Bernard Gunther 06 - If the Dead Rise Not (v5)

by Philip Kerr

  32 T

  HERE WAS A STORM AT SEA . The deck shifted like an accelerating elevator car, and then a wave of cold water hit me full in the face. I shook my head painfully and opened eyes that felt like two scooped-out oyster shells that were still swimming with Tabasco sauce. Another wave of water hit me. Except the water wasn’t from a wave, but from a bucket in the hands of Gerhard Krempel. But we were on the deck of a ship, or at least a largish boat. Behind him stood Max Reles, dressed like a rich man playing ship’s captain. He wore a blue blazer; white trousers; a white shirt and tie; and a white, soft-peaked cap. Everything around us was white, too, and it took me several moments to appreciate that it was daytime and we were probably surrounded with mist. Reles’s mouth started moving, and white mist came out of that, too. It was cold. Very cold. For a second I thought he was speaking Norwegian. Something cold, anyway. Then it seemed a little closer to home—Danish, perhaps. Only when a third bucket of water, gathered on a rope from over the side of the boat, was flung into my face was I able to grasp that he actually was speaking German. “Good morning,” Reles said. “And welcome back. We were beginning to get a little worried about you, Gunther. You know, I thought you krauts could hold your liquor. But you’ve been passed out for quite a while. At considerable inconvenience to myself, I might add.” I was sitting on a polished wooden deck, looking up at him. I tried to get up and found my hands were tied on my lap. But worse, given that the boat appeared to be on the water, was that my feet also were tied, to a stack of gray concrete blocks lying beside me on the deck. I leaned to one side and retched for almost a minute. And I marveled that such a sound could come from my body. It was the sound of a living creature turning itself inside out. While this was going on, Reles walked away, with a look of distaste on his knuckle of a face. When he returned, Dora was beside him. She was wearing her fur coat and a matching fur hat, carrying a glass of water. She carried it to my lips and helped me to swallow. When the glass was empty I nodded genuine thanks and tried to appreciate my situation. I didn’t appreciate it very much. My hat, coat, and jacket were gone, and my head felt as if it had been used for the Mitropa cup final. And the pungent smell of Reles’s large cigar was turning my stomach. I was in a tight spot. I had the awful feeling in a whole crowd of awful feelings that Max Reles was planning to give me a practical demonstration of exactly how Erich Goerz had disposed of Isaac Deutsch’s dead body. I couldn’t have been in a tighter spot if I’d been a starving dog chained to a high-speed railway line. “Feeling any better?” He sat down on the pile of concrete blocks. “It’s a little early for that, you might think. But I’m afraid that the way you are feeling now is likely to be as good as it gets, for the rest of your life. In fact, I can guarantee it.” He relit his cigar and chuckled. Dora leaned on the rail of the boat and looked out into what appeared as a limbo, in which we were floating like lost souls. Standing with his fists on his hips, Krempel looked ready to hit me anytime he was asked. “You should have listened to Count von Helldorf. I mean, he couldn’t have been more explicit. But, no, you had to be Sam fucking Spade and stick your cornet where it wasn’t wanted. I just don’t get that. Really, I don’t. You must have appreciated that there was just too much money involved, and too many important people getting a big fat slice of the Black Forest cherry cake called the Olympic Games for anything to be allowed to spoil that. Certainly anything as easily disposable as you, Gunther.” I closed my eyes for a minute. “You know, you’re not a bad fellow at all. I almost like you. No, really. I even thought of cutting you in and offering you a job. A proper job, not that joke job you have at the Adlon. But there’s something about you that makes me think I just couldn’t trust you. I think it’s that you were once a cop.” He shook his head. “No, that can’t be right. I’ve bought plenty of cops in my time. I guess it must be that you were an honest cop. And a good one, from what I hear. I admire integrity. But I’ve got no use for it right now. I don’t think anyone has. Not in Germany. Not this year. “Really, you wouldn’t believe how many fucking pigs there are who want to feed at this trough. Of course, they needed someone like me to show them how it’s done. I mean, we—by which I mean the people I represent in the States—we made a lot back in thirty-two with the Los Angeles Olympics. But the Nazis really know how to do business. Brundage couldn’t believe it when he first turned up here. It was him who tipped us off in Chicago about all the money that was to be made out here.” “And the East Asian artifacts are some payback for that.” “Right. A few bits and pieces of the kind he collects and appreciates, but which no one here is going to miss. He’s also going to pick up a nice contract to build a new German embassy in Washington. Which is the real treasure, if you ask me. You see, with Hitler the sky is the limit. I’m delighted to say that the man has absolutely no idea of economy. If he wants something, he gets it and to hell with the cost. In the beginning the Olympic budget was, what, twenty million marks? Now it’s probably four or five times that. And I guess the skim must be fifteen or twenty percent. Can you imagine? “Of course, it’s not always straightforward dealing with Hitler. The man is capricious, you know? You see, I’d already bought a company that makes ready-mixed concrete, and done a deal with the architect, Werner March, only to discover that Hitler doesn’t like fucking concrete. In fact, he hates it. He hates anything that’s in any way modern. It doesn’t matter a damn to him that half of all the new buildings in Europe are made of fucking concrete. That isn’t what he wants, and he won’t budge. “When Werner March showed him the plans and specifications for the new stadium, Hitler went nuts. Only limestone would be good enough. And not any goddamn limestone, you understand. It had to be German limestone. So I had to buy a limestone company in a hurry and then make sure my new company—Würzburg Jura Limestone—was awarded the contract. Too much of a hurry, if the truth be told. Given more time, I could have smoothed things over, but. Well, you know all about that part, you sonofabitch. It’s left me with a lot of concrete, but you’re going to help me to get rid of some of that, Gunther. These three breeze blocks I’m sitting on are going to the bottom of Lake Tegel, and you’re going with them.” “Just like Isaac Deutsch,” I croaked. “I take it Erich Goerz works for you.” “That’s right. He does. He’s a good man, Erich. But he lacks experience in this kind of work. So this time I’m doing it myself, to make sure the job gets done properly. We don’t want you rising up from the bottom like Deutsch. I always say if you want someone disposed of properly, you’d better do it yourself.” He sighed. “These things happen, eh? Even to the best of us.” He puffed the cigar for a moment and then blew out a funnel of smoke that might have come from the funnel above my head. The boat was maybe thirty feet long, and I thought maybe I’d seen it somewhere before. “I figure it was a mistake to dump that sonofabitch, Isaac, in the canal. Nine meters. Not deep enough. But out here the water is sixteen meters deep. That’s not Lake Michigan or the Hudson River, but it’ll do. Yes, there’s that and the fact that I’m not exactly a stranger to this shit. So relax, you’re in good hands. The one remaining question I have for you, Gunther—and it’s an important one from your point of view, so I advise you to pay attention—is whether we deep-six you dead or alive. I’ve seen both, and it’s my considered opinion that it’s best you go down dead. Drowning’s not quick, I don’t think. Me, I’d prefer a bullet in the head beforehand.” “I’ll try to remember that.” “But don’t let me sway you. This is your decision. Only, I need to know what you know, Gunther. Everything. Who you’ve told about me, and what. Think it over for a minute. I have to take a leak and put a coat on. It’s a little chilly out here on the water, don’t you think? Dora? Give him another glass of water. It might help to make him talk.” He turned and walked away. Krempel followed, and in the absence of a personal cuspidor, I spat after them. Dora gave me some more water. I drank it down greedily. “Guess I’ll have all the water I can drink in a little while,” I said. “That’s not even funny.” She wiped my mouth with my tie. “I’d forgotten how beaut
iful you are.” “Thanks.” “Nope. You’re still not laughing. I guess that wasn’t funny, either.” She glared at me like I was dermatitis. “You know, in Grand Hotel

