“And if the Nazis have figured it out?”
“Then there’ll be a lot of dead Chinese and dead Communists. That’s the way things always go at the beginning. Trial and error.”
There wasn’t even a hint of feeling. “And Georg knew all this?”
Vollman took another pull. He seemed to be deciding whether to mislead or enlighten. “He was following something south,” he said. “Down to Teruel. Something to do with the guns. That’s my gift to you.”
“So who are Bernhardt and Langenheim?” Hoffner thought it time for a little strafing of the truth of his own.
Vollman had been at this too long, though, to show any kind of reaction. He continued to stare across before taking a final pull. “You should get to the Ritz. Leos isn’t one for idle threats.”
“And Hisma?” said Hoffner.
The silence this time was too long. Vollman said, “You should go.”
“I imagine Georg expected me to pass those names along.”
“He’s a clever boy.”
“It’s B-E-R-N—”
“Yes,” said Vollman. “You’ll need to head south if you want to find him.”
“And you’ll be here in Barcelona?” Hoffner knew there would be no answer. He waited and then moved to the door. He had the handle in his grip when Vollman said, “Pawn to queen bishop three. It’s the Caro-Kann defense. My specialty. Leos likes to know I’m safe.”
Hoffner had his back to him. So this was what safety felt like, he thought. He nodded and opened the door.
* * *
The wide avenue of the Rambla was up and moving as Hoffner made his way through the heat. Open-backed trucks carrying men and rifles, men and grain, men and pigs, trundled between the lines of trees, careful to avoid the still uncleared piles of brick and stone. A week ago trucks like these, then filled with boys eager for the fight at Huesca or Zaragoza, or maybe even as far west as Madrid, had been cheered on by the thousands. Even now the frenzy of those first few days hung in the branches—hats and scarves tossed high and abandoned—but who could deny the sound of victory still echoing in the leaves?
Vollman had talked a great deal; he had said almost nothing. It was clear he recognized the names in the wire: Langenheim and Bernhardt. Hisma might have been something new to him—or maybe Hoffner just wanted to think that—but at least things were now on the table. This was about guns and the way the Nazis would get them into Spain. And Georg had been sent to expose that. In a world gone mad on truths and malice, ideologies and sacrifice, this was nothing more than a boy’s playground game. Smack the bully and make him cry. That tens of thousands of Spaniards might have to die in the process hardly seemed to matter.
It was a sobering thought as Hoffner came to the Ritz, its ten stories of palatial stone and glass filling the entire block. The curved rise of the façade and the blackened windows did little to soften the appearance; even the row of balconies above seemed to sneer down at the plaza through gritted teeth. Hoffner imagined this to have been the breeding ground for Barcelona’s elite, with chandeliers and dinner jackets and crystal glasses set across endless stretches of brocaded linen tablecloth: all those photographs of withering smiles, men and women staring up in perfectly seated lines of privilege and decay.
It would have been enough to smell the hair tonic and toilet water if not for the riddling of pockmarks along the stone from recent machine-gun fire. Likewise, the ragtag group of trucks parked outside—men hauling carcasses of beef and pork through the front door—cast out any lingering sophistication. Most glaring, though, was the awning where the words HOTEL GASTRONÓMICO NO. 1 severed all links to the past. The Ritz was now a UGT/CNT canteen: so nice to see the socialists and anarchists working hand in hand to feed the people.
Hoffner crossed the plaza and joined the line heading in. The man in front of him was reading the latest issue of the Solidaridad Obrera, most of the newspaper’s front page a description of the fighting in Aragón: a pilot by the name of Gayoso—anarchist or socialist was still unclear—had coasted down to 150 meters and dropped a bomb on Our Lady of the Pillar in Zaragoza. The “purring of the engines,” so the article read, had been unfamiliar to those in the streets, but both church and city had escaped any real damage when the bomb failed to explode.
The man in front snorted and shook his head.
“They think Jesus saved their little church,” he said. “You get us some bombs that work, and General Mola will be wishing he never left Navarre.”
