Philip Kerr - Berlin Noir

I watched them turn in elegant little circles. ‘Friends of yours?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Are they – together?’

She shrugged. ‘Only if you made it worth their while.’ She laughed some smoke out of her pert little nose. ‘They’re just giving their high-heels some exercise, that’s all.’

‘Who’s the taller one?’

‘Ibolya. That’s Hungarian for a violet.’

‘And the blonde?’

‘That’s Mitzi.’ Veronika was bristling a little as she named the other girl. ‘Maybe you’d prefer to talk to them.’ She took out her powder-compact and scrutinized her lipstick in the tiny mirror. ‘I’m expected soon anyway. My mother will be getting worried.’

‘There’s no need to play the Little Red Riding Hood with me,’ I told her. ‘We both know that your mother doesn’t mind if you leave the path and walk through the woods. And as for those two sparklers over there, a man can look in the window, can’t he?’

‘Sure, but there’s no need to press your nose up against it. Not when you’re with me, anyway.’

‘It seems to me, Veronika,’ I said, ‘that you wouldn’t have to try very hard to sound like someone’s wife. Frankly, it’s the sort of sound that drives a man to a place like this in the first place.’ I smiled just to let her know I was still friendly. ‘And then along you come with the rolling-pin in your voice. Well, it could put a man right back to where he was when he walked through the door.’

She smiled back at me. ‘I guess you’re right at that,’ she said.

‘You know, it strikes me that you’re new at this chocolady thing.’

‘Christ,’ she said, her smile turning bitter, ‘isn’t everyone?’

But for the fact that I was tired I might have stayed longer at the Casanova, might even have gone home with Veronika. Instead I gave her a packet of cigarettes for her company and told her that I would be back the following evening.

On the town, late at night, was not the best time to compare Vienna to any metropolis, with the possible exception of the lost city of Atlantis. I had seen a moth-eaten umbrella stay open for longer than Vienna. Veronika had explained, over several more drinks, that Austrians preferred to spend their evenings at home, but that when they did choose to make a night of it, they traditionally made an early start – as early as six or seven o’clock. Which left me trailing back to the Pension Caspian along an empty street at only 10.30, with just my shadow and the sound of my half-intoxicated footsteps for company.

After the combusted atmosphere of Berlin, Vienna’s air tasted as pure as birdsong. But the night was a cold one, and shivering inside my overcoat I quickened my step, disliking the quiet, and remembering Dr Liebl’s warning about the Soviet predilection for nocturnal kidnappings.

At the same time, however, crossing Heldenplatz in the direction of the Volksgarten, and beyond the Ring, Josefstadt and home, it was easy to find one’s thoughts turning to the Ivans. As far away from the Soviet sector as I was, there was still ample evidence of their omnipresence. The Imperial Palace of the Habsburgs was one of the many public buildings in the internationally run city centre that was occupied by the Red Army. Over the main door was a colossal red star in the centre of which was a picture of Stalin in profile, set against a significantly dimmer one of Lenin.

It was as I passed the ruined Kunsthistorische that I felt there was someone behind me, someone hanging back between the shadows and the piles of rubble. I stopped in my tracks, looked around and saw nothing. Then, about thirty metres away, next to a statue of which only the torso remained, like something I had once seen in a mortuary drawer, I heard a noise, and a moment later saw some small stones roll down a high bank of rubble.

‘Are you feeling a bit lonely?’ I called out, having drunk just enough not to feel stupid asking such a ridiculous question. My voice echoed up the side of the ruined museum. ‘If it’s the museum you’re interested in, we’re closed. Bombs, you know: dreadful things.’ There was no reply, and I found myself laughing. ‘If you’re a spy, you’re in luck. That’s the new profession to be in. Especially if you’re a Viennese. You don’t have to take my word for it. One of the Ivans told me.’

Still laughing to myself, I turned and walked away. I didn’t bother to see if I was followed, but crossing onto Mariahilferstrasse I heard footsteps again as I paused to light a cigarette.

As anyone who knows Vienna could have told you, this wasn’t exactly the most direct route back to Skodagasse. I even told myself. But there was a part of me, probably the part most affected by alcohol, that wanted to find out exactly who was following me and why.

The American sentry who stood out in front of the Stiftskaserne was having a cold time of it. He watched me carefully as I passed by on the other side of the empty street and I reflected that he might even recognize the man on my tail as a fellow American and member of the Special Investigations Section of his own military police. Probably they were in the same baseball team or whatever game it was that American soldiers played when they weren’t eating or chasing women.

Further up the slope of the wide street I glanced to my left and through a doorway saw a narrow covered passage that seemed to lead down several flights of steps to an adjoining street. Instinctively I ducked inside. Vienna might not have been blessed with a fabulous nightlife but it was perfect for anyone on foot. A man who knew his way around the streets and the ruins, who could remember these convenient passages, would, I thought, provide even the most determined police cordon with a better chase than Jean Valjean.

Ahead of me, beyond my sight, someone else was making his way down the steps, and thinking that my tail might take these for my own footsteps, I pressed myself against a wall and waited for him in the dark.

After less than a minute I heard the approaching sound of a man running lightly. Then the footsteps halted at the top of the passageway as he stood trying to judge whether or not it was safe to come after me. Hearing the other man’s footsteps, he started forward.

I stepped out of the shadows and punched him hard in the stomach – so hard I thought I would have to bend down and retrieve my knuckles – and while he lay gasping on the steps where he had fallen, I tugged his coat off his shoulders and pulled it down to hold his arms. He wasn’t carrying a gun, so I helped myself to the wallet in his breast pocket and picked out an ID card.

‘ “Captain John Belinsky”,’ I read. ‘ “430 thUnited States CIC”. What’s that? Are you one of Mr Shields’s friends?’

The man sat up slowly. ‘Fuck you, kraut,’ he said biliously.

‘Have you orders to follow me?’ I tossed the card on to his lap and searched the other compartments of his wallet. ‘Because you’d better ask for another assignment, Johnny. You’re not very good at this sort of thing – I’ve seen less conspicuous striptease dancers than you.’ There wasn’t much of interest in his wallet: some dollar scrip, a few Austrian schillings, a ticket for the Yank Movie Theatre, some stamps, a room card from Sacher’s Hotel and a photograph of a pretty girl.

‘Have you finished with that?’ he said in German.

I tossed him the wallet.

‘That’s a nice-looking girl you have there, Johnny,’ I said. ‘Did you follow her as well? Maybe I should give you my snapshot. Write my address on the back. Make it easier for you.’

‘Fuck you, kraut.’

‘Johnny,’ I said, starting back up the steps to Mariahilferstrasse, ‘I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.’