by Alex Beer
“A company is usually made up of four platoons of sixty men each,” Emmerich said. “These can be divided into squads. Those ten men probably made up a squad,” he mused. “Something must have happened . . . But what? You have to find the survivors and question them. Can you do that?”
“Sander has assigned every available officer to Kolja, but I can look into it after hours. I’ve already found the addresses where they’re currently registered.”
Emmerich was about to praise his assistant but was interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Visiting time is over.” Schaupp clapped his hands together.
“Can I send food and pain medicine to Herr Emmerich?” asked Winter.
The judge shook his head. “No packages. No gifts. The rules are unambiguous. As a police officer you should know that. The prisoners are taken care of well enough.”
“Auf Wiedersehen.” Winter wrapped his arms around a stunned Emmerich and squeezed him so hard that he couldn’t breathe.
“Away from him!” commanded Schaupp. “Bodily contact is strictly forbidden.”
“Excuse me.” Winter let go, went to the door with his head drooping, and disappeared out the door.
Emmerich watched him leave the room. He would have sold his soul to be able to follow his assistant.
“We’ll see each other at the pretrial conference, Emmerich.”
Schaupp went to the gramophone, waited until Emmerich had opened the door, and then shifted his attention to his collection of records.
“Is he finally available?” A young man with panicky blotches on his face stood next to the door hopping nervously from one foot to the other. Judging by his outfit, he was a newly minted lawyer. “I need to talk to him about the case as soon as possible.”
Emmerich looked left and right—the guard was nowhere to be seen. Apparently this young man had knocked, not the guard. The fifteen minutes weren’t yet up. “Sorry. He’s still busy. He’ll be ready in ten minutes,” he heard himself say. And then everything happened very quickly: the young man hustled off and Emmerich, without thinking, as if being moved by an invisible hand, took Schnaupp’s coat from a coatrack in front of the door, threw it over his own shoulders—which, in handcuffs, wasn’t so easy to do—put on a hat that was sitting atop a nearby bookshelf, and headed for the exit.
Unhurried and completely unchallenged, he strolled toward freedom while Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” boomed from Schaupp’s office.
31.
In a flash, Emmerich found himself outside on Landesgerichtsstraße. Had he really had the impudence to just stroll right out of prison? And, even harder to believe, had his breakout really gone so smoothly? Nobody noticed him—nobody had even said a word to him.
What now? Should he go back? Maybe nobody had noticed yet that he was gone. He could still sneak back in and wait in front of Schaupp’s door to be taken back to his cell. He was in no condition to escape. But on the other hand he didn’t feel up to a trial and prison term, either. He’d had a taste of what it was like to be locked up in Landl—and that was only pretrial detention.
He didn’t want to put his trust in a trial because he’d been all but found guilty in advance—that much was clear. His belief in the justice system had been deeply shaken. He pulled the hat further down over his face. Going underground was his only chance. If he couldn’t prove his own innocence and clear his name, nobody else would.
He slowly limped off.
“Watch it! You tired of living?”
The green Heinrich wagon came racing around the corner so quickly that the escapee was nearly trampled by the horses.
“Sorry.”
Emmerich looked down and waited until the prison transporter was out of view again. Then he let his intuition guide him and turned into Grillparzenstraße toward the center of town.
What he needed was a hideout. Someplace he could get his strength back. But where would he find that? Who could he expect to take him in? An escaped prisoner, whose body and mind were both shot? Since he didn’t want to drag Winter, Luise, or Minna into the whole thing, there was only one person left . . .
“August, my friend. You can’t live without me anymore.”
A great sense of relief washed over Emmerich when he found Kolja at Café Central, which wasn’t far from the Landl. Just as last time, the smuggler was sitting at the best table and smoking a thick cigar.
“Coffee? Or would you prefer a cognac? By the look of you, I’d say you could use one.”
“What I need is a hideout. And fast.” Emmerich opened the coat enough for Kolja to see the handcuffs.
