Chapter 3. Von Hellemann's Castle
Pamela Molina née Lansing, a woman who hailed from Chicago, luxuriated in the warm scented waters enveloping her body as she floated in the bliss of her fragrant bath. She closed her eyes and was on the brink of falling asleep when she heard the front door open and shut. That, she reasoned with unerring logic, would be Maria. Maria Sovant née Camerino, a woman who hailed from Detroit, let Pamela use her apartment, because, they were best friends, and because Pamela had a long walk from town to her cottage high upon Von Hellemann's mountain, and it often wasn't convenient to walk back to her place when she would have to leave it again in an hour or two. Pamela and her husband were also soldiers in Von Hellemann's private army. There was no road to Pamela's place in the woods - and even if there was they didn't like to use their cars because it was easy for extortionists to plant a bomb under a car, and easy for extortionists to shoot you while you drove your car down the street. It was much more inconvenient yet so much safer to dodge from shadow to shadow on foot while venturing to your local destination.
Pamela could hear voices, one masculine the other feminine. Soon enough she was evicted from her bath by some pounding on the bathroom door. Pamela got out of the tub and into a towel. She opened the door to see the wounded Haakon, who still had the vacant stare in his glassy eyes. For a moment she almost didn't recognize him, so distorted were his features. Maria had removed Haakon's coat and sweater and was now explaining to Pamela the tale of the bullet as she washed away the coagulated gore from Haakon's wound. Pamela ransacked the cabinets looking for either a bottle of rubbing alcohol or a bottle of peroxide. The former was found and Maria poured its contents on her husband's wound.
Maria and Pamela checked Sovant's pulse, which was racing somewhat. They watched him as they waited for the doc to arrive.
Haakon, Pamela and Maria could only speculate whether this shooting meant the beginning of a war or the end of one. Sovant was saying that getting shot, but surviving the bullet, was good for their job security in the sense that it confirmed that these threats against their employer were legitimate. If there was no real threat against their boss, his body guards might soon be unemployed. Pamela and Maria saw his point but they also thought his wits were still scrambled.
Pamela bundled herself up, said see ya later to Maria and Haakon, and set off into the cold winter night at nearly 2 o'clock in the morning. The warm bath felt wonderful but she got so sleepy she had to pop a few Benzedrine pills to stay awake before setting out. It might be a long night. Pamela hiked to a gas station that was open 24 hours a day and picked up some more Benzedrine, butter, peroxide, bandages, gauze etc. During her walk Pamela called her husband on her cell phone.
`Hon, it's me,' said Pamela. `Where are you? You got the door locked? You heard what happened? After tonight I'm not walking through those woods unarmed ever again. Try to get some sleep….I'll be home in an hour or two…Ok…..Love ya.'
Pamela was relived to hear her husband and their two kids were safe in their cottage.
After getting the supplies she hiked back to Maria's and Haakon's flat. She didn't mind the exercise she would get when she would walk home later - a three mile climb up a mountain. In fact she loved to exercise - her waist was still just 24 inches - just like it was in high school - but she thought she'd stay at Maria's and Haakon's place a little longer and then walk home. She had her Glock 9mm with her; she wasn't afraid of snipers.
The doc and the cops were there when Pamela returned from the convenience store. The doc had stuck a needle in Haakon's arm and was giving him a pint of O positive. Then the cops asked him if was going to administer a local anesthetic and extract the slug in abdomen. If he could pull it out, it would be Exhibit A, and then the cops could run Exhibit A over to a cop chemist to see if it had been steeped in some sort of insidious toxin. The doctor preferred to not extract the bullet or perform emergency surgery. Haakon's blood pressure and pulse were high but he was not in imminent danger of dying. The doc wanted to get Sovant to the Mayo Clinic as soon as Von Helleman's Lear Jet could be made ready to go.
`You say you never saw the face of the shooter?' inquired Police Officer Yuremevic.
`Never saw him," said Sovant.
`Well, who would know that you were on that path?' asked Officer Jorak.
`The boss. Some of the staff at the Castle,' Sovant was saying. `A few of my associates - other bodyguards.'