Hoffner was expecting more of the history lesson, but the line began to move. Four minutes later he stood in one of the grand ballrooms, now teeming with diners. It was humanity at its chewing best, a long narrow table at the side running some thirty meters to the back wall; large and small round tables filled the rest of the floor. The chandeliers were still above—most without bulbs—but the light pouring in from the ceiling-high windows made them almost an afterthought.
If there was an empty chair to be found Hoffner couldn’t see it—mothers with children bent over bowls of soup and bread, waiters in white coats or shirtsleeves darting in between, and above it all the hum of eager silverware and untamed conversation. These might have been the recently dispossessed, but Hoffner suspected the room brought its own brand of self-satisfaction to those inside. Even eating was a kind of triumph in the new Barcelona.
A man approached through the maze of chairs. “You’re alone, friend?”
It was a single motion to call Hoffner over and send him off toward the long table where the next chair in line stood empty. Hoffner thought to explain, but there was too much movement behind him—in front of him, to the side of him—to stand in the way of progress. He sidestepped his way through and took his seat.
The man next to him was shoveling the last bits of rice onto a fork. He had yet to look up. “Salud, friend,” he said. “He’ll be by in a minute. Best to have your voucher out.”
This was the sticking point. Hoffner realized his time at the Ritz might be short-lived. He turned to have a look around and was nearly flattened by a waiter carrying a large silver tray.
“Watch yourself, friend,” the man said as he buzzed by, and Hoffner pulled back. When he looked out again, Hoffner saw Mila a few meters off, standing directly across from him.
She was in a different pair of trousers, slightly lighter blouse, but the belt, hair, and eyes were exactly the same. She was smiling at him.
She walked over. “You always do what you’re told?”
The shock of seeing her left Hoffner momentarily at a loss.
“We’re down here,” she said, “but you’re welcome to stay with your new friend if you like.”
Piera, Leos, and a third man—with oddly drooping eyes and a scar across his left cheek—were working through several bowls of beans and chicken when Mila and Hoffner drew up.
Hoffner said, “Pawn to—”
“Yes.” Leos cut him off as he continued to eat. “He likes all that. You wouldn’t be standing here if he wasn’t tucked away.”
Mila sat, and Hoffner took the chair next to her. He said, “I didn’t expect to see you.”
“And I didn’t expect to find my father being held hostage.” She was smiling.
Leos had his glass to his lips. “That’s unfair,” he said.
“You would have killed him, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“So what else would you call it?”
Leos thought a moment, shrugged, and drank.
Hoffner said, “You just happened to stop by the Ritz?”
She poured them both some wine. “Workers’ Canteen Number One,” she corrected. “And no. When my father goes to the club, I bring him lunch. When he gets kidnapped, I tend to follow along.”
Leos said, “So now it’s kidnapping.” He chewed through a bone. “I suppose next you’re going to tell me I actually killed him.”
Hoffner was struck by how easily they tossed this all about. Leos would have shot Piera without a thought
. He was just as likely to share a bowl of chicken with him. Evidently instinct worked minute to minute these days.
Piera pushed his bowl forward and sucked something in his teeth. “Did you find your son?” he said, with no real interest.
There was a commotion by the door, and they all turned to see the head man shaking his head. One or two others in line were doing the same. Finally the head man threw up his hands, stepped back, and little Aurelio—shirt and ginger hair matted in sweat—moved past him. The man with the droopy eyes was instantly on his feet.
Aurelio drew up and stared, his breathing heavy.
The standing man began to shake his head, as if to say, Well?
It took Aurelio another moment to focus. When he did, his voice was quiet.
“ Patrullas,” he said. He seemed almost confused by it. “No papers. Nothing.” He looked at Hoffner, then Mila, then Hoffner again. “They took him. On the street.” It was as if he were watching it play out in front of him. “The butt of a rifle to the head and gone. There won’t even be enough of him left to bury.”
