Strangers in Venice Read online

  Contents

  Smashwords Copyright

  Also By A.W. Hartoin

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  About the Author

  Also by A.W. Hartoin

  Strangers in Venice

  by A.W. Hartoin

  Copyright 2019 A.W. Hartoin

  Smashwords Edition

  “This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Also By A.W. Hartoin

  Historical Thriller

  The Paris Package

  Young Adult fantasy

  Flare-up (Away From Whipplethorn Short)

  A Fairy's Guide To Disaster (Away From Whipplethorn Book One)

  Fierce Creatures (Away From Whipplethorn Book Two)

  A Monster’s Paradise (Away From Whipplethorn Book Three)

  A Wicked Chill (Away From Whipplethorn Book Four)

  To the Eternal (Away From Whipplethorn Book Five)

  Mercy Watts Mysteries

  Novels

  A Good Man Gone (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book One)

  Diver Down (A Mercy Watts Mystery Book Two)

  Double Black Diamond (Mercy Watts Mysteries BookThree)

  Drop Dead Red (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Four)

  In the Worst Way (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Five)

  The Wife of Riley (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Six)

  My Bad Grandad (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Seven)

  Brain Trust (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Eight)

  Down and Dirty (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Nine)

  Short stories

  Coke with a Twist

  Touch and Go

  Nowhere Fast

  Dry Spell

  A Sin and a Shame

  Paranormal

  It Started with a Whisper (Sons of Witches)

  For Connor, my documentary-watching wingman and knower of obscure facts.

  Prologue

  THE MEN HAD talked at first, the irrepressible chatter of the terrified, but that had long since fallen off as the minutes turned into hours. Abel said little, not even his name. His name was more dangerous than being a Jew and that was what got him in the boxcar in the first place. That and some foolish choices.

  But the choices weren’t only his. A young man named Herschel Grynszpan murdered a German official in Paris, not realizing the Nazis would take revenge. In truth, they were only waiting for an excuse and Grynszpan gave them a good one, but Abel never imagined it would be this bad. He didn’t think the SA would attack people in the street, drag them out of their beds and beat them, or arrest hundreds of men like himself and shove them into freezing cold boxcars, many without shoes or coats. No. He never imagined that.

  The old man beside him patted his knee and said in soothing tones, “We will be there soon.” He said that every few minutes, whether it was for Abel’s benefit or his own Abel didn’t know, but there was such kindness in his voice that Abel got a pang in his chest each time he said it.

  “Yes,” said Abel, but he didn’t think it would be an improvement. People came back from Dachau, but when they did, they weren’t the same as when they went in.

  He and the old man were huddled up with fifty other men wondering what would happen next. The only options seemed to be terrible or horrific. If only he hadn’t come back to Vienna. If only he’d stayed in his flat. If only he had listened. If only he had believed. It could’ve been different. He could’ve gotten away.

  Instead, he’d dropped off his clients, Stella and Nicky Lawrence, at their hotel, gone to his shop, and begun answering the correspondence that had piled up in the two months of his absence. Without any inkling of what was about to happen, he’d gone to bed in his little flat above the shop only to be woken up a short time later by his maid, Lettie, on the telephone.

  “Oh, Mr. Herschmann, you are there. How I hoped you wouldn’t be,” she said in a rush, her strong Slavic accent muddling her words.

  “What is it, Lettie?” It paid to be calm with Lettie. She got excited by a late milk delivery.

  “They’re coming. Now. Now. Now.”

  “Who is coming?”

  “The brown shirts. You must go now. Hide.”

  Abel sat on the edge of his bed with the heavy black receiver in his hand, unable to think.

  “Mr. Herschmann. Mr. Herschmann. Are you there?”

  “Yes, Lettie.”

  “You must go. Hide.”

  “Why?” he asked sounding thick-headed and none too bright. “What are they doing?”

  “They’ve set fire to your churches and they are arresting men. They are beating them. Come here. We keep you safe.”

  The thought of his little Bulgarian maid fending off the SA brought him to his senses.

  “Lettie, it’s all right. I’ll be fine,” Abel said, but he was already up and getting dressed. “It’s Albert’s shop. We changed the sign, the deed, everything.”

  “You think they are stupid?” she asked, her accent growing stronger.

  “Not exactly.”

  “They came to the shop looking for you. Mr. Moore, he tells them that you are traveling, but they don’t believe him.”

  “Who came? When?”

  “The other ones. The ones in black.”

  The SS.

  Abel slipped on his shoes. “When was that?”

  “Last week. Mr. Herschmann, you must go. They were very angry. They know your name. You’re not just another Jew.”

  Not just another Jew. Lettie was more right than she knew. “Don’t worry. I’ll figure something out.”

  “You come here.”

  “Thank you, Lettie. I appreciate it.” He hung up and tied his shoes. Was Lettie right? Did he have to go? When the SS were told that he wasn’t there, he really wasn’t and not due to return for weeks. He hadn’t contacted anyone about going home to Vienna instead of Greece, not even his business partner, Albert Moore, whose Aryan name was painted over the shop’s door. But the Dutch historian, Dr. Van Wijk, had seen him on the train with Stella and Nicky, and Van Wijk was rumored to be working for the SS. He may have already informed them that Abel was back in Vienna.

