by John Altman
Deacon smiled, very slightly, in the back of the Bentley.
It was important to keep one’s sense of humor, in strange times such as these.
PART TWO
7
PRINZ ALBRECHT STRASSE
“Herr Inspektor?” a voice said.
The voice belonged to Hauptmann, standing in the doorway with his russet hair slightly disheveled, a small spot of blood staining the lapel of his otherwise spotless uniform.
“Herr Hauptmann,” Frick said. “The interrogation is finished?”
“Frau Gehl has left this world, Herr Inspektor. But her husband is still with us.”
“And?”
“He has admitted to sheltering the Engländer, and to providing him with supplies. And he has confirmed that Hobbs moved on very shortly before our arrival yesterday. He has only the car, some food, and some water. According to Herr Gehl, the man is unarmed.”
“His destination?”
A wrinkle of frustration creased Hauptmann’s forehead. “Gehl claims ignorance. When I mention the radio transmitter, he denies ever having seen it.”
“But it was found in his home.”
“The man is stubborn, Herr Inspektor. Surprisingly so.”
“Is he aware of the fate of his wife?”
“He is. And since her death, he has become even more obstinate. Perhaps it was a miscalculation on my part …”
“Do not concern yourself,” Frick said. “I will pay a visit to the man myself as soon as I’ve finished here.”
“Thank you, Herr Inspektor.”
When Hauptmann had gone, Frick turned his attention back to the file on his desk. It was a description of Salon Kitty, the premier brothel in Berlin. Salon Kitty was a favorite haunt of top-ranking Gestapo agents and visiting diplomats. But according to the file, the brothel might also serve a more nefarious purpose. The author of the report put forth the theory that in reality Salon Kitty was a pet project of Reinhard Heydrich’s, and a front for the SD. If one were to look behind the walls, the report posited, one might possibly find a network of hidden microphones and tape recorders. Heydrich might be bolstering his secret security files on the Gestapo by collecting ammunition for blackmail.
It was, Frick knew, completely true. And this was one reason that Hagen had placed him in the Gestapo, so that he could intercept material like this file before it garnered too much attention. He reached for a pen and scratched a note in the margin of the report: Speculative. After thinking for a few seconds, he added a postscript. This type of report fosters suspicion between the security organs of the Reich. In all future …
He finished writing his note in the margin, and then pushed back and went to pay a visit to Herr Gehl.
The infamous “house prison” of Number 8 Prinz Albrecht Strasse consisted of thirty-nine cells in the building’s cellar: damp concrete chambers smelling of niter, frightened sweat, and human excrement. Frick came off the staircase, paused for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the crepuscular gloom, conferred briefly with a guard, and was escorted to the cell containing Ernst Gehl.
Gehl was strapped to a steel table, held fast by leather restraints. Beside the table was a single chair. Beside the chair was a medical tray lined with implements. In the cell’s corner, obscured by shadows, stood a piece of equipment—rubber-clad cables, an electrical transformer, metal clips smeared with clotting blood.
Frick nodded at the guard, put a hand on the chair, pulled it to the edge of the steel table, and sat.
Gehl’s eyes were closed. His face was bruised; one cheek was torn open. Through the gaping skin, Frick could see two of the man’s teeth, yellowly luminous in the faint light coming from the corridor.
“Herr Gehl,” he said softly. “Are you awake?”
Gehl’s eyes opened. They turned, slowly, to Frick.
“I understand that you are being difficult,” Frick said. “I have come to help you understand that there is nothing to be gained by it.”
Gehl looked at him for a moment, coolly, and then closed his eyes again.
Frick drew back, considering. He rubbed at his chin, and then leaned forward again.
“A radio transmitter was discovered in your house,” he said. “One assumes that you used it to contact your allies in England. Is this correct?”
No response.
“I hardly need your confirmation,” Frick said gently, “on so obvious a matter. But I do require something else from you. I would like to know the destination of the Engländer. Since the radio was in your possession, I believe that you must be aware of this.”
