In the Presence of Mine Enemies (29 page)

“Who, me?” Willi looked innocent: one of his less convincing expressions. “I'm not smart enough to do anything like that.”

“How right you are,” Erika murmured.

Willi's smile seemed cheerful enough. “You can be replaced,” he said. It might have been one of their usual gibes. It might have been…if Ilse hadn't come back from lunch with her buttons misaligned. Heinrich looked down at the table till he was sure his face wouldn't give anything away.

He and Lise got to five clubs. She'd bid them first, so she
played the hand. She went down one when the trumps split badly against her. “Looks like everything's going to be above the line tonight,” Heinrich said.

Nobody went down on the next hand, because nobody had cards good enough for an opening bid. They tossed that one in and tried again. When Erika Dorsch bid three diamonds on the hand after that and not only made the contract but added an overtrick, she got a round of applause.

Erika and Willi won the first rubber, a long, inartistic affair. After the clinching hand, Lise said, “Let's take a break. I'll get a little something to eat.” She went into the kitchen.

Willi got up, too. “Rhine wine's revenge,” he said, and headed in the other direction.

That left Heinrich alone at the table with Erika, exactly where he didn't want to be. “I'm going to give Lise a hand,” he said, and started to rise.

But when Erika said, “Wait,” he didn't see what else he could do. She asked, “Was Willi at lunch with you today?”

He didn't want to lie. He didn't want to tell the truth, either. In the end, he didn't say anything. That was also unlikely to help, as he knew only too well.

And it didn't. Erika's eyes narrowed. “Uh-
huh,
” she said, packing a world of meaning into two wordless syllables. “Well, where was he, then?”

“I don't know.” Heinrich could tell the literal truth there, and did, gladly.

By then, telling the truth didn't help, either. Erika asked the next question he dreaded: “Wherever he was, who was with him?”

“How am I supposed to know that if I don't know where he was?” Heinrich hoped he sounded reasonable, but feared he sounded desperate.

Erika sent him the sort of look he hadn't got since the last time he'd tried explaining to a teacher why he didn't have his homework. But before she could call him a liar to his face or ask another question he didn't want to answer, the toilet down the hall flushed. Out came Willi, whistling.
Saved by—well, no, not the bell,
Heinrich thought.

“
That's
better,” Willi said.

Lise brought in a tray of cold cuts and crackers and cheese. “Here,” she said. “We don't have to think about this.”

“I didn't have to think about what I was doing before,” Willi said.

“Are you sure?” Erika asked, in tones that would have given him credit for any disgusting habit. Heinrich built himself a snack. That was probably the safest thing he could do. Even scratching his head struck him as dangerous.

Erika had come right out and propositioned him, or as near as made no difference, and she didn't see anything wrong with that. The only place where she saw anything wrong was with what Willi did. Willi had had some sort of interesting time with Ilse. But if he ever found out what Erika had said to Heinrich…

It sounded like one of the televisor dramas that ran on weekday afternoons. Unfortunately, it was real.
If Willi finds out, will he try to knock Erika's block off, or mine?
Heinrich got up and poured himself another glass of wine. That was a more interesting question than he really wanted to contemplate.

In the kitchen, Lise had missed the byplay. “We're all cheerful tonight, aren't we?” she remarked.

“
I
am,” Willi said, piling a wobbly mountain of meat and cheese on a cracker. “Why wouldn't I be?” When he devoured his creation, he looked like a hamster stuffing sunflower seeds into its cheek pouches. Heinrich wouldn't have believed all that would fit in a man's mouth, but it did.

“Yes, why wouldn't you be?” Bombers were taking off in Erika's voice. Panzers were rolling for the border.
Why wouldn't you be, when you were out screwing around?
She didn't say it, but it hung in the air.

Somehow, Willi seemed not to hear it. Heinrich didn't know whether to be appalled or jealous. Willi assembled another monster snack. He managed to eat this one, too, and smacked his lips in triumph.
Did you do the same thing after you ate…?
Heinrich made himself stop, not quite soon enough.

Now Lise realized something was wrong. She didn't
know what, but she did find a solution of sorts. Reaching for the cards, she asked, “Whose deal is it, anyway?”

“Mine,” Willi said with his mouth full. He took the deck from Lise and started shuffling. “I'll deal them off the bottom this time. Only way to make sure I get myself some decent cards.”

“Wouldn't you rather have indecent ones?” Erika asked. Again, Willi only gave back a vague smile. He went on dealing.

Heinrich arranged his hand. “This looks like you dealt it off the bottom, all right,” he told Willi.

“I told you I was going to.” Willi took a look at his own cards. “One heart.”

“Pass,” Heinrich said gloomily.

“One no-trump,” Erika said, which meant she had some help for Willi but not much. Heinrich told himself not to look at bridge bids as a metaphor for life. As often happened, telling himself was easier than making himself listen.

“Two diamonds,” Lise said.

That made Heinrich look at his hand in a new way. He had five diamonds to the queen: not really a biddable suit, not with the rest of the junk that accompanied them, but pretty decent support. His singleton heart looked better, too.

“Two hearts,” Willi said.

“Three diamonds,” Heinrich said.

Erika passed. So did Lise. Willi muttered to himself. “Three hearts,” he said. Now Heinrich passed. His wife had the stronger hand. She was the one who'd have to decide whether to go up. After Erika passed, Lise did, too. Willi made gloating noises. “Mine! All mine!”

Heinrich led a diamond. Erika laid out the dummy, which was about what Heinrich had expected: not much. She did have two little diamonds in it. Willi put one of those on the lead. Lise played the ace and took the trick. Then she threw out the king, saying, “Maybe this will go and maybe it won't.” Heinrich didn't think it would. He had five diamonds, he figured Lise for five, the dummy showed two—and that left only one for Willi.

