“Did anyone go through my bag, do you know?” I asked.
“Your bag? Not that I know of. Why? Is something missing?”
“No. No. It’s all right.”
Protectively, I zipped up my luggage. Maybe I’d left the tape in California.
“Come on,” Johnny said. “Graus is waiting.”
—
Graus Menzies was waiting, next door. He was sitting in the shadows of an Amsterdam coffeehouse, or legal marijuana den. The place was a dump, virtually unfurnished, with only a few old wooden chairs and tables. Apparently, the pot was enough; nothing else was needed.
If Graus was impatient for our appearance, you’d never have known it. He was busy pontificating to a small, attractive redhead of thirty, while sucking deeply on a joint.
Like most movie actors, he was tiny with a big handsome head. About sixty, he had lots of salt-and-pepper hair and a face with outsized features—buggy eyes, a sharp nose, a harshly cut mouth. A scarf was twirled stylishly around his neck.
After starring in acclaimed German films in the Seventies, Graus had made an American splash with Macaroon Heart. Now he had been reduced to playing supporting Nazis in Hollywood potboilers. The declension had taken its toll: He had a reputation for bad behavior, womanizing, and drinking. Like Howie Romaine and Troy Kevlin, he, too, had written a memoir—I Am Graus!—but it was considered libelous, quickly pulled from U.S. stores, and reedited. The full, uncensored edition was a sought-after collector’s item. Or so my book trivia friends told me.
“Graus,” Johnny said, amiably, sitting down. “Here’s the guy I wanted you to meet.”
“Hold on, little boy!” Graus yelled at him. Then he finished the story he was telling the girl. The punch line was “I am Graus!” and he barked it like a dog.
The girl, an American, laughed, appreciatively. She, too, seemed stoned, and it made her squint appealingly. She had short red hair, freckles, and bright blue eyes, which she now directed, with sweet fuzziness, at me.
“This is Katie Emond,” Johnny said. “She was the publicist on Graus’s book in the States. Now she’s his assistant.”
“My assistant—of love!” Graus yelled. He started to chew comically on the girl’s bare upper arm, while crying, “I am Graus!”
Katie, who was shaking my hand at the time, giggled wildly. Then Johnny slipped onto the chair beside her, kissed her cheek, and draped his arm familiarly around her shoulder. She kissed him, too, on the neck. He was clearly a very good friend of a friend.
“Graus,” Johnny said. “This is Roy Milano. He’s the fan I told you about.”
Johnny had warned me to be vague and polite in my questions. Apparently, Katie, ever protective of Graus, should be handled with care, as well.
Graus’s stare became somewhat hooded as he checked me out. “Right. Right. My ‘fan.’ ” He extended the end of a wet, collapsing joint to me. I waved it away, but his offer stayed good. When I muttered a courteous “No, thank you,” he brought down the drug very slowly, with an expression of disgust. Then he immediately switched his attention to Johnny and Katie.
“Did I ever tell you two about the chambermaid I shtupped in 1974?”
The younger people rolled their eyes and smiled, indulgently.
“She was an Austrian,” he went on. “Beautiful. Pigtails, like Heidi. Every morning, she made my bed, and I would play rumpy-pumpy with her. I was always late to the set. I’m lucky I was working for Wim Wenders, otherwise curtains for Graus the louse.”
“That was in Chapter Eight of your book,” Katie said, giggling again. “Except I think you said she was Swiss.”
Graus made kissing sounds at her. “In the uncensored version. You know everything, little girl. That’s why I love you.” Then he turned, suddenly and coldly, to me. “That’s all I remember about my life, that chambermaid. You want to know any more?”
“Well,” I said, stupidly answering, “actually, yes, I’d very much like to know about The Day—”
“Forget it, Charlie! That’s the end of the line, last stop, everyone out! I got no more to say!”
Graus buried his face in a mug of beer, which sat, half-finished, on the table. I sensed tension in his companions now. When he finished drinking, Graus slowly licked the foam from his mouth, and looked right at Katie and Johnny.
“Tell your scummy friend to leave or I’ll kill him,” he said.
I assumed this was an exaggeration, like everything else he had said.
A second later, I learned it wasn’t.
GRAUS SPRANG AT ME LIKE A SMALL OLD LION.
The two of us went flying onto the dirty floor. Growling and barking, smelling of dope and beer, he pummeled me, as we rolled around. I tried pushing him away, but he held me in a hug, one surprisingly hard to break.
“I’ll kill you before I tell you anything,” he whispered in my ear.
I brought my knee up into his groin, but he didn’t recoil. To my shock, Graus seemed gratified by the impact, and he groaned with what appeared pleasure.
“Little tiger,” he said. Then he made to sink his teeth into my ear.
Luckily, he never got a chance. A second later, he was choking.
“Gaaak,” Graus gurgled.
The silk scarf around his neck had been tightened. He coughed again with an expression of surprise. Then his eyes, which already protruded, grew even bigger.
I looked up. Johnny stood there, holding the end of the scarf in a tight grip, yanking on it as if it were the reins of a feisty horse. Then, with what seemed superhuman strength, he pulled Graus’s compact body up and off of me.
Still using the scarf as a lead, he jerked the older man to him. When they stood nose to nose, he jammed a hand into his own pants pocket. He came out with a little paring knife, which gleamed in the bar’s dim light. Graus’s eyes grew impossibly large and his “gaaak”ing became more alarmed and birdlike.
