‘So where is he now?’
‘Here in Vienna. In gaol. The Americans are putting him on trial for murder, and he will most certainly hang.’
‘That must be rather convenient for you,’ I said, sticking my neck out a little way. ‘Rather too convenient, if you ask me.’
‘Professional instinct, Bernie?’
‘Better just call it a hunch. That way, if I’m wrong it won’t make me look like an amateur.’
‘Still trusting your guts, eh?’
‘Most of all now that I’ve got something inside them again, Arthur. Vienna’s a fat city after Berlin.’
‘So you think we killed the American?’
‘That would depend on who he was, and if you had a good reason. Then all you would have to do is make sure they got someone’s coat for it. Someone you might want out of the way. That way you could get to hit two flies with one swat. Am I right?’
Nebe inclined his head to one side a little. ‘Perhaps. But don’t ever try to remind me of just how good a detective you were by doing something as stupid as proving it. It’s still a very sore point with some people in this section, so it might be best if you were to nail your beak about it altogether.
‘You know, if you really felt like playing detective, you might like to give us the benefit of your advice as to how we should go about finding one of our own missing persons. His name is Dr Karl Heim and he’s a dentist. A couple of our people were supposed to take him to Pullach early this morning, but when they went to his house there was no sign of him. Of course he may just have gone on the local cure,’ Nebe meant a tour of the bars, ‘but in this city there is always the possibility that the Ivans have snatched him. There are a couple of freelance gangs that the Russians have working here. In return they get concessions to sell black-market cigarettes. As far as we’ve been able to find out, both these gangs report to Becker’s Russian colonel. That’s probably how he got most of his supplies in the first place.’
‘Sure,’ I said, unnerved by this latest revelation of Becker’s involvement with Colonel Poroshin. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Speak to König,’ Nebe instructed, ‘give him some advice on how he might try and find Heim. If you get time, you could even give him some help.’
‘That’s simple enough,’ I said. ‘Anything else?’
‘Yes, I’d like you to come back here tomorrow morning. There’s one of our people who has specialized in all matters relating to the MVD. I have a feeling that he will be especially keen to talk to you about this source of yours. Shall we say ten o’clock?’
‘Ten o’clock,’ I repeated.
Nebe stood up and came round the table to shake my hand. ‘It’s good to see an old face, Bernie, even if it does look like my conscience.’
I smiled weakly and clasped his hand. ‘What’s past is past,’ I said.
‘Exactly so,’ he said, dropping a hand on to my shoulder. ‘Until tomorrow then. König will drive you back to town.’ Nebe opened the door and led the way down the stairs back to the front of the house. ‘I’m sorry to hear about that problem with your wife. I could arrange to have her sent some PX if you wanted.’
‘Don’t bother,’ I said quickly. The last thing I wanted was anyone from the Org turning up at my apartment in Berlin and asking Kirsten awkward questions she wouldn’t know how to answer. ‘She works in an American Café and gets all the PX she needs.’
In the hallway we found König playing with his dog.
‘Women,’ Nebe laughed. ‘It was a woman who bought König his dog, isn’t that so, Helmut?’
‘Yes, Herr General.’
Nebe bent down to tickle the dog’s stomach. It rolled over and presented itself submissively to Nebe’s fingers.
‘And do you know why she bought him a dog?’ I caught König’s embarrassed little crease of a smile, and I sensed that Nebe was about to crack a joke. ‘To teach the man obedience.’
I laughed right along with the two of them. But after only a few days’ closer acquaintance with König I thought that Lotte Hartmann would as soon have taught her boyfriend to recite the Torah.
31
The sky was grey by the time I got back to my rooms. I heard a handful of rain against the french windows, and seconds later there was a short flash and a huge clap of thunder that sent the pigeons on my terrace flying for cover. I stood and watched the storm as it rocked the trees and flooded the drains, discharging the atmosphere of all its surplus electrical energy until the air was clear and comfortable again.
Ten minutes later the birds were singing in the trees, as if in celebration of the purgative squall. There seemed much to envy them in this swift climatic cure, and I wished the pressure I felt on my own nerves could have been as easily resolved. Trying to keep one step ahead of all the lies, my own included, I was rapidly coming to the end of my own ingenuity, and I was in danger of losing the tempo of the whole affair. Not to mention my life.
It was about eight o’clock when I called Belinsky at Sacher’s, a hotel on Philharmonikerstrasse requisitioned by the military. I thought it might be too late to catch him, but he was there. He sounded relaxed, like he’d known all along that the Org would take his bait.
‘I said I’d call,’ I reminded him. ‘It’s a bit late, but I’ve been busy.’
‘No problem. Did they buy it? The information?’
‘Damn near took my hand off. König drove me to a house in Grinzing. Possibly it’s their headquarters here in Vienna, I’m not sure. It’s certainly grand enough.’
‘Good. Did you see anything of Müller?’
‘No. But I saw someone else.’
‘Oh? And who was that?’ Belinsky’s voice got cool.
‘Arthur Nebe.’
‘Nebe? Are you sure of that?’ He was excited now.
