The Boy Who Followed Ripley

  Tom nodded, and pocketed his list of banks. “Yes.”

  Eric put on a jacket. “Let us go.”

  Tom picked up the empty suitcase, Eric double-locked his door, and they went down Eric’s stairs.

  Peter was sitting in his car at the curb, and Eric’s Mercedes was parked not far from Eric’s doorway. Eric got into Peter’s passenger seat, and motioned for Tom to get into the backseat.

  “I have to explain this behind closed doors,” Eric said to Peter. Then he said in German that Tom had to call at three banks now to collect some money for the kidnappers’ ransom, and would Peter drive them, or should they all go in his, Eric’s, car?

  Peter glanced at Tom with a smile. “My car, all right.”

  “You have your gun, Peter?” Eric asked, laughing a little. “I hope we shall not need it!”

  “Right here, ja,” said Peter, pointing to his glove box, and he smiled as if it would be an absurdity to use it under these circumstances, when Tom’s collecting of the money had been authorized.

  They decided at once on the ADCA Bank at Europa-Center first, since the other two banks were on the Ku’damm and on the way back to Eric’s apartment house. They were able to park quite near the ADCA Bank, because there was a curved parking area in front of the Hotel Palace meant for patrons of the hotel and for taxis coming and going. This bank was open. Tom went alone to the bank doors, and he did not take the suitcase with him.

  Tom gave his name to the receptionist, and said in English that the manager was expecting him. The girl spoke into a telephone, then indicated a door at the rear on Tom’s left. It was opened by a blue-eyed man in his fifties, with gray hair, straight posture, and a pleasant smile. A man carrying a few briefcases, who had been in the room, departed almost at once, giving Tom no special look, which made Tom feel easier.

  “Mr Ripley? Good morning,” the man said in English. “Would you like to sit down?”

  “Good morning, sir.” Tom did not at once take the leather armchair that was offered, but took his passport from his pocket. “May I? My passport.”

  Standing behind his desk, the Herr Direktor or manager put on his spectacles and looked at the passport carefully, compared the photograph with Tom’s face, then sat down and made a note on a pad. “Thank you.” He handed the passport back to Tom, and pressed a button on his desk. “Fred? Alles in Ordnung.— Ja, bitte.” The man folded his hands and looked at Tom with still smiling but slightly puzzled eyes. Then the same man Tom had seen before came in, bearing two large tan envelopes. The door closed behind him automatically with a deep click, and Tom felt it was extremely locked.

  “Would you care to count the money?” asked the Herr Direktor.

  “I’m sure I should take a look,” Tom said politely, as if accepting a canapé at a party, but he had no desire to count all that. He opened the two manila envelopes, which had been closed with rubber bands, and saw that they contained bundles of DM held by brown paper strips. Tom saw what looked like at least twenty little bundles in one envelope, and both envelopes seemed of equal weight. The notes were all of one thousand DM each.

  “One million five hundred thousand DM,” said the Herr Direktor. “One hundred such notes in each band.”

  Tom was riffling through the end of one bundle, which looked to be a hundred. Tom nodded, wondering if the bank had noted serial numbers, but he did not want to ask. Let the kidnappers worry. The kidnappers must have said nothing about denomination either, or Thurlow surely would have told him. “I shall believe you.”

  The two Germans smiled, and the man who had brought the envelope left the room.

  “And the receipt,” said the Herr Direktor.

  Tom signed a receipt for one million five hundred thousand DM, and the manager initialed it, kept the carbon, and handed Tom the top paper. Tom was on his feet, and extended his hand. “Thank you.”

  “Have a nice stay in Berlin,” the Herr Direktor said, as he shook Tom’s hand.

  “Thank you.” The man’s words had sounded as if he thought Tom might be intending to have a spree on the money he was taking away. Tom tucked the thick envelopes under his arm.

  The manager looked amused. Was he thinking of a joke he would tell at lunch, or was he going to tell a story about an American picking up nearly a million dollars in marks and walking out with it under his arm? “Would you like an escort to where you are going?”

  “No, thanks,” said Tom.

  Tom walked through the bank without looking at anyone. Eric sat in Peter’s car, and Peter stood smoking a cigarette with one hand in his trousers pocket, his face turned up to the sunlight.

