It was an odd question, and Georg moved past it with a hand for the waiter. “So, how do you want this to go, Papi? He’ll be here any time now.”
Hoffner placed his hat on an empty chair and sat. “Does he know I’ll be here?”
“No.”
“That was kind of you.”
The waiter arrived, and Hoffner ordered them two coffees and a plate of sweet rolls. “You’ve been in touch with him?” said Hoffner. “On a regular basis, I imagine?” He found a stain on the table and began to wipe at it with his napkin.
Again Georg looked confused. “Yes. I suppose. You saw the letters.”
“And he’s satisfied with the way things are?” Hoffner continued to work through the last of the stain.
Georg was no less perplexed. “Between the two of you?”
Hoffner looked up. “Between . . . ? Oh no. That’s . . .” He tried a smile. “Things are what they are there. I’m just wondering if he’s—”
“Happy?” This was the most bizarre question yet. Georg waited for an answer, but his father looked to be no better equipped for the idea than he was. “It’s Sascha, Papi. Things are either remarkable or devastating. I don’t think he’d be much good with happy.”
Hoffner nodded as if this made any sense to him. “No, you’re right, of course.”
“Is he in some kind of trouble?”
The bell jangled, and both looked over to see Sascha at the door. The brightness around him did nothing to soften the image Hoffner had witnessed earlier this morning. In fact, the light only made the boy’s corruption more defined.
Sascha waited several seconds before closing the door and heading over. Hoffner imagined it was pride that had won out. Georg did his best to lighten the mood. “Am I the only one who’s getting any sleep?” he said. “You look dreadful.”
Sascha’s smile showed a genuine feeling for his brother. “This is all very admirable of you, Georgi, but I’m sure Nikolai here would agree it’s a little soggy on the sentiment.” He looked at his father. “I had no idea you’d be here, either.”
“It wasn’t Georg,” said Hoffner. “This was my idea.”
Sascha took a moment. “Then I doubt it was sentiment.”
“You’re here,” said Hoffner. “Why not have a seat?”
Sascha said, “I can see someone didn’t take to your smacking them about as well as I did. Sometimes they fight back, don’t they?”
Hoffner waited as the man arrived with the coffee and rolls. “I’m sure you were out late,” said Hoffner. “Have something to eat, at least.”
The awkwardness was pressing on Sascha. He looked at Georg and then turned to the waiter. “You’ll bring me the bill for the young man when we’re done here. Also another coffee and a plate of cheese.” The man moved off, and Sascha sat. “I’ll be paying for Georg’s breakfast.”
Hoffner nodded as if this somehow made the momentary détente possible. “You’re doing all right, then?” he said. He pulled a flask from his coat pocket and poured a healthy splash into his cup.
“To buy a coffee and a roll for my brother?” said Sascha. “Yes, I’m doing just fine.”
Hoffner took a drink. “I was impressed with your meeting.”
“No, you weren’t. You find things like that ridiculous. You always have.”
“My shortcoming, I suppose.”
“I won’t argue.”
“Then why invite me?”
Sascha looked at Georg. “We can all hope, can’t we?”
Hoffner laughed quietly and took a second drink. “Another shortcoming.”
Sascha’s breakfast arrived. He placed a piece of cheese on the bread and lifted it to his mouth. Hoffner saw the slight hesitation. Imagined or not, the remnants from this morning registered in the boy’s eyes. They made Hoffner feel Sascha’s filth as if it were his own. Sascha stood and said, “I need to use the toilet.” Sascha made his way to a back corridor, and Georg said, “He doesn’t have the money for it, you know.”
Hoffner took a bite of one of the sweet rolls and nodded. The raisins had gone hard.
Georg said, “Don’t try and pay. He’d find that—”
“Yes,” said Hoffner. “I know. Does he have a decent place to live?”
“Depends on what you mean by decent. He shares a flat with two of the fellows from the other night. Bit of a hole, but they don’t seem to mind. Not sure Sascha likes them all that well.”
“And why is that?” Hoffner knew the answer: one thing to take the occasional dip into the muck, another to live side by side with it.
