The Second Rider

by Alex Beer

  Emmerich looked at the brisk activity. “Unbelievable,” he mumbled, “in the middle of the city. Right beneath our feet.”

  “Who do we have here? Looks like . . . Inspector August Emmerich.” A figure emerged from the shadows. Veit Kolja. “Who would have thought that you of all people would end up with the police.” Kolja laughed so loudly that the echo of his voice reverberated from the walls. Emmerich narrowed his eyes to try to make out the man’s features in the diffuse light.

  “Did you search him properly? The good August is a cagey old dog who knows a lot of tricks. You got to watch out for him.” The two men nodded and handed over the items they’d confiscated. “You know who I am, don’t you?” Kolja, who was at least a head taller than Emmerich, stood right in front of him now and turned his face to the light. “I recognized you straightaway. Out in the Vienna Woods. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice the two of you following me?”

  Emmerich shot Winter an angry look and then studied the face of the man in front of him. He recognized nothing in Kolja’s features, but his voice and the way he spoke seemed familiar.

  “Don’t keep me in suspense,” he said.

  The smuggler pointed to a long scar on the underside of his jaw. “You gave me this because I tried to take a sandwich from you. To this day, I have no idea where you had the shiv hidden.”

  Emmerich’s jaw dropped. “Vanja? Vanja Kollberg?” He tried to see in the man before him the slugger who’d made his life so difficult as a child.

  “Thirty years and a new name can’t change everything.” Kolja looked at Winter, whose expression wavered between panic and curiosity. “That’s right,” said Kolja. “Your boss and me were once friends.”

  “Let’s not exaggerate,” Emmerich said.

  “We grew up together in an abbey. We were orphans, abandoned like troublesome animals. Speaking of which . . . do you still wear that childish pendant in the hope that you’ll find your whore of a mother someday? Is that why you became a cop?”

  Emmerich spat on the ground. “Shut your mouth or I’ll shut it,” he hissed.

  “That’s how I remember you.” Kolja laughed again. “You know . . . The two of us, we’re pretty similar.”

  “You’re the only one who believes that.” Emmerich was boiling. “We have nothing in common, not a single thing. We’re on totally opposite sides.”

  “You just need to ask yourself which one is the right one. Who do you think is feeding and clothing half the city, since the fancy-pants in city hall are too inept or too greedy to do so? Who do you think is taking care of the elderly and the sick who are too weak to wait for hours in front of the shops only to be sent away with empty hands?”

  “Don’t act as if you’re doing something noble. You’re fleecing the people and enriching yourselves by their misery.”

  Kolja crossed his arms behind his back and began to pace back and forth. “We are risking our lives and our freedom,” he lectured. “Everything, just to smuggle food, clothing, and coal across the border. Our job is dangerous, our costs are high. That has to be rewarded. What do you think—”

  “What’s with the chitchat?” Emmerich interrupted. “Why did you bring us here? If you want to off us, spare us the drivel and get it over with.”

  “Are you tired of living?” Winter stared at him with his mouth open. “Stop provoking him,” he begged.

  “You cops are like a Hydra. You cut off one head and two new ones grow back. There’s no point in knocking you off.”

  Winter’s breathing became audibly calmer.

  “So get to the point. What do you want with us?” Emmerich pressed.

  “I want you to stop following my men. Make sure that we can do our business in peace. Make up some story for your bosses. If you’re even a tiny bit like you used to be, it won’t be hard for you.”

  Winter nodded and stared longingly at the narrow wooden plank that led to freedom.

  Emmerich didn’t think for a second about complying with Kolja’s request. “And if it does prove hard for me?” he said provocatively.

  Kolja grinned, revealing two rows of healthy, gleaming white teeth. “The times are hard. Something could always happen to your pretty girlfriend and her sweet children.” He turned to Winter. “And your dear grandmother would be next.”

  Winter turned pale. “I didn’t say anything,” he mumbled.

