Purity Pursuit: A Gripping Crime Thriller (Private Detective Heinrich Muller Crime Thriller Book 1)

by Robert Brown

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Glad to see you again,” Hans said in German, shaking his hand. “I’m most interested in getting to know more about you.”

  Heinrich believed the second part but not the first.

  “Glad to see you too,” he lied.

  “You’re quite the fighter. You must have given them hell in Budapest last year. Pity I didn’t see it.”

  Did Heinrich detect a slight edge to that last statement, the trace of an accusation?

  “I did all right,” Heinrich said, figuring a non-committal reply was the best way forward.

  “You did more than all right. I saw how you saved this boy.”

  “And then I saved him,” Jan piped in.

  Hans smiled at the kid. “Oh, you speak German, eh?”

  Jan puffed his chest out. “The best language in the world.”

  Heinrich gave him a playful punch him on the shoulder

  “His English is pretty good too. He’s got a talent for languages.”

  “Just as you have a talent for fighting. You are obviously a trained fighter. I took karate when I was younger. Quite the culture, Japan. Not on par with the Aryan Volk but certainly the most advanced of the Asian races, and a warrior race, which is important.”

  Heinrich sized him up again. He looked fit for his age, but he didn’t move like a fighter. Those karate lessons were probably well in the past. Best to be careful if he ever had to smack this guy around though. He hoped that time came soon.

  “I go in for boxing myself. Nothing fancy.”

  “Where do you train?”

  “There’s a good gym in my city.”

  “And what city is that?”

  Heinrich was about to lie when Jan cut in. “New York, where all the niggers live.”

  Hans made a face. “Ach! I’ve been there.” A bell went off in Heinrich’s head. “The most mongrelized city in the Western world. At least I got to hear the New York Philharmonic play Wagner. No mongrels in that orchestra except for a couple of the higher functioning Asians. You should move here and be with your own kind.”

  Jan brightened. “Yeah! Move here.” The kid tugged on his sleeve. “You should totally move here.”

  “My job is back in New York.”

  “And what’s that?” Hans asked.

  Before he could come up with a lie, Jan saved him.

  “If you move here, you can be with that bitch of a—”

  Heinrich smacked him upside the head.

  “Let’s not talk about that.”

  Jan laughed and winked at him. “Ooooh, right.”

  Hans ignored that little interaction and started asking again. “So what do you—”

  And Heinrich got saved again. A man stood up on a small platform at one end of the room. Heinrich recognized the man with the megaphone from the parade. He addressed the crowd in Polish.

  “Everyone sit down please and let’s get started.”

  People found their seats. Heinrich and Jan found a spot in the middle of the room. To his annoyance, Heinrich noticed Hans sit down right behind them. It wasn’t so much that he sat close, because Heinrich had expected that, it was how he did it. After the announcement, Hans went off into the crowd, then delayed a moment to see where they would sit and swooped in to take a chair behind them saying nothing.

  Heinrich pretended not to notice.

  A buxom blonde moved through the crowd in traditional beer hall attire that showed off her cleavage wonderfully. Each hand gripped five mugs of beer, the famous Maß that measured a liter.

  That woman has some serious finger muscles. I wonder what else she can do with them?

  Focus, nitwit. Jan is rubbing off on you.

  She plunked a mug down in front of Heinrich and, to his surprise, Jan too.

  “Cool!”

  “Aren’t you a little young to drink?”

  “It’s a private meeting. We do what we like.”

  The waitress gave the kid a wink and moved on. Jan reached out to pinch her. Heinrich slapped his hand aside.

  “What did I say about hurting women?”

  “I wasn’t going to fuck her, just touch her bum.”

  “Don’t do that either.”

  “Faggot.”

  Jan picked up his beer, drained about a quarter in a single gulp, and let out a loud belch. The crowd had already quietened down in anticipation of the speaker so noise resonated to the rafters.

  The speaker cast an irritated glance in their direction and began to talk.

  “First let us sing the national anthem.”

