“Had to show him who’s boss,” Spanner said. “Afternoon, Baron Mayor,” the colonel added in southern-tinged German and added a mocking bow. The baron bowed anyway, but it made him wince and hold his ribs, and yet he also bowed to me, who had never bowed in his life, and I wasn’t about to start now. The baron stretched out a hand instead. I shook it.
Spanner smiled at me. “Captain, you should know something before we continue. The baron mayor is my man now.”
“Right. Yes, sir.” I looked to the baron, but he kept his head lowered.
The baron ushered us inside. Whole rooms were empty, furnished only with shafts of dusty daylight. This mansion was all but cleaned out. He led us upstairs to a meeting chamber lined with windows and more shafts of light. Once upon a time the room must have had a fine long table running down the center, but now only a mishmash of chairs and crates stood at random. The colonel chose the one lavish chair, a modern brown leather wing model that wrapped around him. I grabbed a stool. And I kept holding my tongue. I broke open a fresh pack of Lucky Strikes and offered one to the colonel.
“I don’t smoke,” the colonel said. He grabbed my pack and tossed it to the baron.
The baron stood over a tarnished silver platter set on an old packing crate, a makeshift bar that held two bottles, three glasses and a tin ashtray. He placed the cigarette pack on the tray with fingertips, like it was a loaded grenade. “Scotch or gin is all I have. Neat only, I’m afraid,” he said in his Oxford-accented English.
“None for me,” Spanner said.
“Bourbon,” I said. “Double.”
The baron poured. Spanner stretched his legs and laid his head back. “Baron, why don’t you tell the captain here what you told me.”
The baron handed me the double bourbon. He pulled over a wooden chair that creaked, and cleared his throat. “So. I offer the colonel a tremendous opportunity, one cultivated during my long period underground—”
“Stop,” said Spanner. “You mean ‘taking the cure’ in old Bohemia. We all know what you were during the war, so let’s cut to the chase.”
“Yes, yes.” The baron lit one of my Luckies, taking his time. “You see, your colonel controls one of the trains that was ‘liberated.’”
I looked to Spanner. “The one I saw in Dollendorf?”
Spanner nodded. “Yes. The rumors are true.”
The baron looked at me with eyes screwed up and forehead pinched—a look that seemed to be saying, I told you about trains in confidence that night at the castle so please, please don’t bring it up. Or did he know I’d found out about the bogus goods racket? In which case his pucker face could be saying, if you tell Colonel Spanner about that, my goose is cooked and well done, too. Yet had the baron even wanted to know about the artisans’ fake pieces? He was so good at looking the other way, his eyeballs could probably revolve in full circles, like ball bearings. I didn’t know what to say. A part of me wanted to hope our absurd baron was more rube noble than wily Machiavelli. This was supposed to be about the major, last time I checked. Yet now the major’s top toady was the colonel’s boy? I gulped my whiskey, tasting only fire, and wiped my stinging lips. “Very well,” I said.
The baron sighed in relief. “The colonel, he plans to run his train across the American Zone and onward into Switzerland. I have friends in Zurich. They are interested in acquiring.”
Spanner glared at the baron. “Your goddamn bankers. They’ll want to jew us down.”
“Please?” said the baron.
Spanner looked to me and shook his head. I shook my head and sipped some more. I was grasping one part of this visit. The colonel had come to lean on the baron, to score the best deal, and I was another mean face.
Spanner said: “What’s your take from the laundry, Maulendorff?”
“Please? Again, I don’t understand—”
“Your cut. Graft. Fee. Much you want?”
“Yes, well.” The baron brought his hands together, forming a triangle. “Colonel, you located the train. I have my Swiss contacts, which you yourself do not have.” The baron faced me. “The Swiss do not ask embarrassing questions, you see.”
“Get on with it,” Spanner said.
“So, this makes me the middleman, does it not? I expect a reasonable portion of the treasure, or profits thereof.” The baron smiled, his teeth jutting out like they wanted to chatter. “Say, only twenty-five percent.”
Spanner held up a hand. “You’ll go down, under certain conditions. Spit ‘em out.”
The baron rocked on his chair, which squeaked in rhythm. “Yes, there is something. It concerns a political matter, one significant to the future of my Bavarian state.”