The smile on Kolja’s face froze and he shooed the waiter away despite just having beckoned to him. “So it’s true then, what people have been saying. You shot a woman,” he whispered.
“The hell I did. Someone’s trying to frame me.”
“And your friends on the force? Can’t they help you?”
“They’re the ones who threw me in jail.”
Kolja, who was just about to take a sip of coffee, took the cup away from his mouth and coughed. “And you just split from the Landl?”
“Pretty much.”
“I don’t believe it.” Kolja snorted and slapped himself on the thigh. His genteel façade had cracked, and little Vanja Kollberg peeked out.
Emmerich looked around and saw that the other guests were staring at them. “Can you help me or not? Make up your mind. Fast. There’ll be a hundred men out looking for me soon. If they’re not already . . . ”
Kolja wiped his mouth and calmly took a sip of coffee. “None of them will think you’ve got the chutzpah to just waltz into Café Central. A cunning move, my friend.”
“Yes or no.”
“Could I leave an old fellow sufferer high and dry?” Kolja spread his arms and smiled. “We orphans need to stick together.”
Emmerich knew Kolja’s friendliness didn’t come without other thoughts. He’d have to pay a steep price at some point, but he didn’t care at the moment.
“Shall we?”
Kolja tossed a note on the table. “Keep the change,” he called toward the waiter and strolled to the door as if helping a wanted murderer go into hiding was the most normal thing in the world. “Nice hat, by the way. I assume it’s not yours.”
“You assume correctly.” Emmerich was too tense for banter. “Where are we going? Is it far?”
When they emerged onto the sidewalk, sirens were audible in the distance, and Emmerich winced.
“We’re already there.” Kolja gestured to a Gründerzeit building across the street. They crossed the road and he unlocked the door. “Be my guest.”
Emmerich slipped in the door and followed Kolja to the first floor, where he led him into an expansive, multiroom apartment.
“Relax. You’re safe here.” Kolja took Emmerich into a parlor that was at least twice as big as the entire apartment he had shared with Luise and the children, maneuvered him into a brown Biedermeier sofa, and pressed a glass of amber liquid into his hand.
“Who else lives here?” Emmerich emptied the glass in a single gulp.
“Nobody. Ever since the orphanage days I’ve had a distinct need for space and a peaceful environment.” Kolja reached for the bottle. “More?”
Instead of answering, Emmerich reached out his glass. “Now what?”
“Now we’ll do what you do in a situation like this. Hide, wait, bargain.” Kolja was a picture of calm. He refilled his guest’s glass, and then went to the window and looked out. “Cheers.” He whistled through his teeth. “The last time I saw so many uniforms in one place was during the battle of Zborow.”
Emmerich leaned back and wrapped his fingers around the glass. “I should have stayed in the Landl and gone through with the trial. Maybe I would have been exonerated.”
“Bullshit,” Kolja said dismissiv
ely. “Justice, that blind cow, would be better depicted holding dice than a scale.” He put his hand on Emmerich’s shoulder. “If you want justice in this country you have to fight for it yourself.” He looked at him and squinted. “But for that you’ll need other clothes, a new haircut, and you should grow a beard.”
Emmerich felt his stubbly chin.
“Most importantly, though, we have to get rid of those.” Kolja pointed to the handcuffs that were still on Emmerich’s wrists. He left the room, came back shortly with a toolbox, and looked closely at the chain. “This old garbage. Can’t Father State afford any decent equipment?” Only a few seconds later there was a click and Emmerich was rubbing his sore wrists with a relieved groan.
Kolja refilled the glass, sat down next to Emmerich, and put his feet up. “Any idea who the son of a bitch is who wants to frame you?”
“If I knew that, you and I wouldn’t be sitting on the sofa like an old married couple.” The alcohol was having an effect, and Emmerich was beginning to feel better. “Say, how many people did you have tailing me and my assistant?”
