by Philip Kerr
or, more commonly, in the bars and lobbies of the bigger hotels. And upon leaving the Pavilion, I decided to drop in at the Adlon on my way home. Just to see what was what. The doorman, Carl, saw me getting out of a taxi and came forward with an umbrella. He was pretty good with an umbrella and a smile and the door and not much else. It wasn’t what I’d have called a career, but with tips, he made more than I did. A lot more. Frieda had strongly suspected Carl was in the habit of taking tips from joy girls to let them into the hotel, but neither of us had ever been able to catch him or prove it. Flanked by two stone columns each bearing a lantern as big as a forty-two-centimeter howitzer shell, Carl and I remained on the pavement for a moment to smoke a cigarette and generally exercise our lungs. Above the door was a laughing stone face. No doubt the face had seen the hotel room rate. At fifteen marks a night, it was almost a third of what I made in a week. I went inside the entrance hall, tipped my damp hat to the new desk clerk, and winked at the page boys. There were about eight of them. They sat yawning on a polished wooden bench like a colony of bored apes, waiting for a light that would summon them to duty. In the Adlon there were no bells. The hotel was always as quiet as the great reading room in the Prussian State Library. I expected the guests liked it that way, but I preferred a bit more action and vulgarity. The bronze bust of the Kaiser on top of a sienna marble chimney piece as big as the nearby Brandenburg Gate seemed to recognize as much. “Hey.” “Who? Me, sir?” “What are you doing here, Gunther?” said the Kaiser, tweaking the end of a mustache shaped like a flying albatross. “You should be in business for yourself. The times we’re living in were made for scum like you. With all the people who go missing in this city, an enterprising fellow like you could make an excellent living as a private investigator. And the sooner the better, I’d say. After all, you’re hardly cut out to work in a place like this, are you? Not with those feet. To say nothing of your manners.” “What’s wrong with my manners, sir?” The Kaiser laughed. “Listen to yourself. That accent, for one thing. It’s terrible. What’s more, you can’t even say ‘sir’ with any proper conviction. You have absolutely no sense of servility. Which makes you more or less useless in the hotel business. I can’t imagine why Louis Adlon employed you. You’re a thug. Always will be. Why else would you have murdered that poor fellow, Krichbaum? Take my word for it. You don’t belong here.” I glanced around the sumptuously appointed entrance hall. At the square pillars of marble the color of clarified butter. There was even more marble on the floors and on the walls, as if a quarry had been running a sale of the stuff. The Kaiser had a point. If I stayed there much longer I might turn to marble myself, like some muscle-bound, trouser-less Greek hero. “I’d like to leave, sir,” I told the Kaiser, “only I can’t afford to. Not yet. It takes money to set up in business.” “Why don’t you go to someone of your tribe? And borrow some money?” “My tribe? You mean—?” “One-quarter Jew? Surely that counts for something when you’re trying to raise some ready cash?” I felt myself fill up with indignation and anger, as if I’d been slapped on the face. I might have said something rude back to him. Like the thug I was. He was right about that much. Instead I decided to ignore his remarks. After all, he was the Kaiser. I went up to the top floor and began a late-night patrol of the no-man’s-land that was, at this late hour, the dimly lit landings and corridors. My feet were big, it was true, but they were quite silent on the thick Turkish carpets. Except for a small squeak of leather coming from my best Salamanders, I might have been the ghost of Herr Jansen, the assistant hotel manager who’d shot himself after a scandal involving a Russian spy, way back in 1913. It was said that Jansen had wrapped the revolver in a thick bath towel to avoid disturbing the hotel’s guests with the sound of the gunshot. I’m sure they appreciated his consideration. Entering the Wilhelmstrasse extension, I turned a corner and saw the figure of a woman wearing a light summer coat. She knocked gently at a door. I stopped, waiting to see what would happen. The door remained closed. She knocked again, and this time pressed her face against the wood and spoke: “Hey, open up in there. You called Pension Schmidt for some female company. Remember? So here I am.” She waited for a moment and then added, “Do you want me to suck your cock? I like sucking cock. I’m good at it, too.” She let out a sigh of exasperation. “Look, mister, I know I’m a bit late, but it’s not easy getting a taxi when it’s raining, so let me in, eh?” “You got that right,” I said. “I had to hunt around for one myself. A taxi.” She swung around to face me nervously. Putting her hand on her chest, she let out a gasp that turned into a laugh. “Oh, you gave me such a fright,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” “No, it’s all right. Is this your room?” “Sadly not.” I meant it, too. Even in the low light I could tell she was a beauty. She certainly smelled like one. I walked toward her. “You’ll probably think me very stupid,” she said. “But I seem to have forgotten my room number. I was having dinner