by Philip Kerr
‘Take this customer,’ he said, warming to the theme of his own business. ‘I have a design with his name and order number here. When this piece is completed the drawing will be filed away according to the nature of the piece. From then on I must consult my sales book to find the name of the customer. But right now I’m in something of a hurry to complete this piece and really —’ he patted his stomach ‘— I’m dead today.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘Last night, you understand. I’m short of staff, too.’
I thanked him and left him to his Engineer of Urban Conduits and Conservancy. That was presumably what you called yourself if you were one of the city’s plumbers. What sort of title, I wondered, did the private investigators give themselves? Balanced on the outside of the tram car back to town, I kept my mind off my precarious position by constructing a number of elegant titles for my rather vulgar profession: Practitioner of Solitary Masculine Lifestyle; Non-metaphysical Inquiry Agent; Interrogative Intermediary to the Perplexed and Anxious; Confidential Solicitor for the Displaced and the Misplaced; Bespoke Grail-Finder; Seeker after Truth. I liked the last one best of all. But, at least as far as my client in the particular case before me was concerned, there was nothing which seemed properly to reflect the sense of working for a lost cause that might have deterred even the most dogmatic Flat Earther.
14
According to all the guidebooks, the Viennese love dancing almost as passionately as they love music. But then the books were all written before the war, and I didn’t think that their authors could ever have spent a whole evening at the Casanova Club in Dorotheergasse. There the band was led in a way that put you in mind of the most ignominious retreat, and the shit-kicking that passed for something approximately terpsichorean looked as if it might have been performed more in imitation of a polar bear kept in a very small cage. For passion you had to look to the sight of the ice yielding noisily to the spirit in your glass.
After an hour in the Casanova I was feeling as sour as a eunuch in a bathful of virgins. Counselling myself to be patient, I leaned back into my red velvet-and-satin booth and stared unhappily at the tent-like drapes on the ceiling: the last thing to do, unless I wanted to end up like Becker’s two friends (whatever he said, I hadn’t much doubt that they were dead), was to bounce around the place asking the regulars if they knew Helmut König, or maybe his girlfriend Lotte.
On its ridiculously plush surface, the Casanova didn’t look like the kind of place which a fearful angel might have preferred to avoid. There were no extra-large tuxedoes at the door, nor anyone about who looked as if he could be carrying anything more lethal than a silver toothpick, and the waiters were all commendably obsequious. If König no longer frequented the Casanova it wasn’t because he was afraid of having his pocket fingered.
‘Has it started turning yet?’
She was a tall, striking girl with the sort of exaggeratedly made body that might have adorned a sixteenth-century Italian fresco: all breasts, belly and backside.
‘The ceiling,’ she explained, jerking her cigarette-holder vertically.
‘Not yet, anyway.’
‘Then you can buy me a drink,’ she said, and sat down beside me.
‘I was starting to worry you wouldn’t show up.’
‘I know, I’m the kind of girl you’ve been dreaming about. Well, here I am now.’
I waved to the waiter and let her order herself a whisky and soda.
‘I’m not one for dreaming much,’ I told her.
‘Well, that’s a pity, isn’t it?’
She shrugged.
‘What do you dream about?’
‘Listen,’ she said, shaking her head of long, shiny brown hair, ‘this is Vienna. It doesn’t do to describe your dreams to anyone here. You never know, you might just be told what they really mean, and then where would you be?’
‘That sounds almost as if you have something to hide.’
‘I don’t see you wearing sandwich boards. Most people have something to hide. Especially these days. What’s in their heads most of all.’
‘Well, a name ought to be easy enough. Mine’s Bernie.’
‘Short for Bernhard? Like the dog that rescues mountaineers?’
‘More or less. Whether or not I do any rescuing depends on how much brandy I’m carrying. I’m not as loyal when I’m loaded.’
‘I never met a man who was.’ She jerked her head down at my cigarette. ‘Can you spare me one of those?’
I handed her a pack and watched as she screwed one into her holder. ‘You didn’t tell me your name,’ I said, thumb-nailing a match alight for her.