  , Joan Crawford’s not supposed to fall for Wallace Beery,” I said. “Max? He’s not so bad.” “I’ll try to remember that when I reach the bottom of the lake.” “I suppose you think you’re like John Barrymore.” “Not with this profile. But I do think I’d like a cigarette, if you have one. You can call it one last request, since I’ve already seen you naked. At least now I can be sure when you’re wearing a wig.” “A regular Curt Valentin, aren’t you?” Under the fur she was wearing a lavender-colored knitted dress that hugged her figure like a coat of emulsion, and over her wrist was a drawstring pouch bag that contained a handsome gold cigarette case and lighter. “It looks as if Saint Nicholas has been here already,” I said as she pushed a cigarette between my cracked lips and lit it. “At least someone thinks you’ve been a good girl.” “By now anyone would think you’d learned to keep your nose out of other people’s business,” she said. “Oh, I’ve learned that, all right. Perhaps you’d like to tell him that. Maybe a good word from you has a better chance of success than one from me. Better still, perhaps you still have that gun. I’d say that where Max Reles is concerned, a Mauser has an even better chance than any amount of good words.” She took the cigarette from me, drew in smoke, and then put it back in my mouth with cool fingers that were almost as heavily perfumed as they were ringed. “What makes you think I’d ever betray a man like Max for a dog like you, Gunther?” “The same thing that makes a man like him attractive to a girl like you. Money. Lots of it. You see, it’s my opinion, Dora, that if there was enough money involved, you’d betray the infant Jesus. As it happens, there’s even more money than that hidden in Max Reles’s bathroom at the Adlon. There’s a bag full of money behind a panel that’s screwed in front of the lavatory cistern. Thousands of marks, dollars, gold Swiss francs, you name it, angel. All you need is a screwdriver. Reles has one somewhere in his drawers. That’s what I was looking for when you and your mouse came and disturbed me.” She leaned toward me. Close enough for me to taste the coffee that was still on her breath. “You’ll have to do better than that, polyp, if I’m going to help you.” “No, I don’t. You see, angel, I’m not telling you so that you’ll help me. I’m telling you so that maybe you’ll help yourself and, in the process, you’ll have to shoot him. Or maybe he’ll shoot you. It certainly won’t make any difference to me at the bottom of Lake Tegel.” She stood up abruptly. “You bastard.” “True. But then again, at least this way you can be sure I’m on the level about the money. Because it’s there, all right. Enough to start a new life in Paris. To buy a nice apartment in a smart part of London. Hell, there’s enough there to buy the whole of Bremerhaven.” She laughed and looked away. “Don’t believe me if you don’t want to. It makes no odds to me. But ask yourself this, Dora dear. A guy like Max Reles. And the kind of people he needs to pay off to stay in business. They’re not the kind who take a personal check. Graft is a cash racket, Dora. You know it. And a whole sack full of cash is what it takes to keep a racket like this one afloat.” She stayed quiet for a moment, looking preoccupied with something. Probably she was picturing herself walking up Bond Street with a new hat and a thick wad of pound notes underneath her garter. I didn’t mind contemplating that picture myself. It was certainly preferable to contemplating my own situation. Max Reles came up on deck again, followed closely by Krempel. Reles was wearing a thick fur coat and carrying a big Colt .45 automatic attached to a lanyard around his neck, as if he didn’t trust himself not to lose it. “I always say, you can’t be too careful with your firearm when you’re planning to shoot an unarmed man,” I said. “Those are the only kind I ever shoot.” He chuckled. “Do you take me for a fool who would go up against a man with a gun? I’m a businessman, Gunther, not Tom Mix.” He dropped the Colt on the lanyard and put his arm around Dora and pressed her fingers between her legs. The other hand still held his cigar. Dora let Reles’s hand remain where it was as he started to rub her mouse. She looked like she was even trying to enjoy it. But I could see her mind was somewhere else. Underneath the cistern in suite 114, probably. “The Little Rico kind of businessman,” I said. “Sure, I can see that.” “It looks like we have a movie fan, Gerhard. How about Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

