Philip Kerr - If the Dead Rise Not

“Feeling any better?” He sat down on the pile of concrete blocks. “It’s a little early for that, you might think. But I’m afraid that the way you are feeling now is likely to be as good as it gets, for the rest of your life. In fact, I can guarantee it.”

He relit his cigar and chuckled. Dora leaned on the rail of the boat and looked out into what appeared as a limbo, in which we were floating like lost souls. Standing with his fists on his hips, Krempel looked ready to hit me anytime he was asked.

“You should have listened to Count von Helldorf. I mean, he couldn’t have been more explicit. But, no, you had to be Sam fucking Spade and stick your cornet where it wasn’t wanted. I just don’t get that. Really, I don’t. You must have appreciated that there was just too much money involved, and too many important people getting a big fat slice of the Black Forest cherry cake called the Olympic Games for anything to be allowed to spoil that. Certainly anything as easily disposable as you, Gunther.”

I closed my eyes for a minute.

“You know, you’re not a bad fellow at all. I almost like you. No, really. I even thought of cutting you in and offering you a job. A proper job, not that joke job you have at the Adlon. But there’s something about you that makes me think I just couldn’t trust you. I think it’s that you were once a cop.” He shook his head. “No, that can’t be right. I’ve bought plenty of cops in my time. I guess it must be that you were an honest cop. And a good one, from what I hear. I admire integrity. But I’ve got no use for it right now. I don’t think anyone has. Not in Germany. Not this year.

“Really, you wouldn’t believe how many fucking pigs there are who want to feed at this trough. Of course, they needed someone like me to show them how it’s done. I mean, we-by which I mean the people I represent in the States-we made a lot back in thirty-two with the Los Angeles Olympics. But the Nazis really know how to do business. Brundage couldn’t believe it when he first turned up here. It was him who tipped us off in Chicago about all the money that was to be made out here.”

“And the East Asian artifacts are some payback for that.”

“Right. A few bits and pieces of the kind he collects and appreciates, but which no one here is going to miss. He’s also going to pick up a nice contract to build a new German embassy in Washington. Which is the real treasure, if you ask me. You see, with Hitler the sky is the limit. I’m delighted to say that the man has absolutely no idea of economy. If he wants something, he gets it and to hell with the cost. In the beginning the Olympic budget was, what, twenty million marks? Now it’s probably four or five times that. And I guess the skim must be fifteen or twenty percent. Can you imagine?

“Of course, it’s not always straightforward dealing with Hitler. The man is capricious, you know? You see, I’d already bought a company that makes ready-mixed concrete, and done a deal with the architect, Werner March, only to discover that Hitler doesn’t like fucking concrete. In fact, he hates it. He hates anything that’s in any way modern. It doesn’t matter a damn to him that half of all the new buildings in Europe are made of fucking concrete. That isn’t what he wants, and he won’t budge.

“When Werner March showed him the plans and specifications for the new stadium, Hitler went nuts. Only limestone would be good enough. And not any goddamn limestone, you understand. It had to be German limestone. So I had to buy a limestone company in a hurry and then make sure my new company-Würzburg Jura Limestone-was awarded the contract. Too much of a hurry, if the truth be told. Given more time, I could have smoothed things over, but. Well, you know all about that part, you sonofabitch. It’s left me with a lot of concrete, but you’re going to help me to get rid of some of that, Gunther. These three breeze blocks I’m sitting on are going to the bottom of Lake Tegel, and you’re going with them.”

“Just like Isaac Deutsch,” I croaked. “I take it Erich Goerz works for you.”

“That’s right. He does. He’s a good man, Erich. But he lacks experience in this kind of work. So this time I’m doing it myself, to make sure the job gets done properly. We don’t want you rising up from the bottom like Deutsch. I always say if you want someone disposed of properly, you’d better do it yourself.” He sighed. “These things happen, eh? Even to the best of us.”

He puffed the cigar for a moment and then blew out a funnel of smoke that might have come from the funnel above my head. The boat was maybe thirty feet long, and I thought maybe I’d seen it somewhere before.

“I figure it was a mistake to dump that sonofabitch, Isaac, in the canal. Nine meters. Not deep enough. But out here the water is sixteen meters deep. That’s not Lake Michigan or the Hudson River, but it’ll do. Yes, there’s that and the fact that I’m not exactly a stranger to this shit. So relax, you’re in good hands. The one remaining question I have for you, Gunther-and it’s an important one from your point of view, so I advise you to pay attention-is whether we deep-six you dead or alive. I’ve seen both, and it’s my considered opinion that it’s best you go down dead. Drowning’s not quick, I don’t think. Me, I’d prefer a bullet in the head beforehand.”

“I’ll try to remember that.”

“But don’t let me sway you. This is your decision. Only, I need to know what you know, Gunther. Everything. Who you’ve told about me, and what. Think it over for a minute. I have to take a leak and put a coat on. It’s a little chilly out here on the water, don’t you think? Dora? Give him another glass of water. It might help to make him talk.”

He turned and walked away. Krempel followed, and in the absence of a personal cuspidor, I spat after them.

Dora gave me some more water. I drank it down greedily. “Guess I’ll have all the water I can drink in a little while,” I said.

“That’s not even funny.” She wiped my mouth with my tie.

“I’d forgotten how beautiful you are.”

“Thanks.”

“Nope. You’re still not laughing. I guess that wasn’t funny, either.”

She glared at me like I was dermatitis.

“You know, in Grand Hotel , Joan Crawford’s not supposed to fall for Wallace Beery,” I said.

“Max? He’s not so bad.”

“I’ll try to remember that when I reach the bottom of the lake.”

“I suppose you think you’re like John Barrymore.”

“Not with this profile. But I do think I’d like a cigarette, if you have one. You can call it one last request, since I’ve already seen you naked. At least now I can be sure when you’re wearing a wig.”

“A regular Curt Valentin, aren’t you?”

Under the fur she was wearing a lavender-colored knitted dress that hugged her figure like a coat of emulsion, and over her wrist was a drawstring pouch bag that contained a handsome gold cigarette case and lighter.

“It looks as if Saint Nicholas has been here already,” I said as she pushed a cigarette between my cracked lips and lit it. “At least someone thinks you’ve been a good girl.”

“By now anyone would think you’d learned to keep your nose out of other people’s business,” she said.

“Oh, I’ve learned that, all right. Perhaps you’d like to tell him that. Maybe a good word from you has a better chance of success than one from me. Better still, perhaps you still have that gun. I’d say that where Max Reles is concerned, a Mauser has an even better chance than any amount of good words.”

She took the cigarette from me, drew in smoke, and then put it back in my mouth with cool fingers that were almost as heavily perfumed as they were ringed. “What makes you think I’d ever betray a man like Max for a dog like you, Gunther?”