“One. Why?”
“Because a second person was following me. Wiry guy. Agile and fast. Fairly nondescript except for a scar on his right cheek.”
“Not one of mine. But I’ll see what I can find out. My boys are wired in—they have information the cops can only dream of.”
“Then ask about the following names: Dietrich Jost, Harald Zeiner, Anatol Czernin,” Emmerich rattled off. “They served in Galicia. Somewhere near Lemberg. Together with a Peter Boos, a Richard . . . ” he frowned as he tried to recall what Winter had told him. “ . . . Teschner,” he remembered. “They were all infantrymen. And then there was a corporal named, I think, Oberwieser. I forget his first name. They were part of the 13th Company of the 11th Infantry Division.”
“What do they have to do with it?” Kolja gestured to the cuffs, sitting on the floor in front of them.
“No idea. To be honest, I don’t really know anything anymore. The last few days were pretty . . . ” he searched for the right word. “Stressful.” Emmerich no longer bothered to put the liquor in his glass, he drank directly from the bottle. An enjoyable tingle went through his body, erasing the pain.
“Relax for a while. We can talk more when you’re feeling better.” Kolja stood up.
“Hey, can you possibly get hold of some pain medicine for me?” Emmerich let himself slump over and then stretched out on the sofa.
“There’s nothing I can’t get hold of.”
“Then I’d love a bottle of heroin and the real murderer of Josephine Bauer.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks, Vanja,” mumbled Emmerich. He was asleep the next instant.
“We’ll get you back on the police force.” Kolja slowly closed the door. “What good are you to me in prison? You wouldn’t be able to repay me the huge favor you owe me.”
The first thing Emmerich saw when he awoke was a dark splotch of saliva on ocher-brown silk cloth.
He had no idea where he was, but that didn’t frighten him. He’d gotten used to waking up every morning in a strange place.
After a while he remembered that he was lying on the sofa of none other than Veit Kolja, and he sat up.
“Crazy new world,” he mumbled, wiping spittle from the corner of his mouth.
His gaze fell on the coffee table. A set of fine clothes was laid out there, folded neatly. There was also a ham sandwich and a glass bottle of tablets. Heroin, the label said.
Emmerich sighed. The presence of the pills alone revived his spirits. He crushed a pill and snorted it. The pain-dulling, invigorating effect kicked in immediately, and he looked to the future with new mettle. He’d clear everything up, and then he’d be owed a few apologies and a promotion.
“Someone’s come back from the dead.” Kolja entered the room and looked at the array of gifts on the coffee table with satisfaction.
Back from the dead . . . Emmerich thought automatically of Xaver Koch. “Seems to be a thing these days.” He took a bite of the ham sandwich, convinced he’d never had anything quite so good in his entire life.
“No idea what you’re talking about.” Kolja raised an eyebrow and looked at Emmerich skeptically. “Maria!” he called so loudly that Emmerich almost choked on his food.
A moment later an older woman appeared in the doorway behind the smuggler. “Don’t godda yell. I’m not gluchy,” she sneered. Beneath her black dress she had an ample Rubens-like figure and her eyes were lined with black kohl, giving her an exotic look.
“This is August,” Kolja said slowly. “Draw him a bath and then do his hair over. Black. The same way you do yours.” He pointed to her hair and pressed a banknote into her hand. The woman grabbed her hair and cast an indignant look at Kolja before disappearing out of the room. Kolja rolled his eyes. “She thinks I don’t know she dyes her hair. She’s at least sixty and doesn’t have a single white hair. I’m not stupid.”
“Is she your wife?”
Kolja’s face displayed a mix of amusement and disbelief. “That old hag? She’s my housekeeper. I took her over along with the apartment. Barely speaks German, but she cooks and cleans like nobody else. It also suits me just fine that she doesn’t understand everything.” He pointed to the clothes on the table in front of Emmerich, then turned up his nose. “Maybe you should wash up first. Those are expensive things. Finest quality available at the moment. The bathtub is in the kitchen.”