`And how many bodyguards does Mr. Von Hellemann have?' asked officer Yuremevic.
`There's seven of us. Four work outside the Castle and three work inside,' said Sovant.
`It's you three and someone else on the outside, right?' asked Officer Jorak.
`Yeah.'
`And what is the name of this fourth person?' asked Officer Yuremevic.
`He's my husband and his name is Sergio Molina,' said Pamela.
`Ever see any extortionists, ma'am?' asked officer Jorak.
`Maybe. I see trespassers now and then. They usually seem harmless and claim they didn't know it was private property, as if there weren't plenty of postings.'
`Ma'am,' began Officer Yuremevic, referring to Pamela, `does Mr. Von Hellemann make it public knowledge that you people are his body guards, or do you have some sort of cover assignments?'
`Sergio works undercover as a woodcutter, a handyman around Mr. Von Hellemann's estate, and as a free-lance writer. He's a scholar,' Pamela was saying. `Maria and I work, as you know - we've seen you there lots of times - at Wolf's Lair. Of the four of us only Haakon is known in town to be one of Von Hellemann's bodyguards.'
`Can you think of anyone, a loan shark, for instance, or a guy he exchanged words with, like a neighbor, or a punk in a bar,' began Officer Jorak, looking at Maria, `can you think of someone other than a hood trying to extort money from Von Hellemann, who would want to kill your husband?'
`I can't think of anyone,' said Maria.
`Haakon doesn't have any enemies,' volunteered Pamela.
`The evidence, on the surface at least ma'am, seems to suggest otherwise,' said Officer Jorak.
`But, since Von Hellemann is super-rich,' began Officer Yuremevic, `and since he has received extortion letters, an out-of-town hood, as you say, is the obvious first speculation to come to mind. But those of us in the detective business are trained to look beyond the obvious...
`We don't jump to conclusions,' interrupted Officer Jorak.
`I jump, sometimes. I bet he pays pretty good, seein' how rich he is,' said Officer Yuremevic.
`Yeah, but a lot of those rich guys are the cheapest S.O.B.s - you'd be lucky to get a nickel more than minimum wage out of some of them,' said the cynical Officer Jorak.
`Whachya talkin' about?' demanded Officer Yuremevic. `He gives away free beer at the beer-hall don't he?'
`Now yer talkin' like a lap-dog lackey for the Republican Party. Free beer! That's nothin' to the super-rich.'
`Draw us a map where the shooting happened. Some of us lap dogs will have a look-see for bullet casings, and we'll take some photos of any boot-prints we find in the snow,' said Officer Yuremevic. `We'll call the station and get some flood lights out to the crime scene.'
The cops departed with the map, and soon enough Pamela was all alone and walking up a mountain path, after she too said goodbye to Maria and Haakon. The latter two were now riding in the doc's car to an airstrip outside of town. A pilot was waiting to take them, in Von Hellemann's jet, to Rochester, MN where Haakon would have the bullet removed and his intestines sewn up at the Mayo Clinic.
It took Pamela 20 minutes to get to the top of a precipice. From here she could see the entire the eastern side of the mountain - that is the eastern side of Von Hellemann's estate. Lake Superior, a thousand feet below, spread out to the horizon, where, barely discernible in the distance, one cold see, lit up as it was by its running lights, a huge ship probably laden with iron ore and bound for an eastern steel mill.
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bsp; Yesterday's icy gales were dissipating into a gentle draft, and in a few weeks, if Pamela had to work a day shift again, the beginning of spring might be warm enough for her to get a suntan. She passed one of their caches, where they hid supplies for stake-out duty in a spacious hollow in the ground concealed beneath a boulder. She didn't bother to check to make sure it was undisturbed. Along with wool blankets it contained the olive oil and the French bread, kippered herrings in tins and saltine crackers, cheese and chocolate bars, smoked whitefish, smoked salmon etc. There were also a few bottles of bourbon and brandy for the cold night-watches, and lots of spare ammunition. Pamela would be glad when Haakon was back manning this post so she wouldn't have to divide her time between it and the beer-hall. Usually, Sovant divided his time between this eastern lookout and a similar western one. Pamela immensely preferred working at the beer-hall rather than sitting on a rock watching a mountain and a Great Lake. She wondered how Haakon could stand the boredom.