‘Of course I’m sure. I knew Nebe before the war. I thought he was dead. But this afternoon we spoke for almost an hour. He wants me to help König find our dentist friend, and to go back to Grinzing for a meeting tomorrow morning to discuss your Russian’s love letters. I’ve a hunch that Müller’s going to be there.’
‘How do you make that out?’
‘Nebe said that there would be someone there who specialized in all matters relating to the MVD.’
‘Yes, coming from Arthur Nebe that description might well fit Müller. What time is this meeting?’
‘Ten o’clock.’
‘That only gives me tonight to get things organized. Let me think for a minute.’ He was silent for so long that I wondered if he was still on the line. But then I heard him take a deep breath. ‘How far is the house from the road?’
‘Twenty or thirty metres at the front and the north side. Behind the house to the south is a vineyard. I couldn’t tell you how far the road is on that side. There’s a row of trees between the house and the vineyard. Some outbuildings as well.’ I gave him directions to the house as best I remembered them.
‘All right,’ he said briskly. ‘Here’s what we’ll do. After ten, I’ll start to have my men surround the place at a discreet distance. If Müller is there, you signal to us and we’ll close in and pick him up. That’s going to be the difficult part because they’ll be watching you closely. While you were there, did you happen to use the lavatory?’
‘No, but I walked past one on the first floor. If the meeting is in the library where I met Nebe, as I imagine it will be, that will be the one in use. It faces north, towards Josefstadt and the road. And there’s a window, with a beige roller blind. Perhaps I could use the blind to signal.’
There was another short silence. Then he said: ‘Twenty minutes past the hour, or as near as you can manage, you go to the music-room. When you’re in there you pull the blind down and count for five seconds, and then push it up for five seconds. Do it three times. I’ll be watching the place through binoculars, and when I see your signal I’ll sound the car horn three times. That will be the signal for my men to move in. Then you rejoin the meeting, sit tight and
wait for the cavalry.’
‘It sounds simple enough. A bit too simple really.’
‘Look, kraut, I would suggest that you hang your ass out of the window and whistle “Dixie” but that might attract attention.’ He gave an irritated sort of sigh. ‘A swoop like this needs a lot of paperwork, Gunther. I have to work out code names and get all kinds of special authorizations for a major field operation. And then there’s an investigation if the whole thing turns out to be a false alarm. I hope you’re right about Müller. You know, I’m going to be up all night arranging this little party.’
‘That really knocks over the heap,’ I said. ‘I’m the one on the beach and you’re bitching about some sand in the oil. Well, I’m really blue about your damned paperwork.’
Belinsky laughed. ‘Come on, kraut. Don’t get a hot throat about it. I just meant that it would be nice if we could be sure that Müller will be there. Be reasonable. We still don’t know for sure that he’s part of the Org’s set-up in Vienna.’
‘Sure we do,’ I lied. ‘This morning I went to the police prison and showed Emil Becker one of Müller’s snapshots. He identified him immediately as the man who was with König when he asked Becker to try and find Captain Linden. Unless Müller is just sweet on König, that means he must be part of the Org’s Vienna section.’
‘Shit,’ said Belinsky, ‘why didn’t I think of doing that? It’s so simple. He’s certain it was Müller?’
‘No doubt whatsoever.’ I strung him along like that for a while until I was sure of him. ‘All right, slow your blood down. As a matter of fact, Becker didn’t identify him at all. But he had seen the photograph before. Traudl Braunsteiner showed it to him. I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t you who gave it to her.’
‘You still don’t trust me yet, do you, kraut?’
‘If I’m going to walk into the lion’s den for you, I’m entitled to give you an eye-test beforehand.’
‘Yes, well that still leaves us with the problem of where Traudl Braunsteiner got hold of a picture of Gestapo Müller.’
‘From a Colonel Poroshin of MVD, I expect. He gave Becker a cigarette concession here in Vienna in return for information and the occasional bit of kidnapping. When Becker was approached by the Org he told Poroshin all about it and agreed to try and find out everything he could. After Becker was arrested, Traudl was their go-between. She just posed as his girlfriend.’
‘You know what this means, kraut?’
‘It means the Ivans are after Müller as well, right?’
‘But have you thought what would happen if they got him? Frankly there’s not much chance of him going on trial in the Soviet Union. Like I said before, Müller’s made a special study of Soviet police methods. No, the Russians want Müller because he can be very useful to them. He could, for instance, tell them who all the Gestapo’s agents in the NKVD were. Men who are probably still in place in the MVD.’
‘Let’s hope he’s there tomorrow then.’
‘You’d better tell me how to find this place.’
I gave him clear directions, and told him not to be late. ‘These bastards scare me,’ I explained.
‘Hey, you want to know something? All you krauts scare me. But not as much as the Russians.’ He chuckled in a way that I had almost started to like. ‘Goodbye, kraut,’ he said, ‘and good luck.’
Then he hung up, leaving me staring at the purring receiver with the curious sensation that the disembodied voice to which I had been speaking belonged nowhere outside my own imagination.