‘Veronika, Veronika Zartl. Pleased to meet you, I’m sure. I don’t think I’ve ever seen your face in here. Where are you from? You sound like a pifke.’
‘Berlin.’
‘I thought so.’
‘Anything wrong with that?’
‘Not if you like pifkes. Most Austrians don’t, as it happens.’ She spoke in the slow, almost yokelish drawl that seemed typical of the modern Viennese. ‘But I don’t mind them. I get mistaken for a pifke myself sometimes. That’s because I won’t speak like the rest of them.’ She chuckled. ‘It’s so funny when you hear some lawyer or dentist speaking like he was a tram-driver or a miner just so as he doesn’t get mistaken for a German. Mostly they only do it in shops, to make sure that they get the good service that all Austrians think that they are entitled to. You want to try it yourself, Bernie, and see the difference it makes to the way you’re treated. Viennese is quite easy, you know. Just speak like you’re chewing something and add ‘ish’ onto the end of everything you say. Cleverish, eh?’
The waiter returned with her drink which she regarded with some disapproval. ‘No ice,’ she muttered as I tossed a banknote on to the silver tray and left the change under Veronika’s questioning eyebrow.
‘With a tip like that you must be planning on coming back here.’
‘You don’t miss much, do you?’
‘Are you? Planning on coming back here, I mean.’
‘It could be that I am. But is it always like this? The trade here’s about as busy as an empty fireplace.’
‘Just wait until it gets crowded, and then you’ll wish it was like this again.’ She sipped her drink and leaned back on the red-velvet-and-gilt chair, stroking the buttonback satin upholstery that covered the wall of our booth with the palm of her outstretched hand.
‘You should be grateful for the quiet,’ she told me. ‘It gives us a chance to get to know each other. Just like those two.’ She waved her holder meaningfully at a couple of girls who were dancing with each other. With their gaudy outfits, tight buns and flashing paste necklaces they looked like a pair of circus horses. Catching Veronika’s eye they smiled and then whinnied a little confidence to each other at a coiffure’s distance.
I watched them turn in elegant little circles. ‘Friends of yours?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Are they — together?’
She shrugged. ‘Only if you made it worth their while.’ She laughed some smoke out of her pert little nose. ‘They’re just giving their high-heels some exercise, that’s all.’
‘Who’s the taller one?’
‘Ibolya. That’s Hungarian for a violet.’
‘And the blonde?’
‘That’s Mitzi.’ Veronika was bristling a little as she named the other girl. ‘Maybe you’d prefer to talk to them.’ She took out her powder-compact and scrutinized her lipstick in the tiny mirror. ‘I’m expected soon anyway. My mother will be getting worried.’
‘There’s no need to play the Little Red Riding Hood with me,’ I told her. ‘We both know that your mother doesn’t mind if you leave the path and walk through the woods. And as for those two sparklers over there, a man can look in the window, can’t he?’
‘Sure, but there’s no need to press your nose up against it. Not when you’re with me, anyway.’
‘It seems to me, Veronika,’ I said, ‘that you wouldn’t hav
e to try very hard to sound like someone’s wife. Frankly, it’s the sort of sound that drives a man to a place like this in the first place.’ I smiled just to let her know I was still friendly. ‘And then along you come with the rolling-pin in your voice. Well, it could put a man right back to where he was when he walked through the door.’
She smiled back at me. ‘I guess you’re right at that,’ she said.
‘You know, it strikes me that you’re new at this chocolady thing.’
‘Christ,’ she said, her smile turning bitter, ‘isn’t everyone?’
But for the fact that I was tired I might have stayed longer at the Casanova, might even have gone home with Veronika. Instead I gave her a packet of cigarettes for her company and told her that I would be back the following evening.
On the town, late at night, was not the best time to compare Vienna to any metropolis, with the possible exception of the lost city of Atlantis. I had seen a moth-eaten umbrella stay open for longer than Vienna. Veronika had explained, over several more drinks, that Austrians preferred to spend their evenings at home, but that when they did choose to make a night of it, they traditionally made an early start — as early as six or seven o’clock. Which left me trailing back to the Pension Caspian along an empty street at only 10.30, with just my shadow and the sound of my half-intoxicated footsteps for company.
