Jeffery Deaver - Garden Of Beasts

They sat. Before Paul could even unbutton his jacket, Liesl, the attractive young waitress who’d served them earlier, made a beeline for him. “Ach, you’re back,” she announced, resting a hand on his shoulder, squeezing hard. “You could not resist me! I knew it! What will it be now?”

“Pschorr for me,” Paul said. “For him a Berlin beer.”

Her fingers brushed the back of his neck as she stepped away.

Webber’s eyes followed Liesl. “It seems that you have yourself a special friend. And what does bring you back? The allure of Liesl? Or have you been beating up more dung-shirts and need my help?”

“I thought we might be able to do some business, after all.”

“Ach, your words are like Mozart’s music to me. I knew you were a sharp one.”

Liesl brought the beers immediately. Paul noted that at least two customers who’d ordered earlier had not been served. She wrinkled her face, looking around the bar. “I must work now. Otherwise I would sit and join you and let you buy me schnapps.” Resentfully she strode off.

Webber slammed his glass into Paul’s. “Thank you for this.” He nodded after the man in the baby-blue suit, who was now at the bar. “Such problems I have. You wouldn’t believe them. Hitler announced a new car at the Berlin Auto Show last year. Better than the Audi, cheaper than the DKW. The Folks-Wagon, it is to be called. A car for everybody. You can pay by installments then pick it up when you’ve paid in full. Not a bad idea. The company can make use of the money and they still keep the car in case you don’t complete the payments. Is that not brilliant?”

Paul nodded.

“Ach, I was lucky enough to find thousands of tires.”

“Find?”

Webber shrugged. “And now I learn that the damn engineers have changed the wheel size of the piss-ant little car. My inventory is useless.”

“How much did you lose?”

Webber regarded the foam in his beer. “I haven’t actually lost money. But I will not make money. That is just as bad. Automobiles are one thing this country’s done well. The Little Man’s rebuilt all the roads. But we have a joke: You can travel anywhere in the country in great speed and comfort. But why would you want to? All you find at the other end of the road are more National Socialists.” He roared with laughter.

Liesl was looking at Paul expectantly from across the room. What did she want? Another order for beer, a roll in the hay, a marriage proposal? Paul turned back to Webber. “I will admit you were right, Otto. I am something more than a sportswriter.”

“If you are a sportswriter at all.”

“I have a proposal.”

“Fine, fine. But let us talk among four eyes. You understand the meaning? Just the two of us. There’s a better place to speak and I need to deliver something.”

They drained their beers and Paul left some marks on the table. Webber picked up a cloth shopping bag with the words KaDeWe – the World’s Finest Store printed on the side. They escaped without saying good-bye to Liesl.

“Come this way.” Outside they turned north, away from downtown, from the shops, from the fancy Metropol Hotel, and plunged into the increasingly tawdry neighborhood.

There were a number of nightclubs and cabarets here but they’d all been boarded up. “Ach, look at this. My old neighborhood. It’s all gone now. Listen, Mr. John Dillinger, I will tell you that I was very famous in Berlin. Just like your mobs that I read about in the crime shockers, we had our Ringvereine here.”

Paul was not familiar with the word, whose literal translation was “ring association,” but, with Webber’s explanation, decided it meant “gang rings.”

Webber continued. “Ach, we had many of them. Very powerful. Mine was called after your Wild West. We were the Cowboys.” He used the English word. “I was president of it for a time. Yes, president. You look surprised. But we held elections to choose our leaders.”

“Democracy.”

Webber grew serious. “You must remember, we were a republic then, our German government was. It was President Hindenburg. Our gang rings were very well run. They were grand. We owned buildings and restaurants and had elegant parties. Even costume balls, and we invited politicians and police officials. We were criminals, yes, but we were respectable. We were proud and we were skillful too. Someday I may boast to you of my better cons.

“I don’t know much about your mob, Mr. John Dillinger – your Al Capone, your Dutch Schultz – but ours began as boxing clubs. Laborers would meet to box after work and they began protection rings. We had years of rebellion and civil unrest after the War, fighting with the Kosis. Madness. And then dreadful inflation… It was cheaper to burn banknotes for heat than to spend them on wood. One of your dollars would buy billions of marks. Times were terrible. We have an expression in our country: ‘The devil plays in the empty pocket.’ And all of our pockets were empty. It’s why the Little Man came to power. And it’s how I made myself a success. The world was barter and the black market. I bloomed in such an atmosphere.”

“I can imagine,” Paul said. Then he nodded at a boarded-up cabaret. “And the National Socialists have cleaned everything up.”

“Ach, that’s one way to put it. Depends on what you mean by ‘cleaned up.’ The Little Man isn’t right in the head. He doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t like women. Or men. Watch how he holds his hat over his crotch at rallies. We say he’s protecting the last of Germany’s unemployed!” Webber laughed hard. Then the smile faded. “But it’s no joke. Thanks to him, the inmates have taken over the prison.”

They continued in silence for a time. Then Webber stopped and pointed proudly to a decrepit building.

“Here we are, my friend. Look at the name.”

The faded sign read in English, The Texas Club.

“This used to be our headquarters. Of my gang ring, the Cowboys, I was telling you. It was far, far nicer then. Watch your step, Mr. John Dillinger. There are sometimes men sleeping off hangovers in the entryway. Ach, did I lament already how times have changed?”

Webber had delivered his mysterious shopping bag to the bartender and collected an envelope.

The room was filled with smoke and stank of garbage and garlic. The floor was littered with cigarette and cigar butts, smoked down to tiny nubs.

“Have only beer here,” Webber warned. “They can’t adulterate the kegs. They come sealed from the brewery. As for everything else? Well, they mix the schnapps with ethyl and food extract. The wine… Ach, do not even ask. And as for food…” He nodded at sets of knives, forks and spoons chained to the wall next to each table. A young man in filthy clothing was walking around the room rinsing the used ones in a greasy pail. “Far better to leave hungry,” Webber said. “Or you might not leave at all.”

They ordered and found seats. The bartender, staring darkly at Paul the whole time, brought beers. Both men wiped the lips of the glasses before drinking. Webber happened to glance down and then frowned. He lifted his solid leg over his opposite knee and examined his trousers. The bottom of his cuff had frayed through, threads dangling.

He examined the damage. “Ach. And these trousers were from England! Bond Street! Well, I’ll get one of my girls to fix it.”

“Girls? You have daughters?”

“I may. Sons too perhaps. I don’t know. But I am referring to one of the women I live with.”

“Women? All together?”

“Of course not,” Webber said. “Sometimes I’m at one’s apartment, sometimes at another’s. A week here, a week there. One of them is a cook possessed by Escoffier, one sews as Michelangelo sculpted, one is a woman of considerable experience in bed. Ach, they’re all pearls, each in her own way.”