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Eric Fulmar and the FBI guy—“Agent Joseph Hall,” it had said on his ID—were seated opposite one another on leather furniture.
Not just any furniture, Fulmar thought, looking around the now brightly lit apartment. This is the good stuff—designer stuff found in museums.
Ingrid’s taste in furnishings ran toward the modern school—less is more. That included her artwork, oil paintings that were hardly more than huge floor-to-ceiling canvases painted in thick textures of a single hue only slightly darker than the walls.
Thus, there did not appear to be much in the large apartment, but what there was was very nice and fashionable.
The main living area, with its light gray-green slate floor, had as its focal point what Fulmer believed to be pieces—Probably knockoffs of the real thing, he thought, but still outrageously expensive—by the very serious designer Le Corbusier.
There was a chrome-and-black-leather couch and two chrome-and-black-leather chairs (the ones he and Hall were sitting in) positioned around a four-foot square glass-top table with a chrome-framed base that mimicked that of the chairs and couch.
It was all situated on a kind of finely woven rope mat—“Sisal,” I think it’s called—in a cream color.
The styling of the furniture was boxy, square, and though visually stunning—like its owner—it was unbelievably uncomfortable.
Fulmar, taking care not to spill on the leather the scotch on the rocks that Ingrid had made for him, shifted in his seat.
It’s like sitting in, well, a damned box.
A well-upholstered box, but a backbreaking box nonetheless.
“Here you are, Joe,” Ingrid said, handing the ice bag to Hall.
The FBI agent pressed the ice bag to his neck and glared at Fulmar.
Ingrid put the pot on the glass top, then stepped around the table and sat on the black leather couch.
“What’s with the pot?” Fulmar asked.
“If Harold comes up and says someone reported they heard a shot, I act like the silly blonde I am and say my heavy pot got too hot and I dropped it on the table.”
Fulmar raised his eyebrows. “Might work.”
“You’ve clearly never seen me act.”
She smiled, then went on:
“As I was saying, I’ve made my connections in the German community here available to the FBI. I’m an American citizen and this is my way of helping in this awful war.”
“And you were willing to sell me out.”
Her face turned very serious.
“If your intention,” she said, her voice hard, “was to aid and abet the enemy, then you bet your ass I’d do anything that helps stop Hitler even a minute sooner. And that includes bringing people to speak with a ‘member of the Bund’”—she nodded at Hall—“someone about whom I can easily act, if challenged, that I had no idea he’s really with the FBI.”
Fulmar smiled.
“I admire your loyalty,” he said after a moment. “It’s why I approached you.”
“To get to those German agents?”
Fulmar saw Agent Hall’s eyes brighten.
“Maybe,” Fulmar said. “Maybe not.”
“Which is it?” Hall said harshly.
“It’s none of your business,” Fulmar said.
