Voices of the Dead

by Peter Leonard

  “What is your purpose for coming to Munich?” Heavy Bavarian accent. Sounded like he was interrogating them.

  “Visiting,” Harry said.

  Huber looked at Cordell.

  “Same here. Seein’ the sights.”

  Huber turned back to Harry. “What happened tonight?”

  He took a pen out of his pocket, pulled off the cap and fit it on the bottom.

  “We were attacked by six skinheads carrying ax handles.”

  Huber glanced at Cordell. “Do you have anything to add?”

  Cordell said, “Wore black shirts‚ had swastikas on them.”

  “Did you provoke them?”

  “Did we provoke them?” Harry said to Cordell.

  “Not hardly.”

  “They came in swinging,” Harry said.

  “Why do you think they attacked you?” Huber said to Harry.

  “Maybe they don’t like Americans.”

  “Or maybe it was me. Black men scare these master-race dudes.”

  Huber wrote something on the pad. “You are able to identify them?”

  “They looked a lot alike,” Harry said. “Six skinheads in black shirts. Not much more to tell you. It was dark, it happened fast. Talk to the bartender at the ratskeller. She might be able to give you a description. She got a good look at a couple of them.”

  “I was you I’d check the hospitals. One of them is going to need a whole lot of stitches in his forehead.”

  Harry said. “You know who they are, Detective?”

  “The Blackshirts,” Huber said in the same flat monotone.

  “Sound like a heavy metal group,” Cordell said. “Teach ’em to play music, spit blood, make a fortune.”

  Huber ignored him. “They are the new Nazis, terrorizing in the name of nationalism. You are fortunate. You might have been injured or killed. If you see them again, call the police immediately.”

  “That’s it? You’re not going to do anything?”

  “They have thousands of members. Without accurate descriptions, what can we do?”

  Cordell was happy to get out of there. Police stations made him nervous. They stood out front, waiting for a taxi. “These Germans are a lot of fun, huh? Like‚ could the man be any less helpful? Goin’ through the motions, like he don’t want to waste his time helpin’ a couple Americans.”

  “He did seem to want to get rid of us,” Harry said, “didn’t he?”

  “I don’t trust cops,” Cordell said. “Period, in a sentence.”

  Cordell took out his sterling silver cigarette case, opened it. “Want one? That’s a Davidoff, world’s finest tobacco.”

  “No thanks,” Harry said.

  A police sedan pulled up in front of the building, two cops in uniform got out and escorted a handcuffed prisoner past them inside. They walked out to the street, saw a taxi pull over.

  Harry said, “Want a ride?”

  “My hotel’s just over there,” Cordell said, recognizing the museum, pointing. “By the Hofgarten.”

  “Where you staying?”

  “Pension Jedermann,” Cordell said. “Man, it’s no Ritz. Not even a Ho-Joe’s, but it beats the hell out of the barracks at Heidelberg.”

  “You want to have a drink sometime, I’m at the Bayerischer Hof, on Promenadeplatz.” Harry took a business card out of his wallet, wrote on the back and handed it him. “Or call me when you get back to Detroit.”

  “Be cool,” Cordell said. “Keep an eye out for Blackshirt motherfuckers and such.”

  Harry got in and closed the door, and the taxi cruised down the street. Cordell took a step, something shiny caught his eye, glinting under the streetlight. It was a watch. He bent down and picked it up. Patek Philippe. Black gator band. Turned it over said:

  To Harry. Yours forever, Anna.

  Slipped it in his pocket.

  Cordell walked to his pension, nice warm September night, nobody on the street, hot wearing the jacket, took it off, draped it over his arm. Stood in front of the pension, was about to go in, still thinking about the watch. Reached in his pocket, brought it out, looked at the time: 11:37. Watch was expensive and he needed money. Cordell thinking, wait, didn’t he deserve it for saving the dude’s life? Could sell it, travel for a while. But Harry was cool and the watch had to mean something to him.

  He took out the man’s card: S&H Recycling Metals, turned it over, saw Bayerischer Hof, room 573. Where’d he say it was at? Yeah, Promenadeplatz. He walked down the street saw a taxi coming toward him, put up his arm. It stopped, he got in.

