Basic Law

by J Sydney Jones

  “So you had no personal contact whatsoever with her after that time. Is that right?”

  “You’re beginning to sound like a cop, Kramer,” Martok says, lighting another fragrant cigarette. “There’s something you’re not telling me. Something big. Why do you think there are memoirs, anyway?”

  “Because she made me the literary executor of them.”

  “What? Don’t you have a regular job?” Which remark draws a traitorous laugh from Randall, and Martok exchanges glances with him once again. “So what about the memoirs?” she says.

  “They’re missing,” Kramer replies.

  “Maybe they never existed.”

  Randall butts in, “That’s what the police believe.”

  Her eyes get big. “So you’ve already been to the police about this?”

  “Yes.” Kramer has a sudden need to lash out, to hit her with information as she’s clubbed him. Infantile, but he allows it. “She had a publisher in Berlin,” he says. “I believe these memoirs were so explosive that somebody killed her to suppress them.”

  The body blow takes its toll. Martok visibly winces, and Kramer plunges on.

  “One of Reni’s informants for the book, a former East German intelligence officer, died just before Reni’s body was found. A hit-and-run accident, the police are calling it. I think that’s too much of a coincidence to ignore.”

  She is shocked, slumping over the table suddenly as if in pain.

  Finally, she hisses, “The bitch. Can’t even allow me to hate her in death.” She looks up at them. “I mean, a suicide you can be disgusted with, right? Even hate. But the victim of a murder? That’s different. You’ve got to feel for someone who’s been killed.”

  Her eyelids begin to flutter; a sudden thought. “So you’re not just looking for these memoirs, are you, Kramer? In fact, you’re looking for Reni’s murderer.”

  “I’d like both,” he says. “But I figure the memoirs will lead to the killer.”

  “Guess again,” she says. “Reni’s list of enemies was long and long. I could name a dozen possibilities in Bonn alone. She cut a wide swath.”

  “Why did you go to her funeral?” he asks suddenly.

  She considers this for a moment as a muscle twitches in her jaw, a thick vein on her forehead pulses. “Just to make sure,” she says. “To see the coffin and know she was out of my life for good.”

  “Just for the record”—Kramer stretches his leg under the table to work out a cramp in his right hamstring—“you didn’t kill her, did you?”

  She smiles. “I could have at one time. It would have felt good. And I’m what I’d call a pacifist.” She shakes her head at Kramer, glances quickly at Randall. “No, I didn’t kill Reni. But there are lots of people with less peaceful natures than mine.”

  “Such as?”

  “Gerhard, for one. How long can you be a human pillow? I think he actually loved Reni, and that could be dangerous. She had to destroy love. It was like a warped sense of survival in her. She felt trapped by love. She hated it.”

  She says nothing more, and Kramer figures that’s all there is for the time being. He pulls his legs out from under the table and stands, then Randall does the same, both of them making departure noises.

  “But I’ve been a lousy hostess,” she says. “Didn’t even offer you a beer.”

  “It’s not too late.” Randall smiles broadly down at her.

  “Would you really like one?”

  “Not for me,” Kramer says. He’s not sure he wants to share a beer with someone full of so much hatred for the person he loved for so long. He’s had enough debunking of myths for one afternoon.

  “I’d love one,” Randall says, sitting back down across the table from her. “You go on, Sam,” he says, not taking his eyes off of her. “You’ve got other calls to make, but I’ve had enough for today.” Then looking up at Kramer, he says innocently, “See you back at the hotel, okay?”

  She makes no protests when Kramer goes for the door; and neither of them bother getting up from the table. Kramer slips on his shoes, laces them up, gets his coat from the wardrobe, and humps it on.

  Randall and Martok are still staring at each other across the polished expanse of the table.

  As Kramer leaves, he hears Martok saying again, “I’m sure I’ve met you before.”

