Kohl frowned at the noisy coffee klatch.
The younger officers paid their respects.
"Hail Hitler."
"Hail, Inspector Kohl."
"Yes, yes."
"We are on our way to the lecture. Are you coming?"
"No," Kohl muttered. "I'm working." Since the Party's ascension in '33, one-hour talks on National Socialism were held weekly in the main assembly hall of the Alex. Attendance by all Kripo officers was mandatory. Lukewarm Willi Kohl rarely went. The last one he'd attended was two years ago and had been entitled "Hitler, Pan-Germanism and the Roots of Fundamental Social Change." He'd fallen asleep.
"SD Leader Heydrich himself may show up."
"We're not sure," another added enthusiastically. "But he might. Can you imagine? We could shake his hand!"
"As I said, I'm working." Kohl looked past their youthful, enthusiastic faces. "What do you have, Janssen?"
"Good day, Inspector," one young officer said exuberantly. They went off, loudly, down the hall.
Kohl fixed his frown on Janssen, who winced. "Sorry, sir. They attach themselves to me because I'm attached to..."
"Me?"
"Well, yes, sir."
Kohl nodded in the direction they'd gone. "They're members?"
"Of the Party? Several are, yes."
Before Hitler came to power it was illegal for a police officer to be a member of any political party. Kohl said, "Don't be tempted to join, Janssen. You think it will help your career but it won't. It will only get you stuck further in the spiderweb."
"Moral quicksand," Janssen quoted back his boss.
"Indeed."
"Anyway, how could I possibly join?" he asked gravely then offered one of his rare smiles. "Working with you leaves me no time for the rallies."
Kohl smiled back then asked, "Now what do you have?"
"The postmortem from Dresden Alley."
"It's about time." Twenty-four hours to perform an autopsy. Inexcusable.
The inspector candidate handed his boss the thin folder, which contained only two pages.
"What's this? Did the coroner do the autopsy in his sleep?"
"I--"
"Never mind," Kohl muttered and read through the document. It first stated the obvious, of course, as autopsies always did, in the dense language of physiology and morphology: that the cause of death was severe trauma to the brain due to the passage of a bullet. No sexual diseases, a bit of gout, a bit of arthritis, no war wounds. He and Kohl had in common bunions, and the calluses on the victim's feet suggested that he was indeed an ardent walker.
Janssen looked over Kohl's shoulder. "Look, sir, he had a broken finger that set badly."
"That does not interest us, Janssen. It's the little finger, which is prone to breaking under many circumstances, as opposed to an injury that is unique and might help us understand the man better. A recent break might be helpful--we could call upon physicians in northwest Berlin for leads to patients--but this fracture is old." He turned back to the report.
The alcohol in his blood suggested that he'd had some liquor not long before he'd died. The stomach contents revealed chicken, garlic, herbs, onion, carrots, potatoes, a reddish-colored sauce of some sort and coffee, all digested to the point that suggested the meal had been enjoyed about a half hour before death.
"Ah," Kohl brightened, jotting all these facts down in pencil in his battered little notebook.
"What, sir?"
"Here is something that does interest us, Janssen. While we can't be positive, it appears that the victim ate a very sublime dish for his last meal. It is probably coq au vin, a French delicacy that marries chicken with the unlikely partner of red wine. Usually a Burgundy such as Chambertin. We don't see it here often, Janssen. You know why? Because we Germans make pissbad red wines, and the Austrians, who make brilliant reds, don't send us very much. Oh, yes, this is good." He thought for a moment then rose and walked to a map of Berlin on his wall. He found a pushpin and stuck it into Dresden Alley. "He died here at noon and he had lunch at a restaurant about thirty minutes before that. You recall he was a good walker, Janssen: his leg muscles, which put mine to shame, and the calluses on his feet. So, while he might have taken a taxi or tram to his fatal encounter, we will assume that he walked. Allowing him a few minutes after the meal for a cigarette... you recall his yellow-stained fingertips?"
"Not exactly, sir."