  He went to the window and peered out to find his street quiet. Some windows were lit up, but there were certainly no torches or pitchforks parading down the street and there wasn’t much reason to target his area. Mainly gentiles lived and worked there with just a handful of Jewish shops and homes. Maybe it was fine.

  But then he caught a glimpse of light far off to the right, a faint glow over a rooftop. Abel opened the window and leaned out. As soon as he did, he smelled
a hint of smoke. The fire wasn’t close. That was good. It probably wouldn’t reach the shop.

  He waited, listening for the sound of sirens. None came, but screams did. Across the street, his neighbor Mr. Nelböck leered out at him between lace curtains. The gruff old man was a bastard on the best of days. He’d welcomed the annexation of Austria and the loss of their independence with unrestrained joy, but he’d never said a word to Abel about it.

  Mr. Nelböck wasn’t content to stay silent for long. Lit by a dim streetlamp, he leaned out of his window, waving a hideous Nazi flag and pointing a plump finger at Abel, who he barely knew. “Now it’s your turn, you fucking Jew chiseler!”

  Abel went icy with shock. What turn was he supposed to be having? Mr. Nelböck imported fine French cheese and wine. As a historian and travel guide, Abel was hardly in competition with the man.

  He reached up to close the window as Mr. Nelböck began screaming obscenities with his red-faced wife trying to drag him away. Abel slammed the window and locked it with a loud metallic snap as if that could keep hatred out. He had to go. No doubt now.

  And that was when his foolishness took hold. He had three choices as he saw it. Lettie was too far away so that left Albert, Stella and Nicky, and Ho Feng Shan, the Chinese consul general. Ho was a lovely man, who looked upon the annexation with horror and the Nazis, in general, with growing trepidation. He would let Abel into the consul. The two men had become good friends after crossing paths at the Café Central. He was the first to suggest that Abel take steps to protect the business by transferring his half to Albert and putting his money in a Swiss bank account. But Ho was in the embassy district, nearly as far as Lettie.

  Stella and Nicky were the closest. The young honeymooners were members of prominent families and Americans, as well. He could go to them. They were his friends and Stella, in particular, would certainly help him without a thought to her own safety.

  Last was Albert, his business partner and closest friend. As the son of a British ambassador and a member of the nobility, Albert was untouchable, but he was farther from the shop than Stella and Nicky’s hotel. The possibilities raced through his mind. Distance, time, safety. Arrest, prison. Escape, success. Failure, loss. Albert or Stella?

  He thought he could make it to Albert. On balance, it was worth the risk, just in case Dr. Van Wijk did tell the SS about Stella and Nicky. He didn’t know what would happen if he were found in their room. They could be arrested. If they touched Stella…no, it didn’t bear thinking about. Albert would be fine, even if he was found there. The SS wouldn’t dare harm him.

  Abel threw on his coat and opened his dresser. In the false bottom of the third drawer he uncovered the diary written by his ancestor, Johannes Gutenberg, wrapped up tight in brown paper and string to disguise its worth. Besides the diary’s intrinsic value it also contained the inventor’s carefully guarded secret. The most famous German inventor had loved and married a Jew, Nissa, and she’d been instrumental to the invention of moveable type.

  Abel’s family had begun to suspect that the Nazi hierarchy was aware of the diary’s existence and what it said. To Abel, Van Wijk’s presence on the train confirmed it. The last thing the Nazis would want was Gutenberg’s secret revealed. Gutenberg was a hero, proof of Germanic superiority. A Jew couldn’t be part of the greatest invention of all time. That didn’t fit the Nazi dogma and what didn’t fit must be destroyed.

  Abel slipped on his coat and hesitated. Nothing was guaranteed. He might have to give the book to Albert or his doorman or some stranger if he were desperate. He grabbed his fountain pen and unscrewed the top. Greece or France? Paris was closer. His cousins, the Sorkines, would know how to act. Abel quickly scribbled their address on the brown paper and tucked the book into the interior pocket of his coat. He left behind his mother’s jewelry and his father’s precious books, taking only a wad of reichsmarks, his passport, his parents’ wedding photo slipped out of its silver frame, his favorite picture of Stella, and the diary.

  Dashing out the back into the night, he’d made his way towards Albert’s flat using back alleys and neatly avoiding crowds of SA ruffians roaming the streets looking for hapless victims and randomly attacking shops and homes. The sound of breaking glass and screaming accompanied him everywhere. The smoke choked him and made his eyes burn. He couldn’t escape it, only ignore it as best he could. At one point, he nearly ran into a group chanting, “Burn it down! Burn it down!” in front of a synagogue and found himself cut off. It would be easier to go to Stella and Nicky, but he stubbornly stuck to his plan, taking extra time to go around the mob.

  What had he been thinking? So foolish not to adapt to circumstances. Abel tugged at his pant legs, trying in vain to cover his frozen ankles. He wrapped his arms around himself and wondered if he hadn’t decided to stay on his chosen path would he be safe? And more importantly, would Stella be safe?

