A Quiet Flame

by Philip Kerr

  Frieda was tall and dark, with a full mouth and an even fuller figure and a voluptuous sort of fertility about her that I put down to the fact that she was Jewish, but was actually something rather more indefinable. She was glamorous, too. Had to be. Her job involved hanging around the hotel posing as a guest and keeping an eye out for prostitutes, con artists, and thieves, who liked the Adlon for the rich pickings that were to be had from the even richer guests. I had got to know her in the summer of 1929, when I helped her to arrest a female jewel thief who was armed with a knife. I stopped Frieda getting stuck with it by the simple means of getting stuck myself. Clever Gunther. For that I got a nice letter from Hedda Adlon, the proprietor’s daughter-in-law, and, after I came out of the hospital, a very personal kind of thank-you from Frieda herself. We weren’t sharing an envelope, exactly. Frieda had a semi-detached husband, who lived in Hamburg. But just now and then we’d search an empty bedroom for a lost maharajah or a stolen movie star. Sometimes it could take us a while.

  As soon as I walked through the door, Frieda was on my arm like a hawk. “Am I glad to see you,” she said.

  “And I thought you weren’t the type who cares.”

  “I’m serious, Bernie.”

  “And so am I. I keep telling you, only you don’t listen. I’d have brought flowers if I’d known you felt this way.”

  “I want you to go into the bar,” she said urgently.

  “That’s good. That’s where I was going anyway.”

  “I want you to take a look at the guy in the corner. And I mean the fritz in the corner, not the redhead he’s with. He’s wearing a dove-gray suit with a double-breasted waistcoat and a flower in his lapel. I don’t like the look of him.”

  “If that’s so, then I hate him already.”

  “No, I think he might be dangerous.”

  I went into the bar, picked up a matchbook, lit a cigarette, and gave the fritz the quick up-and-down. The girl he was with looked me up and down back. This was bad, because the fritz she was with was worse than bad. He was Ricci Kamm, the boss of the Always True, one of Berlin’s most powerful criminal rings. Normally Ricci stayed put in Friedrichshain, where his gang was based, which was fine, since he tended not to give us any trouble there. But the girl he was with looked like she had an opinion of herself that was as high as the Zugspitze. Probably she figured she was too good for joints like the Zum Nussbaum, which was where the Always True boys usually went for their kicks. Very likely she was right, too. I’ve seen better-looking red-heads, but only on Rita Hayworth. She was wearing good curves, too. I doubt she could have cut a better figure if she’d been wearing Sonja Henie’s favorite ice skates.

  Ricci’s eyes were on mine. But my eyes were on her and there was a bottle of Bismarck in front of them both that said this might spell trouble. Ricci was a quiet sort with a small, soft voice and nice manners—until he had one drink too many, and then it was like watching Dr. Jekyll turn into Mr. Hyde. From the level in the bottle, Ricci was about ready to grow an extra set of eyebrows.

  I turned on my heel and went back into the lobby.

  “You were right not to like him,” I told Frieda. “He’s a dangerous man and I think his timer’s about to go off.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  I waved Max, the hall porter, toward me. I didn’t do it lightly. Max paid Louis Adlon three thousand marks a month to have that job, because he got a kickback on everything he did for the hotel’s guests, which made him about thirty thousand marks a month. He was holding a dog leash, which was attached to a miniature dachshund. I figured Max was looking for a bellboy to walk the thing. “Max,” I said, “call the Alex and tell them to send the kiddy car. You’d better order up a couple of uniforms as well. There’s going to be some trouble in the bar.”

  Max hesitated as if he was expecting a tip.

  “Unless you’d rather handle it yourself.”

  Max turned and walked quickly to the house phones.

  “And while you’re at it, go and check the easy chairs in the library and see if you can’t rustle up one of those overpaid ex-cops who call themselves house bulls.”

  Frieda had never been a cop, so she didn’t take offense at my remark about ex-cops. But I knew she could look after herself. Adlon had hired her on the strength of her having been in the German women’s Olympic fencing team in Paris in 1924, when she’d narrowly missed a medal.