  “So? We have a deal?” Kolja held out his hand to Emmerich.

  “I guess we’ll find out.” Emmerich pushed aside the proffered hand and turned toward the wooden plank.

  “Wait!” yelled Kolja. “You’re just like you used to be. You could never stand losing.” He gave him back the heroin tablets. “What’s the story with these? This is way more than the legal amount, my friend. You’re no knight in shining armor.” He patted him on the shoulder.

  Emmerich reached for the pills without a word, stuck them in his pocket, and walked toward the shaky beam. Winter followed him hurriedly.

  “Can someone please get poor August a decent pair of shoes and a clean jacket?” called Kolja to his men. “We’ve got plenty.”

  “I’d rather walk around naked,” Emmerich called back.

  He wouldn’t willingly admit it, but he was glad to finally get out of the underworld.

  14.

  They went the wrong way several times in the intricate system of tunnels, and it was late afternoon when Emmerich and Winter reemerged into the daylight, completely covered in sludge. A young woman who had just stepped out of a horse-drawn carriage put her hand over her mouth and took flight as soon as she spied them. The two of them paid her no attention because they were too busy stretching their limbs and filling their lungs with fresh air.

  “What now?” asked Winter.

  Emmerich strolled cavalierly past the lighted rink of the Vienna Skating Club, where well-heeled sons and daughters were going around in circles. After one glance at the two dark figures they all fled to the rear end of the rink.

  “You heard what Kolja said. If we keep after him our loved ones will pay the price. I’d say our hands are bound.”

  “And Sander?”

  “We’ll hold him off until I figure out a way to get Kolja.” In front of the Konzerthaus Emmerich turned into Pestalozzigasse and tromped determinedly toward the tram stop on the line that went to the hospital. “And as long as we have nothing else to do, we might as well take care of the dead men.”

  “Perhaps we should wash up and change clothes before then,” Winter suggested. “We won’t be allowed in anywhere like this, and especially not into a hospital.”

  Emmerich realized that Winter was right and that he himself had a problem. He thought for a second. “Where do you live anyway?”

  “Me? I live out in Währing.”

  This did not surprise Emmerich. It’s what he had always expected. The 18th district, in the northwest, was affluent, bourgeois, and posh. There were lots of grand avenues, well-manicured parks, and lavish villas.

  “How many square meters is the place?”

  Winter looked puzzled. “No idea. Enough, anyway.”

  “Wonderful.” Emmerich tried to figure out where the closest tram stop was. “Because I need to stay with you for a few days.”

  He turned away so Winter wouldn’t see his grin. Just a shame that he also had to miss the look on Winter’s face.

  The tram ride proceeded silently. Neither Emmerich nor Winter said a thing. People took stealthy glances at them with wrinkled noses and sat as far away as they could.

  “This is it,” said Winter finally.

  They stepped off in front of a little mansion.

  “This place?” Emmerich needed a minute to regain his composure. “And here I was feeling bad for inviting myself over,” he mumbled as he followed Winter through a cast-iron gate. “This house is huge. If I’d have snuck in, nobody
would even have noticed I was here.”

  He took in the stone façade adorned with balconies and oriel windows, and the various coats of arms that emblazoned the huge entrance portal.

  Despite all the reforms and efforts, the most bitter poverty and deepest misery still existed side by side in the city with prosperity and extravagant wealth. The population of Vienna lived in close quarters and yet in completely different worlds.

  “Who else lives here?”

  “Aside from me, just my grandmother. But don’t expect too much. The appearance is deceptive.”

  When they entered the villa Emmerich could see what Winter had meant. The walls of the spacious foyer were completely bare, two of the windows were broken, and where a painting had once hung there was only the dusty outline of its former presence. An icy wind whistled in, blowing dust and dirt across the marble floor. Emmerich looked around, amazed.

