Inside I passed the front desk with its brass bell and fusty old guest ledger and pine hutch of cheap fading porcelain birds. An old man in a cardigan puttered around in a back room. Amazing, how this country hotel had been restored to its former quaint obsolescence. The lobby’s main elevator was out of order so I went down a side hallway and found the employees lift, a constantly circling chain of wooden booths without doors, like so many oversized coffins. Each floor had two portals—one for up and one for down. At just the right moment you stepped—jumped, really—into a booth heading up or down and then out again as your floor passed. Paternoster, or the Lord’s Prayer, the Germans called these elevators. Most dangerous for rowdy kids and slow elderly, deadly if you entangled a limb between moving booth and elevator shaft.
A booth passed up beyond the ceiling and into the shaft, and another; the next booth showed, its floor met mine, I stepped in and rose into the darkness, the coffin-like booth twitching and rumbling all the while. Light again—third-floor passing. I stepped out, turned corners and found the main hallway with its deep-piled rug and copper sconces. I knew the way. The major’s new billet was the Imperial Suite, the same room where I’d thrown that poker game for the detachment and Horton’s GIs. It seemed so long ago now.
I approached the suite door and knocked with one knuckle. No one came. I leaned on the knob, and the door swung open. I peeked in. “Hello. Hello? Major, sir?”
In the center of the room stood an Empire-style table, a vase of red roses on it. I strode on in. “Major Membre, sir?” Nothing. I passed through to the study. It smelled sweet like the major’s Paris cologne. I kept going. The master bedroom door was wide open, a rectangle of dusty gray light. I went in.
My eyes swelled, my head seemed to shrink. At first I only saw the fine details—slimy blue veins on slippery red meat—then I saw the whole room yet nothing in focus. Just the red, the white of bone, the pink of flesh, the glaze of it all.
It was a corpse, a chopped-up corpse. Who was it? What was it? Man, woman?
“It can’t be, can’t be …”
Boom, booming. The construction had started again outside. I couldn’t breathe. I whirled around, taking it all in. Blood stained the walls, carpets, and sheets in splatters and pools, pools and splatters, sparkling with specks of construction dust from the open windows that looked out on the old wing. Now I was freezing, like in a butcher’s shop, but no butcher could make sense of this mess. What had they used? An axe? They made no attempt to be neat. I saw a flash of brocade, folds of red fabric, a wisp of white fur. I stepped forward, and again. My mouth opened to scream, but it didn’t scream; my pounding heart had risen up my throat, clogging it. I stepped back. Focus, Harry. Make some sense of this, any sense.
There was no smell. This was fresh. Bubbles rose from slits and holes. Fresh wouldn’t smell, especially if it was cold and drafty from windows left open—especially if someone remembered to leave the stomach intact, which it appeared to be, as best as I could make out. Someone knew what they were doing. He meant this. For keeps.
All right. So it’s happened. Get yourself together. You’re Public Safety.
The gold brocade, the white fur—it was the papal costume. Grimacing, my mouth as dry as bark dust, I tiptoed forward, peering around for a sign. Any clues? Tiptoeing, tiptoeing. My toes met something hard, under more gold brocade. I lifted the fabric: The face of Major Membre, eyes open blank. A red footprint across his lips.
I wheezed and gasped and stumbled back, slipped on the slime all around and fell. I crawled out and backed down the hallway, feeling my way along the walls. Gasping more, hyperventilating, I found the Paternoster. The booth rising was only halfway up, but I dove in landing in a ball on the floor as the booth wobbled on upward. All dark now. The booth came around the top of the shaft, peaking up here, ready to plummet. Splinters of light flashed on thick flat belts and mighty, oily gears. I squeezed my eyes shut, head spinning. Next thing I knew I was passing more floors, but going up again. How? The place only had three floors. Had I blacked out? I was stuck in this chain of coffins, this goddamn runaway amusement ride. “Help!” I screamed, “Help!” I passed the third floor and heard others screaming, saw blood on the hallway wallpaper. From my hands? I passed the mighty gears again and back down. Third floor again—still the screaming, and servants rushing by. First floor came—halfway down I jumped out and hit my forehead on the frame; my feet dangled under the next booth coming down, I pulled them free and the booth passed. People rushed me, tugging at me and screaming in German and English, neither of which I seemed to understand like one of those nightmares where everyone talks but it’s all gibberish, baby talk, pidgin twaddle, and my screams came out like smothered moans.