After the combusted atmosphere of Berlin, Vienna’s air tasted as pure as birdsong. But the night was a cold one, and shivering inside my overcoat I quickened my step, disliking the quiet, and remembering Dr Liebl’s warning about the Soviet predilection for nocturnal kidnappings.
At the same time, however, crossing Heldenplatz in the direction of the Volksgarten, and beyond the Ring, Josefstadt and home, it was easy to find one’s thoughts turning to the Ivans. As far away from the Soviet sector as I was, there was still ample evidence of their omnipresence. The Imperial Palace of the Habsburgs was one of the many public buildings in the internationally run city centre that was occupied by the Red Army. Over the main door was a colossal red star in the centre of which was a picture of Stalin in profile, set against a significantly dimmer one of Lenin.
It was as I passed the ruined Kunsthistorische that I felt there was someone behind me, someone hanging back between the shadows and the piles of rubble. I stopped in my tracks, looked around and saw nothing. Then, about thirty metres away, next to a statue of which only the torso remained, like something I had once seen in a mortuary drawer, I heard a noise, and a moment later saw some small stones roll down a high bank of rubble.
‘Are you feeling a bit lonely?’ I called out, having drunk just enough not to feel stupid asking such a ridiculous question. My voice echoed up the side of the ruined museum. ‘If it’s the museum you’re interested in, we’re closed. Bombs, you know: dreadful things.’ There was no reply, and I found myself laughing. ‘If you’re a spy, you’re in luck. That’s the new profession to be in. Especially if you’re a Viennese. You don’t have to take my word for it. One of the Ivans told me.’
Still laughing to myself, I turned and walked away. I didn’t bother to see if I was followed, but crossing onto Mariahilferstrasse I heard footsteps again as I paused to light a cigarette.
As anyone who knows Vienna could have told you, this wasn’t exactly the most direct route back to Skodagasse. I even told myself. But there was a part of me, probably the part most affected by alcohol, that wanted to find out exactly who was following me and why.
The American sentry who stood out in front of the Stiftskaserne was having a cold time of it. He watched me carefully as I passed by on the other side of the empty street and I reflected that he might even recognize the man on my tail as a fellow American and member of the Special Investigations Section of his own military police. Probably they were in the same baseball team or whatever game it was that American soldiers played when they weren’t eating or chasing women.
Further up the slope of the wide street I glanced to my left and through a doorway saw a narrow covered passage that seemed to lead down several flights of steps to an adjoining street. Instinctively I ducked inside. Vienna might not have been blessed with a fabulous nightlife but it was perfect for anyone on foot. A man who knew his way around the streets and the ruins, who could remember these convenient passages, would, I thought, provide even the most determined police cordon with a better chase than Jean Valjean.
Ahead of me, beyond my sight, someone else was making his way down the steps, and thinking that my tail might take these for my own footsteps, I pressed myself against a wall and waited for him in the dark.
After less than a minute I heard the approaching sound of a man running lightly. Then the footsteps halted at the top of the passageway as he stood trying to judge whether or not it was safe to come after me. Hearing the other man’s footsteps, he started forward.
I stepped out of the shadows and punched him hard in the stomach — so hard I thought I would have to bend down and retrieve my knuckles — and while he lay gasping on the steps where he had fallen, I tugged his coat off his shoulders and pulled it down to hold his arms. He wasn’t carrying a gun, so I helped myself to the wallet in his breast pocket and picked out an ID card.
‘“Captain John Belinsky”,’ I read. ‘“430th United States CIC”. What’s that? Are you one of Mr Shields’s friends?’
The man sat up slowly. ‘Fuck you, kraut,’ he said biliously.
