Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [139]
Cray yelped and brought up his hands to his head, dropping the bread. The old lady swung again, and this time her cane found Cray's cheekbone. Cray blindly spun to the source of his torment, but the woman shoved the cane between his legs, and he toppled to the cobblestones.
The old woman used her cane like a broom to scoot the bread away from Cray. Then she braced herself on the cane to reach for the bread. She grunted politely, her hips creaking.
As she hobbled away, the loaf under her arm, she said over her shoulder, "You should be ashamed, trying to take bread from an old woman, and my husband a veteran of the Great War."
Several bystanders laughed, but they moved on, and the smoke hid them quickly.
Cray sat on the sidewalk, amid the rubble, his legs inelegantly out in front of him and his hands to his throbbing cheek. His teeth showed with his grimace of pain.
When Katrin knelt to him, Cray said in a hiss of suffering, "Don't say anything, please."
Her smile was puckish. "I wasn't going to say anything."
Cray rose to his knees, a hand still at his cheek,
"Just a question." She helped him to his feet.
"Don't ask."
"Do you suppose Hitler's guards are as tough as that old woman?"
He adjusted his bandage, that small motion seeming to chase away his pain. A red welt on his cheek resembled a smear of lipstick. The half of his smile not hidden by the dressing was sheepish. "No. Surely not."
14
DIETRICH AND EBERHARDT stood in front of the barber's chair, which was brought into the room once a day for these few minutes. The barber was an SS noncom who handled the straight-edge with infinite care, starting below the left ear. White foam covered the Führer's face, except for the narrow mustache. The barber expertly drew the blade down Hitler's cheek.
Dietrich had never made a mental connection between the Führer and anything tonsorial. He had sort of assumed the Führer was born with a mustache. But here Hitler was, getting a shave, under the smiling and careful attention of an SS barber. Hitler's teeth were an appalling green, in contrast with the white shaving foam, and his eyes the yellow of old snow. A bib was across his chest, and Dietrich thought it peculiar that the bib was camouflage brown and green. Under the bib, Hitler was wearing a black satin morning robe over white pajamas with blue piping. On his feet were black patent leather slippers. Hitler's left arm trembled under the bib.
"You again, Inspector," Hitler said, the foam parting at his mouth.
"Yes, sir. And General Eberhardt."
"General Eberhardt has been working for me for thirteen years, Inspector, and not once has he brought me welcome news," the Führer said. "What is it this time, General?"
The barber lightly gripped Hitler's head as the blade slid along the cheekbone. The razor was wiped on a towel hanging at the barber's belt, then brought up again. The barber had a high, blank forehead and pinprick eyes, and his face was squeezed in concentration. A fern stand next to the barber had also been brought in for the occasion, and on it were a bowl of steaming water, white towels in a rumpled pile, a lather cup, and a horsehair brush with a silver handle. A strop hung by a metal clip from an edge of the table. The marble bust of Frederick watched the operation dispassionately.
"I must be blunt, my leader," Eberhardt said.
The foam below the mustache moved again. "You always are. I've yet to determine if I appreciate it."
"We believe the American—Jack Cray—has obtained a sniper rifle."
While General Eberhardt informed the Führer how such an event came to pass and how it had been discovered, Dietrich sensed movement to his right, and so risked a glance around the room. This was Hitler's bedroom, one room further into the catacombs than the map room. A Dresden vase and Carlyle's biography of Frederick the Great were on a nightstand near a low bed. Across from the bed was the blue horsehair sofa.
Another person was in the room, standing at a dresser.