‘Suppose Veronika doesn’t know this Lotte. What then?’
‘Suppose you think of a better idea.’
Belinsky shrugged. ‘On the other hand, your scheme has its points.’
‘Here’s another thing. Both Abs and Eddy Holl, who was Becker’s contact in Berlin, are working for a company that’s based in Pullach, near Munich. The South German Industries Utilization Company. You might like to try and find out something about it. Not to mention why Abs and Holl decided to move there.’
‘They wouldn’t be the first two krauts to go and live in the American Zone,’ said Belinsky. ‘Haven’t you noticed? Relations are starting to get a shade difficult with our Communist allies. The news from Berlin is that they’ve started to tear up a lot of the roads connecting the east and west sectors of the city.’ His face made plain his lack of enthusiasm, and then added: ‘But I’ll see what I can turn up. Anything else?’
‘Before I left Berlin I came across a couple of amateur Nazi-hunters named Drexler. Linden used to take them Care parcels now and again. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were working for him: everyone knows that’s how the CIC pays its way. It would help if we knew who they had been looking for.’
‘Can’t we ask them?’
‘It wouldn’t do much good. They’re dead. Someone slipped a tray-load of Zyklon-B pellets underneath their door.’
‘Give me their address anyway.’ He took out a notepad and pencil.
When I had given it to him he pursed his lips and rubbed his jaw. His was an impossibly broad face, with thick horns of eyebrows that curved halfway round his eye-sockets, some small animal’s skull for a nose and intaglio laugh-lines which, added to his square chin and sharply angled nostrils, completed a perfectly septagonal figure: the overall impression was of a ram’s head resting on a V-shaped plinth.
‘You were right,’ he admitted. ‘It’s not much of a hand, is it? But it’s still better than the one I folded on.’
With the pipe clenched tight between his teeth, he crossed his arms and stared down at his glass. Perhaps it was his choice of drink, or perhaps it was his hair, styled longer than the crew-cut favoured by the majority of his countrymen, but he seemed curiously un-American.
‘Where are you from?’ I said eventually.
‘Williamsburg, New York.’
‘Belinsky,’ I said, measuring each syllable. ‘What kind of a name is that for an American?’
The man shrugged, unperturbed. ‘I’m first-generation American. My dad’s from Siberia originally. His family emigrated to escape one of the Tsar’s Jewish pogroms. You see, the Ivans have got a tradition of anti-Semitism that’s almost as good as yours. Belinsky was Irving Berlin’s name before he changed it. And as names for Americans go, I don’t think a yid-name like that sounds any worse than a kraut-name like Eisenhower, do you?’
‘I guess not.’
‘Talking of names, if you do speak to the MPs again it might be better if you didn’t mention me, or the CIC, to them. On account of the fact that they recently screwed up an operation we had going. The MVD managed to steal some US Military Police uniforms from the battalion HQ at the Stiftskaserne. They put them on and persuaded the MPs at the 19th Bezirk station to help them arrest one of our best informers in Vienna. A couple of days later another informant told us that the man was being interrogated at MVD headquarters in Mozartgasse. Not long after that we learned he had been shot. But not before he talked and gave away several other names.
‘Well, there was an almighty row, and the American High Commissioner had to kick some ass for the poor security of the 796th. They court-martialled a lieutenant and broke a sergeant back to the ranks. As a result of which me being CIC is tantamount to having leprosy in the eyes of the Stiftskaserne. I suppose you might find that hard to understand, you being German.’
‘On the contrary,’ I said. ‘I’d say being treated like lepers is something we krauts understand only too well.’
17
The water arriving in the tap from the Styrian Alps tasted cleaner than the squeak of a dentist’s fingers. I carried a glassful of it from the bathroom to answer the telephone ringing in my sitting-room, and sipped some more while I waited for Frau Blum-Weiss to switch the call through.
‘Well, good-morning,’ Shields said with affected enthusiasm. ‘I hope I got you out of bed.’
‘I was just cleaning my teeth.’
‘And how are you today?’ he said, still refusing to come to the point.
‘A slight headache, that’s all.’ I had drunk too much of Belinsky’s favourite liquor.
