Berlin Noir, page 68
‘I guess you’re right.’ I sipped at my second glass. ‘But it seems strange you telling me that, you being a bull and all. Carrying a gun’s not strictly legal for anyone but Allied personnel.’
‘Who said I was a bull?’ He shook his head. ‘I’m CIC. The Counter-Intelligence Corps. The MPs don’t know shit about what we get up to.’
‘You’re a spy?’
‘No, we’re more like Uncle Sam’s hotel detectives. We don’t run spies, we catch them. Spies and war-criminals.’ He poured some more of the Csereszne.
‘So why are you following me?’
‘It’s hard to say, really.’
‘I’m sure I could find you a German dictionary.’
Belinsky withdrew a ready-filled pipe from his pocket and while he explained what he meant he suck-started the thing into yielding a steady smoke.
‘I’m investigating the murder of Captain Linden,’ he said.
‘What a coincidence. So am I.’
‘We want to try and find out what it was that brought him to Vienna in the first place. He liked to keep things pretty close to his chest. Worked on his own a lot.’
‘Was he in the CIC too?’
‘Yes, the 970th, stationed in Germany. I’m 430th. We’re stationed in Austria. Really he should have let us know he was coming on to our patch.’
‘And he didn’t send so much as a postcard, eh?’
‘Not a word. Probably because there was no earthly reason why he should have come. If he was working on anything that affected this country he should have told us.’ Belinsky let out a balloon of smoke and waved it away from his face. ‘He was what you might call a desk-investigator. An intellectual. The sort of fellow you could let loose on a wall full of files with instructions to find Himmler’s optical prescription. The only problem is that because he was such a bright guy, he kept no case notes.’ Belinsky tapped his forehead with the stem of his pipe. ‘He kept everything up here. Which makes it a nuisance to find out what he was investigating that got him a lead lunch.’
‘Your MPs think that the Werewolf Underground might have had something to do with it.’
‘So I heard.’ He inspected the smouldering contents of his cherrywood pipe bowl, and added: ‘Frankly, we’re all scraping around in the dark a bit on this one. Anyway, that’s where you walk into my life. We thought maybe you’d turn up something that we couldn’t manage ourselves, you being a native, comparatively speaking. And if you did, I’d be there for the cause of free democracy.’
‘Criminal investigation by proxy, eh? It wouldn’t be the first time that it’s happened. I hate to disappoint you, only I’m kind of in the dark myself.’
‘Maybe not. After all, you already got the stonemason killed. In my book that rates as a result. It means you got someone upset, Kraut.’
I smiled. ‘You can call me Bernie.’
‘The way I figure it, Becker wouldn’t bring you into the game without dealing you a few cards. Pichler’s name was probably one of them.’
‘You might be right,’ I conceded. ‘But all the same it’s not a hand I’d care to put my shirt on.’
‘Want to let me take a peek?’
‘Why should I?’
‘I saved your life, kraut,’ he growled.
‘Too sentimental. Be a little more practical.’
‘All right then, maybe I can help.’
‘Better. Much better.’
‘What do you need?’
‘Pichler was more than likely murdered by a man named Abs, Max Abs. According to the MPs he used to be SS, but small-time. Anyway, he boarded a train to Munich this afternoon and they were going to have someone meet him: I expect that they’ll tell me what happens. But I need to find out more about Abs. For instance, who this fellow was.’ I took out Pichler’s drawing of Martin Albers’ gravestone and spread it on the table in front of Belinsky. ‘If I can find out who Martin Albers was and why Max Abs was willing to pay for his headstone I might be on my way to establishing why Abs thought it necessary to kill Pichler before he spoke to me.’
‘Who is this Abs guy? What’s his connection?’
‘He used to work for an advertising firm here in Vienna. The same place that König managed. König’s the man that briefed Becker to run files across the Green Frontier. Files that went to Linden.’
Belinsky nodded.
‘All right then,’ I said. ‘Here’s my next card. König had a girlfriend called Lotte who hung around the Casanova. It could be that she sparkled there a bit, nibbled a little chocolate, I don’t know yet. Some of Becker’s friends crashed around there and a few other places and didn’t come home for tea. My idea is to put the girl on to it. I thought I’d have to get to know her a bit first of all. But of course now that she’s seen me on my white horse and wearing my Sunday suit of armour I can hurry that along.’
‘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 a 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 Cafe 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?