  By eight o’clock that evening, there is still no sign of Randall. Kramer has a light dinner in the kitschy gasthaus where he lunched with Reni’s father after the funeral. Over coffee, he pulls out his leather-covered notepad and an HB pencil and begins making notes. Events and people are rapidly mushrooming; he is losing sight of his path.

  Reni’s Death and Missing Memoirs, he writes at the head of the page. Then strikes out Death and inserts Murder.

  The memoirs and murder are contingent upon each other, he knows. If there were no memoirs, there would be no motive for murder.

  But there is corroboration for the memoirs: Pahlus in Berlin staked his career and publishing house on them; the mysterious Gorik seems to have paid with his life for participating in them; Reni’s father had at least heard his daughter speak of memoirs, though he had never seen them himself. Martok knew nothing about them. Any other leads to follow in order to verify the existence of Reni’s memoirs?

  No. Kramer is a believer. He takes this first ladder and disposes of it.

  So who stood to lose? he wonders. If Gorik fingered somebody who was a former agent for the East, say someone powerful in the West, and that person got wind of the memoirs … Clear enough, Kramer thinks. The penalty for treason, even with the game of the Cold War long over, is still death.

  Kramer scrawls Gorik’s Information on his list.

  Then there is Martok’s surprising revelation from this afternoon. Sexual politics can make for bad blood, but bad enough to murder for? And why now? Like Martok says, there was a time when she could have killed Reni, but not now. It’s been several years since Reni was in Parliament. Or did she have secrets about those days that someone in Bonn wanted kept secret? Illicit affairs might be enough to ruin political careers in the USA, but in Germany? That’s if I can trust Martok’s story, he thinks. A big if. Could Gerhard have taken a final revenge for years of cuckolding?

  But you have no proof of that yet, he reminds himself, finishing the coffee, which has now gone cool.

  He closes his eyes. But you know it’s true, don’t you? You know she was capable of everything Martok told you this afternoon.

  Kramer writes: Martok’s List; Gerhard? He would need to talk with her further; get more names from Eva Martok of other people Reni was on the wrong side of. Were there people locally that would fit on such a list also? he wonders. Isn’t crime most often a neighborhood affair? What about that near miss yesterday; the purple car? Who stands to profit from Reni’s death? His mind races with mundane possibilities here. Is her property so valuable to someone like Schnelling and Walther that they would want to get her out of the way? Or did Reni offend some wacko like Frau Gruber who sought revenge? Village life is often claustrophobic enough to result in murder.

  He writes Local Angle? but is not too excited about that. Then he taps the pencil against the pad like a drumstick, suddenly reverses it, and writes another two words: Magnificent Seven.

  That’s where Helmut’s information takes him. He seemed convinced that somebody planted the bomb in the car, one of their group. Had Reni come to that conclusion as well? Or was she the one, and did Helmut figure that out? Lots to lose for him with his Prague business connection. Was yesterday’s visit just elaborate theater for them?

  Three more names on the page: Helmut, Rick, and Gerhard­. He does not bother with Maria. She is lost to them all. After a bogus trial in Prague, she was sentenced to twenty-five years in a maximum security prison. Years later, Kramer tried to trace her through a source in Charta 77. According to this man,
a writer of political satire, Maria had died during her third year in solitary confinement.

  Stupid, stupid children, he thinks. All just to throw some meaningless leaflets off a building: Down with tyranny. Down with the Soviet aggressor.

  He looks at the list of names and subjects: Gerhard gets two entries.

  And one final entry: Reinhard Vogel—Neo-Nazi Connection?

  CHAPTER TEN

  Still no Randall in the morning and Kramer goes ahead with plans to fly to Munich. A call to the Germany United offices is all that is needed to arrange an interview with Vogel for that afternoon. The guy loves publicity, negative or positive.

  Kramer talks with Vogel’s press secretary, a youngish-sounding woman with a sultry voice, a difficult task in German, and is as amazed as ever with how normal the new variety of Nazis are. That’s the scary thing about them: they’ve learned how to package themselves, how not to scare off the borderline Fascist with rantings and ravings about extermination. But that stuff is still there, like a basso continuo, underlying their entire credo: racial purity; German nationalism; xenophobia, sentimentalizing the old days and the goodness of the land before godless machines ruined everything.