‘Well, blame it on the föhn,’ suggested Shields, referring to the unseasonably warm and dry wind that occasionally descended on Vienna from the mountains. ‘Everyone else in this city blames all kinds of strange behaviour on it. But all I notice is that it makes the smell of horseshit even worse than usual.’
‘It’s nice to talk to you again, Shields. What do you want?’
‘Your friend Abs didn’t get to Munich. We’re pretty sure he got on the train, only there was no sign of him at the other end.’
‘Maybe he got off somewhere else.’
‘The only stop that train makes is in Salzburg, and we had that covered too.’
‘Perhaps someone threw him off. While the train was still moving.’ I knew only too well how that happened.
‘Not in the American Zone.’
‘Well, that doesn’t start until you get to Linz. There’s over a hundred kilometres of Russian Lower Austria between here and your zone. You said yourself that you’re sure he got on the train. So what else does that leave?’ Then I recalled what Belinsky had said about the poor security of the US Military Police. ‘Of course, it’s possible he simply gave your men the slip. That he was too clever for them.’
Shields sighed. ‘Sometime, Gunther, when you’re not too busy with your old Nazi comrades, I’ll drive you out to the DP camp at Auhof and you can see all the illegal Jewish emigrants who thought they were too smart for us.’ He laughed. ‘That is, if you’re not scared that you might be recognized by someone from a concentration camp. It might even be fun to leave you there. Those Zionists don’t have my sense of humour about the SS.’
‘I’d certainly miss that, yes.’
There was a soft, almost furtive knock at the door.
‘Look, I’ve got to go.’
‘Just watch your step. If I so much as think that I can smell shit on your shoes I’ll throw you in the cage.’
‘Yes, well, if you do smell something it’ll probably just be the föhn.’
Shields laughed his ghost-train laugh and then hung up.
I went to the door and let in a short, shifty-looking type who brought to mind the print of a portrait by Klimt that was hanging in the breakfast-room. He wore a brown, belted raincoat, trousers that seemed a little short of his white socks and, barely covering his head of long fair hair, a small, black Tyrolean that was loaded with badges and feathers. Somewhat incongruously, his hands were enclosed in a large woollen muff.
‘What are you selling, swing?’ I asked him.
The shifty look turned suspicious. ‘Aren’t you Gunther?’ he drawled in an improbable voice that was as low as a stolen bassoon.
‘Relax,’ I said, ‘I’m Gunther. You must be Becker’s personal gunsmith.’
‘S’right. Name’s Rudi.’ He glanced around and grew easier. ‘You alone in this watertight?’
‘Like a hair on a widow’s tit. Have you brought me a present?’
Rudi nodded and with a sly grin pulled one of his hands out of the muff. It held a revolver and it was pointed at my morning croissant. After a short, uncomfortable moment his grin widened and he released the handgrip to let the gun hang by the trigger-guard on his forefinger.
‘If I stay in this city I’m going to have to shop for a new sense of humour,’ I said, taking the revolver from him. It was a .38 Smith with a six-inch barrel and the words ‘Military and Police’ clearly engraved in the
black finish. ‘I suppose the bull who owned this let you have it for a few packets of cigarettes.’ Rudi started to answer, but I got there first. ‘Look, I told Becker a clean gun, not Exhibit A in a murder trial.’
‘That’s a new gun,’ Rudi said indignantly. ‘Squeeze your eye down the barrel. It’s still greased: hasn’t been fired yet. I swear them at the top don’t even know it’s missing.’
‘Where did you get it?’
‘The Arsenal Warehouse. Honest, Herr Gunther, that gun’s as clean as they come these days.’
I nodded reluctantly. ‘Did you bring any ammunition?’
‘There’s six in it,’ he said, and taking his other hand out of the muff laid a miserly handful of cartridges on to the sideboard, next to my two bottles from Traudl. ‘And these.’
‘What, did you buy them off the ration?’
Rudi shrugged. ‘All I could get for the moment, I’m afraid.’ Eyeing the vodka he licked his lips.
‘I’ve had my breakfast,’ I told him, ‘but you help yourself.’