Somebody in an adjoining cell was crying quietly. Frick blocked it out. He scooted the chair a bit closer to Gehl. Something was dotting the man’s chest—small off-whitish clumps that he thought at first might be more teeth. Then he realized that they were fragments of rock salt, which the man had spat out when the current had passed through his body.
“Was it Teiresias who said it?” Frick asked. “‘When wisdom brings no profit, to be wise is to suffer.’ Your wife, I believe, has already learned this lesson. You are aware of her fate. Hm?”
Again, no reaction. Gehl looked almost peaceful. Frick felt his temper starting to rise. He breathed in and out, calming himself.
And then he saw that Gehl was smiling.
A vein pulsed in Frick’s temple. “Does that amuse you?” he asked.
No reaction; but the smile stayed.
The vein pulsed again. A minute passed, and then another. The smile left Gehl’s face in degrees, like autumn leaves picked up in clutches by a cold wind.
When Frick spoke again, his voice was silky, and ripe with sympathy.
“I believe it was a mistake to let your wife suffer. Had she not been involved, you already would have cooperated with us. But now you have a personal reason for being stubborn. Is this a fair assessment?”
Gehl’s eyes fluttered open. His lips parted; he whispered something. Frick leaned forward, trying to catch it.
When Gehl spat, the bloody saliva took Frick full in his right eye.
He pushed back again, swiping at his face. For a moment, he held perfectly still. Then he began to quiver with rage.
The smile was playing around Gehl’s lips again.
Frick reached and covered Gehl’s nose and mouth with one broad hand.
The man did not understand his place. He did not understand what he was dealing with, here. But Frick would make him understand.
After a few seconds, Gehl began to produce noises. Frick held his palm tight against the man’s face, muffling them. The hands tugged against the leather restraints. Then the feet started to move, the heels drumming a ragged tattoo against the metal.
Frick pressed harder. He would make his point. His time, unlike Hauptmann’s, was valuable. He did not have twenty-four hours to waste in getting his answers.
Now Gehl’s face, beneath his hand, was turning red. He was beginning to understand, Frick thought. Frick was not Hauptmann; he was not a child. And this was not a game.
Then Gehl tried a new tactic—he went limp. The florid color in his cheeks turned suddenly blotchy, as if blood vessels had broken. A fine trick, Frick thought. Some sort of physiological reaction, manufactured by necessity. But he would not be fooled. He left his hand over the man’s nose and mouth and counted, very deliberately, to twenty. Then he took his hand away.
“Now,” he said. “I will ask one last time.”
Gehl continued with his act. His hands in the leather restraints stayed limp. He was holding his breath; his chest did not move.
Frick bent closer, until his face was only inches from Gehl’s. A remarkable act, he thought. Gehl’s eyelids were half-shuttered, showing glassy pupils beneath. He still had not taken a breath. Amazing, the lengths to which a man would go to make pain stop.
It took another few moments for Frick to realize that Gehl was not acting—Gehl was dead.
When he realized it, something close to panic took him. He backed away quickly, th
e chair whining against the concrete floor. He had gone too far; he had taken the man’s life. It was not his fault, of course. Gehl was old and weak, and Hauptmann had already been at him for a day. And yet it was a mistake—for with Gehl dead, they would have no way of discovering Hobbs’ destination.
Your second mistake, his mind offered helpfully. You forgot about the file. You could have stopped the Britisher earlier if only—
But that was not a memory. That was a dream. He had not known the Engländer’s location until the very morning he had gone to apprehend him; and by then it already had been too late.
He did not make mistakes. These were tricks. Somebody, somehow, was tricking him.
He stood up. The problem was not insoluble. He would find Hobbs some other way—and then this small miscalculation, made by somebody else, would be of no consequence.
On his way out the guard caught his attention. “Herr Kriminal Inspektor,” he said. “You are finished with the prisoner?”
