The Good German (13 page)

Bernie shook his head, waiting.

<>“No, I guess not,” Jake said, “not down here. Anyway, I was there, so I got interested. He had some money on him, a lot, five thousand, maybe closer to ten. I thought that was interesting too, but apparently I’m the only one. MG just gave me the brush this morning—polite, but a brush. This one came with a lecture. Happens all the time. Black market’s a nickel-and-dime game, no big players. Nobody gets excited when a Russian shoots one of our men, just when they do anything else. So go away, please. Now I’m even more interested. Then I hear the body’s already been shipped back to Frankfurt. That’s a little too efficient, especially for MG. Following me so far?“

“Who was the brush?”

“Muller,” Jake said.

Bernie frowned. “Fred Muller? He’s a good man. Old army.”

“I know. So they say keep a lid on it and he keeps a lid on it. Look, I don’t blame him. He’s a time-server and he doesn’t want any trouble. He probably thinks I’m a pain in the ass.”

“Probably.”

“But why keep a lid on it? He promises me an exclusive and gives me a casualty report. But not all of it. There’s a sheet missing.” Jake paused. “The kind of thing the DA’s office used to pull.”

Bernie smiled. “So why come to me?”

“Because you were a DA. I’ve never met one yet who stopped being a DA. Something’s funny here. You can feel it in your gut.”

Bernie looked over at him. “I don’t feel anything yet.”

“No? Try this. Muller wants me to think it’s a GI making a few bucks on the side. Okay, not nice, but nothing special, either. But he wasn’t just a GI. PSD, that’s Public Safety Division, isn’t it?”

“That’s what it says on the charts,” Bernie said slowly.

“Well, that’s what it says on the casualty report too. PSD. He was one of you. Ever met a police department that couldn’t be bothered when a cop got shot? That’s one organization takes care of its own.”

Bernie looked at him again, then reached over for his coffee cup. “We’re not exactly a police department, you know,” he said carefully. “It’s not the same.”

“But you run the MPs, you run the local police, you’re responsible for law and order. Such as it is.”

“I don’t run anything. You’re asking the wrong guy. I’m Special Branch. I just—”

“Chase rats, I know. But you’re still in the department. You must know people. Anyway, you’re the only one I know. So.”

Bernie took another sip of coffee. “Berlin PSD?”

<>“No, he flew in from Frankfurt. Another interesting point, by the way.“

“Then no wonder Fred sent him back. Put it in somebody else’s in-box. It’s the MG way.” He paused. “Look, I don’t have time for this, whatever it is. You want somebody over in CID. Criminal Investigation.” Jake shook his head. “CID’s army, not Military Government. Knife fights. This is being handled by Public Safety.” He took the sheets out of his pocket. “Here, see for yourself.”

Bernie put his hand up in a stop sign. “No, I mean it. I don’t have the time.”

“Somebody else’s in-box,” Jake said.

Bernie put down the cup and sighed. “What are you looking for, anyway?”

“Why nobody wants to know. The way the story’s supposed to go is the Russians loot, we just liberate a few souvenirs. I’ve told it that way myself. And Public Safety? The last place you’d expect to find a bad apple. Wrong barrel. But my guess is that he had something going, not just a couple of cartons of cigarettes, and I’ll bet it’s Muller’s guess too. The difference is, he doesn’t want to know and this time I do. So would a DA. Man’s dead.”

Bernie ran his hand through the tight waves of his hair and stood up, as if the chair had been confining him. He moved a folder onto a pile, then walked over to another, pretending to be busy. “I’m not a DA here,” he said finally. “I’m MG too. Maybe Fred’s right, you know. The guy closed his own case. Maybe we’re all better off.”

“Except for one thing. What if he wasn’t acting solo? A man comes to Berlin to make a deal and ends up dead. So who was he coming to see?”

“A Russian, you said.” He moved another pile.

“Must have been. But who set it up? He’s operating all by himself? There have to be some other apples in that barrel. Chances are, he had friends. It’s a friendly kind of business.”

“Friends in Public Safety?” Bernie said, looking up.

“Somewhere. That’s the way it used to work in Chicago.”

“That’s Chicago,” Bernie said, waving his hand.

<>“And Berlin. It’s always the same, more or less. Here’s a big city with no police and a lot of money floating around. Put out that kind of cheese and the usual mice come out. And pretty soon somebody has to organize it, to make sure he gets a little more. It’s always the same. The only question is whether Patrick Tully was one of the mice or one of the rats who took a little more.“

“Who?”

