Children of Wrath

by Paul Grossman

  “Herr Inspektor!”

  He turned, surprised to recognize a slim, mascaraed figure leaning against an advertising column. Kai looked older somehow, more mature than when he’d seen him just few weeks ago. But not happy. If only he’d quit with all that makeup. It made him look like a porcelain doll.

  “How’s it going, Kai?” Willi swallowed, knowing it always took a moment to get past the embarrassment of being seen with him. “Everything all right?”

  “A little grouchy’s all.” The kid shrugged, his gold earring swinging. “Business wanting, if you know what I mean.”

  Willi knew precisely what he meant: the kid hadn’t eaten today.

  He glanced at his watch. Before leaving work he’d spoken to Vicki and everything was fine. He couldn’t imagine she’d mind if he got home a little late.

  “How about a nice fat lunch at Aschinger’s, Kai—on me?” Willi asked, ashamed for hoping there’d be a table somewhere far in the back, with no light. “For all your help catching Der Kinderfresser.”

  The kid’s whole face lit.

  An institution since the 1890s, with over a dozen locations, Aschinger’s was Berlin’s mecca of fine dining at cafeteria prices. Dishes were displayed in long cases numbered for easy reference and served by uniformed attendants who looked like servants for the rich. The selection was immense—case after case, shelf after shelf of schnitzels, cutlets, ragouts, fillets, purées, roasts, goulashes. Kai helped himself to a chicken fricassee with sides of creamed potato and corn, and a large glass of beer. Willi took a hearty bouillabaisse. Both got sugared plums for dessert. When they took a table, Willi didn’t even mind that it had to be on the center aisle. Enough eccentrics were in the place—men who mumbled to themselves, women with crooked wigs—that Kai barely stuck out.

  “Mmmm. Thanks, Inspektor. This is dandy.” Kai dug in joyously.

  Plus, Kai’s spirits had risen so dramatically it was a pleasure to witness.

  “The best fricassee I’ve had all week. Hey, I hear you got a promotion. Good for you. You deserve it! I may get one too, of sorts.”

  “Really. How’s that, Kai?”

  “Our chief went out and found himself some big tycoon to set him up, so he’s abdicating—leaving us.”

  “Oh, I see.” Willi figured this must have been Kai’s “friend.” He detected a shade of grief in the kid’s eyes.

  Kai threw his hands up, revealing his painted fingernails. “I don’t think I can fill his shoes.” He sighed, his mood plummeting. “It’s too much responsibility.” Beneath all the makeup, his adolescent face, Willi saw, had flushed with adult anxiety. “We’ve got ten boys in the gang. Chief is responsible for everything. Food. Clothing. Place to sleep. Plus, we keep an eye out for five or six Doll Boys, the little ones. The problems never stop. Uwe was a natural. Me?” Kai took a deep slug of beer.

  Willi felt his throat tighten. It was hardly the sort of thing he was experienced at. But the kid, he saw, wasn’t seeking approval. Just a word of encouragement. Willi thought about it a moment, then shared with Kai the only thing that came to mind.

  “During the war, I was in a squad that penetrated enemy lines, Kai. We trained six months for our first operation, but hadn’t made it halfway across no-man’s-land when our sergeant and corporal both got killed by incoming mortar. The five left were all privates, none qualified to command—none wanting to. It was clear, though, that if someone didn’t take charge, we were never going to make it. And I didn’t want to die. So I stepped up. I hadn’t a clue what I was doing, just acted like I did. Made the best decisions I was able. We accomplished our mission, and for the rest of the war I stayed squad leader. Eventually I wound up getting a medal for it—an Iron Cross, First Class.”

  The boy was silent a long while, then offered Willi a quick grateful look.

  After they’d finished and were readying to leave, Kai’s face painted an expression of curiosity mixed with caution.

  “Inspektor, I certainly don’t mean any disrespect. I know you accomplished so much. But you never caught her, did you? The Shepherdess, I mean.”