  “I’m afraid the rest is no more homey,” said Winter. “In the past few years we’ve had three break-ins, and anything that was left we sold in order to buy groceries and fuel.”

  They walked up a curved staircase with a dangerously wobbly bannister, and the clack of Emmerich’s shoes echoed through the entry hall. Pain once again shot through his leg.

  “What happened to the rest of your family?” he asked.

  “Spanish flu,” answered Winter tersely, though Emmerich didn’t need any additional information to understand.

  The horrible epidemic had broken over the city like a wave of death the previous autumn, wiping out over twenty thousand people in less than five months. Emmerich, whose immediate circle had been spared, gulped. He hadn’t been fair to Winter, had taken him for nothing more than a pampered child of privilege without ever digging deeper.

  “I’m sorry,” he said sheepishly.

  They went down a broad hallway that was ghostly quiet. Doors led off either side.

  “Why don’t you rent out rooms?” Emmerich asked. “There’s certainly enough space.”

  “My grandmother doesn’t want to. She’s stuck in a previous era. The idea of ‘simple people’”—Winter held up his hands and made quotation marks—“residing here turns her stomach.”

  This could get interesting, thought Emmerich. He’d be living in a ghost house with Winter and his snobbish grandmother. While he tried to decide whether he found the situation unpleasant or amusing, he discreetly took a pain tablet as Winter unlocked a large wooden double door. “I have to warn you. My grandmother is fairly peculiar. If you want to stay here, don’t say anything bad about the Kaiser, and try to exhibit the best possible manners.”

  He opened the door. Behind it was a little living area that was more inviting than the rest of the house. It had herringbone parquet floors, the walls were covered with decorative wallpaper, family portraits hung all around. And a large tile stove gave off a pleasant warmth.

  “Ferdinand, is that you?” Winter’s grandmother, a frail old woman with an aristocratic air, had entered the hallway. She had on a floor-length green silk dress and lace gloves. When she got a look at the two of them she put her hand to her chest and gave a little cry. “Good god, Ferdinand. You look as if you’ve just crawled out of the gutter.” She waved a hand in front of her nose. “And you smell like it, as well.”

  “I’m sorry, Grandmother, but we were on duty.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I ask myself every day why you got into such a filthy, vulgar line of work. Lord knows it’s not befitting of our status. It’s something for simple people.”

  “We’ve already discussed it,” he tried to nip the discussion in the bud. “May I introduce my superior, Herr Inspector August Emmerich?”

  The hint of a smile flitted across the face of the motionless old woman. “Are you any relation to the von Emmerichs of Bohemia?”

  “I’m afraid not. I was named after saints in the orphanage, and Emmerich of Hungary is just one of my titular saints.”

  Winter’s grandmother took a step forward and looked him over. “The sight of you does nothing to increase my sense of security.”

  “Herr Emmerich will be staying with us for a few nights, and he’ll need some of Father’s clothes.”

  “My apartment caught fire,” Emmerich lied. “And your grandson was kind enough to offer a roof.”

  “Is he trustworthy? Can I be sure that he won’t slit my throat in the middle of the night? You know that lowly people hate us. They chased the Kaiser out like a mangy dog, abolished the gentry, and stole everything that we held dear.”

  “Grandmother!” Winter turned red. “Sorry,” he said, turning to Emmerich. “She doesn’t mean it.”

  “I most certainly do.” She lifted her chin. “If he swears that he’s not a communist he can stay for a night as far as I’m concerned. I can do nothing to hinder it.” She turned and strode back to her room. “What all I must endure. As if it weren’t bad enough that a proletarian party took power—now they’re moving in with me,” she muttered loudly enough for Emmerich to hear.

  “Did your apartment really catch fire?” asked Winter when his grandmother had closed the door loudly behind her.

  “I wish,” answered Emmerich. “Unfortunately it’s little more complicated than that.”

  15.

  After they’d washed and changed, the two detectives went to the general hospital in the hope of determining the identity of the man who’d been brought in unconscious.