Georg shrugged. “The time I met them, all they talked was politics. That can get tedious.”
Hoffner finished his cup. “Not if it’s all they have.” He raised it in the direction of the waiter. “He hasn’t encouraged you to join the great cause, has he?”
“At the beginning. Now he knows it’s not my sort of thing.”
The man arrived and set the pot on the table. Hoffner said, “Things might take a bit of a turn here, Georgi. I don’t want you to be concerned about that—all right?”
The man moved off just as Sascha reappeared at the back and began to make his way over.
Georg said, “If he’s in some kind of trouble, Papi—”
“Get the stink off your hands?” said Hoffner as Sascha drew up.
This time there was no hesitation. “A friend’s car. It broke down on the way back from the Grunwald last night. Takes forever to get the smell of petrol out.”
“You should try sugar cubes,” said Hoffner. “Crush them up and rub them around. Old mechanic’s trick. Good for all sorts of smells.”
For a moment, Hoffner saw Sascha as a ten-year-old boy, the moment of discovery at some trivial offense caught in the eyes. Just as quickly, the boy’s face hardened. This had been coincidence, nothing more. Hoffner knew to let him believe it.
“Really?” said Sascha as he sat. “I should give it a try, then.”
Hoffner took out his wallet and placed a twenty-mark note on the table. Any good feeling between them quickly slipped away. “I said I would be paying,” said Sascha.
“That’s not for breakfast.”
“I’m doing fine.”
“Yes,” said Hoffner, “I’m sure you are, working for a bunch of beer-hall hotheads without a pfennig between them. I hear they do their prison time very easily. That must make them seem quite noble. Take it.”
Sascha had yet to develop a workable sneer. “You realize how ridiculous you look playing the caring father. Even the amount is ludicrous.”
“So fifty would have been better?” Hoffner again pulled out his wallet, and Sascha said, “Please.” The sneer had grown into amusement. “You’re making it into bad Italian opera now. We both know you’re not the least interested—unless you’re planning on singing. That I’d stay for.”
Hoffner appreciated the boy’s arrogance. It made this less difficult. He said, “You won’t convince me you don’t need it, Sascha, but if you don’t want it, that’s fine.” He placed the wallet back in his pocket. “Think of it as a donation to the great cause, if that makes it easier for you.”
Sascha laughed to himself and then looked at Georg. “Did it look like we needed donations the other night, Georgi?” Georg knew not to involve himself. Sascha turned to his father. “We managed that on only four days’ notice, and in the Reds’ backyard. That doesn’t just happen.”
Hoffner did his best to sound uninterested. “Fair enough.”
“You always know better, don’t you?”
Hoffner poured himself another cup. “Look, I’m glad you’ve found yourself a little group, Sascha, but they are what they are, and I’ve seen too many of them to think otherwise.”
It was impossible for Sascha not to take the bait. “How much do you think that cost? All told? How much?” He waited. “Hall, trucks, beer, newspaper boys . . . ? No? Well, I can tell you they don’t just show up because they’re interested in the speeches. You have to give them a
n incentive, and that takes a lot more than twenty marks on a café table.”
Hoffner nodded as if conceding. “Yes. You’re right. Far more.” He looked at Georg. “You want another roll?”
“You have no idea, do you?” said Sascha. He waited until he had his father’s attention. “How much?”
Hoffner knew this was wrong—using Sascha like this—or if not wrong, then at least symptomatic of a corruption no less damning than the boy’s. The problem was, he had no other choice. “You’ve got some rich friends who like to waste their money,” said Hoffner. “Fine. I’m very impressed. So does every other windbag group in Berlin. The Reds have the Jews, and those are some pretty deep pockets. I’d watch out there, Sascha.” He looked again at Georg. “I’m getting another. You can share it with me if you want.” Hoffner raised his hand for the waiter and felt Sascha’s resentment growing.
To his credit, the boy had learned to stifle it. “They don’t have who we have,” he said coolly.
