Six Graves to Munich - Mario Cleri [3]
When Rogan awoke the gray dawn smeared through dusty back windows to greet him. He looked around. The girl was sleeping on the floor beneath a thin blanket. A faint scent of roses came from her body. Rogan rolled over so that he could get out of the bed on the other side. The danger signals were gone. The silver plate no longer throbbed; the headache had vanished. He felt rested and strong.
Nothing had been taken from his wallet. The Walther pistol was still in his jacket pocket. He had picked an honest girl who also had common sense, Rogan thought. He went around to the other side of the bed to wake her up, but she was already struggling to her feet, her beautiful body trembling in the morning cold.
The room smelled strongly of roses, Rogan noticed, and there were roses embroidered on the window curtains and on the bedsheets. There were even roses embroidered on the girl’s sheer nightgown. She smiled at him. “My name is Rosalie. I like everything with roses—my perfumes, my clothing, everything.”
She seemed girlishly proud of her fondness for roses, as if it gave her a special distinction. Rogan found this amusing. He sat on the bed and beckoned to her. Rosalie came and stood between his legs. He could smell her delicate perfume, and as she slowly took off her silk nightgown he could see the strawberry-tipped breasts, the long white thighs; and then her body was folding around his own like soft silky petals, and her full-lipped mouth bloomed open beneath his own, fluttering helplessly with passion.
CHAPTER 2
Rogan liked the girl so well that he arranged for her to live with him in his hotel for the next week. This involved complicated financial arrangements with the proprietor, but he didn’t mind. Rosalie was delighted. Rogan got an almost paternal satisfaction out of her pleasure.
She was even more thrilled when she learned that his hotel was the world-famous Vier Jahrezeiten, the most luxurious hotel in postwar Hamburg, its service in the grand manner of the old Kaiser Germany.
Rogan treated Rosalie like a princess that week. He gave her money for new clothes, and he took her to the theater and to fine restaurants. She was an affectionate girl, but there was a strange blankness in her that puzzled Rogan. She responded to him as if he were something to love, just as a pet dog is something to love. She stroked his body as impersonally as she would stroke a fur coat, purring with the same kind of pleasure. One day she came back unexpectedly from a shopping trip and found Rogan cleaning his Walther P-38 pistol. That Rogan should own such a weapon was a matter of complete indifference to her. She really didn’t care, and she didn’t question him about it. Although Rogan was relieved that she reacted this way, he knew it wasn’t natural.
Experience had taught Rogan that he needed a week’s rest after one of his attacks. His next move was to Berlin, and toward the end of the week he debated whether or not to take Rosalie along to the divided city. He decided against it. Things might end badly, and she would be hurt through no fault of her own. On the last night he told her he would be leaving her in the morning and gave her all the cash in his wallet. With that strange blankness, she took the money and tossed it on the bed. She gave no sign of emotion other than a purely physical one of animal hunger. Because it was their last night together she wanted to make love for as long as possible. She began to take off her clothes. As she did so she asked casually, “Why must you go to Berlin?”
Rogan studied her creamy shoulders. “Business,” he said.
“I looked in your special envelopes, all seven of them. I wanted to know more about you.” She pulled off her stockings. “The night you met me you killed Karl Pfann, and his envelope and photograph are marked with the number two. The envelope and picture of Albert Moltke are marked ‘number one,’ so I went to the library and found the Vienna newspapers. Moltke was killed a month ago. Your passport shows you were in Austria at