  I took her by the arm and walked her to the bar. “When we sit down,” I said, “I want you all over me like ivy. That way I’m not a threat to him.”

  We sat down at the table right beside Ricci. The Bismarck had kicked in and he was sneering a series of swear words at a terrified bar waiter. The redhead looked like she’d seen it before. Most of the bar’s other customers were wondering if they could make it as far as the door without crossing Ricci’s line of sight. But one of them was made of sterner stuff. A businessman wearing a frock coat and a meat slicer of a shirt collar, and a look of indignation at the kind of low German that was spilling out of Ricci’s mouth, stood up and seemed inclined to take on the gangster. I caught his eye and shook my head and, for a moment, he seemed to heed my warning. The moment he sat down, Frieda let me have it. On the ears and the neck and the back of my head and on my cheek and finally on my mouth, which was where I liked it best of all.

  “You’re cute,” she said, with some understatement.

  Ricci looked at her and then at the redhead beside him. “Why can’t you be more like that?” he asked her, jerking a thumb Frieda’s way. “Friendly, like.”

  “Because you’re drunk.” The redhead took out a powder compact and started to touch up her makeup. A futile effort in my estimation: like trying to touch up the Mona Lisa. “And when you’re drunk, you’re a pig.”

  She had a point, but Ricci didn’t care for it. He stood up, but the table stayed on his lap. The bottle and the glasses and the ashtray went to the floor. Ricci swore and the redhead started to laugh.

  “A clumsy drunken pig,” she added, for good measure, and started to laugh again. I liked the effect it had on the redhead’s mantrap of a mouth. I liked the way her sharp white teeth shucked off her red lips like cherry skins. But Ricci didn’t like it at all and let her have it hard with the flat of his hand. In the Adlon’s plush bar, the slap went off like New Year’s Eve. This was too much for the man wearing the meat-slicer shirt collar. He looked like a real Prussian gentleman—the kind who cares what happens to a lady, even a lady who was probably a hundred-mark whore.

  “Uh-oh,” Frieda murmured in my ear. “The man from I. G. Farben is about to play Sir Lancelot.”

  “Did you say I. G. Farben?”

  I. G. Farben was Europe’s largest dyestuff syndicate. The company’s headquarters were in Frankfurt but they had an office in Berlin that was opposite the Adlon, on the other side of Unter den Linden. That was what I’d been trying to remember in Illmann’s office.

  “I’m sorry,” said the man from I. G. Farben. His tone was as stiff as a washboard, and just as square. “But I really must protest at your loutish behavior and your treatment of that lady.”

  The redhead picked herself off the floor and uttered a few short words that were common enough in the engine rooms of German naval vessels. She was probably wondering if the fritz with the high collar was referring to her. Collecting the now empty Bismarck bottle in her hand, she swung it at Ricci’s head. The Always True leader caught it neatly in his palm, wrested it from her, tossed it in the air like a juggler’s club, grabbed it by the neck, and then swung it down hard against the edge of the upturned table—all in one easy, practiced, and delinquent gesture. The bottle came up again, glistening, meaningfully triangular, like a shard of razor-sharp ice. Ricci took hold of the IGF man’s frock coat, fisted him a foot closer, and seemed on the point of acquainting him with a more fundamental rebuttal when I interrupted their conversation.

  The barman at the Adlon made the best cocktails in Berlin. He was fond of cucumbers,
too. He put pickled cucumbers on the tables and slices of fresh cucumber in some of the drinks favored by Americans. A large uncut cucumber lay on the bartop. Looking for a knife, I’d had my eye on it for a while. I don’t care for anything in my drink except ice, but I liked the look of that cucumber. Besides, my gun was in the glove box of my car.

