by Philip Kerr
“It looks as if Saint Nicholas has been here already,” I said as she pushed a cigarette between my cracked lips and lit it. “At least someone thinks you’ve been a good girl.”
“By now anyone would think you’d learned to keep your nose out of other people’s business,” she said.
“Oh, I’ve learned that, all right. Perhaps you’d like to tell him that. Maybe a good word from you has a better chance of success than one from me. Better still, perhaps you still have that gun. I’d say that where Max Reles is concerned, a Mauser has an even better chance than any amount of good words.”
She took the cigarette from me, drew in smoke, and then put it back in my mouth with cool fingers that were almost as heavily perfumed as they were ringed. “What makes you think I’d ever betray a man like Max for a dog like you, Gunther?”
“The same thing that makes a man like him attractive to a girl like you. Money. Lots of it. You see, it’s my opinion, Dora, that if there was enough money involved, you’d betray the infant Jesus. As it happens, there’s even more money than that hidden in Max Reles’s bathroom at the Adlon. There’s a bag full of money behind a panel that’s screwed in front of the lavatory cistern. Thousands of marks, dollars, gold Swiss francs, you name it, angel. All you need is a screwdriver. Reles has one somewhere in his drawers. That’s what I was looking for when you and your mouse came and disturbed me.”
She leaned toward me. Close enough for me to taste the coffee that was still on her breath. “You’ll have to do better than that, polyp, if I’m going to help you.”
“No, I don’t. You see, angel, I’m not telling you so that you’ll help me. I’m telling you so that maybe you’ll help yourself and, in the process, you’ll have to shoot him. Or maybe he’ll shoot you. It certainly won’t make any difference to me at the bottom of Lake Tegel.”
She stood up abruptly. “You bastard.”
“True. But then again, at least this way you can be sure I’m on the level about the money. Because it’s there, all right. Enough to start a new life in Paris. To buy a nice apartment in a smart part of London. Hell, there’s enough there to buy the whole of Bremerhaven.”
She laughed and looked away.
“Don’t believe me if you don’t want to. It makes no odds to me. But ask yourself this, Dora dear. A guy like Max Reles. And the kind of people he needs to pay off to stay in business. They’re not the kind who take a personal check. Graft is a cash racket, Dora. You know it. And a whole sack full of cash is what it takes to keep a racket like this one afloat.”
She stayed quiet for a moment, looking preoccupied with something. Probably she was picturing herself walking up Bond Street with a new hat and a thick wad of pound notes underneath her garter. I didn’t mind contemplating that picture myself. It was certainly preferable to contemplating my own situation.
Max Reles came up on deck again, followed closely by Krempel. Reles was wearing a thick fur coat and carrying a big Colt .45 automatic attached to a lanyard around his neck, as if he didn’t trust himself not to lose it.
“I always say, you can’t be too careful with your firearm when you’re planning to shoot an unarmed man,” I said.
“Those are the only kind I ever shoot.” He chuckled. “Do you take me for a fool who would go up against a man with a gun? I’m a businessman, Gunther, not Tom Mix.”
He dropped the Colt on the lanyard and put his arm around Dora and pressed her fingers between her legs. The other hand still held his cigar.
Dora let Reles’s hand remain where it was as he started to rub her mouse. She looked like she was even trying to enjoy it. But I could see her mind was somewhere else. Underneath the cistern in suite 114, probably.
“The Little Rico kind of businessman,” I said. “Sure, I can see that.”
“It looks like we have a movie fan, Gerhard. How about Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea? Did you see that one? No matter. You can catch the real thing in just a few minutes.”
“It’s you who’s going to get caught, Reles. Not me. You see, I have an insurance policy. It’s not Germania Life, but it’ll do. And it kicks in the minute I’m dead. You’re not the only one with connections, my American friend. I’ve got connections, and I can guarantee they’re not the same ones you’ve been getting chummy with.”
Reles shook his head and pushed Dora away. “It’s strange, but no one ever thinks they’re going to die. Yet no matter how crowded most cemeteries look, somehow there always seems to be room for one more.”
