Read The Shadow Man for Free Online

untrue. It was him. She felt herself fill with bitter anger. It was always him. Day after day. Hour after hour. He had been there, even when they had thought they were relatively safe. But they weren’t. He’d stalked them like some particularly patient and coldhearted hunter, waiting, biding his time, until the right moment. And then he’d taken their money first, then their freedom, and with it, their lives.
    Sophie Millstein felt hatred reverberate within her. She spoke out loud:
    ‘I should have killed him then. If I had known …’ Then she stopped and realized she’d had no chance. She told herself: You were only a child - what did you know of killing?
    She answered her own question harshly: not much then. But you learned soon enough, didn’t you?
    On the television, an advertisement for a beer came on the screen, and for an instant she watched muscular young men and nubile young women cavort around a pool. No one really looks like that, she thought. She realized when she was the same age as the models in the advertisement, she weighed less than seventy pounds and resembled someone that had already died.
    But I didn’t die, she reminded herself.
    He must have thought we would all die, but I didn’t.
    She put her head down in her hands once again.
    Why didn’t he die too? she wondered.
    How could he have lived through the war? Who would save him? Not the Germans he worked for. When he was no longer useful, they would have shipped him off to Auschwitz as well. Not the Allies or the Russians, who would have prosecuted him as a war criminal. Certainly not the Jews whom he so eagerly helped along the road to death. How could he have lived?
    She shook her head at the impossible thoughts that filled
    her.
    He had to die. They all did, and he died right alongside the rest of them. It had to be that way.
    She repeated this to herself: He had to die. He had to die. Then she shortened it, mentally, simply to: He’s dead. He’s dead. He cannot be alive. Not here. Not on Miami Beach. Not surrounded by the few people who managed |to survive.
    For an instant she thought she might become ill. Sophie Millstein, filled with an old and misshapen fear, stood up. The characters in the television show were all laughing and the audience was laughing at them.
    “Leo,’ she said out loud. She walked to the telephone and swiftly dialed the rabbi’s number. When she heard the voice on the answering machine respond, she hung up. She looked down at her wristwatch and thought: still too early for Mr Silver and Frieda Kroner. They won’t be back until after midnight. Her finger hesitated above the dial, and then she punched in Simon Winter’s number. She expected he would pick the phone up immediately, and she tried to think what she could say beyond the fact that she was still frightened, but all she could think of was Simon Winter’s pistol and how it might protect her.
    The phone continued to ring, unanswered. After a second an answering machine clicked on: ‘You’ve reached Simon Winter. Leave a message at the beep.’
    She waited, and after hearing the electronic signal, said:
    ‘Mr Winter? It’s Sophie Millstein. I just wanted … Oh, it’s just … well, Mr Winter, I just wanted to thank you again. I will speak with you tomorrow.’
    She hung up, slightly relieved. He will have some good advice, she thought. He is a very nice man, with a level head and plenty of smarts. Maybe not as much as Leo, but he will know what to do.
    She wondered where he’d disappeared to. He probably just went out to get a bite to eat, she explained to herself. He’ll be back shortly. He’s out just the same as Rabbi Rubinstein. Everything tonight is normal. Just like any other night.
    Sophie Millstein wondered abruptly: Mr Herman Stein, who were you? Why did you write that letter? Who did you see?
    She took a deep breath, only to have it repair her nervousness.
    She thought in sudden panic: I’m all alone.
    Then, just as swiftly, she