The Hour of the Cat by Peter Quinn Page B

broad, well-lit, heavily trafficked avenues stretched north, toward the great open space of America.
    He drank more wine. How easy this city had it. Berlin had been raised to greatness not by the River Spree or the luck of geography, but by struggle, battle, the concentrated willpower and firepower of a state with enemies on every side. New York was handed greatness, wide river, deep, capacious harbor, the ocean at its door. Soldiers were nowhere to be seen. There was no rival military power for a radius of three thousand miles. Even the police lacked any sense of military bearing—fat, slovenly Irish peasants who strutted about with the gait of a farmer taking a cow to market.
    The sharp, unceasing pain in his head the next morning was made all the worse by the unrelenting cacophony of the New York streets. He couldn’t remember the face of the girl at whom he had stared so intently. He boarded the train to Baltimore. The Dresden sailed that evening . When the war came, and she went to the bottom, he made his epic, dangerous journey back to the Fatherland, took the assignments that were given to him without protest or complaint, even desk work in Berlin, sitting bolt upright, mind harnessed to the iron coulter of military paperwork.
    Occasionally, as he did now, he recalled his visit to New York. The roof garden. That girl. Her look. Violet. Memories that grew fainter. Besides, the city he visited had long since disappeared. Like the rest of America, New York had fallen on hard times. Unemployment rampant. The busy gaiety of the city gone. Streets overrun by competing mobs of gangsters who fought gun battles for control. The chaos that democracy inevitably brought. But there’d been a moment when it enticed him, possibilities never pursued that now seemed only wild fantasies.

WALL STREET, NEW YORK
    The sustained buzz of the intercom drew Donovan’s attention from the nagging pain behind his knee. His secretary had probably been pushing the button for some time. He put the switch in the “on” position and bent close. “Yes.”
    â€œColonel Donovan, sorry to interrupt, but I have John Foster Dulles’s secretary on the line, and she wants to change your luncheon appointment from the River Club to the dining room at the law offices of Sullivan & Cromwell. Mr. Dulles’s back is bothering him and he’d appreciate not having to travel uptown.”
    â€œFine.”
    â€œAnd she wants to know if you mind that District Attorney Dewey will be joining you.”
    The constriction behind his knee became almost unbearable. “Oh, Christ.”
    â€œDoes that mean you don’t wish Mr. Dewey included?”
    â€œNo, no, I’m sorry, my leg is acting up, that’s all. Include Mr. Dewey by all means.”
    â€œShall I bring you some aspirin?”
    â€œThat’s not necessary. It’ll pass. It always does.”
    Then again, Donovan thought, aspirin might lessen the headache that sometimes followed John Foster Dulles’s ponderous monologues. Dulles had brought Tom Dewey with him before, obviously convinced that the Racket Buster was his great white hope for putting a Republican in the White House and elevating himself to Secretary of State, a position held by his grandfather and uncle. Dewey and Dulles together would make for a grimly serious lunchtime. “On second thought,” he said, “yes, please bring the aspirin.”
    The ache settled into a concentrated throb. Standing usually helped. This time it only made it worse. “A phantom pain,” the doctor said. “The bullet shattered all the nerves and blood vessels. You couldn’t have any sensation there.”
    Couldn’t, but did.
    Donovan sat down again and drove his knuckles into where the throbbing had intensified. Years ago, he’d rubbed a spot nearby and felt something sharp. It turned out to be a sliver of shrapnel that had worked its way to the surface a full decade