by Philip Kerr
Meanwhile, Hans Gross had already unfolded his portable Voigtländer and was taking pictures.
“Who found him?” I asked.
“Me,” said the man holding the line. “Spotted him just after lunch.”
Half an hour later we had landed him on the quayside and a small crowd of bystanders started to gather. The man didn’t look as if he’d been in the water for very long. He was about fifty, with a small mustache that resembled a smudge on his upper lip. He was wearing a double-breasted, pinstriped suit, and a pair of shoes that already told me he wasn’t a bargee. On his lapel was an Iron Cross. And in his chest, right up to the hilt, was the knife that had killed him.
“Anyone recognize this fellow?” I asked.
No one said a thing. I touched the handle of the knife and found it was lodged so firmly in the dead man’s chest it must have gone all the way through into his backbone. As he lay there, his mouth slowly sagged open and, much to everyone’s horror, a small crayfish came wandering out, almost nonchalantly. Restraining my own disgust, I searched the man’s pockets, which were empty save for one thing: a plain wooden ball a little smaller than a tennis ball. I looked at it without much comprehension. I was thinking I might have encountered a real mystery of the kind that are supposed to fascinate good detectives when I heard a voice and realized that the discovery of the wooden ball had prompted a response from someone in the growing crowd.
“I reckon that’s Bruno Kleiber,” said a woman. She was wearing a cotton smock and a man’s old army cap, and she carried a broom. Her legs were so heavily covered with varicose veins they looked as if several small sea creatures had burrowed underneath her skin. And from the angle of her head on her shoulders I supposed there was something wrong with her spine. She spoke in a Berlin accent that was as thick as her forearms.
“Let her through,” I told the constable, and the woman stepped forward.
“You are?”
The woman snatched off her army cap to reveal a head that was so deeply scored with an old bullet wound it almost resembled a center parting and looked like the very definition of a lucky escape. “Dora Hauptmann, sir. I sweep the quays clean. For the Cölln Canal Company. Everywhere on this island, sir, south of Schlossplatz.”
“And you think you recognize the dead man?”
“Wasn’t sure of it until I saw that ball in his pocket. But now I am. No mistaking that wooden ball and that Iron Cross. His name is Bruno Kleiber and that wooden ball was his living for ten years, I reckon.” She took out a handkerchief, dabbed at the corner of each rheumy eye, and then pointed west along Friedrichsgracht. “I can show you where he worked, if you like.”
“Thanks. I’d appreciate it.”
We started along the quayside.
“Three-shell game was it?” I asked. “Kleiber’s racket?”
“Nah. Ball’s too big. He used to run a street roulette wheel underneath the Gertrauden Bridge. Every morning, at exactly nine thirty a.m., he’d open up his table and start the ball rolling. That’s when everyone who works at the Cölln Fish Market finishes for the day. They go and get a few beers in, or maybe a whore who doesn’t mind the smell of fish so much, and sometimes they’ll stop to make a bet at Kleiber’s table. Little Monte Carlo they call it. An illegal game, of course, but it didn’t do any harm and the game wasn’t crooked, neither. Kleiber didn’t need to be crooked. Ran a straight game, everyone knew that. That Iron Cross he wore was supposed to be a guarantee of his integrity and it was. He made just enough money to make it worthwhile for himself but not so much that folk around here ever resented him. He always paid up when he lost, which is how he stayed in business for so long.”
“Well, someone resented him,” I said as we walked along.
“I doubt that. He was a decent sort, was Kleiber. Always had a joke for you. Or a penny for some snot-nosed kid. You ask me, someone wanted to get their hands on his float. The cash he kept in his back pocket to pay up on a winning number.”
“Sounds like you knew him reasonably well.”
“Well enough to regret his passing. He used to give me a few coins every day to sweep up all the cigarette ends that people left on the ground under the table. He was scrupulous that way. As if his pitch really had been the red carpet at Monte.”
“And today?”
“I’m late today. I was on my way down to the bridge when I saw you lot fishing him out of the water.”
