Shadow and Light

by Jonathan Rabb

  Pimm continued to stare at her. “She has more than nines, Nikolai. A straight, maybe even the flush.”

  Hoffner said, “I don’t know the game.”

  “You don’t need to know it,” said Pimm. “You need to know her. Does she have more than nines?”

  Hoffner was about to answer when Leni said, “It’s the straight, and you have the flush. So put all your chips in and see what she does.”

  Pimm slowly looked up at Leni and smiled. “You’ve ruined my fun, Fräulein.”

  “No, I’ve only added to it,” said Leni. “Look at her face.” Leni was staring at Pimm. “She knows it now, but she still wants to give you all her chips. Why is that?”

  Pimm stared a moment longer and then looked back at the woman. He picked up only half a dozen chips or so and threw them in. Instantly, the woman pushed everything she had to the center of the table.

  Pimm’s smile grew. “I call.”

  The woman flipped over her cards and showed the flush. Pimm arched his eyebrows, then flipped over his, showing four eights. He said, “The Fräulein was wrong, gnädige Frau. You did have the flush.”

  The woman stared at the cards for several seconds. She then pulled back her chair and stood. She glanced at Leni before turning to go.

  Pimm waited until the woman was gone to say, “There’s an open chair now, Fräulein.”

  Leni said, “I didn’t think Germans liked American games.”

  “Is it American?” said Pimm as he began to pull in the pot. “Who knew? So many things these days that have come over, you never know which is which.”

  “And you don’t like them?” she said.

  “Oh, on the contrary, Fräulein. I like them all. Jazz, talent agents, Marlboro cigarettes—although I think they were originally English. Great Marlborough Street comes to mind. I could be wrong, but they’re so American now, aren’t they? Once they get that American touch—well, they’re just American.”

  Pimm pulled back from the table and stood. He buttoned his tuxedo and said, “Shall we?” There was a dining alcove off the main room, curtain, discreet lamps. Pimm motioned Leni toward it.

  “Why don’t you play a few hands?” Hoffner said to her. “I’m sure Alby would stake you.” Hoffner glanced at Pimm, who seemed to lose his grin for just a moment. “She won’t cost you that much, Alby. I think you can afford it.”

  “It’s never the money, Nikolai,” said Pimm. “It’s the company. No, I insist. You’ll join us, Fräulein, and Nikolai will just have to suffer through it.” He turned to Radek. “Bring us some drinks,” he said as he followed Leni and Hoffner to the alcove. “American whiskey, I think. That would be all right, wouldn’t it, Fräulein?”

  “I’m not much of a drinker,” she said.

  “Yes. I’m sure you’re not. You’ll be all right with whiskey, Nikolai, won’t you? That kind of night, I think.”

  Pimm drew the curtain closed and joined them at the table. He pulled a cigarette case from his jacket and offered them around. They were Rothmans.

  Hoffner said, “I would have thought you’d be smoking Danish, Alby. I’m a little disappointed.”

  They all lit up, and Pimm smiled as he placed the case back in his pocket. “Are we going to lose the Fräulein here?” he said.

  “I’m afraid so,” said Hoffner.

  “Don’t worry,” Leni said. “I’m used to it with him.”

  The whiskey arrived, and Pimm said easily, “You’re thinking I know where the girl and the sound device are, aren’t you, Nikolai? Because of some merchandise I’m moving for the Navy.” He took a drink and enjoyed Hoffner’s reaction. “Truth is, I might. Isn’t that funny?” He took another drink and set the glass on the table. “I could have them bring up some steaks if you’d like. Or fish. They do a very nice trout here. Fräulein?” Pimm waited on the silence and then said, “Look, I could let you take me through all the clever detective work you’ve done, listen as you paint me into a corner, all your accusations and so forth, or we could just get down to it and have a nice meal. You’d be wrong, by the way, with the accusations, but I’m not going to convince you of that, so why bother. Does it really matter, Nikolai, if you can get your hands on the thing?”

  Hoffner finished his drink and said, “You could have saved me a lot of trouble and told me this four days ago.”

  “Actually, no, I couldn’t have,” said Pimm. “But that’s not going to make any difference.” He looked at Leni. “Steak or trout, Fräulein?”

  She was enjoying him. “Trout.”

