“He will be conceived tomorrow.”

“I’m not ovulating. I know, because you feel different when you can make a baby.”

“We can try, Honig, and pray,” Walter said.

He was talking about screwing her sometime tomorrow. She thought of herself in bed with Walter during the day. Their first time with sunlight on the shades pulled down. He’d have his first good look at her bush, dark as the roots of her hair. He’d see that too and scream at her, “You lied to me, you Gypsy slut.” Strange? She thought of this first?

“Tomorrow morning,” Walter said.

“I’ve got the curse.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You can’t conceive during your period.”

“We try,” Walter said. “Maybe God will help us. You know we met in front of the cathedral.”

He was different. His voice was different, more German. He had made up his mind he was taking her to bed tomorrow morning. But it couldn’t be tomorrow. She’d have Jurgen. Yeah...? But would she be with him all day? Carl would come by. If there was a reason she had to see Walter tomorrow she could probably find the time. Whatever the reason. Though it wouldn’t be to go to bed with him, old Mr. Serious, Mr. Speedy Von Schoen. She said, “Walter, don’t ever make a promise when you’ve been drinking you’re gonna do something.”

“I’ve been thinking of it since I heard of Warm Springs, where polio victims and your president go to bathe in the mineral waters.”

“He’s your president too, Walter. Remember my saying that to you in front of the cathedral?”

Looking at her, his glasses glistening in lamplight, Walter said, “I still love you, Honig.”

His eyes raised and Honey turned enough to see Bohdan coming toward them from the staircase.

He said to Walter, “Old friend, Mr. Aubrey won’t be going back with you. He and Vera are talking business of some sort, I don’t know what. When they’ve talked themselves out I can drive Mr. Aubrey to your farm. He likes to tease me-you know how he is- but I don’t mind, it’s all in fun.” Bo seemed about to walk away but paused and said to Walter, “Old sport, it’s a noble thing you’re doing for the Führer. It will give him the strength to go on.”

Honey watched Bo heading for the staircase, Bo throwing his head to make his hair bounce. She said to Walter, “I have to ask you a huge favor. Do you love me?”

“I told you, didn’t I?” Walter frowning as he said it.

“I have to hide Jurgen. Can he ride with us?”

“Take him where?”

“My apartment. I’ll put him in the storage room full of junk and spiders, and a cot he can sleep on,” Honey said, “so you won’t be arrested for helping him out. You can keep your mind on the assassination.”

“But tomorrow,” Walter said, “you’ll be with Jurgen? How will I see you?”

“It doesn’t mean I have to stay with him,” Honey said, maybe going too far, as usual, but at the moment curious about Walter, if he was still a complete bore in bed. A thought flashed in her mind and she saw no reason not to say it. “Give me a call, let’s see what we can arrange.”

Vera was at rest in her bedroom wearing a gauzy yellow negligee Bo could see through, Vera standing by the window so he could look all he wanted. The room was dim, dramatic, Bo thought, almost theatrical, a bedside lamp holding Joe Aubrey in a soft glow, Joe sprawled on his back in the double bed, his naked body round and white down to his black socks and garters. Bo stood by the bed for a close look, Joe’s mouth open, wet snores dribbling out of him, before crossing the room to the goddess on her love seat smoking a cigarette, a white ceramic ashtray resting on her crotch.

Bo said, “It worked, uh?”

“The amount he drank, he didn’t need the goofball.”

“It won’t hurt him. Makes him go seepy-by is all it does. Tell me what he did.”

“He gave me a check.”

“I mean in bed, what did he do? Is he a muff-diver?”

“They all are, you give them a chance.”

“So, it was painless?”

“For the first time in years and years I feel I should go to Confession.”

“‘Bless me, Father, I fucked a Grand Dragon,’ ‘You did? Tell me about it, my child.’”

“I’m too tired to scold you. No, because it was devious, a dirty trick, taking him to bed because we need money.”

“You have the check?”

“In a safe place.”

“How much did he give you?”

“I couldn’t ask for what we need. I said, ‘Put in the amount you feel you can give.’”

“Vera, please don’t say that.”

“Made out to the Bomb Victims Fund of Berlin.”

“Tell me how much he gave you?”

“I said to him, ‘Wait, I don’t think that’s the exact name of the fund.’ I won’t tell you what I was doing to him while he’s holding his pen and his checkbook.”

“You’re both completely naked.”

“Joe has his socks on. I told him, sign the check, I’d fill in the name later.”

“He wrote in the amount?”

“He was much too anxious, getting ink on my breasts, but he did sign the check.”

“Becoming groggy?”

“Not yet, but slurring.”

“And failed to write in the amount?”

“I’m going to type it in,” Vera said, “the amount, the date, and to whom it’s paid.”

“For how much?”

“Let’s talk about it in the morning. You have to get Mr. Aubrey on the road.”

“Time for Joe to go nigh-nigh,” Bo said. “You know it’s an awfully long ride out to Walter’s.”

“Stay with the plan,” Vera said. “When you come out of the driveway, make sure the surveillance car doesn’t follow you. They have the rear end of my Chrysler imprinted in their minds, they’ve tailed it enough times. I doubt they’ll follow you, but be alert, they can radio another car to pick you up.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“Bo, dearest-”

“I know, stay with the plan.”

“You found the shovel?”

“A spade, but will do the job. It’s in the trunk.”

“I cleaned the Walther,” Vera said.

“Which one?”

“Your favorite, the .380 PPK.”

“You’re a dear,” Bo said. “I’d get rid of the Tokarev, that Russian piece of shit, it’s so heavy. How does one carry it, keep it concealed?”

“My, we’re testy this evening.”

“I’m anxious to be going.”

“You’re wearing your girdle?”

“I hate it, it’s so tight I can’t breathe.”

“We all have our crosses to bear,” Vera said.

One o’clock in the morning Bo came out of the driveway in the Chrysler and turned left around the median. Now he was approaching the FBI surveillance car, having a look at it through the line of trees in the median. It was Vera’s idea: go left and they would have to turn around in the street to come after him. “If anyone is in it,” Vera said. “I see it as a decoy. Sometime after breakfast an agent is dropped off to sit in the car and pick his teeth.”

Joe Aubrey was a mess, but not a problem in his rumpled suit, his shirttail hanging out. Bo had said, “I’m not sticking his shirt down in his pants.” Vera didn’t care. Joe was groggy from the goofball, still drunk but miserable, what was left of him once Vera was through. He opened his eyes to streetlights and neon signs.

“Where we goin’?”

“To Walter’s.”

“He’s way out’n the country.”

“Yes, he is,” Bo said. “Go seepy-by and let me drive.”

Aubrey reached over to lay his hand on Bo’s thigh. “You still wearin’ your skirt? I’m gonna stick my hand under it, see what you got.”

Bo said, “Mr. Aubrey, please,” and gave the hand a slap. “Let’s not be naughty.” They were driving south on Woodward, only a few miles now from downtown Detroit.

“Man, I am in pain. I think I got laid, but I’m not sure.”

“You did, after a fashion.”

“That’s the first hangover I’ve had in twenty years. I suck oxygen I keep in my airplane and it clears up my head.”