Spanner sighed. “I don’t meddle in kraut politics. Helping out Nazis could make trouble down the road.”
“All I ask is that which I have here may continue. I owed these men favors, yes, but they are not doing so poorly, are they?” He looked to me, his eyebrows twitching. I managed a shrug. The baron lifted his water bottle back to his face. “I’m an avowed monarchist, good sirs. I aim to bring back my Prince Rupprecht to Bavaria, and with him a level of sovereignty and civility that the Freistaat Bayern has not for some time enjoyed.”
Spanner laughed. “I tell ya, you Bavarians are worse than Texans with your cursed pride, your Free State of Bavaria.”
“No one can turn back the clock,” I added.
“By then it won’t matter to you. Wooing the prince will take time. I only ask that you allow me to stay, no matter what happens. My colleagues could remain immune from your Denazification authorities. Surely you understand this, men like you. Surely? People need a second chance. Myself, I could not have survived without a few friends.”
Spanner smiled, faintly. He ran his finger along an eyebrow.
“And, yes, this would greatly compensate for any lesser take,” the baron added.
The colonel rose and ambled over to the row of windows, the sunlight gleaming his hair white. The baron glancing sideways at me. I swirled my bourbon. Sipped. The baron was made of stronger steel than he looked, I’d give him that much. I could have brought up the major’s bogus goods racket at any moment. Yet I held out. Never let them know your inventory.
“Captain? How you read this?” Spanner said.
“Well, as you know, MG keeps hearing that the War Department policy makers do appreciate the stable ‘decentralization’ of Germany that state monarchies offer. It could be possible. For the time being.”
Spanner grinned his big teeth, a full American smile. “Baron Mayor, I can’t help but say I’m honored by your proposal. All of it. You get ten percent.”
“Very well. Most excellent, Colonel.” The baron cracked a smile, which made him wince from the black eye, which made him grimace from the pain in his ribs. “Sirs, this moment is not lost on me.”
“Of course it ain’t,” Colonel Spanner said. “One day soon we’ll discuss our treasure train in detail. See, I never sold to neutrals like those Swiss before. And you can tell me more about your prince. Monarchy’s such a mighty-fine antique. But right now? Me and Captain Kaspar here have a fair amount of dealing to get to.”
Our ride back was like some harebrained rum run. Colonel Spanner drove hard and fast, shouldering the steering wheel one way, then the other, a blur of trees and fields, and he whooped as we caught our breath for the next turn and I couldn’t get a word in even if I dared try. He shouted that his roaring beast of a sedan could make it across the whole US Zone in an hour on any good flat road. My wobbly legs confirmed it as I climbed on out back at my villa. I led the colonel into the study and offered him a blue chenille chair. I liked this room. It had a three-foot copper globe standing in one corner, a high ceiling fan turning, windows with thick Venetian blinds and a view of the ivy-laced wall of the neighboring villa. I fixed myself another bourbon and offered the colonel a scotch, which the colonel accepted, and then I took a seat in the other blue chair, our two chairs sharing either side of a copper-top table. Spann
er watched me and chewed gum, kneading it with his molars yet barely shifting his horse-like jaw. Last time his gum was licorice. This time it was mint and medicinal in its intensity, overpowering the aroma of my bourbon.
“You’re gonna help me with this,” Spanner said.
“Help how?”
“You can make a new future. For you and your Fräulein, if you want that.”
“Katarina?”
“Maybe I could cut her a passable Fragebogen. Top of that? You get a share of the loot.”
“That’s not what I’d do this for.”
“Membre took away your CO posting. I’m giving you the chance—the only chance—to have it the way you wanted.”
“You can do that?”
Spanner nodded. “I want someone who can work alone and keep it sub rosa. Too many men can’t handle that once they catch the gleam of gold in their eye.”
I snorted another disgusted laugh. “The major, he told me he’s launching his own investigation, can you believe it? Says he’s making progress. But nothing’s changed.”
Spanner shot up, his knees clanging the table. “What?”
“Nothing’s changed.”
“No, not that.”
“Investigation? He launched his own investigation. He won’t get anywhere. He doesn’t want that. It’s just a bluff. He just wants to block my tackle.”
