A Dandy in Aspic

by Derek Marlowe

  “How much did you give the whore?” Eberlin hesitated.

  “Two hundred marks,” he said.

  “One for each of those on her back?” Gatiss smiled. “Who are you trying to convince of your saintliness, Eberlin?”

  “No one.” Gatiss laughed.

  “You’re not an English dandy, Eberlin. You’re not even a loyal English gentleman. You know what you are?”

  “Tell me,” said Eberlin quietly.

  Gatiss looked at Eberlin’s face steadily. “An assassin,” he said.

  And then, “See me in an hour.” He drove off.

  Eberlin walked down the empty expanse of the Kurfürstendamm, past the boxed window displays in the center of the pavement and the hundreds of dead neon lights. The rain had stopped completely now, and a warm breeze was blowing. It was already Wednesday, the first day of the Berlin Grand Prix, and it was going to be hot. He glanced around him, but there was no one in sight, no one following him. And then, quite unexpectedly, the Russians made contact with him.

  14

  Hai-Wai Filter

  Genghis Khan knew only how to bend his bow at the eagles,

  Only today are there men of feeling.

  –MAO TSE-TUNG

  THE Zunta Restaurant has a reputation, not without foundation, for attracting the prettiest girls and the dullest conversation in Berlin. Neither facet however was immediately apparent when Eberlin arrived, since the place was closed.

  He hadn’t realized how early it was and found he had to walk four blocks before he found a small bar that was open, though with some of its chairs still on the table.

  Eberlin entered cautiously, but finding three workmen already settled behind large beers, he walked more confidently to the bar, and, learning from past mistakes, ordered beer only, without Korn. He had come to like German beer, although the Berlin variety was far inferior to the Bavarian, and consequently drank two liters before relaxing sufficiently to smoke a cigarette. He saw Henderson’s face for a moment, then he lit the cigarette.

  “Herr Dancer?” the barman said suddenly, looking at him curiously.

  “Ja?” said Eberlin.

  “Telephone,” said the barman in slight irritation, and pointed to the corner of the bar. Eberlin looked in that direction, then nodded and crossed the room.

  “Dancer,” he said into the phone, keeping his voice low and his eyes moving quickly around the room.

  “Die Welt is dumm, die Welt ist blind,” said the caller.

  Eberlin held his breath for a second before he replied: “Wird täglich abgeschmackter.”

  Abruptly he became conscious of the barman nearby listening openly to the conversation.

  “One moment,” he said into the phone and walked over to a jukebox. Dropping a mark piece into the machine, he pressed buttons at random, and as the raucous music disturbed the silence, he returned to the telephone and continued the conversation.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Don’t talk now,” came the reply. “Call me back from a phone booth.”

  “All right.”

  “Eight fifty-six eighty-one.” The phone went dead.

  “She says I can come home if I buy her a fur coat,” he said to the barman with a smile.

  With a professional laugh, his listener repeated this to the three workmen, who guffawed and made obscene comments. One shouted, “I’d ram the coat up her arse,” and the others laughed again.

  Eberlin smiled good-naturedly and shrugged.

  “Trouble is,” he said, “I don’t think her husband would like it.”

  He paid the bill, said good-bye and left, leaving the men with smiles on their faces and discordant rock and roll in their ears.

  In front of a cinema showing The Ipcress File, which he suddenly, incongruously, recalled Caroline had wanted to see because she knew the actor in it, was an empty phone booth. Eberlin entered and dialed the number. When a voice answered, he repeated the code phrase and was immediately put through to Rotopkin.

  “Where’s Gatiss now?” Rotopkin said.

  “He’s gone to search Henderson’s apartment.”

  “Whose?”

  “Henderson’s.”

  “Oh–Niagarin. Well, he’ll find nothing there.” There was a pause and then Eberlin said quietly: “I’m afraid Niagarin is dead. I had to shoot him.”

  “We know,” replied Rotopkin. “We saw you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “He was a fool. He would have talked.”

  “I think Gatiss suspects me.”

  “But he’s not sure?”

  “No. But–”

  “Go and see Greiser. Oskar Greiser.”

