Shadow and Light

by Jonathan Rabb

  “Jesus!” the cabbie screamed. “He hit me!” His eyes again darted to the mirror. “He fucking hit me!” He began to shake his head in panic. “I’m done here! I’m done!” The gears ground down and the engine howled as the cab suddenly began to slow. Hoffner did what he could to keep his arm in front of Leni as everything screeched to a dead stop. The man was breathing heavily, his head darting from side to side. With a sudden burst of energy, he leaped from the car and began to run down the street.

  Everything else remained unnervingly still. The Buick was now angled directly in front of them—dark, silent—as Hoffner tried to steady his own breath. He waited for the doors to open, but the car simply stood there.

  Seconds passed, and Hoffner tried to find his focus. If this was Pimm, what the hell was he playing at? And if not . . .

  Hoffner reached for the door handle just as two men emerged from the Buick. Nothing about them—from the sculpted features of their faces to the perfect cut of their suits—spoke of Pimm or the syndicates. These might have been thugs, but they were of a different breed, and with too much taste to come from the streets. They slowly began to make their way over.

  Hoffner’s mind was racing for an answer. He turned to Leni, but she seemed frozen to her seat, the lamplight from outside cutting across her face. He needed something from her now, but all she could give was a momentary flash of remorse.

  So this was how fear finally played itself out in her eyes. Perfect.

  Both doors opened at once. The men peered in, and Hoffner—tapping into some imagined courage—saw himself barreling through them, saving Leni, when he suddenly understood who they were.

  Hugenberg, he thought. Hugenberg had sent these men. This was the kind of muscle Hugenberg could afford.

  Empty heroics be damned, Hoffner shot his arm across Leni and leaned forward. “She has nothing to do with this,” he said. “We take this outside, meine Herren. The lady is not involved.”

  The man nearest Hoffner looked momentarily confused before turning to Leni. “You all right, Miss Coyle?” he said in English.

  Had an iron pipe been cracked across his face, Hoffner might have felt the pain less acutely. It brought a ringing to his ears as he tried to convince himself he had misheard or misunderstood. A sudden wave of heat rushed to his face, and it was only then that he realized Leni was looking directly at him.

  “I’m fine,” she said in English.

  Hoffner continued to gaze into her eyes as the man droned on: “Didn’t think the streets would be so empty, Miss Coyle. Made us a little obvious. Sorry about that. Once you threw the cigarette, we knew we had to keep you close.”

  Hoffner’s head was suddenly light, not as if he might faint—that would have been too easy—but somehow suspended over everything, witnessing the entire scene while perched high above it. There was something comical to the picture: the two wide men wedged into the doors, Leni gazing at him, his own witless face. And then a smile. For some incomprehensible reason, Hoffner was smiling.

  “You’re from Metro,” he finally said. Hoffner’s accent was thick, but it was still English. The men continued to look at her as she continued to look at him. “Of course.” He needed another moment before he sat back. Staring into nothing, he said quietly, “There’s a word.” He turned to her and realized she had never looked so gentle, even harmless. She was young and untried and his. What a ridiculous thing to think, and yet here it was—betrayal as a kindness, and all he wanted to do was thank her for it. “Sap,” he said. His eyes wandered from hers. “That’s it. That’s the word. Like something from a tree. I’ve never understood why. I suppose it makes sense.”

  Leni said, “This was the only way. I’m sorry for that.”

  His eyes settled on an advertising placard that was wedged into the glass partition. It was for tooth cream.

  “It wasn’t,” he said. “And you’re not, but best to keep to the script.” He looked at the two men. They really were surprisingly large. “You two gentlemen have had an interesting few days. I’m sorry I couldn’t have been quicker in getting you here, but I only just figured it out myself.”

  Leni took his hand. It was an absurd gesture, but for some reason he let her. “This part of the thing ends tonight,” she said. “Not the rest. You have to believe me.”