Hoffner knew it was too soon to ask. Instead, he signaled to the waiter. “I’m sure they don’t.” All three sat in silence until the man appeared. “Another of the rolls,” said Hoffner.
“Anything else?” said the waiter. “While I’m here this time. I’ve got other tables, you know.”
“Do you?” said Hoffner more aggressively. “Well, we wouldn’t want to get in the way of that, would we? Just the roll, then.” The waiter began to move off, and Hoffner said loudly enough to be heard, “You’ll be sure to give him a little extra, Sascha. He seems to think he deserves it.”
Hoffner might have been playing it a bit too coarsely, but it was having the right effect.
“You’ve really become quite absurd, haven’t you?” said Sascha. “The money, the drink, calling out a waiter. And on top of it, the great authority on all things political. Your Reds are finished and you can’t even see it.”
This was something Sascha had always clung to. Hoffner was amazed to hear it trumpeted out again. But if it was what the boy wanted to hear, why not? “I don’t give a rat’s ass for the Reds, Sascha. I never have.”
“That’s right. Convince yourself of that. They’ll be gone soon enough, anyway.”
“But not your great benefactor,” Hoffner said sourly. Had Sascha not been the target, Hoffner might have enjoyed playing the part.
The dressing-down of his father had lent the boy an authority dangerous in the hands of one ill equipped to handle it. He spoke with too much swagger. “We don’t have to pay for all of the newspaper boys. Some of them come on their own. They’re told to, really, by their boss. He’d be very disappointed if they didn’t.”
And here it was, thought Hoffner, right in front of him—all but for the asking. He pulled out a cigarette and said, “So it’s a publisher. Very nice. Some Munich rag seller with big ideas, no doubt.” He lit up. “Tell him he’s going to be disappointed.”
“Really?” Sascha said no less easily. “You think Alfred Hugenberg puts out rags? I’ll tell him you said so. No doubt he’ll be crushed to hear that a washed-out cop doesn’t like the papers he’s publishing.”
Hoffner did what he could to keep his own shock in check. This was not a name he had expected to hear. Hugenberg was too much a Berliner, too powerful, and too looming a specter on the right-hand side of the aisle, to take even token interest in a ragtag pack of blowhards from the provinces. This was old Prussian money, and everyone knew just how much of it Hugenberg had been stockpiling for decades—those high times as head of the Krupp munitions conglomerate. But then the war had ended—coupled with some nasty little provisions out of Versailles—and suddenly guns, grenades, and bombs had become bad business. Luckily, the great Hugenberg had seen the future. Reinvesting his fortune—estimated at an almost unthinkable 30 million marks—he had turned his attention to another, equally toxic enterprise: Der Hugenberg Konzern, which now controlled two of the largest publishing empires in the world—Scherl House and Vera GmbH—with newspapers and magazines running into the hundreds. And just in case his ultranationalist voice wasn’t coming through clearly enough, Herr Alfred had also bought the Telegraph Union, the third-largest news agency in Europe. Suffice it to say, anything printed in Germany had Hugenberg’s fist marks all over it. Along with a seat on the Reichstag as a member of the National People’s Party, he was making sure that traditional German values and proper business sense were being well tended to.
But what if that wasn’t enough? The image of Herr Vogt’s flywheel device suddenly came to Hoffner’s mind. If Hugenberg was willing to fund these latter-day Thulians on the political stage, why not elsewhere? Why not give Thyssen the money to play with sound, propaganda in the form of talking newsreel films in every theater palace in the country? Pabst, Lang, Murnau—but first a little something on German purity. The question was, why wouldn’t Hugenberg have gone directly to Vogt himself? Why not simply fund the technology? It left Hoffner no clearer as to what Hugenberg might possibly gain by an association with this “thinking man’s” Freikorps.
Nonetheless, he knew to nod meekly—an act of contrition to please the boy. He reached for his cup and said, “Good for you.”
“Yes,” said Sascha. “It is good for us.” He picked up the twenty and slid it into his pocket. “And now you can say that you and Herr Hugenberg share the same interests. His commitments might run a little deeper, but every little bit helps.”
