by A. B. Decker
“I’m sorry, Frank, but we’ll have to bring this delightful binge down memory lane to a close.” He lifted the bottle and held it up against the light of the window. It was already half empty. “Under the circumstances, it’s probably just as well,” he added, a gleaming smile in his eyes.
He put the bottle back on the table and picked up the rucksack that still leaned against the table leg.
“So, what precious cargo do you have in there?” Frank asked again, gesturing towards the rucksack. “You never did tell me.”
Achim gave no reply. He plainly did not want his old friend to know. Nor was he prepared to disclose where the telephone call was taking him. He let Frank accompany him only as far as the square in front of the Central Station. Then insisted they part, saying he needed time to think. But either he had not reckoned on his friend’s curiosity or his preoccupations had blinded him to the possibility that his odd behaviour might make Frank suspicious.
The gut of the avenue leading away from the station was lined with bushes and trees. The shrubbery and the archway created by the dense, leafy boughs above formed a dark tunnel that gave Frank the cover he needed, allowing him to avoid any backward glances from Achim. And it occurred to Frank at that moment that there was something disturbingly ludicrous about this whole situation. He asked himself: ‘Are we both paranoid? Or does all the madness lie with me?’
When he saw that Achim was approaching an opening on the tree-lined avenue ahead that widened out onto a large square, he quickened his pace so as not to lose him. Until his old friend stopped beside a fountain that stood close to this opening. He looked about. Frank dodged behind a bush. From here he watched as Achim plunged his face and hands into the water as if to freshen up, then looked about again and carried on into the square ahead.
It seemed to Frank an odd thing to do in mid-winter. Was this a signal of some kind? Frank wondered. Or was there something special about the water?
But when he reached the fountain, it revealed nothing of significance – except for the black bronze crow that sat atop a pillar rising from the water basin. It glowered menacingly down on Frank as if feasting mentally on carrion below, pecking at it, drawing blood. He shivered in the sudden coldness of the avenue, turned his back on the bird and followed Achim out onto the square. But his old friend was gone.
It was only by chance that Frank regained sight of him when he tried crossing the square and was brusquely alerted by the bell of a tram approaching from the left. Frank pulled himself back smartly onto the pavement, glancing at the looming tram as he did so. It was then that he caught just a glimpse of Achim drifting off towards the centre of town. Frank promptly changed course, wondering whether Achim knew he was there and was trying to give him the slip. One thing was sure: wherever it was his old friend was heading, he was not taking the most direct route there.
They soon took another turn. This time to the right. And within a few minutes Frank was following him through the courtyard of the Museum of Fine Arts – a modern building of cool simplicity compared with the palatial, neoclassical monuments that passed for museums in other German-speaking cities.
Frank watched as his friend bought an entrance ticket with a fussiness that was unusual for him. When Achim eventually left the desk, ticket in hand, he disappeared into the cloakroom before emerging a short time later without his rucksack and then made his way up the staircase. Frank quickly bought a ticket for himself and followed on behind.
Journey’s end proved to be the Holbein collection. Here Achim’s stride shortened. He paced slowly along in front of the paintings. Yet it was a pace that was still too fast to absorb the fine detail in the portraits. And together with his frequent glances around the room, it betrayed a restless interest not so much in Holbein, but more in the other visitors to the museum – or perhaps to one particular visitor.
Frank’s curiosity by this time was razor sharp, but he had to take great care not to let himself be seen every time his old friend swung a glance in his direction. This inevitably meant that he was unable to observe his every move. So, when Achim left this gallery and moved to the next one, a sinking sense of disappointment told Frank that he had probably missed the crucial moment. But when he entered the next room and regained sight of Achim, his patience was rewarded: in front of a familiar portrait of a man in a large floppy hat stood his old friend. And beside him a man about fifty years old. A tall, slim figure in a light grey fedora and trench coat. The two were engaged in a conversation that clearly had little to do with the painting on the wall. The discussion lasted no more than two or three minutes before Achim handed the stranger what looked like a key, and they then parted company. The tall stranger left through the door at the far end of the room. Achim continued to pace slowly past the Holbein portraits. Then followed through the same doorway a minute or two later.
Frank trailed behind at a discreet distance while his old friend made his way back down the stairs to the entrance, turned right past the ticket office and into the cloakroom. With little cover to conceal himself in the museum foyer, Frank found a pillar in the courtyard just outside, from where he could keep an eye on the cloakroom entrance. Hardly was he in position than he saw Achim emerge and walk out into the courtyard straight past Frank. What struck him as he watched his friend disappear out onto the street was that Achim no longer had his rucksack with him.
He was on the brink of abandoning his cover behind the pillar to follow Achim, when he caught sight of the tall stranger in the trench coat some fifty metres ahead, carrying a large Gladstone bag. Frank abruptly changed the target of his pursuit and followed the stranger out onto the street. For reasons he was unable to explain, he needed to know who the man was. And what was in the bag – especially since Achim now had no rucksack.