  He bobbed a nod and managed to say, “Of course.” There was no bitterness in his voice, although he did feel badly for the Metro boys. He could sense their discomfort, hardly their fault to have stepped in so late to the drama. Not that seeing it from the start would have made this moment any less awkward, but still, who wants to be witness to the last little strains of a gallant humiliation?

  Even so, Hoffner decided to play it out. He let go of her hand and said, “You knew about it from the start—the device. You were always just after the device.” He waited for her to say something, but knew she wouldn’t. Still, if he was meant to play the part—

  And then the last piece clicked into place. It was hardly anything, but damn him if it didn’t make him want her all the more. He said, “There’s no one in Los Angeles who’s paying for sex films, is there?” Leni didn’t need to say a thing. “Clever,” he said. “That bit actually made sense—which of course you knew, so well done on all fronts.”

  “If it makes it easier,” she said, “Ritter has no idea, and he’s been involved much longer than you have.”

  “Yes,” said Hoffner. “That makes it much, much easier. Quite a performance at his office.”

  “I’m trying to help you here, Nikolai.”

  What was all the more desolating was that he believed her.

  She said, “They were using the films to refine the device, get it right. The sex—that was Thyssen on his own. We had no idea why, but it turned out to be the perfect way in.”

  “Of course it did,” he said: things were coming clearer by the minute. “Thyssen thinks he’s playing you, and you let him believe what he wants to believe.” This one caught in his throat. “We’re very good at that here in Berlin.” Leni said nothing, and Hoffner glanced at the two men. “So which one of you two did she send to kill him?”

  He could feel her body tense next to him. When he looked back, her eyes seemed to moisten. Odder still was the anger in her voice. “That wasn’t us,” she said. “That actually made things more difficult. Why do you always—” She shook it off and dug into her purse. “I don’t have time to explain.” She pulled out an envelope and set it on his lap. She stared directly at him, and her eyes filled again. It seemed to throw her. She shook her head, breathed in, and then looked at one of the men. “I need a minute here.”

  The man seemed unsure, and Hoffner said, “She means I’m harmless, Metro. You don’t have to worry.”

  The man took another moment and then nodded to his friend. They both edged away from the car.

  When he looked back, Hoffner found his hand again in hers. She was staring down at it as she drew her thumb across his knuckles. “One week,” she said. “That’s all I’m asking. And then I’ll be back.” Hoffner said nothing, and she looked up. “That’s not so hard, is it?” Hoffner waited and then quietly shook his head, and she snorted, “You think there’s something so wonderfully noble in letting this go. And over nothing. The device means nothing.”

  He watched her face as her eyes searched his. Did she actually see something worth her anger beyond them? Had he misjudged her even in that? He said, “I suppose it doesn’t.”

  She moved closer and tenderly kissed him, again the taste of mint on his lips as she pulled away. He watched as she stepped over to the door. She then turned back. “Which building is it?”

  It would have been so easy to say nothing. “You’re just going to walk in?”

  “Something like that.”

  He knew not to make this any harder for her. “Forty-six. Wissmannstrasse 46. The two warehouses. The device looks something like a—”

  “I know what it looks like.” The pain he had wanted for himself now fixed in
her eyes. “One week, Nikolai. You have to give me that.” She stared at him through the silence and then stepped out.

  A moment later, the man reappeared at the door and pointed to the seat next to Hoffner. “You mind?” he said. “We’re gonna be here awhile.” Hoffner barely heard a word as the man settled in. “Oh,” the man added. “And your gun. I’m gonna need that.”

  Hoffner managed to find his focus. “That’s your American detectives,” he said as he spread his coat wide. “We don’t carry them here.”

  The man patted him down anyway. Finding nothing, he sat back and pulled a folded magazine from his coat pocket. It was a Hollywood rag with Jolson’s blackened face on the cover. Hoffner glanced at it for a moment and then looked over at the woman and her toothbrush. She, too, was all smiles.

  Hoffner shut his eyes, breathed in, and waited for the sound of Leni’s voice to drain out of him.

  TWO HOURS LATER, the man prodded him awake.