4
PASE DE LA FIRMA
In the early spring of 1919, while Detective Inspector Nikolai Hoffner recovered from his investigations into the murder of Rosa Luxemburg, General Severiano Martínez Anido arrived in Barcelona to quell the more dangerous elements within the anarchist Sindicato Unico. The Sindicato was the most powerful union in the country and had recently begun to encourage some of its members to explore alternative measures when dealing with work stoppages, lockouts, and industrialists in general. It seemed that bold words and tossed rocks were getting them only so far. The leadership wanted something more permanent. Thereafter, bullet and garroting-wire sales rose dramatically throughout the city.
General Martínez Anido, a mild soft-spoken little man, had been sent on direct orders from the prime minister, Don Eduardo Dato. Dato’s exact words—if his secretary’s memory can be trusted (she had somehow remained on the telephone line while Dato made his intentions clear)—were to “get yourself to that rat-infested Catalan pisshole, cut off the balls of every last swine-fucking anarcho, and feed them to the bastards’ wives.” Martínez Anido, never one to take an order at anything less than face value, immediately set about infiltrating the dark and murderous secret society of the Unico with men of his own. By December he had rounded up thirty-six of the worst of them—including their leader, Roy del Sucre—and had them all rotting behind bars in the always inviting Fortress of Mahón in the Balearic Islands. Rumor had it that one of these detainees had been accidentally castrated (although how one is accidentally castrated is anyone’s guess), but Dato’s secretary was less than forthcoming on that front. The rest of the inmates languished fully intact, one of them a twenty-two-year-old Josep Gardenyes, although no records show anyone of that specific name on the prison rolls at the time. His cellmate had been a droopy-eyed man with a scar on his left cheek. When, fifteen months later, the two managed to avenge themselves by ambushing and machine-gunning Dato in Madrid’s Plaza de la Independencia (by then Gardenyes had taught himself to steer a motorcycle with his knees), they became brothers in blood.
The sole surviving brother was now sitting in the corner of a dank bar six blocks from the Ritz, his fourth whiskey already gone, his droopy eyes unashamedly weeping. He had felt a moment’s hesitation crying in front of the woman, but she was a doctor and no doubt had seen worse. The two Communists had lived through bloodlettings of their own: who were they to fault a man his passion? And Aurelio was probably more drunk than he was himself. As for the German—he would be dead within a week, so what difference did it make?
Leos pushed the bottle toward the man and hoped one more glass might be enough to stop the wailing. Remarkably, the man was managing to cry even while drinking.
“It would be pointless,” said Aurelio. He had been working through a canteen of water and was in full command of his faculties. “I didn’t recognize any of the boys who picked him up, and I know them all.”
Leos said, “So how do you know these were patrullas?”
“Because they told us,” Aurelio explained. “ ‘We’re with the patrullas,’ one of them shouted. ‘We won’t put up with this kind of disgrace! You have us to thank. The true spirit of anarchism.’ On and on. Then they smacked the rifle across the back of his head and tossed the body into the car. They weren’t even carrying the right kind of pistols.”
Hoffner, who had been listening for the better part of the last five minutes, finally spoke. “So you think they took Gardenyes for another reason.”
Aurelio reached for his canteen. “Whoever they were, they were sloppy.”
“How?”
Aurelio took a drink. “You have one on your belt. Put it on the table.”
Without hesitation Hoffner pulled the Luger out and set it next to his glass.
“That,” said Aurelio. “That was what one of them had.”
“Which means?” said Leos.
Aurelio looked across at Hoffner. “Those names on the list—the ones you gave him—Gardenyes found one of them.”
Vollman had been right, thought Hoffner. The SS had wasted no time in getting here. They had killed Gardenyes for poking around. “I know,” said Hoffner.
“No,” Aurelio said. “Not the chess player, the drugs. Bernhardt. Another German. That was what had these patrullas-not-patrullas looking for him. It’s why Gardenyes sent my crying friend here to find you at the Chinaman’s.” Aurelio glanced over at the man. “All right—it’s enough already.”
