McGrave

by Lee Goldberg

  Tequila's is a snack shack made of weathered timber and corrugated metal and festooned with banners, a poor but enthusiastic attempt to evoke a Mexican cantina.

  A short jetty leads to a rusted barge carpeted with Astroturf and covered with plastic chaise lounges, picnic tables, and beach umbrellas, where a handful of people are drinking beers and eating bowls of tortilla chips.

  McGrave grimaces as if the sight is causing him physical pain. "You call this a beach?"

  "It is more than that," she says.

  "It looks like a lot less to me."

  "Before the wall fell, this was a no-man's-land between repression and freedom, watched over by guards in gun towers and patrol boats," she says. "Now it is a place where people can play and relax. Surely you can appreciate the symbolic value."

  "Sure. Its mud with some sand spread on top. Very moving."

  McGrave scans the pale bodies and spots Beimler on the barge.

  Beimler is shirtless, wearing a pair of loud, floral board shorts and sitting alone at a table, sipping a beer and talking on his cell phone. He looks like Jabba the Hutt after gastric bypass surgery.

  McGrave marches down the gangplank to the barge, Maria right behind him.

  He strides up to Beimler's table. "Hey, Hans, how's it hanging?"

  Beimler ends his call and says, "Ich spreche nicht Englisch."

  McGrave has no idea what that means and doesn't care. "There's a Rembrandt I saw over in the Louvre that I think would look just fabulous hanging in my apartment. You know anybody who can steal it for me?"

  Beimler looks at him blankly with his shar-pei face.

  Maria turns to McGrave. "He doesn't speak English."

  "My ass," McGrave says.

  "In case you haven't noticed, McGrave, you're in a foreign country. People aren't required to be fluent in English. How many languages do you know?"

  "The only one that counts."

  Maria sighs. This is going to be a long fucking day.

  She flashes her ID at Beimler, introduces herself, and proceeds to explain to him in German that they are looking for a man who pulled off a bloody heist in Los Angeles, one that led to several deaths. She says if Beimler arranged the heist and is holding back information, he could be extradited to the U.S. and tried as an accomplice.

  Beimler tells her he's an innocent businessman who knows nothing about robberies.

  This goes on for a while.

  McGrave gets more and more frustrated until finally, without any warning, he yanks Beimler out of his chair and pushes him in the river.

  Maria is shocked. "What did you do that for?"

  "He's lying."

  "How do you know? You haven't understood a word that he's said."

  "I know bullshit when I hear it," McGrave says, watching Beimler splash around in the water. "In any language."

  Beimler is fighting to stay afloat. He yells, "Hilfe! Ich kann nicht schwimmen!"

  McGrave grabs a nearby life preserver but doesn't toss it in. "Sorry, pal, me no comprendo Germano."

  "I don't know how to swim!" Beimler says.

  McGrave turns to Maria and smiles. "He speaks English. It's a miracle." He looks back down at Beimler. "Give me a name."

  Beimler disappears under the water. Maria reaches for the life preserver, but McGrave yanks it away from her.

  "He's going to drown," she says.

  "I feel sorry for the fishes."

  Beimler pops back up, coughing and gagging. "Richter! His name is Sebastian Richter! Now help me!"

  "How do I contact him?" McGrave asks.

  "I leave a message with an automated service."

  "Call him, tell him you've got a job for him, and set up a meet," McGrave says. "Can you do that for me?"

  "Yes!" Beimler says, but it comes out sounding more like a scream.

  McGrave tosses him the life preserver, then turns to Maria. "What a helpful guy."

  Beimler, shivering and wet, closes his cell phone and looks across the table at McGrave and Maria, who are both nursing beers.

  "Tomorrow. Midnight. The Maifeld," Beimler says. "He'll find you."

  "He'd better or I'll be back," McGrave says. "I won't be so friendly next time.

  McGrave and Maria get up and walk across the dock and across the beach to the car. She stops at the car and confronts him.

  "You said you'd be on your best behavior."

  "I was."

