Филип Керр - Metropolis

The next day, after my army uniform had been cleaned and Brigitte had swept the floor with it for good effect, I decided to cut my losses at Trianon and beg somewhere else: I chose Lehrter Bahnhof, which was west of the theatre. It was a little further away, but I was gaining confidence on the klutz wagon. I could go faster now. My arms and shoulders were stronger and I could bowl along without raising a sweat. On the journey down Friedrich-Krause-Ufer, I’d gone so fast I’d dropped my cigarette case and had to stop to look for it. The station was right at the junction of the canal and the river and, with its central nave and aisles, resembled the basilica of a site of modern pilgrimage, receiving millions of visitors per year, which wasn’t so far from the truth. There’s nothing Germans worship more than getting to work on time.

It was only when I got there and saw the news-stands that I found out a fifth disabled veteran had been murdered. I bought the lunchtime edition of an evening newspaper and discovered that Dr Gnadenschuss had struck again, only this time he’d killed someone I’d actually met: Johann Tetzel, the one-legged sergeant with the bushy white moustache. I’d talked to him in front of the Berlin Zoo aquarium, and that’s where he was killed. It had been Tetzel who’d given me the tip about looking for Prussian Emil at the Sing Sing. Like the others, he’d been shot through the forehead at point-blank range by a small-calibre pistol.

My first thought was that Tetzel was the only one-legged man that Dr Gnadenschuss had shot; and this only seemed remarkable when I remembered that Tetzel had partnered with another veteran, a man called Joachim who, like all the previous victims, was a double amputee. Why had Dr Gnadenschuss killed the one-legged man and not the other? Unless Joachim had moved his pitch. My second thought was that I was probably wasting my time; it seemed highly unlikely that Dr Gnadenschuss would kill again so soon. He was probably already composing another boasting letter for the newspapers alleging police incompetence. Possibly he was right about that. We seemed to be no nearer to catching him.

In my mind’s eye I pictured Weiss and Gennat in front of the Berlin Zoo aquarium with the murder wagon and I could already hear Gennat grumbling about my not being there. He had a point, too; and for a while I considered abandoning my disguise and reporting back to the Alex, sober and ready to do my proper job. Try as I might I couldn’t help but think there was something demeaning about what I was doing, especially after the events of the previous day. And I still had to make my report about the shooting in Friedrichstrasse. I’d already telephoned Bernhard Weiss a couple of times but, on both occasions, he’d been with Grzesinski at the Ministry of the Interior. Given that only he knew I was working undercover I had been reluctant to speak to anyone else for fear that I’d have to explain how it was that I’d come to be on Friedrichstrasse in the first place.

I was still processing this new information when I saw a gang of wild boys swaggering down Wilhelm-Ufer. In their distinctive attire — leather shorts, top or bowler hats, striped vests, and large pirate earrings — they were easy to spot. Unfortunately they had also spotted me and I found myself quickly surrounded.

‘Well, well, well,’ said the leader, a tall, muscular youth of about seventeen, with a cowboy-style bandanna around his neck. He carried a heavy blackthorn walking stick and was covered with tattoos proclaiming his allegiance to the ‘Forest Pirates’ — which meant nothing to me. ‘And what do we have here? The legless wonder, is it? The human centipede, perhaps? The Red Baron? Half man, half shopping cart.’

His four delinquent friends thought all this was very funny. But the leader hadn’t finished with me; indeed, it seemed he’d hardly started.

‘That’s a nice medal you’re wearing,’ he said. ‘The Iron Cross. First Class. Did they give you that for courage? For raping Belgian women? Nice work if you can get it. Or just for killing Franzis? You know, you should paint your cripple-cart red, like Manfred von Richthofen. And you could fly around Berlin as the red klutz . Then you really would look like that medal was deserved. I think I’d like a medal like that. In fact I think I’d like your medal. It will match my vest. What do you say, boys? Don’t you think a nice medal would suit me?’

More laughter from the pack of hungry young wolves. Other Berliners coming out of the station were wisely giving them a wide berth and I could see no one was going to come to my aid. I was in trouble and was already reaching inside my tunic for the automatic.

Except that it wasn’t there. And realizing it must have fallen out of my tunic when I’d dropped my cigarette case on Friedrich-Krause-Ufer, I felt a look of alarm on my face which, to my interrogator’s hard blue eyes, must have looked very like fear.

‘Don’t worry, Baron. We won’t hurt you, not unless we have to. Just hand the medal over and we’ll leave you alone.’

He patted the thick handle of the blackthorn walking stick meaningfully. I didn’t doubt that if he hit me with it, I’d be in serious trouble. Already I was flexing the muscles in my hidden legs in the expectation that I was going to have to stand up and defend myself. Which, of course, was misinterpreted as another sign of fear on my part.

‘Look, Erich.’ One of the bull’s acolytes laughed. ‘The bastard’s shitting himself.’

‘Is that right, Manfred? Are you shitting yourself?’

I was beginning to think that perhaps Gennat had been right about the Gnadenschuss killings — that it was vicious kids who were responsible after all.

‘You’re not getting this medal, sonny,’ I said. ‘Since I was almost killed winning it, I’m not about to hand it over because I’m scared of getting killed again, least of all by a nasty little queer like you. If you want a medal, why don’t you go and buy one from a joke shop? Better still, why don’t you join the army yourself and then win one? Posthumously. Yes, that might be best, I think. Best for you and best for society in general. Because what the country certainly doesn’t need are cowardly pipsqueaks in greasy shorts whose idea of courage is to try and rob a man with no legs.’

The rest of the wild-boy gang uttered a long and girlish groan of camp horror and one of them whistled as if this insult from me would have to be answered. The bull of the gang was going to do something now, I could see that.

‘I’m sorry. What was that you said, Manfred?’

‘I think you heard him clearly enough,’ said someone out of my sight line. ‘But in case you’re deaf as well as stupid, the man said that if you want a medal of your own you should join the army and win one, posthumously. And I must say I agree with every word.’

The gang leader turned around and was immediately felled by a big-fisted right hook, which looked to have broken his nose. One of the others took a savage blow on the shoulder from a thick rattan cane. And then the rest ran off. All of which left me looking up at my impeccably dressed rescuer. And moreover at a rescuer I recognized.

It was Police Inspector Kurt Reichenbach.

I took off my sunglasses to make sure it was him, at which point he frowned and then looked down at me, rubbing his eyes incredulously. When he stood immediately in front of the sun it was like he was a black hole in space. Someone who wasn’t there at all, but it was my good fortune that he was.

‘Jesus Christ. Gunther? Bernhard Gunther? Is that you down there?’

My disguise was good, but it wasn’t so good it could deceive a man I’d known for several years, moreover one who was a good detective. But as usual Kurt Reichenbach was more flaneur than cop. He was wearing a smart lightweight beige suit with a blue-and-white-striped shirt, a white waistcoat and a white tie, a blue silk handkerchief in his top pocket and a carnation in his buttonhole; a light brown bowler worn at a jaunty angle topped off the whole ensemble. He might have been off to the racecourse in Grünewald, or to a nice lunch in Wannsee. His grey beard was longer and more luxuriant than usual and there was a ruby twinkle in his eye; he almost made being a cop look like it might be fun.