  “She’ll be in the air in about half an hour,” he said. “We can drop you off then.” The man’s smile dwarfed his face. “No hard feelings? It’s just the job.”

  Hoffner blinked the sleep from his eyes. His mouth was stale. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cigarettes. The man already had a pack of Luckys in front of him. “Go ahead,” he said. “Better than any of the crap you’ve got in this country.” Hoffner pulled out one of his own and lit it. The man shrugged and said, “You gonna open that?” He nodded at the envelope, which was still in Hoffner’s lap. Hoffner took a pull and then picked it up. There was nothing written on it except for the Hotel Adlon emblem. He tucked it into his jacket pocket and stretched his legs.

  Hoffner said, “She’s flying back to California tonight?”

  “Yup,” said the man. “Lisbon, New York, then out to the coast. We’ve had a guy waiting with a plane for the past three days. You gotta hope he’s gotten some sleep.”

  “Yeah,” said Hoffner. “You gotta.” He regretted not having taken the Lucky. “You haven’t killed anyone while you’re here, have you?”

  The man laughed. “Not yet.”

  Hoffner held out his hand. “I’ll take a look at your magazine.”

  The man reached down to the floor and gave it to him. “They usually have some nice shots. Thighs and tits. Not this one. Pretty disappointing.”

  Hoffner nodded as he flipped through. Jolson in blackface filled almost every page, the caption below always the same: Hurray for Sound!

  Now who could argue with that?

  FORTY MINUTES LATER, the Metro boys pulled up to Wissmannstrasse and Hoffner stepped out onto the deserted street.

  “You’re never going to find a cab back,” the man said. He looked only slightly ridiculous with his chiseled face and crisp suit behind the wheel. “She’s gone, buddy. Life moves on. We were planning on buying you a drink, anyway.”

  Hoffner said, “What if I’d tried to run?”

  The man smiled. “You weren’t going to do that. She told us.” And to soften the blow: “She said you were too smart for that. What do you say? Hop in the back, we have a few drinks. Take your licks and greet the dawn.”

  Hoffner wondered if everyone in Los Angeles lived on these pithy little chestnuts. With as much sincerity as he could, Hoffner said, “Gotta make sure the guy who gave me the tip-off was on the up-and-up.”

  The big face looked slightly confused. “Tip-off?” said the man.

  Obviously Hoffner wasn’t as good at this as he’d thought. “About where I could find the sound machine,” he said. “The guy who told me it would be out here.” Hoffner wondered if Radek had ever been referred to as “the guy.”

  “Oh,” said the man, even though this was clearly beyond him. “So how you gonna do that when Miss Coyle’s already got the thing with her on a plane heading for Spain?”

  Hoffner was glad to hear that the Portuguese had finally ceded Lisbon to the Spanish. “All depends on if you know what you’re looking for,” he said. “Plus it’s the only way I can clear the guy.”

  This finally made some sense: the bonds of loyalty. The man nodded. “A pal to the end. That I can understand.” He slapped his hand against the outside of the door and raised two fingers in a salute. “For a cop, you’re all right by me.” Half a minute later, the cab was gone.

  THE SWEET SMELL OF MANURE—packed deep in the earth—followed Hoffner as he walked. Twenty years ago this had been farmland. The few buildings he could see were ratty little boxes that looked more like sheds than anything else. That half of them were too far off the street to merit a number hardly mattered. Now, with a single streetlamp arching above them, the buildings could claim their place in the new Berlin. Numbers made them real. Numbers gave them purpose. Numbers meant their future.

  He had told his chiseled friend that he was here to clear Radek—to make sure that the tip-off had been legit—but that really made no sense. Hoffner knew that, without the device in hand, Radek would have no way to explain his betrayal to Pimm. And since the thing was in an aeroplane heading for Lisbon, that seemed highly unlikely.

