Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

Hans might meet a reporter anywhere. Rising from her telephone vigil,

she went to the bedroom to put on some outdoor clothes. Outside, a long

low groan built slowly to a rattling roar as a train passed on the

elevated S-Bahn tracks up the street. During the day trains passed

every ten minutes or so; at night, thank God, the intervals were longer.

As Ilse tied a scarf around her hair, yet another automobile clattered

down the Liitzenstrasse, coughing dnd wheezing in the cold.

Unlike the others, however, this one sputtered to a stop near the front

entrance of the building. Please, she prayed, rushing to the window,

please let it be Hans.

It wasn't. Looking down, she saw a shiny black BMW sedan, not Hans's

Volkswagen. She let her forehead fall against the freezing pane. The

cold eased the throb of the headache that had begun an hour earlier. She

half-watched as the four doors of the BMW opened simultaneously and four

men in dark business suits emerged. They grouped together near the

front of the car. One man pointed toward the apartment building and

waved in a circle. Another detached himself from the group and

disappeared around the corner.

Curious, Ilse watched the first man turn his face toward the upper

floors and begin counting windows. His bobbing arm moved slowly closer

to her window. How 'odd, she thought.

Who would be out counting apartment windows at midnight in-?

She jumped back from the window. The men below were looking for her. Or

for Hans-for what he'd found. She groped for the light switch to turn

it off, then thought better of it. Instead she ran into the living

room, opened the door, and peered cautiously down the hall.

Empty. She dashed down the corridor and around the corner to a window

that overlooked the building's rear entrance. Three men huddled there,

speaking animatedly. Ilse wondered if they might be plain-clothes

police. Suddenly two of them entered the building, while the third took

up station in the shadow of some garbage bins near the exit.

The metallic groan of the ancient elevator jolted Ilse from the window.

Too late to run. They would reach her floor in seconds. With her back

to the corridor wall, she inched toward the corner that led back to her

apartment. She felt a tingling numbness in her hands as she peeked

around it. A tall young man in a dark suit stood outside her door.

Remembering the fire stairs, she started in the other direction, but the

echo of ascending steps made her thought redundant.

Hopelessly trapped, she decided to try to bluff her way out.

Feeling adrenaline suffuse her body, she stepped around the corner as if

she owned the building and marched toward the man outside her apartment.

She cocked her chin arrogantly upward, intending to walk right past him

and into the lift that would take her to the lobby.

After all, she had appeared from another part of the floor-she might be

anybody. If she could only reach the lobby ...

The man looked up. He began to stare. First at Ilse's legs, then at

her breasts, then her face.

I can't do it! she thought. I'll never make it past himIn a

millisecond she saw her chance. Stay calm, she told herself. Steady

... Fifteen feet away from her apartment she stopped and withdrew her

apartment key from her purse. She smiled coolly at the guard, then

turned her back to him and bent over the door handle of apartment 43.

Be here, Eva! she screamed silently. For God's sake, be here!

Ilse scratched her key against the knob to imitate the sound of an

unlocking door, then she said one last prayer and turned the knob.

It opened! Like a reprieved prisoner, she backed into her friend's

apartment, smiling once at the guard before she shut and locked the

door. After shooting home the bolt, she sagged against the door, her

entire body quivering in terror.

For an unsteady moment she thought she might actually collapse, but she

forced down her fear and padded up the narrow hall to her friend's

bedroom door. A crack of light shone faintly beneath it.

Ilse knocked, but heard no answer.

"Eva?" she called softly. "Eva, it's Ilse."

Too anxious to wait, she opened the door and stepped into the room. From

behind the door a hand shot out and caught her hair, then jerked her to

the floor. She started to struggle, but froze when she felt a cold

blade press into the soft flesh of her throat. "Eva!" she rasped.

"Eva', it's me-Ilse!"

The hand jerked harder on her hair, drawing her head back. The blade

did not relent. Then, suddenly, she was free.

"Ilse!" Eva hissed. "What the hell are you doing here? I might have

killed you. I would have. I thought you were a rapist. Or worse."

The remark threw Ilse off balance. "What's worse than a rapist?"

"A faggot, dearie," Eva answered, bursting into laughter.

She folded the straight razor back into its handle.

Ilse's panic finally overcame her. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and

she sobbed as her middle-aged friend hugged her wet face to a

considerable bosom and stroked her hair like a mother comforting her

child.

"Ilse, darling," Eva murmured. "What's happened? You're beside

yourself."

"Eva, I'm sorry I came here, but it was the only place I could go!

I don't know what's happening-"

"Shh, be quiet now. Catch your breath and tell Eva all about it. Did

Hans do sometfiing naughty? He didn't hit you?"

"No ... nothing like that. This is madness. Crazy. You wouldn't

believe me if I told you!"

Eva chuckled. "I've seen things in this city that would drive a

psychiatrist mad, if you could find one who isn't already. Just tell me

what's wrong, child. And if you can't tell me that, tell me what you

need. I can at least help you out of trouble."

Ilse wiped her face on her blouse and tried to calm down.

Despite the presence of the men outside, she felt better already.

Eva Beers had a way of making any problem seem insignificant. A barmaid

and tavern singer for most of her fifty-odd years, she had worked the

rough-and-tumble circuit in most of the capitals of western Europe. She

had returned home to Berlin three years ago, to "live out my days in

luxury," as she jokingly put it. Hans sometimes commented that Eva was

only semiretired, for the frequent pilgrimage of well-dressed and

ever-changing old gentlemen to her door seemed to indicate that

something slightly more profitable than conversation went on inside

number 43. But that was Eva's business; Hans never asked any questions.

She was a cheerful and discreet neighbor who often did favors for the

young couple, and Ilse had grown very close to her.

"Eva, we're in trouble," Ilse said. "Hans and I."

"What kind of trouble? Hans is Polizei. What can't he fix?"

Ilse fought the urge to blurt out everything. She didn:t want to

involve Eva any more than she already had. "I don t know, Eva, I don't

know. Hans found something. Something dangerous!"

"It's drugs, isn't it?" Eva wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"Hashish or something, right?"

"I told you, I don't know. But it's bad. There's a man in the hall

right now and he's waiting for Hans to get home.

There are three more men outside by the doors!"

"What? Outside here? Who do you mean, child? Police?"

Ilse threw up her hands. "I don't know! All I know is that Hans's

station said he left hours ago. I've got to get out of here, Eva. I've

got to warn Hans."

"How can you warn him if you don't know where he is?"