Death in Twilight (17 page)

Aaron, on the other hand, didn’t hesitate. One hand shot out to grab the druggist’s right wrist and strip the bottle from his grip. The other found the pharmacist’s neck and began to clench and then clench further.

“What the fuck were you thinking, fat man?” Aaron asked.

The man choked in reply.

“Get me high and rob me?”

The man’s eyes widened as fear filled them.

“Figured if I could pay your price for the shot, I must have more on me?”

Another choked garble.

Aaron took that as a yes and used his free hand to punch the strangling man hard enough in the face to draw blood.

“Fuck you,” Aaron said.

The pharmacist passed out.

Aaron took his money back, took the full box of drugs, kicked the other man hard in his guts and walked back out onto the street, his headache much improved.

A few blocks away was a tenement with a large public space where the Writers’ Guild had set up their meeting room and mess hall. The final stage of Aaron’s walk was pleasant. The wind had no sting and he could even see hints of the beauty his city kept hidden beneath a veil of grit and defeat.

It was still there, he wanted to tell the people he passed. Not everything was death and pain. Life still pulsed through the district. It could be seen in the face of every hawker, vendor, pedestrian or even policeman. It’s not over, yet! We can still fight! We can still win!

The morphine told him it was so, and for the moment, Aaron took the joy he was offered.

He said nothing to anyone else, though. A part of him must have known better. And if people along his route saw him smile, they simply assumed he was mad.

The drug delivered him safely to his destination. The building had a welcoming courtyard that had gone to seed. People sat outside, either on benches or perched on planters, enjoying the relatively mild weather. Aaron noticed one thin old man who was smiling himself. He made sure to catch the man’s eye so they could share the moment.

The older man ducked his gaze, clearly disturbed by something he’d seen in Aaron’s face. Instead, the altacocker gathered himself up and turned away, limping toward the entrance of the building.

Aaron shook his head, too high to take what the old man had done personally. Instead, he took the man’s place and stared up at the bright, watery disc that hung in the sky behind only the thinnest veil of cloud.

He sighed and stayed still until he felt himself descending from the drugged peak. Once his feet were firmly on the downslope, he headed inside.

At the far end of a long hall, Katrina was busy making perpetual soup from nothing.

Aaron walked over and kissed her.

“How’s the soup today?” he asked.

She smiled.

“Better than it would have been if your boy hadn’t come around this morning. Before that, I was considering using scraps of paper for stock and ink for color. Maybe flavor, too. Fucking writers.”

“Well, it’s our pleasure to serve,” Aaron said.

“It’s your pleasure to get paid,” she said in return, but she was still smiling slightly.

“That, too.”

“So, what are you doing here, today? We paid in advance, didn’t we?”

“It’s not payment, though I’ll take a bowl of soup, anyway,” Aaron said. “There’s someone I’ve got to talk to. Works for the newspaper.”

“Thinking about taking out an ad for your services?”

“Not the worst idea I’ve heard,” he said.

Katrina ladled soup into a bowl and handed it to Aaron, who thanked her and headed to one of the tables where he saw a youngish man whom he recognized.

“Mind if I take this seat?” Aaron asked.

“No, it’s fine,” the man said, without looking up. All of his attention was in his bowl.

Aaron sat down and considered his dining companion. The man’s hair was a strikingly average brown, and thinning. He wore a patched sports coat — the patches were not an affectation, but a necessary part of keeping the garment together — and brown pants so nondescript as to be indescribable. The shoes might have been made from cardboard. The overall impression given was of a poor man who cared very little for the world outside his head.

Aaron sat and picked up his spoon. The broth wasn’t hot enough to need blowing on, so he dug into the mixture of parsnips and mystery without hesitation. The only flavor he could identify was salt.

Aaron’s neighbor looked over after he’d practically dug a hole through his own bowl.

“Aaron, how are you?” he asked.

“Good, good. You?”

“As good as a man who tells lies for a living can be.”

“So dramatic! You’re hardly Josef Goebbels, Horowitz.”

“Now there’s a natural talent,” Horowitz said almost admiringly. “Imagine if we had someone like that on our side.”

“I doubt any words could have stopped the invasion,” Aaron said.

“Maybe not,” Horowitz answered. “Maybe not.”

“Anyway, what you write for the Gazeta Zydowska is as pretty as fairytales,” Aaron replied. “I have trouble sleeping in anticipation of the next edition.”

“It burns well, doesn’t it?”

“And leaves you feeling fresh and clean.”

Aaron turned back to his soup for a minute. His friend didn’t bother him, though the look on his face somehow conveyed his hope that Aaron wouldn’t finish the bowl. Aaron knew the look and remembered it from long before rationing. Even when they were boys, Horowitz had always had a remarkable appetite.

“Are you eating here to flatter me?” Horowitz asked.

“Of course not,” Aaron said through a final slurp. “I need a small favor.”

“Small?”

“Yes, actually. The only biggish part is that you can’t talk about it, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to tell you what it was all about.”

“You know, I was a real newspaperman once,” Horowitz said.

“Once.”

“Right. But your favor would have hurt me then.”

“Now?”

“Not so much,” Horowitz said. “Hit me.”

Aaron pulled out the note he’d found on Berson and passed it to Horowitz.

“You speak German, right?”

“How could I collaborate like I do if I didn’t?” Horowitz said. The wry look was intended for himself.

“So true, though I’m not sure hundreds of recipes for stone soup are much help to the enemy.”

Horowitz took that seriously.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “Is keeping our morale up good for us or them?”

“Despair wouldn’t help anyone,” said Aaron, trying to be positive for the sake of someone he’d loved practically since they had met as infants.