Spanner stared off, into a corner and so forcefully that I had to turn around to check and make sure no one was there. He was like a sad widower, induced by a séance. His hands had clawed at his sides. He had stopped chewing; he might have swallowed his gum.
“Can you prove it? That Membre did it? Can you pin it on him?” I added.
“I cannot provide that kind of justice,” Spanner said, mechanically as if reading a cue card. “You might as well forget about that coming from me. But I can help you make sure, good and sure, that it never happens again.”
I nodded. I had questions, like what did Swiss bankers want with a US-held train, for starters? And what would the colonel think of the major’s (and possibly the baron’s) bogus goods racket—that one detail I hadn’t told Spanner about? I would get around to that, I told myself. These things had to be done in stages. Consider the angles, get your duckies in a row, make it count.
Spanner had lowered himself back into his chair. His stare had come back around to me.
“Let me ask you something,” I said. “Am I obligated if I hear your plan?”
“I’ll give you vague details only. Cargo, you don’t need to know about. No precise dates, destinations, times. That way you won’t feel you know too much.”
I sucked down bourbon but didn’t taste it. “All right. Shoot.”
Spanner said: “Those four freight cars you saw your first day? They are still near here, sitting tight. I still have that locomotive. That’s where you’ll be. I want you to ride it.”
“I don’t know how to drive a locomotive.”
“You won’t drive it. You represent the Military Government across the neighboring counties. But only to the French Zone. I’ll provide the driver, a coal man. Horton will be there.”
“You won’t be there?”
Spanner shook his head. “Captain, son, think about it. Things look normal with an MG man on board. But a colonel in Counter Intelligence Corps? People watch me, friend and foe. No, I’ll be busy keeping folks looking the other way.”
“You want this quiet. The least amount of men. You don’t like too many chiefs.”
“Right. You’ll have lots of time,” Spanner said. “Whole day for a four-hour train ride.”
“And, Major Membre knows nothing?”
“Absolutely nothing. And he won’t. We’re doing this on our own—me, you, the baron.”
I stared at the globe in the corner. My cheeks had grown warm and it wasn’t the drink. This all was being handed to me on a platter, yet it wasn’t how I imagined it. Still, wasn’t this something like the next best thing? If the result was the same? Even if I had just promised the baron support that I would never honor? I heaved myself out of the chair, my thoughts in knots. “I think I’ve heard too much, for now.”
“Nah, I think you’ve heard just enough.” Spanner’s good mood had returned and his Georgia twang kicked in stronger. “Look at you. You’re all flustered, that’s what you are. You want this more than a frog wants wings. But don’t give me an answer right now.”
I stood over at the globe. I spun it and watched it go. Major Membre gets pushed out. The murderer and torturer might never be nabbed, but it never happens again. Not on my watch. I could start over. We could. I pressed at the globe, halting its spin. “Improvise when required,” I blurted.
Spanner smiled. “That’s right. Bigger the risk, bigger the payoff.”
“All right, sure. But, why me?”
“Told you. I need you, as MG and Public Safety at that, to get us through checkpoints inside the American Zone. CIC’s jurisdiction has shifted, what with the Russkies getting all itchy on the borders east of us. The CIC focus is east now. Your word goes anywhere inside.”
“I understand that much, sir. But why not someone else?”
“I told you why,” Spanner said. “I need a man who can live up to what I expect.”
“And what comes after? Where do I stand?”
“Where you think?”
I knew the detachment’s protocols better than anyone. If the CO was reposted or out of action, one Captain Harry Kaspar was next in line.
“What if there’s another replacement?”
“There won’t be,” Spanner said.
I sat. I grabbed at my glass and held it in my lap. “I need some time. Mull it over.”
“Understood. I need to smooth the edges in any case. I got an idea: Get the hell outta this village.”
“Out?”
“Put in for leave. For Munich. See your Fräulein. It’ll go through and pronto. Major doesn’t want you around. You know how to play it.”
I had eased deep into my chair, legs outstretched. I tried not to think too hard. I should have been asking plenty questions right about then. Never mind the Swiss. What was in those freight cars exactly? And how long have you known Major Membre, Colonel? Did the baron come to you, or vice versa? I should’ve been asking about plenty more things. But I only tried not to think. I lit a Lucky, the nicotine numbing me. I blew a long barrel that reached the high ceiling fan. It churned my smoke and scattered it into particles.