  Cordell went in the hotel lobby, place quiet, practically deserted at close to midnight. Picked up a house phone, dialed 573. Busy. Waited a couple minutes, tried again. Still busy. Maybe Harry was calling home, talking to Anna, telling her he lost the watch she gave him. He tried the number a third time. Still busy. He decided to go up, surprise him.

  He got in an elevator, rode up with three Orientals, watching the lights flash as they passed floors, got off at five, checked room numbers till he found 573. Door was closed but not all the way. He knocked. “Yo, Harry.” Pushed it open a crack, saw the phone on the bed, off the hook, two skinheads ripping the place up. Didn’t see Harry.

  He went in. A skinhead with an ax handle came at him. Cordell went left, ducked, felt it swoosh by his head, and bust a hole in the wall. Cordell hit him and he went down.

  Now the second one came at him. Cordell somersaulted over the bed, landed on his feet, surprised the guy. Moved in, hit him with a combination, left hook, straight right. Skin dropped the wood, ran for the door, first one just ahead of him. Cordell picked up the ax handle, chased them in the hall, watched them run for the stairs, open the door and disappear. Heard someone behind him, turned in a batter’s stance, arms cocked, hands gripping the skinny end of the handle, saw Harry.

  “You taking batting practice, 12:30 in the morning?”

  “You had visitors, Harry. Was just showing them out.” He lowered the ax handle. “Man, you are a popular guy.”

  Harry walked into his room, Cordell right behind him. It smelled like paint and he saw why. There was a crude-looking black swastika sprayed on one of the white walls. Dresser drawers had been pulled out, clothes dumped on the floor. He went over to the bed, picked up the phone, put the receiver back and placed it on the end table. He’d left the photographs from Berman on the desk. They were gone.

  “Two of ’em,” Cordell said. “Skinheads. Looked like the dudes come to the ratskeller. Same tribe. Missed ’em by a minute.” He paused. “What’s goin on?”

  Harry looked at the swastika again. “I think they’re trying to scare me, convince me to leave town.”

  “They doing a good job,” Cordell said. “Maybe you should listen.” His eyes scanned the room. “Who are they? Why they after you?”

  “I don’t know.” Were they working for Hess? That was the logical explanation, but he didn’t want to get into it right now. Needed time to think.

  “Come on, Harry.”

  “What’re you doing here?” Harry said.

  Cordell reached in his pocket, took out the watch. “Found it in the street outside the police station. Thought you probably want it.”

  Cordell handed it to him. Harry, thinking he’d lost it, fit the band on his wrist and fastened it.

  Cordell sat on the bed. “Who’s Anna? Will you tell me that?”

  “My wife,” Harry said.

  “How long you married?”

  “Three years,” Harry said, turning the desk chair around to face him, sitting in it. “’50 to ’53. She died giving birth.”

  “What happened?”

  Harry said. “Her immune system was screwed up.” He paused. “She was a survivor. We both were. I was at Dachau. Anna was at Helmbrechts, a small concentration camp for women, southwest of Hof in Upper Franconia.”

  Cordell gave him a blank look.

  “It’s in East Germany near the Czech border.”

  Cordell got up, took off his jacket
and laid it out on the bed.

  “In April 1945, the war was ending. The Germans were finished. It was just a matter of time before the Americans and Russians closed in on them. The Nazis shut down the camp and marched these starving women 195 miles to a Czech town called Prachatice. The prisoners were so hungry they ate grass; they ate decaying animal carcasses. The last day, Anna was one of seventeen prisoners marched into the woods. It was an uphill climb for thirty minutes. Anyone who couldn’t do it was shot. Fourteen of seventeen didn’t make it. The three who did were given their freedom. The American army came through the next day. Anna was taken to a hospital. Emaciated, dehydrated. She was five six, weighed seventy-eight pounds. Two of her toes had frostbite from walking barefoot in the snow, had to be amputated. An army doctor told her she wouldn’t have lived another day.”

