Jeffery Deaver - Garden Of Beasts

“It’s a feeling,” Kohl said, scanning the street as he stood in the shadow of a courageous, defiant bronze Hitler. “I myself don’t believe in the occult. Do you?”

“Not really, sir. I’m not religious, if that’s what you mean.”

“Well, I haven’t given up on religion completely. Heidi would not approve. But what I’m speaking of is the illusion of the spiritual based on our perceptions and experience. And I have such a feeling now. He’s near.”

“Yes, sir,” the inspector candidate said. “Why do you think so?”

An appropriate query, Kohl thought. He believed young detectives should always question their mentors. He explained: because this neighborhood was part of Berlin North. Here you could find large numbers of War wounded and poor and unemployed and closet Communists and Socis and anti-Party Edelweiss Pirate gangs, petty thieves and supporters of labor who’d gone to ground after the unions were outlawed. It was populated by those Germans who sorely missed the early days: not Weimar, of course ( no one liked the Republic), but the glory of Prussia, of Bismarck, of Wilhelm, of the Second Empire. Which meant few members of the Party and its sympathizers. Few denouncers, therefore, ready to run squealing to the Gestapo or the local Stormtrooper garrison.

“Whatever business he’s up to, it’s in places like this that he’ll find support and comrades. Stand back somewhat, Janssen. It is always easier to spot a person on the lookout for a suspect, such as us, than to spot that suspect himself.”

The young man moved into the shadows of a fishmonger’s store, whose stinking bins were mostly empty. Gamy eels, carp and sickly canal trout were all he had for sale. The officers studied the streets for a few moments, looking for their quarry.

“Now let us think, Janssen. He got out of the taxi with his suitcase – and the incriminating satchel – at Lützow Plaza. He did not have the car drive him directly here from the Olympics possibly because he dropped his bags off where he is now staying and came here for some other purpose. Why? To meet someone? To deliver something, perhaps the satchel? Or to collect something or someone? He has been to the Olympic Village, Dresden Alley, the Summer Garden, Rosenthaler Street, Lützow Plaza and now here? What ties these settings together? I wonder.”

“Shall we survey all the stores and shops?”

“I think we must. But I will tell you, Janssen, the food-deprivation concern is now serious. I am actually feeling light-headed. We will first query the cafés and, at the same time, get some sustenance for ourselves.”

Inside his shoes Kohl’s toes flexed against the pain. The lamb’s wool had migrated and his feet were stinging once again. He nodded to the closest restaurant, the one he’d parked in front of, the Edelweiss Café, and they stepped inside.

It was a dingy place. Kohl noted the averted eyes that typically greeted the appearance of an official. When they were through looking over the patrons on the off-chance that their Manny’s New York suspect might be here, Kohl displayed his ID to a waiter, who snapped instantly to attention. “Hail Hitler. How may I assist?”

In this smoky dive, Kohl doubted anyone had even heard of the position of maître d’, so he asked for the manager.

“Mr. Grolle, yes, sir. I will get him at once. Please, sit at this table, sirs. And if you wish some coffee and something to eat, please let me know.”

“I will have a coffee and apple strudel. Perhaps a double-size piece. And my colleague?” He lifted an eyebrow at Janssen.

“Just a Coca-Cola.”

“Whipped cream with the strudel?” the manager asked.

“But of course,” Willi Kohl said in a surprised voice, as if it were a sacrilege to serve it without.

As they were walking back from the gun dealer toward the Edelweiss Café, where Morgan would call his contact at the information ministry, Paul asked, “What will he get us? About Ernst’s whereabouts?”

“He told me that Goebbels insists on knowing where all the senior officials will be appearing in public. He then decides if it is important to have a filming crew or a photographer present to record the event.” He gave a sour laugh. “You go to see, say, Mutiny on the Bounty, and you don’t even get a Mickey Mouse cartoon until twenty minutes of tedious reels of Hitler coddling babies and Göring parading in his ridiculous uniforms before a thousand Labor Service workers.”

“And Ernst will be on that list?”

“That’s what I’m hoping. I hear the colonel doesn’t have much patience for propaganda, and he detests Goebbels as much as Göring, but he has learned to play the game. One does not succeed in the government in this day and age without playing the game.”

As they approached the Edelweiss Café, Paul noticed a cheap black car sitting on the curb beside the statue of Hitler, in front of the restaurant. Detroit still seemed to have one up on the German auto industry. While he’d seen some beautiful Mercedes and BMW models, most of the cars in Berlin were like this one, boxy and battered. When he returned to the United States, and had the ten G’s, he’d get the car of his dreams, a shiny black Lincoln. Marion would look swell in a car like that.

Paul was suddenly very thirsty. He decided he’d get a table while Morgan made his call. The café seemed to specialize in pastry and coffee but on a hot day like this, those had no appeal to him. Nope, he decided; he’d continue his education in the fine art of German beer making.

Sitting at a rickety table at the Eidelweiss Café, Willi Kohl finished his strudel and coffee. Much better, he thought. His hands had actually been shaking from the hunger. It wasn’t healthy to go without food for so long.

Neither the manager nor anyone else had seen a man fitting the suspect’s description. But Kohl hoped someone in this unfortunate area had seen the victim from the Dresden Alley shooting. “Janssen, do you have the pictures of our poor, dead man?”

“In the DKW, sir.”

“Well, fetch them.”

“Yes, sir.”

The young man finished his Coca-Cola and walked to the car.

Kohl followed him out the door, absently tapping the pistol in his pocket. He wiped his brow and looked up the street to his right toward the sound of yet another siren. He heard the DKW door slam and he turned back, glancing toward Janssen. As he did, the inspector noticed a fast movement just beyond his assistant, to Kohl’s left.

It appeared that a man in a dark suit, carrying a fiberboard musical instrument case or suitcase, had turned and stepped quickly into the courtyard of a large, decrepit apartment building next door to the Edelweiss Café. There was something unnatural about the abruptness with which the man had veered off the sidewalk. It struck him as somewhat odd as well that a man in a suit would be going into such a shabby place.

“Janssen,” Kohl called, “did you see that?”

“What?”

“That man going into the courtyard?”

The young officer shrugged. “Not clearly. I just saw some men on the sidewalk. Out of the corner of my eye.”

“Men?”

“Two, I believe.”

Kohl’s instincts took over. “We must look into this!”

The apartment building was attached to the structure on the right and, looking down the alley, the inspector could see that there were no side doors. “There’ll be a service entrance in the back, like at the Summer Garden. Cover it again. I’ll go through the front. Assume that both men are armed and desperate. Keep your pistol in your hand. Now run! You can beat them if you hurry.”

The inspector candidate sprinted down the alley. Kohl too armed himself. He slowly approached the courtyard.