  “Alles gut gegangen?” asked Peter, seeing the envelope.

  “Fine,” Tom said. In the backseat, he opened the suitcase, stuck the envelopes in, and zipped it closed. Tom noticed that Eric was glancing about at people on the pavement as they moved off. Tom did not. Tom deliberately yawned, leaned back, and watched Peter make a left turn that brought them into the Kurfürstendamm.

  The next two banks were rather near to each other on the broad avenue, which was neatly bordered by its young trees. All chromium and sparkling glass shop fronts again. The edifices Tom wanted were also brand-new and had their names in broad letters above their windows, which were perhaps bulletproof. Peter had stopped in front of one bank at a corner, where there was no parking meter free, but Eric said he would be outside somewhere on the pavement to tell Tom where the car was, when Tom came out.

  This transaction went as the first: the receptionist, a manager, Tom’s passport for identification, and then the money and the receipt for the same sum as that of the ADCA Bank. This time the money was in a single larger envelope. Again Tom was asked if he wished to count it, and Tom declined. Would he like a bank guard to accompany him to his destination?

  “No, thank you,” Tom said.

  “Shall I seal the envelope—for safety?”

  Tom glanced into the big envelope, and saw bundles of DM with paper wrappers around their middles, similar to the bundles he already had. Tom handed over the envelope, and the manager sealed it with some broad tan tape which he pulled from a gadget on his desk.

  Now Eric was on the pavement, looking as if he expected a friend to come from right or left, anywhere but from the bank door. Eric gestured toward the right. Peter was double-parked. Eric and Tom got in, Tom in the back again, and he deposited this envelope in the suitcase.

  Tom collected some six hundred thousand DM from the third bank, and walked out with a green envelope, and again found Eric on the pavement. Peter was around a corner to the right.

  Bang! The closing of the car door was a pleasure. Tom sank back, the green envelope on his lap. Peter was driving toward Eric’s apartment, Tom knew from his next turn. Peter and Eric exchanged pleasantries, which Tom did not try to follow. Something about bank robbers. Laughter. Tom stuck the final envelope into the suitcase.

  In Eric’s apartment the good humor continued, Peter and Eric chuckling over the suitcase which Peter had insisted on carrying, because he was the chauffeur. Peter set the suitcase against the wall by the sideboard, on the opposite side of the room from the apartment door.

  “No, no, in my closet where it always is!” said Eric. “It looks just like a couple of others there.”

  Peter did as he was told.

  A quarter to noon. Tom was thinking of ringing Thurlow. Eric put on a record of Victoria de los Angeles, which he said he always played when he felt euphoric. Eric looked in a good humor, but more nervous than euphoric, Tom thought.

  “Maybe I’ll meet Frank tonight,” Eric said to Tom. “I hope so! He can stay here, have my bed. I’ll sleep on the floor. Frank will be my guest of honor!”

  Tom only smiled. “I’ll have to ask you to turn the music down a little while I try Thurlow again.”

  “With pleasure, Tom!” Eric did so.

  Peter had come in with a tray of cold beers, and Tom took one, put it by the telephone, and dialed.

  Thurlow’
s line was engaged, and Tom told the hotel operator he would wait. It was a short wait before Thurlow came on.

  “Everything is in order here,” Tom said, trying to sound calm.

  “You’ve got it?” asked Thurlow.

  “Yes. And you’ve got the place?”

  “Yes, I have. It’s in the northern part of Berlin, they said. Lub—I can spell it for you. L–u–two dots–b–a–r–s. Got that?— And the streets—”

  Tom was writing, and motioned for Eric to pick up the little receiver at the back of the telephone, which Eric did quickly.

  Thurlow gave a street name, then spelled it: Zabel-Krüger-Damm, which he said crossed a street called Alt-Lübars. “The first street runs east and west, Alt-Lübars goes north when it intersects there. You keep going north on Alt-Lübars onto a little dirt road—so it sounds like—which hasn’t got any name. About a hundred meters or yards on, you’ll see a shed on the left side of the road. Got that so far?”

  “Yes, thanks.” Tom had, and Eric gave him a reassuring nod, as if to say the streets were not so difficult to find as Tom might think.