“Yes,” Frick said. “I am finished.”
“Are we to keep him here?”
“He’s dead. Get rid of him.”
He climbed the stairs without looking back to see the man’s reaction.
Behind his desk, he frowned with consternation. That smell again … the sweet/sour odor of fresh bread … and something behind his eyes, pulsing.
The phone on his desk chimed softly.
He answered. “Frick,” he said, and listened.
After hanging up, he thought for a moment, then opened the drawer of his desk and withdrew a well-oiled Luger.
The Talta had been discovered, abandoned not far outside Berlin. If the Engländer was on foot, it would be an easy matter to track him with dogs. If he had found another vehicle, then the matter would be slightly more complex—but only slightly. The Gestapo’s network of Vertrauensmänner ran through every level of German society, from the lowliest cobbler to the highest-born aristocrat. Something as considerable as a disappearing car would not avoid being reported for long. And when the report came in, through whatever channel, it would be brought to Frick’s attention.
And as for the other … strangeness …
His tongue came out and ran over his lips.
Later. When he had the time for it.
He left the office, and went to find Hauptmann, and some dogs.
WISMAR, MECKLENBURG
Hobbs woke up.
At first he didn’t know where he was. The car was still moving; but it was drawing to a stop. He sat straight, blinking the sleep from his eyes, and then looked over at the driver.
She was smiling back at him. “Home, sweet home,” she said in English.
Outside, the sky was dark. They were at a house, he realized, on a hill overlooking a town. He yawned, reached for his satchel, then threw open his door.
The hill sloped down to a scatter of thatched roofs, a cobbled main street, a town square surrounded by buildings with brick façades. A massive red church was illuminated by the moonlight, with a tremendous sculpture out front depicting a man and a dragon. Farther off, beyond the town, the land continued to roll. Windmills dotted the landscape, cutting the night air with a soft, soothing motion.
The woman had come around to his side of the car. She was a statuesque brunette, a few years older than Hobbs, with a vaguely horselike face. Her smile, full of prominent white teeth, was meaningful and sly. There was a secret between them, that smile said.
“Come on,” she said, and led him to the door.
The woman’s name was Paula Kahr.
They had talked for almost an hour, that afternoon, before he had fallen asleep. That was why her smile was so loaded with meaning, of course. He had brought out his entire repertoire of faltering German in an effort to convince her that he was a local. She had corrected him good-naturedly: Guten Tag when he had said Guten Abend, Wieviel Uhr ist es? when he had said Wieviel kostet das? Finally, she had taken the lead and taught him a few things. Ich spreche nicht sehr gut Deutsch. She had made him repeat it several times, and then translated: I don’t speak German very well.
Then the first of the slow, meaningful smiles.
They moved into the house; Paula reached for a lamp. Hobbs found his eyes drawn immediately to a fireplace with a granite hearth, with an old rifle hanging above the mantel. Beside the fireplace was a pyrographic table featuring two wine-bottle candlesticks, a low sofa with a quilt, and a faded carpet on a wooden floor.
“Sit down,” she said. “Make yourself comfortable.” Then she moved into the next room with a casual flip of her hair.
Instead of sitting, Hobbs went to the rifle hanging above the fireplace. It was an old M1917 Enfield, well preserved. All the way from England, he thought. Looking at it gave him a pleasurable tingle of nostalgia.
He took it down and turned it over in his hands. The Enfield was the same model he had used as a boy. No great surprise to find it here; the M1917 was one of the finest firearms in the world. Hunters across the globe collected them, treasuring them.
The gun was loaded with a standard five-round internal magazine. His eyes flicked to a small lockbox resting on the hearth. He surreptitiously tried the lid. There were more magazines inside the lockbox. He closed it and hung the rifle on the wall again.
From the next room came the sounds of a knife on a cutting board; then a cork being worked from a bottle. A faint sound, but to Hobbs’ ears a recognizable one. He grinned and went to sit on the low sofa.
