"Make a diversion," was all Frank had time to say as he turned his back to the men who had just entered.
The two men were being seated at a table when Molly shrieked, "How many times have I told you not to follow me around?" to Joe's face. "Can't you take 'No' for an answer? I don't want to see your face anymore!"
Joe, getting into the spirit of things, said in a hurt voice, "I just need to talk to you, for only a few minutes! I can explain everything."
"Leave me alone!" Molly exclaimed in scornful wrath. She picked up a glass of water and splashed it in Joe's face.
Joe took this as a cue to leave. "A little romantic melodrama is all right for variety but I think I'll stick with mystery!" Joe whispered to Charles as he walked away from the table. The two men at the other table seemed amused to witness this slice of modern American life. They did not notice the two furtive figures moving in the dim corridor.
The corridor was illuminated only by lights over framed photographs of bands and musicians, and by the light spilling through the swinging double doors of the kitchen. "Where there's a kitchen there's got to be a door for garbage and deliveries," Frank explained as he led Heinze that way. Just to the right of the kitchen doors was a storage area and the exit.
The brothers re-united outside in the alley.
"Will Olivia be all right?" Heinze asked.
"Mr. Charles is still with her," Joe answered. "Besides, they don't want her. They're only interested in her if she can lead them to you."
"Yes, you're quite right." Heinze looked troubled. "It is terrible that she is dragged into this. It was an overwhelming impulse on my part to stay with her and not be parted again."
"Why did you leave in the first place, I mean, eight years ago?" asked Frank. "If you don't mind my asking such a personal question."
"That was also an impulse of mine, a cowardly one." Heinze had that embarrassed grin the brothers had seen before. "My time at school was over; my visa was expiring. But I could have stayed if I had married her. I was a coward. I was panicked by the thought of fatherhood. I felt an impulse to run. That is all I can say as an explanation. I adored Olivia. I might have fooled myself at the time with the thought that I could turn around whenever I wanted and go back, but you understand how it is, once I returned to Germany I was back in familiar surroundings and New York seemed very far away. I began my professional career at the University of Heidelberg. I was excited by my work. I was drawn into a new circle of friends. You mustn't think that I forgot about Olivia in those days. That would be excessively cruel. I did think of her, but with each passing year it seemed more fantastic that I would give up everything and pick up the thread of my former life." As he talked, Heinze looked over at the brothers from time to time, as if expecting to be judged, but they listened sympathetically.
"I don't think you know this, but I have an apartment six blocks from here," Heinze informed the boys.
"We'll walk you there," said Frank. "Don't let me interrupt your story."
"Yes, 'my story'," Heinze repeated in a self-mocking tone. "To continue, I did write to Olivia in the first few years. I sent her money. When I met my wife I no longer wished to continue. I felt I was playing the role of some foolish figure in a cheap melodrama. That was the case whether I was found out or not."
They walked along the broad sidewalks. The street was lined with cheap shops, cafés, and gin joints. Frank noticed that men were watching them through the windows of pool parlors. There were many loiterers and strollers out on the streets. There were too many men without a job to wake up to the next morning. They turned a corner and passed the office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Frank had heard that at this corner, on those days that occasioned it, a banner used to be hung that read, "A Negro was lynched today." The landlord had forced the organization to stop doing this.
"I married Lotte five years ago. It was easy to enter the married state. I was a successful young academic. Naturally people thought I was in need of a wife. Lotte's father was involved in a weapons production company. We were considered a very good match. Perhaps it was a terrible mistake. People would say that I still had feelings for Olivia and could not commit wholeheartedly to any other woman. As an engineer, you know, I am used to the idea of analyzing events in extraordinary detail after the fact. Train derailments and bridge collapses, for example." He grinned bleakly. "Human life is both more complex and more subtle. I did not feel haunted by memories of Olivia at the time. I thought my passion for Lotte was genuine.
"To keep the story short, my wife and I drifted apart. She is the sort of woman who enjoys hosting parties for the right people in society. As an academic I had some prestige but my salary did not go far. Lotte expected from the beginning that I would join her father's company. It seemed a perfectly natural step to her. As my project advanced it became shrouded in greater secrecy. I spent more and more time away from Lotte and could never discuss my work with her. Would it all have been different if I hadn't known that, an ocean away, my son was being raised without me? How can I know the answer to that?"
They were walking on a street with brick apartment buildings. On every building, a black steel fire escape hung from the façade. Away from the lights of the commercial blocks, Joe felt the darkness of the night oppressing him. From open windows he could smell cooking but he didn't know what the dishes were. He thought of how these tenements were crowded with people, many of them from the South, who had flooded into New York following the World War. He was startled to look up and see a man standing on a fire escape in his white undershirt, staring at him, undeterred by the cool air. He had thick, massive arms. Joe wondered whether his look was hostile or merely curious. Then he heard a baritone voice singing, "Summertime, and the livin' is easy" and he realized it was the man on the fire-escape. It was a smooth, soothing voice, like the surface of a wide, slow-moving river caught in the moonlight.
After a short pause, Heinze carried on. "My wife and her friends thought that the Nazis were good for the morale of the country. They would build up the economy and give people pride again. But they expected that Hitler could be replaced after a short time by someone more pleasing to their tastes. They thoroughly underestimated the ruthlessness of Hitler and his circle." They passed along the high, red brick walls of the Metropolitan Baptist Church. Frank wondered if the thick walls provided the congregation with a sense of security against a hostile and violent outside world.
"With the Nazi government in power I came to realize that I could not continue with life as it was. We are being led on a road to catastrophe, and I am adding fuel to the engine. I could not willingly sabotage my own project. If I tried I would surely be found out. I am afraid I am not a hero. The thought grew in my mind that I might switch sides. I could, on the one hand, impede the progress of my homeland in its drive to obtain terrifying weapons and, on the other, help America create a sort of balance of terror." A momentary expression of helplessness came over Heinze. The Hardy brothers were startled to hear him say, "Sometimes I think we are all mad! What are we doing? There is no defense against these weapons. We can only create two sides that are equally armed."
"Maybe you could tell us more about the weapon you're working on?" asked Frank.
"I can tell you the idea easily enough. We are interested in developing a multi-stage missile, capable of delivering a warhead, not across a battlefield or across a border, but of crossing the ocean. What sort of warhead it could be armed with is limited only by the malevolence of men's imaginations."
"That would change the nature of any future war, and of global politics," said Frank.
"Maybe this guy should have a metal hand," muttered Joe to himself.
"In my miserable state I clung to Olivia as a hope for a new life. I became obsessed with the idea of seeing her again. Of course, I could not state this openly, even in letters to Prof. Coville. The German security apparatus would have read my letters, I am sure, and they would have blocked my attempts to travel abroad."
"It sounds like you were taking it for granted that Olivia would accept you back," said Joe.
"No, no, not at all. It was a faint hope, I realized. I fully expected she had found another man. Eight years is a long time. She was candid with me. She said she had lived with other men during those years, but none she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. I can only say that I am a very fortunate man, to have another opportunity in life. Some times a person is humbled in the presence of love and forgiveness."
They had reached Heinze's residence. It was in a large brownstone house converted into apartments. The doorway at the top of the entrance steps had carved Corinthian pilasters in dark sandstone. The designer had intended the building for a higher class of resident than was now attracted to the street.
Heinze left them at the front steps. "Love can survive in the most unlikely of circumstances, like lichens in the Arctic wastes. Good night, young friends. Come around tomorrow morning. It's apartment four."