I pushed at them shouting, “It wasn’t me!” I scrambled through the lobby for the front steps. Daylight hit my eyes, twirling me around. I was dizzy, spinning again, my head pounding. I couldn’t hear at all. I tumbled down and the sky dimmed and even the sun went black.
When I came to, I was kissing cobblestone. Face down on the square. My hands and chest were warm and moist. My mouth burned and my teeth felt as if stripped by Turpentine. I’d vomited. I lay in my own vomit. Hands grabbed at me, pulling me up. A boom of voices pounded my ears. “The man’s in shock!” someone said in German. A crowd of civs stood over me. I saw Police Chief Jenke and two new recruits, then a couple Joes from the detachment. They propped me against the steps and I sat up, staring down my front. Blood had mixed with my vomit—the major’s blood, in splatters and splotches from my chest to my toes.
“He killed him,” I muttered, “somebody killed him I mean.”
Glances exchanged. Hands patted me on the shoulder, carefully.
“It wasn’t me, Jesus, it was not me!” I shouted, gasping again.
Uli Winkl was there now shouting, “Give the poor devil air!”
Lt. Carlson had pushed his way through. He crouched next to me and said, speaking low, “It must have happened right before you arrived.” I nodded, uh-huh. That was it. “So, this is important: Did you see anyone on your way in? Anything suspicious. Investigators will need to know.”
I started to breathe better and, as I did, I understood how this was playing out. How it would have to play out. It was the only way and always had been. It was as sharp as the vomit burn on my tongue.
“Hammerstein,” I heard myself say. “I saw that bastard Hammerstein, hustling right out of here down these very steps. Passed right by me without saying a word, too. Can you believe the gall? So that was strange, yeah, real fishy. And I remember he was humming, humming like some damned crazy man just escaped …”
Twenty
CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION DIVISION had come later that evening after dark. There were two CID men, both with those bland, unmoved faces of midlevel officers treading along in a sea of authority and protocols. They had hidden me and kept me under watch for two days. The first day, they gave me my own suite room in the otherwise crowded hospital. The second day I spent in an old town Heimgau cellar bar called the Amerika Klub. Certain Displaced Persons and ethnic German refugees had opened the tiny “AK” as a way to convert their black market margins into insurance for an uncertain future. Here the target catch was sightseeing American officers with holes burning in their pockets. The lure, stateside swank. Walls were mirrored, pillars paneled with black Vitrolite glass, the bar polished chromium. There was even a neon Miller Beer sign though the Champagne of Beers could not be had unless you knew a guy, and the only German brews going were thinned-out near-beers on account of the grain shortages. So it was all hard juice and overpriced. Latch a Fräulein on a chump’s arm and they had a sure thing going. Socko.
It was late afternoon, pushing evening. Since early morning my two CID men had detained me in a dark corner of the AK, in a low and wide velvet club chair that faced the door. A smoking stand stood at my knees, stabbed with so many of my butts it looked like a porcupine. They had requisitioned the AK just for yours truly. They had pick
ed it, they told me, because it was central, easy to watch over, and comfortable for all concerned. I’d told myself I would never set foot in this shifty hole, and yet here I was. They even brought along two MPs to stand at the door, just for me.
How dare they keep me locked away like some enemy general or turncoat spy. It was just like the Alien Control Board had done to my father back home. CID said it was for my sake since the murderer may still be out there and I was next in command. Now that’s a load of bull, I wanted to shout. Yet I did no shouting. I kept quiet. And I bit my tongue so much I practically chewed it right down.
Glasses had accumulated on one side of me and magazines and newspapers on the other, few of which I’d read. On the chair arm lay the new MG-run newspaper—the Münchner Zeitung, open to page two. The headline read:
MG DET. COMMANDER BRUTALLY MURDERED IN HEIMGAU
…investigations indicate that an East Prussian refugee, Lothar Hammerstein, a former Nazi Party member and Sudetenland Hitler Youth leader, murdered Maj. Membre to cover up revelations of his past not entered in his Nazi background questionnaire. Hammerstein fled and was apprehended trying to enter Munich…
Then, the CID men told me I was free to go. They took their MPs and they drove away.