  "You threw him in the river."

  "Yes," McGrave says. "But I didn't shoot him first."

  "Only because you didn't have a gun."

  "I got a name and set a meet, which is a lot more than I had when I got here, so I'm a happy man."

  "And if you hadn't overreacted, we could have played dumb, put Beimler under surveillance, and let him lead us to Richter. But after this stunt, and your performance at the club, everyone in Berlin knows that you're here."

  "At least I get results," he says. "And it doesn't take six months undercover to do it."

  As glad as Maria is to be ridding herself of McGrave at his hotel, she's still a caring human being, a police officer, and someone who is proud of the city she lives in. She doesn't want to leave him here.

  The two-star palace that McGrave has booked for himself on Stuttgarter is alongside greasy kebab places, cheap electronics stores, and strip clubs and has a view of the elevated S-Bahnhof, a metro rail station, where drug dealers and hookers ply their trade in the shadows under the overpass.

  "Are you sure you want to stay here?" she asks.

  "My travel agent highly recommends it."

  "There are other hotels I can recommend in nice neighborhoods."

  "I'm fine with this one," he says, and points to a sign on a lamppost. It's the McDonald's logo with an arrow underneath it that points down the street and the words "Kantstrasse at Wilmersdorf." "It's walking distance from all the major attractions."

  "Suit yourself," she says. "I'll pick you up in the morning. Oh-nine-hundred hours."

  "In the meantime, let's ask Hansel and Gretel back at the station to put together a file with everything you've got on Richter."

  "Thanks for the suggestion, McGrave. That never would have occurred to me. Sleep well."

  He gets out of the car and trudges into the hotel.

  The desk clerk, who looks like he combed his hair with bacon grease, then cleaned his hands with his tie, unlocks the door to McGrave's room and leads him inside.

  The small room, only a little larger than the bed, is clean but has an overpowering blue motif. Blue flowered wallpaper. Blue carpet. Blue lampshades. McGrave gestures to the bed. There's a single pillow and a thick comforter, which is folded in half on the bedsheet.

  "The room is fine," McGrave says. "But could you please send someone up to make the bed?"

  "Make bed. Yes." The clerk speaks in heavily accented German and smiles knowingly. "I find you someone. Good price. Mann oder Frau?"

  "No, no, I don't want anybody. The bed isn't done. I want sheets and blankets," McGrave says. The clerk stares at him blankly. So McGrave tries again. "Bedding. Der sheets and der blankets."

  "The bed is here." The clerk points at it. "Das Bett."

  McGrave gives up and just takes the key. "Thanks, it's swell."

  The clerk smiles and leaves. McGrave looks at himself in the mirror, rubs his cheeks, and frowns. It's just occurred to him that he's got no toiletries, no change of clothes, and nothing to eat.

  Time to venture out into the wilderness.

  ####

  The market is no larger than a 7-Eleven and has only one cashier, a woman with a permanent frown, bloodshot eyes, and nicotine-stained teeth. McGrave goes up to her with a handbasket full of toiletries, a bottle of Coke, a bag of chips, and some candy bars.

  She rings up his items. It's thirteen euros. He holds out a twenty to her, but she makes no move to take it. He jerks his hand towards her again. She nods at a plate on the counter in front of him. McGrave gets the message and places the cash on th
e plate. She scoops it up and drops some coins in its place.

  McGrave pockets the money and stands there, waiting. His purchases are on the counter between them.

  She looks at him.

  He looks at her.

  It's a long moment.

  "I'm supposed to bag my own stuff?" he asks. All he gets from her is a stony look. "Okay. Fine."

  He reaches for one of the plastic bags stacked nearby. She rings up. 25 euro on the register.

  He looks at her.

  She looks at him.

  He takes another bag as a test.

  She rings up another. 25 euro.

  "You're charging me for the bags?" Again, she doesn't reply. She just gives him look. "The hell you are."

  McGrave puts the bags back, lifts up his shirttails to create a pouch, and sweeps his stuff off the counter into it.

