A Good German

by Joseph Kanon

  “You with me so far? So the easiest thing was to send him homeall you had to do was sign a form. That’s what everybody wants, isn’t it? Except this time it didn’t take. Tully didn’t want to go home-he had plans here. You call him to Berlin, in a hurry, not even time to pack, get him on the first plane. You might have waited, by the way. Did you know he was coming anyway? A Tuesday appointment. But no matter. The point was to get it done fast. Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry. Sikorsky meets him at the airport and drops him at the Control Council.”

  Muller raised his head to speak.

  “Don’t bother,” Jake said. “He told me so himself. So Tully comes to pick up a jeep. But nobody just waltzes in and takes a jeep. It’s not a taxi stand out there. Motor pool assigns them. To you, for instance. I could check how many you had signed out that day, but why bother now? One of yours.

  “Where you were, I don’t know-probably at a meeting, defending the free and the brave. Which is why you couldn’t meet him in the first place. The plane was late, which must have cut into your schedule. Anyway, busy. Which was too bad, because Tully got busy too, down at the Document Center, so that when you met him there later, he had a new racket going. Not to mention a new payment from Sikorsky. Which he didn’t, I guess-mention, that is.”

  He watched Muller’s face. “No, he wouldn’t. But all the more reason now to hang around-more money where that came from. You tell me how it played from there. Did he tell you where to stick your transfer? Or did he threaten to expose you if you didn’t play ball? In for a penny, in for a pound. Plenty of money to be made on those SS files. Shaeffer? You could take care of him. You’d taken care of Bensheim, hadn’t you? And if you couldn’t-well, you’d have to, or he’d take you down with him. Anyway, he sure as hell wasn’t going to Natick, Mass., when there was a fortune to be made here. Of course, it’s possible you got rid of him to keep the files all to yourself, but he didn’t have the files yet, the Doc Center had come up dry so far, so I think it’s just that he boxed you in so tight, you didn’t think you had much choice. The transfer would have been so easy. But you still had to get rid of him somehow. Is that more the way it was? “

  Muller said nothing, his face blank.

  “So you did. A little ride out to the lake to talk things over-you don’t want to be seen together. And Tully’s stubborn. He’s got a belt full of money and god knows what dancing in his head, and he tells you the way it’s going to be. Not just Brandt. More. And you know it’s not going to work. Brandt was one thing-he even helped. But now you’ve got Shaeffer around. Do the smart thing-take the money and run, before it’s too late. The last thing Tully wants to hear. Maybe the last thing he did hear. I’ll give you this much-I don’t think you planned it. Too sloppy, for one thing-you didn’t even take his tags after you shot him, just threw him in. No weights. Maybe you thought the boots would do it. Probably you weren’t thinking at all, just panicked. That kind of crime. Anyway, it’s done and he’s gone. And then-here’s the best part, even I couldn’t make it up-you went home and had dinner with me. And I liked you. I thought you were what we were here for. To make the peace. Christ, Muller.”

  “Everything okay here?” The guard, surprising them from the door.

  Muller swiveled, moving his hand to his hip, then stopped.

  “We’re almost done,” Jake said steadily, staring at Muller’s hand.

  “Getting late,” the guard said.

  Muller blinked. “Yes, fine,” he said, his MG voice, dropping his hand. He turned back and waited, his eyes locked on Jake, until the steps in the hall grew faint.

  “Jumpy?” Jake said. He nodded at Muller’s hip. “Watch yourself with that.”

  Muller leaned forward, placing his hands on the desk. “You take some chances.”

  “What? That you’ll plug me? I doubt it.” He waved his hand. “Anyway, not here. Think of the mess. What would Jeanie say?

  Besides, you already tried that once.“ He looked at him until Muller took his hands away from the desk, as if he’d literally been pushed back by Jake’s stare.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “In Potsdam. That’s when everything started falling apart. Now you had real blood on your hands. Not just a small-time chiseler. Liz. How’d that make you feel when you heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “You killed her too. Same as if you pulled the trigger.”

  “You can’t prove this,” Muller said, almost a whisper.

  “Want to bet? What do you think I’ve been doing all this time? You know, I might not even have tried if it had just been Tully. I guess you could say he got what was coming to him. But Liz didn’t. Gunther was right about that too. The when. Why try to kill me then? Another thing that didn’t occur to me until now, when I started putting things together. Why do it at all? Tully’s dead, and so’s Shaeffer’s trail. No way to connect you. Even after he washes up-quick report, body’s shipped out before anybody can take a good look. Not that anybody wanted to-all they were looking at was the money. What other explanation could there be? It’s sure as hell the only one you wanted me to have. Talk about a lucky break for you. Money you didn’t even know he had. What did you think when it turned up, by the way? I’d be curious to know.”

  Muller said nothing.

