Straight into Darkness

by Faye Kellerman

  “Not when the law is evil!”

  “We are all listening, Herr Hitler. Do not necessitate a war of German against German. Do not force us to do something that would be injurious to all, including yourself.”

  “If you mean prison, I am not afraid of imprisonment!”

  The crowd cheered with delight.

  Sieg Heil!

  Sieg Heil!

  Of course, the man wasn’t afraid of imprisonment. Not the way he had been imprisoned, with food and wine and women, his followers visiting him as often as he pleased. It had been eighteen months of free room and board.

  “You are not afraid of anything, Herr Hitler,” Volker said mildly. “Everyone knows that. Your bravery and fortitude are beyond reproach. All I’m asking is for you to use your talents and ensure that this gathering of our fine people ends quietly and peacefully. We do not want any other good citizens of Munich to end up in a hospital.”

  “The Jews don’t belong in hospitals!” Hitler screamed. “They belong in graveyards!”

  Another thunderous clamor erupted.

  Sieg Heil!

  Volker managed to remain outwardly calm—except for his overworked jaw bulging out of his cheek. “Unfortunately, Herr Hitler, it is hard to tell Jew from non-Jew. And unless you choose to paint a Star of David on their foreheads, it will continue to be hard to tell Jew from non-Jew. God forbid one of our good citizens is mistaken for a Jew and is beaten up as a result.”

  “It is the price one pays for ridding the city of its vermin.”

  “Interesting,” Volker said. “Perhaps you can drop by the police station tomorrow and we can further discuss the issue. In the meantime, it is late. I’m asking you personally, as a favor to the police and as a favor to Munich, to tell your followers—who are many—to disperse quietly and in an orderly fashion. Do not stress the police force beyond its limits.”

  Hitler regarded Volker with a mixture of curiosity and disgust. Slowly, he looked around the room. Many unarmed followers; fewer police, but they held billy clubs. Tomorrow would be another day. With this minor concession, perhaps he could build even more support among the police. To have a respected man like Volker on one’s side could be very, very good.

  The demagogue faced his audience. “We have met today to buttress ourselves against a slowly invading and pervasive evil—the bloodsucking Jews, the lawless Gypsies, the debased Kommunisten, the libertine homosexuals, the corrupted artists and writers who seek insidiously to erode our morals into chaos and depravity! Yet, out of respect for you”—in a magnanimous gesture, he swept his arm across the crowd—“the citizens of our beautiful and fair city, and out of respect for the police”—he pointed to the back wall—“who continually deal with the vermin that pollute our city, I ask all of you to disperse quietly and peacefully. So that we may come together again and again . . .”

  His voice grew in volume: “And again and again and again until the sewer rats of our Munich have been eradicated.”

  Louder still: “We will not be stopped, we will not be placated, we will not rest a minute until our Fatherland is once again in pure German hands!”

  He clicked his heels and headed for the door, the crowd parting for him as if he were Moses splitting the Red Sea. Berg was repulsed by Hitler but furious with his immediate superior. Though walking was painful, he fought his way through the throng of flesh until he was face-to-face with Volker. On seeing Berg, the Kommissar raised an eyebrow.

  “Do my eyes deceive or is that the hidden face of Axel Berg?”

  Berg could barely contain his voice. “How could you talk to him like that!”

  “We are still among our citizens, Herr Inspektor. It is impolitic to speak without discretion.”

  “Everything said in this room tonight is fabrication at best. Actually, it is nothing but pure horseshit!”

  Volker’s eyes narrowed. “I realize that you have suffered a tremendous blow to the head. But the next time you use obscenities in my presence, you will use them in prison.”

  “I don’t belong in prison. Hitler belongs in prison. Your nephew belongs in prison!”

  “Yes, I suppose I must deal with Lothar. We can’t have a hooligan beating up the police. It makes us all look bad.” He put his arm around Berg, who shook it off. Volker smiled. “I know you love the mountains, Axel. It’s a perfect time for a holiday in the Alps, courtesy of the department. There is still a good snow base for skiing.”