“I don’t see any cemetery, Reles. In fact, now that I’m out here on water, you make me glad I never paid up front for my own funeral.”
“I really do like you,” he said. “You remind me of me.”
Reles took the cigarette from my mouth and flicked it over the side. He thumbed the hammer back on the Colt and pointed it at the middle of my face. It was close enough to see down the barrel, to feel the stopping power and smell the gun oil. With a Colt .45 automatic in his hand, Tom Mix could have held up the arrival of talking pictures.
“All right, Gunther. Let’s see your cards.”
“In my coat pocket there’s an envelope. It contains a couple of drafts of a letter addressed to a friend of mine. A fellow named Otto Schuchardt. He works under Assistant Commissioner Volk for the Gestapo, in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. You can easily check these names out. When I go missing from the Adlon, another friend of mine at the Alex, a detective commissar, is going to post the final draft of that letter to Schuchardt. And then your meat will be fried in butter.”
“And why would the Gestapo be interested in me? An American citizen, like you said.”
“A Captain Weinberger showed me what the FBI sent to the Gestapo in Würzburg. It was pretty thin stuff. You’re suspected of this. You’re suspected of that. Big deal, you say. But about your homicidal brother, Abe, the FBI knows plenty. About him and your father, Theodor. He’s an interesting man, too. It seems that he was wanted by the Vienna police when he went to live in America. For murdering people with an ice pick. Of course, it’s always possible they framed him. The Austrians are even worse than we are here in Berlin in the way they treat their Jews. But that’s what I wanted to tell my friend Otto Schuchardt. You see, he works on what the Gestapo calls the Jew Desk. I think you can imagine the sort of people he’s interested in.”
Reles turned to Krempel. “Go and fetch his coat,” he said. Then he looked at me grimly. “If I find you’re lying about this, Gunther”—he pressed the Colt against my kneecap—“I’m going to give you one in each leg before I push you over the side.”
“I’m not lying. You know I’m not.”
“We’ll see, won’t we?”
“I wonder how all your smart Nazi friends will react when they find out who and what you are, Reles. Von Helldorf, for instance. You remember what happened when he found out about Erik Hanussen, the clairvoyant? Why, of course you do. After all, this is Hanussen’s boat, isn’t it?”
I nodded at one of the life preservers attached to the guardrail. On it was painted the name of the boat: Ursel IV. It was the boat I’d seen outside von Helldorf’s office window in the Potsdam police praesidium. That put a smile on my face.
“You know, it’s kind of ironic when you think about it, Reles. That you of all people should be using the Ursel. Did von Helldorf sell you this tub, or is it just a loan from an aristocratic friend who’s going to feel terribly let down when he discovers the sad truth about you, Max? That you’re a Jew. Badly let down, I should say. Betrayed, even. I knew some cops who found Erik Hanussen’s body, and they told me he was tortured before he was killed. I even heard tell they did it on this boat. So people wouldn’t hear the man screaming. Von Helldorf is an unforgiving man, Max. Unforgiving, and unbalanced. He likes to whip people. Did you know that? Then again, maybe you could be his pet Jew. They say even Goering has one these days.”
Krempel returned with my crumpled coat in one hand and in the other the envelope containing drafts of the let
ter I had asked the page boy at the Adlon to post the previous evening. I watched Max Reles read it with a mixture of keen anticipation and shame.
“You know, it’s surprising what a man will find he is capable of doing when it comes right down to it,” I said. “I never thought I could write a letter denouncing someone to the Gestapo. To say nothing of basing that denunciation on a man’s race. Ordinarily I’d feel pretty disgusted with myself, Max. But in your case it was a real pleasure. I almost hope you do kill me. It’d be worth it just to imagine the look on all their faces. Avery Brundage included.”
Reles crushed the letters in an angry-looking fist and threw them over the side.
“That’s all right,” I said. “I kept a copy.”
The Colt .45 was still in his other hand. It looked as big as a four iron.