  “Just a little gift from the gods, I guess. So you’re safe. Shaeffer’s stuck and I’m off looking at watches in the black market. And then something happens. I start asking questions about Brandt at Kransberg-for personal reasons, but you don’t know that, you think I must know something, made the connection no one else did. And if I’m asking, maybe somebody else is going to put two and two together too. But you can’t get me out of Berlin, that would just make things worse-I’d make a stink and people would wonder. And then, at Tommy’s going-away party, what do I do? I ask you to check the dispatcher at Frankfurt, the one you called-or did you get Jeanie to do it? No, you’d do it yourself-to get Tully on the plane. Personal authorization, not on the manifest. Which he’d remember. Not just close anymore, a real connection. So you panic again. You transfer his ass out of there like that, but even that’s not safe enough. You get somebody to get rid of me in Potsdam. The next day. But that didn’t occur to me either, not then. I was just lying there with an innocent woman’s blood all over me.“

  Muller lowered his head. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  Jake sat still. Finally there, the confession, so easily said.

  “That girl. That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Muller said again. “I never meant her to—”

  “No, just me. Christ, Muller.”

  “It wasn’t me. Sikorsky. I told him I’d transfer Mahoney, that would do it. I never told him to kill you. Never. Believe me.”

  Jake looked up at him. “I do believe you. But Liz is still dead.”

  Now Muller did sit down, his body sagging slowly into the chair, head still low, so that only his silver hair caught the light of the desk lamp. “None of this was supposed to happen.”

  “You start something, people get in the way. I suppose Shaeffer would have been a bonus.”

  “I didn’t even know he was there. I didn’t know. It was all Sikorsky. He was worse than Tully. Once they start—” His voice trailed off.

  “Yeah, it’s hard to get away. I know.” Jake paused, toying with the folder. “Tell me something, though. Why’d you tip Shaeffer that I’d be at the parade with Brandt? It had to be you-I’ll bet you know just how to get something to Intelligence like it came out of the air. But why do it? Gunther sets it up with Kalach, who tells you, but you can’t go. The one person who couldn’t. You’re brass, General Clay’s man- you had to be at the parade. Another thing that didn’t occur to me. So, our mistake. But Kalach s going to make the snatch anyway. You could have watched the whole thing without anyone’s being the wiser. Right up there with Patton. Why tip Shaeffer?”

  “To put an end to it. If Shaeffer got him back, he’d stop. I wanted it
to stop.

  “And if he didn’t get him? It didn’t really matter who got him, did it? Maybe Kalach would after all and take Shaeffer out doing it, and it would stop that way. While you were watching.”

  “No. I wanted Shaeffer to have him. I thought it would work. Sikorsky would have been suspicious if something went wrong, but the new man—”

  “Would have taken the blame himself. And you’d be home free.”

  Muller looked over. “I wanted out. Of all of it. I’m not a traitor. When this started, I didn’t know what Brandt meant to us.”

  “You mean how much Shaeffer would want him back. Just another one of these,” Jake said, picking up the Bensheim file. “For ten thousand dollars.”

  “I didn’t know—”

  “Let’s do us both a favor and skip the explanations. Everybody in Berlin wants to give me an explanation, and it never changes anything.” He dropped the folder. “But just give me one. The one thing I still can’t figure. Why’d you do it? The money?”

  Muller said nothing, then looked away, oddly embarrassed. “It was just sitting there. So easy.” He turned back to Jake. “Everybody else was getting theirs. I’ve been in the service twenty-three years, and what’s it going to get me? A lousy pension? And here’s a little snot like Tully with plenty of change in his pockets. Why not?” He pointed to the persilscheins. “The first few, at Bensheim, I didn’t even know what I was signing. Just more paper. There was always something-he knew how to slip them through. Then I finally realized what he was doing—”

  “And could have court-martialed him. But you didn’t. He make you a deal? ”

  Muller nodded. “I’d already signed. Why not a few more?” he said, his voice vague, talking to himself. “Nobody cared about the Germans, whether they got out or not. He said if it went wrong later, I could say he’d forged them. Meanwhile, the money was there-all you had to do was pick it up. Who would know? He could be persuasive when he wanted to be-you didn’t know that about him.”

  “Maybe he had a willing audience,” Jake said. “Then things got tricky at Bensheim, so you got him out of there-another one of your quick transfers-and the next thing you know, he turns up with another idea. Still persuasive. Not just a little persilschein this time. Real money.”

  “Real money,” Muller said quietly. “Not some lousy pension. You know what that’s like, waiting for a check every month? You spend your whole life just to get the rank and these new guys come in—”

  “Spare me,” Jake said.

  “That’s right,” Muller said, his mouth twisted. “You don’t need an explanation. You already know everything you want to know.”

  Jake nodded. “That’s right. Everything.”

  “You couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” Muller said. “Now what are you going to do? Call the MPs? You don’t really think I can let you do that, do you? Not now.”

  “Ordinarily, no. But don’t get trigger-happy yet,” Jake said, glancing toward Muller’s hip again. “I’m a friend to the army, remember?”

  Muller looked up. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning nobody’s going to call anybody.”

  “Then what? What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to let you get away with murder.” Neither of them said anything for a moment, staring. Then Jake sat back. “That seems to be the general policy around here. If it’s useful to us. So now you’re going to be useful to me.”