  Berg snarled, “Do I look like I’m able to ski, Herr Kommissar?”

  “Then perhaps you can take a stroll and visit your special young friend while she is still allowed to reside here. The political climate is not good for her. You can never tell what might happen.”

  No words could accurately describe the look of shock that registered on Berg’s face. That made Volker smile even harder.

  “She preens with a certain fan that looks similar to one found at a recent crime scene. It makes me wonder what else might have been pilfered behind my back.” Berg swallowed hard and waited for Volker to continue. “Or perhaps I was mistaken.”

  Berg opened and closed his mouth, his emotions reeling from stunned silence to cold fury. He would have loved to deck his superior on the spot, loved to quit his job in outrage and indignation. But he had neither the physical prowess nor the moral high ground to do either with impunity. “Perhaps you were mistaken.”

  Such puny cowardice. He hated himself for the lie.

  “Yes, I will concede that is a possibility,” Volker said. “So you see, Axel, I’m not the only one involved in appeasement. In any case, Hitler is very strong. She is Jewish. I suggest you take advantage of your pretty, young whore while she still walks with two legs.”

  Berg started to speak, but stopped himself. What would be the point of playing martyr, of losing his job and security, of putting his wife and children in danger for some misguided sense of honesty—or worse, for the sake of that girl . . . that . . . that whore?

  There!

  He said it!

  Margot was nothing but a whore.

  Berg managed to smile. “You’re filled with good suggestions tonight, Kommissar.”

  “Glad to be of service, Inspektor.”

  Berg turned and limped away.

  Volker shook his head. Poor Axel. Or rather poor little Margot. What a beating she’d get tonight. Ah well, such is the life of a cheap Jewess who sells her body.

  Lighting a cigarette, he watched his citizens file out of the beer hall in an orderly fashion. But his appeasement wouldn’t hold a man like Hitler forever. The monster had an insatiable thirst for power that couldn’t be slaked.

  He exhaled a rich plume of smoke. He was tired and wondered why he kept such a senseless job that paid him nothing compared to the family business. Perhaps it was because he, like Hitler, thrived on excitement, and nowhere was there more excitement than in Munich. It was a powder keg among powder kegs, and he was so close to controlling it all.

  Now he had angered his lead Inspektor in the Mordkommission. This wasn’t a good thing. Because despite the convenience of scapegoating Gross—the man had been tried, convicted, sentenced, and executed all in the space of an hour—Volker knew that there still was a murderer loose.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  At this time of night, she wouldn’t be at the factory. She’d either be whoring with someone else, or she’d be at home with her parents, pretending to be a good girl. Since Berg had no idea where she lived, he decided to drop by the cigarette house, knowing full well that he might barge in on something.

  The bitch!

  The whore!

  Fucking Jews!

  Go back to Poland!

  Go back to Russia!

  As if he hadn’t really known what was going on all along: He was the stupid one.

  Berg flipped up the collar on his overcoat and wrapped his scarf around his neck and jaw. The walk was slow and painful. The tenement house was crosstown over the Ludwigs Bridge near Gärtnerplatz in the Isarvorstad
t region. The area was a nesting ground for insects and vermin and disease. As he limped his way over the Isar, heading southwest to the ghetto, he had unwanted time to think. But instead of cooling off, his anger became only hotter.

  The bitch!

  He should go home . . . to those who cared about him . . . to his wife and children. But what awaited him at home? Britta would be furious at his escape. He had yet to talk to her face-to-face. She would deride him and yell at him and claim it came from love and devotion.

  And maybe it did. Britta was his wife of sixteen years. It should be Britta who held his interest, not some money-hungry harlot.

  The bitch would get hers, Berg swore. Tonight, she’d get hers.