‘Just to keep the cold out, eh?’ he said and poured a nervous glassful, which he quickly swallowed.
‘Go ahead and have another. I never stand between a man and a good thirst.’ I lit a cigarette and went over to the window. Outside, a Pan’s pipes of icicles hung from the edge of the terrace roof. ‘Especially on a day as chilly as this one.’
‘Thanks,’ said Rudi, ‘thanks a lot.’ He smiled thinly, and poured a second, steadier glass, which he sipped at slowly. ‘So how’s it coming along? The investigation, I mean.’
‘If you’ve got any ideas I’d love to hear them. Right now the fish aren’t exactly jumping on to the riverbank.’
Rudi flexed his shoulders. ‘Well, the way I see it is that this Ami captain, the one that took the 71 —’
He paused while I made the connection: the number 71 was the tram that went to the Central Cemetery. I nodded for him to continue.
‘Well, he must have been involved in some kind of racket. Think about it,’ he instructed, warming to his subject. ‘He goes to a warehouse with some coat, and the place is stacked high with nails. I mean, why did they go there in the first place? It couldn’t have been because the killer planned to shoot him there. He wouldn’t have done it near his stash, would he? They must have gone to look at the merchandise, and had an argument.’
I had to admit there was something in what he said. I thought for a minute. ‘Who sells cigarettes in Austria, Rudi?’
‘Apart from everyone?’
‘The main black-siders.’
‘Excepting Emil, there’s the Ivans; a mad American staff sergeant who lives in a castle near Salzburg; a Romanian Jew here in Vienna; and an Austrian named Kurtz. But Emil was the biggest. Most people have heard the name of Emil Becker in that particular connection.’
‘Do you think it’s possible that one of them could have framed Emil, to take him out of competition?’
‘Sure. But not at the expense of losing all those nails. Forty cases of cigarettes, Herr Gunther. That’s big loss for someone to take.’
‘When exactly was this tobacco factory on Thaliastrasse robbed?’
‘Months ago.’
‘Didn’t the MPs have any idea who could have done it? Didn’t they have any suspects?’
‘Not a chance. Thaliastrasse is in the 16th Bezirk, part of the French sector. The French MPs couldn’t catch drip in this city.’
‘What about the local bulls — the Vienna police?’
Rudi shook his head firmly. ‘Too busy fighting with the state police. The Ministry of the Interior has been trying to have the state mob absorbed into the regular force, but the Russians don’t like it and are trying to fuck the thing up. Even if it means wrecking the whole force.’ He grinned. ‘I can’t say I’d be sorry. No, the locals are almost as bad as the Frenchies. To be honest, the only bulls that are worth a damn in this city are the Amis. Even the Tommies are pretty stupid if you ask me.’
Rudi glanced at one of the several watches he had strapped to his arm. ‘Look, I’ve got to go, otherwise I’ll miss my pitch at Ressel. That’s where you’ll find me every morning if you need to, Herr Gunther. There, or at the Hauswirth Café on Favoritenstrasse during the afternoon.’ He drained his glass. ‘Thanks for the drink.’
‘Favoritenstrasse,’ I repeated, frowning. ‘That’s in the Russian sector, isn’t it?’
‘True,’ said Rudi. ‘But it doesn’t make me a Communist.’ He raised his little hat and smiled. ‘Just prudent.’
18
The sad aspect to her face, with its downcast eyes and the tilt of her thickening jaw, not to mention her cheap and secondhand-looking clothes, made me think that Veronika could not have made much out of being a prostitute. And certainly there was nothing about the cold, cavern-sized room she rented in the heart of the city’s red-light district that indicated anything other than an eked-out, hand-to-mouth kind of existence.
She thanked me again for helping her and, having inquired solicitously after my bruises, proceeded to make a pot of tea while she explained that one day she was planning to become an artist. I looked through her drawings and watercolours without much enjoyment.
Profoundly depressed by my gloomy surroundings, I asked her how it was that she had ended up on the sledge. This was foolish, because it never does to challenge a whore about anything, least of all her own immorality, and my only excuse was that I felt genuinely sorry for her. Had she once had a husband who had seen her frenching an Ami in a ruined building for a couple of bars of chocolate?