This path through the pines and spruce was a familiar haunt to Haakon and Sergio, but Pamela and Maria almost never went this way. Pamela didn't sense much danger as she ascended. She put a good deal of stealth into her footsteps, and was forever looking right and left for snipers. It was a long and exposed climb. Haakon and Sergio spent a week one summer making the path by hacking a way with machetes through no end of brambles, briars and tangles of buckthorn. In broad daylight it would be the simplest thing for a killer with a scope on his rifle to pick her off. The trees offered some cover but hardly enough to thwart a professional assassin. The last of the ice and snow had melted away in the clearings, and therefore the path was not always slippery, though it wasn't always easy to ascend as it wound its way upwards through the evergreens.
Pamela Molina was breathing hard from the strenuous climb by the time she got to the cottage in the woods where she lived with Sergio and her two kids, Amanda and Al. Aside from tonight they usually had plenty of peace and quite. Their nearest neighbor, Wolfgang Von Hellemann - was two miles away from them, and one had to take one of several narrow paths through the woods to go from their cottage to get anywhere, as there were no roads that cars could use near her place. But the rent was free. She and her husband had saved a lot of money. And she had kept the fat off her figure with this strenuous arrangement.
27 hours later, after Pamela had worked three more shifts at Wolf's Lair, Maria and Haakon had returned from the Mayo Clinic.
With their kids already at the Castle, Pamela and Sergio met up with Maria and Haakon at the latter's apartment.
`I hope you've been careful when walking in the woods,' said Maria.
`I'll bet they wear their bullet-proof vests when they're in the woods,' added Haakon.
`Not quite,' said Pamela. `But Sergio won't leave the cottage without his Uzi and you know I'm always packing heat.'
`I suppose the guy who shot Haakon is a thousand miles away from here right now,' said Maria.
`Were you able to keep all this from Amanda?' asked Haakon, referring to Pamela's and Sergio's 12-year-old daughter.
`She heard me talking on the phone about Haakon getting shot,' said Sergio.
`She's not roaming the woods by herself any longer,' said Pamela. `One of us has to walk her to and from the bus stop. She's too scared to walk alone, not that we'd let her walk alone.'
Pamela found she didn't have to make much of an effort with holding up her end of the conversation. Sergio wasn't much of conversationalist and so she usually had to do most of the work when they saw the Savants. But lately both Haakon and Maria were strangely talkative - they were two chatterboxes jabbering away about frivolous stuff - when, for the last few months, Pamela recalled that conversation had been rather strained between those two. Pamela was also amazed to also see that Maria and Haakon were so affectionate toward each other, holding hands all the time, staring into each others eyes like love-sick adolescents; all of this seemed terribly mysterious to Pamela because for years Haakon seemed rather bored with Maria. He told her he loved her but Maria didn't believe him, or at least that's what Maria told her when she wanted someone to confide in.
Pamela thought about popping some Benzedrine or Pseudoephedrine. It had been her job to patrol Von Hellemann's estate that day. And she had to work late the night before at the beer-hall. She excused herself for a minute, went to the bathroom, and there took seven Benzedrine pills to perk herself up and allow her to get her through the next few hours.
`Hon,' Sergio was saying as Pamela re-entered the room, `Haakon's memory has completely recovered,'
`Oh No!' said Pamela as she shot Haakon a smile.
`Think how terrible it would be to forget all of your mistakes,' said Haakon. `You would just make them all over again.'
`What mistakes have you made? You can tell us now that you have you got your memory back,' offered Sergio.
`My lawyer tells me to button it,' said Haakon looking at Maria.
The four of them bundled up and shoved off, leaving the warm apartment for the cold north wind. Maria locked the door with the key in her left hand, as she was carrying her Glock 9mm in her right hand. The Northern Minnesota neighborhood was exactly as one would expect to find it in late winter after sunset - dark, silent and cold - not that a sense of omnipresent doom lingered over the frozen little city.