downstairs with my husband, and we had a row about something, and he walked off in a huff. And now I can’t remember if this is our room or not.” Frieda Bamberger would have thrown her out and called the police. And, in all normal circumstances, so would I. But somewhere between the Pavilion and the Adlon I had resolved to become a little bit more forgiving, a little less quick to judge. Not to mention a little less quick to punch someone in the stomach. I grinned, enjoying her pluck. “Maybe I can help,” I said. “I work for the hotel. What’s your husband’s name?” “Schmidt.” It was a sensible choice of name, given the fact that I might have heard her use it already. The only trouble was I knew Pension Schmidt to be the most upscale brothel in Berlin. “Mmm-hmm.” “Perhaps we’d better go downstairs, and then we can ask the desk clerk if he can tell me what room I’m supposed to be in.” This was her, not me. Cool as a cucumber. “Oh, I’m sure you got the right room. Kitty Schmidt was never known to make a mistake about something as elementary as giving the right room number to one of her joy girls.” I jerked the brim of my hat toward the door. “It’s just that the fleas change their minds sometimes. They think of their wives and their children and their sexual health and then they lose the nerve for it. He’s probably in there listening to every word and pretending to be asleep and getting ready to complain to the manager if I knock on the door and accuse him of soliciting the services of a girl.” “I think there’s been some sort of a mistake.” “And you made it.” I took hold of her by the arm. “I think you’d better come with me, Fräulein.” “Suppose I start screaming.” I grinned. “Then you’ll wake the guests. You wouldn’t want to do that. The night manager would come, and then I’d be forced to call the polenta, and they’d put your pretty little ass in cement for the night.” I sighed. “On the other hand, it’s late, I’m tired, and I’d rather just throw you out on your ear.” “All right,” she said brightly, and let me lead her back along the corridor to the stairs, where the light was better. When I got a proper look at her, I saw that the full-length coat she was wearing was nicely trimmed with fur. Underneath she wore a violet-colored dress made of some gossamer-thin material, opaque shiny white silk stockings, a pair of elegant gray shoes, a couple of long pearl strings, and a little violet cloche hat. Her hair was brown and quite short, and her eyes were green, and she was beautiful in a thin, boyish way that was still the fashion, despite everything the Nazis were doing to persuade German women that it was all right to look and dress and, for all I know, probably smell like a milkmaid. The girl on the stairs next to me couldn’t have looked less like a milkmaid if she’d arrived there on a shell blown along by some zephyrs. “You promise you’re not going to hand me over to the bulls,” she said on the way downstairs. “So long as you behave yourself, yes, I promise.” “Because if I go up before a magistrate, he’ll put me in the tobacco jar and I’ll lose my job.” “Is that what you call it?” “Oh, I don’t mean the sledge,” she said. “I just slide a bit when I need a bit of extra money to help my mother. No, I mean my proper job. If I lost that, I’d have to become a full-time
joy lady, and I wouldn’t like that. It might have been different a few years ago. But things are different now. A lot less tolerant.” “What ever gave you that idea?” “Still, you seem like a decent sort.” “There are some who might disagree with you,” I said bitterly. “What ever do you mean?” “Nothing.” “You’re not a Jew, are you?” “Do I look like a Jew?” “No. It was just the way you said—what you said. You said what a Jew says, sometimes. Not that it matters a damn to me what a man is. I can’t see what all the fuss is about. I’ve yet to meet a Jew who looks like one of those silly cartoons. And I should know. I work for a Jew who’s just the sweetest man you could ever hope to meet.” “Doing what, exactly?” “You don’t have to say it like that, you know. I’m not sitting on his face, if that’s what you mean. I’m a stenographer, at Odol. The toothpaste company.” She smiled brightly as if showing off her teeth. “At Europa Haus?” “Yes. What’s so funny?” “Nothing. I’ve just come from there. As a matter of fact, I was looking for you.” “Looking for me? What do you mean?” “Forget it. What does your boss do?” “Runs the legal department.” She smiled. “I know. It’s quite a contradiction, isn’t it? Me working in legal.” “So, what, selling your mouse is just a hobby?” She shrugged. “I said I needed the extra money, but that’s only part of it. Did you see Grand Hotel