  Everyone stood while someone brought out a Polish flag. After that was done, the crowd sat back down, and the speaker launched into a long-winded monologue about the march, fighting Communism, and how Poland had to be a bulwark against the invading tide of evil from the rest of the world.

  Heinrich didn’t catch it all and didn’t need to. It was the same crap he’d heard plenty of times before. He strained his ears for any interesting details, but heard nothing. Even Jan, initially enthusiastic, looked bored. He drained his beer and Heinrich caught him stealing a sip from his own. He gave the kid an angry look and held onto his mug from then on.

  Finally, something the speaker said caught his attention.

  “We will have a memorial service for Dieter Freytag tomorrow at the castle. It was his favorite place in town. As we all know, he was a great lover of our heritage. The memorial service will be at three and all are welcome. His family will also come. That is all. Have a good evening and enjoy yourselves.”

  Dieter liked history, eh? That’s interesting, Heinrich thought. Very interesting. Might be good to meet the family too.

  As the meeting broke up, the speaker wove his way through the milling crowd and came straight up to Heinrich. He extended a hand. Heinrich took it.

  “I’m Mikolaj Symanski,” he said in heavily accented but correct English. “I’ve heard good things about you.”

  “Um, thanks.”

  “I’m the head of the Purity League chapter here in occupied Germany, and I was wondering if you’d like to join our organization.”

  “Well, I’m just a tourist, really.”

  “Oh, but we are international. Your membership will be good for any of the local chapters. Once you join, we get in touch with the cell in your local area and tell them about you.”

  I bet you will. And of course membership will require a background check, won’t it? Fuck, if all I do is give these guys my last name I’m screwed. My detective agency comes up on the first page of a Google search.

  “Well, I’m flattered, and the Purity League seems like a fine organization, but you see I’m already a member of another society we have in the States.”

  Mikolaj Symanski inclined his head. “And what society is that?”

  Heinrich smiled. “It’s quite a private one, dedicated to, shall I say, direct action? We have to show the blacks their place.”

  “Cool!” Jan said. Heinrich hadn’t noticed he was following the conversation. The kid put up his hand for a high five that Heinrich reluctantly gave him. Heinrich felt like he was betraying him.

  At least it got Mikolaj off his back.

  “Well, I understand that some organizations require exclusivity. Just remember that the Purity League is here to help all sympathetic societies. We must band together against the common enemy.”

  Heinrich’s phone buzzed.

  “Excuse me.” Heinrich stepped away. He took out his phone and saw Gabriela was calling.

  Jesus Christ, some timing.

  He put it away without answering.

  As he turned to find Jan, he stopped short. Hans stood right behind him, his eyes just moving away from looking at Heinrich’s phone.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Heinrich tried to reassure himself. He had only put her first name into his address book. All Hans had seen was a common first name.

  A common Polish first name.

  Would he wonder what other contacts he had
in the country? Did he know some of his fellow neo-Nazis had attacked a human rights activist of the same name? There was no way to tell because Hans was all smiles. He even bought Heinrich a beer.

  Not that that showed any generosity on his part. Heinrich found himself in a mental fencing match as Hans probed, through the most causal conversation imaginable, for any more facts about him. Heinrich made a show of being friendly while staying on his guard, but the subtleties of mental fencing were not his strength. He had always preferred the more direct style of boxing, and he was more accustomed to being the one asking questions.

  Plus, he was distracted. Jan had disappeared, and it took some time to spot him in the crowd.

  He was over near the bathrooms with a cluster of little skinhead shits. They seemed to make fun of Jan although Heinrich couldn’t imagine why. Maybe because he wasn’t in uniform today.

  Jan’s “friends” all went into the bathroom. Jan looked like he was about to follow, hesitated, then moved off through the crowd. When Heinrich next caught a glimpse of him, he had a beer mug in his hand, no doubt someone else’s.

  In the meantime, Hans had:

  (A) Tripped him up on some basic geographic knowledge of Budapest.

