Basic Law

by J Sydney Jones

  Bullshit, he tells himself. They were miserable, lonely, terrifying times for her. Don’t confuse romance with Romance.

  She is looking up at him suddenly. “They say it’s like riding a bicycle. I’m not so sure, though. Touch me. Remind me.”

  She takes his hand and places it under the quilt on her breast. The nipple is hard; he can feel her heart pounding beneath the flesh and tissue. It’s as if he has a primal attachment to her—as if he’s part of her body, of her pulse. He leans over, brushing her lips with his, lightly, tenderly, smelling the sweet aroma from the apricot brandy. There is a sudden swelling of tenderness in him that brings tears to his eyes, a sudden expansion in his chest. It’s the same feeling he sometimes experiences listening to choral music in the Stephansdom or looking at the play of light in a Monet painting. He kisses her again, but this time their lips hold; he feels the flicker of her tongue and the sudden jerk and catch of eroticism in his groin.

  “I think it’s coming back to me,” she whispers, her hand tracing down his flank, inching toward his sex, and then holding him, squeezing, caressing. With her other hand, she pulls him on top of her, guiding him inside, giving a little shudder when he is fully in.

  They make love slowly, neither eager for the climax. It’s all in the journey. Kramer kisses her deeply as they move together. Her hands press him into her, as if she can’t feel him close enough, gripping at the small of his back, fluttering over his shoulder blades.

  Kramer awakes in the middle of the night. Maria has been watching him sleep, brushing her hand lightly over his cheek.

  “Want to play some more?” she says, the same mischievous grin on her face.

  He breathes in her scent; snuggles his face into her warm breasts.

  “Sam?”

  “Mmm.” He is nuzzling her nipple, rolling his tongue about it.

  “You don’t really think it’s over, do you?”

  He pulls back from her, wiping a hand over his face to wake up fully.

  “What’s over? I thought you wanted to play.”

  She sits up in bed, propping the pillows in back of her, drawing her knees up and the eiderdown over her breasts.

  “Be honest,” she says.

  Kramer sits up too, wishing for the millionth time he hadn’t given up smoking, badly needing not only the nicotine rush but also the distraction. He stares at the foot of the bed, not looking at Maria.

  “You think there are loose ends. That’s why you’re holding back the memoirs, isn’t it?” Maria asks.

  He nods slowly, making the bed springs sound.

  “What are we going to do about it?”

  He turns toward her. “We aren’t going to do anything.”

  “Please don’t get protective on me. I would hate that.”

  They sit in silence some more, then she reaches over and touches his cheek. “Did she really kill herself?”

  No need for names; they both know who she is.

  Kramer turns to Maria again, putting his hand on her stomach under the quilt. “That’s the one sure thing in all of this. Reni killed herself. She made that clear.”

  He sees the letter again.

  If you are reading this, dear Sammy, then I am dead and I can tell you what I could never tell you before. I love you. I have always loved you. As much as it is in me to love any man.

  “Then what?” Maria says.

  He thinks of Reni the games master, setting the rules of the hunt. But she had no idea her game would take the lives of Gorik or Gerhard; that her father would track both of them down.

  And then he remembers something.

  “That night at Müller’s,” he says, “when Boehm saved my life …”

  He pauses, sitting bolt upright in bed, trying to recapture the scene.

  “Yes?” Maria says.

  Suddenly, he sees it clearly and feels a racing of his pulse. “It was Müller’s face. Absolute surprise when I mentioned Gerhard’s death. I don’t think he was faking that. No need to.”

  Maria says nothing, waiting for him to continue.

  A car rattles along the cobbles below, headed away from the inner city.

  “And?” she finally says.

  “I’ve been a fool.” He turns to her. “Don’t you see? If Müller didn’t have Gerhard killed to protect his Nazi past, then who did? It’s not much of a reach to point the finger at Vogel.”

  “But why?” Maria says.