‘Have you orders to follow me?’ I tossed the card on to his lap and searched the other compartments of his wallet. ‘Because you’d better ask for another assignment, Johnny. You’re not very good at this sort of thing — I’ve seen less conspicuous striptease dancers than you.’ There wasn’t much of interest in his wallet: some dollar scrip, a few Austrian schillings, a ticket for the Yank Movie Theatre, some stamps, a room card from Sacher’s Hotel and a photograph of a pretty girl.
‘Have you finished with that?’ he said in German.
I tossed him the wallet.
‘That’s a nice-looking girl you have there, Johnny,’ I said. ‘Did you follow her as well? Maybe I should give you my snapshot. Write my address on the back. Make it easier for you.’
‘Fuck you, kraut.’
‘Johnny,’ I said, starting back up the steps to Mariahilferstrasse, ‘I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.’
15
Pichler lay under a massive piece of stone like some primitive car mechanic repairing a neolithic stone-axle, with the tools of his trade — a hammer and a chisel — held tight in his dusty, blood-stained hands. It was almost as if while carving the black rock’s inscription he had paused for a moment to draw breath and decipher the words that seemed to emerge vertically from his chest. But no mason ever worked in such a position, at right angles to his legend. And draw breath he never would again, for although the human chest is sufficiently strong a cage for those soft, mobile pets that are the heart and lungs, it is easily crushed by something as heavy as half a tonne of polished marble.
It looked like an accident, but there was one way to be sure. Leaving Pichler in the yard where I had found him, I went into the office.
I retained very little memory of the dead man’s description of his business-accounting system. To me, the niceties of double-entry bookkeeping are about as useful as a pair of brogue galoshes. But as someone who ran a business himself, albeit a small one, I had a rudimentary knowledge of the petty, fastidious way in which the details of one ledger are supposed to correspond with those in another. And it didn’t take William Randolph Hearst to see that Pilcher’s books had been altered, not by any subtle accounting, but by the simple expedient of tearing out a couple of pages. There was only one financial analysis that was worth a spit, and that was that Pichler’s death had been anything but accidental.
Wondering whether his murderer had thought to steal the sketch-design for Dr Max Abs’ headstone, as well as the relevant pages from the ledgers, I went back into the yard to see if I might be able to find it. I had a g
ood look round, and after a few minutes discovered a number of dusty art-files propped up against a wall in the workshop at the back of the yard. I untied the first file and started to sort through the draughtsman’s drawings, working quickly since I had no wish to be found searching the premises of a man who lay crushed to death less than ten metres away. And when at last I found the drawing I was looking for I gave it no more than a cursory glance before folding it up and slipping it into my coat pocket.
I caught a 71 back to town and went to the Café Schwarzenberg, close to the tram terminus on the Kärtner Ring. I ordered a mélange and then spread the drawing out on the table in front of me. It was about the size of a double-page spread in a newspaper, with the customer’s name — Max Abs — clearly marked on an order copy stapled to the top right-hand corner of the paper.
The mark-up for the inscription read: ‘SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF MARTIN ALBERS, BORN 1899, MARTYRED 9 APRIL 1945. BELOVED OF WIFE LENI, AND SONS MANFRED AND ROLF. BEHOLD, I SHEW YOU A MYSTERY; WE SHALL NOT ALL SLEEP, BUT WE SHALL ALL BE CHANGED, IN A MOMENT, IN THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE, AT THE LAST TRUMP: FOR THE TRUMPET SHALL SOUND, AND THE DEAD SHALL BE RAISED INCORRUPTIBLE, AND WE SHALL BE CHANGED. I CORINTHIANS 15: 51-52.’
On Max Abs’ order was written his address, but beyond the fact that the doctor had paid for a headstone in the name of a man who was dead — a brother-in-law perhaps? — and which had now occasioned the murder of the man who had carved it, I could not see that I had learned very much.
The waiter, wearing his grey frizzy hair on the back of his balding head like a halo, returning with the small tin tray that carried my mélange and the glass of water customarily served with coffee in Viennese Cafés. He glanced down at the drawing before I folded it away to make room for the tray, and said, with a sympathetic sort of smile: ‘Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.’