  Germany United, with their computer banks, fax machines, and fleet of BMWs and Mercedes are hardly preindustrial.

  Kramer packs up, pays the bill, but keeps the room in Bad Lunsburg, and leaves a note for Randall telling him he’ll be back the following day. Just as he is handing the day clerk the message, in strolls Randall with a grin on his face so wide that his brown-stained front teeth show. He checks out the carry-on thrown over Kramer’s shoulder, the paperwork on the counter.

  “Ditching me?”

  “It’s in the note. I’m on my way to Munich. Want to come?” He booked two seats just in case.

  “Is there time for breakfast?”

  “On the plane, Randall. On the goddamn plane.”

  He takes Randall’s arm and moves out to the taxi line in front of the hotel.

  “Easy, Sam. Don’t worry, be happy.”

  “Randall, you’re an amoral cretin sometimes, you know that?”

  “Whoa, now.” Randall shakes his arm loose. “You’re not serious, are you?”

  Kramer goes to the lead taxi in the rank, a blue Opel, and pokes his head in the passenger’s window, “Flughafen, bitte.” Then turning back to Randall, “Just get in. We’ll talk about it on the flight.”

  “Munich?” Randall asks.

  Kramer nods, opening the back door, throwing his carry-on bag on the floor, and sliding across the seat to the far side to allow Randall space.

  “But I haven’t got my bag,” Randall says.

  “It’s okay. Just get in. You never change your underwear, anyway.”

  Randall gets in, closing the door. “So what’s eating you? Last night? You missed me? Or did you want her for yourself?”

  “Piss off, Randall. You know what’s bothering me.”

  “Sleeping with the enemy? Well, don’t worry. I didn’t, and she isn’t. Turns out, I remind her of some swami dink she knew in the ’70s.”

  Randall looks around, realizes they’re on the freeway headed for the Cologne-Bonn airport.

  “Christ, Sam, you made of gold? Don’t they have buses that go to the airport?”

  “I was waiting until the last minute for you.” Which isn’t exactly true; all the midday flights were booked by the time he called this morning, and he had to settle for one that would make him scramble to catch it. But why tell Randall that? he thought. Let him feel guilty.

  You can be such a prick sometimes, Kramer.

  “You know, Sam, you’re not as bad as they say.” Randall curls his feet up on the seat, crowding Kramer, getting cozy, hands behind his head leaning against the door. “The cushy life of a foreign correspondent.” He yawns hugely.

  “So how is our friend?” Kramer says, looking out his window at a low gray-white sky with crows gathering over wheat fields full of stubble and mire. The suburbs of Bonn approach to his left: neat white row houses with black-tiled roofs.

  “I didn’t say she was our friend,” Randall replies. “Just not our enemy.”

  “Domestic or international?” the driver suddenly says, looking in the rearview mirror.

  “Domestic,” Kramer says to him, not bothering to add which airline: inside Germany there is only one. He turns to Randall, “Why do you say she’s not our enemy?”

  “’Cause she’s still hooked on Reni. Beneath all the blather and out-front protestations of hate, she can’t let Reni go any more than you can. And she’s hiding something. I know that pretty sure. That’s why I stayed.”

  “So what’d you find out?”

  “That she sleeps in the nude.”

  Kramer shakes his head impatiently.

  “I mean, I was sleeping on the couch,” Randall hurriedly says. “It got late; we were talking. She cooked a nice omelet. We listened to old Stones albums. Like a time warp.

  “Anyway, she was good enough to give me a berth for the night, and I was sleeping happily enough until sometime in the middle of the night I hear movement in the flat, pop an eye open, and see her bare-assed in the sitting room, fetching her mobile off the charger and taking it into her bedroom. Now who the hell would she be calling in the middle of the night? I was wondering.”

