1829 7 March 1943
Mary was late.
Kurt Bayer stood looking out the big window of the hotel room, trying to see if he could get a glimpse of her coming down the sidewalk to the hotel. It was no use. At this distance, from the ninth floor, it was impossible to distinguish many details of the people beyond the kind of clothes they wore—suit or skirt—and the coloring—dark or light—of that clothing.
He checked his watch again.
She was now almost exactly an hour and a half late.
When she had been only a half hour late, he had gone from being excited about her arrival to the early stages of being annoyed. And at an hour, he had started getting mad.
But now, after nearly ninety minutes, he had begun to worry about her.
And I have no idea how to check on her, he thought, frustrated. I can’t very well go down to that topless dance bar—if I could find the fucking thing—and ask around about her.
Bayer knew, too, that he wasn’t about to go ask Richard Koch for any help, either. They had spent all day together going over again—for what in Bayer’s mind had to be the fiftieth time—their plans for putting a bomb on a New York City transit bus.
At one point, after Bayer had asked Koch for just a few dollars—which Koch reluctantly gave him—Koch had gone after him about Mary, had gone on and on and on about how the relationship had to end. Period.
Koch had even tried to make Bayer admit that not only was the relationship stupid but it was dangerous, too, and he wanted him to promise to think only of the mission.
To which Bayer had promptly stood, glared at Koch, said that he wasn’t about to walk away from a woman he thought he might be falling in love with, and then stormed out of the room and went to his own.
Where, now some two hours later, he waited and worried.
I’m going crazy in here, he thought as he turned away from the window. Maybe going downstairs and meeting her there will help.
If nothing else, I’ll get to see her sooner….
He picked up his Walther PPK pistol from the bedside table, slipped it into the right pocket of his woolen winter coat, and went out the door.
As he approached the bank of elevators, he saw that the floor indicator above the right pair of doors showed that
that elevator was stopped at the eleventh floor. He looked above the left set of doors and saw that the needle of its indicator was moving; the car was coming up, now passing the seventh floor.
Maybe she’s on it….
The needle of the indicator moved past 7, then 8, and then 9. He heard the car itself actually pass his floor. The needle then showed that it had stopped on 10.
Damn!
He pushed the DOWN button, illuminating it.
The indicator of the right elevator began moving. The needle moved past 10, approached 9—then passed 9 and kept going all the way to 1.
What the hell?
He looked at the DOWN button. It was still illuminated. He stabbed it twice with his right index finger anyway.
He next heard the sounds of the left car coming down from the tenth floor, then the clunking of the mechanism that opened its pair of doors on his floor.
The car was empty.
Bayer quickly entered it, but as the doors started to close he had a sudden desperate thought.
What if she comes up while I’m going down?
He stepped one foot out of the car, into the path of the closing doors, and they tried to close completely. With considerable effort, he fought the mechanism and, after a moment, forced them back open.