I stayed down in the AK a little while. I had gotten used to this flashy yet dim dungeon of mine. It let me think. I wondered if the man born as Virgil Eugene Tercel and now calling himself Lt. Colonel Eugene Spanner even knew I was down here. I was sure that he did. He seemed to know it all.
The door burst open flashing sunlight. The man himself strode in wearing a brown pinstripe double-breasted suit. There he was, my very own sham CIC agent. His eyes found mine. I raised my Lucky in salute.
“Captain,” Spanner said, his voice solemn. He sat on the arm of the chair next to me. “So. How you faring? You look like heck.”
About time you showed, I wanted to say. I’ve been waiting for this. But my throat was tight, my chin like stone. I sucked on my cigarette. “I’ll make it.”
“You’re cooling off down here.”
“Yeah, that’s it. On ice.”
Spanner patted my knee, with his right hand. “All right, now, all right. Let’s get a drink, kid.” We settled into a corner booth. “They keep you here the whole day?”
I nodded.
“The air is foul in here,” Spanner said.
I shrugged. I blew more smoke and flicked into the ashtray.
Spanner looked around. At the bar a GI waiter in a white vest was polishing a glass with a cloth, chatting up the authorized Fräulein whose legs had wound around a bar stool.
Spanner barked at him: “Boy! One bourbon, one scotch. Top shelf and neat.”
GI waiter jumped. “Pronto, sir.” And a bartender appeared, snapping fingers.
“I don’t drink it neat,” I said.
“I drink it neat. Only way to taste the fine likker.”
As we waited Spanner tapped on the table, again with his right hand. I wanted a look at his deformed left hand, but he kept it to his side or in his pocket. He probably always had. I smoked, saying nothing, and the colonel didn’t push it. Of course, he was no colonel, but right now I had to think of him that way, just in case he could read my thoughts. I could give away no tell, not a one.
“Sirs.” GI waiter set down the drinks and a dish of cashews and hurried off.
I moved to lift my drink. Spanner grabbed my wrist and squeezed. “Now. Why the mopey pose, huh? What are you trying to pull?”
“Pull?”
Spanner kept squeezing, turning. He was using his left hand. I glared back at him and let the pain burn. I could see the missing middle finger, with just enough stub to make it look like a full finger when fisted. The thumb was withered but tapered, like a claw. It had clamped on me.
“Do not fuck with me,” he shrieked, his temple veins pulsing red. This made GI waiter and bartender disappear in back, and the Fräulein unwound her legs and scooted for the door, snatching cigarette butts on the way. Spanner loosened his grip. “You’re brooding, okay. But it’s time to regroup now, don’t you think? Turn the corner some? Spooked is one thing but cold feet is another, of that I can assure you.” He let go.
I rubbed at my wrist, at the dent left by his claw-thumb. He could’ve punctured me with it, his nail was long enough. I didn’t need to see his left hand anymore. I gulped down half my glass, eyeing the room, anything but look at that hand. To my surprise, the top shelf bourbon was fine neat, rich and silky and hinting of smoke. I took another drink. “Brooding? Let’s call it rattled. Playacting it, see. It only happened two days ago, sir. So appearance is key. Right?”
Spanner sat back, nodding. “All right, all right.” He tasted his scotch and licked at his lips. “How did the interviews go?”
“Oh, rough, sir. Real rough.”
Spanner fought a grin, or maybe it was a grimace. His knee wanted to bounce, and he pressed it down. “What they ask?”
“Ask? How’s the coffee? Would I rather have a drink or maybe a hot plate of hearty grub? I jawed on, they listened—like wolves. Yeah. Real buncha bulls, CID really take it out of a man. One even slipped me a five-spot, asked me if I had any SS daggers to sell.”
It was a grin now and Spanner let it fly. “Ha! Don’t say. Really put the screws on you?”
“Yeah, and I was one rat fink.” I was snickering. I made myself snicker. “I guess they’re just not the toughs that everyone makes them out to be.”
And Spanner nodded along to my words, his knee slowing down.
This was all the confirmation I needed. I had no way of knowing just who was in his pocket. After all, his CID Wanted Report had been made to go away, Major Membre had found out. So I had to keep playing along, even when the CID questioned me, even when it all made my stomach roll and want to choke up my own gut right into my lap.