"Be more observant, then. Allowing him time for a cigarette and to pay the check and savor his coffee, we will assume that he walked on his sturdy legs for twenty minutes before he came to Dresden Alley. How far could a brisk walker go in that time?"
"I would guess a kilometer and a half."
Kohl frowned. "I too would guess that." He examined the legend of the Berlin map and drew a circle around the site of the killing.
Janssen shook his head. "Look at that. It's huge. We need to take the photograph of the victim to every restaurant in that circle?"
"No, only to those serving coq au vin, and of those only the ones that do so at lunchtime on Saturday. A fast look at the hours of service and the menu in front will tell us if we need to inquire further. But it will still be a huge task and one that must be undertaken immediately."
The young officer stared at the map. "Is it up to you and me, sir? Can we visit all of them ourselves? How can we?" He shook his head, discouraged.
"Of course we can't."
"Then?"
Willi Kohl sat back, his eyes floating around the room. They settled momentarily on his desktop. Then he said, "You wait here for any telegrams or other messages about the case, Janssen." Kohl took his Panama hat from the rack in the corner of his office. "And me, I have a thought."
"Where will you be, sir?"
"On the trail of a French chicken."
Chapter Twenty-Three
The anxious atmosphere that hung about the three men in the boardinghouse was like cold smoke.
Paul Schumann knew the sensation well--from those moments as he waited to step into the boxing ring, trying to remember everything he knew about his opponent, picturing the guy's defenses, planning when best to dance under them, when to rise onto his toes and deliver a roundhouse or jab, figuring out how to exploit his weaknesses--and how best to compensate for your own.
He knew it from other times too: as a button man planning his touch-offs. Looking at maps drawn in his own careful handwriting, double-checking the Colt and his backup pistol, looking over the notes he'd assembled of his victim's schedules, preferences, dislikes, routines, acquaintances.
This was the Before.
The hard, hard Before. The stillness preceding the kill. The moment when he chewed the facts amid a feeling of impatience and edginess. Fear too, of course. You never got away from that. The good button men didn't, in any case.
And always the growing numbness, the crystalizing of his heart.
He was starting to touch the ice.
In the dim room, windows closed, shades down--phone unplugged, of course--Paul and Morgan looked over a map and two dozen publicity photos of the Olympic stadium, which Webber had dug up, along with a pair of sharply creased gray flannel trousers for Morgan (which the American had examined skeptically at first but then decided to keep).
Morgan tapped one of the photos. "Where do you--?"
"Please, one moment," Webber interrupted. He rose and walked across the room, whistling. He was in a jovial mood, now that he had a thousand dollars in his pocket and wouldn't have to worry about lard and yellow dye for a while.
Morgan and Paul exchanged frowns. The German dropped to his knees and began pulling records out from the cabinet beneath a battered gramo-phone. He grimaced. "Ach, no John Philip Sousa. I look all the time but they are hard to find." He glanced up at Morgan. "Say, Mr. John Dillinger here tells me that Sousa is American. But I think he is joking. Please, the bandleader is English, is he not?"
"No, he's American," the slim man said.
"I have heard otherwis
e."
Morgan lifted an eyebrow. "Perhaps you're right. Maybe a wager would be in order. A hundred marks?"
Webber considered then said, "I will look into the matter further."
"We don't really have time for music," Morgan added, watching Webber examining the stack of disks.
Paul said, "But I think we have time to cover up the sounds of our conversation?"
"Exactly," Webber said. "And we shall use..." He examined a label. "A collection of our stolid German hunting songs." He turned on the device and set the needle in the groove of the disk. A rousing, scratchy tune filled the room. "This is 'The Deer-stalker.'" A laugh. "Appropriate, considering our mission."
The mobsters Luciano and Lansky did exactly the same in America-- usually playing the radio, to cover up conversation in the event Dewey's or Hoover's boys had a mike in the room where they were meeting.
"Now, you were saying?"
Morgan asked, "Where is the photography session?"
"Ernst's memorandum says the pressroom."
"That's here," Webber said.