  “The lists.” He should have seen this earlier. “It all comes back to the donor lists to his party. Vogel must have assumed Gerhard was privy to whatever Reni did. He couldn’t take the risk of letting him live.”

  “And the hired killers were the same ones who attacked you in Prague?”

  Kramer nods and sinks back down against his pillow. They sit in silence a while longer. “But it doesn’t make sense,” Maria says. “If these lists are so important, why hasn’t anybody made a move to get the duplicate ones from Reni’s safe-deposit box?”

  Kramer laughs without humor. “That’s an easy one to answer. Because I never told anyone about them. Only about Reni’s letter. Even when I enlisted Boehm’s help, I only divulged the trace of Semich to Müller.”

  Maria suddenly bends over and kisses his cheek. “That’s why I’m in lust with you, Sam. You’re such a clever old dog.”

  He allows the compliment, even though he hasn’t earned it.

  And Sammy, Reni added as a caveat postscript to her letter, think long and hard what you intend to do with the memoirs, with the list of names. To publish or not to publish, that is the question. And you see how I answered it for myself. Don’t make any leaps; don’t tell anyone of their existence until you are ready to act. There is too much at stake.

  Maria snuggles next to him. “But this might just be three-in-the-morning talk, right?” she says. “Paranoia. There’s no real proof for any of it. Maybe we should just let things lie.”

  He doesn’t respond to this one, but pulls her on top of him, feeling the heat between her legs. When he slides inside of her, she looks down at him with narrowed eyes, her breasts dangling over his face.

  A whisper comes from her, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just play like this forever?”

  She folds herself over him, blotting out the world, blotting out everything for the moment but the heat between them and the slow movement of their hips.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The elevator doors open slowly, and there are two carbon-copy goons just as before, all dolled up in brown and black uniforms with submachine guns. He can’t tell if they’re the same ones, but it’s a dead cert that the frisker standing in back of them in civilian dress is new. No-Neck, who followed him to Crete and to Prague, is nowhere to be seen. Kramer passes between the two uniformed guards, coming up close to the new frisker, a short, stocky guy with dead white skin and stylishly long hair, wearing a baggy tweed jacket. Kramer reaches into his jacket pocket and brings out the Walther. He is so close to the goon that the others don’t see what’s in his hand, but the frisker does, and his eyes bulge. Kramer pauses a beat, then reverses the pistol, handing it over butt first.

  “I want it back after I talk with Vogel.”

  The thick-necked goon finally finds his voice. “Who says you’re going to see him?”

  He roughly frisks Kramer, the two other guards grinning like hyenas.

  Satisfied that Kramer is clean, the frisker passes him on to the reception desk with a cynical bow.

  There’s the same secretary as last time, her voice every bit as hard as before, her manner just as officious. Hearing Kramer’s request, she shoots him a disapproving look across the massive oak desk.

  “Herr Vogel is otherwise engaged. You have no appointment?”

  “I think he’ll see me. You might just mention Article 129a.”

  She looks at him wit
h cold gray eyes for a moment, then in back of him to the guards. For a second, he thinks he has overplayed his hand, and his stomach knots in anticipation.

  Finally, she reaches for the phone. “Very well. But this is most irregular.”

  Kramer lets out his breath. She relays his name and message; there is a pause on the other end, then a small distant voice says something and she hangs the phone up.

  “He will see you. But for only a short moment. There are others waiting.”

  The only others in the hall are goons, but Kramer says nothing, nodding his head politely at her as if she were the receptionist at a doctor’s office who had just allowed him to jump the queue.

  He passes down the long corridor covered in red carpeting, guards at attention at ten-foot intervals. The young guard from the Hitler Youth cartoons is on duty again at Vogel’s door and ushers him into the “Führer’s” office.

  “Sam.” Vogel sticks out his hand as the door opens, a phony smile on his lips. “Good to see you.”

  Kramer enters and shakes hands with him limply, taking in the gray wool Bavarian country suit trimmed in forest green that Vogel’s wearing; the pink tie against a sparkling white shirt.

