Jeffery Deaver - Garden Of Beasts

Morgan lifted an eyebrow.

They told me you were good.

Paul nodded toward his satchel, whispering, “ My Struggle. Hitler’s book. What exactly is it?”

“Somebody called it a collection of 160,000 grammatical errors. It’s supposedly Hitler’s philosophy but basically it’s impenetrable nonsense. But you might want to keep it.” Morgan smiled. “Berlin is a city of shortages and at the moment toilet tissue is hard to find.”

A brief laugh. Then Paul asked, “This man we’re about to meet… why can we trust him?”

“In Germany now trust is a curious thing. The risk is so grave and so prevalent that it’s not enough to trust someone just because they believe in your cause. In my contact’s case, his brother was a union organizer murdered by Stormtroopers, so he sympathizes with us. But I am not willing to risk my life on that alone. So I have paid him a great deal of money. There is an expression here: ‘Whose bread I eat is whose song I sing.’ Well, Max eats a great deal of my bread. And he’s in the precarious position of having already sold me some very helpful and, for him, compromising material. This is a perfect example of how trust works here: You must either bribe someone or threaten him, and I prefer to do both simultaneously.”

The door opened and Morgan squinted in recognition. “Ah, that’s he,” he whispered. A thin man in worker’s coveralls entered the restaurant, a small rucksack slung over his shoulder. He looked around, blinking to acclimate his vision to the dimness. Morgan waved his hand and the man joined them. He was clearly nervous, eyes darting from Paul to the other patrons to the waiters to the shadows in the corridors that led to the lavatory and the kitchen, then back to Paul.

“They” is everybody in Germany now…

He sat at the table, first with his back to the door, then switched seats so that he could see the rest of the restaurant.

“Good afternoon,” Morgan said.

“Hail Hitler.”

“Hail,” Paul replied.

“My friend here has asked that he be called Max. He has done work for the man you’ve come to see. Around his house. He delivers goods there and knows the housekeeper and gardener. He lives in the same town, Charlottenburg, west of here.”

Max declined food or beer and had only coffee, into which he poured sugar that left a dusty scum on the surface. He stirred vigorously.

“I need to know everything you can tell me about him,” Paul whispered.

“Yes, yes, I will.” But he fell silent and looked around again. He wore his suspicion like the lotion that plastered down his thinning hair. Paul found the uneasiness irritating, not to mention dangerous. Max opened the rucksack and offered a dark green folder to Paul. Sitting back so no one could see the contents, he opened it and found himself looking at a half dozen wrinkled photographs. They depicted a man in a business suit, which was tailored, the clothing of a meticulous, conscientious man. He was in his fifties and had a round head and short gray or white hair. He wore wire-rimmed glasses.

Paul asked, “These are definitely of him? What about doubles?”

“He doesn’t use doubles.” The man took a sip of coffee with shaking hands and looked around the restaurant again.

Paul finished studying them. He was going to tell Max to keep the photos and destroy them when he got home but the man seemed too nervous and the American imagined him panicking and leaving them on the tram or subway. He slipped the folder into his satchel, next to Hitler’s book; he’d dispose of them later.

“Now,” Paul said, leaning forward, “tell me about him. Everything you know.”

Max relayed what he knew about Reinhard Ernst: The colonel retained the discipline and air of a military man though he’d been out of the service for some years. He would rise early and work long, long hours, six or seven days a week. He exercised regularly and was an expert shot. He often carried a small automatic pistol. His office was on Wilhelm Street, in the Chancellory building, and he drove himself to and from the office, rarely accompanied by a guard. His car was an open-air Mercedes.

Paul was considering what the man had said. “This Chancellory? He’s there every day?”

“Usually, yes. Though sometimes he travels to shipyards or, recently, to Krupp’s works.”

“Who’s Krupp?”

“His companies make munitions and armor.”

“At the Chancellory, where would he park?”

“I don’t know, sir. I’ve never been there.”

“Can you find out where he’ll be in the next few days? When he might go to the office?”

“Yes, I’ll try.” A pause. “I don’t know if…” Max’s voice faded.

“What?” Paul asked.

“I know some things about his personal life too. About his wife, daughter-in-law, his grandson. Do you want to know that side of his life? Or would you rather not?”

Touching the ice…

“No,” Paul said in a whisper. “Tell me everything.”

They drove down Rosenthaler Street, as quickly as the tiny engine could carry them, toward the Summer Garden restaurant.

Konrad Janssen asked his boss, “Sir, a question?”

“Yes?”

“Inspector Krauss was hoping to find that a foreigner was the killer and we have evidence that the suspect is one. Why didn’t you tell him that?”

“Evidence that suggests that he might be one. And not very strongly. Merely that he might have had an accent and that he whistled for a taxi.”

“Yes, sir. But shouldn’t we have mentioned it? We could use the Gestapo’s resources.”

Heavyset Kohl was breathing hard and sweating furiously in the heat. He liked the summer because the family could enjoy the Tiergarten and Luna Park or drive to Wannsee or the Havel River for picnics. But for climate he was an autumn person at heart. He wiped his forehead and replied, “No, Janssen, we should not have mentioned it nor should we have sought the Gestapo’s help. And this is why: First, since the consolidation last month, the Gestapo and SS are doing whatever they can to strip the Kripo of its independence. We must retain as much as we can and that means we need to do our job alone. And second, and much, much more important: The Gestapo’s ‘resources’ are often simply arresting anyone who seems in the least guilty – of anything. And sometimes arresting those who are clearly innocent but whose arrests might be convenient. ”

Kripo headquarters contained six hundred holding cells, whose purpose had once been like those in police stations everywhere: to detain criminal arrestees until they were released or tried. Presently these cells – filled to overflowing – held those accused of vague political crimes and were over-seen by Stormtroopers, brutal young men in brown uniforms and white armbands. The cells were merely temporary stops on the way to a concentration camp or Gestapo headquarters on Prince Albrecht Street. Sometimes to the cemetery.

Kohl continued. “No, Janssen, we’re craftsmen practicing the refined art of police work, not Saxon farmers armed with sickles to mow down dozens of citizens in the pursuit of a single guilty man.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Never forget that.” He shook his head. “Ach, how much harder it is to do our job in this moral quicksand around us.” As he pulled the car to the curb he glanced at his assistant. “Janssen, you could have me arrested, you know, and sent to Oranienburg for a year for saying what I just did.”

“I wouldn’t say anything, sir.”

Kohl killed the ignition. They climbed out, then trotted quickly up the broad sidewalk toward the Summer Garden. As they got closer Willi Kohl detected the scent of well-marinated sauerbraten, for which this place was known. His stomach growled.