The man spoke with a degree of triumph, clearly remembering what he had inflicted on Grace. Miss Schnitzler was right. Eichmann was evil to the core; he deserved to die.
“A female friend?” the brute pressed.
“A good friend.” It was maddening, but Fengshan managed to remain polite. He spread the newspaper in front of him, while Eichmann circled him, a cigar in his hand.
“Do I happen to know her?”
“I doubt it.”
There were three SS officers decorated with medals following Eichmann in an obsequious manner. It sickened Fengshan. How fast the death-scheme peddler had ascended. He used to be one of those low-ranking men looking to climb the greasy ladder of power.
“How’s your wife, Herr Consul General?”
He looked into those despicable gray eyes. “She has changed. The miscarriage has infected her heart and soul. May the criminal who caused her pain have his due.”
“I’ve warned you, Herr Consul General, we all need friends in Vienna.” He laughed and took his companion out of the lounge; his laughter, shrill, a violent jangle eclipsing the Italian overture.
Eichmann would get his due, too, but not today. Fengshan stood, left the lounge, and came into the lobby. In the corner near the marble staircase, a team of maids, wearing their white uniforms and caps, were dusting the banisters. A maid with golden hair turned, her gaze following Eichmann, laughing with his mistress, heading to the hallway.
That face with a scar.
Miss Schnitzler had disguised herself, perhaps with the money she borrowed from him, and infiltrated the hotel despite its security. This was reckless. Most reckless indeed! Fengshan picked up his pace, crossing the lobby as Miss Schnitzler, pushing a cart stacked with towels, trod steadfastly toward the hallway Eichmann and his mistress had entered. By the time Fengshan made his way to the hallway, she was knocking on a door some distance away. Room 1004.
Fengshan stopped, his heart jumping to his throat. Don’t do it, he prayed. If she dared to shoot, even if she killed Eichmann, she would not be able to get out alive.
The door opened.
“Herr Eichmann!” That loud voice.
A shot.
Eichmann’s body tumbled out and thumped to the ground in the hallway. Blood sprayed from his chest, and his mistress shrieked near the door. Lola pushed the cart aside and stepped closer to Eichmann, ready to give him another shot. But she didn’t see, or hear, that the SS men from the lounge, drawing guns, were rushing into the hallway. Someone fired.
“Go, go! Get out of here!” Fengshan shouted, waving his hand, and realized that she couldn’t hear him or the gunshot. He picked up his pace and dove to the hallway, but a force behind him threw him against a round table with a marble top. He lost his balance and stumbled.
But Miss Schnitzler finally saw him and the swarm of SS men surging in the hallway. She pivoted, sprinted to the other end of the hallway, turned to the right, and magically disappeared. There must be a staircase leading to the basement or the back door. She must know the layout of the hotel very well; Fengshan prayed that she had escaped.
He turned to Eichmann, surrounded by his men holding guns near room 1004. It was rather chaotic there, with the officers, hotel staff, and women in golden dresses, and in a shocking moment, the Nazi rose and stood, his hand over his bleeding shoulder.
Words could not describe Fengshan’s disappointment. Miss Schnitzler had risked her life for this scoundrel.
Another gunshot came from somewhere in the hallway, startling him, but he couldn’t see through the crowd.
Then the people parted around Eichmann, and Fengshan felt his knees weaken—Miss Schnitzler had appeared, clutched by two SS officers, a gun under her chin. When she came closer to Eichmann, she cursed. A fist was thrust into her stomach, and she doubled over, her golden wig falling on the floor.
“A Jew!”
The hallway boiled with profanities, threats, and curses, and Miss Schnitzler’s screams—“I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you!”
“How dare you, you Jewish whore.” Eichmann grabbed a revolver from one of his men and fired.
Blood spurted on her shoulder. She dropped to the ground.
“Stop!” Fengshan pushed through the crowd. She had lost her entire family; she had disappeared but returned; she had risked her own life in exchange for a scoundrel’s.
Eichmann threw his head toward him, his eyes murderous. “Herr Consul General, do you know this woman? She tried to kill me!”
“Stop. That’s enough,” Fengshan said. There was a splash of blood on her scarred face, but she was pleading with him to leave her alone. But Miss Schnitzler. It was not worth it.
“This whore is trying to kill me! No, no. This is hardly enough. This will not stop. She must be eliminated, and all of her kind will be eliminated! I swear I will squeeze every single ounce of strength from their bodies and extract the last drop of blood from their veins; after that is done, I’ll incinerate them, and the earth won’t show a trace of their existence. I’ll kill them all, all of them.” He thrust his head at his minions. “Kill her.”
A salvo of gunshots exploded in the hallway.
CHAPTER 63
GRACE
The sound of gunshots continued in the hotel.
I froze in the taxi, fear surging through me. That could be Lola; no, that couldn’t be Lola. I willed the taxi to go faster; the hotel, a giant broken tooth, glaring, right in front of me. When the taxi stopped, I almost rolled out, threw myself into my wheelchair, and flew to the entrance lined with black Mercedes and carriages and motorcycles.
But the guard, shouting nonsensical German, thrust his rifle to my face and barred me from entering. Back and forth, back and forth, I wheeled in front of the building. Those gunshots had nothing to do with Lola. She would come out, and in her loud voice, she would cry out to me, “Grace!”
For an endless moment, the chilly Viennese air was devoid of her voice, and inside the lobby there was no violin concerto, no human voices, no gunshots, only the globes of lights, the bulbous eyes of a beast, threatening, gnawing at my heart. I saw who I was, a weakling, miles away from Fengshan, from his faith and his beliefs. And he had been right; I should have listened to him.
A pandemonium, suddenly. Armies of officers in uniforms, men in black suits and bow ties, and women in long tasseled dresses and velvet gowns swarmed behind the glass doors, surging past me. None of them was Lola.
Still, I wheeled back and forth, back and forth, craning my neck. When the tide of human bodies slowed, thinned, and then stopped, through the dizzy light behind the glass door, I saw that uniformed hotel workers were carelessly scrubbing at a trail of red, flowing from the hallway to the stairs in the lobby.
Fengshan appeared in his black overcoat, his movements slow, his head lowered, as if he were saying a prayer.
“Fengshan?”
He looked up, and for a moment it seemed he was having a hard time comprehending. Then he came to me, his face a mask of darkness. “It’s cold here. Let’s go back to the consulate.”
“I . . . I . . . Lola . . . Did you . . .”
The look in his eyes made me wince, and I rubbed my hands on the handle of my wheelchair. He was going to tell me something, but I wished he wouldn’t say it.
He said, “You’re too late.”