Филип Керр - Metropolis

‘It’s no bother. At least not for me. And my name’s not Fritz.’ I sat down and showed her my new beer token. ‘It’s police. Maybe police trouble for you, maybe not. That’s what we need to find out.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Some information. First of all, your full name.’

‘Torrens. Daisy Torrens. What’s this about?’

‘You seem nervous, Daisy.’

‘Like I said, I’m waiting for someone.’

‘Then I’ll make it quick.’ I took Eva’s photograph out of my pocket. ‘Ever seen this girl before?’

‘No.’ Daisy might have been looking at someone’s tram ticket for all the attention she paid to the picture.

‘I think you should look at it again. Because I’ve a witness who says you were speaking to her last night. And it wouldn’t do for an American girl to mislead a German policeman. It will look bad for international relations when I’m forced to arrest you on suspicion of withholding evidence.’

‘All right, I spoke to her. So what?’

‘What about?’

‘Look, I really don’t remember. We just spoke for a few minutes. About nothing at all really. Girl talk. Men. This place. How the cockatoos shit on the tables in the other room. I don’t know.’

‘We could always do this at Alexanderplatz if you prefer. But I can’t promise that someone won’t shit on the tables there, I’m afraid.’

‘What’s the big deal? I speak to all kinds of people in here. Everyone does. There’s no law against it.’

‘The big deal is that Eva Angerstein was murdered after she left here last night. And there is a law against that. For all I know you were the last person to see her alive.’

‘Oh, I see. That’s terrible. I’m sorry.’ She didn’t sound in the least bit sorry. She thought for a moment, bit her pouty lip and then looked squarely at me. ‘Look, if I tell you what I know, which really isn’t much, will you go away and leave me alone? My gentleman friend won’t like it if he sees me talking to the police.’

‘Sure. Why not. But I’ll need to see an identity card. Just to know you’re on the level.’

She grabbed her purse and handed me her identity card. Hers was a good address, and easily remembered: villa G, street 6, number 9, in the fashionable suburb of Eichkamp. The kind of address where diamond-and-jade wristwatches were easily afforded. I handed the card back.

‘So. Talk to me.’

‘Eva used to buy me cocaine,’ said Daisy Torrens. ‘There’s a dealer on Wittenbergplatz. Outside the station. Sells sausages as well as dope. But he doubles his price when he sees me coming. Because I’m an American, he figures I’m good for it. And I don’t much like the smell of sausages. That’s one of the reasons I come here; the vegetarian restaurant. It’s the best in Berlin.’

‘You’re supposed to have a prescription to buy cocaine,’ I said. ‘And only from a pharmacist.’

‘Yes, I know, but at this time of night where are you going to get one of those?’

‘So Eva was your go-between. You’d done this before?’

‘Sure. Lots of times. We met in here a while ago. I wouldn’t say we were friends. But I’d give her ten per cent for the trouble. She used to do that for lots of people. They don’t like anyone selling drugs in here. Anyway, Eva was always reliable. Until last night. I gave her fifty marks to get me some coke and she never came back.’ Daisy glanced at her watch again. It was worth a second look. ‘I guess now I know why.’

‘Did you know Eva was a prostitute?’

‘She never said as much, but I had a pretty shrewd idea she was at it. A lot of girls in here are.’

‘But not you.’

‘No.’ Her tone stiffened and her chin raised a little as if she was thinking of telling me to go to hell, and she might have done if I hadn’t been a policeman. ‘I’m an actress, as a matter of fact. And now if you don’t mind, I’d like you to leave me alone.’

‘One more question and then I will. Did you see her talk to any men last night? Any men at all.’

‘Honestly? No. The lighting in here is a little subdued as you can see and I wasn’t wearing my glasses, so even if I had seen her talking to someone I wouldn’t have recognized them.’

‘You’re shortsighted?’

‘Yes.’

‘May I see those glasses?’

‘Sure.’ She opened her handbag and took out a spectacle case, which she handed to me. I took out a pair of glasses and held them up, inspecting the lenses. ‘Satisfied?’ she asked.

I handed them back. ‘Thank you.’ I stood and walked away without another word but at the edge of the small lounge I hung back behind a pillar in the hope I might see the gentleman friend on whom she was waiting. Daisy didn’t see me. I was sure about that; she wasn’t wearing her glasses. But I did see the man she’d been waiting for, whom she now kissed very fondly. Dressed in a dinner jacket, he was probably twice her age and certainly twice her size: dark, fleshy, balding, with eyebrows like hedgerows and a nose the size of a car horn. In short, he was every German bigot’s idea of what a rich Jew was supposed to look like and, what’s more, I recognized him and only to see him was to feel as if I had stepped onto the roller coaster at Luna Park. His name was Albert Grzesinski, once Berlin’s chief of police and now the new Weimar government’s minister of the interior.

I was dog-tired by the time I reached Wittenbergplatz. My feet hurt even more than before and my brain felt like a half lemon in a bartender’s fist. There’s something about all that neon light at night that seems to bleach out a man’s spirit. I was much too tired to be as polite as I’d been in the Kakadu and I was already regretting I hadn’t been a little harder on Daisy Torrens. The indifference she’d demonstrated at the news of Eva Angerstein’s murder had shocked me a little; in those days I was still capable of being shocked at human behaviour, in spite of having worked in Vice for two years.

Wittenbergplatz was known for two things: the Hermann Tietz department store, formerly known as Jandorf’s, where I did most of my own clothes shopping, and the art nouveau U-Bahn station; with its neoclassical facade and grand entrance hall, it looked more like a church than a railway station. That was Berlin for you. Make something look better, nicer, a little more grand than what it was. The same way that the UFA Cinema on Nollendorfplatz looked more like the ancient Temple of Dagon before Samson turned up and rearranged the architecture.

Inside the entrance hall of the Wittenbergplatz station was the usual gauntlet of whores through which men coming up from the trains were obliged to pass, and indeed there was a man balancing a boiler tray of sausages on his chest, and a couple of beggars injured war veterans trying to make a few pennies. It was a fairly typical metropolitan scene right down to the fat lawyer type coming into the entryway who looked at the whores and the beggars and then harrumphed loudly.

‘Disgraceful,’ he said to the two beggars. Why he should have singled them out for criticism I don’t know. ‘You should be ashamed of yourselves. The way you degrade that uniform. And those medals.’

Which was my cue to walk over and drop a handful of coins into each man’s cap and that was more than enough to send the fat man scuttling down to catch his train to somewhere as respectable as his opinions.

I bought twenty Salem Aleikum, presented myself in front of the sausage seller, and asked for a bag of salt, which, without the sausage, only meant one thing; when I was certain it was in his hand, I showed him my beer token. Selling cocaine without a prescription didn’t count as much of a crime but it was probably enough for me to have taken him in, and might even have been enough for him to have lost his street vendor’s licence.