  (B) Learned the part of town he was staying in, and

  (C) Cornered Heinrich into admitting he was staying a while.

  Damn, who’s the private detective here—him or me?

  Hans’s suspicion set off a chorus of alarm bells in Heinrich’s head. If slugging a bunch of Commies and saving a skinhead punk wasn’t enough to gain his confidence, nothing would.

  Heinrich’s phone buzzed again. He ignored it.

  “Aren’t you going to get that?” Hans asked.

  “Nah, just some one night stand I picked up in a hotel bar in Warsaw. She’s getting all needy on me.”

  Hans chuckled. Just then the skinhead teens emerged from the bathroom, all glassy eyes and runny noses, looking like a pack of bald zombies.

  So the kid actually said no? Nice.

  Heinrich finished his drink, extracted himself from any more conversation with Hans, and chased down Jan in the crowd.

  “I got to go and get a good night’s sleep. I’ve had a long two days of traveling.”

  “And fighting!” Jan made some punches in the air, nearly toppling over from the effect of the beer. He looked up at Heinrich. “You teach me tomorrow?”

  “I kind of have some things to do.” Heinrich wanted to poke around town on his own. When he saw the disappointed look on Jan’s face he quickly added, “I’ll see you at the castle.”

  “I can’t go. My parents, they know if I go. Some of the family will tell.”

  “Oh, well, maybe the day after tomorrow.”

  “What you do only yourself? I show you more Wałbrzych. You teach me to fight. Come on.”

  Heinrich groaned. He was stuck with this kid, wasn’t he?

  “All right, we’ll meet at ten in front of city hall again. But the afternoon I want some time alone.”

  “Cool! We fight in garden and freak out cops again, yes?”

  “Sure, whatever,” Heinrich said, eager to be gone. He wanted to call Gabriela before she thought he was giving her the cold shoulder. “Come on. I’ll walk you partway home.”

  Jan glanced over his shoulder, eyeing the beer. “I stay here. Mikolaj Symanski can walk me home. He my neighbor.”

  “No, you’ve had enough. You want to learn to fight, you come with me.”

  “Oh, all right,” Jan moped.

  They left the beer hall. Once out on the street, Heinrich turned to the kid.

  “I saw you say no to those kids with the glue. You’re a good kid.”

  Again he got that look of childlike joy. Jan quickly recovered and put on his tough guy face again.

  “Bah! Glue is for losers. Fighters only drink beer.”

  Well, that’s progress I guess.

  He walked Jan through the darkened streets. Only a few restaurants and beer halls were open. It looked like a sleepy town. He wondered how many other sleepy towns hid dark secrets.

  When they got to his side of town, Jan said he could walk the rest of the way himself.

  Sort of like how I always wanted to go to my friends’ houses and never have them over? Yeah, I get it.

  As soon as Jan was out of sight, he called Gabriela.

  “Are you in Wałbrzych?” she asked as soon as she picked up.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re in danger.”

  “Don’t I know it. You going to help with that?”

  There was a pause. “I looked you up.” Another pause.

  “So you know.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Not after I saw some of the old farts you hang out with.”

  “Huh?” Heinrich drew a blank. Then something clicked. The Old Farts Who Love Old Tunes Group had a website. There was a photo of their chapter with him and Jordan with their arms around each other’s shoulders. “Oh, right.”

  “I had to look up the term old fart. They don’t use it in England.”

  “Glad I could be helpful with your English skills. So can you help me out?”

  “I will. I can’t get to you until tomorrow night.”

  “You’re coming down?” Heinrich winced to hear how eager his voice sounded. He sounded like Jan when he saw a burger joint.

  “Control yourself. This is business. Saving me from rape doesn’t mean I’m going to sleep with you. This isn’t a movie.”

  “You were saving yourself pretty good before I came along.”

  “I was, but you certainly helped and for that I am grateful. But that’s not why I’m coming down. We’re on the same side and you need me. What are you planning tomorrow? Have you found the murderer you are looking for?”