  A feverish chill ran through Willi’s body. “We got her siblings, Kai. Their operation’s all washed up. But she’s a slippery one, it’s true. We’ll get her, though. You’ll see.”

  The look of trust in the kid’s eyes was frightening.

  * * *

  Parting from Kai and continuing past fields of new construction, Willi reflected on how the Kinderfesser case remained, in some ways, nearly as mysterious as the first day he’d seen that burlap sack. He’d learned where the victims came from. How they were abducted. How and where they ended up. But he still had no idea who’d administered fatal doses of carbon monoxide to their lungs—or how or where this atrocity even occurred. Two hundred and forty-four times. Plus, he still had no idea what the hell Tower Labs was, or what it had wanted with all those boys.

  Passing a set of giant pneumatic hammers poised to resume pounding Monday, his head ached with frustration. A huge steam shovel, though, at half gnaw in the earth, seemed to shout encouragement: Just keep digging!

  From the moment they’d first found reference to it in Axel’s ledger, he and Gunther had been trying to unearth Tower Labs. In all 883 square kilometers of greater Berline, however, only one company had that name—beneath a set of ten-story gas towers, a firm in Treptow that manufactured everything from beakers and flasks to agar plates. But there was nothing shifty about Tower Laboratory Glassware. They’d searched high and low.

  After that, they’d started in on records at every lab in the city, A to Z—private labs, hospital labs, university labs, even the labs at the Ministry of Public Health.

  Two days ago he’d finally stumbled onto something. Housed in a warehouse on the Landwehr Canal, Tower Toys popped up in the files of one of Germany’s largest electronics manufacturers. Siemens lab records showed that six years earlier, in 1924, this alleged toy company had custom-ordered a complex apparatus for chemical distillation that technicians knew could never be used for toy production. Siemens had put in a report with the Berlin police, but no action had ever been taken. Willi’d soon found this same toy company listed in files of a major pharmaceutical firm, which made yearly deliveries, also since 1924, to 146 Maybach Ufer, the address of Tower Toys—substantial quantities of a substance called hydrochloride salt, definitely not for children’s playthings. Then, just tonight, after surveying the address for two days, Gunther came back and reported he’d seen two black vans pulling into the rear of the warehouse, neither of which had license plates. Black vans with no license plates?

  Inside them—heavily armed men.

  In another few days, Willi told himself, fixing on the long, arched roof of the S-Bahn station ahead, he’d be able to make some kind of move against Tower Toys. Right now he needed to rest. His whole being was slipping into torpor. In another forty minutes he’d be taking a nap, if he didn’t fall asleep on the train and wind up in Potsdam.

  * * *

  Vicki was the one taking a nap when he got home, under the blankets, sprawled diagonally across the bed. He didn’t have the heart to wake her. The radio was on in the kids’ room, and for a second he just stood in the hall deciding whether to pour some whiskey or take a nice hot bath. Then the doorbell rang. Answering it, he was more than surprised to find Irmgard Winkelmann hunched there, stone-faced.

  “Is Heinz here?” she asked through white, pinched lips.

  “Heinz? You know very well you forbade him.”

  “The boy can be stubborn. I can’t find him. He’s not in his room and he’s not downstairs. I was wondering if you allowed him in.”

  “I hardly think so. Vicki’s asleep. I just got home.”

  “Where are your boys? May I speak to them?”

  Willi expected her to come in but she just stood there, outside the door.

  “Could you get them for me, please?”

  Only Stefan was in the kids’ room, playing with the Red Baron’s plane.
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  “Hey there, Stef, how’s life? Where’s Erich?”

  Stefan blinked his large brown eyes. “I don’t know.”

  Willi felt a little twinge, but figured Vicki knew. Maybe he’d gone to a friend’s for dinner; he did that now and then. When Vicki was awakened, though, she turned paler than the sheet. “He should be here.” She raced to the boys’ room.

  “Is there something wrong?” Irmgard shouted from the hall. “Where’s my Heinz?”

  “Stefan.” Vicki clasped his little shoulders. “This isn’t a joke. Where’s your brother?”

  Stefan started crying.

