by Philip Kerr
Telesilla had gone home but Garlopis was still there. He looked more nervous than was normal even for him.
“Mr. Dietrich received your telegram, sir. He is going to telephone again, at five o’clock his time, six ours. So I thought I’d better wait in case you needed any help with the international operator.”
“Kind of you. He telephoned before?”
“Twice. At three and at four. It seemed to be urgent.”
“Good. He must have discovered something important.”
“And did you find anything important when you were in Ermioni?”
“Yes, I think so. I’ve got some evidence that Siegfried Witzel and his friends on the Doris weren’t looking for sunken treasure any more than they were looking for the lost city of Atlantis. I think they were involved in an illegal weapons deal with Alois Brunner. Neff, too, for all I know. Trading black market Greek and Egyptian sculptures to obtain guns for Colonel Nasser and his Muslim Brotherhood for their war against the Israelis. Frankly it’s just the kind of cause that would attract an anti-Semite like Brunner. But from the way things panned out he must have figured he was being double-crossed and decided to wind up the partnership. Permanently.”
“These are troubled times we live in, sir.”
“That’s always been the rumor.”
“But surely this is good news. It means you’ve got something concrete to tell Lieutenant Leventis, doesn’t it? Enough to get him off your back, perhaps. Off both our backs.”
“Perhaps.”
Garlopis grinned sheepishly. “How did you get on with Miss Panatoniou?”
“Yes, that was interesting. We were followed all the way there and back.”
“By who?”
“Two men in a black sedan.”
“They were working for Leventis, perhaps.”
“Perhaps.”
“Did you tell her?”
“God, no. I didn’t want to distract her from me. She did an excellent job of paying me a great deal of probably unwarranted attention.”
“You think she was playing you?”
“My strings are still humming. But I have no idea what her game is. At least not while she’s using that chest of hers to breathe. It’s kind of distracting. She says she does a little extra work for Dimitri Papakyriakopoulos. Meissner’s lawyer. It seems he’s curious as to why I should want to meet with his client. And because he’s curious she is, too. Of course, she says it’s more than that. She says she likes me. But.”
“Of course.”
“Right now I’m trying to limit things between us to something platonic; the only trouble is that making love is so much more entertaining.”
Garlopis chuckled. “You’re absolutely right there, sir. Who was it that said a woman is like a tortoise; once she’s on her back you can do what you want with her.”
“It doesn’t sound much like Zeno.”
“No, perhaps you’re right. Anyway, you look like a man who knows what he’s doing.”
“That’s an easy mistake to make. You see, I’ve met her kind before. She’s a mortar bomb in a tight blouse. A man needs a tin hat and a lorry load of sandbags just to be near a girl like that. The trick is being somewhere else when she goes off.”
“She does have a remarkable figure, sir. Just what the doctor ordered, I’d have thought.”
“Always supposing that one can afford a doctor like that.”
Our discussion of Elli Panatoniou was all the excuse Garlopis needed to find a bottle of Four Roses in the desk drawer and pour us a couple while we waited for Dumbo’s call. There are some subjects, like analytic geometry and spiric sections, for which you need a drink and Elli’s figure was one of them; she had the most interesting curves since Diocles described a cissoid. After a while I sat down at Telesilla’s desk to type out a report on the day’s activities for Lieutenant Leventis. I saw no reason not to take his previous threat seriously. I mentioned the name of Spiros Reppas on the assumption he’d already heard it in connection with the house in Pritaniou; and I told Leventis that I’d been followed by two men in a dark sedan—I even gave him the license plate, just to be insolent. I didn’t say anything in my report about kissing Elli Panatoniou, but I figured that if the men following us had been his, they could tell him that themselves. Of course, the report was more or less pointless and mostly demonstrated that I was badly out of practice with a typewriter. But Leventis was right about one thing: It did make me feel like a cop again.
Garlopis read my report and smiled sadly.