  All around him were Brownshirts pouring out of the Kellnerhaus, marching in the streets, singing off-key, drunken ballads of treacle and sentimental love for a Fatherland that never existed. They weren’t the majority party in Munich, but they were the most vociferous. Instead of walking in a precision military step, the youth-driven gangs staggered, bumping in one another, reeling in the streets. Some groups were attempting to pass out leaflets, but more paper ended up on the ground than in the hands of the few passersby. In the background, Berg heard the sizzling crackle of glass being broken: another Jewish store being vandalized and looted. But that was not his concern right now. Besides, what could he do in his condition?

  More singing punctuated by obscenities, raucous laughter, and retching: hooligans paying for the drinking and indulgences by throwing up in the streets. Berg couldn’t make out the slurred words, but he knew the song. Who in Munich didn’t know it?

  Durch Krieg und Schrecken aus der Welt verbannt

  Kam wieder ich in mein geliebtes Land.

  (Banished from the world by war and terror,

  I came again into my beloved country.)

  Ah, the Bavarians and their maudlin tripe. The Germany that Berg knew was a warrior country of agitation and aggression, a bellicose nation that constantly sought to enlarge its borders, here on the Continent as well as across the seas. Even before the Great War, the Kaiser had nearly waged war with Roosevelt and The States over some silly little islands in the Caribbean, thousands of miles away from the Fatherland. Not that aggression was a bad thing. There was pride in conquest. But there was also shame in defeat.

  Nach München, in die schöne Isarstadt,

  Die mich so hoch geehrt seit alters hat.

  (To Munich, into the beautiful Isarstadt,

  Which has honored me so highly from time immemorial.)

  Aryan mawkishness was a weird combination of Nordic mythology and barbaric brutality. They had their dreams and they had their scapegoats. But there was some logic to their delusions. The Berliner Kosmopoliten, palling around with the arty bohemians, in their flashy dress with their flashy drink, smoking from a cigarette holder. Gulping beer in the drinking halls wasn’t good enough. It had to be absinthe in the nightclubs. The Prussians constantly mocking Bavaria . . . their dress, their food, and their broad accents.

  Fuck them all.

  Fuck the Jews.

  Fuck Margot.

  He was more than a little drunk himself.

  Go home, Axel.

  If he couldn’t find her, he’d go home.

  But what would he say to her if he did find her?

  The drunken singing receded as he walked farther south. The mist had settled in, turning the city into silhouettes and shadows. He trudged deeper into the night, into quarters on the edge of extinction. In hidden corners, the tenements teemed with beady-eyed jackals and rats. Berg was constantly looking over his shoulder. Either it was the Nazis smashing glass or the vermin picking your pocket.

  There was truth to the laments in the beer halls. Once Munich had been a safe and beautiful city of artists and intellectuals, the southern jewel of the Alps. Berg tried to think back. When did it all start, this seize, this paranoia? The Great War put Germany into deep debt with its reparations. The despised Weimar in Berlin levying steep taxes in all of Germany, but especially in resource-rich Bavaria. Then there was the ousting of the Wittelsbacher, followed by the assassination of Kurt Eisner. And no one could deny the economic hardships, the rampant inflation six years ago. But things were better now. Why should crime be so commonplace, enmity so accepted? The beatings, the looting of Jewish stores, the military parades and their messages of hate or revenge. And now it was the brutal murder of two women. When would it stop?

  Berg suddenly realized he was in front of the cigarette house. The street was gloomy and deserted. He took a deep breath and went inside. The clerk was the same fat and florid man who worked in the daylight hours. He was reading a true-crime magazine. On the cover was a voluptuous, busty blonde with her hands on her cheeks as she let out a silent scream. His eyes barely lifted above the page.

  “Herr Inspektor.” He went back to his reading.

  “Is she . . .”

  A simple nod, eyes still on the magazine.

  “Alone?” Berg asked.

  The fat man looked up and graced Berg with a base smile. “I don’t keep track, Herr Inspektor.”

  It was too late to turn back without looking ridiculous . . . without the silent ridicule that was bound to follow him if he turned tail. He made the arduous climb up the stairs and knocked on the door.

  A quiet knock, not the knock of a madman. Berg was proud of his control.