  Pimm looked over his shoulder at Radek. “The same for me. I’m guessing meat for you, Nikolai. A nice rare piece with some potatoes. You look as if you could use it.”

  Hoffner said, “Radek here tells me you were trying to track me down. Why?”

  Pimm stared across at Hoffner. “We’re all very chatty these days, aren’t we?” There might have been something in the tone, but Hoffner chose not to hear it. Pimm said, “I was looking because I have access to people who aren’t likely to talk to you. They talked to me, and here we are.”

  Hoffner was hardly convinced. “Very kind of you—to do all this on my behalf.”

  “No trouble at all.”

  “And this business with Mentor Bilanz—”

  Pimm raised a quick if calm hand. “Nikolai.” Even so, his expression was now fully focused. “It’s my information we’re here for tonight. Tomorrow you and I can talk about all of that. Fair enough?”

  Hoffner knew there was no arguing. “And what do you get in return for this information?”

  Pimm smiled. “What an unkind thing to say.”

  “Yes,” said Hoffner. “You have my sincerest apologies.”

  “No, just your eternal thanks. Trust me on this one.” He turned again to Radek. “Make it three trout. Our friend’s a little too edgy for the steak tonight. And something green. I don’t care what it is.” He turned back as Radek slipped out through the curtain. Pimm waited before saying, “You’re still close with him, with Radek?”

  Hoffner poured himself another drink.

  Pimm said, “He’s very good at what he does. Odd, but very good. You know, I have no idea where he’s actually from. He just appeared one day—1907, ’08. I never remember which. Just before they closed that shooting club. You remember—that place with the dog fights in the cellar, and the girl who had the big chest and the one arm shorter than the other.”

  “Finelli’s,” said Hoffner, “1907.”

  “That’s right. Radek couldn’t have been more than twelve. Quick learner, though. Fantastic with everything, and then, one day he’s gone. A little note. Off to the war. No idea which side he went to fight for. No one else was stupid enough to go, but off he went. And a few days after the armistice he shows up again as if he’d never left. That’s odd, don’t you think?” Hoffner said nothing. “Make a good film, though, Fräulein, wouldn’t it?”

  Leni poured herself another. “Depends. Was there a girl?”

  Pimm laughed to himself and then looked at Hoffner. “Was there a girl, Nikolai?”

  Hoffner tossed back the last of his drink and said, “So where am I going with your information?”

  “It’s been a rough few days,” said Pimm. “Have something to eat first.”

  “You’ve been keeping that close an eye on me?”

  Pimm finished his cigarette. “I can see it in your face. The both of you. Fish is very good for that.”

  If he’d wanted to lose a few fingers, Hoffner might have boxed Pimm in the ear. Instead, he stood. “Not that keen on fish. I thought you knew that.” Leni understood enough to stand as well.

  For the first time Pimm’s gaze hollowed: it seemed to perch the small alcove on the edge of violence. Hoffner felt it at once in Leni’s breath and wondered if she had ever been so close to this kind of power. Its menace made men like Ritter and their world seem utterly meaningless by comparison.

  “That’s right,” Pimm said coolly. “I always forget. No fish
.” He leaned slowly to his side and pulled a card from his jacket pocket. He placed it on the table. “It’s a beach villa in Wannsee. A recent purchase. By the Langs. Fritz for his Thea. You’ll pass on my regards.”

  Hoffner took the card. He then said, “And tomorrow we talk—”

  “Yes,” said Pimm, standing. It seemed incomprehensible that he should come up only to her shoulders. “Good night, Fräulein. You’ll show yourselves out.” Pimm pulled back the curtain. He then reached for the bottle and poured himself another drink.

  ON THE STAIRS DOWN, Leni said, “A real gangster.” She was trying too hard not to show her nerves. “And a helpful one at that.”

  “You think so?” said Hoffner. “He made that a little too easy, don’t you think?”

  Radek appeared at the bottom of the steps with a waiter and tray trailing behind him. “You’re not staying?” he said.

  “He wants to eat alone,” said Hoffner.

  “I doubt that.”

  Hoffner turned to Leni. “I left my gloves up there.” They both knew he hadn’t. “Why don’t you get the doorman to call us a cab. I’ll be right down.”