“You’re a clever man, Gunther.” He chuckled, but the lack of color in his face told me he wasn’t laughing. “You played those cards well, I’ll say that for you. However. Even if I spare your life, it still leaves me with a hell of a problem. Yes, sir, a hell of a problem.” He puffed the cigar and then threw that over the side, too. “But you know, I think I have the solution. Yes. I really think I know.”
“But you, my dear.” He turned to look at Dora. She had opened her bag and removed her powder compact and was now checking the perimeters of her lipstick. “You know too much.”
Dora dropped the compact. This wasn’t a surprise to anyone, as Max Reles was now pointing the Colt not at me but at her.
“Max?” She smiled—nervously, perhaps—thinking for half a moment that he was joking. “What are you talking about? I Iove you, darling. I’d never betray you, Max. Surely you know that.”
“We both know that’s not true. And while I think I have a way to guarantee that Gunther here won’t actually denounce me to the Gestapo, I don’t have a way of ensuring the same thing from you. I wish I could think of some other way. Really, I do. But you are what you are.”
“Max!” This time Dora screamed his name. Then she turned and ran, as if there had been someplace else for her to go.
Reles uttered a profound sigh that almost made me feel sorry for him. I could see he regretted having to kill her. But I’d given him no choice. That much was now obvious. He leveled the gun and fired after her. It sounded like a cannon on a pirate ship. The shot took her down like a cheetah tripping a gazelle, and her head seemed to explode with a pinkish thought made entirely of blood and brains.
He fired again, but this time he wasn’t aiming the gun at Dora Bauer. Facing me, she was lying in a pool of thick, dark red that was already spreading across the deck, twitching slightly, but probably dead. The second shot hit Gerhard Krempel. It took him by surprise and lifted the crown of his head like the top of a hard-boiled egg. The impact was such that it flipped him over the rail of the boat and into the water.
A strong smell of cordite filled the air and mixed neatly with the acrid scent of my own mortal fear.
“Aw, shit,” moaned Reles, staring over the side. “And I was going to weigh them down together. Like something from an opera. One of those fucking German operas that go on forever.” He made the gun safe, and dropped it on its lanyard. “I guess I’ll have to leave him be. Can’t be helped. Dora, on the other hand. Dora?”
He walked fastidiously around the pool of blood and kicked the back of her head softly with the toe of his white shoe, and then kicked it a little harder, as if making quite certain she was dead. Her eyes, still wide with fear, remained motionless, staring at me accusingly, as if she held me entirely responsible for what had happened to her. And she was right, of course. Reles could never have trusted her.
He came over and inspected my ankles and then untied the rope that was attached to the three concrete blocks. Then he tied it tightly around her shapely ankles.
“I don’t know why you’re looking like that, Gunther. I’m not going to kill you. Of course, that makes it your fault she’s dead.”
“What makes you think you can afford to let me live?” I asked, trying to contain my very real fear that, in spite of what I’d said by way of a threat, and what he’d said by way of an answer, he was going to kill me anyway.
“You mean, what’s to stop you from sending that letter to the Gestapo anyway if you manage to come out of this alive?”
I nodded.
He chuckled his sadistic chuckle and pulled hard on the knot securing Dora’s ankles to the concrete blocks. “That’s a very good question, Gunther. And I will answer it, just as soon as I’ve sent this little lady on her last and most important voyage. You can depend on that.”
The concrete blocks were attached to the rope like a series of fisherman’s weights. One after the other he carried them, grunting loudly, to the side of the boat and then opened a gate in the rail. And then, one after the other, he pushed the blocks over the side with the sole of his shoe. The weight of the blocks turned Dora’s body and started to drag her toward the side.
It was probably the sensation of being moved that brought her back to consciousness. First she moaned, then she inhaled loudly, the breasts on her chest lifting up like two tiny lavender-colored circus tents. At the same time she flung out an arm, turned onto her stomach, lifted up what was left of her head, and spoke. To me.
“Gunther. Help me.”
Max Reles laughed at the surprise of it and fumbled for his automatic to shoot Dora again before the three weights could drag her through the gate in the rail; but by the time he had worked the slide on the Colt it was too late. Whatever she had tried to say to me was lost in a scream as she realized what was happening. The next second she was dragged over the side of the boat.