The man went on undeterred and Aurelio looked back at Hoffner. “I’m guessing you knew that would happen—the patrullas.”
“I didn’t.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that?”
Hoffner picked up his glass. “The pistol’s there. I’m sure no one would mind if you used it.” He drank.
Aurelio nodded over at Mila. “She would.” Hoffner thought he saw a moment of color in her cheeks before Aurelio said, “She’s the one who’d have to clean it up.”
Leos tossed back the last of his glass and set it firmly on the table. He was done. “I’m sorry your friend is dead,” he said as he stood. “Patrullas or not, I have to get back.”
Hoffner was peering into his glass. “New kind of deliveries to be made?” He lapped at the last of his whiskey and then said, “I’d be careful there.”
It was clear Leos understood exactly what Hoffner was talking about. Leos stared for several seconds before saying, “What else did Vollman overhear?”
“You’d have to ask him that yourself, wouldn’t you?” Hoffner now felt every eye at the table on him; he continued to gaze at Leos. “He thinks it goes through Teruel.”
“Then he thinks wrong.”
Hoffner waited. This wasn’t misdirection; this was a reclaiming of control. For better or worse, Leos was speaking the truth; the drug/gun conduit didn’t run through Teruel. The question was, What had Georg found to send him there?
Hoffner said, “You be sure to tell him that.”
Leos stood silently. He then swept a glance across the table and said, “Salud. You have my condolences.” He turned and headed off.
Aurelio watched him through the door before turning to Hoffner. “What the hell was that?”
Hoffner leaned forward and took hold of the bottle. “He runs drugs. It’s a dangerous business.”
“So what’s in Teruel?”
Hoffner poured himself another glass and set the bottle down. “Evidently not drugs.”
With surprising speed Aurelio reached over and grabbed hold of Hoffner’s hand. The whiskey in the glass spilled to the table. For such a small man, Aurelio had a remarkably strong grip.
Hoffner said, “If you’d wanted a glass, I’d have been happy to pour you one.”
Aurelio tightened his grip.
Hoffner said, “It’s an easy hand to break. It’s been broken before.”
“What’s he moving?” said Aurelio. Hoffner said
nothing, and Aurelio’s gaze grew more severe. “This is what got Gardenyes killed,” Aurelio said, “so I think I’d like to know.”
Hoffner was beginning to feel a deep ache up his wrist and into his forearm. Aurelio had done this before. Even so, Hoffner said, “He was already dead—isn’t that what he told me?”
Aurelio brought the thumb tighter into the palm, and the ache moved past the forearm and into the elbow. Hoffner shut his eyes momentarily from the pain, and the grip suddenly released. He opened his eyes and saw the Luger held just above the table and aimed at Aurelio.
Hoffner had been wrong at the clinic; Mila looked very comfortable with a gun.
“Put it down,” Hoffner said.
She was staring across at Aurelio: the little man hadn’t moved. “He was going to break your hand,” she said.
“He might have broken it already,” said Hoffner. He was stretching the fingers and wrist. There would be pain but nothing else.
Piera, silent to this moment, said quietly, “Put the gun on the table, Mila.”
The sound of her father’s voice did nothing to shake her. It was several long moments before she turned and held the gun out to Hoffner. Reluctantly he took it. She sat back and he set the gun down.
Hoffner said to Aurelio, “You can take your hand off your own gun now, or you can shoot me. It’s up to you.”
Aurelio remained absolutely still. He then slowly brought his other hand up from under the table. It was clear Mila had not been aware of this. Aurelio said, “I wasn’t going to shoot you.”
“I know that,” said Hoffner. “She didn’t. So now we all know.” With his good hand, Hoffner poured a glass and placed it in front of her. The color had yet to return to her face. Mila took it and drank, and Hoffner said, “So—about this Bernhardt. Gardenyes found him?”
Aurelio was still studying him. He slid a glass to the center of the table and watched as Hoffner filled it. “His place,” Aurelio said. “Not what you’d expect. Down by the docks. Too nice for the neighborhood and much too nice for a drug addict.”
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