by Ross Thomas
“Who did he kill?”
“A man. He held a trial, found him guilty, and then killed him.”
Jackson took out his cigarettes, thought about offering Leah Oppenheimer one, decided against it, lit one for himself, and said, “I want you to do something for me.”
She looked at him then. “Of course. Anything.”
“Tell me exactly what Lieutenant Meyer said.”
It took her a while, nearly half an hour, what with her asides, rhetorical questions, and the several long periods during which she said absolutely nothing, but instead gazed silently down at her hands.
When Jackson felt that she was through, he said, “That’s it? You’ve told me everything he said?”
“Yes. Everything.”
“Where is your friend?”
“Eva? She and Lieutenant Meyer went out. It will be their last night together for perhaps some time. They will probably be out quite late. She wanted to stay with me, but I told her no, that it wasn’t necessary, that it might be better if I were alone with my thoughts.”
She’s reading again, Jackson thought.
“So I was alone for a time, and when I could no longer bear it, I sent you that silly note. You were so very kind to come.”
“Why isn’t Lieutenant Meyer going to be around for a while?” Jackson said.
“Why? Because he feels he had to go to Bonn, of course.”
“Of course. But why Bonn exactly?”
“Because that’s where my brother’s going. Didn’t I mention that?”
“No. You didn’t.”
“It’s important, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Jackson said. “It’s important.”
It took Jackson a while to convince her that she should accept his invitation to dinner. Several times he almost gave up, but instead persisted, and when at long last she accepted, she suddenly found she couldn’t go the way she was dressed.
“It will only take a minute to change,” she said.
It took her twenty minutes, but when she came out of the bedroom she looked far different from the way she had looked when she went in. She looked, in fact, Jackson thought, almost beautiful.
She had done something to her hair, although he was not quite sure what except that it was no longer worn in her usual maiden-lady fashion. Instead, it fell in soft waves almost to her shoulders. She also had done something to erase the evidence of her tears—perhaps a skillful application of makeup, Jackson thought, but wasn’t sure, because there was no evidence of makeup except for the faint touch of lipstick that she had added.
The dress helped, too. It was a plain black dress. Your simple, basic black, Jackson decided, which probably cost a hundred dollars. It was cut low and close enough to show off her breasts to good advantage, and for the first time he wondered how it would be to go to bed with her. He was faintly surprised that he hadn’t wondered about that before, because, like most men, he usually speculated about it shortly after meeting a woman. Any woman.
She stood there in the center of the room, almost shyly, as if she were not at all sure that he still wanted her to go.
“You look very nice,” he said. “Very pretty.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Yes.”
“What do they call this in the States?”
“Call what?”
“What we are doing.”
“I think they call it going to dinner.”
She shook her head. “No there is another word that I’ve read. They call it a—a date, don’t they?”
“Sometimes.”
“Is this like a real date?”
“Absolutely,” Jackson said, praying that she wouldn’t simper.
Instead, she smiled shyly and said, “It will be my first one, you know.”
“Your first one ever?” Somehow, he managed to keep the shock out of his voice, if not the surprise.
She nodded gravely. “My first one ever. Do you still want me to go?”
“Sure,” Jackson said, and smiled as though he really meant it and was rather amazed to realize that he did.
23
Although the beer was no better than usual, the Golden Rose was crowded that night. It was so crowded, in fact, that the printer had to share a table with two other people, a man and a woman, who had almost nothing to say to each other. Bodden decided that they were married.
He had been waiting nearly thirty minutes when Eva Scheel came in. She stood at the entrance just past the heavy curtain, one hand clasping her fur coat to her neck as she tried to spot Bodden in the crowded, smoky room. He waved. She nodded and started toward him.
She sat down at the table after first giving the silent couple an automatic “Good evening,” which they muttered back, their first words in nearly twenty minutes.
“You have eaten?” she said.
Bodden nodded and smiled. “Earlier. A fat chicken. Very tasty. The sour one down in the cellar cooks well. And you?”
“At the American officers’ club. A steak. They recently decided to let Germans in. Proper Germans, of course.” She looked around the room and frowned. “We must talk. But not here. Is your room far?”
“Not far.”
“We’d best go there.”
Bodden smiled. “It’s a cold place; no heat, you know. But I managed to locate a bottle of brandy.”
“We’ll warm ourselves with that, then,” Eva Scheel said.
There was only one chair in Bodden’s room. One chair, a bed, a pine table, a wardrobe, a window, and a bicycle that he carried up and down three flights of stairs to keep it from being stolen.
“Home,” he said as he ushered her into the room.
Eva Scheel looked around. “I’ve seen worse.”
“And better, too, no doubt. You have a choice—the bed or the chair.”
“The bed, I think.” She walked over and sat down on it. “I see you found yourself a bicycle.”
“At the DP camp in Badenhausen,” Bodden said as he opened the wardrobe and took down a bottle of Branntwein and two mismatched glasses. “There was a man there. A Czech called Kubista. Apparently he’s the resident forger. We talked. For a price, he might sell me some useful information. I would have bought it on the spot had I had the funds.”