“Perhaps next time I could type this for you, sir? In Greek. There are many mistakes. Perhaps the lieutenant will be more inclined to be sympathetic if your report is in Greek.”
“Next time.”
At last the phone rang. Garlopis answered it, said something in Greek to the operator, and then handed me the receiver.
“Munich,” he said, and pressed his head close to the backside of the earpiece so he could hear. His hair smelled of limes.
“Christof Ganz speaking.”
“About time. I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day, Ganz. Where the hell have you been?”
Dietrich’s voice was testy and irritable like maybe he’d forgotten how much money I’d saved the company since taking up my employment. I swallowed the rest of my drink; it sounded as if I was going to need it. Garlopis smoothly refilled the glass.
“I’ve been out of the office, sir.”
“No kidding.”
“Like I said before, the Greek police are proving to be less than helpful. Did you ever try to adjust a claim with a dead body on the floor? It’s not so easy doing the paperwork.”
“I get that. It’s an awkward situation right enough. Naturally we feel bad having landed you in this situation. But sometimes that’s how it is. Adjusting a claim can be a tricky process. A claims man has to expect the unexpected. That’s what this business is all about. And sometimes the unexpected is a little more unpredictable than can reasonably be expected, especially when there’s a lot of money involved.”
“Did you find Max Merten?”
“No. I didn’t.” Dietrich sighed. “Look here, Ganz, the word from on high is that you’re to drop this whole thing. Right now. I’ve retained those lawyers in Piraeus on your behalf and told them to deal with the police through the usual channels. We will assist you in any way we can. Bail money, fines, legal fees, none of that is a problem. We’ll bring you home, right enough. You’ve just got to be patient and let the lawyers handle it now. But this whole line of inquiry needs to end. Siegfried Witzel’s claim for the Doris has been disallowed and that’s the end of it as far as MRE is concerned.”
“Is that what Mr. Alzheimer says?”
“Mr. Alzheimer, me, and God almighty. In that order, see? You’re not a cop anymore, you’re a goddamned insurance man. It’s time you started acting like one.”
“What’s the idea?”
“There isn’t any idea. There’s just orders. From upstairs. You’re to drop this inquiry like it was red-hot toilet paper. When you’re back home we’ll go out somewhere like the Hofbräuhaus and I’ll buy you a cheap dinner to celebrate.”
“An invitation like that I can hardly refuse.”
“Good.” Dietrich was oblivious to my sarcasm.
“Sure, boss. Anything you say.” It wasn’t what I felt like saying to Dumbo but it sounded a lot better than Go and fuck yourself. Working for MRE was still a good job for a man like me, with a car and expenses and what I most craved, which was a quiet life with a little respectability. I was determined to keep the job, in spite of what the big mouth in my square head felt like doing. My father would have been proud of me; he always did want me to go into something respectable like insurance. I picked up my glass and then drained it, a second time. “Was there anything else, sir?”
“No, that’s it,
Ganz. Take care now. See you soon.”
I handed Garlopis the receiver and he dropped it on the cradle and shrugged. “Dale Carnegie he is not.”
“Dumbo’s usually all right. For an office man. But it sounds to me like someone’s been shaking his pram.”
“Perhaps it was Mr. Alzheimer.”
“Could be. In which case maybe someone leaned on Mr. Alzheimer.”
“Like who?”
“Frankly I’d rather not know. But I do know that in pride of place in Alzheimer’s office is a framed photograph of him looking very cozy with our own dear Konrad Adenauer. If, as Lieutenant Leventis says, Alois Brunner does have good connections in the current German government, then maybe Adenauer asked his old friend Alzheimer to have me lay off the case.”
“If you don’t mind me saying so, sir, none of that fits with Brunner being involved in selling arms illegally to the Egyptians. I mean why would the West German government, a NATO member for only a couple of years, risk upsetting its new allies by doing something like that? It doesn’t make sense. Unless anti-Semitism is still the policy of the German government.”