“You have your own bathtub?”
His chest stuck out with pride, Kolja pointed to the correct door. “With a built-in coal stove that heats the water. Have a look.”
Emmerich, who, like everyone he knew, washed up with a sponge and water from the shared faucet, had never before seen a private bathtub. Once in a while he had visited the public baths where, for a modest fee, you could stand in a warm shower bath together with hundreds of others—it had never occurred to him that there were luxurious ways to clean yourself.
His initial irritation at bathing alone and without a bathing apron—they had to be worn at the public baths for the sake of decency—disappeared the moment his body slipped into the warm water. My god, it was good.
It took a long time to scrub the moldiness of the Landl from his pores, and if Frau Maria hadn’t come in, without knocking first, he’d have probably stayed in the tub until evening.
“Do hair now,” she said.
“Can I just dry off and throw on some underpants . . . ”
“Now.” With rough tugs, she brushed his hair and then smeared a horrible-smelling black paste through it. She also put some of the mixture on his stubble, and it smelled vaguely like shoe polish.
“Wait,” she said. “Not touch.” She folded her arms and then, after a few minutes, rinsed the stuff out again, parted his hair and then looked at her work with satisfaction. “Good,” she said, then left.
Emmerich got out of the tub, dried himself off, slipped into the new clothes, and was happily surprised when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror next to the coat closet in the hall. Was that elegant, dark-haired gentleman really him?
“Like new!” Kolja had come up beside him, put a monocle in his right eye, and plopped a hat on his head. “Not even your own mother would recognize you now.”
“She wouldn’t anyway.”
“It’s just a figure of speech. But as long as we’re on the topic . . . ” He stuck out his fist toward Emmerich. “This is yours, isn’t it?” He opened his hand to reveal a silver snake that was biting its own tail.
Emmerich was speechless. “Where . . . where did you get . . . my amulet?” He took the piece of jewelry and looked at Kolja with glistening eyes. He had no idea why he was so attached to an object whose primary value lay in reminding him of a mother who had abandoned him like a mangy dog. Emmerich wasn’t a sentimental person
, and certainly not a naïve dreamer. He understood that the woman who had given birth to him didn’t have noble justifications for getting rid of him, and that she had never come looking for him. Even so . . . despite all logic and against his better instincts, part of him still clung to the idea that she had loved him and hadn’t willingly abandoned him. He’d never know the truth . . . or would he? “Where’d you get that? Tell me!” he pressed.
“While you were sleeping off your booze I sent my people out searching.”
Kolja handed Emmerich a walking stick and stepped back to have a look at his handiwork. What he saw apparently pleased him, and he nodded approvingly.
“And your men figured out who robbed me that quickly?” He turned in front of the mirror and was shocked anew at how different he looked. He particularly liked the cape. Clothes really did make the man.
“I already told you I’m more connected than the police could ever hope to be.”
Emmerich really had underestimated the power and influence of the smuggler—a mistake that he wouldn’t make in the future.
“So? Who was it?”
Kolja laughed. “If you were hoping for a muscle-bound ruffian, I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. These guys were harmless dilettantes. Two malnourished little shits who found you passed out in the gutter. You were so drunk that you tripped and knocked yourself out.”
“And the suitcase with my things? My badge? My gun?”
“All sold on the black market, except for your pendant. Shoes, clothing, and pistols are highly desirable items. Not to mention a police badge. But hardly anyone can afford jewelry these days.”
“Luckily.” Emmerich was so happy to have his keepsake back that he would have liked to hug Kolja. But he didn’t want to be too nice. Kolja was, and remained, a crook. Emmerich stuck the amulet in his chest pocket. The fact that he’d so unexpectedly recovered something he thought surely lost gave him butterflies in his stomach. “And these two little street hoods . . . Did they know who they pawned my gun to?”