"Are you OK, Vera?" Tannehill could see his friend standing a few feet behind Emily Brunner, Vera's hands casually draped at her sides. Behind her, Otto was stooped, dusting his suit off over what looked like a pile of broken furniture. Though the composition of the picture in front of him was perfectly framed - each subject occupied a vertical third of his vision - the subject matter of what he was seeing bordered on the surreal or the chaotic.
"Well, did you bring any dry vermouth?"
"No." He was hesitant, as though the question was a previously agreed code phrase to indicate that real danger was still present but had not yet made itself known.
"Then I've been better." She shoved Emily abruptly, causing the latter woman to lose her balance and stumble to her right. Vera took advantage of the opening to move past her and stop in front of Tannehill. "Hi," she exhaled in a friendly, familiar grin.
He pointed the revolver toward the ground, still eminently confused. Was she expecting a hug? A grand, sweeping gesture? "Hi."
She stuck her hand out toward him and flicked it swiftly to the right twice. After a brief pause, recognition filled his eyes and he moved aside, ready to act as a human shield on her behalf from her two attackers. She exited the door and looked right, exclaiming "Hiya Phil!" to the figure obscured by the exterior wall of the apartment. With the exception of Vera, all of the other players in the afternoon's drama remained motionless. The two outside the apartment were frozen in confusion. The two inside, with a mild exception to be made in Otto's case - who continued to bat at the dust on his suit, were frozen in exasperation.
She moved to the next unit down the hall and knocked discreetly on the door. After a brief exchange with a figure in the doorway, she returned to Emily's unit and squeezed politely past Tannehill again to move into the kitchen. She was holding a bottle of dry vermouth.
"Who wants a martini?" She held up the bottle in triumph. Otto looked up at her from his suit and raised a finger in eager acknowledgment. Emily smirked in resigned disgust but signaled with her own weary digit.
"Are you drunk?" Tannehill stepped through the doorway into the apartment. Spinoza followed, holstering his pistol in the process after determining there was no longer any immediate threat.
"Not yet," Vera reached for the gin on the counter and began pulling cabinets open to find martini glasses. Once she located them, she set them down neatly at equal spacing on the cramped kitchen counter.
Spinoza looked around at the wreckage of the room and quipped in Tannehill's direction, "you still concerned that she can't take care of herself?" Tannehill looked askance back at his friend with equal parts confusion, amazement, and annoyance. "What happened here?" Spinoza continued.
"We were trying to clear room for the bandstand, but things got out of hand," Vera had commandeered an ice pick and was chipping shards into a silver cocktail shaker. Otto and Emily did nothing to confirm or deny her account. They simply looked in Vera's direction in anticipation of a drink they each felt they deserved.
Following Spinoza's lead, Tannehill secured his own weapon in a shoulder holster, cocked his fedora back and wiped the remaining sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. For a brief moment, only the sound of the shaker in Vera's hands was audible. "You made a poor choice in abducting my friend. Whatever bargaining power you have is now gone, and I'd just as soon as see you arrested for kidnapping as for murder, grand theft, and whatever charges accompany moving stolen goods across international boundaries."
"We didn't kidnap her. It was simply a mix-up among well-meaning individuals. She's obviously fine. She's making martinis!" Emily sniffed indignantly as if to prove her case.
Vera briefly stopped shaking and glared at her. "You're getting the martini with the bruised gin." She resumed.
"Just because you botched the effort, doesn't mean it wasn't a kidnapping," Tannehill continued. "The crime is in the intent not in the effectiveness. Otherwise, the two of you wouldn't have to be concerned about serving a day of jail time."
"We'll share the proceeds of the Jewish items in the storage locker if you're willing to forget this little," Emily gestured around the room, the folds of her skirt following behind assertively, "incident."
Tannehill was silent again - as his plan was quickly becoming extraneous - and he had to adjust to absorb the information he was receiving. Much of the plan had involved bargaining with Emily and Otto to keep Vera safe and convincing them that he and Spinoza could be bought with a cut of the proceeds from their allegedly stolen treasure. Once they admitted they'd stolen the items, it was a matter - not necessarily foolproof - for them to admit that they'd murdered their two other accomplices. With Emily admitting that she knew of the stolen items and attempting to bribe him them, and with the two of them caught in the act of kidnapping Vera, he decided to go for broke on the final crime. "Why did you kill Snell and Bellucci?"
Otto's face reddened instantly to the same degree Emily's went pale. He was about to unleash his pent up indignation in the form of a vehement denial before Vera interrupted - "They're not murderers." She strained her cloudy, chilled concoction of booze into each of the glasses.
Tannehill whipped around to face her, "how are you so sure?" He didn't mean to sound accusatory, but the shock of her statement and his still heightened stress levels removed any sense of decorum from his thought.
Vera was unflappable as she moved between the three glasses, pouring equal measures into each. Finally, she took a large chip of ice and plunked it into the middle glass, spilling a quarter of its contents onto the counter. "That's yours." She glanced at Emily. Then she turned toward Tannehill. "Look at how this delightful," she paused, "afternoon has turned out. I'm an ostensible kidnap victim making martinis for my abductors. The only weapon I've seen them use is a novelty lighter. Its greatest danger is that its flame may burn a little too impure. As you just mentioned, these two seem to be incapable of carrying out anything more than a botched stick-up of a child's lemonade stand."
Both Otto and Emily nodded eagerly, attempting to confirm that yes, in fact, they were too incompetent to carry out such a nefarious plot.
"Besides," Otto chimed in helpfully, "it would have been impossible to have murdered Bellucci when he was in police custody. He was their friend. A - what is it - an irritant."
"Informant," Emily muttered out of the side of her mouth.
"Informant," Otto continued.
Tannehill drew back, startled. "Bellucci was an informant?"
"Yes. Snell believed those connections with the police would prove useful during our little...adventure." Otto capped his statement with a wry smile, proud of imparting new information that Tannehill hadn't been aware of previously.
Tannehill scratched his chin in thought and motioned Spinoza over toward the door. The two of them whispered excitedly before realizing they could continue the conversation in the hallway without endangering Vera's safety or their plan to entrap their Nazi suspects. As they moved toward the hallway, Vera pushed the martinis across the breakfast bar to her once-and-would-be captors, "Cheers!" She hoisted her glass, as they did the same.
A handful of minutes later, Tannehill re-entered the apartment without Spinoza.
"Where's Phil?" Vera took another swig of her martini.
"On an errand. He'll be back in an hour or two."
"In an hour or two? How long are we planning on staying here?"
"All night. We'll be heading to Loving's tomorrow at 9 AM. For now though, we'll need to sit tight and make sure no one's," he glanced over at Emily and Otto, "up to any funny business. Spinoza will come back to help make sure no one gets any ideas about leaving before then. So we can all settle in for one long, slumber party."
Vera accepted the abrupt and unannounced plan with good cheer. She had suddenly moved from captive to captor. "Well then. Martini?"
Tannehill nodded in acceptance.
[Author's Note: Hopefully the characters won't be too drunk for the denouement. Today's edition is 1394 words. The running total is 49433 (so close!).]
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