“How much?”
“A hundred American dollars.”
“This Czech. He has done business with Oppenheimer?”
Bodden nodded as he handed her a glass of brandy. “He hinted as much.”
She took from her coat pocket a small purse, opened it, and counted out ten $20 bills. “Buy it,” she said. “After that, you will be going to Bonn.”
“And what will I find in Bonn?”
“Oppenheimer, if you’re lucky. He has killed another.”
“A busy man.”
“He has a list. The next one on the list is in Bonn.”
Bodden smiled. “Your young American officer must have been in one of his talkative moods.”
“Very. I heard it all for the first time when he came to see Oppenheimer’s sister this afternoon. I heard it for the second time, plus his theories, over my steak. Now when I tell it to you I’ll be hearing it for the third time.”
She told him then, everything that Lt. LaFollette Meyer had told her, including his disappointment over the fact that the search for Kurt Oppenheimer would now be centered in Bonn and under the jurisdiction of the British and Major Baker-Bates.
When she was through, Bodden refilled their glasses. “It will be a miracle if I find him first.”
“Berlin doesn’t expect miracles.”
Bodden nodded thoughtfully. “You have heard from them?”
“This morning. A courier. She brought instructions plus an enormous amount of money.”
“How large is enormous?”
“Twenty-seven thousand dollars.”
“You’re right; that is enormous.”
“Two thousand is for our expenses.”
“And the other twenty-five?”
“With that you will buy Oppenheimer from the dwarf, should the dwarf find him first.”
“But I am still to try to find him myself, since Berlin, no doubt, is as economical as always.”
“You are to try very hard.”
“You have met the dwarf?”
Eva Scheel shook her head. “No, but I have met his colleague. The American called Jackson.”
“What did you think?”
She took a sip of her brandy and frowned. “I’m not sure. He is not your typical American. He lacks ambition, I think. An American without ambition is rather rare, you know. If he had it, or a purpose that he believed important, I feel he could be very hard, very ruthless.”
“How old is he?”
“In his early thirties.”
“Intelligent?”
“He is no fool. He also has some interesting theories.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the theory that Berlin—or I suppose I should say, Moscow—wants Oppenheimer in Palestine. Jackson came up with the unusual suggestion that a renegade Jew could be quite useful to the Palestinians. And to Moscow.”
“Your Mr. Jackson has a complicated mind.”
Eva Scheel nodded. “Yes, I thought you’d think so.”
Bodden clasped his hands behind his head, leaned back in his chair, and gazed up at the ceiling. “The dwarf is playing a double game, of course. That’s to be expected. He’s a Romanian, and they must learn it in their cradles. But what about this Jackson? You say he is without ambition. Deception requires a certain amount of that.”
“A good point. The dwarf, I suppose, could simply be using him. My young American tells me that Jackson has some unofficial but very influential connections with American intelligence in Washington. I would say that the Americans are letting Jackson run to see where he goes. My young American had a very unusual description for Jackson. How good is your English?”
“Try me.”
“He called Jackson an ‘ex-OSS hotshot.’”
“Hotshot I know from the Pole.”
“What Pole?”
“The one who taught me American English. A very funny fellow.” He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “What would happen, do you think, should this Jackson learn that the dwarf was playing a double game?”
“Nothing perhaps. He might only shrug—unless it turned out badly for him. In that case, I would hate to be the dwarf.”
Bodden was again silent for several long moments as he examined all that he had been told. “Then,” he said finally, “there are the British.”
She sighed. “I was wondering when you would get to them. I was almost hoping that you wouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because if the British find Oppenheimer first, then Berlin has additional instructions for you.”
“What?”
She dropped her gaze to her drink. “You are to kill him—somehow.”
“Well, now.”
There was yet another silence until, looking at him this time, she said, “Have you ever done anything like that before?”
He nodded. “I have killed, but I have never murdered. There is a difference. At least, I like to think there is. It makes my sleep more restful.”
She went back to the inspection of her drink. “Could you do it?”
This time the silence was longer than ever. Bodden at last decided that there was nothing to lose by being honest. “I don’t know,” he said. “It would depend on—on many things.”
She looked up at him. “Opportunity?”
“Yes, there is that. If the British had him locked up, there might not be any opportunity.”
She nodded. “That’s why I will also be going to Bonn. As I said, Berlin doesn’t expect miracles. But it would be no miracle if the British were to let his sister and her oldest friend in to see Oppenheimer, would it?”
Bodden frowned with his forehead. Distaste was written across the rest of his face. “They don’t expect you to kill him, surely?”
“No, but I could easily slip him the means to kill himself. It is really only a very small pill.”
“Which he would choose over a hanging.”
She smiled slightly, although there was no trace of humor in it. “If Berlin can’t have Oppenheimer for themselves, they would be quite happy for the British to hang him—or the Americans. But they won’t hang him—either of them.”