They strolled down a few alleys, then over a park, then down a few more streets. They waited in the luminous glow behind a gas station to check to see if anyone had followed them. Pamela counted the seconds as she waited for some headlights to appear, or for the sound of footsteps on the pavement. But they were all alone. They shoved off down a side street. Here the street lights flung their shadow far out in front of her. Pamela was feeling brave because of the powerful handgun she was carrying. Her shadow along with the shadow of the weapon at the end of her arm looked menacing enough as she walked with her friends through a few blocks residential streets. The found the garage where they kept their cars, and then piled into Sergio's Chevy.
In 5 minutes the lights of the little city where spread out beneath them.
Wolfgang Von Hellemann and his wife, Joanna, greeted them when they arrived. Soon they were again hiking over more vast distances, this time striding over marble floors. It was difficult to not see everything in a blur: granite entablatures, towering rose-wood paneled corridors, mirrored hallways, Belgian tapestries, Egyptian pillars, Italian frescos, Grecian statues...
The Castle floated atop massive steel I-beams which spanned an enormous chasm. This chasm was an abandoned iron-ore mine; it had been rather elaborately redecorated and made extravagantly inhabitable. The opulence of it all was terribly inescapable. They entered a glass elevator and began to descend the 1700 feet to the base of what had previously been a mine. The vertical rock walls were illuminated in aquamarine-colored floodlights. Next week they might be lit up in crimson or golden hues. Sovant felt a surge of vertigo as he looked down upon a cobalt-blue sea shining like an opal far beneath the elevator.
At the bottom of the chasm they walked along the shores of a subterranean lake which sat at the center of this underworld. Sovant looked round him and above him. Ahead of them in the distance were towering flames burning in a colossal hearth. Everywhere Sovant looked he found opulence on a massive and preposterous scale. Von Hellemann and the others were walking on a sea of marble which flowed toward the hearth, around which were strewn scrolled divans, Pompeii chairs and récamiers. Von Hellemann was saying he wasn't bored with the place just yet as they walked along the marble shores of the lake.
At last they reached the colossal hearth and the towering flames. Sovant took a seat on a scrolled divan beside Maria. A waiter flitted on the periphery of Sovant`s consciousness. Sovant thought that Von Hellemann was like himself: distracted. He could hardly be dissatisfied with his own devotion to duty, not after he nearly died risking his life to defend Von Hellemann. The waiter arrived with some me
nus: for drink there was Champagne and Chardonnay, Chianti and Margaritas, Burgundy and Budweiser, MGD, Coors, Superior, Bohemia, Dos Equis, Tecate, Corona, Carta Blanca, Amstel, Heineken…For food there were Caesar salads, prime rib and New York Strips, swordfish and lobster, asparagus tips and pasta alfredo…for smokes there were Rocky Patels, Robustos, Cuesta Reys, Arturo Fuentes…
They drank and dined and smoked while Von Hellemann and Joanna were ever charming and solicitous. It had been a few weeks since any of them had conversed with Von Hellemann in person, and it was always fun to catch up with him on recent events. Wolfgang and Joanna were especially fond of Sergio's and Pamela's children, Amanda and Al, who always loved to explore the Castle, and who were doing just that at the moment.
Sovant glanced at Joanna and then at this marvelous underworld. She reminded him of Proserpine in her exotic haunts. Only rarely did bravado color her or Von Hellemann's conversation. He mentioned that it was a steal for him to spend only $2,000 a day on labor to collect the deadfall timber which he burned in his hearth - a hearth which looked large enough to accommodate a battleship. When he wanted to get a really big fire roaring on special occasions, such as Christmas, when he wanted flames 300 feet wide and 90 feet high to make a really big impression on the local kids, he said it set him back $20,000 an hour to fuel conflagrations of those proportions. And Haakon heard him say, months ago, that 5 Willis Towers, or 5 Empire State Buildings, would easily fit side by side in this basement of his.