Shadow and Light

by Jonathan Rabb

  “You’re not even going to ask, are you?”

  “Ask what?”

  “If you can come up, have a drink.” A smile inched its way down to her mouth.

  This might have been a possibility from the start, but still, it managed to catch Hoffner by surprise. Instinct answered, “I don’t suppose I am.”

  The answer seemed to delight her. “You’re playing it all very well.”

  If there was hope in her eyes, Hoffner knew not to find it. “I’ll say good night, then, Fräulein.”

  Effortlessly, she placed her hand on his. “Yes,” she said. “You will.” And with that, she opened the door and stepped out. He watched her under the awning and through the revolving doors. “Friedrichstrasse, number 71,” he said as he settled back into the seat.

  There was always one more stop before sleep.

  THE ELEVATOR ATTENDANT stared up at the brass panel of lighted numbers, the lever in his hand clasped like a cudgel. “Bit late for you, isn’t it, Herr Detective?” He continued to look up.

  “He’s in, then?” Hoffner watched along with him—seven, eight, nine . . .

  “Quarter to eleven, like clockwork, mein Herr.”

  Hoffner nodded as the man gently brought the lever up, then placed his other hand on the metalwork gate. With a subtle bump, the car came to a stop. “Second salon tonight, mein Herr. The one with the Greek statues. He’s expecting you.”

  The Admiral’s Gate was a recent addition—or renovation—among the Friedrichstrasse gentlemen’s clubs. A onetime casino serving the likes of the Kaiser, it had fallen on rough times after the abdication and the arrival of the Social Democrats, who, though keen to reshape German society in the mold of the new workingman, had failed to provide that man with any work. Such shortsightedness might not have been a concern to the Gate’s usual clientele, but they were the ones being forced to gamble on foreign investments and overseas bonds to keep the new society afloat: days filled with high-stakes wagers left little taste for such things at night. Then again, it might simply have been that the place reminded everyone of the good old times, and why wallow in what was gone?

  The casino’s doors had closed in December of ’24, and Alby Pimm, the man Hoffner had come to see, had bought the space the following spring, making it the property of the Little Alderman Company. To those in the know, it was a clever name, cleverer if you were speaking directly to Pimm. A little alderman—the familiar term for a picklock—was the preferred choice for the city’s more accomplished second-story men, and as Pimm had begun his career in petty theft, he felt a certain fondness for the tools of his trade. Added to that, Pimm himself was small, at just over a meter and a half tall. His pale skin and shock of curly jet-black hair had, over the years, given him an almost boyish quality. Recently, however, the hair had turned gray overnight, aging the face and lending it a look more suited to the leader of one of Berlin’s more notorious syndicates.

  Pimm was reading a paper at the back, easy in a plush leather chair under the watchful eye of a none-too-dreadful reproduction of Michelangelo’s David, when Hoffner stepped into the room. A series of Persian rugs dotted the floor, while various busts and torsos lined the walls, which were a dark mahogany, ostensibly to bring out the fleece-white brightness of the marble. Hoffner always imagined that Pimm chose this contrast to set his own sallow face as the perfect balance between the two. A few society toffs were lounging in equally comfortable chairs, little clumps of twos and threes, snifters of brandy or the day’s papers strewn across the short tables littered about. Naturally, these men belonged to other, more serious clubs, but there was always something thrilling in spending a few hours in close proximity to the likes of Pimm and his boys. There might even be a bit of cards or a conversation about “the rackets” to give it all a real-life jolt.

  “You’ve ruined a fine woman,” Pimm said, still reading as Hoffner drew up. “You should know she’s shattered.”

  Hoffner was never surprised by what information Pimm had at his disposal. “Maria’s not the shattering type,” he said as he sat.

  “True.” Pimm folded the paper and held it out to one of his men. “I suppose she’ll recover. They all have. Drink?”

  “Whiskey.”

  Pimm seemed mildly surprised. “Rough night, then.” He nodded to a second man, who was standing by the wall. “So, what is it I can do for you, Nikolai?”