  Thurlow continued, “You’re to leave the—the sum in a box or a sack at four o’clock in the morning. That is tonight, you understand.”

  “Yes,” said Tom.

  “Set it behind the shed and leave. One messenger, they said.”

  “And what about the boy?”

  “They’ll call me once they get the money. Can you phone me after four in the morning to tell me if all went well?”

  “Yes, of course, sure.”

  “And very good luck to you, Tom.”

  Tom put the telephone down.

  “Lübars!” Eric put his little receiver back. He turned to Peter. “Lübars, Peter, at four o’clock in the morning! That is an old farm district, Tom, north. Up by the Wall. Not many people living there. The Wall borders Lübars on the north. Have you got a map, Peter?”

  “Ja-a. I was there once, I think, maybe twice—driving around.” Peter spoke in German. “I can take Tom tonight. One must have a car there.”

  Tom was grateful. He trusted Peter’s driving and Peter’s nerve, and Peter had a gun in his car.

  Peter and Eric produced some lunch, a bottle of wine.

  “I have a date this afternoon in Kreuzberg,” Eric said to Tom. “Come with me. Change your thoughts, as the French say. Takes just about an hour, maybe less. Then I have to meet Max later tonight. Come with me too!”

  “Max?” Tom asked.

  “Max and Rollo. Friends of mine.” Eric was eating.

  Peter’s rather pale face smiled at Tom, and he lifted his eyebrows slightly. Peter looked calm and sure of himself.

  Tom could not eat much, and barely listened to Eric’s and Peter’s jocular conversation about an anti-dog-dropping campaign now being waged in Berlin in imitation of New York’s campaign, which involved little scoops and paper bags being carried by dog owners. The Berlin sanitation department intended now to build Hundetoiletten, dog WCs big enough for German shepherds to enter, which Peter remarked might inspire the dogs to start using their owner’s houses, if they couldn’t tell the difference.

  13

  Eric and Tom drove off in Eric’s car for the Kreuzberg area of Berlin, which Eric said was less than fifteen minutes away. Peter had departed, promising to come to Eric’s apartment around 1 a.m. Tom had said to Peter that he would be grateful if they could get an early start for the Lübars rendezvous. Even Peter admitted that the driving, plus the finding of the place might take an hour.

  Eric stopped in a dismal-looking street of reddish-brown, old four- or five-story apartment houses near a corner bar with an open front door. A couple of kids—the word urchins sprang to Tom’s mind—rushed up and begged pfennigs from them, and Eric fished in his pocket, saying if he didn’t give them some coins, they might do something to his car, though the boy looked only about eight years old, and the girl perhaps ten, with lipstick messily applied to her lips and rouge on her cheeks. She wore a pavement-length gown which looked as if it had been fashioned from a brownish-red and pinned-together window curtain to create something like a dress. Tom erased his first idea, that the girl was playing with her mother’s makeup and wardrobe: there was something more sinister going on here. The little boy had a thick mop of black hair which had been whacked in places by way of a haircut, and his dark eyes were glazed or maybe simply elusive. His projecting underlip seemed to indicate a fixed contempt for all the world around him. The boy had pocketed the money that Eric had given the girl.

  “Boy’s a Turk,” said Eric, locking his car, keeping his voice low. Eric gestured toward a doorway they were supposed to enter. “They can’t read, you know? Puzzles everyone. They speak Turkish and German fluently, but can’t read anything!”

  “And the girl? She looks German.” The little girl was blonde. The strange juvenile pair were watching them still, standing by Eric’s car.

  “Oh, German, yes. Child prostitute. He’s her pimp—or he is trying to be.”

  A buzz released the door and they went in. They climbed three flights of badly lit stairs. The hall windows were dirty, and let in almost no light. Eric knocked on a dark brown door, its paint scarred as if from kicks and blows. When clumping footsteps approached, Eric said, “Eric” at the door crack.