  Instead, Hoffner convinced himself he had come for the loose ends: for Hugenberg and Thyssen, for Lohmann and the Langs. Even for Sascha. But if he were being honest, Hoffner would have admitted it was for her. What he needed now was to see the place: see it so he would always know—whether she was back in a week or a month or tomorrow or never—that this was where it had finished. The echoes of Bagier and Georg, even of Leni herself in the cab, would never be enough. They would fade. He would find himself explaining them away. No, he needed the physical certainty of it, the image of a few torn wires dangling in a hollow space to lock the memory in place.

  Two buildings loomed up ahead, and he listened for any signs of life. There were none, and he moved onto the grass and made his way up toward the first of them. Even under the streetlamp light, the sound-stage design was unmistakable.

  By his estimation, she had been here some two hours ago. Whatever she had done to get in, find the device, and get herself out had no doubt brought Pimm’s man into the open. Hoffner imagined a scuffle, one of the big American boys making quick work of it. From the absolute stillness of things, he also guessed that Pimm’s man was either out cold somewhere or on his way back into town to break the bad news.

  Hoffner was halfway up the field when he saw a faint light bouncing along the grass beyond the far wall. A moment later, the muffled sound of voices broke through and he quickly dropped to the grass. The light and voices grew stronger, and two men appeared from around the side of the building. Both held flashlights.

  “It’s half an hour,” one of them said. He was limping badly, his free hand holding the top of his thigh. “Jesus, stop your whining.”

  “There’s always meant to be at least four of us out here,” the other said. He was large, large enough to have given the Americans a run for their money. “Two’s bad enough—but just me?”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “We both know you’ve had worse. You can hold on a few more hours. They won’t like this.”

  “And they’ll like it if I bleed out?” Two Daimler saloons were parked in the grass and now appeared in the flashlight beams. “You think I’m happy about this? Look, I get to a telephone and have them send someone out. I’m telling you, half an hour—”

  “It won’t be half an hour,” the other barked.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” They reached the cars. “I don’t remember you ever shitting your pants sitting in a trench, and now you start crying? No one’s coming over the top, Hermann. I’m bleeding here, and you’re worried about sitting in the middle of nowhere for an hour—”

  “See?” the other jumped in. “An hour. You said it yourself.”

  The limping man opened the car door. “Oh my fucking God. I should leave you out here for an hour. For two.” He got himself behind the wheel and pulled the door closed. “You stick to the drill. Two walk-around patrols every fifteen minutes, both build
ings. We clear on this?”

  The other grunted something and then said, “Fine.”

  The man started the car. “Oh, and if I do happen to bleed out, Hermann, just try to hold on until dawn. That way they won’t think you did it and ran off.”

  “Fuck you, Gunther.”

  “No, no,” the other said as he began to pull out. “Fuck you.”

  The car bounced along the grass until it lurched onto the road. It then accelerated, and the sound of kicked-up gravel faded as the headlights turned and dipped out of sight.

  Hoffner remained low as he watched the boy step over to the other car and open the door. For just a moment, Hoffner hoped young Hermann might be abandoning his post, but the boy reemerged with a flask. He glanced around, opened it, and took a few swigs.

  Hoffner got to a crouch and quickly moved to the building. The boy was still drinking as Hoffner disappeared around the side and flattened himself against the wall. Not that he knew what he was doing, but better to have his back against something hard than to be lying facedown in the middle of a field. Either way, there was no chance of slipping away unnoticed now.

  Without the streetlamp light, everything sank into a deep darkness. Hoffner waited for his eyes to adjust. He was also trying to understand who might be playing sentry on behalf of the Phoebus Film Company. Once again, these were clearly not Pimm’s men. The spoken German also ruled out more Americans. What was most troubling, though, was the word “patrol.” Things were taking a decidedly unpleasant turn.

  Hoffner realized he might do well to find himself a weapon. He scanned the area around his feet, but as far as he could tell, it was grass all the way up to the wall, without so much as a stone lying about. His eyes began to clear, and he peered out across the field. Five, maybe ten meters in front of him he thought he saw a shape. The more he looked, the more it became a mound of earth, except it wasn’t: it was too perfectly square to be soil. He then noticed what looked to be a series of long poles propped up against it.