It was not clear to him how he would achieve this. He was a total novice in such games and felt utterly miscast. The man turned right towards the river when he reached the street, then crossed the road. Frank kept him in his field of vision while he considered his next move, then briefly lost him when the man turned left into a side street. Beginner that he was, he decided there was only one option and – without fully realising what he was doing – he quickened his pace to catch him up. Then took the plunge.
“Excuse me, sir,” Frank said, touching the man’s sleeve as he came alongside him. “Could you tell me how I get to the cathedral from here?”
He knew they were already moving in the direction of the cathedral and felt this would give him the opportunity to walk with the stranger and get him into conversation.
The man looked down at the hand on his sleeve. Then examined Frank with a studied expression. There was a coldness in his steely blue eyes and thin lips that Frank found disconcerting. When eventually the man spoke, his firm but gentle voice betrayed the accent of a cultured American.
“I’m going that way myself,” he said. “You can come along with me. It’s not far.”
This was exactly the response that Frank had hoped for. Yet the man’s openness unsettled him. It came across not as an invitation, but almost as a command. And lacking the warmth of any kind of a smile, it seemed a little too calculated.
“You’re American,” Frank said, brushing his disquiet aside. “And yet you know your way around here so well. Do you live here?”
“Yeah,” was all that came in reply. Terse. To the point. Giving nothing away.
“Eigenmann,” Frank said, offering his hand. “Frank Eigenmann.” He knew it was a naive and clumsy move to disclose his identity like that. And he felt all the more stupid when the move was not reciprocated. The stranger’s only response was to usher Frank across the street with a prompt of the elbow. Then he turned the tables.
“You’re not from these parts yourself.”
“You have a good ear,” Frank said with an edge of surprise in his voice that an American was able to distinguish his Badisch German from the dialect spoken on the streets of this city. “I come from just over the border,” he ad
ded.
The stranger processed this information with what seemed to Frank like an excess of care. Or was it suspicion?
As they approached the wall of red sandstone ahead that was the cathedral, the man again took Frank by the arm and nudged him to the right of the building. Manoeuvred into a cul-de-sac beside the minster, Frank instantly found himself thrust against the wall. And before he could catch his breath, he took the full force of a vicious, winding blow to the solar plexus. Pinned to the wall like a crucified dog, he could not even crumple to the ground to relieve his agony. The stranger pressed his face close to Frank.
“Who are you?” he whispered. The menace that came with his soft cultured accent was chilling. Frank gasped for breath. Unable to reply. The man tightened his grip and repeated the question over and over until Frank found the air to reply.
“Frank Eigenmann.”
“You already told me that. So, what do you want with me, Frank Eigenmann?” The stranger tightened his grip further.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You don’t know a lot of things, buddy. But you seem to know me, otherwise you wouldn’t be tailing me. Now, I call that an unfair advantage, and I don’t look kindly on people taking advantage of me. So, tell me something about yourself. And make it snappy. Who are you? What do you want from me?”
“I told you. My name is Frank Eigenmann.”
“And?” he threw in quickly before Frank had a chance to pause.
“No ‘and’,” Frank said. “I don’t know you from Adam.”
At that moment he felt the grip on his left wrist relax just enough to wrench it loose from the American’s hand. And with a ferocity that took even Frank by surprise, he propelled his fist into the man’s groin. The angle was too narrow to make full impact. But the effect was enough to throw the American on the defensive. And as he released his grip on the right wrist, Frank buried his other fist deep into the solar plexus and brought his right knee up to meet the American’s crumpling face. The man sank to the ground.
Time to make myself scarce, Frank told himself. He quickly ran his fingers through the man’s pockets, removed a wallet with various papers, and made off around the corner past the cathedral. Estimating that the Gladstone bag would slow him down, he let it lie.
He had never imagined himself capable of common thuggery and theft. And he was surprised to find how much it elated him, how powerful the excitement was that urged him along on his flight through the streets. It was not fear. He had known fear, and it had paralysed him. This was different. This was pure galvanism. A stimulant to act and act fast. But he was in no doubt that the American would soon be hard on his heels. So, racing across the cathedral square and down Augustinergasse, he cut into an alleyway to the left that would take him quickly down into the marketplace and from there to the refuge of his hotel.
Once he reached the market square and – trusting that he had given the American the slip by now – he slowed to a walking pace so as not to attract attention. Turning to the right, he passed a department store that he had passed almost every day since he had been in this city. But at this moment, he was struck by a bill poster advertising the ‘Will Hildering Dance Band Gold Stars with Lady Crooner’ in the Globus Tea Room. That would be the perfect place to disappear for a while, he thought.
The dance band was not due to start for an hour, so he whiled away the time exploring the department store. Although he had passed it so often, he had never been inside. He had expected it to be full of ladies’ fashion, so was surprised to be informed they had a tea room with a dance band. A further discovery that thrilled him once he was inside was the record department. It put him in mind of Patricia Roche’s gramophone. With the thought of making a better impression the next time they met, he started browsing through the jazz records. There was an entire section devoted to Vocalion and Brunswick, and amidst the Benny Goodmans and Fletcher Hendersons he found just the thing. Billie Holiday – These Foolish Things. With a broad smile on his face, he took the record to the cash desk, paid the cashier and took himself off to the tea room.