32
Smoke drifted up to the vaulted ceiling of the nightclub like the thickest underworld fog. It wreathed the solitary figure of Belinsky like Bela Lugosi emerged from a churchyard as he strode up to the table where I sat. The band I had been listening to could hold a beat about as well as a one-legged tap-dancer, but somehow he managed to walk to the rhythm it was generating. I knew he was still angry with me for doubting him, and that he was well aware of how, even now, I was trying to fathom why it was that he hadn’t thought to show Müller’s photograph to Becker. So I wasn’t very surprised when he took hold of my hair and banged my head twice on the table, telling me that I was just a suspicious kraut. I got up and staggered away from him towards the door, but found my exit blocked by Arthur Nebe. His presence there was so unexpected that I was momentarily unable to resist Nebe grasping me by both ears and banging my skull once against the door, and then once again for good luck, saying that if I hadn’t killed Traudl Braunsteiner then perhaps I ought to find out who had. I twisted my head free of his hands and said that I might as soon have guessed that Rumpelstiltskin’s name was Rumpelstiltskin.
I shook my head again, unwillingly, and blinked hard at the dark. There was another knock at the door, and I heard a half-whispered voice.
‘Who is it?’ I said, reaching for the bedside light, and then my watch. The name made no impression on me as I swung my legs out of bed and went into the sitting-room.
I was still swearing as I opened the door a little wider than was safe. Lotte Hartmann stood in the corridor, in the glistening black evening dress and astrakhan jacket I remembered her wearing from our last evening together. She had a questioning, impertinent sort of look in her eye.
‘Yes?’ I said. ‘What is it? What do you want?’
She sniffed with cool contempt and pushed the door lightly with her gloved hand, so I stepped back into the room. She came in, closed the door behind her and, leaning on it, looked around while my nostrils got a little exercise thanks to the smell of smoke, alcohol and perfume she carried on her venal body. ‘I’m sorry if I woke you up,’ she said. She didn’t look at me so much as the room.
‘No you’re not,’ I said.
Now she took a little trip around the floor, peering into the bedroom and then the bathroom. She moved with an easy grace and as confidently as any woman who is used to the constant sensation of having a man’s eyes fixed on her behind.
‘You’re right,’ she grinned, ‘I’m not sorry at all. You know, this place isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.’
‘Do you know what time it is?’
‘Very late.’ She giggled. ‘Your landlady wasn’t impressed with me at all. So I had to tell her I was your sister and that I had come all the way from Berlin to give you some bad news.’ She giggled again.
‘And you’re it?’
She pouted for a moment. But it was just an act. She was still too amused with herself to take much umbrage. ‘When she asked me if I had any luggage I said that the Russians had stolen it on the train. She was extremely sympathetic, and really rather sweet. I hope you’re not going to be different.’
‘Oh? I thought that’s why you were here. Or are the vice squad giving you problems again?’
She ignored the insult, always supposing she had even bothered to notice it. ‘Well, I was just on my way home from the Flottenbar — that’s on Mariahilferstrasse, do you know it?’
I didn’t say anything. I lit a cigarette and fixed it in a corner of my mouth to stop me snarling something at her.
‘Anyway, it’s not far from here. And I thought that I’d just drop by. You know —’ her tone grew softer and more seductive ‘— I haven’t had a chance to thank you properly,’ she let that one hang in the air for a second, and I suddenly wished that I was wearing a dressing-gown, ‘for getting me out of that little spot of bother with the Ivans.’ She untied the ribbon of her jacket and let it slip to the floor. ‘Aren’t you even going to offer me a drink?’
‘I’d say you’ve had enough.’ But I went ahead and found a couple of glasses anyway.
‘Don’t you think you’d like to find that out for yourself?’ She laughed easily and sat down without any hint of unsteadiness. She looked like the type who could take the stuff through the vein and still walk a chalk line without so much as a hiccup.
‘Do you want anything in it?’ I held a glass of vodka up as I asked the question.
‘Perhaps,’ she said ruminatively, ??
?after I’ve had my drink.’
I handed her the drink and put one quickly down into the pit of my stomach to hold the fort. I took another drag on my cigarette and hoped that it might fill me up enough to kick her out.
‘What’s the matter?’ she said, almost triumphantly. ‘Do I make you nervous or something?’
I guessed it was probably the something. ‘Not me,’ I said, ‘just my pyjamas. They’re not used to mixed company.’
‘From the look of them I’d say they were more used to mixing concrete.’ She helped herself to one of my cigarettes and blew a cord of smoke straight at my groin.
‘I could get rid of them if they bothered you,’ I said, stupidly. My lips were dry when they sucked at my cigarette again. Did I want her to leave or not? I wasn’t making a very good job of throwing her out on her perfect little ear.
‘Let’s talk a little first. Why don’t you sit down?’
I sat down, relieved that I could still fold in the middle.
‘All right,’ I said, ‘how about you tell me where your boyfriend is tonight?’
She grimaced. ‘Not a good subject, Perseus. Pick another.’
‘You two have a rattle?’
She groaned. ‘Do we have to?’
I shrugged. ‘It doesn’t make me itch a lot.’
‘The man’s a bastard,’ she said, ‘but I still don’t want to talk about it. Especially today.’
‘What’s so special about today?’
‘I got a part in a movie.’