‘Who said I was on the sledge?’ she responded tartly.
I shrugged. ‘It’s not coffee that keeps you up half the night.’
‘Maybe so. All the same, you won’t find me working in one of those places on the Gürtel where the numbers just walk up the stairs. And you won’t find me selling it on the street outside the American Information Office, or the Atlantis Hotel. Chocolady I may be, but I’m no sparkler. I have to like the gentleman.’
‘That won’t stop you getting hurt. Like last night, for instance. Not to mention venereal disease.’
‘Listen to yourself,’ she said with amused contempt. ‘You sound just like one of those bastards in the vice squad. They pick you up, have a doctor examine you for a dose and then give you a lecture on the perils of drip. You’re beginning to sound like a bull.’
‘Maybe the police are right. Ever think of that?’
‘Well, they never found anything wrong with me. Nor will they.’ She smiled a shrewd little smile. ‘Like I said, I’m careful. I have to like the gentleman. Which means I won’t do Ivans or niggers.’
‘Nobody ever heard of an Ami or a Tommy with syphilis, I suppose.’
‘Look, you play the percentages.’ She scowled. ‘What the hell do you know about it anyway? Saving my ass doesn’t give you the right to read me the Ten Commandments, Bernie.’
‘You don’t have to be a swimmer to throw someone a life-preserver. I’ve met enough snappers in my time to know that most of them started out as selective as you. Then someone comes along and beats the shit out of them, and the next time, with the landlord chasing for his rent, they can’t afford to be quite as choosy. You talk about percentages. Well, there’s not much percentage in french for ten schillings when you’re forty. You’re a nice girl, Veronika. If there were a priest around he’d maybe think you were worth a short homily, but since there isn’t you’ll have to make do with me.’
She smiled sadly and stroked my hair. ‘You’re not so bad. Not that I have any idea why you think it necessary. I’m really quite all right. I’ve got money saved. Soon I’ll have enough to get myself into an art-school somewhere.’
I thought it just as likely that she would win a contract to repaint the Sistine Chapel, but I felt my mouth force its way up to a politely optimistic sort of smile. ‘Sure you will,’ I said. ‘Look, maybe I can help. Maybe we can help each other.’ It was a hopelessly flat-footed way of manoeuvring the conver
sation back to the main purpose of my visit.
‘Maybe,’ she said, serving the tea. ‘One more thing and then you can give me a blessing. The vice squad has got files on over 5,000 girls in Vienna. But that’s not even half of it. These days everyone has to do things that were once unthinkable. You too, probably. There’s not much percentage in going hungry. And even less in going back to Czechoslovakia.’
‘You’re Czech?’
She sipped some of her tea, then took a cigarette from the packet I had given her the night before and collected a light.
‘According to my papers I was born in Austria. But the fact is that I’m Czech: a Sudeten German-Jew. I spent most of the war hiding out in lavatories and attics. Then I was with the partisans for a while, and after that a DP camp for six months before I escaped across the Green Frontier.
‘Have you heard of a place called Wiener Neustadt? No? Well, it’s a town about fifty kilometres outside Vienna, in the Russian Zone, with a collection centre for Soviet repatriations. There are 60,000 of them waiting there at any one time. The Ivans screen them into three groups: enemies of the Soviet Union are sent to labour camps; those they can’t actually prove are enemies are sent to work outside the camps — so either way you end up as some kind of slave labour; unless, that is, you’re the third group and you’re sick or old or very young, in which case you’re shot right away.’
She swallowed hard and took a long drag of her cigarette. ‘Do you want to know something? I think I would sleep with the whole of the British Army if it meant that the Russians couldn’t claim me. And that includes the ones with syphilis.’ She tried a smile. ‘But as it happens I have a medical friend who got me a few bottles of penicillin. I dose myself with it now and again just to be on the safe side.’
‘That sounds expensive.’
‘Like I said, he’s a friend. It costs me nothing that could be spent on the reconstruction.’ She picked up the teapot. ‘Would you like some more tea?’