Free Eye Wit by Hazel Dawkins, Dennis Berry

him t oday. She shook her head, looking at the floor, then at the doctor. Her face, but not her heart, was devoid of emotion.
    “ I have kept myself clean and I remain healthy, Herr Doktor. It will be good for me to work t oday, to keep helping. Who will we be treating this morning and what do you wish me to do?”
    Der weisse Engel’s face glowed with pleasure. “A new set of twins from Lety by Pisek, and a nother pair from Hodonin. Boys, all four of them. Half of each pair has typhus, not as advanced as your husband’s, thankfully. The other twin in each pair is, as yet , uninfected. I shall transfuse from the healthy twin to the sick and keep all four of the boys alive.”
    “ Then I will make them ready, Herr Doktor. I assume you will be wanting catheters in their jugular veins?” Luludji knew the doctor had little interest in curing the sick twins. Rather than tran sfusing from the healthy twin to the sick one, she knew he would do the opposite, to see which twin would succumb first. She had witnessed this perverse game of chance too many times already, and she’d only been working with Mengele for a month.
    Luludji would not let that happen again. She also knew that, though she lacked his formal med ical training, she was much more skilled than the “White Angel” at locating jugular veins and inserting catheters properly. Mengele, careless and impatient by nature, would be as likely to pierce their carotid arteries as their jugular veins and the boys would bleed to death in minutes.
    “That is correct, Frau Krietzman. Gather the supplies needed and prepare the boys, and I will join you shortly to draw their blood. The boys are in surgery suites D and E.”
    “Immediately, Herr Doktor.”
    Luludji gave a slight bow and opened the door to the surgical wing of the infirmary. She would have to work quickly but she knew exactly what she needed to do, what she would do to save these Romani children. She rubbed her crystal ball as she walked quickly down the corridor to the dispe nsary.

15
     
    In the spacious office on the second floor of the Fellini brownstone, Iona Duncan and Jessica Ware, Marco Fellini’s assistants, waited for the police investigators to question them again.
    Iona sniffed, swiping at the tears that were ruining her makeup. “Sophia’s no pushover, she surely won’t let the police bully her.” Her damp fingers twisted a strand of her long blonde hair.
    “Get a grip. No one’s going to push around Madame High Society,” Jessica said, irritated that her voice was shaky.
    “I can’t concentrate on anything. I want to go home. It’s bad enough we have to come in on a Sunday morning. The benefit last night ran so late, I’m exhausted.”
    “So what’s new? We’ve always been overworked, always will be….”
    Except it’s not the same now, Jessica realized. Marco was dead and nothing would ever be the same.
    For years, their routines were predictable. She and Iona—Marco always had two assistants––attended all his business and charity functions, then were expected to come in early the next morning to compare notes: which clients were interested in which pieces of art, which artist was the current darling of the jet set, which potential client was building a second or third home—or in the middle of a messy divorce and needing to sell some art speedily. Fruitful snippets of gossip that often paid off, big time.
    Mid-week, they’d usually have a day off. In the summer and over most holidays, the auction houses and galleries were shut or on a short schedule. During dog-day Augusts, they were closed entirely because that’s when everyone had plenty of time for playing in the Hamptons, more wheeling and dealing artfully disguised as R&R.
    Marco Fellini had brilliantly replaced golf with the far more exclusive sport of archery. Except for his fear of horses, water polo also would have been on the list of skills needed to work for Marco.
    Jessica stared at Iona. Iona’s tear-filled