?” “The movie? Sure.” “Wasn’t it wonderful?” “It was all right.” “I’m a bit like Flaemmchen, I think. The girl Joan Crawford plays. I just love big hotels like that one in the movie. Like the Adlon. ‘People come. People go. Nothing ever happens.’ But it’s not like that at all, is it? I think a lot happens in a place like this. A lot more than happens in the lives of most ordinary people. I love the atmosphere of this particular hotel. I love the glamour. I love the feel of the sheets. And the big bathrooms. You’ve no idea how much I love the bathrooms in this hotel.” “Isn’t it a little dangerous? Joy ladies can get hurt. There are plenty of men in Berlin who like to dole out a little pain. Hitler. Goering. Hess. To name but three.” “That’s another reason to come to a hotel like the Adlon. Most of the Fritzes who stay here know how to behave themselves. They treat a girl nicely. Politely. Besides, if anything went wrong, I’d only have to scream, and someone like you would turn up. What are you anyway? You don’t look like you work on the front desk. Not with those mitts on you. And you’re not the house copper. Not the one I’ve seen before.” “You seem to have it all worked out,” I said, ignoring her questions. “In this line of work it pays to do the algebra.” “And are you a good stenographer?” “I’ve never had any complaints. I have shorthand and typing certificates from Kürfurstendamm Secretarial College. And before that, my school Abitur
.” We reached the entrance hall, where the new desk clerk eyed us suspiciously. I steered the girl down another flight, to the basement. “I thought you were going to throw me out,” she said, glancing back at the front door. I didn’t answer. I was thinking. I was thinking, Why not replace Ilse Szrajbman with this girl? She was good-looking, well dressed, personable, intelligent, and, if she was to be believed, a good stenographer, too. Something like that was easy to prove. All I had to do was sit her down in front of a typewriter. And after all, I told myself, I could easily have gone to the Europa Haus, met the girl, and offered her a job, completely unaware of the way in which she chose to earn a little extra money. “Any convictions?” Most Germans thought whores were little better than criminals, but I’d known enough joy ladies in my life to recognize that many of them were much better than that. Often they were thoughtful, cultured, clever. Besides, this one wasn’t exactly a grasshopper. She was quite used to behaving herself in a big hotel like the Adlon. She wasn’t a lady, but she could pass herself off as one. “Me? None so far.” And yet. All my experience as a policeman told me not to trust her. Then again, my recent experience as a German told me not to trust anyone. “All right. Come to my office. I have a proposition for you.” She stopped on the stairs. “I don’t do a soup kitchen, mister.” “Relax. I’m not after one. Besides, I’m the romantic kind. At the very least I expect to be taken to dinner at the Kroll Garden. I like flowers and champagne and a box of chocolates from von Hövel. Then, if I like the lady, I might let her take me shopping at Gersons. But I have to warn you. It could be a while before I feel sufficiently comfortable to spend the weekend with you in Baden-Baden.” “You have expensive taste, Herr . . . ?” “Gunther.” “I approve. It coincides with my own, almost exactly.” “I had a feeling it would.” We went into the detectives’ office. It was a windowless room with a camp bed, an empty fireplace, a chair, a desk, and a washbasin. There were a razor and a shaving mug on a shelf above the basin, and an ironing board and a steam iron so that one could press a shirt and look vaguely respectable. Fritz Muller, the other house detective, had left a strong smell of sweat in the room, but the smell of cigarettes and boredom was all mine. Her nose wrinkled with disgust. “So this is life belowstairs, huh? No offense, mister, but by the standard of the rest of the hotel, it’s kind of crummy in here.” “By that standard, so is the Charlottenburg Palace. Now, about that proposition, Fräulein . . . ?” “Bauer. Dora Bauer.” “Your real name?” “You wouldn’t like it if I gave you another.” “And you can prove that.” “Mister, this is Germany.” She opened her bag to display several documents. One of them, in red pigskin, caught my eye. “You’re a Party member?” “Doing what I do, it’s always advisable to have the best documentation. This one turns away all sorts of unwelcome questions. Most cops leave you alone as soon as they see a Party card.” “I don’t doubt it. What’s the yellow one?” “My Reich Chamber of Culture card. When I’m not typing or selling mouse, I’m an actress. I figured being a Party member might get me a few parts. But not so far. Last play I had was Pandora’s Box
at the Kammerspiele on Schumannstrasse. I was Lulu. That was three years ago. So I type for Herr Weiss at Odol and dream of something better. So what’s the pitch?” “Only this. We get a lot of businessmen here at the Adlon. Quite a few of them need the services of a temporary stenographer. They pay well. Much more than the going rate in an office. Maybe not as good as what you’d make on your back in an hour, but a lot better than Odol. Plus, it’s honest, and above all, it’s safe. And it would mean you could come in and out of the Adlon quite legitimately.” “Are you serious?” There was real interest and excitement in her tone of voice. “Work here? At the Adlon? Really?” “Of course I’m serious.” “On the level?” I smiled and nodded. “You smile, Gunther, but believe me, these days there’s something dodgy about nearly all jobs a girl is offered.” “Do you think Herr Weiss would give you a reference?” “If I asked him nicely he’d give me anything.” She smiled vainly. “Thanks. Thanks a lot, Gunther.” “Just don’t let me down, Dora. If you do—” I shook my head. “Just don’t, all right? Who knows? You might even end up marrying the minister of the interior. With what’s in your handbag I wouldn’t be at all surprised.” “Hey, you’re one of the workers, do you know that?” “I wish I was, Dora, I wish to God I was.”