  “Where’d you meet?” Cordell said.

  “We both ended up in Detroit. I was living with my uncle and she went to stay with a cousin. We were fixed up and hit it off. It was 1949. I was twenty-one, she was twenty. We dated and got married a year later.”

  “What about you?”

  “I was sent to Dachau with my parents. They were killed. I escaped.”

  “I thought my past history had some crazy shit in it,” Cordell said. “Man, you got like a black cloud over you.” He fingered the chains around his neck. “How old were you?”

  “Thirteen when I went in.”

  “What’d you think?”

  “The world had gone crazy,” Harry said. “You trick yourself. You say it’s not going to last, it’s going to end. But you know it isn’t.”

  “I was thirteen my mom took to the needle, started turnin’ tricks, bringin’ home these raggedy-ass brothers.”

  “What’d you think?”

  “Same as you.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “Quit school, started working for a dude name Chilly Willy, sold heroin at the projects: Gardens and Brewster. Chill say cop arrest you, what’s he going to do? You’s a kid. He going to slap your wrist, send you home.”

  “Who’d you sell it to?”

  “Anyone needed a fix,” Cordell said. “I made a hundred dollars a day when I started, two hundred when I got busted five years later. Could either do time or join the army. Like there was a choice. Sign me up for the armed services, I said. Judge thought I’d be going to Nam. I did too. Got nothin’ against the Viet Cong, but fightin’ them was preferable to incarceration.”

  “I can understand. Listen, I better get the manager up here. I don’t want them to think I joined the Nazis,” Harry said, looking at the swastika on the wall.

  “Call, they come back,” Cordell said. “Pension Jedermann. Check on you tomorrow.”

  He walked out, closed the door.

  Harry called the front desk at 1:15, said there’d been a break-in. A man from hotel security knocked on the door a couple minutes later. He wore a blue blazer and carried a walkie-talkie and was the size of a defensive tackle. He came in, looked around and asked Harry a few questions.

  Did he know who did it?

  No.

  Was he in the room at the time?

  Dumb question.

  Was anything missing?

  Just his photos of Hess. Of course, he said no.

  Did he want to speak to the police?

  Harry shook his head.

  The security man told him they were going to move him to a suite for the inconvenience. No charge.

  Harry said, OK. Where else was he going to go at 1:30 in the morning?

  Rausch sat in the driver’s seat of the Volkswagen, side window cracked six inches. He smoked, flicking ashes and blowing smoke through the opening. He glanced at the clock on the dash. It was 1:42 a.m. Hess had been in the house for almost two hours, and Rausch wondered what was taking him, although Hess had told him he enjoyed walking around before he woke them. Looking at their photographs, their furniture, and their belongings. For Hess it was better to know something about them, to feel a connection, make it personal.

  Rausch was parked on Baaderstrasse, in a quiet residential neighborhood. He saw a figure coming toward him on the sidewalk, Ernst Hess in silhouette, the faint glow of a streetlight behind him. He walked to the car and got in. Rausch felt crowded now, two big men sitting almost shoulder to shoulder in the narrow interior. He could see the rush of power, Hess still charged with adrenalin.

  “You were in there for a long time,” Rausch said. He started the car, slid the shifter into gear and accelerated.

  “We were talking. I enjoy conversing with civilized, intelligent people.”

  “I thought something had gone wrong.”

  “What could go wrong?”

  “Maybe the man had a weapon and surprised you.” He saw Hess glance at him.

  “How long would you have waited?”

  “Until you were finished.”

  “What if I did not come out?”

  “But you did.”

  “I am asking you this hypothetically.”

  “I would have waited until it was no longer safe,” Rausch said, not exactly sure what he was saying, but Hess seemed to approve. He smiled. “Very good.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “He owned an automobile dealership, sells Volkswagens. Can you believe that?”

  Rausch went left on Rumfordstrasse.

  “I told him I thought that was ironic, a Jew selling a car developed by the Führer.”

  Rausch glanced at Hess. “What did he say?”

  “Hitler had nothing to do with it. Ferdinand Porsche designed and built the Volkswagen.”