  The door was unlocked, a tall, broad man beckoned them in, talking in mumbled German in a deep voice. Another Turk, Tom saw, with a swarthiness of face that not even dark-haired Germans ever achieved. Tom walked into a terrible smell of what he thought was stewing lamb mingled with cabbage. Worse, they were promptly ushered into the kitchen whence the smell originated. A couple of small children played on the linoleum floor, and an old woman with a tiny-looking head and fuzzy, thin gray hair stood at the stove, stirring a pot nervously. The grandmother, Tom supposed, and maybe German, as she didn’t look Turkish, but he couldn’t really tell. Eric and the burly man sat down at a round table to which Tom was urged also, and Tom sat down reluctantly, yet he meant to enjoy the conversation if he could. Just what was Eric doing here? Eric’s slangy German, and the Turk’s hash of it made it difficult indeed for Tom to understand anything. They were talking numbers. “Fifteen . . . twenty-three” and prices, “Four hundred marks . . .” Fifteen what? Then Tom remembered that Eric had said the Turk did some work as go-between for the Berlin lawyers who issued papers to Pakistanis and East Indians, permitting them to remain in West Berlin.

  “I don’t like this nasty little work,” Eric had said, “but if I don’t cooperate to some extent, as go-between of papers myself, Haki won’t do jobs for me that are more important than his smelly immigrants.” Yes, that was it. Some of the immigrants, illiterate even in their own language, and unskilled, simply took the underground from East Berlin to West Berlin, and were met by Haki, who steered them to the right lawyers. Then they could go on relief, at West Berlin expense, while their claims to be “political refugees” were investigated, a process that might take years.

  Haki was either a full-time crook or on unemployment too—maybe both—otherwise what was he doing home at this hour? He looked no more than thirty-five, and strong as an ox. His trousers, which he had long ago outgrown as to belly, were now held together at the waist by a piece of string that bridged the gap. A few fly buttons showed, unfastened.

  An awful white-lightning-type of homemade vodka (Tom was told) was brought forth by Haki, or would Tom prefer beer? Tom did prefer beer, after sampling the vodka. The beer arrived in a big half-empty bottle, flat and tepid. Haki went off to fetch something from another room.

  “Haki is a construction worker,” Eric explained to Tom, “but on leave because of some injury—at work. Not to mention that he enjoys the—Arbeitslosenunterstützung—the—”

  Tom nodded. Unemployment benefits. Haki was lumbering back with a dirty shoebox. His tread made the floor shake. He opened the shoebox, and produced a brown-paper-wrapped parcel the size of a man’s fist. Eric shook the parcel and it rattled. Lik
e pearls? Drug pellets? Eric pulled out his wallet and gave Haki a hundred-mark note.

  “Only a tip,” said Eric to Tom. “Are you bored? We’ll leave in a minute.”

  “Inna minnit!” repeated the grubby little girl on the floor, staring.

  It gave Tom a small jolt. How much of all this were the kids understanding? The old woman, stirring the pot like a Macbeth witch, or maybe an inmate of an insane asylum, also stared at Tom. She appeared to tremble slightly, as if she might have a disease of the nerves.

  “Where’s the wife?” Tom murmured to Eric. “The mother of these kids?”

  “Oh, she’s working. German—from East Berlin. Sad type but she works. Well—” Eric spoke softly, and gestured with his smooth fingers as if to say he could not speak further just now.

  Tom was delighted when Eric got to his feet. They had been there half an hour, and it seemed to Tom much longer. Good-byes, and suddenly Tom and Eric were on the pavement, where the sunlight fell cleanly on their faces. The little parcel bulged Eric’s jacket pocket. Eric looked around before he opened his car door. They drove off. Tom was curious about what was in the package, but thought it might be rude to ask.

  “It is funny—about his wife, as you called her. East Berlin prostitute, and she was smuggled over in something like a jeep by American soldiers! And here her life was a little better—as a prostitute, but she is a drug addict too. She manages to hold some kind of a job, maybe cleaning public toilets, I don’t know. Do you know—American soldiers cannot afford West Berlin prostitutes now, because the dollar has sunk so low, so they have to go to East Berlin for them? The Communists are furious, because they are not supposed to have any prostitutes—officially.”

  Tom smiled, mildly amused, and tried to shift himself into another gear in order to get through the hours ahead. What kind of people were the kidnappers? Young amateurs? Reasonably clever professionals? A girl with them? So useful to make an innocent impression on the public sometimes, a girl. And maybe all they wanted was money, as Eric had said, and they had no intention of harming Frank or anyone else physically.