“By the way, not that it’s any of my business, but that scar on your head. How did you get it?”
She fingered the scar without any sign of discomfort. “This? I was lucky. That’s how I got it. I was a nurse on the Eastern Front in 1916 with a Catholic confessional sisterhood. Got hit by a piece of shrapnel from a Russian shell. Same piece of shrapnel that killed my sister, who was also a nurse. I was lucky once, and I might just get lucky again.”
“Sorry. It’s just that you don’t see many female war veterans on the streets.”
“That’s because most of us who were injured died. Women were less important than men.”
“Must be something a man said.”
Under the Gertrauden Bridge, chained to a mooring ring, we found what looked like a folded-up billboard of the kind a sandwich man might have carried. It was about four feet in length, painted green and quite heavy. I took out my knife, twisted the point in the padlock, and a minute later we were unfolding a trestle table about eight feet long that was squared off in numbers and combinations of numbers; in the middle was a sunken round dish with ten crude round slots numbered from zero to nine. The operation was fairly obvious. The croupier would spin the wooden ball around the dish, wait for the ball to drop onto a slot, and then reckon up the game’s losers and winners.
“Kleiber was quick at making calculations and he never got it wrong. Had a mind like a slide rule.”
“That float,” I said. “How much cash did he carry, do you think?”
“Maybe a hundred marks. Enough to make it worth someone’s while to rob the poor bastard.”
“Anyone spring to mind?”
“No one from Cölln. Folk around here are tough but honest, in the main. Some mad bastard from somewhere else, probably. Whole country has gone mad, if you ask me. Fact is, there used to be a madhouse nearby, but they closed it. Seems to me as if we need our madhouses more than ever.”
“You got that right. But with all that money you’d have thought he had a human watchdog.”
“He did. Ex-boxer. Corduroy suit. Matching cap. Tall fellow with an ear like someone’s kidney on toast. What was his name? Kube. Kolbe?”
“I wonder if he barked or not.” I fetched a roll-up from a tin and lit it quickly. “And if not, why not? Where did Kleiber live?”
“No idea, lad. But every day, after the game, regular as clockwork, he’d go to the Nussbaum Inn on Fischerstrasse and have his lunch there. They might know. In fact, I’m sure of it.”
We walked back to the crime scene and I waved Miczek over; I wanted him to hear me as I dictated to Frau Künstler through the rear window of the murder wagon. Without looking up, she typed on a sleek black Torpedo that was the same color as the lacquer on her fingernails. That was the first time I realized our stenographer was a much younger woman than I’d supposed; younger and more unconventional perhaps. On the back of her head she wore a little black beret, while on the shoulder of her black dress was a brooch shaped like a large black grasshopper. What with her white face and heavy black eye makeup, she resembled Theda Bara. Meanwhile, Hans Gross was taking pictures under the arc lamps, using the Folmer & Schwing now. While I was there a call came through on the radio from the Alex; it was Gennat. I told him what I knew, and when he’d gone off the air, I told Miczek and one of the other uniformed coppers to accompany me to the Nussbaum Inn.
“Do you know the place?” I asked Miczek.
“Everyone on the island knows the N
ussbaum. Oldest bar in Berlin. And five minutes’ walk from here. But they don’t much like coppers in there. Especially on payday.”
“Good. That suits me just fine.”
“It might be a good idea to call for some backup.”
“We won’t need it.”
When we got to the Nussbaum, I told the two cops to wait outside front and back while I went in to ask questions.
“Are you sure about this, lad? There are some tough Fritzes in there. And likely most of them are drunk.”
“If anyone comes out in a hurry, I want you to stop them leaving. Just so I can get a look at them. You never know. My guess is that Kleiber’s murderer waited until his man had finished lunch and then followed him out, so maybe his killer is still on the grounds.”
“All right, lad. I see what you’re driving at. But be careful. No sense in you getting yourself murdered today.”