  “Vicki, really,” Willi said.

  “What have you done with my son, you bastards?” Irmgard was yelling.

  Willi took his son’s hand. “Stefan, even if Erich made you swear on the holy Bible not to tell, you must, do you understand me?”

  Stefan hid his face in Willi’s arms. “Heinz came over after Mommy fell asleep,” he bawled. “And then … and then … they ran away together.”

  “Oh, God,” Vicki moaned.

  Willi looked at his watch. “What time did you fall asleep, Vic?”

  “Don’t you dare blame me.” She winced as if he’d punched her. “It’s you who put us at—”

  “Never mind now; they could be just downstairs for all we know. I’m only trying to figure out how far they might have gotten.”

  “What’s going on in there?” Irmgard kept shouting. “Why won’t you tell me?”

  Vicki held her head, trying to think. “It must have been after I spoke to you.”

  Three o’clock. Nearly an hour and a half.

  Willi turned and ran out the door.

  “Where’s my Heinz, you bastard?” Irmgard tried to grab his sleeve as he flew past. “I’m calling the po—”

  Willi was already halfway out the door, downstairs.

  Twilight darkened Beckmann Strasse, the little park across the street already lost in shadows. A man on a motorcycle sputtered by. A woman walked a dachshund on a leash. “Have you seen two boys?” he tried to keep as calm as possible. “One skinny, one not?”

  She shook her head sadly. “I’m sorry, no.”

  “I seen ’em,” a voice called from a second-story window. An old man stuck his head out, pointing stiffly. “Skinny and fatty. Right on that park bench.”

  It was empty now. Willi’s heart raced. “Which way did they go?”

  “Wasn’t which way but how. One of those little white trucks selling ice cream. Man and lady practically yanked them off the street. I’d say an hour ago.”

  My God. Willi felt the earth sway beneath his feet. She’d been trailing him all this time. Waiting for her chance—

  Thirty

  Fog hung shroudlike over the Landwehr Canal. The warehouse at 146 Maybach Ufer stood half-concealed in vapor. The rest of the block, apartments mostly, was a Monet-style blur of grays and blue-whites. The whole scene—empty streets, wet cobblestones, a briny, green canal—reminded Willi of the last tense moments before the March 1918 offensive. A cat tiptoeing down the sidewalk. Mourning doves under a cornice. He could almost hear the piercing whistle signaling the attack.

  Only this time the stakes were far more personal.

  Checking his wrist for the hundredth time, he saw he had just a few minutes left to launch his own offensive without endangering countless innocents. At pünktlich eight, this whole block would spring to life, all the windows open almost simultaneously, the maids and housewives begin setting out the bedding. All the metal security shutters cranking up at the shops of the butchers, bakers, and barbers. Streetcars would clatter down the tracks as sidewalks filled with men in suits, women out shopping, gangs of children in knee-high socks on their way to school. Even in troubled times such as these, Ordnung—punctuality, reliability—ruled in Germany. So where the hell was his last squadron?

  The second hand ticked away.

  Crouched behind a wall of wooden crates on a flat barge that had floated in before dawn, Willi took a deep breath and tried to slow his heart. Despite the morning chill, sweat was dripping from his forehead and neck, under his arms, all the way down his back. He’d ordered six rifled Schupo squadrons in place by seven, but the last had not arrived. He didn’t want to go in shorthanded, but he couldn’t hold off much longer. Next to him, Gunther smiled with saintly patience, as if waiting for nothing more than breakfast. He’d never been in combat before.

  Never had his son kidnapped.

  Willi swallowed painfully.

  The men entering 146 Maybach Ufer last night had been armed, the kid reported, with Thompson submachine guns. Which may have been common in Chicago—but not here. Something huge was going on in that warehouse. Regardless of the obvious dangers in a residential neighborhood, assault by force was the only way to find out what. And get Eric and Heinz out. If that’s where they even were.

