Eric Norden - The Ultimate Solution

“Look Ed,” I said, “couldn’t we just hole out here till they do find him? That way we could weather the storm and nobody the wiser.”

Kohler shook his head.

“You’re underestimating von Leeb again. He’d nail us to the wall in ten minutes, desertion under fire or some such shit. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t importing some more of his own men just to keep tabs on our end of the operation. After all, he’d sent for Grauber before any of us even knew the Japs were involved.”

It made sense. Rotten sense, but sense.

“I’ll feed that to the computer and check the rest of the interrogations.” Beck got up and headed for the door, some of the spring gone from his step, “Just don’t hold your breath.”

I accepted another Steinhagen, though God knows I wasn’t getting anything from it, and placed a call to the station-house. The Commissioner had called again, which didn’t faze me, and the Professor had left off two more urgent messages. It was a long shot, but what the hell,

I had nothing else going, so I rang the sadie parlor. He answered on the first ring, and his voice was excited.

“Lieutenant, I think I got something for you, something hot. I passed the picture around, just like you said, and Lotte, you know Lotte over at the Crib, she says she thinks she knows this old guy, one of her customers, two, three times maybe he was there. You know Lotte, she’s got a sharp eye, this could be what you want, hah? You remember, five thousand marks, that’s what you said, five thousand…”

He was breathing heavily. Probably had a hard-on at the very thought of that much dough.

“You’ll get the money if it checks out. That’s Sixty-fifth and Third, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, the second building from the corner, with those two lantern things by the door. Don’t forget, Lieutenant, it was me gave you the lead, not Lotte, that’s five thousand marks…”

I hung up before he had an orgasm.

“A tip?” Kohler cocked a quizzical eyebrow.

“Not much of one. A grasser who circulated Macri’s dupe, thinks he has a make. You never saw the damned thing, it could be anybody, and this guy is so greedy he’d turn himself in for the reward. But I might as well check it out, we’ve got nothing else on the calendar.”

“Wait till my men from Washington get here, I want them glued to your shadow from now on.”

I could see lie logic of that. I’d just about finished my third Steinhagen when they arrived, six carbon copy wonder boys uniformed in lightweight blue suits, white shirts and somber ties. They all must have gone to the same barber, or had the same mother for that matter, and I could hardly tell them apart. Kohler performed the introductions, gave them a fast briefing ending with instructions to shoot to incapacitate rather than kill, and then detached two of the squad as toy own personal bodyguards. I grew increasingly uneasy as he talked, and finally I asked him to send them outside for a minute.

“Look Ed, all this bring ’em back alive shit is fine and dandy, except it might be over my dead body. I want those guys to shoot to kill, not just wing the bastard and give him time to finish me off.”

Kohler was no more a hero than I am, so he smiled understandingly.

“I had Ordinance equip them with the latest stun gun, it fires a chemical dart that causes instantaneous paralysis. It’s even better than a lead slug, Bill, you can nail a guy three times in the stomach with a .45 and he’s still able to empty his magazine into you. You just graze his ear with one of these things and he’s out cold.”

I regarded him dubiously.

“Ed, I just hope your arsenal is better than your computer.”

My two tails, whose names I forget, joined me in the hall and followed me to where I’d parked earlier.

“Stay here for five minutes till we bring our car around,” one told me, “and then just forget about us. We’ll be with you all the time.”

Somehow, I didn’t find the thought particularly reassuring.

The Crib was a fine old gray brick townhouse, and the “lantern things” the Professor mentioned were two carriage lamps outside the front door. A naked boy of thirteen or fourteen with one gold earring let me in with a come-hither smile and an expert twitch of his pelvis, and ushered me down the hall when I asked for Lotte.

“Right this way,” he said, gyrating his satiny buttocks as he opened an old-fashioned sliding door. “She’ll be with you in a moment.” The tip of his tongue caressed his lower lip invitingly. “Afterwards, my name is Nick. I’m only fifty marks. Just ask Lotte, I’ll do anything.” He ran one hand caressingly over his loins and closed the doors behind me.

I’d never been in the Crib before, though I’d met Lotte a couple of times in different bars around town.

The place was reputed to be the finest child house in Manhattan, and the Mayor and two of the Eastern gauleiters allegedly numbered in her clientele. Myself, to be frank, I preferred adult women, although I had to be a bit discreet about it, being in the force and all that. Not that there’s any active prejudice against hetties, the human race having to go on, but it’s not exactly a ticket to promotion, particularly in the higher echelons of the State and Party. Back in the Academy I tried to get into the sadie scene to compensate, but I never really got too much out of it. Each to his own, I guess. But comparing Lotte’s place to the hettie houses I’d visited it was obvious where the fat cats got their rocks off. The room was elegantly decorated in what I dimly recognized as French provincial style, replete with a delicate little harpsichord in gleaming rosewood and a couple of uncomfortable looking striped silk chaise longues. Richly framed old paintings hung on every wall and the one nearest to me, a sun-drenched landscape, was signed Fragonard, a name that rang a distant bell. The carpet was Persian, a beautiful thing in shimmering yellows and browns, and the wallpaper was a pale peach damask. The windows were draped in heavy red brocade curtains that muffled the street noise to a whisper, and the only light came from a dozen candles in embrasures along the wall, bathing the room in a muted golden glow. The only jarring note was a well-stocked mirrored bar in one corner, which I investigated promptly, but even there half the bottles had exotic names I’d never heard of. I focused on a Scotch that cost ninety marks a fifth and wondered if it was a breach of protocol to pour myself a drink. I’d already decided when she came in.

“Go right ahead, don’t stand on formality.”

I made it a double, then turned around. Lotte was standing in the doorway, a cocktail in one hand. She was wearing a full-length wine red satin evening gown that almost covered the ropy network of veins and wrinkles around her neck and a diamond necklace that could have fed half of Queens for six weeks. She was a tiny woman, just a shade over five feet, somewhere in her late fifties, her hair died an expensive but unconvincing platinum, the ravaged face set off by two of the coldest eyes I’d ever seen. They’d fascinated me from our first meeting because they never once seemed to blink; I remember reading that snake’s eyes were like that, which didn’t seem an unlikely comparison.

“You’re looking well, Lotte,” I lied, but her eyes stayed dead as ever.

“The Professor showed me a sketch last night.” Her voice was soft but grating just the same, sibilant as a sudden hiss in the high grass. “I think I’ve seen him.”

They probably had a deal set up already, Lotte would want at least a third of the 5,000 marks to cooperate. Not that I was very optimistic she had anything to cooperate with, but I might as well go through the motions.