  “Greiser?”

  “We can’t afford to throw twenty years’ work away if he finds out. We’ll help you.”

  “How?” asked Eberlin, glancing out of the booth to see if anyone was nearby. No one was.

  “The British want Krasnevin. So we’ll give him to them.” Eberlin frowned and waited.

  “It’s all right,” continued Rotopkin. “It won’t be you.”

  “They know he’s a double.”

  “They would. Well, they’ll get him.”

  “You mean you know a double working for Frazer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Working for Frazer?” Eberlin repeated. “Yes. Ideal.”

  “Do I know who it is?”

  “You ought to. It’s quite a friend.”

  There was a sudden intake of breath, and a dozen faces flashed across Eberlin’s mind. He was about to ask who it was when–

  “You must allow Gatiss to find him. It would be best if Gatiss discovered the man.”

  “Man? For a moment I thought you were talking about Caroline.”

  “Who the hell is she?”

  “No one. Just a thought.”

  “When will you see Gatiss?”

  “In an hour.”

  “Make some excuse to take him to Oskar Greiser’s. Take him immediately. Search the place. It’s all been prepared.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “You’ll see.”

  And then:

  “By the way, you’re familiar with Hai-Wai, aren’t you?”

  “As much as we know.”

  “Good. Now you can relax.”

  Eberlin smiled to himself. He’d have to send Rotopkin a birthday card now.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “We’re doing it for our sakes, not yours.”

  “I know. Thanks anyway.”

  “Contact me before you leave Berlin. Tell me what happened.”

  “Yes. Good-bye.”

  Eberlin put down the phone, sighed, and left the phone booth. Someone was waiting outside. Immediately Eberlin stiffened, then saw it was one of the workmen from the bar.

  “Barman wouldn’t let me use his.”

  Eberlin nodded and moved away, turning only to smile again as the man called after him.

  “Women are bastards, aren’t they?”

  Eberlin pulled a face of acquiescence and hurried back to the hotel.

  * * *

  Gatiss stared at the wrinkled, dry bikini on the floor. “Nothing there,” he said. “Nothing there at all.”

  He had been sitting there ten minutes, cleaning a gun and repeating his disappointment. Eberlin turned away from the window and offered Gatiss a cigarette, forgetting for a moment that the other man didn’t smoke.

  “He was like an old woman,” said Gatiss.

  “Who was?”

  “Henderson. Everything neat and tidy. He cooked for himself. Even had a pet cat that kept meowing all the time. I had to give it some milk to keep it quiet.”

  Eberlin smiled at the image, then caught Gatiss glaring at him and turned it into a frown of concentration.

  “Who was he working for?” ventured Eberlin with overt interest.

  “The Russians of course. Who else?”

  “Well, the HVA perhaps.”

  “Don’t be so bloody naïv
e,” growled Gatiss. “Just don’t be so bloody naïve.”

  Eberlin shrugged, sat down on the bed and picked up the bikini. “Have you ever heard of Caroline Hetherington?”

  “Her?” asked Gatiss, pointing at the swimsuit. “Yes.”

  “Had her mother once. Incredible bore but a good fuck.”

  “She’s not working for us, is she?” asked Eberlin casually. “Caroline, I mean?”

  “What the hell makes you think that?”

  “Just that I always seem to be bumping into her. Is she?”

  “Not so far as I know. I’ll check her out when I get back.”

  “No, there’s no need for that. I just wondered….”

  He was silent for a while.

  “I think I’ll go and see Greiser,” he said at last. Gatiss looked up, surprised.

  “For Godsakes don’t go running around again. What do you want to see him for?”

  “Not see him. See if he’s got anything to hide. You said he was a Communist, and when I met him he looked pretty shady. Even Greff–”

  “Greff! The less said about him the better.”

  “Nevertheless,” Eberlin continued doggedly, “it’s worth a visit. I could be there and back in an hour.” He got up, reaching for his coat.

  “Sit down,” snapped Gatiss. “You’re not going anywhere.” Eberlin stopped. It was time, he realized, to get angry.

