs. Younger waited, scanning the windows overhead for signs of life.
He was considering what to do next when Colette reappeared in the doorway and proceeded down the street, passing directly opposite Younger and Luc. A few steps on, she turned and vanished into a stone archway.
They followed, cautiously. The archway led to a surprisingly large, crowded, open-air beer hall in the courtyard of what might have been an abbey centuries before. A small orchestra played merrily. Lanterns hung from branches. Men sang, unpleasantly loud and off-key. Women were plentiful, but none was unaccompanied except Colette. There was dancing on a flagstone dance floor. Colette, it seemed, was looking for Gruber.
Younger was sorely tempted to show himself. But he suspected that if he presented himself straightaway, before she had even met her Heinrich, Colette would be furious and indisposed to listen to him. His interference might even, Younger reflected, make her more stubborn. It seemed better to let Gruber sink his own ship. If Frau Gruber was right, Heinrich would be a cad and a ladies’ man—a type that might possibly have fooled Colette when he was sick and wounded, but that would surely repulse her now. And if Colette wasn’t repulsed, there would be time for Younger to confront her later and to make a last appeal. In addition to which, Younger had to admit to a certain curiosity; he wanted to see how Colette and Gruber would behave when they saw each other.
So Younger installed himself with Luc in a dark corner of the crowded garden as far as possible from Colette. He pulled the oversized driver’s cap low over the boy’s head, although in the darkness and crush of bodies, there was little chance of Colette spying them. She seemed preoccupied, in any event, with her own business. Under one of the hanging lamps, conspicuous in her solitude, Colette took a seat on a bench at one end of a long wooden table. Almost ostentatiously, it seemed to Younger, she removed her coat and revealed a dress like none in which he had ever seen her before.
Her arms were bare, her back exposed. Her hemline, which almost revealed her knees—no, which did reveal her knees when, seated, she crossed one leg over the other—conspired with her high-heeled shoes to attract virtually every male eye in the beer garden. Never did a back express so clearly that it was made to be looked at. The men at the table behind her manifestly thought so. They pounded each other on the shoulders, pointing to the newcomer, and made the predictable male noises and gestures.
Among those men, despite never having laid eyes on him before, Younger instantly recognized Hans Gruber. He was unmistakable: the only tall, blond, strapping, blue-eyed man in the garden. He was an exceedingly well-looking man—in his late twenties, rakish in clothing, confident in demeanor, generously ordering drinks not only for himself but for a coterie of friends as well.
From another direction, a stranger with a greasy mustache stumbled up to Colette’s table, apparently meaning to engage her in repartee, but tripping over her bench in his haste. Colette swiveled deftly, so that the man fell not into her lap but onto the table instead, howling at the blow to his shin and knocking over a collection of glasses and bottles.