“Leventis said he thought maybe Brunner had been working for the German Federal Intelligence Service, the BND. So maybe he still is. Maybe this was an undercover operation. I don’t know. The minute you get the peekers involved, then the screen ripples in front of you like a mirage and before you know it Red Riding Hood turns out to be the wolf.” I lit a cigarette. “It’s beginning to look as though I’ll need to bribe that cop after all. Did you speak to your cousin at the Alpha Bank? About cashing that certified check?”
“Yes. And he tells me that he can make this happen quite easily. Now all we have to do is bribe someone at the Ministry of Public Order with a much smaller sum to provide you with a fake identity card in the name of Siegfried Witzel.”
“Will this do?”
I handed over the identity card that the Ermioni harbormaster had found floating in the sea at the spot where the Doris had gone down. The card was in poor condition but all the pertinent details were more or less legible.
“Oh, this will do very well,” said Garlopis. “Where did you find it?”
I explained where it had come from.
“The picture is so faded that it actually looks a bit like you.”
“That’s hardly a surprise. I’m a bit faded myself. Or more accurately, worn away like the relief on some ancient temple.”
“He suggests cashing the check at the bank in Corinth where he has a good friend who owes him a favor. That’s less than an hour’s drive north of here. It’s perfect for us. Nothing ever happens in Corinth. At least not since the earthquake of 1928 and the great fire of 1933.”
“Sounds like a poor choice of place to build a bank.”
Garlopis smiled. “We could go there the day after you visit Arthur Meissner in Averoff Prison, perhaps. On Saturday. Banks are always quiet on a Saturday.”
“Yes, that should help us focus on what we’re doing very nicely. There’s nothing like planning a serious crime to give an extra thrill to a prison visit.”
THIRTY-SIX
–
A warm afternoon in Athens and Garlopis was spent behind the wheel of the Rover, which suited me very well, given the homicidal impatience of other Greek drivers. To drive around Constitution Square was to invite an assault by car horn and amounted to the clearest demonstration of jungle law since Huxley battered Bishop Wilberforce on his pate with a blunt copy of On the Origin of Species. No ordinary human could ever have enjoyed seeing Athens from the front seat of a car any more than he could have enjoyed trying to fly off the ski jump at Garmisch. Even Garlopis was a different man behind the wheel of a car—as different as if he’d shared a couple of Greek coffees with Dr. Henry Jekyll. We reached Averoff Prison, about three kilometers northeast of the office, in a matter of minutes and a fug of burnt rubber. He could have found the place on Alexandras Avenue in his sleep because it was close to the Apostolis Nikolaidis Stadium, the home ground of Panathinaikos, the Athens football team supported enthusiastically by Garlopis and, he said, the winner of the Greek Cup as recently as 1955. He parked the car and switched off the engine, and at last I was able to let out a breath.
“I was never so glad to see a prison,” I said, looking out the car window at a grim, castellated gray brick building that was shrouded with palm trees. I lit a Karelia from a packet I’d bought and tried to compose myself.
But Garlopis was looking serious.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid I won’t be going in there. You see, there’s something I need to tell you. You’re not the only one with a past. I mean, a past I’d rather not be reminded of.”
“Don’t tell me, you were a cop, too.”
“No, but during the war I was a translator for the Occupation Force, just like Arthur Meissner. First for the Italians and then the Germans. So far I’ve managed to conceal this fact. And for obvious reasons you’re the one person with whom I feel I can share this information now. I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone Greek. Meissner worked in Thessaloniki while I was based here in Athens but he and I met several times at the Gestapo building in Merlin Street. And I’d much prefer it if we didn’t meet again. He might try to blackmail me, to share the blame, if you like. I certainly didn’t murder or rob anyone, which is what he’s accused of doing by no less a figure than Archimedes Argyropoulos; he’s a general and a Greek military hero, so his evidence has been very damaging to Meissner’s case. No, all I did was to be part of a pool of translators. I even tried to ameliorate some of the general’s orders. Nevertheless, in Greek eyes this makes me a collaborator.”