I closed my eyes. I could do nothing to help. There was a loud splash, and then another. The screaming mouth filled with water, and then there was a terrible silence.
“Jesus,” said Reles, staring down at the water. “Did you see that? I could have sworn the bitch was dead. I mean, you saw me give her a kick to make sure. And I’d have shot her again, to spare her that. If there’d been time. Jesus.” He shook his head and let out a nervous breath. “How about that?”
Once more he made the gun safe, and dropped it on the lanyard. From the coat he took out a hip flask and took a large pull on it before offering it to me. “Hair of the dog?”
I shook my head.
“No, I guess not. That’s the thing about alcohol poisoning. Be a while before you can even tolerate the smell of schnapps, let alone drink any.”
“You bastard.”
“Me? It was you that killed her, Gunther. Him, too. Once you’d said what you said, there was no alternative. They had to die. They’d have had me over a barrel with my pants down and fucked me from now until Christmas, and there’s nothing I could have done about it.” He took another swig of liquor. “You, on the other hand. I know exactly what’s to stop you from doing that very same thing. Can you think what it is?”
I sighed. “Honestly? No.”
He chuckled, and I wanted to kill him for it. “Then it’s lucky I’m here to tell you, asshole. Noreen Charalambides. That’s what. She was, is, in love with you.” He frowned and shook his head. “Christ only knows why. I mean, you’re a loser, Gunther. A liberal in a country full of Nazis. If that doesn’t make you a loser, then there’s that hole in your fucking shoe. I mean, how could a dame like that fall for a schmuck with a hole in his fucking shoe?
“Just as important, however,” he continued, “you are in love with her. No point in denying it. You see, we had a talk, she and I, before she left Berlin to go back to the States. And she told me how you two felt about each other. Which, I have to say, was a disappointment to me. On account of the fact that she and I had a thing ourselves on the boat from New York. Did she tell you that?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t matter now. All that does matter is that you care enough about Noreen to stop her from being killed. Because here’s what’s going to happen. As soon as I’m off this boat, I’m
going to send a telegram to my kid brother in New York. To be honest, he’s my half brother. But blood is blood, right? Kid Twist, they call him, because it’s fair to say he’s a little bit fucking twisted in the head. Well, there’s that and the fact that he used to like twisting the necks of guys he didn’t like. Until they broke. That was before he developed his real skill. With an ice pick. Anyway, the fact is, he likes killing people. Me, I do it because I have to. Like just now. But he enjoys his work.
“So what I’m going to tell him. In this telegram I’m going to send. Is this, see? That if anything happens to me while I’m in Germany. Like me getting arrested by the Gestapo. Anything. Then he should track down Mrs. Charalambides and kill her. With a name like that, believe me, she won’t be hard to find. He can rape her, too, if he’s got half a mind. Which he has. And if he’s in the mood. And quite often he is.”
He grinned.
“You can think of it as my own denunciation, if you like, except that unlike yours, Gunther, her being Jewish has got nothing to do with anything. Anyway, I’m sure you can grasp the general idea of what I’m talking about. My leaving you alone is guaranteed by the letter you’ve addressed to the Jew Desk at the Gestapo. And your leaving me alone is similarly guaranteed by the telegram I’m going to send to my kid brother just as soon as I’m back in my suite. We hold each other in check. Just like stalemate in a chess game. Or what the political scientists call a balance of power. Your insurance canceled out by mine. What do you say?”
A sudden wave of nausea hit me. I leaned to the side and retched again.
“I’m going to take that as a yes,” said Reles. “Because, let’s face it, what other choice do you have? I like to think I can read a man like a newspaper, Gunther. That was easier during Prohibition. The guys I dealt with were black-and-white, and mostly you knew where you were with them just by looking in their eyes. Then, after the repeal of the Volstead Act, my organization had to diversify. Find some new rackets. Gunther, I virtually started labor and union rackets in the States. But a lot of these guys are harder to read. You know, guys in business. It was hard to find out what they fucking wanted because, unlike the guys running booze, they themselves didn’t know what that was. Most people don’t, and that’s their problem.