It burned under my skin though. I just couldn’t let it ride. I had to test him a little.
“See, they want the real hatchet man like they want the dose,” I added. “They seem to collect Nazis, so a cretin like Hammerstein made it pretty much cut and dried.”
“That’s their game now, collecting Nazis. Denazification, where the glory is. War crimes are the next big thing.”
“You know what that newspaper article doesn’t say? Way the major died. He was chopped into chunks. A real demo job. But I guess you know that, huh?”
Spanner shrugged. “Membre had a heap of skeletons in his closet. I told you that. People probably had it in for him. If you ask me, this was the result of some sordid lover’s quarrel, but his lover being no lady, if you know what I mean. I mean if it wasn’t Hammerstein …”
“You mean, did I offer them any alternatives? No. Any clues would’ve been too weak, even if they had felt more like snooping. In the room they did find tanker coveralls, gloves and booties, a head sock.”
“Kept hisself real clean, that Hammerstein.”
“Right. Spotless.”
Spanner stretched out. He unbuttoned his jacket and found his reflection in the mirrors. “Mirrors or no, this is still a cave. You know ole Horton has a stake in this here honkey-tonk? He thinks Heimgau’s going to become a travel destination for us Yanks. What he done called it too, the big goof—a ‘travel destination.’” Spanner’s possibly fake Georgia accent sang now, but his smile had changed. It had become a scowl to me, full of those mighty teeth. He slid a stick of his licorice gum between his teeth. Blackjack. He offered me a butterscotch candy from his pocket, but I declined and he popped that in his mouth too. He chewed and smacked and hummed, sucking on the gum and clacking the candy against his teeth. “We’re all trading up. Damn, if I haven’t gone and moved again. Four Seasons was top-notch, but I need my privacy. Still in Munich. But it’s the Nymphenburg Palace now and boy is it dandy.”
I lifted my glass in toast.
“Yep, ole Schloss Nymphenburg has been req-quee-sitioned.” Spanner chuckled, outstretching his arms along the booth. I couldn’t
believe I had once felt awkward in this man’s presence, like the poor kid stuck with a rich relative. And I’d even gone so far as to consider the colonel noble, honorable? The more he droned on, the more he proved obnoxious, conceited, patronizing. His Gone With the Wind accent was less authentic than my American English, I was sure of it. You want the world? Play up what worked for you.
“How did you get in here?” I said. “I heard the CID doesn’t care for CIC agents.”
“I showed them my CIC card. Doesn’t matter if they care or not.” Spanner called for two warmed brandies. I hated brandy. He threw back his scotch with one hand and hoisted the brandy snifter with the other. He swirled the copper liquid, smiling at the legs on the glass. “So, it’s settled. You are in,” he said. He didn’t say it like a question.
“I am in. I am all in.”
There, I said it. I was waiting days to say it. What else could I say?
“That’s grand. And you’re just in time too, because I’ve ironed out the last bugs.” Spanner leaned over and rubbed at my shoulder with his broad right thumb, his lead eyes giving off a little spark. Within this moment the man seemed to care, about something. “You feel bitter. Because of what’s happened. Little bit ashamed. Is that it?”
“No. I will never be that.” I lifted the glass and drank, letting the brandy burn.
Spanner clinked his glass against mine. “Our train, guess where she is? She’s hidden up in Dollendorf. Been there all along.”
“What? I was up there. I told you. Nothing but rusty old warehouses. Refugees won’t even camp there.”
“Behind Dollendorf, I should have said. You see, about the time my granddaddies were fighting Yankees at Bull Run, that place was part of a mining operation.”
“A mine? There’s no mine. Wait … There’s a hill behind, on through the woods. A rocky hill.”
“That’s exactly right. This Dollendorf used to be a salt mining village, but it went belly up before the last century was out. After the Great War they tried to build tractors there but laid an egg, so folks think it’s nothing more than an abandoned tractor shop. But, out from the rear side of the rail shelter? Train tracks keep on going straight into the forest. Pretty well covered by underbrush, yet they still do run through and into that rocky hill—or into a tunnel in the hill, I should say. Follow me? Your rocky hill is what they call a salt dome.”
Liberated Page 18