  He smiles at her. "Arschloch you very much."

  She flips him off.

  "Lovely country," he says and walks out.

  McGrave is barely out the door when he's jumped by three men, who knock him to the ground, his groceries spilling everywhere. The plastic bottle of Coke rolls down the sidewalk into the street as he struggles, to no avail. They've got him thoroughly pinned.

  They quickly and expertly bind McGrave's hands and feet with duct tape, drag him to a panel van, throw him inside, and speed off.

  The cashier has seen the attack but doesn't call the police. Instead, she lights a cigarette and imagines, as she often does, what it would be like to sleep with her head on German actor Til Schweiger's perfect ass.

  McGrave lies on the floor of the panel van. He is unable to move or speak, so he keeps his eyes and ears open.

  There's one guy sitting on either side of him. Both are well muscled. One is a blonde, with a square jaw, blue eyes, and a chemical tan, who probably never misses the opportunity to look at his own reflection. The other guy has a nose that resembles a clump of mashed potatoes, which means he's been in a lot of fights and doesn't know how to protect his face.

  McGrave hasn't had a look at the driver yet. But the fact that Pretty Boy and Mashed Nose haven't blindfolded him means they don't care about what he sees.

  Which means they aren't worried about him coming after them later.

  Which means there might not be a later for him.

  It doesn't take long for them to arrive at their destination, maybe fifteen minutes.

  The side door slides open and the driver stands there. He's also muscled but has a blockhead that looks as if it's attached directly to his square shoulders. But No Neck's most striking feature is the huge serrated knife in his hand.

  No Neck raises the knife above McGrave and brings it down for the kill.

  And cuts the duct tape that binds McGrave's ankles.

  The three guys all have a hearty laugh at the flash of fear that passed over McGrave's face. Then Pretty Boy and Mashed Nose lift McGrave up and push him out onto his feet.

  They are parked in an abandoned industrial building, a factory of some kind, along a narrow canal off the Spree River. It's a vast space cluttered with rusting machinery and crisscrossed above with pipes and beams. The walls are brick, with hundreds of windows, most of them broken.

  McGrave is led through the machinery towards Richter, who stands a few yards away, a look of smug satisfaction on his face. He is holding a gun at his side.

  "Thank you, McGrave, for sparing me the effort and expense of going all the way back to LA to kill you. But you could have picked a week when I wasn't so busy. Let's make this quick. I still have lots of work to do."

  Richter aims the gun at McGrave's head and Pretty Boy rips the duct tape from McGrave's mouth.

  "Any last words?" Richter asks.

  "You're under arrest."

  Richter shares an amused look with his men and says, "Re ist ein hirnloser kleiner Kampfhund. Geh einen Schritt zurck, ich will nicht da? sein Hirn auf dein T-Shirt spritzt.

  The three men distance themselves from McGrave.

  That's because Richer has just told them that McGrave is a mindless attack dog and that they should step back unless they want to get his brains on their shirts.

  But McGrave remains surprisingly at ease for someone about to be executed.

  "Keep your eyes open when you die, McGrave, and the next time I'm in LA, maybe I won't rape your daughter."

  Richter is about to shoot when Maria Vogt yells from somewhere, "Halt! Polizei!"

  The cry gives Richter a second of hesitation. McGrave uses that instant to head butt Mashed Nose in the face, breaking the thug's nose yet again, and dive for cover behind some machinery just as Richter shoots. The bullet ricochets off the machine and shatters one of the windows.

  And that's when Maria, Stefan, Heinrich, and a tactical team of police officers in Kevlar spill into the warehouse, taking offensive positions behind whatever cover is available.

  Pretty Boy, No Neck, and Mashed Nose take cover themselves and open fire on the cops.

  Richter does the smart thing.

  He runs away.

  McGrave, lying helpless and angry on the ground, tries to cut his bindings on a sharp piece of metal sticking out of the old machinery.

  Then he senses Pretty Boy standing over him.