Paul examined the drawing carefully and wasn't pleased. The stadium was huge and the press box must have been two hundred feet long. It was located near the top of the building's south side. He could take up position in the stands on the north side but that meant a very long shot across the entire width of the facility.
"Too far. A little breeze, the distortion of the window... No. I couldn't guarantee a fatal shot. And I might hit someone else."
"So?" Webber asked lethargically. "Maybe you could shoot Hitler. Or Goring... why, he's as big a target as a dirigible. A blind man could hit him." He looked over the map again. "You could get Ernst when he got out of the car. What do you think of that, Mr. Morgan?" The fact that Webber had gotten Paul into and out of the Chancellory safely had given the gang leader sufficient credibility to be trusted with Morgan's name.
"But we don't know exactly when and where he'll be arriving," Morgan pointed out. There were a dozen walks and passages he could take. "They might not use the main entrance. We couldn't anticipate that and you should be in hiding before he gets there. The entire National Socialist pantheon will be assembled; security is going to be massive."
Paul continued to peruse the map. Morgan was right. And he noticed from the map that there was an underground driveway that seemed to circle the entire stadium, probably for the leaders to use for protected entrances and exits. Ernst might never be outside at all.
They stared silently for a time. An idea occurred to Paul and, touching the photos, he explained it: The back walkways of the stadium were open. Leaving the pressroom, one would walk either east or west along this corridor then down several flights of stairs to the ground level, where there was a parking area, a wide drive and sidewalks that led to the railway station. About a hundred feet from the stadium, overlooking the parking lot and drive, was a cluster of small buildings, labeled on the map Storage Facilities.
"If Ernst came out onto that walkway and down the stairs I could shoot from that shed. The one there."
"You could make the shot?"
Paul nodded. "Yes, easily."
"But, as we were saying, we don't know that Ernst will arrive or leave that way."
"Maybe we can force him outside. Flush him out like a bird."
"And how?" Morgan asked.
Paul said, "We ask him."
"Ask him?" Morgan frowned.
"We get a message to him in the pressroom that he's urgently needed. There's someone who needs to see him in private about something important. He walks out the corridor onto the porch, into my sights."
Webber lit one of his cabbage cigars. "But would any message be so urgent that he'd interrupt a meeting with the Leader, Goring and Goebbels?"
"From what I've learned about him he's obsessed with his job. We tell him that there's a problem having to do with the army or navy. I know that'll get his attention. What about this Krupp, the armorer that Max told us about. Could a message from Krupp be urgent?"
Morgan nodded. "Krupp. Yes, I'd think so. But how do we get the message to Ernst while he's in the photography session?"
"Ach, easy," Webber said. "I'll telephone him."
"How?"
The man drew on his ersatz cigar. "I will find out the number of one of the telephones in the pressroom and place a call. I will do this myself. I will ask for Ernst and tell him that there is a driver downstairs with a message. Only for him to see. From Gustav Krupp von Bohlen himself. I will call from a post office so when the Gestapo dials seven afterward to find the source of the call, there'll be no lead to me."
"How can you get the number?" Morgan asked.
"Contacts."
Paul asked cynically, "Do you really have to bribe someone to find the number, Otto? I would suspect that half the sports journalists in Berlin have them."
"Ach," Webber said, smiling in delight. He tried English. "You are hitting the head on the nail." Back to his native tongue: "Of course that's true. But the most important aspect of any venture is knowing which individual to approach and what his price is."
"All right," Morgan said, exasperated. "How much? And remember, we are not a bottomless well."
"Another two hundred. Marks will be fine. And for that I will add, for no extra charge, a way to get into and out of the stadium, Mr. John Dillinger. A full SS uniform. You can sling your rifle over your shoulder and walk straight into the stadium like Himmler himself and no one will stop you. Practice your 'Hail's and your Hitler salute, flapping your limp arm in the air like our goat-peeing Leader."
Morgan frowned. "But if they catch him masquerading as a soldier they'll shoot him for a spy."
Paul glanced at Webber and they both broke into laughter. It was the gang leader who said, "Please, Mr. Morgan. Our friend is about to kill the national military tzar. If he is caught he could be dressed like George Washington and whistling 'Stars and Stripes Forever' and they would still shoot him quite dead, do you not think?"