  “I wish you’d given me more notice. As it is …” Vogel shrugs with his hands to indicate how pressed for time he is. “But sit. What is this cryptic message you had my secretary­ deliver?”

  “Hardly cryptic.” Kramer does not sit, and Vogel remains standing as well.

  “What is it you want?” The false smile disappears with the question.

  “We’re talking about the Grundgesetz, the Basic Law,” Kramer says. “Specifically about Article 129a, which states …”

  “Yes,” Vogel flutters a hand at him to interrupt. “We all know what it says. It is against the law to belong to terrorist organizations such as the Red Army Faction.”

  “Or a Fascist party,” Kramer adds. “The law as written decrees membership in both right and left terrorist organizations to be illegal.”

  “One can hardly compare us with the leftists, Sam. They want to destroy Germany as we know it, to replace it with some foreign-dominated criminal state. We—all of us on the right—want to revitalize the German national spirit; to make Germans proud to say they are Germans after so many years of forced guilt feelings and shame.”

  Kramer listens as Vogel warms to his topic, saying nothing, betraying no emotion on his face.

  “We are fundamentally different from such organizations, and the courts have been recognizing this difference,” Vogel continues. “It is not we who are the target of the antiterrorist squads. In fact, if asked, we would gladly aid the government in its efforts to finally squash the RAF.”

  Still nothing from Kramer, and Vogel stops, looking straight into his face.

  “Why have you come here?”

  “I’ve got a deal for you. I want the goons who killed my friend in Crete. The ones who tried to kill me in Prague.”

  Vogel puts on a shocked face. “Sam, what is all this about?”

  “You know what it’s about. Müller did a hiring job, recruited some of your volunteers for a hit.”

  Vogel is about to protest further, but Kramer pushes on.

  “I’m not interested in anyone but those two goons. Not accusing you of having anything to do with it, either. All I’m after is simple vengeance.”

  “I know of no such men.”

  “He frisked me last time I was here. I recognized him. The other one was unknown to me.”

  “This is absurd.”

  “I’m willing to do a trade.”

  “There’s nothing to trade for. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The Basic Law says it’s illegal to belong to terrorist organizations, yet you have boys from the Bundestag paying dues here. I wonder what the press would do with a list of those old boys.”

  Vogel tenses. “This is the second time you have come to me with preposterous suggestions. I told you then I would tolerate no further such inquisitions.”

  “I’ve got the list, Vogel. Copies of it are stamped and ready to be mailed in case I suddenly die. All the names are there. All the ones Reni Müller gathered. But I’m willing to trade. The list for the two goons. Alive and slightly incapacitated. I want to take care of them personally.”

  Vogel says nothing for a moment, his eyes sizing up Kramer, squinting and making his face take on a porcine appearance. There is a twitch at his left eye, a moment of weakness. Then, “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, Herr Kramer. I believe this interview is finished. You are no longer welcome at our headquarters. I hope I make myself clear.”

  He pushes a button built into the top of the metal tube of one of the chrome and leather chairs, and the huge oak doors open quickly, the young guard looking alert.

  “Show Herr Kramer out, please.”

  Kramer stands his ground. “I’ll give you two days to consider the offer. Then I publish. Think about it hard, Vogel.”

  Vogel does not look at him as Kramer passes to the door. The guard is about to take his arm, but Kramer pulls away from him.

  “I can manage by myself, thanks.” He looks back at Vogel who has turned to the window giving out onto the main square. “Two days,” Kramer says to his back. Then to the guard, “I’ll take my gun back now, too.”

  “How wise do you think that was, Kramer?” Kommissar Boehm’s face is largely impassive after hearing of Kramer’s visit to Vogel. A half-empty bottle of Polish vodka sits on the desk, one glass next to it.

  “Not very wise,” Kramer says, eyeing the bottle. “But it should get the hive stirring.”