Bodden was beginning to understand. He nodded slowly. “Yes, I see. If Berlin is willing to pay twenty-five thousand dollars for an assassin, think what he must be worth to the British—not to mention the Americans.”
“They are very rare, I suppose,” she said. “Assassins. Good ones, anyway. Tell me, printer, do you ever think of yourself that way—as an assassin?”
“No,” he said. “Never.”
“I thought not.” She patted the bed by her side. “Sit over here—beside me. That way you won’t have to keep hopping up to fill my glass. We are going to finish it, aren’t we—your bottle—just to keep warm?”
Bodden rose. “I thought we might.” He kicked the chair over near the bed, placed the bottle on it, and sat down next to her.
“You know what they say about Berlin in the winter, don’t you?” he said.
“What?”
“That there’re only two places to keep warm—in bed or the bath.”
“You have no bath, of course.”
“Only a bed.”
“Then that will have to do.”
He kissed her then. She was quite ready for it, both her mouth and her tongue eager and exploring. When it was over, she leaned back on the bed, supporting herself on her elbows.
“There is no hurry, is there, printer?”
“None.”
“We will finish the bottle first and you can tell me about yourself and then we will go to bed. It has been a long time since I have been to bed with a man.”
“What about your young American?”
“He is a very nice boy and, like most boys, very eager, very impatient. Were you ever like that, printer—young and impatient and eager?”
“A long time ago.”
“Tell me about it Tell me about you and what you did before the war in Berlin.”
He leaned back and put an arm around her. She shifted slightly so that her head rested on his chest. “I had my own shop,” he said, “not far from the Adlon Hotel; do you know it?”
“A very fashionable district.”
“I was a very fashionable printer. The rich liked me—the rich and the poor poets. I printed their invitations and calling cards—the rich, I mean. No one was anyone unless they had them done by me. I did the best work in Berlin, and I was very expensive. By being expensive I could afford to print the poor poets. You know the kind of thing—slim volumes on thick paper. I also did commercial work—fancy brochures, things like that; more bread-and-butter stuff. And, of course, there was the political material. I printed that too, and kept on printing it even after I was warned not to. I was what your young American friend would call a very ‘hotshot’ Social Democrat at the time. They came for me eventually, the Gestapo. They wrecked the plant. I got to watch that. Then they took me away, and finally I wound up in Belsen. And there I broadened my political horizons.”
“So you could eat.”
“So I could eat.”
“You sound as though you like to live well, printer.”
“It is a weakness.”
“I suffer from it too. Do you think you ever will again?”
“Not unless a miracle happens—one of those kinds that you say Berlin doesn’t believe in.”
She was silent for a moment. Then she turned onto her stomach and looked at him. “Twenty-five thousand dollars can buy a great many miracles, printer. Twenty-seven, actually.”
He grinned and wrapped a strand of her hair around his finger. “You have dangerous thoughts, little one.”
“So do you.”
“I’m surprised.”
>
“At my thoughts?”
“That you didn’t mention them sooner.”
“It could be done.”
“It would also be dangerous.”
“No more dangerous than killing a man whom you really don’t want to kill.”
He gave the strand of hair a gentle tug. “I bet you even have a plan.”
She kissed him—a quick, friendly, warm, wet kiss. “You’re right, I do. Make love to me, printer. Make love to me and then I will tell you about my plan.”
“To abscond with twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“Twenty-seven, actually.”
He grinned again. “With that much money I could afford you, couldn’t I?”
She kissed him quickly again. “That’s right, printer. You could.”
24
On the way to the black-market restaurant, Leah Oppenheimer didn’t even seem to notice the huge old roadster or the stares that it attracted. She sat silently in the passenger’s seat, a silk scarf around her head and a small, shy smile on her lips: the kind of smile, Jackson decided, that a proper young woman would wear on her very first date.
After parking the car near the restaurant, he gave a shabbily dressed middle-aged man five cigarettes to watch it. For another two cigarettes the man offered to dust the car off with a dirty rag that he produced from underneath his hat. Jackson shrugged and paid him his price.
The restaurant was called the Blue Fox Cellar, and it was located in the bowels of a building that had been erected sometime in the late eighteenth century. There was nothing left of the building now except for a pile of rubble and a new, jerry-built entrance that was about as inviting as the entrance to a New York subway.
To get to the restaurant itself they had to go down a steep flight of stairs, then along a corridor, and through another door. But before they were allowed through that, they were inspected by an eye that peered out at them from a speakeasylike peephole. Jackson thought that the eye looked beady, but he didn’t say anything.
Past the door, they found themselves in an immense, round room with stone walls and a wide stone staircase that hugged the curving wall as it descended into the dining area thirty feet below. The place was lighted by a number of kerosene lamps and what Jackson estimated to be hundreds of thick, squat candles.
At the bottom of the stairs they were met by a bowing, properly obsequious headwaiter dressed in white tie and tailcoat, who showed them to a table, took their coats, and handed them their menus. Before examining the bill of fare, Jackson looked around at the the other diners.
