Joseph Kanon - A Good German

“And you think he might help?”

“That’s up to you. Take a bottle of brandy. He likes that. Maybe you can talk him into it.”

“He knows the black market?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Bernie said, with the first trace of a smile. “He’s in it.” Contents — Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Gunther Behn lived as far east as you could go in Kreuzberg and still be in the American sector. In the old days it would have been a short walk to police headquarters in Alexanderplatz. Now the way was blocked by a hill of bricks and a gutted tram that had been upended as a tank barricade and never removed. The top of the building had been blown away, leaving only Gunther’s ground-floor flat and the floor above, half open to the sky. It took several knocks to bring him to the door, a pair of thick glasses peering suspiciously around the edge.

“Gunther Behn? My name is Geismar. Bernie Teitel sent me.”

A surprised look, hearing German, then a grunt.

“Can I come in?”

Gunther opened the door. “You’re an American. You can do whatever you want,” he said, shuffling indifferently back to an armchair where a cigarette was burning. The room was crowded-a table, a daybed, an old console radio, shelves of books, and a giant map of Greater Berlin that covered an entire wall. In one corner, a stack of PX cans he hadn’t bothered to hide.

“I brought you this,” Jake said, holding out the brandy.

“A bribe?” he said. “What does he want now?” He took the bottle. “French.” In the warm room, stale with smoke, he was wearing a cardigan. Close-cropped hair, almost as short as the gray stubble that covered his unshaven chin. Not yet old, probably early fifties. Behind the glasses, the glazed eyes of a drinker. A book lay open on the armchair. “What is it? Is there a date for the trial?”

“No. He thought you might be able to help me.”

“With what?” he said, opening the bottle and sniffing.

“A job.”

He looked at Jake, then put the cork in and handed back the bottle. “Tell him no. I’m finished with that business. Even for brandy.”

“Not for Bernie. A job for me.” Jake nodded at the bottle. “It’s yours either way.”

“What is it? Another greifer?”

“No, an American.”

His cheek moved in a tic of surprise, which he covered by walking over to the table and pouring two fingers of brandy into a glass. “How is it you speak German?” he said.

“I used to live in Berlin.”

“Ah.” He tossed back a healthy swig. “How do you like it now?”

“I knew Renate,” Jake said to his back, hoping for a point of contact.

Gunther took another gulp. “So did many people. That was the problem.”

“Bernie told me. I’m sorry about your wife.”

But Gunther seemed not to have heard, a willed deafness. In the awkward quiet Jake noticed for the first time that there were no pictures in the room, no reminders at all, the visual traces locked away somewhere in a closet, or thrown out after the divorce. “So what do you want?”

“Some help. Bernie said you were a detective.”

“Retired. The Amis retired me. Did he tell you that?”

“Yes. He also said you were good. I’m trying to solve a murder.”

“A murder?” He snorted. “A murder in Berlin. My friend, there Were millions. Who cares about one?”

“I do.”

Gunther turned, looking him up and down, a policeman’s appraisal. Jake said nothing. Finally Gunther turned back to the bottle. A drink?“ he said. ”Since you brought it.“

“No, it’s early.”

“Coffee, then? Real coffee, not ersatz.” Not grudging; an invitation to stay.

“You have it?”

“Another gift,” he said, holding up the glass. “One minute.” He headed toward the kitchen but detoured to peek out the window. “Did you disable the motor? The distributor cap?”

“I’ll chance it.”

“Don’t take chances in Berlin,” he said, scolding. “Not now.” He shook his head. “Americans.”

Jake watched him open the door to the kitchen. More packing cases, a pile of canned goods, cartons of cigarettes. Gifts. He was still sipping the brandy, but moved around the small space with steady efficiency, one of those drinkers who never seem affected until they pass out at night. Jake went over to the shelves. Rows of westerns. Karl May, the German Zane Grey. Gunfights in Yuma. Sheriffs and posses tracking through sagebrush. An unexpected vice at the edge of Kreuzberg.

“Where did you get the map?” Jake said. The whole city, dotted with pins.

“My office. It wasn’t safe in the Alex, with the bombs. Now I like to look at it sometimes. It makes me think Berlin is still out there. All the streets.” He came into the room with two cups. “It’s important to know where you are in police work. The where, very important.” He handed Jake a cup. “Where was your murder?”

“Potsdam,” Jake said, glancing involuntarily at the map, as if the body would appear in the ribbons of blue lakes in the lower left corner.

“Potsdam? An American?” He followed Jake’s eyes to the edge of the map. “With the conference?”

“No. He had ten thousand dollars,” Jake said, baiting a hook.

Gunther looked at him, then motioned him to a table chair. “Sit.” He sank into the armchair, moving the book aside. “So tell me.”

It took ten minutes. There wasn’t much to tell, and Gunther’s expression discouraged speculation. He had taken off his glasses, his eyelids lowered to slits, and he listened without nodding, the only sign of life a steady movement of his hand from coffee cup to brandy glass.

“I’ll know more when I hear back from Bernie,” Jake finished.

Gunther pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed it in thought, then put back his glasses.

“What will you know?” he said finally.

“Who he was, what he was like.”

“You think that would be useful,” Gunther said. “Who.”

“Don’t you?”

“Usually,” he said, taking a drink. “If this were before. Now? Let me explain something to you. I saved the map.” He cocked his head toward the wall. “But everything else was lost. Fingerprint files. Criminal picture files. General files. We don’t know who anyone is in Berlin. No residency records. Lost. Something is stolen, you can’t look in the hock shops, the usual places. They’re gone. If it’s sold to a soldier, he sends it home. No trace. No policeman in Berlin can solve a crime now. Not even a retired one.”

“It’s not a German crime.”

“Then why come to me?”

“Because you know the black market.”

“You think so?”

“You get a lot of gifts.”

“Yes, I’m so rich,” he said, lifting his hand to the room. “Tins of corned beef. A treasure.”

“You know how it works, or you wouldn’t be eating. You know how Berlin works.”

“How Berlin works,” Gunther said, grunting again.

“Even now. Germans run the market. Probably the same ones who ran things before. You’d know them. So which one did Tully know? He wasn’t making a casual deal. He wasn’t in Berlin, he came to Berlin.”

Gunther slowly took out a cigarette and watched Jake as he lit it. “Good. That’s the first point. You saw that. What else?”

A detective testing a recruit. Jake leaned forward.

“The point is the money. There’s too much.”

Gunther shook his head. “No, you missed the point. The point is that he still had it.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Herr Geismar. A man sells something. The buyer shoots him. Would he not take the money back? Why would he leave it?”

Jake sat back, disconcerted. The obvious question, overlooked by everybody except a bent cop, still on the job behind the brandy haze. “Meaning?”