  “Listen, Gatiss, stop putting your damn nose in everything I do. I don’t give a damn who you are. Frazer selected me to find Krasnevin, not you. Me. So far, we’ve found nothing and through no help of yours. You’ve already ruined any chances of using Breysach, which might have led to something, and now that we have something else to go on, I’m not letting you foul it up. Stay here if you like, but I’m going.”

  He opened the door. With a sudden bound, Gatiss grabbed Eberlin’s arm and slammed him against the door, almost dislocating his shoulder.

  “You listen, you fucking fairy,” Gatiss snarled in his face. “When this is over, I’m going to make it my personal business to break every bone in your fucking body. You supercilious bastard!”

  He suddenly spat in Eberlin’s face. Then he turned away in disgust, throwing the other onto the bed. Without thinking, Eberlin pulled out the Beretta and aimed it at Gatiss’s head, but stopped himself in cold realization. The other man turned and looked down at him with utter hatred.

  “You want to kill me, don’t you?” he said. “You want to blow my brains out, don’t you?”

  Eberlin stared into the man’s face, then lowered the gun. “I think,” he said quietly, “we ought to get some air.”

  Neither man moved. The walls of the room wrapped themselves around them, cutting off the oxygen, and at last Gatiss gave a grunt and walked to the door.

  “I was right, wasn’t I?” he said looking down at Eberlin.

  “How?” Eberlin asked.

  “You have killed before.”

  Eberlin didn’t answer. Gatiss nodded to himself. “You know that magazine? Playboy?” he went on.

  “What of it?”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “In the toilet at the restaurant. Why?”

  “There was a man outside carrying the same magazine. Same issue.”

  Eberlin gave a puzzled smile.

  “So what?” he said. “I should think millions read it.”

  “Yes. But that man was a Russian. His name is Sobakevich.” Gatiss opened the door and added:

  “I’m going to kill him before I leave Berlin.”

  * * *

  Two minutes later Gatiss returned to Eberlin’s room wearing a coat.

  “You really think Greiser is up to something?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Eberlin. “But I want to find out.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Gatiss said. “I’m not leaving you alone. Come on.”

  He left the room. Eberlin picked up the Beretta and put it in his pocket, then, with a smile locked the door and joined Gatiss in the foyer.

  * * *

  The bordello was dark. At six o’clock in the morning, only the ill-hung doors witnessed the first snores of the tired harlots as they lay in grubby sheets, dreaming of nothing. Beside them, curled in the fetus curve of their mercenary mothers, lay the whores’ babies, most of them mongrels fed on bones and canned meat. Above some of the beds were childhood crucifixes, now merely part of the drab, cock-roached décor. It was a tragic existence. “Man,” Eberlin had said once, “can offer nothing to a woman. Nothing at all. That is his tragedy. Woman therefore wants to be equal to man. That is hers.”

  Gatiss and Eberlin had driven to Kohlhasstrasse in the Mistrale and had parked it two streets away in a narrow alley. Then they had walked, not speaking to each other, to the brothel and entered the gloomy, musty interior. It was a place for rats, and for peripatetic drunks who urinated ostentatiously in the hallway, and it smelled of both.

  “Is this it?” Gatiss asked quietly.

  “Top floor,” said Eberlin and made for the staircase.

  Clinging to the balustrade, the two men climbed the creaking stairs toward the fourth floor. Halfway up they stopped and ducked into the shadows as a wretched insomniac left her bedroom and walked naked to a broken lavatory, leaving the door open. The two men listened to her rattling endlessly into the toilet, then the chain was pulled, and the woman, in her late forties, her white stomach scribbled with black hair, reappeared and returned to her bedroom. They ascended the remaining flights and paused outside the door marked WINTERHILFE.

  Gatiss drew his gun, and was copied by Eberlin. The door was tried, then forced and opened under splitting timbers to reveal the darkened, empty womb of the office. Closing the door behind them, Gatiss said in a whisper:

  “The damn place is empty.”

  “There’s another office,” said Eberlin. “In there.”

  He pointed to the adjoining room, wondering if the plan, whatever it was, would materialize.

