Chapter One Thousand Five Hundred Eighty-Three
29th July 1963
New York City, New York
Few things served to reminder Kiki that she was a long way from home than being sick and alone. After what many regarded as a successful appearance on the Tonight Show, she had eaten something on Friday that had not agreed with her. She had spent the early morning hours throwing up whatever was in her system on Saturday. One of her bodyguards had called the Consulate and they had arranged for a Doctor to see her. All he had done was confirm that Kiki had a mild case of food poisoning. It wasn’t the sort of thing that would have any lasting harm but would certainly leave her feeling horrible for a few days. Worse, the Doctor in question had not exactly been discrete with his coming and going, so a few hours later everyone seemed to know that she was sick. That was how Kiki had gotten a lesson in just how small the world was, but it had come later. All she had cared about at the time was that one of her bodyguards had gotten her a green glass bottle of lemon-lime flavored soda water and that had been exactly what she had needed.
Sunday had brought a surprise when Zella had turned up in the suite of rooms that Kiki was staying in and she had brought Vicky in tow. It might have been on short notice, but when Zella had learned that Kiki was sick from the wire service, she had dropped everything and had gone to New York. She had gotten Vicky involved because no sane ticket agent from Lufthansa would deny a seat to Princess Victoria as she raced to be with her ailing sister. Kiki had been so happy to see a friendly face that she had not questioned the means that they had used to get there.
Now it was Monday morning and Kiki was starting to get a clue as to what Zella’s presence to entail. Wherever Zella went, chaos followed. First, a musician friend of Zella’s, introduced to Kiki as Bobby had helped himself to the breakfast buffet that the hotel had laid out at Zella’s request. Then an eccentric artist named Andy had shown up with a half dozen bohemian types and they had helped themselves to the food as well. It had been then that they had found the video camera that Kiki hadn’t had a chance to look at yet. It was then that a journalist and a photographer had shown up by appointment. She knew the photographer, Helmut Newton, from Berlin. The journalist was unknown to her and it hadn’t been until after he had poured himself a drink from the bar, even though it was nine o’clock in the morning that Kiki learned that he had misrepresented himself to get the interview. He wasn’t from a weekly newspaper like he had claimed, but instead was working as a freelance journalist and the press pass that he had given Kiki said in black and white that the story he was working on would likely run in the pages of a men’s magazine that she had particular reason to dislike. Him having a name that sounded like it had come from the pages of a pulp detective novel also didn’t help matters.
Kiki could see that Vicky was watching at the center of it all with a quizzical expression on her face. These people were from a world that she had no idea even existed until a few moments earlier.
Her body still aching from her recent illness, wearing just one of the Hertha jerseys that she used as nightgowns and feeling like her hair could be used as a bird’s nest. Kiki was entirely unprepared for any of this. “Do you have any idea the amount of money that your employer offered to get risqué photographs of me?” Kiki asked.
“Hef said that you would probably bring that up” Hunter replied, “And that you had sent his offer back to him full of nine-millimeter holes, postage due.”
“I would think that would have…” Kiki started to say, only to get distracted by two of Andy’s people messing with the video camera. It was the newest model from Sony and supposedly it was going revolutionize the television industry. Their American Division was had sent it over the day before and it was surprisingly compact, the camera itself was the size of an eight-millimeter motion picture camera. The part of it that did the recording was the size of a small suitcase and each of the cassettes held an hour’s worth of tape. “Don’t mess with that!” She yelled.
“What is up with that?” Hunter asked mildly, Kiki couldn’t help but notice that he had put his drink aside and had pulled out a spiral notepad from his coat.
“Sony is interested in having me as an investor” Kiki replied, “They sent that over so that I could use it to chronicle my trip to America and to see if it would interest me in buying stock in their company.”
The interest in the video camera by Andy’s people suggested that there was probably a great deal of untapped demand for such a device.
“I’m still not interested in granting you an interview” Kiki said to Hunter as she realized that for the first time in days she had an appetite and if she wanted something to eat she would need to elbow her way to the front of the line.
“I figured that you would say that” Hunter replied, “I figured that I would need to sweeten the deal a bit.”
“I doubt that you would have a whole lot I would be interested in” Kiki said.
Hunter just shrugged. “There is a big military exercise going on up in Canada right now” He said mildly, “Most of the Air Forces of the world are taking part including your Luftwaffe. I still have a lot of friends in the US Air Force who have a handle on what is going on up there. I called a few of them yesterday to see just which units happen to be involved. If you grant me the interview, I would be more than happy to tell you what I know.”
That was completely unfair, Kiki thought to herself.