He placed his purchase on one of the few tables still vacant, ordered a pot of tea and felt uncomfortably conspicuous as the roomful of prim ladies’ eyes homed in on the only man in the room aside from Will Hildering and his band when they emerged onto the stage. But it seemed to him that the American would be unlikely to venture into a tea room full of middle-aged ladies in his search for the man who mugged him. So he remained there, sipping his tea for a good hour, until his pot was empty and cold. Then he made his way to the Hotel Storchen.
It was no more than a few minutes’ walk to the hotel. Despite the relaxed interlude of music and tea, the excitement of his crime must have still been burning in his eyes. This at least was the only conclusion he could draw when he collected his key at reception and was greeted with a curious and anxious look from the man on the desk. It was only with the dubious advantage of hindsight that he realised the true reason for that anxious look.
How long the thugs had been waiting for him it was hard to say, but they had plainly made themselves at home in his room: one stretched out on the bed, one in the armchair by the window and another by the door to nail Frank as he entered – a feat the man accomplished with imposing effect. Before he had a chance to appreciate the mess they had already made in the room, Frank was pinned to the floor by a heavy insistent knee in the small of his back, while a rough hand pulled on his hair until he felt his scalp was about to come adrift or his neck about to snap. With the other hand, the man quickly ran through his pockets. If he was looking for a weapon, he was disappointed, but he seemed satisfied with the two wallets he found – Frank’s own and the American’s – which he tossed over to the ape still draped on the bed.
As if they were now done, the hand and knee withdrew. And Frank was just pulling himself to his feet when a crushing boot swung in from the right and sent him sprawling back on the floor with the words: “On your feet, scumbag. Someone wants to meet you.”
No further words were exchanged. The three of them bundled him out of his room, down the corridor, out onto the street and into a car that was standing outside the hotel. The vehicle was all too familiar to Frank. It was the Maybach Zeppelin with those white-walled tyres. He was still a long way from getting the full picture, but some of the pieces in the puzzle were beginning to slot into place. And it was not looking pretty.
Chapter 9
They drove north for about fifteen minutes to a leafy suburb of the city, and must have been a stone’s throw from the border with Germany when the car pulled up in front of a large fin-de-siècle house overlooking a park. It seemed to Frank the kind of place you would expect to see a brand-new Maybach in the drive.
It was an impression that left him feeling no less out of place than the evening in Berlin six months earlier, in the late summer of 1936, when a large section of the audience in the cabaret broke into the Horst Wessel song, and the rest of the audience joined in. That was the moment he decided it was time to leave. And here he was now, equally out of place and just arriving. Time appeared to have gone into reverse in a disquieting way.
The sense of unease was not dispelled when his escort led him into a cavernous lounge looking onto the park to meet his host. Quite the contrary: he grew more ill at ease merely at the sight of Willi Breitner in his white suit and two-tone shoes. There was a flash tackiness about the man who greeted Frank from his garish baroque armchair, right leg crossed over his left, as he puffed on a fat cigar. On the table beside him a half-drunk glass of cognac, a bottle of Rémy Martin and a cigar box.
He smiled a leering, supercilious expression in Frank’s direction and gestured towards the only other chair in the room, the other side of the table.
“Take a seat Herr Eigenmann,” he said. “Or should I call you Mr Silverstone?”
Frank was momentarily puzzled by the question, until he caught sight of his wallet lying on the table behind the cigar box alongside the wa
llet he had pilfered from the American. He gave no answer, sensing that the uncertainty around his identity gave him a slight edge. So, not wanting to squander this advantage, he said nothing. If this irritated Breitner, it did not show.
“Herr Eigenmann from Berlin or Mr Silverstone from Baltimore. Or possibly neither of those. It makes no difference. I’m not interested in who you are. It’s what you do that interests me. Do you get my drift?” He took a puff on his cigar.
“Not exactly, no.” Frank had always assumed this man to be German through and through. So he was taken aback by the slight Austrian intonation he detected in Breitner’s accent.
“Then let me spell it out for you.” He took a deep puff on his cigar. “You’ve been muscling in. I don’t know why. And I don’t want to know. It’s enough that you do it. You see, I don’t like jerks who pretend to be something they’re not and then start interfering in my business and pestering my people.”
Frank stared blankly at his host. He had no idea what this man was talking about. Willi Breitner leaned forward, stubbed out the cigar and fixed Frank with an almost manic stare that looked disturbingly close to becoming unhinged.
“Mademoiselle Roche, for example,” he said almost in a whisper. “She’s one of my people, you see. No, she’s more than that. She’s almost like a daughter to me. Almost,” he added with his supercilious smile.
“Now, what’s this?” he continued, as he picked up Frank’s wallet and pulled out a carefully kept lock of blonde hair. “Do you keep a trophy of all your conquests?” Breitner asked, as he placed it back in the wallet, picked up the cigar box and offered Frank a cigar.
Frank declined, while his host stubbed out his cigar and took another for himself. He licked it, cut it and lit up with a relish that was just a little too studied to be convincing. But what he lacked in style he made up for in words.