  “What do you want?” Muller said, still staring, not quite sure how to take this.

  Jake tossed one of the forms over to him. “Your signature. First this one.”

  Muller picked it up and looked it over, a bureaucrat’s reflex. Read before you sign, Tully’s inadvertent lesson. “Who’s Rosen?”

  “A doctor. You’re giving him a visa for the States.”

  “A German? I can’t do that.”

  “Yes you can. In the national interest. Like the other scientists. This one’s even clean-no Nazi affiliations at all. He was in a camp. You fill in the classification code.” He handed over a pen. “Sign it.”

  Muller took the pen. “I don’t understand,” he said, but when Jake didn’t answer, he leaned forward and scribbled in one of the boxes, then signed the bottom.

  “Now this one.”

  “Erich Geismar?” He s my son.

  “Since when?”

  “Since you signed this. U.S. citizen. Rosen’s taking him home.”

  “A child? He’ll need proof of citizenship.”

  “He has it,” Jake said, tossing him the last form. “Right here. Sign that too.”

  “The law says—”

  “You’re the law. You asked for proof and I gave it to you. It says so right here. Now sign off on it and it’s official. Sign it.”

  Muller began writing. “What about the mother?” A clerk’s question in a consulate.

  “She’s dead.”

  “German?”

  “But he’s American. MG just said so.”

  When Muller was finished, Jake took the forms back and tore off the bottom carbons. “Thank you. You just did something decent for a change. Your copies where?”

  Muller nodded to a box on Jeanie’s desk.

  “Careful you don’t lose them. You’ll need the particulars, in case anybody wants to verify them with you. And you will verify them. Personally. If there’s any problem at all. Understood?”

  Muller nodded. Jake stood up, folding the papers into his breast pocket. “Fine. Then that does it. Always useful to have a friend in the MG.”

  “That’s all?”

  “You mean am I going to put the bite on you for something else? No. I’m not Tully.” He patted his pocket. “You’re giving them a life. That seems a fair trade to me. I don’t particularly care what you do with yours.”

  “But you know—”

  “Well, that’s just it. You were right about one thing, you see. I can’t prove it.”

  “Can’t prove it,” Muller said faintly.

  “Oh, don’t get excited,” Jake said, catching Muller’s expression. “Don’t get any ideas either. I can’t prove it, but I can come close. CID must still have the bullet they took out of Tully. They could make a match. But maybe not. Guns have a way of disappearing. And I suppose I could track down the dispatcher you sent home. But you know something? I don’t care anymore. I have all the reparations I want. And you-well, I guess you’ll have some worried nights, and that’s fine with me too. So let’s just leave it there. But if anything goes wrong with these,” he said, touching his pocket again, “your luck runs out, understand? I can’t prove it in court, but I can come close enough for the army. I’d do it, too. Lots of mud, the kind of thing they don’t like at all. Maybe a dishonorable. The pension for sure. So just play ball and everybody walks away.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “Well, one more thing, now that you mention it. You can’t transfer yourself home, but make the request to Clay. Health reasons. You can’t stay here. The Russians don’t know you tipped Shaeffer. They think you’re still in business. And they can be persuasive too. That’s the last thing the MG needs-a worm in the barrel. They’ve got their hands full just trying to figure out what they’re doing here. Maybe they’ll even bring in somebody who can do the place some good. I doubt it, but maybe.” He stopped, looking down at the silver hair. “I thought that was you. But I guess something got in your way.”

  “How do I know you’ll—”

  “Well, strictly speaking, you don’t. Like I said, some worried nights. But don’t have them here. Not in Berlin. Then I might just change my mind.” Jake picked up the Bensheim folders and stacked them. “I’ll keep these.” He went around the desk, starting for the door. “Go home. You need a job, go see American Dye. I hear they’re hiring. I’ll bet they’d go for somebody just like you, with your experience. Just stay out of Berlin. Anyway, you don’t want to run into me again-that’d just make you nervous. And you know what? I don’t want to run into you either.”
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  “You’re staying here?”

  “Why not? Lots of stories in Berlin.”

  Muller shook his head. “Your press pass expires,” he said dully, an official.

  Jake smiled, surprised. “I’ll bet you know the exact hour too. All right, one more thing then. Have Jeanie do up a residence permit tomorrow. Indefinite stay. Special from the MG. Sign that and we’re done.”

  “Are we?” Muller said, looking up.

  “I am. You have some nights to get through, but you will. People do. It’s something you learn here-after a while nobody remembers anything.” He walked to the door.

  “Geismar?” Muller said, stopping him. He rose from the chair, his face even older, slack. “It was just the money. I’m a soldier. I’m not a- Honest to god, I never meant this to happen. Any of it.”

  Jake turned. “That should make them easier, then. The nights.” He looked over at him. “It’s not much, though, is it?” Contents — Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  At this hour, Tempelhof was almost deserted. Later, when the afternoon flights came in, the high marble hall would fill up with uniforms, just as it had that first day, but now there were only a few GIs sitting on duffel bags, waiting. The doors were still closed to the stairs that led down to the runways.