But Willi had two after all, which meant Lise had had
only four. No wonder she hadn't rebid them. Willi looked disgusted at setting his second and surely last diamond on the trick. Lise led the eight of spades. Willi took the trick with the ace from his hand. He looked put upon. He didn't want to be there, but he didn't have much in the way of entries to the board.

He played the hand about as well as he could, and ended up going down two anyhow. Lise had stronger cards than he did. “I was going to open at one no-trump,” she said, “but I couldn't, not when it got to me, and I had even distribution and no rebiddable suit. So”—she shrugged—“I played defense instead.”

“And ran over me,” Willi said sadly.

“You were the one who overbid the hand,” Erika said.

“The hell I did,” Willi retorted. That got to him, where the other sneers hadn't.

Heinrich grabbed the cards and started shuffling. “We've all butchered a hand or two—or twenty-two,” he said. “And some of us—I'm not sure now, but I think it's just barely possible—some of us may even have made some other mistakes, too.” He started to deal.

“You've got good sense, Heinrich,” Willi said gratefully. Erika also nodded. Neither Dorsch looked happy about agreeing with the other. Heinrich wasn't happy about having Erika praise him in any way. It might give her more ideas than she had already—ideas about which Heinrich couldn't and wouldn't do anything.

The second rubber turned out even longer and sloppier than the first one had. Heinrich and Lise took two games out of three, but they went set three times while they were vulnerable and the Dorsches had a couple of hands with honors bonuses, so in spite of “winning” the rubber they came out 150 points in the hole.

“Well, no one will send any of those hands to the bridge magazines,” Heinrich said ruefully.

“Oh, I don't know,” Willi said. “If they're looking for lessons on how not to do it, I think we just wrote the book.”

“Another rubber?” Lise asked.

Willi nodded. “Why not? The night is young, and I am beautiful.”

Even Erika laughed, and she'd been sniping at her husband all evening. She still had the tricks they'd taken during the last hand in front of her. She tossed them across the table to Willi. “Shut up and deal.”

“Always a good idea,” he said, and did. When he picked up his hand and arranged it, he solemnly shook his head. “Nothing's going to go right tonight, though. I pass.”

Everybody
passed. Heinrich took the cards and shuffled them extra hard, trying to get rid of the mediocre hands people had been having. He looked at what he'd dealt himself. No such luck, not as far as he was concerned. “Pass.”

They all passed again. “At this rate, we'll be here forever,” Willi said, which proved economic planners in the USA weren't the only ones given to extrapolating too far from not enough data.

“Give me the cards,” Erika said. As she shuffled, she sent the deck a severe look. “Have to be some playable hands in here somewhere.” By the way she said it, the cards would go to bed without supper if there weren't. She nodded briskly once she saw her own hand. “One heart.”

She won the contract at four hearts, and made it without much trouble. Even Lise murmured, “About time,” as she shuffled for the next deal. She and Heinrich made three diamonds and then made two hearts, so they were vulnerable, too.

That sent the deal to Heinrich. He liked the face cards that looked back at him when he picked up his hand. He put things together, and…. “One no-trump.” Erika passed. Lise made it two no-trump. Willi opened his mouth and then closed it again, as if he wanted to jump in but couldn't, not at the three level. Heinrich said, “Three no-trump. Let's see if we can steal this rubber.” Everyone passed.

Erika led. Lise set out the dummy. Heinrich looked at what she had and added it in his head to what he had. He saw eight sure tricks, one more with a spade finesse—and he knew which way he intended to try it, because of Willi's wiggling—and maybe a couple of overtricks if he could set up her clubs and run them.

Everything turned out the way he thought it would. He
ran the spade finesse past Willi the first chance he got, while he still had the other suits stopped—vital in no-trump—and it worked. After that, everything else flew on automatic pilot. He ended up making five.

“Very neat,” Willi said. “Nothing we could do about that one.”

“I don't know,” Erika said. “Why didn't you hold up a sign that said,
I've got the strength
?” Willi bridled. As he had in the auction, he started to say something. This time, Erika forestalled him: “And who did you really have lunch with today?”

“I told you—with Heinrich,” Willi answered.

“Yes, you told me. Now try telling the truth, because I know crap when I hear it,” Erika snarled. Lise looked at Heinrich in surprise—she'd known something was going on, all right, but she hadn't realized Willi was out-and-out lying. Heinrich did his best to keep all expression off his face. Anything he did or said now was only liable to throw gasoline on the fire.

Willi got to his feet with ponderous dignity. “I don't have to take these kinds of questions,” he declared. “You're not the Security Police, even if you think you are.” He left the table and walked down the hall again.

Erika looked daggers at his back. “Bastard,” she said, just as the bathroom door closed. She turned back to Heinrich and Lise, her eyes going from one of them to the other and then returning. “I swear, there are times when I'd like to sleep with the first man I happen to see, just to pay him back.” She was staring squarely at Heinrich when she said that.

He tried to look at the floor, at the ceiling, out the window—anywhere but at either Willi's wife or his own. He kept waiting for Willi to flush the toilet again. But Willi, this time, was using the bathroom as a bomb shelter, and odds were he wouldn't come out any time soon.

Silence stretched. At last, warily, Lise said, “Don't you think that's a little…drastic?”

“Why?” Erika didn't keep her voice down. If anything, she pitched it to carry. “If he's fooling around on me, why shouldn't I fool around on him?”

More silence. Heinrich decided he'd better say something. If he didn't, Lise was liable to get the idea he wanted Erika thinking about him like that. He chose his words with even more caution than Lise had: “If you're going to stay married, it's probably a good idea that neither one of you fool around on the other.”