  He almost couldn’t bear to think about her. Stella Bled Lawrence. In the last two months they’d become deep friends. He’d never known anyone quite like her. Although predictably young and pretty, Stella was nothing like the other women Abel knew, a curious combination of naive and knowledgeable that he found both intriguing and endearing. She was the one who insisted they come to Vienna, claiming that she wanted to see everything on her grand tour honeymoon, but something in her eyes told Abel there was more to it. That was why he’d agreed to go, even with all his misgivings. He wondered if he would ever know what Stella was up to. She wasn’t as flighty as she appeared and allowed others to believe. She was a Bled through and through, and Bleds were always up to something. He learned that from her Uncle Josiah.

  Now, because he turned right when he could’ve turned around, he might never see her again. The thought pained him nearly as much as his head. Abel rubbed the side of his face where a jagged gash topped off a lump the size of a lemon. When he’d made his right turn, a ragtag group of young men had come out of the shadows and clubbed him with a brick. Stunned, he’d gone down on his knees, pressing the diary to his chest as they beat him, jeering gleefully at his pain. He managed to get the reichsmarks out of his pocket and toss them on the ground. His attackers fell on the money and Abel attempted to stagger away, but two of the younger men, boys really, noticed, throwing him to the ground and demanding his address and identification. He handed over his identity card and gave them the address of the Ministry of Justice.

  So he’d avoided the SA, but ended up in the hands of a dimmed-witted mob who believed that he could possibly live on Museumstrasse and didn’t think to search him. The precious diary was safe for the moment as they herded him down the street past a group of men ransacking a clothing shop and a grocery. Eventually, they lost interest in him and gave him to a group of SA who already had fifteen prisoners and Abel was absorbed into the group. The boys tried to make off with his identity card, but the SA leader saw it in the hand of one of them. Abel held his breath, sure his name would be read and recognized, but the SA only ordered the boy to give it back to him for “accounting purposes.”

  The would-be thief, a stocky boy of around seventeen with a broken front tooth and rancid breath hissed in his ear as he gave it back. “We’re going to steal all your furs and gold. You’ll have nothing. We’ll have everything. Which way to Museumstrasse?”

  Abel pointed in a random direction, dumbfounded that they actually thought he had furs and gold. Nothing about him said that. He wasn’t even wearing a watch.

  “Museumstrasse?” whispered a man next to him.

  Abel shrugged.

  “How stupid…”

  “Shut up,” said the guard and cracked the man in the head with his rifle butt.

  That man was now sitting slumped over on Abel’s right. It hadn’t stopped with one hit or with ten or twenty. The man, Abel didn’t know his name, had fought back, punching the guard in the throat. Rifles came out of nowhere and he went down in a flurry of kicks and butts to the head. It happened so fast, the way Abel imagined piranhas to attac
k in the rivers of South America. And he had stood there, watching, so shocked he stopped breathing. A guard pointed a rifle at him as a spray of blood went up, splattering the brown uniforms. “Do you have anything to say?”

  Abel didn’t, to his everlasting shame. All he could see was the long dark grey barrel and thought, They are killing him. They will kill me.

  When it was over, the man lay a bloody pulp in the road and the guards yelled at Abel and the other prisoners to pick him up. They silently obeyed and to Abel’s surprise the man wasn’t dead. He breathed in rasping, tight bursts, and Abel felt a little piece of his heart break. He should’ve done something, knowing all the while that he’d have ended up in the same condition and the diary lost.

  After walking for what seemed like hours, they ended up at the Westbahnhof with hundreds of other prisoners. Then dawn came and the trains started coming. As soon as he heard the dreaded word Dachau, he knew there was no hope. The concentration camp was nothing if not organized. He would be cataloged and the diary discovered. He would’ve failed where fifteen generations of his family succeeded.

  The beaten man was the first one in the boxcar, tossed in like garbage by the guards, angry that he hadn’t died. Abel tried to edge away from the line, looking for a place to run. A guard saw him looking and Abel readied himself for a terrible beating. But it didn’t come. The guard merely shook his head and indicated that he had to get in line. He did, but he kept looking. He could just run and take his chances. Maybe if he ran to the platform they wouldn’t shoot at him. The station was filled with people fleeing the violence, ordinary Austrians and foreigners. He had a few coins in his pockets. Maybe he could get someone to post the diary to Paris. He couldn’t take it to Dachau. Hope didn’t live there.

  His eyes roamed over the crowd, readying himself and looking for the best place to run. He would die in the attempt, of that he was certain. But there or Dachau, it made no difference. He made his peace with the prospect and that’s when his eyes found her. Stella, small and disheveled in her fur, standing on the platform next to Nicky, cool and aloof as always. There was someone else with them, but that person was hidden behind the broad-shouldered American. Nicky was talking to a conductor and pulled out his wallet. They were getting out of Vienna. They could take the diary. Abel tensed and Stella turned around. He froze. She saw him. He held his breath. Should he run? Now? Nicky stepped to the side and Abel saw their companion. Albert. Bloody. Wrecked. Barely able to stand. Stella was at the edge of the platform. He shook his head. No. He couldn’t do it. They’d hurt her. The diary be damned.