  The uncertainty made pain scorch at his eyes again, threatening to break out and devour him in a conflagration of grief. He’d lived through some long nights in his life, but nothing like last night. From the moment he’d heard the ice cream truck got them, an unbearable agony raged in his chest, searing him with every breath. Plus he had had to contend with Vicki’s and the Winkelmanns’ emotions—a conflagration of anguish and recrimination.

  He looked again at his watch.

  Fifteen hours and thirty minutes. What must Erich be thinking? Did he feel forsaken by his father? Had little Heinz soiled his pants, as he’d nearly done that day at Luna Park? What terror they must—

  If they were even—

  He couldn’t bear to think it, or he would burn with insanity.

  The second hand refused to slow. The big wooden barge bobbed gently up and down. On the far side of the canal a truck was already delivering morning editions to the news kiosk. Nearer, across from the warehouse, a baker in a long white apron was hurrying across the road with trays of Brötchen. Willi could almost smell the fresh dough. A girl with short, bobbed hair and a sailor jacket, flimsy white skirt blowing in the breeze, skipped from one of the buildings. It was three minutes to eight. His stomach clenched. There was just no more—

  Gunther nudged him, pointing to the roof across the street. Three rapid flashes off a mirror indicated all the troops at last in place.

  Not a minute too soon.

  “Return signal,” Willi whispered furiously.

  With a gulp, Gunther flashed his mirror back.

  Mirrors flashed up and down the block—and from a dozen directions crouching figures began inching forward, rifles ready. Willi broke out his binoculars and focused on 146. Okay, he chanted silently. Let’s make this swift and clean.

  Suddenly, a second-floor window flew open; a woman in a headscarf tossed a small, red carpet out and began beating it with a cane. For God’s sake, hurry, Willi urged the troops mentally. A kid around Erich’s age, in a blue serge suit with knickers, had joined the little girl in her sailor jacket, both with big leather briefcases on their backs. Her shiny shoes clacked against the pavement as she kicked up her heels.

  Just as the first assault wave almost hit the warehouse, though, a loud pop, like the opening of a champagne bottle, ricocheted down the block, followed by half a dozen more. Across the street, windows began exploding one after the next. It was the worst that could have happened, Willi realized. The enemy had opened fire.

  Turning his binoculars, he saw the girl in the sailor suit spin with her arms in the air as if doing a ballet exercise, then keel over and drop, the sidewalk reddening, her companion too stunned to move, the carpet woman screaming.

  He dropped his binoculars and pulled out his Luger.

  A hailstorm of bullets was pouring from the first two floors of the warehouse. Up and down the block, police were dropping, dogs howling, iron shutters hurtling back down. The barge captain, a beer-bellied man with a big mustache who’d been paid handsomely precisely because this might turn dangerous, stood up to see what was happening. A loud sluck sent a glutinou
s spray shooting from between his eyes.

  Willi fell back to the trenches of the Western Front, operating mechanically on adrenaline, joining the terrific battle. He aimed his Luger, a semiautomatic handgun, getting off half a dozen rounds in as many seconds before he had to reload. The Schupo men had Mauser rifles with far superior range and penetration. But neither could outfire a Thompson submachine gun.

  Bullets ricocheted off the walls and cobblestones, exploding the streetlights and clattering from metal pipes like hellfire brimstone. Each one felt as if it had penetrated Willi’s heart. He kept picturing Erich and Heinz in there, cringing.

  Damn it, he called to them. Live. Live! Reloading cartridge after cartridge, he pulled the trigger in a fit of resolve. If he could, he’d have dodged the whole rain of death to get to those boys.

  But no firing was coming from his right, he realized, and turning, he discovered Gunther there, covered in blood. Not his own … the barge captain’s. It had the kid paralyzed, his mouth hanging open, Adam’s apple frozen midthroat, pants soaking wet. The proverbial slap across the face sometimes did the trick, Willi knew. But in this instance, he saw, it wouldn’t make a difference. A line of splashes jumping down the canal was heading directly at them. He threw himself over Gunther and covered their heads, then the wooden deck shivered and sharded all around them. After a hard jerk to the left came the sound of gushing water. The barge was going down.