Joseph Kanon: A Good German

Muller said nothing, his face blank.

“So you did. A little ride out to the lake to talk things over-you don’t want to be seen together. And Tully’s stubborn. He’s got a belt full of money and god knows what dancing in his head, and he tells you the way it’s going to be. Not just Brandt. More. And you know it’s not going to work. Brandt was one thing-he even helped. But now you’ve got Shaeffer around. Do the smart thing-take the money and run, before it’s too late. The last thing Tully wants to hear. Maybe the last thing he did hear. I’ll give you this much-I don’t think you planned it. Too sloppy, for one thing-you didn’t even take his tags after you shot him, just threw him in. No weights. Maybe you thought the boots would do it. Probably you weren’t thinking at all, just panicked. That kind of crime. Anyway, it’s done and he’s gone. And then-here’s the best part, even I couldn’t make it up-you went home and had dinner with me. And I liked you. I thought you were what we were here for. To make the peace. Christ, Muller.”

“Everything okay here?” The guard, surprising them from the door.

Muller swiveled, moving his hand to his hip, then stopped.

“We’re almost done,” Jake said steadily, staring at Muller’s hand.

“Getting late,” the guard said.

Muller blinked. “Yes, fine,” he said, his MG voice, dropping his hand. He turned back and waited, his eyes locked on Jake, until the steps in the hall grew faint.

“Jumpy?” Jake said. He nodded at Muller’s hip. “Watch yourself with that.”

Muller leaned forward, placing his hands on the desk. “You take some chances.”

“What? That you’ll plug me? I doubt it.” He waved his hand. “Anyway, not here. Think of the mess. What would Jeanie say?

Besides, you already tried that once.“ He looked at him until Muller took his hands away from the desk, as if he’d literally been pushed back by Jake’s stare.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“In Potsdam. That’s when everything started falling apart. Now you had real blood on your hands. Not just a small-time chiseler. Liz. How’d that make you feel when you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“You killed her too. Same as if you pulled the trigger.”

“You can’t prove this,” Muller said, almost a whisper.

“Want to bet? What do you think I’ve been doing all this time? You know, I might not even have tried if it had just been Tully. I guess you could say he got what was coming to him. But Liz didn’t. Gunther was right about that too. The when. Why try to kill me then? Another thing that didn’t occur to me until now, when I started putting things together. Why do it at all? Tully’s dead, and so’s Shaeffer’s trail. No way to connect you. Even after he washes up-quick report, body’s shipped out before anybody can take a good look. Not that anybody wanted to-all they were looking at was the money. What other explanation could there be? It’s sure as hell the only one you wanted me to have. Talk about a lucky break for you. Money you didn’t even know he had. What did you think when it turned up, by the way? I’d be curious to know.”

Muller said nothing.

“Just a little gift from the gods, I guess. So you’re safe. Shaeffer’s stuck and I’m off looking at watches in the black market. And then something happens. I start asking questions about Brandt at Kransberg-for personal reasons, but you don’t know that, you think I must know something, made the connection no one else did. And if I’m asking, maybe somebody else is going to put two and two together too. But you can’t get me out of Berlin, that would just make things worse-I’d make a stink and people would wonder. And then, at Tommy’s going-away party, what do I do? I ask you to check the dispatcher at Frankfurt, the one you called-or did you get Jeanie to do it? No, you’d do it yourself-to get Tully on the plane. Personal authorization, not on the manifest. Which he’d remember. Not just close anymore, a real connection. So you panic again. You transfer his ass out of there like that, but even that’s not safe enough. You get somebody to get rid of me in Potsdam. The next day. But that didn’t occur to me either, not then. I was just lying there with an innocent woman’s blood all over me.“

Muller lowered his head. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Jake sat still. Finally there, the confession, so easily said.

“That girl. That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Muller said again. “I never meant her to—”

“No, just me. Christ, Muller.”

“It wasn’t me. Sikorsky. I told him I’d transfer Mahoney, that would do it. I never told him to kill you. Never. Believe me.”

Jake looked up at him. “I do believe you. But Liz is still dead.”

Now Muller did sit down, his body sagging slowly into the chair, head still low, so that only his silver hair caught the light of the desk lamp. “None of this was supposed to happen.”

“You start something, people get in the way. I suppose Shaeffer would have been a bonus.”

“I didn’t even know he was there. I didn’t know. It was all Sikorsky. He was worse than Tully. Once they start—” His voice trailed off.

“Yeah, it’s hard to get away. I know.” Jake paused, toying with the folder. “Tell me something, though. Why’d you tip Shaeffer that I’d be at the parade with Brandt? It had to be you-I’ll bet you know just how to get something to Intelligence like it came out of the air. But why do it? Gunther sets it up with Kalach, who tells you, but you can’t go. The one person who couldn’t. You’re brass, General Clay’s man- you had to be at the parade. Another thing that didn’t occur to me. So, our mistake. But Kalach s going to make the snatch anyway. You could have watched the whole thing without anyone’s being the wiser. Right up there with Patton. Why tip Shaeffer?”

“To put an end to it. If Shaeffer got him back, he’d stop. I wanted it to stop.

“And if he didn’t get him? It didn’t really matter who got him, did it? Maybe Kalach would after all and take Shaeffer out doing it, and it would stop that way. While you were watching.”

“No. I wanted Shaeffer to have him. I thought it would work. Sikorsky would have been suspicious if something went wrong, but the new man—”

“Would have taken the blame himself. And you’d be home free.”

Muller looked over. “I wanted out. Of all of it. I’m not a traitor. When this started, I didn’t know what Brandt meant to us.”

“You mean how much Shaeffer would want him back. Just another one of these,” Jake said, picking up the Bensheim file. “For ten thousand dollars.”

“I didn’t know—”

“Let’s do us both a favor and skip the explanations. Everybody in Berlin wants to give me an explanation, and it never changes anything.” He dropped the folder. “But just give me one. The one thing I still can’t figure. Why’d you do it? The money?”

Muller said nothing, then looked away, oddly embarrassed. “It was just sitting there. So easy.” He turned back to Jake. “Everybody else was getting theirs. I’ve been in the service twenty-three years, and what’s it going to get me? A lousy pension? And here’s a little snot like Tully with plenty of change in his pockets. Why not?” He pointed to the persilscheins. “The first few, at Bensheim, I didn’t even know what I was signing. Just more paper. There was always something-he knew how to slip them through. Then I finally realized what he was doing—”

“And could have court-martialed him. But you didn’t. He make you a deal? ”

Muller nodded. “I’d already signed. Why not a few more?” he said, his voice vague, talking to himself. “Nobody cared about the Germans, whether they got out or not. He said if it went wrong later, I could say he’d forged them. Meanwhile, the money was there-all you had to do was pick it up. Who would know? He could be persuasive when he wanted to be-you didn’t know that about him.”