Jeffery Deaver - Garden Of Beasts

The sun finally sets…

He found the restaurant easily. He saw the sign but didn’t even notice the word “Bierhaus.” To him it was “Beer House.” He was already thinking in German. His upbringing and the hours of typesetting at his grandfather’s plant made the translations automatic. He looked over the place. A half dozen lunchers sat on the patio, men and women, solitary for the most part, lost in their food or newspapers. Nothing out of kilter that he could see.

Paul crossed the street to the passageway Avery had told him about, Dresden Alley. He walked into the dark, cool canyon. The time was a few minutes before noon.

A moment later he heard footsteps. Then a heavyset man in a brown suit and waistcoat strode up behind him, working a toothpick in his teeth.

“Good day,” the man said cheerfully in German. He glanced at the brown leather briefcase.

Paul nodded. He was the way Avery’d described Morgan, though he was heavier than Paul had expected.

“This is a good shortcut, don’t you think? I use it often.”

“It certainly is.” Paul glanced at him. “Maybe you can help me. What’s the best tram to take to get to Alexander Plaza?”

But the man frowned. “The tram? Do you mean from here?”

Paul grew more alert. “Yes. To Alexander Plaza.”

“Why would you take the tram? The underground is much faster.”

Okay, Paul thought; he’s the wrong one. Get away. Now. Just walk slowly. “Thank you. That’s most helpful. Good day to you.”

But Paul’s eyes must have revealed something. The man’s hand strayed to his side, a gesture Paul knew well, and he thought: pistol!

Goddamn them for sending him out here without his Colt.

Paul’s fists clenched and he started forward but, for a fat man, his adversary was surprisingly quick and leapt back, out of Paul’s reach, deftly pulling a black pistol from his belt. Paul could only turn and flee. He sprinted around a corner into a short offshoot of the alley.

He stopped fast. It was a dead end.

A scrape of shoe behind him and he felt the man’s weapon against his back, level with his heart…

“Don’t move,” the man announced in guttural German. “Drop the bag.”

He dropped the briefcase on the cobblestones, feeling the gun leave his back and touch his head, just below the sweatband of his hat.

Father, he thought – not to the deity but to his own parent, gone from this earth twelve years.

He closed his eyes.

The sun finally sets…

The shot was abrupt. It echoed briefly off the walls of the alley and then was smothered by the brick.

Cringing, Paul felt the muzzle of the gun press harder into his skull and then the weapon fell away; he heard it clatter on the cobblestones. He stepped away fast, crouching, and turned to see the man who’d been about to kill him crumpling to the ground. His eyes were open but glazed. A bullet had struck him in the side of the head. Blood spattered the ground and brick wall.

He looked up and saw another man, in a charcoal-gray flannel suit, approaching him. Instinct took over and Paul swept up the dead man’s pistol. It was an automatic of some sort with a toggle on the top, a Luger, he believed. Aiming at the man’s chest, Paul squinted. He recognized the fellow from the Beer House. He’d been sitting on the patio, lost in his newspaper – Paul had assumed. He held a pistol, a large automatic of some kind, but it wasn’t pointed at Paul; he was still aiming at the man on the ground.

“Don’t move,” Paul said in German. “Drop the gun.”

The man didn’t drop it but, convinced the man he’d shot wasn’t a threat, slipped his own weapon into his pocket. He looked up and down Dresden Alley. “Shhhh,” he whispered then cocked his head to listen. He slowly approached. “Schumann?” he asked.

Paul said nothing. He kept the Luger aimed at the stranger, who crouched in front of the shot man. “My watch.” The words were in German, a faint accent.

“What?”

“My watch. That’s all I’m reaching for.” He pulled out his pocket watch, opened it and held the crystal in front of the man’s nose and mouth. There was no condensation of breath. He put the timepiece away.

“You’re Schumann?” the man repeated, nodding at the briefcase on the ground. “I’m Reggie Morgan.” He too fit the description Avery had given him: dark hair and mustache, though he was much thinner than the dead man.

Paul looked up and down the alley. No one.

The exchange would seem absurd, with a dead body in front of them, but Paul asked, “What’s the best tram to take to get to Alexander Plaza?”

Morgan replied quickly, “The number one thirty-eight tram… No, actually, the two fifty-four is better.”

Paul glanced at the body. “So then who’s he?”

“Let’s find out.” He bent over the corpse and began to rifle through the dead man’s pockets.

“I’ll keep watch,” Paul said.

“Good.”

Paul stepped away. Then he turned back and touched the Luger to the back of Morgan’s head.

“Don’t move.”

The man froze. “What’s this?”

In English Paul said, “Give me your passport.”

Paul took the booklet, which confirmed that he was Reginald Morgan. Still, as he handed it back, he kept the pistol where it was. “Describe the Senator to me. In English.”

“Just easy on the trigger, you don’t mind,” the man said in a voice that placed his roots somewhere in New England. “Okay, the Senator? He’s sixty-two years old, got white hair, a nose with more veins than he ought to have, thanks to the scotch. And he’s thin as a rail even though he eats a whole T-bone at Delmonico’s when he’s in New York and at Ernie’s in Detroit.”

“What’s he smoke?”

“Nothing the last time I saw him, last year. Because of the wife. But he told me he was going to start again. And what he used to smoke were Dominican cigars that smelled like burning Firestones. Give me a break, pal. I don’t want to die ’cause some old man took up a bad habit again.”

Paul put the gun away. “Sorry.”

Morgan resumed his examination of the corpse, unfazed by Paul’s test. “I’d rather work with a cautious man who insults me than a careless one who doesn’t. We’ll both live longer.” He dug through the pockets of the dead man. “Any visitors yet?”

Paul glanced up and down Dresden Alley. “Nothing.”

He was aware that Morgan was staring in chagrin at something he’d found in the dead man’s pockets. He sighed. “Okay. Brother, here’s a problem.”

“What?”

The man held up an official-looking card. On the top was a stamp of an eagle and below it, in a circle, a swastika. The letters “SA” appeared on the top.

“What does that mean?”

“It means, my friend, that you’ve been in town for less than a day and already we’ve managed to kill a Stormtrooper.”

“A what?” Paul Schumann asked.

Morgan sighed. “ Sturmabteilung. Stormtrooper. Or Brownshirt. Sort of the Party’s own army. Think of them as Hitler’s thugs.” He shook his head. “And it’s worse for us. He’s not in uniform. That means he’s a Brown Elite. One of their senior people.”

“How did he find out about me?”

“I’m not sure he did, not you specifically. He was in a phone booth, checking up on everybody on the street.”

“I didn’t see him,” Paul said, angry with himself for missing the surveillance. Everything was too damn out of kilter here; he didn’t know what to look for and what to ignore.

Morgan continued. “As soon as you started into the alley, he came after you. I’d say he just took it on himself to see what you were up to – a stranger in the neighborhood. The Brownshirts have their fiefdoms. This must’ve been his.” Morgan frowned. “But still, it’s unusual for them to be so vigilant. The question is why is a senior SA man looking into ordinary citizens? They leave that to their underlings. Maybe some alert has gone out.” He gazed at the corpse. “In any event, this is a problem. If the Brownshirts find out one of their own has been killed they won’t stop searching until they find the murderer. Oh, and they will search. There are tens of thousands of them in the city. Like roaches.”