  “I’m not even close, but I’m getting closer. After a bit of snooping around town, I’m going to go to Dieter Freytag’s memorial service at the castle and see what I can dig up.”

  “There people are dangerous, Heinrich.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “I have been making enquiries and most of the Communists think that it was not one of their own. He might have been killed by a fellow Nazi.”

  “Yeah, I figured that. We can talk more when you get down unless you have something that might help right now.”

  “Just one thing, the Purity League is in a power struggle with National Revival and the Skinhead groups to take over as the sole voice of the far right in that region.”

  “But they bill themselves as neutral patrons.”

  “For the most part they are. They feel the best way forward for their cause is to get all the scattered groups working together more closely. Other organizations have tried to force top-down control in the past and have always failed. These groups run on ego more than ideology. They don’t take well to that sort of control.”

  “So why are they trying it in Poland?”

  “Not Poland, only the formerly German border areas. I don’t know why. Perhaps they feel it’s an important symbol.”

  Or an important place to hunt for a treasure train, Heinrich thought.

  “Was Dieter in National Revival?” Heinrich asked.

  “Yes. They might have killed him for it. If they did, they certainly won’t hesitate from killing an outsider like you if they find out who you really are. Be careful.”

  “All right, thanks for the tip. Call me when you get into town.”

  Heinrich reminded himself to put his phone on silent to avoid any more embarrassing interruptions.

  “What hotel are you staying in?” Gabriela asked.

  He told her.

  “Fine. I’ll reserve a room there.”

  This is getting better and better, Heinrich thought with a smile.

  After she hung up, he thought about what she had said. Would they really have gone so far as to kill someone in National Revival just over a turf war? That made little sense, neither from a tac
tical point of view nor given the fact that they had been marching together in Warsaw days after Dieter had been killed. He had sensed no tension between the groups. Quite the opposite. So obviously National Revival didn’t think the Purity League had killed Dieter, which cut out the whole intimidation thing.

  So why else would they kill him? None of the speeches in his honor said he was particularly important.

  But he was a history buff, and the castle was his favorite place.

  Could he have been mixed up in the hunt for the treasure train?

  Another detail from the evening came back to him—Hans had been listening to the New York Philharmonic play Wagner.

  He looked up their past schedule and came up with gold.

  They had been playing in a Wagner program in the second half of March.

  Just when Aaron Briggs had been killed.

  That couldn’t be a coincidence.

  But Hans wasn’t the killer. His build was too slight.

  Man Mountain? No, he was too big.

  He fired an email to Biniam asking him to look up Dieter Freytag and also someone named Hans who was in the German branch of the Purity League.

  Heinrich had time to shower, change, go to a nearby restaurant to have dinner, and then have a boring conversation with some Czech tourists at the hotel bar over two drinks before he finally got an email back.

  “Sorry for the slow response, bud. Not much to report on Hans. You know how these guys go by handles online. I couldn’t find any info. Too bad you don’t have his last name but I’m guessing they don’t give those out to strangers? Dieter Freytag is a different story. He was quite outspoken about his affiliations. He’d been in National Revival for years, although he held no office. Sounds like a bit of a loser. No work record although he wrote several articles on local history. Found some police reports on him getting arrested for various things. Looks like street fighting, mostly. I had to put it through translation software to read it. All the documents are attached. You might get more info out of it than me. Have fun with the Nazis!”

  Heinrich ran through the scans, wondering how Biniam could find and access so much in a language he didn’t speak. The hacker never ceased to amaze him. With the help of his dictionary, he puzzled his way through several articles from the local newspaper recording Dieter’s history of making Nazi graffiti as a teen before graduating to getting into brawls with local liberals. He had even smeared shit on the rental car of a couple of Israeli tourists. Nice guy. All of the articles mentioned that he was unemployed. Biniam had been right in his impression. This guy sounded like a loser, blaming his failures in life on “the other” so he didn’t have to face himself in the mirror.