  I dislike hitting a man when his back is turned. Even with a cucumber. It goes against my inherent sense of fair play. But since Ricci Kamm didn’t have a sense of fair play, I hit him hard, on the back of the hand holding the broken bottle. He yelped and dropped it. Then I struck him with the cucumber on the side of his head, twice. If I’d had some ice and a slice of lemon, I’d probably have hit him with those as well. An exclamation tiptoed around the room, as if I’d made a rabbit disappear from inside a top hat. The only trouble was, the rabbit was still there. Ricci sat down heavily, holding his ear. Teeth bared, nose twitching, he reached inside his coat. I didn’t think he was looking for his wallet. I saw a little black hippo’s head peeking out from a holster, and then a Colt automatic appeared in Ricci’s hand.

  It was a good, firm cucumber, hardly ripe at all. Springy, with plenty of heft, like a good blackjack. I put a lot of weight into it. I had to. Ricci didn’t move his head more than an inch. He didn’t try to block the cucumber. He was hoping to fire the gun before that happened. He took it across the nose, jerked back on the chair, dropped the gun, and lifted both hands to the blood-spattered center of his face. Figuring I might never get a better chance to do it, I cuffed both of his wrists before he even knew what was happening.

  I let Ricci groan for a while before handing him a bar towel to press against his nose and hauling him by the cuffs to his feet. Acknowledging a round of applause from some of the other guests in the hotel bar, I pushed Ricci in the direction of two uniforms and then tossed the gun after him.

  Frieda moved in on the redhead. “Time to go, lovely,” she said, taking hold of a bony elbow.

  “Take your hands off me,” said the redhead, trying to wrest her arm away, but the elbow stayed held in Frieda’s strong fist. Then she laughed and gave me a languorous north-to-south look. “That was really something, what you did just now, comrade. Like a Christmas gift from the kaiser. Wait until people hear about this. Ricci Kamm got himself arrested by a johann armed with just a cucumber. He’s never going to live it down. Leastways, I hope he doesn’t. That bastard’s hit me once too often.”

  Frieda steered her firmly toward the door, leaving me with the man from IGF. He was tall, thin, and gray. As full of Prussian good manners as Berlin’s Herrenklub, he bowed gravely.

  “That was admirable,” he said. “Quite admirable. I’m very grateful to you, sir. I don’t doubt that thug would have seriously injured me. Perhaps worse.”

  The IGF man had his wallet out and was pressing his business card on me. It was as thick and white as his shirt collar. His name was Dr. Carl Duisberg and he was one of the I. G. Farben’s directors, from Frankfurt.

  “May I know your name, sir?”

  I told him.

  “I see the international reputation of Berlin’s police force is well deserved, sir.”

  I shrugged. “It’s amazing what you can do with a cucumber,” I said.

  “If there’s anything I can do for you in return,” he said. “To show my gratitude. Name it, sir. Name it.”

  “I could use some information, Dr. Duisberg.”

  He frowned, slightly puzzled. He hadn’t been expecting this. “Of course. If it’s in my power to give it.”

  “Does the Dyestuff Syndicate have anything to do with drug companies?”

  He smiled, and looked slightly reassured, as if the information I was seeking was common knowledge. “I can tell you that very easily. The Dyestuff Syndicate has owned Bayer since 1925.”

  “You mean the company that makes aspirin?”

  “No, sir,” he said proudly. “I mean the company that invented it.”

  “I see.” I did my best to look impressed. “I guess I ought to be grateful, considering the number of hangovers your company has helped me cope with. So what’s next in line, Doc? What’s the new wonder drug your people are working on now?”

  “It’s not my field, sir. Not my field at all. I’m a chemical engineer.”

  “Whose field is it?”

  “You mean one person?”

  I nodded.

  “My dear Commissar, we have dozens of research scientists working for us, all over Germany. But mainly in Leverkusen. Bayer is based in Leverkusen.”

  “Leverkusen? Never heard of it.”

  “That’s because it’s a new town, Commissar Gunther. It’s made up of several small villages on the Rhine. And a number of chemical factories.”

  “It sounds perfectly charming.”

  “No, Commissar. Leverkusen is not at all charming. But it is making money. It is making money.” The doctor laughed. “But why do you ask, sir?”