  Holding his breath, Eberlin opened the next door and the two men stepped into a small inner office, crammed with cupboards and filing cabinets, and dominated by an enormous ashtray, a pile of letters and a sign saying OSKAR GREISER.

  Gatiss drew the curtains and switched on the small desk lamp, then looked around. Over an unwashed marble fire-place punctuated by a gas fire was a framed photograph of a Zeppelin. Beneath it was a year-old calendar with a color photo of Köln Cathedral seen from the Rhine, but no dates.

  “Look in the desk,” Gatiss said in a hushed voice.

  There was nothing there but typed letters from various small holdings, and an empty Alka-Seltzer jar, complete with its foam packing wad.

  “Nothing,” Eberlin said reluctantly.

  Gatiss grunted impatiently and tipped the wastebasket onto the floor, then kicked the pieces of paper away angrily. “You and your bright ideas!” he muttered. He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and walked toward the main filing cabinet. Eberlin sat on the edge of the desk and lit a cigarette.

  “Put that out, you fool,” snapped Gatiss. “And don’t just sit there.”

  Eberlin stubbed out the cigarette and looked vaguely at the books on the mantelpiece, watching Gatiss anxiously out of the corner of his eye.

  On top of the cabinet were a few old copies of Bild and Pravda.

  “Bloody Communist all right,” murmured Gatiss, glancing through the newspapers. “It stands out a mile.”

  “What about in the drawers?” asked Eberlin. “Are they locked?”

  “They won’t be for long,” replied Gatiss, selecting a key from his chain.

  He opened the four drawers in the cabinet in turn, starting with the bottom one, like a burglar, to avoid having to shut one in order to see into another. The first drawer contained nothing but the habitual contents of filing cabinet basements –an empty bottle of Old Grandad bourbon, one gray sneaker for the left foot, size 9, a handful of entangled paper clips, a duster, a cheap German paperback, now coverless and ben
t in half at page 67 and a discarded Christmas decoration. Gatiss snorted and opened the second drawer. It was equally dull and uninviting, being mainly filled with copies of letters sent out by Oskar Greiser regarding the renting and selling of apartments in West Berlin. All were harmless.

  “He’s just a bloody estate agent,” snapped Gatiss and turned away.

  Eberlin tightened his lips and didn’t move. Finally Gatiss, with a heavy sigh, returned to the third drawer and studied its contents. Little more than a further collection of letters, März 1959–Oktober 1963, and two pages ripped from a copy of Stern. One contained a black and white advertisement for Telefunken radios, and an article on Mao Tse-tung. Gatiss glanced over it quickly, asked Eberlin what Manschetten meant, then looked at the second page. On the first side was the finale of the article. On the other side, however, was a foggy photograph of a Hollywood vedette who lay in a postcoital position on a crumpled bed, modestly attempting to shield her round, bare body from the prying reader by clutching a pocket edition of Leaves of Grass against her navel. Above her left buttock, her thighs being mercifully hidden by a sheet, some amateur wit had penciled in the words Aus den Augen, aus dem Sinn, Out of sight, out of mind. Gatiss held up the photo to Eberlin.

  “Is this what you’re looking for?” he said sarcastically.

  Eberlin swore and peered at some shelves near the door. A mere collection of dusty books. He looked around the room in despair, anxiously seeking a clue to what he was supposed to unearth. Why couldn’t Rotopkin have been more explicit? Hai-Wai, was all he had. He watched Gatiss open the top drawer in a great display of ostentation and fumble inside it, then restrain himself from slamming it shut.

  “There’s nothing here,” Gatiss said once more. “Greiser’s no use to us.”

  “Perhaps there’s a safe somewhere,” Eberlin suggested faint-heartedly.

  “Some hope in that,” muttered the other, but nevertheless glanced behind each of the two pictures without success.

  Nothing remained in the room, except a small cupboard (three cracked cups, a tin of aspirins by Bayer of Leverkusen, a milk bottle containing an inch of sour milk, one teaspoon and a dud light bulb), a second shelf supporting the complete works of Jack London in Russian and a flower-pot, and a large box filled with air. That was all.