"I was only considering ways to make it less obvious," Morgan grumbled.
"No, it's a good plan, Reggie," Paul said. "After the shot they'll get all the officials back to Berlin as fast as possible. I'll ride with the guards protecting them. Once we're in town, I'll get lost in the crowd." Afterward he'd slip into the embassy building near the Brandenburg Gate and radio Andrew Avery and Vince Manielli in Amsterdam, who'd send the plane out to the aerodrome for him.
As their eyes returned to the maps of the stadium Paul decided it was time. He said, "I want to tell you. There's someone coming with me."
Morgan glanced at Webber, who laughed. "Ach, what are you thinking? That I could possibly live anywhere but this Prussian Garden of Eden? No, no, I will leave Germany only for heaven."
Paul said, "A woman."
Morgan's mouth tightened. "The one here." Nodding toward the hallway of the boardinghouse.
"That's right. Kathe." Paul added, "You looked into her. You know she's legitimate."
"What have you told her?" asked the troubled American.
"The Gestapo has her passport and it's only a matter of time until they arrest her."
"It's a matter of time until they arrest a lot of people here. What have you told her, Paul?" Morgan repeated.
"Just our cover story about sportswriting. That's all."
"But--"
"She's coming with me," he said.
"I should call Washington, or the Senator."
"Call who you like. She's coming."
Morgan looked at Webber.
"Ach, I have been married three times, possibly four," the German said. "And I now have a... complicated arrangement. Expect no advice from me on matters of the heart."
Morgan shook his head. "Jesus, we're running an airways service."
Paul fixed his fellow American with a gaze. "One other thing: At the stadium I'll only have the Russian passport for ID. If I don't make it she'll never hear what happened. Will you tell her something--about me having to
leave? I don't want her thinking that I ditched her. And do what you can to get her out."
"Of course."
"Ach, you'll make it, Mr. John Dillinger. You're the American cowboy with big balls, right?" Webber wiped his sweating forehead. He rose and found three glasses in the cupboard. From a flask he poured some clear liquid into them and passed them around. "Austrian obstler. You have heard of it? It is the best of all liquors, good for the blood and good for the soul. Now, drink up, gentlemen, then let us go out and change the fate of my poor nation."
"I will need as many of them as you can find," Willi Kohl said.
The man nodded cautiously. "It isn't really a question of finding them. They are always quite findable. It's a question of how out-of-the-ordinary this matter is. There is really no precedent for it."
"It is out of the ordinary," Kohl agreed. "That much is true. But Police Chief Himmler has branded this an unusual case and an important one. Other officers are occupied throughout the city with equally pressing matters and he left it to me to be resourceful. So I have come to you."
"Himmler?" asked Johann Muntz. The middle-aged man stood in the doorway of a small house on Grun Street in Charlottenburg. Shaved and trimmed and wearing a suit, he looked as if he'd just returned from church this Sunday morning, a risky outing, to be sure, if you wished to retain your job as headmaster of one of the best schools in Berlin.
"Well, as you know, they're autonomous. Completely self-governed. I cannot dictate anything to them. They might say no. And there is nothing I can do about that."
"Ah, Dr. Muntz, I'm just asking for an opportunity to appeal to them in hopes they will volunteer to help the cause of justice."
"But today is Sunday. How can I contact them?"
"I suspect you need only call the leader at home and he will arrange for their assembly."
"Very well. I will do it, Inspector."
Three-quarters of an hour later, Willi Kohl found himself in Muntz's backyard, looking over the faces of nearly two dozen boys, many of whom were dressed in brown shirts, shorts and white socks, black ties dangling from a braided leather clasp at the throat. The youngsters were, for the most part, members of the Hindenburg School's Hitler Youth brigade. As the school's headmaster had just reminded Kohl, the organization was completely independent of any adult supervision. The members selected their own leaders and it was they who determined the activities of their group, whether that was hiking, football or denouncing backstabbers.
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