Spanner leaned across the little table and his breath of scotch and mint came reeking. “Here’s what you need to know. If I do not hear from you within a week from today? We’re on. Follow me? It’s a go.”
I nodded, yes. We drank. I swallowed hard. The bourbon was giving me heartburn. I ground out my stub in the ashtray.
Spanner emptied his glass and sat up, eyeing me. “I don’t have to warn you. Do not tell a soul about any of this. Because I will know.”
“Not a chance, sir. I wouldn’t want to spoil my chance, would I?”
“Atta boy.” Spanner rose and, like he always did, he ended up at the window where he separated the closed blinds with a fingernail and peered out. “One more thing. I know about the little sideline swindle they’re running.”
My heart skipped, raced. “Swindle?”
“The counterfeit racket. Mock loot. Why do you think the baron earned that new decoration of his?” Spanner pointed to his eye, meaning the baron’s black shiner. “You did know about it, didn’t you?”
“I just found out,” I blurted, “was going to tell you, but I didn’t know if you knew, and I didn’t know if I was supposed to know, that you did know. If you did know. Sir.”
“All right, never mind. It’s not your doing.” The colonel came back over and stood behind his chair, leaning over it, grasping either wing as if he wanted to lift it above his head. That or crush it. “You want me to keep my end of the bargain, don’t you? Isn’t that why you wrote to me? Isn’t it? Tell me.”
“Yes. And I want to keep my end.”
“Good. Then keep your head down for now, because here I come.”
Seventeen
SOMEHOW THE STEEP SPIRES of Munich City Hall still rose high above the Marienplatz, the ravaged heart of Old Town. Old Munich’s busiest street ran through the square, “Off Limits” to any traffic not US military. Trucks and jeeps, staff cars, and motorcycles rushed by in a whirlwind of gritty ash and grime, stench and stone dust that bit at my nostrils, a constant reminder of the incalculable tons of this busted, bombed-out city yet to be cleared and already cleared, piled up, scoured in vain. I got dropped off here and continued on foot, navigating the rambling rubble heaps strewn in every direction. Skeletal building fronts loomed at random as if ready to topple. I passed the ruins of the Frauenkirche, the National Theater. One charred column was all that remained of the Bavarian State Opera. And on and on, an unending testament to centuries of beauty and reason betrayed from within by dogma and hate and smashed from above in protest.
“Choking on its own puke,” Colonel Spanner had said of Munich. So CIC agent Eugene Spanner was no Jimmy Stewart. I had realized that much. This wasn’t Hollywood and didn’t I know it. Justice was a compromise, the colonel had said. This was the way it was done in the real world and how a man gets ahead to boot. So maybe I had not asked enough questions. Maybe I hadn’t taken a stand with both feet. I could make myself live with that. So why did I feel like I needed a cold shower? All I knew was, it wasn’t the sandpaper air.
Spanner spoke to me on the inside, challenging me to go for broke. Everything he said I could do if I pushed it became possible. The power of it wanted to drop my jaw. Take this leave, for example. I had requested a few days off in Munich, and here I was free to roam. Past the Odeonsplatz I walked, heading north, down narrower lanes that zigged and zagged through the rubble heaps. Second and third stories of buildings hung half-exposed like cross sections in an architecture textbook, showing mosaic floors, floral wallpaper, hutches, and family photos, all of it useless now. I caught a rough smell like rotten eggs, ammonia. At my feet liquids seeped from pipes, broken somewhere, gurgling at bricks and wood and gobs of who knew what, releasing their oils and stains. Further on I reached the district of Schwabing, once the home of artists and performers, thinkers and radicals and one two-bit rabble-rouser calling himself Adolf Hitler. I turned onto the Barerstrasse. Here most streets looked salvageable, a few unharmed. Streetcars hustled by, clanging and creaking and crammed with people. Up ahead, a group of stocky Fraus was staring down a monstrous pile of rubble. A truck pulled up and they attacked the heap with shovels, boards, bare hands. One caught me watching. “Don’t you worry, Ami,” she yelled over, “We’ll have your mess cleared in no time!”
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