Chapter One Thousand Three Hundred Twenty-Four
4th May 1959
New York City, New York
The offices of Haywood, Beckett and Gleason had not changed one bit in the years since Nancy had been here last. It still remained exactly the sort of place that she went out of her way to avoid. Mostly she had been remained in contact with Gerald Beckett and Clive Heywood through the wonders of modern communications.
The personal office of Heywood, where Nancy was waiting was a mixture self-congratulatory posturing and shameless self-promotion. On the wall were dozens of framed photographs with celebrities from both sides of the Atlantic with Heywood. Actors, politicians, athletes and authors. Front and center, there was a picture of Heywood and a woman who was presumably Mrs. Heywood with the Queen of England. Not posed, just them introducing themselves. Becket had once told Nancy that Heywood was a bit of a royalist, that was certainly in keeping with that. It was also the reason why Nancy was present here today. Neither Beckett nor Heywood would be inclined to treat her as an equal, however Heywood’s hope was that eventually she would help him get another photograph for his wall. Namely Louis Ferdinand. The truth was that it wasn’t actually up to Nancy. While she worked as the appointed Press Agent for the German Imperial Court, she didn’t play a role in who the Emperor met with on a day to day basis. Heywood didn’t need to know that though.
“Sorry to keep you waiting Ms. Jensen. Or is it Mrs. Schultz these days?” Heywood said as he entered the office, Beckett was a pace behind him. “Busy days you know.”
“It’s still Jensen” Nancy replied, “One of the things I like about where I live is that the traditions are a bit different. Professionally, I get to be my own person.”
Nancy was inwardly delighted when she saw Heywood and Beckett’s reaction to her saying that. A few months after she had Sabastian, they had discovered that they would be dealing with her again and had been completely surprised. In their minds, a career was something that a woman was expected to give up once she got married and had children. She had made other plans. If Nancy and Tilo ever got around to deciding whether or not to have another, then the same thing was going to happen. It would be something these two relics of the dark ages would have to deal with.
“I guess that is one way to put it” Beckett replied uncomfortably. He imagined that he looked like Gregory Peck, perhaps in dim light, Nancy thought to herself. Heywood looked like a potato with twigs stuck in it that was somehow stuffed into a charcoal grey suit. She had never met Saul Gleason but assumed that he was cut of the same cloth as his two business partners.
“Whatever works for you Ms. Jensen” Heywood said, “Your family is well?”
“Yes” Nancy said, pulling a photograph out of her purse and handed it to Heywood. She had been prepared for this moment and relished the chance to put one past Heywood. The photograph was of Sabastian as he went on one of his destructive jaunts, his babysitter struggling to keep up and limit the destruction.
“A chip off the old block I see” Heywood said, “The poor girl looks in over her head.”
“I think it’s good for her” Nancy replied, “Kiki tends to have a bit too high of an opinion of herself at times.”
“I see” Heywood said as he handed the photograph back, not recognizing that the girl in the photograph was Prinzessin Kristina von Preussen. Who happened to be her babysitter whenever Nancy was in Berlin.
Berlin
It was getting late and it had turned out to be a quiet night at the V8 Club. No band was scheduled to play so Sarah was playing on the piano, riffing on Classical pieces of music that would have had their Composers reeling in despair. The ones who wouldn’t have been intrigued with what Sarah was doing that is.
Zella was taking the opportunity to sort through her notes of the two shows that she saw over the weekend. She knew that she would have to get moving soon but was reluctant to leave just yet. Her mother had actually been happy with how she had been applying herself at the newspaper lately. Not enough to relent on how strict she had been for the previous couple years, but happy, nonetheless.
That was when a shadow fell across her. Looking up she saw that it was James, the son of the Military Attaché in the United States Embassy here in Berlin. James was overweight, which was terrible combination with his hair cut in the style favored by the US military. His eyes tended to linger where they shouldn’t and not to put to fine a point on it, he made Zella’s skin crawl. He had heard about her working for the BT and had asked for her to look at his writing a few weeks earlier. Zella had been more repulsed by what he had written than she had been by him physically. This was a window into the disturbed mind of a young man who was very selfish and immature. She had returned the notebook without comment the next time she saw him. The problem was that he wanted to know her opinion about his writing and she didn’t dare tell him the truth and had been avoiding him.
“Hey Zella” James said. She couldn’t help but notice that he was trying to look down the front of her blouse. “You never did get back to me about the notebook I lent you.”
“It was different” Zella said, hoping that he would read too much into that neutral comment as she started to gather her notes. “I didn’t see anything that could be published without a great deal of additional work.”
“Oh” James said, he wasn’t happy with that answer as he watched Zella shoving her notes into her satchel bag.
“What is your deal?” James demanded, “Is it because I’m just one of the stupid Amis to you?”
No, Zella thought to herself, it wouldn’t matter where he came from so long as James was James.
As she started to leave, he grabbed her arm. Zella was trying to figure out what to do when John Elis made his presence known.
“The Lady is clearly not interested in you” Elis said, “Take a hint and let her go.”
It wasn’t what he said, but how he said it. Elis never raised his voice, but between the words there was the threat of complete destruction if James didn’t comply. It was a side of Elis that Zella had never seen before. She also noticed that all the other patrons had stopped what they were doing and were watching James with almost predatory intent. She knew that the V8 Club attracted a rough crowd most nights, but this was the first time she had seen them all focused like this. James was about to get himself killed here and was oblivious to it.
Shaking off James’ hand Zella made for the exit, her hope was to make it to her motorcycle before anyone said or did anything else.