The Nussbaum had been at 21 Fischerstrasse since 1505 or 1705 depending on who told you the story. It was every American tourist’s idea of what an old Berlin bar should look like; it had a tall saddlebag dormer roof that was a little wonky and the kind of windows that made you think the place belonged properly in a fairy tale involving a witch with a very long nose. There was a ramshackle garden out front that was mostly one lime tree, and a green picket fence next to which stood a line of ragged children who were probably waiting for their parents to finish drinking away their wages in the bar. From ten feet away you could smell the beer and hear the raucous laughter of men and women who’d already had far too much to drink. And as I walked through the front door I tried to banish my nerves to the deepest pocket of my trousers.
At the bar I picked up a glass and tapped it loudly with a knife. “Could I have your attention, please?”
Gradually the noise died down.
“I’m a detective from the Alex—”
Several people booed and catcalled. The usual friendly Berlin welcome.
“And I’m investigating the murder of a man who came in here every day. His name was Bruno Kleiber and he ran an illegal roulette wheel under Gertrauden Bridge. Someone robbed him this afternoon. Stabbed him to death and pushed his body into the Spree. I’d like to speak to anyone who saw him today or who can shed some light on what happened to him.”
“He was a Jew,” someone called out. “So who gives a damn? Maybe someone just did to him what he used to do to other people.”
“Yes, rob them,” said someone else, laughing.
“I don’t believe that. According to what I’ve heard he ran a straight game.”
“He was in here today,” said the man nearest to me. “Same as always. Had his lunch and a beer and then left.”
“What time was that?”
“Came in about twelve. Left about two. Must have happened after that.”
“Did you see him talk to anyone?”
“He kept himself to himself,” said another man. “Never bothered anyone.”
The publican came around the counter with a small billy club in his hand. “Dead, you say? That’s too bad. Bruno Kleiber was a good customer and a good man and I’ll bar any one of you bastards who says different. Got that?”
The noise died down again.
“I’m at the Alex if anyone remembers anything, and you can telephone me in confidence. The name’s Gunther. Bernhard Gunther.”
It wasn’t my most subtle performance, but then it wasn’t meant to be. My intention had been to behave exactly like a loud yapping dog, and hopefully to drive some sheep into my pen.
Outside the Nussbaum were the sheep; well, one anyway. Miczek and the other policeman had arrested the man who was now my number one suspect; straightaway I recognized him from Dora Hauptmann’s description. Both cops had drawn their batons and looked ready to deal with a man resisting arrest, even one who looked as tough as this fellow.
“He came out just as soon as you started your spiel,” said Miczek. “In a hurry, too. Like maybe he didn’t want to help the Berlin police.”
“You Kube?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“Kolbe, then?”
The big man shrugged. “Who wants to know?”
He stank of beer and was sufficiently unsteady on his feet to persuade me that he’d been drinking all afternoon.
“I’ve heard you were paid to watch Bruno Kleiber’s back.”
“Who told you that?”
“Doesn’t matter. Just answer the question.”
“You’ve got the wrong Fritz, copper. I played the Jew’s numbers just like lots of people around here, but I was never his dog.”
“You’ve got something against Jews?”
“Hasn’t everyone?”
“It didn’t sound like it in there,” I said. “Besides, who would be dumb enough to admit he didn’t like Jews when there’s a dead one lying on the quayside just five minutes’ walk from here?”
“I don’t like Jews. What of it?”
“Gives you a motive to kill him, I’d have thought. That and a hundred-mark float that was in the dead man’s back pocket. Which is reason enough for me to search you.”
“Try it and see what happens, copper.”
“Search him.”
Kolbe raised his huge fist, which was as far as it got before Miczek tapped him on the back of the head with his police baton; not hard, but just hard enough to drop him onto the cobbles, leaving him dazed for several minutes, in no position to resist us. We went through his pockets and just about the first thing we found was a solid-gold signet ring; on this was a Star of David.
“For a man who doesn’t like Jews you have some interesting jewelry,” I said.