  “Is that true?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What was the woman’s occupation?”

  “Retired. She had been a teacher at the Jewish Training Workshop on Biederstein in the late thirties.”

  “What were the Jews training to be?”

  “Swindlers,” Hess said, grinning. “What do you think?”

  The streets were dark, deserted as they crossed Frauenstrasse, driving into Altstadt. He could see the tower of the Neues Rathaus.

  “The Lachmanns were originally from Munich. They had emigrated to New York in 1939.” Hess looked at him. “Had I been a Jew that’s what I would have done. After Kristallnacht, anyone who did not know what was happening was either naïve or not paying attention.”

  “Why did they come back?”

  “Lachmann said because they are Germans. I told him they should have stayed in New York.”

  “Did they resist, put up a fight?”

  “Do they ever?”

  That was what was so surprising. Jews went to their death like lambs to slaughter. If an intruder were trying to kill him Rausch would defend himself. “Were they afraid?”

  “Someone woke you up and put a gun in your face, wouldn’t you be?”

  “This isn’t happening,” Mrs. Lachmann had said. Hess grinned.

  Rausch swung around to Kaufingerstrasse and pulled up behind Hess’ Mercedes parked on the street. He would leave the stolen VW in a parking garage.

  Hess turned in the seat, ears still ringing from the gunshots. He pictured the Lachmanns kneeling naked on the cold hard concrete floor, Hess sitting in a chair behind them. They were always embarrassed taking their clothes off in front of a stranger. It made them feel vulnerable.

  He had taken Herr Lachmann’s glasses and his wife’s engagement ring to add to his collection. He would relive the encounter later. Now he was more interested in hearing about Harry Levin. The Jew surprising him, first coming to the restaurant in Washington DC, sitting at the table with them, speaking German with his Bavarian accent, fooling all of them. Hess thought that one incident would be the end of it. The man would go home and he would never think about him again. At the urging of the ambassador, he had even agreed to pay for the daughter’s funeral expenses, trying to put a positive spin on what had happened. The Washington Post acknowledged his sympathetic gesture in a brief article, and
quoted him saying: “My heartfelt apology goes out to Mr. Levin and his family.” The carefully worded press release had been written by a publicist at the embassy. It mentioned Hess’ involvement but never admitted culpability or guilt.

  Two weeks later the crazy kike sneaks onto his estate. Hess couldn’t believe it, looking across the tennis court, seeing a man standing on the other side of the fence with a gun, thinking he was going to shoot him, this lunatic from Detroit who sold scrap metal. And although the surveillance photographs were inconclusive Hess was positive it was Levin. Who else? Levin was seen again outside the fence at the airship factory, and Hess knew he had to do something. This Jew wasn’t going away.

  Rausch had followed Levin to the ratskeller, despatching six men to take care of him, put him in the hospital, but not kill him. With Munich hosting the Olympic Games in eleven months, Hess didn’t want the negative publicity of a murdered American tourist, an incident that might imply Munich was not safe.

  Harry Levin had escaped again and no one had been able to give him a reasonable explanation as to why. “Tell me how he got away,” Hess said to Rausch.

  “He was lucky.”

  “Lucky,” Hess said. “There were six of them.”

  “A Negro was helping him,” Rausch said. “He was skilled.”

  “A Negro? They were together?” Hess said. This was getting interesting. “Who is he?”

  “An American soldier. They were sitting next to each other at the bar. My men chased them down the street,” Rausch said. “They were about to pull them out the car when the police arrived.”

  More excuses.

  Hess got behind the wheel of the Mercedes and drove to the apartment.

  Earlier that morning Rausch had stood tall and erect in front of his desk, military bearing still evident three decades after Germany had lost its army and Rausch his rank. He was a born soldier. Needed to be told what to do, and needed to be complimented after completing a job. They had been together since ’43, assigned to Einsatzgruppen B.

  As big and strong as Rausch was, he had been bothered by killing Jews. Rausch would feel sick, couldn’t eat or sleep. Hess had joked about it. “What is your problem? My appetite has never been better. I sleep like a baby.”