Hoffner was about to answer when he saw Leni standing directly behind Sascha. It was unclear how long she had been there. Somehow he had missed the bell this time.
“Hello there,” she said. “Am I too late for breakfast?”
The boys turned, and all three stood at once. Georg pulled over a chair from another table.
“No, no,” said Hoffner, trying again to mask his surprise. “I’m just on my second cup. This is my older boy, Alexander. You know Georg from last night.”
Everyone managed the usual courtesies—nods, smiles, words with no meaning—until they were all seated again, except for Sascha.
“Unfortunately, Fräulein,” he said as he picked up his hat, “I have a meeting to get to. A pleasure to have met you, if only briefly.” He looked across at his brother. “Georg.” He even tried a nod for his father. A few seconds later, the bell jangled his departure, and Leni said, “He’s quite handsome. You didn’t tell me.”
“Yah,” said Hoffner absently. “I didn’t realize you’d be joining us.”
“Oh.” Her own surprise was less convincing. “Well, you did mention the place last night. I thought I’d give you a bit of time with your boys, but if I’m intruding . . .” Graciousness was not her strong suit.
“No,” said Hoffner. “I can’t remember the last time I had dinner and breakfast with the same people. It’ll make for a nice change.”
Twenty minutes later, Leni headed to the toilet while Hoffner paid the bill.
“Don’t worry, Georgi,” he said as the waiter fished through his purse for the change. “Sascha’s end of it is on me. You’re covered.” The man held out the coins, and Hoffner said, “That’s for you, Herr Ober.” It was nearly half as much as the meal had cost. The man looked mildly astonished, and Hoffner said, “I told you I’d take care of you.”
When the waiter had gone, Georg said, “It was quite a performance.” There was more disappointment than accusation in his voice.
“That obvious?”
“Evidently not for Sascha. Did you get the information you needed?”
Hoffner wondered where the boy had learned this, how far inside he could really see. That kind of empathy usually brought a softness, but not so with Georg. He had felt no need to protect his brother. What judgment he had, he reserved for his father, and there was nothing Hoffner could say to answer for himself.
“By the way,” said Georg, “I’ve seen her before, at the studio.”
“Who?”
“Fräulein Coyle.”
Hoffner pulled a toothpick from his pocket. “I’m not surp
rised.” Something had lodged in the newly vacated space at the back of his mouth. “She works with Ritter.”
“No, I know that. She told me last night. It’s just that she was one of the people I’d seen at those late-night meetings in Thyssen’s office.” He reached for his satchel. “But you probably knew that already.”
Hoffner stopped with the pick. This was turning into a breakfast full of surprises. He did his best to show nothing as he watched Georg unclip the latch and pull out the paper. Georg then stood, and Hoffner continued to stare as the satchel slipped over the boy’s head and onto his shoulder. Finally, Hoffner said, “No, of course—Yes.” He stood and said offhandedly, “When was that, roughly?”
Georg was adjusting the strap. “I don’t know. Around Christmas, maybe New Year’s?”
Hoffner nodded as if remembering it himself. “That’s right.”
“Shall we?” said Leni as she reappeared at the table. Hoffner forced a smile. He then took her arm and followed Georg to the door.
. . .
HALF AN HOUR LATER he thought about apologizing for his office, but the question was where to begin. Instead, he cleared a space for her on a chair across from his desk, then tossed his hat onto the rack.
“It’s very cheerful,” she said. “The bare wall is particularly festive.”
Hoffner sat. He leaned back and clasped his hands at his chest. “So,” he said easily, “how many of these late-night meetings with Thyssen did you manage to make it to?”
She was remarkable at holding a stare. “Pardon?”
“The meetings. Out at Ufa. Thyssen was having them on a regular basis.”
Her face remained impenetrable. “Georg’s a clever boy.”
“He’s got a good memory.”
“I knew there was a reason I didn’t like police offices.” She waited for a response. When none came, she said, “I don’t know. Three or four. How else was I going to get the films?”
Hoffner nodded to himself. “So you were the courier. They weren’t being sent directly to America.”
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