  ? Did you see that one? No matter. You can catch the real thing in just a few minutes.” “It’s you who’s going to get caught, Reles. Not me. You see, I have an insurance policy. It’s not Germania Life, but it’ll do. And it kicks in the minute I’m dead. You’re not the only one with connections, my American friend. I’ve got connections, and I can guarantee they’re not the same ones you’ve been getting chummy with.” Reles shook his head and pushed Dora away. “It’s strange, but no one ever thinks they’re going to die. Yet no matter how crowded most cemeteries look, somehow there always seems to be room for one more.” “I don’t see any cemetery, Reles. In fact, now that I’m out here on water, you make me glad I never paid up front for my own funeral.” “I really do like you,” he said. “You remind me of me.” Reles took the cigarette from my mouth and flicked it over the side. He thumbed the hammer back on the Colt and pointed it at the middle of my face. It was close enough to see down the barrel, to feel the stopping power and smell the gun oil. With a Colt .45 automatic in his hand, Tom Mix could have held up the arrival of talking pictures. “All right, Gunther. Let’s see your cards.” “In my coat pocket there’s an envelope. It contains a couple of drafts of a letter addressed to a friend of mine. A fellow named Otto Schuchardt. He works under Assistant Commissioner Volk for the Gestapo, in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. You can easily check these names out. When I go missing from the Adlon, another friend of mine at the Alex, a detective commissar, is going to post the final draft of that letter to Schuchardt. And then your meat will be fried in butter.” “And why would the Gestapo be interested in me? An American citizen, like you said.” “A Captain Weinberger showed me what the FBI sent to the Gestapo in Würzburg. It was pretty thin stuff. You’re suspected of this. You’re suspected of that. Big deal, you say. But about your homicidal brother, Abe, the FBI knows plenty. About him and your father, Theodor. He’s an interesting man, too. It seems that he was wanted by the Vienna police when he went to live in America. For murdering people with an ice pick. Of course, it’s always possible they framed him. The Austrians are even worse than we are here in Berlin in the way they treat their Jews. But that’s what I wanted to tell my friend Otto Schuchardt. You see, he works on what the Gestapo calls the Jew Desk. I think you can imagine the sort of people he’s interested in.” Reles turned to Krempel. “Go and fetch his coat,” he said. Then he looked at me grimly. “If I find you’re lying about this, Gunther”—he pressed the Colt against my kneecap—“I’m going to give you one in each leg before I push you over the side.” “I’m not lying. You know I’m not.” “We’ll see, won’t we?” “I wonder how all your smart Nazi friends will react when they find out who and what you are, Reles. Von Helldorf, for instance. You remember what happened when he found out about Erik Hanussen, the clairvoyant? Why, of course you do. After all, this is Hanussen’s boat, isn’t it?” I nodded at one of the life preservers attached to the guardrail. On it was painted the name of the boat: Ursel IV