“Patrick Tully. The victim.” Jake handed over the sheet to Bernie. “Twenty-three. Afraid of flying. So why come to Berlin? Who was he coming to see?”

Bernie stared at the paper, then at Jake.

“That’s the report,” Jake said. “Half of it, anyway. Maybe the other half can tell me.”

“I can tell you,” Bernie said evenly, his body finally still. “He was coming to see me.”

“What?” A word to fill time, too surprised to say anything else. For a second neither of them spoke. Bernie looked again at the sheet.

“Yesterday,” he said quietly, thinking aloud. “That’s why I canceled you. He never showed. I told Mike to keep an eye out. That’s probably who he thought you were. Why he brought you here—we’re off-limits to press.”

“Tully was coming to see you?” Jake said, still taking it in. “Want to tell me why? ”

“I have no idea.” He glanced up. “That isn’t a brush. I don’t know.”

“You didn’t ask?”

Bernie shrugged. “People come through from Frankfurt all the time. Somebody from PSD requests a meeting, what am I supposed to say? No? Half the time they’re just looking for an excuse to come to Berlin. Everybody wants to see it, but you’re supposed to have a reason for being here. So they liaise and fart around in meetings nobody has time for and then go home.”

“With five thousand dollars.”

“He didn’t get it from me, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said irritably. “He didn’t show, or do you want Mike to verify that?”

“Keep your shirt on. Fm just trying to figure this out. You didn’t know him?”

“Not from Adam. PSD out of Frankfurt, that’s all. Never worked with him on a case. I don’t even know if he was Special Branch. I suppose I could find out.” A crack in the door. Still a DA after all.

“But what did you think he wanted? Just like that, out of the blue.”

Bernie sat down, ruffling his hair again. “A face meeting with Frankfurt? Out of the blue? It could have been anything. Grief, usually. The last time it was Legal complaining about my methods,” he said, giving the word an edge. “They like to do that personally, bring you in line. Frankfurt thinks I’m a loose cannon. Not that I give a shit.”

“Why a loose cannon?”

Bernie smiled slightly. “I’ve been known to break a regulation. Once or twice.”

“So break another one,” Jake said, looking at him.

“Because you have a gut feeling? I don’t know you from Adam either.”

“No. But somebody comes to see you, makes a stop along the way, and gets shot. Now two of us are interested.”

Bernie met his eyes, then looked away. “You know, I didn’t come to Germany to catch crooked soldiers.”

Jake nodded, not saying anything, waiting for Bernie to pop up again. Instead, he stopped squirming and leaned forward, like a negotiator at the Cecilienhof, finally down to business.

“What do you want?”

“The other sheet. There’s nothing here.” Jake pointed at the report. “Not even ballistics. There must be someone you could ask. Quietly, just nosing around.”

Bernie nodded.

“Then a call to Frankfurt. Naturally you’d be curious, someone doesn’t show. So who was he, what did he want? Scuttlebutt. There should be talk all over the place now, somebody comes back in a box. Oh, did you know him? What the hell happened?”

“You trying to tell me how to do this?”

“Any rumors,” Jake went on. “Maybe something valuable’s gone missing. Some liberated souvenirs. It’s a long shot, but you never know. And a picture would be nice.”

“For publication?” Bernie said, wary.

“No, for me. There must be one in his file there, if you can get hold of it without upsetting the horses. I’m not sure how, but maybe something will come to you.” “Maybe something will.”

“Traveling orders. Who authorized the trip? What for? You’d want to know. He was coming to see you.”

“Yes,” Bernie said, thoughtful again, then sprang up and began moving around the room, jiggling change in his pocket. “And what’s all this supposed to get you?”

“Not much. It’s not much to ask, either. Just what you’d want to know if you’d never talked to me. If an appointment turned up dead.”

“So what else?”

“I need a partner. I can’t work this alone.”

Bernie held up his hand. “Forget it.”

“Not you. A name. Who covers the black market for Public Safety? Who’d know the snitches, the people out on the street? If Tully had something big to sell, who would he have gone to see? He sure as hell didn’t come to Berlin to stand on a corner. I need someone who knows the players.”

“I can’t help you with that.”

“Can’t?”