“Collaborator is just another word for survivor,” I said. “In a war staying alive is a bit like playing tennis. It looks a lot easier when you’ve never had to play yourself. Take it from one who can boast a pretty useful backhand.”
“That’s kind of you to say. Unfortunately there are plenty of Greeks who would like to see a rat like me disqualified. Permanently.”
“Forget it. I think you’re a pretty nice guy—for a rat.”
“You’re too kind, sir.”
“I don’t mean to be. Tell me, when you were working for the Third Reich did you ever meet this SD Captain Brunner that Lieutenant Leventis has decided to make his life’s personal Jean Valjean?”
“On one of the few occasions I met Meissner he was accompanied by some SD officers and perhaps one of them might have been Brunner, but I really don’t know for sure. There were so many. And men in uniform all look alike to me. Frankly I’d never even heard the name Brunner until Leventis mentioned him in his office.” Garlopis shook his head. “What I did know was to stay away from Thessaloniki. You have to understand that things were much harder there because the SD were in charge. There it was all about persecuting the Jews. Here, in Athens, things were easier. Besides, Brunner was a mere captain. Mostly I worked for the military governor, a Luftwaffe general called Wilhelm Speidel who Lieutenant Leventis mentioned to you when we were in his office. This is the real reason I try to encourage people not to stay at the Grande Bretagne Hotel, sir. During the war it was taken over by the German general staff. Speidel’s headquarters were in a suite on the top floor. Hitler once stayed at the GB; Himmler, and Göring, too. I actually saw Hermann Göring drinking champagne with Rommel in the hotel bar. I was often in and out of the place to meet with General Speidel and I don’t like to go back there in case I’m ever recognized.
“Then, in April 1944, Speidel was transferred back to Germany and I went to stay with a cousin of mine in Rhodes, until I judged it safe to come back to Athens. When Leventis mentioned Speidel and the massacre in Kalavryta, you could have knocked me sideways. Frankly I had no idea he’d ever had a hand in such a thing. I always found him to be very kind, very thoughtful, and a real gentleman. When he left Greece he even gave me a nice fountain pen. His own Pelikan.”
“That’s something you learn about life. Sometimes the nicest folk do the most horrible things. Especially in Germany. Along with the Japs we virtually own the monopoly on very kind, very thoughtful mass murderers. People are always surprised that we also like Mozart and small children.”
“I just wanted you to know the truth.”
“It’s a tough world for honest men. But don’t tell any of them.”
“No, indeed. I shall wait for you here, sir. I shall close my eyes and get some beauty sleep.”
“Try a coma. Then it might actually work.”
Leaving Garlopis to his nap I stepped out of the car and walked toward the gate wondering just how much of what Garlopis had told me was true. Knowing him as I did, I half-suspected that I might have got more information from the Greek insurance man about Alois Brunner than I was ever likely to get out of Arthur Meissner.
The sentry waved me through the gate to the main door, where I rang the bell as if I’d been selling brushes, and waited. After a moment or two, a smaller door opened in the bigger one and I showed the prison guard a letter Leventis had written for me. Then I was taken to a small windowless room where I was searched carefully and ushered through several locked cage doors, to a room with four chairs and a table. There I sat down and waited, nervously. I’d been in enough prison cells in my time to get a sick feeling in my stomach just being there. The only window was about three meters above the floor and on the wall was a cheap picture of the Parthenon. A temple dedicated to the goddess Athena seemed a long way from a squalid room in Averoff Prison. After a while the door opened again to admit a small dark handsome man in his forties and I stood up.
“Herr Meissner?”
When he nodded I offered him a cigarette and when he took one I told him to keep the pack. That’s just good manners when you’re meeting anyone behind bars. He smelled strongly of prison, which as anyone who’s been a convict could tell you is a cloying mixture of cigarettes, fried potatoes, fear, sweat, and only one shower a week.