  It’s been a long day for Kramer. He wants only to get something to eat before catching the late-night flight back to Vienna.

  “You sure you want to get these bees angry?” Kommissar Boehm says thickly, looking old and tired suddenly.

  Kramer wonders how much of the vodka Boehm has had, then gets up abruptly. “You going to let the bastard get away with it? Just let him walk? I thought you wanted to nail him. Stick him so deep in prison they’ll have to shotgun his lunch to him.”

  Boehm sits impassively behind his desk, his eyes never leaving Kramer’s.

  “So why come to me?” Boehm says finally. “I can’t protect you night and day.”

  “Who’s asking you to? Besides, Vogel’s not going to do anything too stupid.” Kramer goes to the window, looks down at the streets of Bad Lunsburg. The lights are just coming on in shop windows. Then he turns back to Boehm.

  “I told him I had postmarked copies of the list ready to go out to major newspapers if anything happened to me. It’s the kind of insurance that works. I figure I’m in a win-win situation. Even if I can’t get to Vogel, I’ll get the goons. Then we make them talk.” He smiles.

  “You’ve got it all figured out,” Kommissar Boehm says. “And what about legalities?”

  “What about your daughter?”

  Boehm’s jaw flexes; he taps thick fingers on his desk blotter.

  “Sorry,” Kramer says, but Boehm does not respond for a moment.

  “You ever feel so tired out that you wanted to crawl in some hole, Kramer?” Boehm looks at the desk blotter as he speaks, then lifts his eyes to Kramer’s. “I mean in here.” He taps his chest over his heart with a thick forefinger. “It’s all a waste of time. Know that? We catch the criminal, and the sociologists and psychologists sob about the poor guy’s battered childhood, about lack of love in early developmental stages, and the lawyers get the bastard off. No more cause and effect; no more punishment for crimes. No more leaders, just managers …”

  Boehm’s eyes cut from Kramer again as if he realizes he has said too much. The booze has opened too many interior doors. Kramer says nothing.

  “Christ,” Boehm finally says. “Listen to me going all maudlin. Maybe i
t’s time for me to call it quits here. Retirement sounds pretty good to me right now.”

  “And what about Vogel?” Kramer says, thrusting reality in Boehm’s face once again.

  Boehm looks at Kramer hard. “I don’t think we’ve had this conversation.”

  Kramer pauses for a moment. “Okay,” he finally says. “If that’s how you want it.”

  “I could demand you turn over these documents as state’s evidence.”

  Kramer shakes his head. “I don’t think so, Kommissar. First, the state hasn’t got any investigation going. Second, I’m literary executor. Remember?”

  “And you expect Vogel to trust you?”

  “I guess we’ll find out how desperate he is. You should see the names on the list.”

  Boehm stops tapping his fingers, closes his eyes momentarily and then opens them, looking straight at Kramer.

  “You’ve come all the way to Bad Lunsburg just to tell me this?”

  Kramer shoots him a wry smile. “I was hoping maybe we could work together.” He shrugs. “But we never had this conversation.”

  Boehm shakes his head and lets out a sigh. “And what if he calls your bluff?”

  “I publish.”

  “No,” Boehm says, a tight smile on his lips. “About the insurance. What if he has you eliminated?”

  Kramer grins. “Then I get a posthumous Pulitzer.”

  “Kramer, you’ve got a death wish. Know that?”

  “Just stirring up the bees, Kommissar.”

  Kramer is woken out of a sound sleep by the phone on his bedside table, and he grapples for it, half-asleep, knocking his clock off the table in the process.

  “Yeah?” he says groggily.

  “Herr Kramer. Sorry to wake you.”

  Vogel’s voice makes Kramer sit up in bed, instantly awake.

  “You ready to bargain?”

  “Oh no, Herr Kramer. I think perhaps it is you who will be ready to bargain now.”

  “You’ve got a day left, Vogel,” Kramer says, then hears muffled sounds on the other end, and a new voice.