  Hoffner glanced at the men still seated. “I think I’ll wait for that whiskey.”

  They had known each other too long for Pimm not to understand. With a nod, the rest of his crew moved off. “You know you can trust them,” Pimm said once his men were out of earshot. “Radek might even feel a bit hurt after everything he’s done for you.”

  “I’ll have Maria get in touch with him.”

  Pimm smiled. “Not all that hurt.” The whiskey arrived, and Hoffner took a drink. “So,” Pimm continued. “Now that you have my whiskey and my undivided attention—”

  “What’s the market like for sex films, Alby?”

  Pimm’s eyes widened in mock astonishment. “We’re wasting no time tonight, are we? Sex films. I didn’t know there was a market.”

  “Neither did I, but there seems to be something of a business in it upstairs at The Trap. Pretty brutal stuff.”

  “The Trap?” Pimm shook his head. “That’s a bit edgy for them. What do you mean by brutal?”

  “Not the usual ten-pfennig romp out at Luna Park on a Saturday night. This was a girl getting raped, sodomized.”

  Pimm’s face darkened. “You’re sure this was The Trap?”

  “With studio and screening room, all in one.”

  Pimm was clearly on new ground as well. “You saw this?” Hoffner nodded, and Pimm shook his head trying to find an answer. “That I haven’t heard of.”

  “And the other?”

  “The romp? Purely nickelodeon. Maybe a midnight showing at some tiny cinema up in the north. But even then, there’s really no point. You can’t make any money in it.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, it’s cheap enough to slap a bit of scenery together and put something on film, but where do you show it? I doubt the Ufa–Palast am Zoo is waiting for ten minutes of some prostitute sucking down a trio of schoolboys to fill its thousand seats.”

  “So a different kind of night out for your salesclerk and his young lady friend?”

  “Exactly. Not that everyone hasn’t thought about it, but the resources are just too much of a tangle. Projection machines, screens. It’s not like a book or a magazine that a man can pick up and work with at home. It’s not even like a crank machine out at a park. An entire film of sex requires a certain public commitment that, unless it’s in a club like this, no one would ever admit to.”

  “But you could have it here.”

  “Of course. And bring it out every so often for a bit of fun, but not on a regular basis, and certainly not the sort of thing you’re talking about. Honestly, I can see needing four, maybe five films at most, and I’d be getting them for free. And if I want that few—” Again he shook his head. “As far as I know, Nikolai, there is no market.”

  It was at moments like these that Hoffner remembered why he always came to Pimm: men who dictated the paths of extortion, death, and violence saw nothing shameful in the truth. In fact, it was the certainty of truth that made conscience irrelevant. “And, I suppose, even less of a market for a girl getting terrorized on the screen.”

  “Well,” said Pimm, “there’s no accounting for taste.”

  “I’d hardly call this a matter of taste, Alby.”

  “Don’t fool yourself, Nikolai. You’d be surprised by what people want—and how many of them would want it. Still something like that—”

  “What about sound?” said Hoffner.

  Pimm cocked his head as if he hadn’t heard. “What?”

  “Sound,” said Hoffner. “The girl’s screams. The men. I could hear them.”

  “I don’t understand.”

&n
bsp; “In the film. There was sound in the film.”

  Pimm hesitated. “You mean there was a phonograph—”

  “No. Voices. Sounds. In the film.”

  Pimm said nothing. He then slowly shook his head, and Hoffner said, “So what the hell are they doing at The Trap?”

  Pimm’s mind was circling for an answer when he turned and raised his hand to one of his men. He touched his ear and said, “Let’s see if we can find out.”

  Half a minute later, the man approached with a telephone. He placed it on the table, drew the long wire behind the chair, and stepped away. Pimm picked up and dialed. The line engaged. “Maurice? It’s Alby.”

  Pimm had a talent for giving up nothing while finding out exactly what he needed. From the little Hoffner could gather, Pimm was on the line with the Sass brothers. Their territory was more south and west. Still, the Hallesches Gate cut across lines.

