Eric Norden - The Ultimate Solution

The guy on my right had to be Larsen, and there was nothing pink about him, either in complexion or dress. He was a pasty-faced little guy in his early fifties with shrewd eyes, pockmark-pitted cheeks and a moist slash of a mouth juicily savaging the remnants of a cigar. His green ersatzwool suit must have cost at least 500 marks, but it still managed to look shabby on him. Larsen shot me one brief, wary glance as I sat down, then turned around quickly and looked straight ahead, talking out of the corner of his mouth, his words barely audible above the din.

“You can tell Hagburg for me this is a shitty thing, he gave me his word for Godsake, then he starts throwing my name around. If you guys get greedy you can forget it, I’m not cooperating no more, unnerstand?”

I played the game, and kept my eyes on the ring.

“This hasn’t got anything to do with your scene, I just need to get a make on somebody who’s been around the Village.”

The loudspeakers announced ballot time, and Larsen angrily stabbed the red button on the armrest.

“I lost five thousand on that fuckin’ animal, I need more problems?” Just to be perverse, I pressed green. “Awright, awright, whaddya want from me?”

I took out Macri’s sketch, unfolded it and handed it across.

“Have you seen him?”

Larsen studied the sketch.

“Odin, man, this could be anybody. Yeah, I see a dozen of him every day.” He looked closer. “Have I seen him? Not on my turf.”

So much for Macri.

“He’d need phony papers. Where would he go?”

Larsen hesitated, sucking on the soggy stump of his cigar while the computerized results flashed across the scoreboard tabulator. The auditorium was hushed, expectant.

“Only two guys be any good, Billy Reagan and the Professor. Reagan’s cheaper, but the Prof does the class work.”

He pulled out a battered address book, ripped out a page, and scrawled something on it. “You don’t tell nobody where you got this, unnerstand?” I nodded, pocketing the paper as the tabulator turned two-thirds red and the audience let out a greedy collective sigh.

“They shoulda put that one down a year ago, he ain’t even cuttin’ it at stud no more.”

Pinky, I decided, wasn’t a good loser. I took the chamois pouch out of my jacket pocket, slid that damned mezzuzah thing into my palm, and held it out in front of him as they led the big fighter out into the middle of the ring.

“You ever see somebody wearing anything like this?”

Pinky’s eyes darted down, appraised it quickly, then flicked away.

“Nah, never.”

I slipped the cylinder back into my pocket and got to my feet. The trainers had scurried to their corners and the big buck stood alone; on the grid, swaying, blood still gouting out between his fingers, the great bunched muscles coiling under the glistening black skin, a bewildered expression on his scarred face. The room was quiet again, hushed.

“You don’t say nothin’, now, remember?” Larsen’s ferret eyes were worried.

“Fuck you.”

As I pushed my way out, anxious to beat the intermission rush, the grid flashed on and I watched the buck’s mouth slap open and shut like a landed fish as the voltage crackled through the soles of his feet. The whole face was mouth now, white teeth flashing against the useless stump of tongue, a silent scream bursting from somewhere inside as the juice squirted through him and blue flame spun out of his hair and fingertips like sparkler’s on Fuhrer Tag. Everybody was on their feet screaming, particularly the women, who’d soon be fighting tooth and nail over trophies, and between the noise and the heat I began to feel nauseous. The black’s bowels voided as I started up the aisle, one argument against ringside seats, and the sour-sweet stench of burning meat clung to me as I pushed past a pimply-faced usher at the gate.

“Great fight, hah Mac?” he asked excitedly.

“Yeah, great.”

Traffic was messed up as usual around Times Square, and it took me twenty minutes to reach Thirty-fourth. I pulled up behind the taxi rank outside Penn Station and just waved at the visor tag when the dispatcher started to say something. Screw him.

The terminal was still busy, crowded with bleary-eyed commuters who’d dined too well with their secretaries and now had to wait for the last trains to the Island. I stood five minutes outside a call box while a perspiring red-faced guy in his forties tried to convince his wife he’d been working late, but von Leeb answered on my first ring.

“You were supposed to report at eight o’clock promptly, Lieutenant.” The voice was high, querulous.

“I tried earlier, Professor, there was no answer and then I had to see a contact.” Somehow, von Leeb no longer seemed quite so terrifying. After all, he could only destroy me slowly.

“In the future, try to be prompt.” He sounded tired. I suppose ten’s late when you’re his age. “Have you made progress?”

You might call it that. “I’ve been going since I left you, Professor. I spoke to Pickett and…”

“You can give me the details tomorrow morning,” he interjected hastily. “The Adlon, nine o’clock.”

“I’ll be there.” Wishful thinking? “Good night, Professor.”

“One second.” There was a long pause, broken only by the sound of his raspy breathing. By the time he spoke I’d begun to think he’d nodded off on the phone. “I have just received some… some information. Disquieting information.”

I didn’t say anything, and there was another pause.

“My associate on this matter, Karl Grauber. He was my adjutant in the Einzatgruppen.” Can a man’s voice sweat? “He was joining me today, flying in from London with a computer printout on statistical Jewish survival odds. He never arrived.”

“Have you…”

“His plane. A Junkers Valkyrie, he piloted it himself. It crashed halfway across the Atlantic Ocean.”

Shit.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Professor.” I was.

More breathing. Then, very softly, almost inaudibly, “He was a very experienced pilot.”

“I see.”

“It is a tragic loss. I was relying on his aid.” The voice quavered, and sounded suddenly very old. “Lieutenant, I have a fingerspitzengefuhl, how do you say, a fingertip feeling on this. I have had such feelings, such intuition in the past, and they have always proved valid. Grauber was a very good pilot. Do you understand me?”

“I do, Professor.” Too well.

“Then I will see you tomorrow morning. Good night.”

This time, he’d forgotten the heil.

Kohler was lounging against the information booth reading an early edition of the News. He’d brought along a suitcase, which seemed overdoing it a bit, and didn’t look particularly overjoyed to see me.

“I’ve been here for forty fucking minutes, I thought…”

“I was tied up at the fights, sorry.”

“The fights? My God, Haider…”

I gave him a fast briefing on the day’s events and he quickly forgot his tired feet.

“First Fiske, then Grauber. It looks like it, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. Somebody’s tidying up behind and ahead of us, and doing it damn neatly.”

“Von Leeb could be…”

I shook my head.

“No, it’s not only Grauber that clears him, he could have thrown that out as cover, it’s everything else. He’d snuff us out without batting an eye, sure, but his main interest now is the Jew.” I realized I no longer was putting the words in quotes. “He needs us, or at least he thinks he does, and the only thing on his mind is finding the bastard. He might wonder if we were expendable afterwards, but he wouldn’t divert his energy this way. Not now.”