Philip Kerr - If the Dead Rise Not

“What did this fellow weigh?” he asked me.

“When they fished him out of the canal, about ninety kilos.”

“So maybe he was about nine or ten kilos lighter when he was in training,” said the Turk. “A middleweight. Or maybe a light heavyweight.” He looked again and then smacked the picture with the back of his hand. “I dunno. After they’ve been in the ring for a while, a lot of these pugs start to look the same. What makes you think he was Jewish? To me he looks like a goy.”

“He was circumcised,” I said. “Oh, and by the way, he was a southpaw, too.”

“I see.” The Turk nodded. “Well, maybe, just maybe, it could be that this is a fellow by the name of Erich Seelig. A few years ago he was a light heavyweight champion, from Bromberg. If it is him, this is the Jew who beat some pretty good fighters like Rere de Vos, Walter Eggert, and Gypsy Trollmann.”

“Gypsy Trollmann?”

“Yeah. You know him?”

“I’ve heard of him, of course,” I said. “Who hasn’t? Whatever happened to that guy?”

“He’s the doorman at the Cockatoo, last I heard.”

“And Seelig? What’s his story?”

“We don’t get the newspapers here, friend. Everything I know is months old. But what I heard was that some SA thugs turned up at his last fight. A title defense against Helmut Hartkopp, in Hamburg. They put the frighteners on him. Because he was Jewish. After that he disappears. Maybe he leaves the country. Maybe he stays and ends up in the canal. Who knows? Berlin is a long way from Hamburg. But not as far as Bromberg. That’s in the Polish corridor, I think.”

“Erich Seelig, you say.”

“Maybe. I never had to look at no corpse before. Unless it was in the ring, of course. How’d you find me, anyway?”

“Fellow named Buckow at the T-gym. He said to say hello.”

“Bucky? Yeah, he’s all right, is Bucky.”

I took out my wallet and thumbed a leaf at him, but he wouldn’t take it, so I gave him all but one of my cigarettes, and Mrs. Charalambides did the same.

We were about to get back in the boat when something flew through the air and struck the man wearing the big hat. He dropped to one knee with one bloody hand pressed to his cheek.

“It’s those little bastards again,” spat the Turk.

In the distance, about thirty meters away, I saw a collection of khaki-clad youths now occupying a clearing in the forest. A stone flew through the air, narrowly missing Mrs. Charalambides.

“Yiddos,” they chanted in a singsong sort of way. “Yidd-os!”

“I’ve had enough of this,” said the Turk. “I’m going to sort those little bastards out.”

“No,” I said. “Don’t. You’ll only land yourself in trouble. Let me handle it.”

“What can you do?” said Mrs. Charalambides.

“We’ll see. Give me your room key.”

“My room key? What for?”

“Just do it.”

She opened an ostrich-leather bag and handed over the key. It was attached to a big brass oval fob. I threaded the key off the fob and handed it back. Then I turned and walked toward our attackers.

“Be careful,” she said.

Another stone sailed over my head.

“Yidd-os! Yidd-os! Yidd-os!”

“That’s enough,” I shouted at them. “The next boy who throws a stone will be under arrest.”

There were maybe twenty of them, aged between ten and sixteen. All blond, with young, hard faces and heads full of the nonsense they heard from Nazis like Richard Bömer. Germany’s future was in their hands. And so were several large stones. When I was about ten meters away I flashed the key fob in the palm of my hand hoping that, from a distance, it might pass for a policeman’s warrant disc. I heard one of them gasp, “He’s a copper,” and I smiled, realizing my trick had worked. They were just a bunch of kids, after all.

“That’s right, I’m a policeman,” I said, still holding the disc out. “Criminal Commissar Adlon, from the Westend Praesidium. And you can all count yourselves lucky that none of these other police officers you attacked are more seriously hurt.”

“Police officers?”

“But they look like yids. Some of them do, anyway.”

“What kind of cops go around dressed as yids?”

“Secret policemen, that’s who,” I said, and slapped the oldest-looking boy hard on his freckled cheek. He started to cry. “These are Gestapo officers on the lookout for a vicious killer who’s been murdering boys in this forest. That’s right. Boys like you. He cuts their throats and then dismembers their bodies. The only reason it hasn’t been in the papers is that we don’t want to cause a panic. And then you mugs come along and nearly blow the whole operation.”

“You can’t blame us, sir,” said another boy. “They looked like yids.”

I slapped him, too. I thought it best they formed an accurate impression of what the Gestapo was really like. That way Germany might have some kind of future, after all.

“Shut up,” I snarled. “And don’t speak unless you’re spoken to. Got that?”

The members of the Hitler Youth troop nodded sullenly.

I took hold of one by his neckerchief.

“You, what have you got to say for yourself?”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Sorry? You could have had that officer’s eye out. I’ve a good mind to tell your fathers to leather the lot of you. Better still, I’ve a good mind to have you all arrested and thrown into a concentration camp. How would you like that, eh?”

“Please, sir. We didn’t mean any harm.”

I let the boy go. By now all of them were looking contrite. They were looking less like Hitler Youth and more like a group of schoolboys. I had them where I wanted them now. I might have been handling a squad back at the Alex. After all, cops do all the same stupid juvenile things that schoolboys do, except the homework.

“All right. We’ll say no more about it this time. And that goes for you, too. Tell no one about this. No one. Do you hear? This is an undercover operation. And the next time you feel inclined to take the law into your own hands, don’t. Not everyone who looks like a Jew really is a Jew. Remember that. Now go home before I change my mind and run you all in for assaulting a police officer. And remember what I said. There’s a vicious murderer at work in these woods, so you’d best stay away from here until you read that he’s been caught.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ll do that, sir.”

I walked back to the little group of tents on the edge of the lake. The light was beginning to fade. The bullfrogs were opening up shop. Fish were jumping in the water. One of the Jews was already casting a line at a widening ripple. The man with the hat wasn’t badly injured. He was smoking one of my cigarettes to steady his nerves.

“What did you say to get rid of them?” asked the Turk.

“I told them all you were undercover cops,” I said.

“And they believed you?” asked Mrs. Charalambides.

“Of course they believed me.”

“But why?” she said. “It’s such an obvious lie.”

“And when did that ever stop the Nazis?” I nodded at the boat. “Get in,” I told her. “We’re leaving.”

I fetched my last cigarette from behind my ear and lit it from a piece of firewood that the Turk brought to me. “I think they’ll leave you alone,” I told him. “I didn’t exactly put the fear of God in them. Just the fear of the Gestapo. But to them that probably means more.”

The Turk laughed. “Thanks, mister,” he said, and shook my hand.

I untied the rope and climbed into the boat alongside Mrs. Charalambides. “That’s one thing I’ve learned in the last few years,” I said, starting the engine. “To lie like you mean it. As long as you can convince yourself of something first, no matter how outrageous, there’s no telling what you can get away with these days.”