  Leni might not have liked the brush-off, but she was happy enough to keep moving. Hoffner waited until she was out of earshot to say, “How long has he been keeping an eye on me?”

  Radek sent the waiter up the stairs. “You’re not so special, Nikolai. He has eyes everywhere.”

  “Very poetic.” Hoffner pulled out his cigarettes. “You’ve never liked being kept in the dark, Zenlo. Where’s he looking?”

  “Zenlo?” said Radek as he took one of Hoffner’s and lit up. “Calling me by my Christian name. You must really be desperate.”

  “Yes, I must. Puts us in the same boat, I think.”

  Radek took a long pull. “What is it exactly you think I’m so concerned with?”

  Hoffner lit his own. “You’re waiting to die. You have been for years. Telling me might just get you there.”

  Radek stared a moment and then laughed quietly. “Is that it?” The skin on his cheeks seemed to stretch to its limits. “I could have done that years ago.”

  “He’s in over his head and you know it. Playing with the film studios is one thing. Playing with the Navy and Hugenberg—very different. Even Alby doesn’t go up against that and come out clean. None of you do.”

  Odd to see the eyes empty even as Radek’s smile remained.

  Hoffner said, “He’s telling me to head out to Wannsee. To a beach villa. Is that where I want to be going?”

  The eyes tightened.

  Hoffner said, “It’s always a risk saving someone despite themselves.”

  Radek dropped his cigarette to the carpet. “Now who’s being poetic?” He watched as his foot crushed it out. “They don’t like it when you do this here. Makes it cheap, they say. They have no idea.” He looked up. “So you think he needs saving.”

  “So do you. Sons and fathers are like that.”

  “Oh, is that what this is?” said Radek. “And here I thought I was the one who liked all those Austrian Jews, Nikolai, not you.”

  “If you’ve got an idea of someplace else I should be going—and it turns out you’re wrong—then I’m a little late getting out to Wannsee. But if you’re right, he’ll thank us both, eventually.” He held Radek’s gaze. “Or kill us. But then, you’d get what you’ve always wanted, anyway.”

  Radek continued to hold the stare. “No one’s ever that lucky, Nikolai.” The silence stood between them like parched heat. Finally Radek said, “It won’t make any difference.”

  “It might.”

  The instant of betrayal is always just that, an instant: a single flick to make everything before and after unrecognizable. Only the weak try to justify it and Radek was not one of those. “Two warehouses,” he said. The words were almost mechanical. “No idea what he’s got in them, but he’s keeping a close watch. One man in the day, one at night. He doesn’t think I know, and that’s what makes this troubling. You understand?”

  “You’ve seen them?”

  Radek nodded.

  “Where?”

  Radek took in a long breath. “Middle of nowhere,” he said. “The Hasenheide. I have the address.” He saw Hoffner’s reaction and said, “What?” He continued to stare. “Don’t tell me you knew that?”

  Hoffner shook his head even as he tried to focus. The Hasenheide—where Phoebus had gone for storage. And if this was taking him back to Phoebus, then it was taking him to Ostara and Lohmann and the Navy and von Harbou and Goebbels, and on and on and on. It was all flooding in on him, and still he had no idea why they would be keeping the device there—

  Until he saw it, like the flash in a dream when a piece of truth floats to the surface. Hoffner looked directly at Radek and said, “You’ve seen them, these buildings?”

  Radek’s concern grew. “You’ve asked that, Nikolai.”

  “There’s something odd to them.” Hoffner spoke with an intensity. “The front. It’s smooth like you’ve never seen before. Not so much as a crack.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Hoffner suddenly heard Bagier’s voice in his head: “ ‘You’d need a little thing called a sound stage . . . A few thousand square meters . . .’ ”

  Hoffner pulled his gloves from his pocket. “You were right.” He looked at Radek. “He doesn’t like to eat alone. And he’ll be wondering where you are.”

  “SOUTH,” SAID HOFFNER as the man took the cab out from under the awning and lights. His mind was still racing. “Shoot toward Kreuzberg and then down.”

  The man glanced in the mirror. “How far down are we talking, mein Herr?” South of Kreuzberg was not a stop on the DC crowd’s usual itinerary.

  Hoffner held his badge up to the glass. “North of the airfields. Just drive.”

