“Is there no shred of decency left in you?” Heller said through gritted teeth.
“Those just might be your last words,” Schorrer warned.
Heller had ceased being afraid. “I thought highly of you, Schorrer. I actually let myself believe you were from the old school. But now I see clearly: you’re completely insane.”
Schorrer clenched his jaw. “No, I’m not, for Christ’s sake. That’s what no one understands.”
They heard more groaning. “Ah, ah, ah.”
“You shut your goddamn snout!” Schorrer said, and fired into the darkness.
Two shots rang out in response. Schorrer screamed and dropped to the floor, groaning and grasping his shot-up leg. Zaitsev burst out of the shadows. “Sobaka!” he cursed, and kicked Schorrer’s gun out of reach.
Heller froze. “You even see what you were shooting at, you moron?”
“Keeping Harald quiet took all my chocolate,” Zaitsev said, grinning at Heller. “Now he wants to follow me like a puppy.”
Schorrer was trying to crawl away from them.
Heller snapped out of his shock. “We need to help Rita!”
Right then Schorrer pulled out a second gun and aimed it at Rita. Heller lunged and kicked at Schorrer’s wrist. Schorrer screamed out, and Heller ripped the gun from his hand. Zaitsev crouched over Schorrer and frisked him for other weapons. He rolled the doctor onto his back, to open his jacket, and discovered a small bottle of colorless liquid, needles, vials, cloths, a second knife, and a wallet.
“See to the woman. I can watch him.”
Heller grabbed one of the knives and freed Rita from her restraints. He tore off his jacket and placed it around her shoulders. She tried to remain standing but collapsed, and Heller caught her. He gently lowered her to the floor and began massaging her wrists.
“Do you have anything to drink?” Rita asked in a hoarse voice.
“No, but we’ll get something. Rita, I have to ask: What did you get from Klara Bellmann’s room at the Schurigs’?”
“Klara, she’d lifted documents from personnel. She knew Schorrer from Berlin and thought it odd he was denying things so adamantly.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that before, right after Klara was murdered?”
“How could I have known he was the one? What was I supposed to tell you? And how was I to know who you were? I still don’t know! Are you a Nazi? Or a Communist now?”
“I’m just Max Heller.”
Rita grasped at his shoulder and pulled him close. “Sure, but what side are you on, Max?”
“No side. I’m just me. And I always will be, till the day I die.”
Rita looked into his eyes, then she let go of his shoulder and stroked his stubbled face with a gentle touch.
“I’m so tired,” she whispered.
Heller looked to Zaitsev. “Let’s get her out of here.”
The Russian only stared at him.
“What?” Heller said.
Zaitsev smiled, then nodded. “You are just Max Heller. I think I finally understand.”
May 25, 1945: Midmorning
“Paper!” demanded the Russian sentry.
“Max Heller. I have an appointment with Major General Medvedev.”
The sentry went into the guardhouse and telephoned. “Wait!” he ordered when he came back.
Heller waited. He’d had to wait a whole week for this appointment, so a few more minutes didn’t matter. After a while, a soldier appeared and led him into Soviet headquarters. He had to wait again outside the office, and was finally let inside. The staff clerk was waved away by Major General Medvedev.
Medvedev invited Heller to sit across from him with a friendly sweep of his hand. Then he pulled out two small glasses and a bottle of vodka and poured in silence.
“Za zdorov’ye,” he said, and tipped back the vodka. Heller did the same. Medvedev poured again, and they repeated the act.
Medvedev cleared his throat. “German soldiers are good soldiers. Good in battle. But not good winner. But you know, I believe, deep down here . . .” He tapped at his chest. “Germans not want to win at all. Rather they complain their fate and go down with large orchestra.” The commandant laughed and filled the glasses a third time.
Heller raised a hand. “Not for me, thanks. I came by bike and haven’t eaten much.”
“Just this one!” declared Medvedev. Heller nodded.
“Well, well . . .” Medvedev gazed at him. “You are stubborn. Three times you ask for appointment.”
“I was hoping to conduct proper questioning of Dr. Schorrer. Even though currently there’s no proper jurisdiction—”
“We are jurisdiction!” Medvedev pressed a hand to his chest, looking quite content. “We passed a final sentence on Schorrer, for his crimes as concentration camp doctor. The sentence was carried out.”
“Now we’ll never—” Heller had to hold back a burp. The vodka was giving him trouble. “It’s been nearly impossible to get connected to Berlin, even with Zaitsev’s help. Yet the way it’s looking, Schorrer must have been terrorizing people even before the war—in Berlin, though, admittedly, all the police officers that were investigating back then are dead, and no documents survived. There was talk of three victims, yet also seven. So now we’ll never know if these can be attributed to Schorrer or not.”
Medvedev gave Heller a thoughtful gaze. “Comrade Zaitsev says you are good man. And you know, Zaitsev hates Germans like only he knows how to hate! Now he is called back to Moscow. But here? Here things must continue. We will establish a new police force, even though many of my superiors do not realize this yet. But this will happen. You should consider whether you are right man for this.”
“A German police force?”
“That is correct.”
“Under Russian control?”
“Of course under Soviet control!” Medvedev laughed.
“Do I have a choice?”
Medvedev nodded, slightly amused. “Absolutely, yes.”
Heller pushed back his chair and stood. “Well, then, I assume you’ll be getting in touch when it comes to that.”
Medvedev laughed again. “I also assume this. So. I don’t wish to keep you. But one moment . . .” He pulled out a worn yellow envelope from a drawer and pushed it across the desktop. “This is for you.”
Karin stood outside, bent over the washing tub, as Heller rode up to Frau Marquart’s yard on his borrowed bicycle. Karin straightened up in surprise, not expecting him back so soon. She wiped her hands on her apron and walked up to him.
“You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?”
Heller nodded.
“Were they civil to you?”
“They asked me whether I’m the right man for when they form a new police force.”
“That was it?”
Heller shook his head. He felt a little giddy.
“But you didn’t get any work?”
“Not yet,” he said, and took her hand. “Come inside with me.”
“But the laundry . . .”
“Come on,” he said as he pulled her through the front door and into the kitchen, sat her on a chair, and gave her the yellow envelope.
Karin eyed him, then opened it, her hands shaking now.
Dear Mother, dear Father,
You’re alive! I’ve just been told the news. I only have a minute to write this. I’m interned in POW Camp #326 in Bryansk. Will be going to Moscow for a training course, volunteered for it myself. Erwin is with the Americans, in a camp near Rheinberg. He’s doing well.
All my thoughts are with you,
Your Klaus
Heller was watching his wife, how she read it, how her eyes rushed right back up to the top of the letter to read it all over again, how she held a hand to her mouth and her eyes filled with tears.
“Max! Our boys!” She jumped from the chair, laughing and crying at the same time, and threw herself into his arms.
And there they stood.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR<
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Photo © 2017 Jens Oellermann
Frank Goldammer was born in Dresden and is an experienced professional painter as well as a novelist. The Air Raid Killer is his first crime novel translated from German. He’s a single father of twins and lives with his family in his hometown. Visit him at www.frank-goldammer.de.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Photo © René Chambers
Steve Anderson is a translator, an editor, and a novelist. His latest novel is Lost Kin (2016). Anderson was a Fulbright Fellow in Munich, Germany. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
www.stephenfanderson.com
The Air Raid Killer (Max Heller, Dresden Detective Book 1) Page 27