Miczek had a good-quality leather wallet open on his palm and anyone could have seen it wasn’t Kolbe’s; for one thing there was a wedding picture of Kleiber and his wife; for another, the wallet held two hundred-mark notes. We even found an empty leather sheath for the murder weapon in Kolbe’s pocket. It was probably the easiest murder arrest I ever made, but I was soon to discover that not all Berlin’s murderers were as dumb as Herbert Kolbe.
* * *
—
WE WENT BACK to the Alex to put Kolbe in the lockup. As usual the main front door was so heavy I had to push it open with both hands—Gross was carrying the camera, and the two men in uniform each held one of Kolbe’s muscular arms. The door closed behind us with an enormous hollow boom like the sound of a howitzer at the last judgment. Inside the entrance hall everything was as busy as the front line during wartime: drunks being processed for a night in the cells, typewriters clattering away, telephones ringing, coppers shouting, keys jangling, women crying, police dogs barking, and always the front door closing loudly on the peculiar metropolitan hell that was the Berlin Police Praesidium. Leaving the boys in green to process our prisoner I grabbed a quick coffee and a smoke in the canteen and then went up to the Commission offices to file my report. But on the stairs, I met none other than Kurt Reichenbach. There was an awkward silence between us for a moment, and then Reichenbach lifted his hat politely.
“I’ve just heard that you got the seat in the murder wagon,” he said affably. “Congratulations, my dear fellow. It’s a good break for you. And very well deserved.”
“Thanks. That’s good of you, Kurt.”
“Not at all. Word is you’ll go far, Gunther. You’ll be a commissar in no time. Me, I’ve got a big mouth so it’s probably just as well I didn’t get the seat. Truth be told, two Jews in the one car is one Jew too many. But you know when to keep your lip buttoned, lad. That’s the secret to advancement around here. Knowing when to keep your trap shut. And when to forget about politics. Besides, there are too many damn lawyers in the force already. The ranks of the commissars are stiff with them. You’re precisely the kind of new blood this place needs.”
Reichenbach was small and bearded, with an eas
y smile. He wore a fine black leather coat in nearly all weathers and carried a thick walking stick. Since there was nothing wrong with either of his legs it was assumed, rightly, that he carried the stick in lieu of a truncheon.
He was well dressed for a detective. There was a feather in the band of his gray bowler hat and a handsome gold pin in the knot of his green woolen tie. Even when it was empty, the amber cigar holder he favored rarely left his mouth, but on this occasion it was filled with a sweet-smelling Dominican Aurora. I was sure about the brand because even as he was speaking he was generously tucking one into the breast pocket of my jacket.
“Anyway, there’s something for you. A good cigar to celebrate your promotion and show there’s no hard feelings from me. I get these sent from a special shop in Amsterdam.”
“Thanks, Kurt. They must be expensive.”
“Sure they’re expensive. But there’s no wisdom in smoking cheap cigars, is there?”
I was almost sure this was a reference to Bernhard Weiss, but if it was he didn’t make a big thing of it and I didn’t pick him up on it.
“My wife, who’s a nurse, disapproves of all kinds of smoking, but where would Kripo be without tobacco? That’s what I say. It’s hard enough being a detective as it is without giving up something that stimulates the old gray machine.” He tapped his head and grinned. “I suppose if I ever stopped to think about it, I might give it up. But until then I shall keep puffing away. In spite of my wife.”
I ran the cigar under my nose, savoring it gratefully and quietly wondering where he got the money for such luxuries. I was quite sure I’d seen his leather coat in the window at Peek & Cloppenburg costing over a thousand reichsmarks. I’d heard it said he had a loan-sharking business on the side; then again, that might just have been plain anti-Semitism; he certainly never offered me a loan. Still, it’s true that being a detective with the Prussian police wasn’t particularly well paid.
“By the way, Gunther, there’s a favor you might do me if you’re so inclined.”
“Sure. If I can.”
“I have a friend who’s a filmmaker. Her name is Thea von Harbou and she’s a scriptwriter who’s married to Fritz Lang, the film director.” He paused. “I take it you’ve heard of Fritz Lang.”