  Emmerich had on some of Winter’s father’s things, and though they fit as if tailored just for him he couldn’t help but notice that for the second time today he was wearing a dead man’s clothes—this time including the shoes. Gloriously soft, warm boots with leather soles. It was as if his feet were in paradise.

  “He was in the second-to-last bed on the left,” he said, happy that they could finally get back to the investigation.

  “Who are you?” It was the patient who’d gotten on Emmerich’s nerves early that morning. Apparently he didn’t recognize him in the elegant outfit.

  “Visiting,” Emmerich answered.

  “Visitors’ hours are over.”

  It took an effort for Emmerich to resist smacking him one with a bedpan. “Not for us.” He reached automatically into his pocket to retrieve his badge only to realize that it must have also been stolen the night before, along with his brass knuckles and his service revolver. Somehow he hadn’t thought of it up to then. It would cause him trouble—more trouble than he already had. “Show him your badge, please,” he asked Winter.

  The Imperial Eagle silenced the nosy man, and they were able to turn their attention to the unknown man, who was sitting upright in bed reading a book. “Grüß Gott,” said Winter. “How nice that you are conscious again.”

  The man put the book aside and looked at them over his glasses. “I wasn’t—”

  “That’s not him.” Emmerich looked at him. “Where’s the patient who was in this bed early this morning? About forty years old, with a yellow tongue and a red mark around his throat.”

  The man shrugged. “No idea, I’ve only been here a few hours. Broken rib. My old nag kicked me,” he explained, lifting his shirt to show a thick white bandage wound around his rib cage. “The miserable creature—”

  “Right, got it,” Emmerich swatting his hand in the air dismissively. He began hurrying from bed to bed to see who was in each. “You must know what happened to the man we’re looking for,” he said, returning to the nosy man.

  “He’s dead,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Died this afternoon.”

  “Damn it,” Emmerich cursed. “Did he regain consciousness before he died? Did he say who he was?”

  “He never woke up. Say . . . do we know each other? You seem so familiar.”

  “Maybe I arrested you sometime,” Emmerich commented, pulling his wool cap further down over his face. “Did you notice anything suspicious?�
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  The man shook his head. “It’s a hospital. People die here.”

  “Anyone with him?”

  “A doctor.”

  Emmerich, who knew through personal experience how easy it was to pass as a doctor, nodded. “Can you describe him?”

  “They all look the same in their white lab coats.”

  “Do you know where the body was taken?”

  “Who here is supposed to be the copper, you or me?”

  “Come on, let’s go look for the dead man,” said Emmerich to Winter, hurrying out.

  “I’ve never been arrested, by the way,” called the annoying patient behind them. “We must know each other from somewhere else.”

  Emmerich and Winter got lucky—the nameless corpse hadn’t been taken to the medical examiner yet, but rather was still awaiting transfer in the morgue. They identified themselves as police and let a nurse explain how to get there and then headed for the basement, where the storeroom for the bodies was.

  “As if we hadn’t spent enough time belowground today already,” grumbled Winter. He shivered when the heavy metal door closed behind them and then wrapped his arms around himself.

  The well-cooled but poorly lit room was covered floor to ceiling with white tiles. Against the walls were stretchers where the bodies of the dead, covered with sheets, could be made out like apparitions. It smelled both antiseptic and putrid at the same time, and Winter was about to make a comment about the repulsive atmosphere but resisted, not wanting to lose the newly won goodwill of his boss again.

  Emmerich, unfazed as always, dashed around lifting the sheets up one at a time to study the cold, pallid faces beneath. “Here,” he finally said, waving over his assistant. “This is the guy.”

  It was the fourth body Winter had seen in the last three days, but he still hadn’t gotten accustomed to it. It took quite an effort for him to step up to the stretcher and look at the bluish face of the man without betraying the sense of horror he felt while doing it. His stomach could be heard rebelling.