5 T
HE VERY NEXT DAY the guest in suite 114 reported a theft. This was one of the VIP corner rooms, right over the offices of North German Lloyd, and, accompanied by Herr Behlert, the hotel manager, I went along to interview him. Max Reles was a German American from New York. Tall, powerful, balding, with feet like shoe boxes and fists as big as two basketballs, he resembled a cop more than a businessman—at least, a cop who could afford to buy silk ties from Sparmann and his suits (assuming he didn’t pay attention to the Jewish boycott) from Rudolf Hertzog. He wore cologne and diamond cuff links that were almost as polished and shiny as his shoes. Behlert and I advanced into the suite, and Reles looked at him and then at me with eyes as narrow as his mouth. His bare-knuckle features seemed to wear a permanent scowl. I’d seen less pugnacious faces on a church wall. “Well, it’s about fucking time,” he said gruffly, giving me an up-and-down look as if I were the rawest recruit in his platoon. “What are you? A cop? H
ell, you look like a cop.” He looked at Behlert with something close to pity and added, “God damn it, Behlert, what kind of flea circus are you chumps running here, anyway? Jesus Christ, if this is Berlin’s best hotel, then I’d hate to see the worst. I thought you Nazis were supposed to be tough on crime. That’s your big boast, isn’t it? Or is that just so much bullshit for the masses?” Behlert tried to calm Reles, but to no avail. I decided to let him sound off for a while. Through a set of tall French windows there was a large stone balcony, where, depending on your inclination, you could wave to your adoring public or rant about the Jews. Maybe both. I went over to the window, pulled aside the net curtain, and stared outside, waiting for him to cool off. If ever he cooled off. I had my doubts about that. He spoke excellent German for an American, although he sang his words a bit more than we Berliners do, a bit like a Bayer, which gave it away. “You won’t find the thief out there, fellow.” “Nevertheless, that’s probably where he is,” I said. “I can’t imagine the thief is still in the hotel. Can you?” “What’s that? German logic? God damn it, what’s the matter with you people? You might try and look a little more concerned.” He hurled a gas grenade of a cigar at the window in front of me. Behlert sprang forward and picked it up. It was that or let the rug burn. “Perhaps if you were to tell us what’s missing, sir,” I said, facing him squarely. “And exactly what makes you think it’s been stolen?” “What makes me think? Jesus, are you calling me a liar?” “Not at all, Herr Reles. I wouldn’t dream of doing that until I had ascertained all of the facts.” Reles’s scowl turned to puzzlement as he tried to figure out if I was being insulting or not. I wasn’t exactly sure about that myself. Meanwhile, Behlert was holding the crystal ashtray in front of Reles like an altar boy preparing to help a priest give communion. The cigar itself, wet and brown, resembled something left there by a small dog, and perhaps that was why Reles himself seemed to think better of putting it back in his mouth. He sneered biliously and waved the thing away with the back of his hand, which was when I noticed the diamond rings on his little fingers, not to mention his perfectly manicured, pink fingernails. It was like discovering a rose at the bottom of a boxer’s spittoon. With Behlert standing between me and Reles, I half expected him to remind us of the rules of the ring. I didn’t much like loudmouthed Amis, even the ones who were loud in perfect German, and outside of the hotel I would hardly have minded showing it. “So what’s your story, Fritz?” Reles asked me. “You look too young to be a house detective. That’s a job for a retired cop, not a punk like you. Unless, of course, you’re a commie. The Nazis wouldn’t want a cop that was a commie. Fact is, I’m none too fond of the reds myself.” “I’d hardly be working here if I was a red, Herr Reles. The hotel flower arranger wouldn’t like that. She prefers white to red. And so do I. Besides, it’s not my story that matters right now, it’s yours. So let’s try to concentrate on that, eh? Look, sir, I can see you’re upset. Helen Keller could see that you’re upset, but unless we can all keep calm and establish what happened here, we won’t get