  The cab accelerated, and Hoffner sat back and looked out the window.

  Leni asked, “I thought we were heading out to Wannsee?” When Hoffner said nothing, she pressed, “Why aren’t we going out to Wannsee, Nikolai?” He could hear the tension in her voice. “Why aren’t we doing what we were told to do?”

  Whether it was the last ten minutes, the past four days, or the need to shut out a mind that was nothing but accusation, Hoffner suddenly turned to her and said viciously, “And what exactly was that?” He grabbed her by the arms and held them roughly. “What were we told to do? Head out to Ufa for a tour of the music department? A little accounting for everyone back home?” He needed to see the shame in her eyes, but of course there was none. “It’s always been something else, hasn’t it? And I’m the boy who’s made it all possible, the one who’s handed it right to you. My God, that must please you no end.”

  She continued to stare at him blankly. “Let go of my arms.”

  “Why?” He needed to keep hold of his anger. “Tell me why.”

  “Let go.”

  He could feel himself squeezing into the cloth, the flesh below it, the bone, and still he grasped at her. Her eyes winced, but she said nothing. Finally, he released her and let himself fall back against the seat. His eyes locked with the cabbie’s, a vacant, unforgiving stare in the mirror. The man quickly turned to the road.

  If Hoffner had wanted shame, here it was, witnessed and totted up, and with ample regret for everyone involved. There wasn’t room enough in Berlin for any of them to feel adequately removed from this.

  She spoke quietly, staring out the window. “I’m exactly what you need me to be. And there’s nothing I can say that’s going to convince you otherwise. Good for you.”

  It had been a momentary lapse—that self-deluding need in him to see things as they are and not as they might be—rearing up to shatter even this. Why not give in to something beyond himself just once?

  He reached for her, and she said, “Don’t. You actually hurt me just then.” It was gone, and Hoffner let his hand drop to the seat, the feel of her arm still clasped within it.

  IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN ten minutes later, but he had b
een staring out the window without a thought to the time. The cabbie again eyed him in the mirror.

  “What?” Hoffner said impatiently.

  “I said we’ve got company.”

  It took Hoffner a moment to understand. “What?”

  “A black Buick,” the man said. “The last five minutes.”

  Hoffner looked back through the glass and caught sight of the headlights some twenty meters behind them. “You’re sure?”

  “I’ve hooked around three times. He keeps showing up.”

  The road was empty save for the bobbing lights. Hoffner eased himself to the side even as he continued to stare back through the window. “Then put some gas into it.”

  The man shook his head. “That’s not going to make any difference with a Buick, Detective.”

  “Just do it,” said Hoffner.

  The man reluctantly downshifted, and the cab grunted at the sudden acceleration. The grind of the engine and wheels deafened the cabin.

  Hoffner watched as the Buick kept pace. “Why the hell is he keeping back? He knows we’ve seen him.” He then understood. “Radek,” Hoffner said to himself.

  Leni had been looking back as well. “What?” she said.

  Perfect, thought Hoffner. Radek had lost his nerve. He had told Pimm. This would all be pointless now. He shook his head distractedly and said, “Nothing.” He turned to the cabbie. “How close are we?”

  “What?”

  “Time,” shouted Hoffner. “How close?”

  “Three minutes.”

  Leni finished her cigarette and tossed it out the window. “Are you sure he’s following us?”

  Hoffner barked, “Take a quick right here.”

  The man shook his head, but did as he was told, and Hoffner watched as the car behind took the turn with them. For the first time, the Buick began to gain.

  “The next left.”

  “He’s coming up,” the man shouted. “You’re done, Detective.”

  “Just drive the goddamned cab!”

  The man took the car to its limits, and Hoffner and Leni held on to the straps as the cab tore through the empty streets. At each new turn, though, and with every stretch of open road, the car behind continued to reel them in. The cabin became a haze of lights as the Buick finally pulled to within a few meters. Hoffner raised his hands to try to see through it, but with a sudden hitch, the light disappeared and the car pulled up alongside them, edging closer and closer until it was forcing them from the road. Both cars swerved, and Hoffner tried to grab for Leni, but they were now being thrown from side to side. There was a sudden thud, and they careened to the far door, Leni’s back pressing into him as he flailed for the strap.