Филип Керр - Metropolis

‘I suppose you want me to take off my underwear.’

‘Generally that’s recommended in these situations.’

‘Is that what you’d call this? A situation?’

‘Of course.’

‘So what kind of a situation would you say this was?’

‘An interesting one.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Complicated, too.’

She took off the underwear and tossed it silently onto the table, where it occupied not much more space than a handful of rose petals.

‘One that I don’t want to get out of in a hurry.’

‘Well, that’s why I locked the door, Herr Commissioner. To keep you here for my selfish pleasure.’

‘That’s just the way I was going to handle it. Your pleasure, I mean. Only, right now I’m a little distracted. It’s not every day I get to look at the treasures of the world.’

She came and sat on my lap and stroked my head and for some reason I couldn’t put into words, I didn’t throw her onto the floor; it wasn’t that I couldn’t think of any words, at least the ones with more than one syllable, just that my mouth was busy kissing her.

‘So what happens now?’

‘I should have thought it was fairly straightforward.’

‘You might think that. But then you’re a man. Which means you really haven’t thought this out at all. I’m happy to sit on your lap without my clothes on. As a matter of fact I’m rather enjoying the situation. If that’s what this is. But for the next stage I want a large bed with nice sheets. Which means going to my place. I’ve never yet met a man whose bed linen was up to my standard. Just so you know, the way to my heart is through one hundred per cent Egyptian cotton. Good bed linen is non-negotiable as far as I’m concerned. And then maybe we’ll have some dinner. Horcher’s, I think. And before you say policeman’s salary , I’m paying. Just because I’m working here doesn’t mean I need the money. My dad is Curt Mölbling.’

‘The industrialist?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll check my diary. When were you thinking of?’

‘Tonight. Now, if you can. Any sooner than that would be better.’

At around eleven o’clock the next morning, after having my make-up applied and in the hope of seeing something useful on the street, I sat outside Friedrichstrasse station under the bridge. If anything, the sun was even stronger than the day before and, always quick to complain, many Berliners were now grumbling about the heat and wishing for a rain shower. There was no sign of Ernst Gallwitz, the news vendor, and the shoe shiners had already packed up and gone home; they did a good trade first thing in the morning but not when it was getting near to lunch. I guess nobody wants a shoeshine in the middle of the day.

I’d been sitting listening to the monotonously atonal symphony of overhead trains for almost an hour when a yellow BMW Dixi pulled up at the edge of the sidewalk and, with the engine still running, the driver sat there looking to all the world as if he was waiting for someone to emerge from the station. But after a while he seemed to be eyeing me with real malice, so much so that I memorized his number, convinced I was looking at Dr Gnadenschuss.

I put my hand inside my army tunic and took hold of the handle of my gun. In retrospect, I think he was probably trying to work out if the dark glasses meant I was also blind as well as crippled; but it was several minutes before I realized that he and his malice aforethought were waiting for someone else.

A Fritz came out of Aschinger, an old wheat-beer tavern with plain wooden tables and pictures of the Kaiser, and when he crossed Friedrichstrasse heading towards the station, the man in the car wound down the Dixi’s window and shot him thirty-two times with a Bergmann submachine gun — the same kind of gun that an assassin had planned to use on Bernhard Weiss at the circus. I knew it was thirty-two times because that’s how many the magazine on a Bergmann holds and the man in the car emptied the whole drum before throwing the gun onto the passenger seat and driving off.

Most people stayed back for fear of more shots being fired — a not-unreasonable precaution under the circumstances; this smelled like a ring killing, and it was safe to assume that there would be some kind of retaliation. Meanwhile, I wheeled myself onto the road to survey the bullet-ridden corpse at closer quarters; I didn’t recognize the dead man but I’d certainly recognized the man in the car who’d shot him: it was the same thug who’d been sitting next to me at the Sing Sing Club. There was nothing about that evening I was ever likely to forget. The killer’s name had been Hugo and his helpful girlfriend had been called Helga. Even as I recalled this detail, Helga herself came out of Aschinger, screaming like a prehistoric bird and in that same moment the true nature of the catastrophe was explained. It wasn’t a ring killing at all, but a simple case of sexual jealousy. Hugo must have suspected Helga was seeing someone else and had resolved to eliminate his rival. And there could be no doubt he’d done that: I’d rarely seen a victim so comprehensively shot and killed as the torn and bloodied man lying on the street.

Helga ran towards her dead lover, dropped to her knees and, still keening, cradled his leaky head on her lap, hardly caring about the blood spilling onto her blouse, at which point a piece of his skull detached itself in her hands and her screams grew even louder. I didn’t say anything and having got halfway across Friedrichstrasse to check the man was dead, I didn’t stop, or look back. I kept on going. The last thing I needed was to blow my cover by helping the local law. There would be plenty of time and opportunity to telephone the Alex later on, when I was Bernie Gunther again. Besides, there was no way that Dr Gnadenschuss was going to show up now when the whole street was about to swarm with cops. I needed to be somewhere else, and quickly.

I wheeled myself east, thinking a cold wheat beer was just the thing on a hot day. My path took me past a shop selling foreign stamps and Diana air rifles and the local canine clinic, which was offering docking, castrating, and painless destroying . From the state of his corpse, I guessed that all three of those services must already have been provided for Hugo’s unfortunate victim — except perhaps the painless part: being pumped full of bullets hurts.

Outside the theatre I resumed my position in front of the Trianon’s poster. Recently transferred from the smaller Rose Theater, The Spendthrift , a play by Ferdinand Raimund, was now booking. Someone with a sense of humour had crossed out Raimund’s name and substituted the name of Heinrich Köhler, the present finance minister. I could already hear the sound of police and ambulance sirens to the west. And so could the local control girls. One in particular was staring nervously into the distance, wondering if she dared risk taking her even more nervous-looking client around the back of the theatre to conduct their business. She was wearing a pink cloche hat and a low-cut, thin pink dress that afforded me a fine view of her large unsupported pink breasts; evidently she’d been sunbathing. Then she saw me.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Hindenburg. Can you see?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why the glasses?’

‘It’s sunny.’

She shrugged. ‘Fair enough. Well, now you’ve had your free look at today’s special, do you want to make yourself some money?’

‘Sure. Why not? How, and how much?’

She tossed a coin into my cap and then handed me a police whistle. ‘That was twenty-five pfennigs. There’s another twenty-five if you keep a lookout while I take care of this Fridolin’s signal box. If a bull shows up before I come back, just give a toot on that whistle, right?’