anywhere.” Reles grinned and then snatched the cigar back just as Behlert was taking away the ashtray. “Helen Keller, eh?” He chuckled and put the cigar back in his mouth, puffing it back into life. But the tobacco seemed to smoke the traces of good humor out of him, and he returned to his resting state, which seemed to be that of low rage. He pointed at a chest of drawers. Like most of the furniture in his suite, it was blond Biedermeier and looked as if it had been baked in a glaze of honey. “On top of that cabinet was a little basketry-and-lacquer Chinese box. It was early seventeenth century, Ming dynasty, and it was valuable. I had it parceled up and ready to send to someone in the States. I’m not exactly sure when it disappeared. Might have been yesterday. Might have been the day before.” “How big was this box?” “About twenty inches long, about a foot wide, three or four inches deep.” I tried to work that out in metric and gave up. “There’s a distinctive scene painted on the lid. Some Chinese officials sitting around on the edge of a lake.” “Are you a collector of Chinese art, sir?” “Hell, no. It’s too . . . Chinese for my tastes. I like my art to look a little more homegrown.” “Since it was parceled, do you think you might have asked the concierge to have it collected and forgotten about it? Sometimes we’re too efficient for our own good.” “Not so, as I’ve noticed,” he said. “If you could answer the question, please.” “You were a cop, weren’t you?” Reles sighed and combed his hair with the flat of his hand, as if checking it was still there. It was, but only just. “I checked, okay? No one sent it.” “Then I have one more question, sir. Who else has access to this room? It could be someone with a key, perhaps. Or someone you’ve invited up here.” “Meaning?” “Meaning just what I said. Can you think of someone who might have taken the box?” “You mean apart from the maid?” “Naturally, I’ll be asking her.” Reles shook his head. Behlert cleared his throat and lifted his hand to interrupt. “There is someone, surely,” he said. “What are you talking about, Behlert?” snarled Reles. The manager pointed at a desk by the window, where, between two sheaves of notepaper, sat a shiny new Torpedo portable typewriter. “Wasn’t Fräulein Szrajbman coming in here every day to do some shorthand and typing for you? Until a couple of days ago?” Reles bit his knuckle. “Goddamn bitch,” he said, and flung away his cigar again. This time it flew through the door of the en-suite bathroom, hit the porcelain-tiled wall, and landed safely in the U-boat-sized bath. Behlert lifted his eyebrows clean off his forehead and went to retrieve it once again. “You’re right,” I said. “I was a cop. I worked Homicide for almost ten years until my allegiance to the old republic and the basic principles of justice made me surplus to the new requirements. But along the way I developed a pretty good nose for criminal investigation. So. It’s clear to me you think she took it and, what’s more, that you’ve got a pretty good idea why. If we were in a police station I might ask you about that. But since you’re a guest in this hotel, it’s up to you whether you tell us or not. Sir.” “We argued about money,” he said quietly. “About the number of hours she’d worked.” “Is that all?” “Of course. What are you implying, mister?” “I’m not implying anything. But I knew Fräulein Szrajbman quite well. She was very conscientious. That’s why the Adlon recommended her to you in the first place.” “She’s a thief,” Reles said, flatly. “What the hell are you going to do about it?” “I’ll put the matter into the hands of the police right away, sir, if that’s what you want.” “You’re damn right I do. Just tell your old pals to swing by, and I’ll swear out a warrant or whatever you flatfoots do in this sausage factory you call a country. Soon as they like. Now, get the hell out of here before I lose my temper.” At that I almost told him he’d have to keep his temper before he could ever lose it, and that while his parents might have taught him to speak good German, they certainly hadn’t taught him any good German manners to go with it. Instead I kept my mouth shut, which, as Hedda Adlon was fond of telling me, is a large part of running a good hotel. The fact that it was now also a large part of being a good German was neither here nor there.