  “Here in Berlin, we have an Institute for Police Science, in Charlottenburg,” I said. “And we’re always on the lookout for new experts we can call upon to help us with our inquiries. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Of course, of course.”

  “I met this doctor who’s handling some very sensitive clinical trials at the state hospital in Friedrichshain here in Berlin. I think he said he was working for Bayer. And I was wondering if he might be the kind of discreet and reliable fellow who might help us out once in a while. From all accounts he’s a very gifted man. I heard him described as the next Paul Ehrlich. You know? The ‘magic bullet’?”

  “Oh, you must mean Gerhard Domagk,” said Duisberg.

  “That’s him,” I said. “I just wondered if you might be able to vouch for him. As simple as that, really.”

  “Well, I haven’t actually met him myself. But from what I hear, he’s very brilliant. Very brilliant, indeed. And very discreet. He has to be. Much of our work is highly confidential. I’m sure he would be delighted to help the Berlin Police if it was within his power to do so. Was there something specific you wanted to ask him?”

  “No. Not yet. Perhaps in the future.”

  I pocketed the IGF man’s card and let him get back to the rest of his lunch party. That let Frieda get back to me. She looked flushed and very grateful, which is the way I like my women.

  “You handled that cucumber like a professional,” she said.

  “Didn’t you know? Before I joined the Berlin polenta, I was a green-grocer, in Leverkusen.”

  “Where the hell is Leverkusen?”

  “Didn’t you know? It’s a new town, on the Rhine. The center of the German chemical industry. What do you say we go there for the weekend and you can show me how grateful you are?”

  Frieda smiled. “We don’t have to go that far to go that far,” she said. “We only have to go upstairs. To room 102. That’s one of our VIP suites. Empty right now. But Charlie Chaplin once slept in room 102. So did Emil Jannings.” She smiled again. “But then neither of them had me around to help keep them awake.”

  IT WAS AROUND FOUR-THIRTY when I got back to the Alex. On my desk was a box of cucumbers. I waved one in the air as several of the KRIPO men in the detective room cheered and clapped. Otto Trettin, one of the best cops in the department and a specialist in criminal rings like the Always True, came over to my desk. There was a half-cucumber in his shoulder holster. He took it out, pointed it at me, and made a noise like a pistol shot.

  “Very funny.” I grinned and removed my jacket, then hung it on the back of my chair.

  “Where’s yours?” he asked. “Your gun, I mean.”

  “In the car.”

  “Well, that explains the cucumber, I suppose.”

  “Come on, Otto. You know how it is. When you wear a gun, you have to keep your jacket buttoned, and in this warm weather we’ve been having . . .”

  “You thought you could get away with it.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Seriously, Bernie. Now th
at you’ve gone up against Ricci Kamm, you’re going to have to watch your back. Your front, too, most likely.”

  “You think so?”

  “A man who puts Ricci Kamm in the Charité with a broken nose and a concussion had better start carrying a firearm or he’ll be wearing a knife between his shoulder blades. Even a cop.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I admitted.

  “Course I’m right. You live on Dragonerstrasse, don’t you, Bernie? That’s right on the doorstep of the Always True’s territory. A gun’s no good in the glove box, old man. Not unless you’re planning to hold up a garage.” And still shooting the cucumber in my direction, Otto walked away.

  “You should listen to him,” said a voice. “He knows what he’s talking about. When words fail, a gun can come in very handy.”

  It was Arthur Nebe, one of the slipperiest detectives in KRIPO. A former right-wing Freikorps man, he had been made a commissar in DIa within just two years of joining the force and had a formidable record of solving crimes. Nebe was a founding member of the NSBAG—the National Socialist Fellowship of Civil Servants—and was rumored to be a close friend of such leading Nazis as Goebbels, Count von Helldorf, and Kurt Daluege. Strangely, Nebe was also a friend of Bernard Weiss. There were other influential friends, in the SDP. And around the Alex it was generally held that Arthur Nebe had more options covered than the Berlin Stock Exchange.

  “Hello, Arthur,” I said. “What are you doing here? Is there not enough work in Political that you have to come and poach down here?”