After a moment, the reality of his situation impressed itself on him, and the grin slipped away.
He had lost his nerve again. He should have strangled the woman and taken her car. But what had Paula done to deserve that? She had stopped to help a stranger on the side of the road. She was innocent.
He tried to recall the story he had told to explain himself. At first it had been something about his car breaking down. He had identified himself as a piano tuner, he remembered. But even then he had known that she wasn’t buying it. He had tried to elaborate, but had succeeded only in digging himself deeper. He was a piano tuner for the Prussian State Theater. But he had spent some time in England, which explained his lack of German. In fact, he was originally from England. But he had been in Germany for twelve years already. He had never been good with languages.…
Paula hadn’t seemed to care that he was lying to her.
She had told him that her husband had gone off to join the war. She had suggested that he might want to work on his German a bit, so that he’d have a better chance of convincing the next stranger he met that he was a local. She had told him that he looked underfed. What he needed, she ventured, was a good meal.
Then he’d fallen asleep—inconceivable but true; the night spent in the Talta had been far from restful—and now here they were. But what did she think he was? A deserter? That would explain her lack of interest in the truth—but not his lack of facility with the language.
A spy?
If she thought he was a spy and she’d brought him home anyway, then she was mad.
Perhaps she was mad.
She came back into the room, balancing a bottle of wine, a plate of sliced bratwurst, and two glasses.
“I hope it’s not too sweet,” she said, filling the glasses. “The best varieties have an almond flavor. But this isn’t one of the best.”
As he ate, she watched, holding her glass and talking.
“If you want my opinion,” she said—her English very good; her English almost flawless—“there’s nothing wrong with older women and younger men. As long as it’s within a few years, I mean. As a matter of fact, my husband is younger than I. By three months. So really, we’re about the same age. But if you want to get technical, he’s the baby. How old are you?”
Hobbs looked up, swallowing the food in his mouth. “Thirty-five,” he said.
“Well; so I’m thirty-six. Within a few years, it’s no problem. If Barbara Stanwyck can do it, so can I.”
Hobbs turned his attention bac
k to his plate. “Where did you say your husband is?”
“Off goose-stepping with the rest of the boys. Listen: Paradeschritt. Try it.”
“Paradeschritt,” he said.
“Good. That means goose-stepping. Try this one. Liebhaber.”
“Liebhaber,” he said.
“That means lover,” she said, and gave another crafty, loaded smile.
Then back to the inconsequence of age difference. Why, Thomas Wolfe had taken a woman nineteen years his senior, the greatest love of his life …
Hobbs found his pack of cigarettes. Only three remained. The brand was British. But Paula already knew more than she was saying. He lit one without making any special effort to hide the pack, and smoked it to the nub.
Soon after, they moved to the bedroom.
The woman was forward—too forward, for his tastes—but it had been so long that he managed to overlook it. She peeled off his clothes, plastering kisses on his neck. If he smelled overripe, it didn’t seem to bother her. When she took off his pants, he remembered the bandage on his thigh. But that also did not deter her. Her fingers brushed past it and then she was pulling the trousers over his shoes, tearing them off.
There was no light in the bedroom. That made it easier.
At some point, he found himself looking at her teeth. She was astride him and her face was contorted, as if she was in terrible pain. Her lips were skinned back like an animal’s. Horse teeth, he thought. He quickly tried to think of something else—anything else. But after that, all he could see was the teeth.
When he started to go soft, she stopped moving. “What’s wrong?” she said.
He shook his head. Those teeth were still in his mind. And below them, somewhere, the thought of Eva.
He rolled over on top of her, determined to regain his momentum. But it was too late. He had finished without finishing. And the woman knew it. Over the next few minutes, she became increasingly motionless. He closed his eyes, trying to conjure a fantasy. But it was Eva’s face that kept returning. Eva—goddamn her all to hell.
Finally, he gave up and rolled away, panting. They lay still, staring into the darkness.