  McGrave rolls on his side and finds himself looking down the barrel of a gun again.

  Maria is at the van now and can see what Pretty Boy intends to do.

  She takes aim and fires. The bullet obliterates his right hand.

  It's a hell of a shot.

  Pretty Boy screams in agony and clutches the stump where his hand and gun used to be.

  McGrave kicks Pretty Boy's feet out from under him, and when the guy falls, kicks him in the head to shut him up.

  One down.

  McGrave goes back to work trying to cut the duct tape around his wrists.

  The ground around the factory building is surrounded by cops.

  So Richter doesn't try to flee out.

  Instead, he flees up.

  He effortlessly and gracefully scales the pipes and girders to the ceiling and across to the bank of windows.

  The guy knows parkour.

  Maria takes aim at Richter but can't get a clear shot at him, so she gives chase, running right past McGrave, leaving him on the ground.

  She reaches the same pipes that Richter used, holsters her weapon, and starts to climb, but for her it's far from easy.

  Maria looks up.

  Richter has traveled clear across the arched ceiling of the factory and is heading towards some open windows.

  She climbs as quickly as she can.

  ####

  McGrave finally frees himself, sees Richter and Maria climbing, and knows there's no way he can catch up to either one of them.

  So he makes a run for the way out, making himself a target for Mashed Nose and No Neck.

  Mashed Nose pops up from behind the cover of machinery to take a shot at McGrave, and Stefan shoots him.

  The bullet hits Mashed Nose in the chest and puts him down forever.

  No Neck sees Richter above them, making his escape, and Pretty Boy with a stump where his right hand used to be, and Mashed Nose bleeding out beside him, and wisely decides that maybe single-handedly taking on a squad of heavily armed police officers isn't going to end well for him.

  He tosses his gun and raises his hands in surrender.

  Richter runs along the rooftop of the factory and leaps onto an adjacent warehouse, and swings from pipe to rooftop to girder, making his way across the industrial area.

  Spider-Man would be impressed.

  McGrave tries to follow Richter by running alongside him on the ground, but it's futile. There are too many buildings, fences, and pipes in his way.

  Richter drops onto one of a line of houseboats and floating cafйs moored along the river and leapfrogs from boat to boat until he reaches a bridge, climbs up over the side, and disappears.

  McGrave stops at the base of the bridge, breathing ha
rd and pissed off.

  Richter is long gone.

  ####

  McGrave heads back to the factory and is met halfway there by Maria.

  "You moved in too soon," McGrave says, walking right past her.

  She catches up, falling into step beside him. "I saved your life."

  "I was doing just fine. But now, thanks to you, we've lost him."

  "It wasn't until I was driving away from that shitty hotel of yours that it suddenly hit me. You wanted Richter to know you were here," Maria says. "You've been trying to attract his attention from the moment you got off the plane in that hideous shirt."

  "What's wrong with my shirt?"

  "The fight in the club, throwing Beimler in the river, it was all just a show."

  "I don't know Berlin and I don't speak German. So obviously it's a lot easier to get him to come to me. But you've blown that."

  "You dumb bastard," she says. "The only reason you're alive is because I figured out what you were doing and put you under surveillance."

  "That was the plan all along."

  "What plan? You never talked to me about any plan."

  "It worked, didn't it? Except for the part where you let Richter get away."

  "You should have told me what you were doing."

  "I don't see why."

  She steps in front of him, cutting him off. "Because while you're here, we're partners. And partners have to trust each other."

  "Please don't call us partners," he says.

  "Aren't we?"

  "I hope not," he says. "My partners usually end up dead."

  She cocks her head at an angle, studying him in a new light. "That may be the first real thing I've heard you say since you arrived."

  "What does that mean?"

  "You said something that wasn't acerbic, xenophobic, or puerile."

  "I forgot to pack my thesaurus, so I have no idea what you're talking about."

  "It wasn't a comment like that," she says. "You said something that showed some genuine concern for me and revealed a little of the sadness in you. There may actually be a caring human being behind that tough-cop act."