  “Good, good,” said Pimm. “And mine to Eva and Renée.” He hung up. “They know nothing.”

  “Which means?”

  “They’re the only ones who’d try something like this.” Pimm was still thinking things through. “Unless . . .” There was no reason to finish the thought.

  “Unless someone new is getting a foot in.”

  Pimm dismissed the idea out of hand. “There isn’t someone new, Nikolai. Trust me. I’d be the first to know.”

  Pimm was right, of course: no one would be stupid enough to deny the head of the Immertreu a taste on any new ventures. What little money there might be, Pimm would be seeing his share of it.

  Pimm continued: “Just putting together the machinery would be too much of an outlay for an upstart mob. They’d have had to come to me for the loan.”

  It was the word “machinery” that triggered something for Hoffner. He spoke even as he tried to piece it together: “Unless they didn’t need the cash and already had everything in place.”

  Pimm was shaking his head even before Hoffner had finished. “Not a chance, Nikolai. It’s not possible.”

  “Why not? I’m not saying it’s all of Ufa. I’m not even saying that the studio is branching out, but someone there is thinking about it.” There was no reason to confuse Pimm with talk of Thyssen and the Volker girl, but Hoffner sensed it was the only way to explain the connection.

  Pimm was no more convinced. “It still doesn’t answer the question of distribution. Where do they show it?”

  “They haven’t gotten there yet.”

  “Why? They don’t need it. Aside from the Americans, it’s the top studio in the world. Why put any of that at risk?”

  Hoffner had no answer. He finished his whiskey.

  Pimm said, “You’re going to have to let me see it.”

  Hoffner placed his glass on the table. “See what?”

  “The reel, Nikolai. The girl. You have the film. I know you too well. And yes, I do have a projection machine.”

  “I thought there was no market in it?”

  “For the sex, no. But you don’t think I’m going to wait in a line to see a proper film. I have a friend. He gets me the reels before they get to the theaters. You’ll come by one night. We’ll see the next Pabst before everyone else.”

  “I’m not such a fan.”

  Pimm smiled. “The reel, Nikolai. So we can see if it’s Ufa quality.”

  PIMM HAD MANAGED IT WELL, the seats, the curtains, the tracer lights along the carpeting: it actually had the feel of a small theater. Hoffner watched as Pimm worked the levers on the projector, slotting the reel onto the large arm before checking the lens. He then began to thread the film in, but stopped, pulling it out and blowing into the opening. He tried again, and again he stopped.

  “Something the matter?” said Hoffner.

  “The film.” Pimm was eyeing it closely. He tried it one last time. “It’s not standard. It doesn’t thread properly.”

  Hoffner stepped over. Not that he knew what he was looking for, but he took hold of the reel and held it up to the light.

  Pimm said, “It’s too wide. For the slot. Two or three centimeters at least. It’s not going to work in any projection machine I know of.”

  The girl’s screams suddenly seemed to fill the room. The projector, thought Hoffner. Of course. That had been the key. This had been about sound. Why had he let himself get so distracted?

  Almost to himself, he said, “Herr TrapTrap was cleverer than I thought.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE BANKER

  HOFFNER SETTLED on a cup of hot water. The coffee grounds from yesterday were too many days removed from flavor to warrant the effort. Still, the cup retained a distant taste of something dark.

  He had thought about a bath, but the steam room at Pimm’s club—after two hours of meaningless racing about last night—had managed things well enough, its remnants still visible in the puckered smoothness of his fingers and toes. Even so, it was making this morning’s shave a bit easier under a cold tap.

  She had woken him with the promise of a hotel breakfast. It was a rare thing, the sound of his telephone. Hoffner never used it himself and had felt foolish at its installation—the only private line in the building—but Kriminaldirektor Präger had insisted on it, and if the Herr Direktor wanted instant access to his chief inspectors, so be it. Hoffner couldn’t recall having given Leni the number.

