Филип Керр - Metropolis

‘Yesterday I was an idiot, Angerstein, but not today. Today I’m smarter than the paint on a new car. Today I know you’re a lying bastard and that it was you who snatched Kurt Reichenbach from outside his apartment in Halensee.’

‘Who’s he? The man who killed my daughter, I suppose. I told you on the telephone, Gunther. I’m impatient. But I’m not a mind reader. It’s me who’s following your lead, remember?’

‘That’s how it was supposed to be. Only, you persuaded Prussian Emil to give the cop’s name to you but not to me. That gave you a head start — enough time to deal with him yourself.’

‘That’s crap.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘For Christ’s sake put the gun down and let’s have a drink.’

I shook my head. ‘Not tonight.’

‘You don’t mind if I do? Look, whoever it is you’re searching for, he’s not here. Take a look around, if you don’t believe me. I’m quite alone. My wife’s away. And just as well for you, my friend. She wouldn’t like this at all.’

Instinctively I glanced at my surroundings. The entrance hall was largely given over to a bar under the curving staircase; on the other side of the room was a white grand piano; and on one of the taller walls was a full-length painting of an old bald man with rotten feet copulating with a generously endowed naked lady that owed more to the artist’s sense of humour than it did to accurate draughtsmanship or skill with a paintbrush. Angerstein moved slowly towards the bar, where he picked up a bottle of schnapps and filled a small schooner.

‘You wouldn’t have brought him here, to your lovely home,’ I said. ‘I expect your friends in the ring are holding him somewhere quiet where nobody will complain about his screams. And you’re going to tell me where that is. Or he’s already dead. In which case I’m going to need some evidence. Like a body.’

‘Listen to me, Gunther. And listen to yourself. You’re like some crazy scientist with a dumb theory. Flat earth. Phlogiston. Or maybe the planet Vulcan. But whatever you think you know for sure, you don’t.’

‘I was crazy ever to think a scumbag like you would keep his word. My own mother could have told me that.’

‘Mothers can be wrong. They often are. Otherwise they wouldn’t have sons. At least that’s what mine always told me.’

‘So you’re not going to tell me where he is.’

‘I’ll admit, I’ve made some enquiries of my own. Asked around. Sure I did. You can’t blame me for that. I figured I could help.’

‘You’re an interesting man, Herr Angerstein. I’ve learned quite a bit from my brief association with you. Not all of it good, I’m afraid. Principally, I’ve learned that I’m quite like you in a lot of ways.’

‘Really? You surprise me, Herr Gunther.’

‘Yes. You’re not the only person who can thrash another man until he tells you exactly what you want to know. Metaphorically speaking. Thanks to you, I’ve realized that at the right time and in the right place, I’m capable of almost anything. The same way you are.’

‘Like what, for instance.’

‘Like this, for instance.’ I smiled thinly and then shot him in the shoulder. He dropped the schooner and suddenly the air was strong with the smell of liquor and gunpowder.

‘Jesus.’ Angerstein winced with pain and grabbed at his shoulder. ‘What the hell did you do that for?’

‘I tell you what I’m going to do, Herr Angerstein. If you don’t tell me where Kurt Reichenbach is, I’m going to shoot you again. I might not kill you. But I will inflict the maximum amount of pain this little gun can provide. I haven’t got the time or the inclination to ask you more politely.’

Angerstein sat down on the piano stool and glanced uncomfortably at his shoulder; the silk dressing gown was now shiny with blood. He shook his head. ‘You’re making a big mistake.’

So I shot him again, this time in the pyjama leg.

Angerstein yelled out with pain. I figured the second one hurt more than the first.

‘I can’t believe you shot me.’

‘Shouldn’t be too hard to believe, what with two bullets in you. And I will shoot you a third time if I have to. Just count yourself lucky it’s this little peashooter and not my usual cannon.’

‘That little peashooter, as you call it, hurts like hell, damn you.’

‘All the more reason for you to tell me where you’ve cached Kurt Reichenbach.’ I pointed the gun at his other leg.

‘All right, all right. I’ll tell you. Reichenbach is dead.’

‘How do I know you’re telling the truth? How do I know he’s not being tortured somewhere even as we speak?’

‘He’s dead, I tell you.’

‘Tell me exactly what happened. Convince me he’s dead and maybe I won’t shoot you again.’

‘What do you care, anyway? He was a multiple murderer. The city’s well rid of a man like that. But I’d like to know how a public trial would have helped anyone. Least of all this city’s cops.’

‘That’s not for you to say.’

‘Why not? He killed my daughter.’

‘I’m asking the questions, remember?’

I pulled the trigger on the Browning a third time, only this time I let the bullet graze his earlobe.

‘Isn’t that what you said to Prussian Emil?’

‘What do you want? A confession? You might think you’ve got my neck under the blade, but I certainly didn’t kill him. And I didn’t order him to be killed. Not that it matters. None of this will stand up in court.’

‘Eva was your daughter. Fine. I get that. And you have my sympathy. But she was my case. The law’s still a set menu in this city, Angerstein. You don’t get to pick and choose what you’ll have and what you won’t.’ I lit a cigarette. ‘So what’s it to be? An explanation of what exactly happened, or another bullet in the leg?’

‘That’s the trouble with cops. You people think you own every metre of the moral high ground between here and the Vatican. So he goes to court. And then what happens? A smart Jew lawyer invokes paragraph fifty-one and before you know it another sharp-witted murderer like your pal Bruno Gerth is serving out his sentence weaving baskets in a home for the bewildered instead of getting the sentence he deserves. I couldn’t risk that happening.’

‘You better let me have it, Angerstein. And don’t give me that crap about you being a father. After seeing you in action with a cane the other night I figure you haven’t got a kindly bone in your crooked body, let alone one that resembles anything paternal. I want the whole story beginning with when you picked him up in your car. Otherwise you’ll be picking these little slugs out of your teeth for the rest of the week.’

‘All right,’ said Angerstein. ‘You guessed what happened between me and Prussian Emil. I’ll give you that. While you were out of the room I gave him a few extra hard ones with the cane and then told him he was a dead man unless he told me exactly what he knew about the man who killed Eva. Which is when he dropped the bombshell and said it was a cop called Reichenbach. But here’s the real reason I didn’t let you in on that. With you being a cop, I asked myself if Reichenbach being a cop might persuade you to go easy on him, the same way it went for Bruno Gerth, and concluded it might and I couldn’t take that risk. So I stuffed the handkerchief back in Emil’s mouth and told him that I didn’t want you to know the name, just that it had been a cop who’d killed her. I figured that by the time you could put a name to the description, I’d have Reichenbach safely in the bag. I couldn’t have told you any more than I did about what I was planning. You wouldn’t have stood for it.’

‘You were right about that much anyway.’