Mila 18 - Leon Uris

The whore in Solec? Untraceable. The moment the Nazis approached the Granada Club no one would know anything. Even their informers could not be counted upon. Whores had dozens of names. Selma could be Elma or Thelma.

The weeks of meticulous training were put to the acid test. Each of the underground assumed an identity of an actual person who could not be traced. The identities were taken from information supplied by Bathyran runners in other cities. Wolf Brandel’s story had been carefully worked out for weeks before he was given the name of Hershel Edelman. The real Edelman was obviously masquerading as someone else, somewhere in Poland.

“Bring back Hershel Edelman,” Sauer said.

The boy seemed no more frightened than a night at Gestapo House would demand. Sauer played for the one possible loophole. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a chessboard and a set of chessmen.

“Sit down.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Black or white?”

“Your preference, sir.”

“I have seen you defend yourself, Edelman. Now I should like to see your attack. Take the white.”

“Sir,” Wolf said haltingly. “Sir, this is very awkward. I mean, under the circumstances, I’m rather afraid to win.”

“You had better win, young man.”

Wolf did. In nine moves.

He was sent into the main interrogation room to sit alone on the single chair beneath the spotlight. There was nothing else in the room. Gunther Sauer had hit a dead end. His only choice was shock identification—or resort to torture. He was puzzled by the boy and not certain he would break down. Even if he did break down, he might have been telling the truth and could reveal nothing.

Sauer proceeded to the booth next to the interrogation room. There, through an arrangement of mirrors, he could watch the interrogation without being seen. Sensitive microphones piped sounds back to him, refined to pick up heartbeats.

“Bring in that woman,” Sauer ordered.

He watched closely as Wolf sat fidgeting in the hard chair. All Wolf could think of now was to keep his mind on Rachael and keep thinking of her and keep saying to himself that she would be proud of him, no matter what happened.

The iron door creaked open.

Wolf looked toward it slowly. Two Gestapo men stood on either side of the figure of a woman, holding her up. They let her go. The woman staggered, then fell face first to the floor.

Wolf edged out of the chair toward her.

Sauer watched and listened. ...

He knelt and rolled the woman over. It was Rebecca Eisen. Her face was bloated and distorted. One eye was locked tight, a multitude of colors, and blood gushed from her broken mouth and her torn fingernails. She quivered the other eye open. They recognized one another.

“Lady,” Wolf said, “lady, are you alive? I wish I could do something for you, lady.”

“Boy ... boy ... water ...”

A small smile crossed Gunther Sauer’s lips. If they were actors, they had played it to perfection. Hershel Edelman was obviously clean, but the story was so pat—so untraceable—the boy mystified him so. ...

“What do you think, sir?” an assistant asked.

“They don’t know each other,” Sauer said. “On the other hand, they don’t have to if he was actually a contact. The violets—I’m not sure of the violets.”

“Shall we send a dog in there?”

“Let me think about it.”

The Club Miami on Karmelicka Street inside the ghetto was the Jewish counterpart of the notorious Granada Club in the Solec as the center of smuggling, fencing, and prostitution. At the moment, members of Max Kleperman’s Big Seven were the ruling gentry.

The Club Miami had a unique distinction as a “free trading zone.” All activities within the bounds of this unholy sanctuary were looked upon as “off the record.” This confidence was respected even by the Germans. The Nazis realized that, as often as not, they too would need the facilities of a “free trading zone” and thus allowed the operation to exist. A half dozen rooms in back of the main bar were used to carry out transactions which were never taped, nor were the transactors followed or photographed. Unwritten law, gentlemen’s agreement, honor among thieves.

Max Kleperman knew that something strange was afoot when he received a phone call from Rabbi Solomon to go to the Club Miami.

Max arrived, filled with eager anticipation of a huge deal. The bartender advised him his contact waited in one of the back rooms. He entered and closed the door. Andrei Androfski turned and faced him. Max’s inevitable cigar smoke billowed around the room. Extraordinary for Androfski himself to come to him.

“One of our people has been picked up,” Andrei said.

Max grunted in disappointment. From time to time the Zionists had come to him to arrange releases for those stupidly picked up by Piotr Warsinski for the labor battalions. Kleperman had made one big killing when Rodel, the Communist, was thrown into Pawiak. It may be a big one again, Max hoped. After all, Rabbi Solomon personally made the call and Androfski personally made the contact.

“Who?”

Andrei halted for a moment. “Wolf Brandel.”

Max whistled. It was getting interesting. He polished his outlandish ring hastily on his vest.

“Where is he?”

“Gestapo House.”

Max put his cigar down and shook his head. Work camps ... easy to make a fix. Pay off a few shnook guards. Koenig’s factories in the ghetto, a little harder. The money went right to Koenig and cost more. The Jewish Militia, hadn’t found one yet who wouldn’t go for two hundred zlotys. Pawiak Prison—difficult, but he always came through.

“Gestapo House,” Max said. “Brandel’s boy. I don’t know.”

Max calculated the pros and cons quickly. He could rat on the Brandel boy and endear himself to the Germans. It would be genuine proof of his honesty and sincerity. Question was, would they appreciate it? On the other hand, the Big Seven and the Orphans and Self-Help Society were doing more and more business with him all the time. He could lose a lot of face in the ghetto if word of a sellout got around. But ... suppose he tried to get the Brandel boy out and failed or the Germans got wind of it. He’d be out on his ass, but good.

Max stood up quickly. “Leave me out of it. Hands off. I’ll forget everything you said.”

“Sit down, Max,” Andrei said softly. “Max, that order of flour for the Orphans and Self-Help—just cancel it. We’re opening up a new source.”

Max slipped into his chair. “Damn you, Androfski, I went to a lot of trouble to ship that wheat in here. I brought in so goddamned much flour that half the bakeries on the Aryan side had to close.”

“Just talking off the top of my head, Max, but forty or fifty of our own people think we can run the smuggling operation just as effectively.”

The message was clear. The Brandel boy had to be freed at any price. Androfski was one of those bastards who didn’t bluff. Max opened his wallet and took out his estimation pad and began to scratch figures down.

“It will cost plenty.”

“We’ll pay.”

“I’ll have to work in gold or dollars. We can only move through high-class people.”

“I’ve only got zlotys,” Andrei lied.

“So have I got zlotys. A warehouse full of them. They aren’t worth the goddamn paper they’re printed on. Gold or dollars, three thousand dollars.”

“Three thousand dollars!”

“Your hearing is excellent.”

Andrei’s eyes watered in anger. He turned his back on Kleperman to conceal the rage inside him. Filthy stinking scum. Bargaining for a life as if it were a secondhand suit on the Parysowski market Goddamned son of a bitch, Kleperman. Rachael’s eyes. Day and night she waited in his flat. Could he look at Rachael’s eyes again?