“There isn’t anybody like that. Not that I’ve ever heard of. ‘Covers’ it. Like a beat? You’re still back in Chicago.”

“You could ask,” Jake said, getting up now too, Bernie’s restlessness contagious.

“No, I couldn’t. I’m
in
Public Safety. Technically. You don’t shit where you sleep. Not for long, anyway. Nobody else will either, once they know what you’re after. Tully was PSD too. You think he had friends. Where do you think he had them? I have things to do here, not play cops and robbers with my own department. You do that one alone.” He looked up with a hint of a smile. “We’ll see how good you are.”

“But you’ll make the call. You’ll do that.”

“Yeah, I’ll make the call,” he said, busying himself again with the folder pile. “I hate it when people don’t show up.” He stopped and looked directly at Jake, his eyes friendly. “I’ll call. Now how about clearing out of here and letting me get back to work.”

Jake walked over to the card catalogues and fingered the brass pulls on the drawers. “Catching real criminals,” he said. “In here.”

“That’s right, real criminals. Careful of the merchandise. That’s the most valuable thing in Berlin.”

“I heard about the paper mill. Some break.”

“Maybe God figured he owed us one. Finally,” he said, a gravelly voice.

“Mind if I have a look? See what they’re like?” Jake said, pulling open a drawer before Bernie could answer. The Bs were near the back, a row of Brandts. Helga, Helmut, no Helene. He pulled his hand away, feeling relieved and ashamed at the same time. How could he have thought there would be? But how could you be sure who anyone was anymore? He remembered that first night, looking down on the old woman in the garden, wondering. What did you do? Were you one of them? The girls on Potsdamerstrasse, the bicycles going past KaDeWe, the woman in his old flat—everyone in Berlin had become a suspect. Who were you before? But Bernie knew. It was all here in black-and-white, typed on cards. His fingers flipped again. Perhaps he was a special case, the professor had said. Berthold. Dieter. There— Emil. Not a special case. But maybe a different Emil Brandt. He took out the card. No, his address. Her address. 1938. All the time Jake had known him. His eyes went down the card. A party decoration. For what? An SS appointment, in 1944. SS. Emil. A nice man who saw numbers in his head.

He looked up to find Bernie standing next to him.

“Your friend?”

“No. Her husband. Christ.”

“You didn’t know?”

Jake shook his head. “It says he was decorated. It doesn’t say why.”

“That would be in his party file. These are the registry cards. You want me to find out?” Chasing rats.

Jake shook his head again. “Just where he is.”

“You mean if she’s with him,” Bernie said, studying his face.

“Yes. If she’s with him.” But he’d never imagined them together. Just Lena, opening the door, the surprised look in her eyes, throwing her arms around his neck. He put the card back and closed the drawer.

“What was her name?”

“Helene Brandt. She used to live in Pariserstrasse. I’ll write it down for you.” He went over to the desk for a piece of paper. “Can I give you a few others?” he said, writing. “I want to track down the old office staff. For a story. I know you’re busy—”

Bernie spread his hands, a what-else-is-new gesture, then took the list. “I’ll put Mike on it. It’ll give him something to do. They’d have to be in Berlin, you know.”

“Yes,” Jake said. “Let me know what Frankfurt says.”

“Get going before I change my mind,” Bernie said, retreating behind the desk.

“But you’ll make the call.”

Bernie looked up. “You could get to be a real pain, you know that?”

Jake went back up the stairs and through the quiet archive room. Records of everything, just lying here waiting, millions of due bills. Maybe Emil had been decorated as part of a group, a ceremony with families, applauded for their services to the state. Doing what? Teaching mathematics? Now filed away in one of these cabinets, to make another case for the prosecution.

“Sign out, please.” The indifferent guard, chewing gum.

Jake scribbled in the ledger, then stepped outside into the click of a photograph.

“Well, look who’s here.” Liz was bent on one knee, shooting up at the doorway and the tall blond soldier who stood posing in front of it. Last night’s date. Jake stepped aside as she took another. The soldier pulled back his shoulders. Cool eyes, an illustrator’s jaw, the kind of Aryan looks Emil’s group would have liked.

“Okay,” Liz said, finished. “Jake, meet Joe Shaeffer. Like the pen.

J“
oe —

“I know who you are,” the soldier said, shaking hands. “Pleasure.” He turned to Liz. “Five minutes,” he said, then nodded stiffly at Jake and went inside.