  Her voice was muffled. “Wer ist da?”

  “Polizei,” he said quite officially. He was hoping to scare off anyone who might be with her. Instead, the door opened immediately and smiling eyes greeted him.

  “What a nice surpri—” Margot’s voice faltered when she saw his face. “What happened to you?”

  Berg slammed the door shut. “I see you don’t bother to read the papers.” He stared at the rumpled bed, anger rising in his face. He began to pace—slow, small steps back and forth.

  “Why should I?” She stared at his limping. “News is so depressing. What happened, Axel?”

  “You’re a stranger in this city,” Berg said harshly. “You’d do well to keep up with current events.”

  “I know who I am and I know what you think of me.”

  “Not what I think of you,” Berg whispered. “But I am not Munich.”

  “You didn’t answer my question, Axel,” Margot shot back. “Who beat you?”

  He whirled around on her and grabbed her chin. “I should ask you that. Ask what happened to you? How did you get the bruises on your face?” He let go of her with a shove. “I treat you like a queen and this is how you repay me? By fucking other men who whack you like a punching bag?”

  Tears leaked from her eyes, rutting tracks into her freshly applied rouge. “And how am I supposed to support myself on the trinkets you give me? Is my family to starve because I am paid nothing at the factory? Am I to be condemned because German men have an infinite appetite for slender young girls?”

  “You could have asked me first!” Berg snarled out.

  Margot’s voice cracked. “And deny your wife and children by taking marks out of your paycheck for a Jew?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so, Axel.”

  Again Berg felt sheepish and low. “How much do you need?”

  “More than a married workingman can provide. My relatives are being slaughtered either by pogroms in Russia or by starvation. My need for money is infinite. But I am not the one who’s complaining.” She touched his face. “What happened to you?”

  He pulled away but couldn’t face her accusing eyes. Quietly, he spoke. “There was a riot two days ago.”

  “I heard.”

  “Then you also should have heard that a policeman was beaten so badly he was taken to the hospital.”

  “That was you?” Margot was aghast. “Volker sent you into the trenches?”

  “Volker sent me to pick up the Jew. Hitler’s boys did the rest.”

  “Bastard!” Margot spoke under her breath. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he sent the boys after y
ou.”

  Berg whirled around and stared at her. “What did you say?”

  Margot averted her glance. “Nothing.”

  Slowly, Berg sat down on the bed. It smelled of sweat and sex. He was burning with jealousy, but her words supplanted his anger. “Margot . . . tell me what you meant by your whispered words.”

  She sat next to him. “That Volker is a bastard. I’m sure you know that already.”

  “Why did you say that he sent the boys after me?”

  “I don’t know that he did—”

  “Is Volker after me?”

  Margot licked her lips and was silent. Berg’s survival instincts kicked in. A minute ago, he had been ready to choke her, picturing his strong hands around that white, delicate neck. Instead, he stroked her arm gently and tried to contain his anxiety. He spoke soothingly.

  “Tell me, darling. What does the Kommissar say to you?”

  “He will know if I’ve talked to you.” She regarded him with wet eyes. “He grills me constantly.”

  “About me?”

  She nodded.

  “Only me . . . or others you service?”

  Her anger turned hot. “Don’t you understand? He has money. He has power—power to use against you as well as me.”

  Berg’s eyes narrowed. “What does he ask about me?”

  “Who are your friends! What are your political affiliations! What do you do in your off-hours.”

  “And how do you answer him?”

  “I say that we don’t talk much. That is the truth, no? But still I must tell him something. He knows you spend more time here than is necessary just to get the job done.”

  “And what do you tell him?”

  “I tell him the truth.” Again, she touched his face. This time Berg didn’t pull away. “I tell him that you are a lonely and mysterious man. That you talk little about your family and nothing about work. That I have no idea what you do in your free hours and what friends you keep.”

  Berg looked around the tiny room. The blinds on the window were closed. He got up and peeked through the slats. The streets were empty. “Volker sent me here tonight. I wonder why.”