  The razor tore at his neck, and he dabbed at the skin with a bit of paper before rinsing off. There had been no projector, no lights, no camera. The Herr Detective Sergeant had been meticulous in his dismantling: “Destroyed, Herr Chief Inspector. As you instructed.” It was a lie, but even Pimm’s presence had done nothing to alter the man’s story. Hoffner had expected, even hoped, for a little more from Pimm, a quiet threat, a broken jaw. Strange to think he knew him that well, but it had been too many years stepping into each other’s business—the old bull cop and the little crime boss—and always with one thing in mind: Berlin. She needed them both, and Hoffner had learned to forgive Pimm almost anything when it came to protecting her. Pimm, to his credit, had learned to keep his other affairs to himself. Still, it would have done Hoffner a world of good to see Pimm shatter the man’s kneecap.

  The film canisters were now neatly stacked on Hoffner’s office floor—no way to take a look at them, of course, but there nonetheless. The air of victory in the Herr Detective Sergeant’s departing nod had been almost too much. Even the steam had been no match for its contempt.

  By seven-thirty, the Adlon was already bristling with activity, guests and business associates swelling the breakfast salon like so many pieces of swallowed meat: the conversation hummed with the sound of digestion. Leni was at a back table, nestled under a richly draped window, no hint of sun breaking through to challenge the white, white light of the chandeliers. It might have been in aid of keeping out the glare, but Hoffner guessed that the drapes remained closed no matter what the season. How the well-off ate was, after all, a private matter.

  She was reading through the Berliner Tageblatt—the right paper for the right crowd—although he did notice a corner of the Lokalanzeiger peeking out from the bottom of the stack.

  “You’re letting a little bit too much show,” he said as he waited for her to look up. She glanced at him, then discreetly checked her blouse. “The Anzeiger,” he added, nodding at the paper. “They’ll burn your toast if they see it.”

  Her finger lingered a moment before she found a smile. “I should be more careful.” She placed the stack of papers on an empty seat and said, “There’s nothing worth reading in this one, anyway.”

  “Just the news?” Hoffner sat across from her and unrolled his napkin.

  “Exactly.” There was a pot of coffee and he poured himself a cup. “Get what you like,” she said. “The studio’s paying. I had the duck omelet with caviar. Should have had the rabbit crepes, but they were less expensive.”

  Hoffner placed a piece of black bread on a plate and smeared it with butter. “I’m fine with this.”

  Leni
raised her hand and a waiter appeared. “The gentleman will have the rabbit crepes and a glass of champagne. And I’ll take another orange.”

  Hoffner blinked and the man was gone. “I won’t eat it,” he said.

  “You’ll have a bite just to say you’ve had it, and I’ll have the champagne.”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t drink it.”

  Her hand went up and the man reappeared. “Two glasses of champagne.”

  “It’s a neat trick,” Hoffner said once the man had disappeared again. “The vanishing act.”

  “I’m sure he’s well trained.”

  “He’s nothing if not well trained.”

  “I’m surprised you came.”

  He knew she wasn’t. “I was out of coffee.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” And, reaching for her glass: “You’ve got a son out at the studio, don’t you?”

  If she had meant to shock him, she had done a poor job of it. Personal swipes never struck Hoffner with any force. It was something she could never have known, but still, it seemed slightly amateurish given last night. “As I discovered yesterday. Yes.”

  He was working with Thyssen.”

  Hoffner reapplied the butter. “He was delivering him scripts and coffee. Terribly sensitive stuff. But you knew that.”

  “I suppose I did.”

  “So there’s a piece of information we both already had.” He set the knife down. “Or was there another reason you felt the need to tell me?”

  The champagne arrived, and she said, “I’m wondering if you understand how delicate things might become.”

  The words had all the trappings of intimidation, but none of the tone. Both were puzzling. Hoffner waited until the man was gone. “Is that meant as some sort of threat?”

  “That’s an unkind thing to say. Of course not. I just know the way the studio boys work. What leverage they find, they use.”

  “Oh, I see. So it’ll be the studio that threatens my son. Or rather, threatens me through my son. Or threatens us both. It all gets rather involved.”