  “Who?”

  “I never found out. By the time I tippytoed to her door, she was talking in a murmur. I couldn’t hear shit; no names, no nothing. Maybe it was her swami friend.”

  “Swift work, Watson.”

  Randall shoots Kramer a smirking grin. “But I did get a chance to rifle her purse first thing in the morning while she was in the shower.”

  Kramer says nothing, checking the digital clock on the dash in front: 10:49. The plane leaves at 11:30.

  “Want to know what I found?” Randall says.

  Kramer does not reply, examining his cranky spirits, wondering how much they’re the result of possible indiscretions on Randall’s part, how much jealousy. Why didn’t she pick me?

  Grow up, Kramer.

  “Eva’s little black book,” Randall says, ignoring the silence. “Appointments and phone numbers. Know what was written in the square under October twenty-eighth?”

  Another smile; he’s enjoying this. Kramer does not show impatience on his face, but he’s interested.

  “Phone Reni, 18:30.”

  This catches Kramer’s attention and Randall nods vigorously at his surprise.

  “As in October of this year,” he adds.

  “But she told us …” Kramer begins.

  “That’s right, Sam. No communication with Reni in years. I wonder why she’d tell a lie like that?”

  They make Lufthansa Flight 181, but just barely. It’s a race to concourse 22 for them, and Kramer is sweating and sucking air by the time they get there. The tickets are waiting for them at the door and a sour-faced stewardess, annoyed at late arrivals, inserts their seat assignments, before they are ushered into and through the connecting causeway to the waiting jet, its engines whining. More stares of business types as they board and find their seats in economy class on the port side, just under the middle exit.

  The good news is that once above the clouds, it is a clear day, a sky as blue as a dream; the bad news is that it’s a beverage-­only flight, no food. Kramer is forced to listen to Randall’s laments and growling stomach all the way to Munich.

  Upon arrival, Randall devours three Mars bars at the first shop he sees. Once the rail link delivers them at the main train station, they walk fifteen minutes and then he’s got to have a late lunch of kraut and wurst at a tourist trap just off the Marienplatz, dead in the center of the city.

  Kramer’s appointment is for four; there’s no hurry. Vogel’s office is nearby, according to the address the secretary gave him this m
orning. Last time he interviewed the man, it was in the apartment of one of his followers, a well-off architect. Now Germany United has offices three blocks from the main cathedral, the Frauenkirche. Coming up in the world.

  “This shouldn’t take too long,” Kramer says as Randall mops up the meat juice on his plate with a caraway roll. “Where do you want to meet?”

  Randall swallows hard. “I’m not going with?”

  “No way. These jerks generally like press attention, free publicity of any sort. But they lump us into three categories. There’s the sensationalist boys from the illustrated mags who they charge for interviews and manipulate with bogus stories. There’s the in-depth people who never pay for interviews, and who try to give balanced coverage of the neo-Nazi scene. And there are those who have an agenda, who guys like Vogel figure are only out to trash them. The Antifas, they’re called. Anti-Fascists.”

  “Let me guess,” Randall says. “You’re in the middle category.”

  “So far. And I don’t need you to blow my cover.”

  “But I’m a skinhead.”

  “Not with that beard, you’re not. They get one look at you, they read punk or, worse, a democrap.”

  Randall picks another roll out of the basket on their table and wipes at his plate some more. “So what’d you write about Vogel before that’s made him love you so much?”

  Kramer ignores the attitude and tells him straight. He needs to refresh his memory before he visits Vogel, anyway.

  “The truth. That he’s part of a Nazi resurgence that is larger than anyone gives it credit for. An estimated half million members in three right-wing parties that are loosely affiliated. That they say out loud what most respectable Germans feel, but are afraid to express—Germany for the Germans; Germany as the leader of an ethnically cleansed Europe. Welcome to the fourth Reich.”

  Randall considers this. “So why bring me along? Comic relief?”