“But are we easier to control if we have hope?” Horowitz asked rhetorically. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that we are.”

“I’m not going to argue with you. I’m not even sure what side I would take,” Aaron said. They’d gone down this road before. “I need you to focus on the note.”

“Okay, okay.”

Horowitz adjusted his glasses, which were on the thin side for an intellectual.

He studied the note, first on the tabletop, then up against the thin light in the room. He made little noises, tapped on the table, then readjusted his glasses.

Aaron started to think he might have to hurt his second person of the day when Horowitz finally spoke.

“The handwriting’s terrible, but what it says is pretty simple.

“It’s basically an offer to become an informant for the Nazis. See, here,” Horowitz said, pointing to the paper. “It’s addressed to someone named Clausewitz, who works for something called ‘Section IV.’”

“That’s the Gestapo,” Aaron said.

“I know. Who doesn’t know?” Horowitz said. “Below that, it says ‘Following on our previous conversation, I believe we can reach an agreement that would be beneficial to us both. I will be able to provide you with a list of names on an ongoing basis in return for the considerations we discussed at our meeting.’”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Aaron said.

“No, it doesn’t, does it? Want me to continue?”

Aaron nodded.

“‘As a show of good faith, I have included the names of three men I know to be members of a resistance cell,’” Horowitz read, then stopped himself.

“Holy shit, Aaron! Where the hell did you say you found this?”

“I didn’t,” Aaron said.

“So this is where you change you mind and fill me in on all the details, right?”

“Nope. But thank you,” Aaron said, standing up.

“Come on. This is important!”

“Maybe someday.”

“And we all know someday isn’t coming.” Horowitz sighed, disgusted. He paused, then said, “Good to see you anyway.”

“You, too.”

Aaron walked out. The breeze had freshened, but he didn’t feel it. He was deep in thought. He didn’t know any of the names on the note, but that didn’t stop them from being there. Three human beings delivered up to the Germans, with a promise of more.

But who was behind the note? Was it Berson himself? Had he written it? Had someone found out about him, and was that why he was killed? Or had Berson somehow discovered the note? And if he had found it, what had he planned to do with it?

Whatever the answers were, one thing was certain, the Germans wouldn’t like them. Either, one of their collaborators had been killed, or, through the search for the killer, one of their prize informants would be revealed to the Jews.

Aaron had never felt more sober.

Chapter 12

A
aron walked while he tried to sort through the implications of the note. He became ever more distracted from his surroundings, and his sense of the streets fled. The earlier feeling that he was being followed faded deep into the background.

So did the person following him.

He tried to break the puzzle into indivisible pieces. Find the facts obscured by the noise. What did he know for sure? The only incontrovertible fact seemed to be the death itself, the only obvious clue the note.

The note, however, begged questions and offered innuendo, not more facts. If he could figure out who’d written it, he would know far more about Berson’s role in the game: author, conniver, messenger or even avenging angel.

Aaron had no idea what Berson’s handwriting looked like, nor did he know if Berson could write in German. The Judenrat offices, he thought, would likely have answers to one or both questions The ersatz Jewish government was as bureaucratic as the Polish civil authority it had officially replaced, but more so. That meant paperwork, which in turn meant reports filed by every person in every department, including the police. Finding a sample of Berson’s script was unlikely to present any difficulties.

It was also possible that he would find something in Berson’s files that would point to his killer, though Aaron doubted it.

He wasn’t far from the former courthouse and was able to make the trip in less than five minutes. When he reached the Judenrat headquarters it was mid-afternoon. The lines for permits and ration cards were as long as they had been the day before. Every person who stood in them was a unique and special case. Each man and woman thought his or her story or need was as individual as a snowflake. The clerks inside vehemently disagreed with that assessment, and all the while the queue slowly lengthened toward infinity.

Aaron had no sense of uniqueness anymore. His time in the Zendarmerie and army had helped to drum it out of him. It was a lesson taught on the first day and on every day after. Everyone fits into a uniform, he was taught. The exact size of it matters not at all.

He shouldered his way inside the building, alternately promising that he was not cutting to the front of the line and threatening grievous harm to those who refused to cooperate. Because of the warmer air outside, the body heat trapped in the main hall was enough to make people sweat out loud. Yesterday’s stink had been surpassed and, in a way, Aaron was impressed.

Battered, bruised and now stinking himself, Aaron was finally able to work his way to the doors of the Jewish Police’s offices. Fortunately, one of the guards on duty had been there the day before and recognized Aaron, saving him the trouble of pleading his own special case.

The commandant, Blaustein, was in his office when Aaron knocked, the little heater was off and the man himself was in shirtsleeves, poring over papers. He looked up as Aaron walked in.

“Have you found our killer?” Blaustein asked without preamble.

“Not yet.”

“Then what the fuck are you doing here?”

“I didn’t say I hadn’t made progress,” Aaron replied. “But I need some more information.”

“Isn’t that why we picked you for this case, to find things out by yourself? You’re the real detective, right?”

“I appreciate your confidence in my skills, but a little help never hurt anyone,” Aaron said lightly, hoping to defuse some of Blaustein’s antagonism. “Just a couple of questions.”

“Quickly.”

“Did you know that Martin Gersh was shot outside Breslaw Hospital, yesterday?”

“Yes.”

Blaustein didn’t sound particularly upset about it.

“And did you know that Martin Gersh was also a Pole named Jaruzelski?”

Blaustein’s eyes widened, but his voice was cool when he spoke.

“Yes,” he said, and pointed to his heater. “He was a helpful guy to have around.”