Текст книги "Rosa"

Автор книги: Jonathan Rabb

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“Quick to judge, aren’t you?”

Jogiches’s smile was unlike any Hoffner had ever seen: the mouth conveyed the requisite joy, but the eyes remained cold. It was as if even his face was keeping secrets from itself. “No judge, Herr Inspector, just the accuser. I’ll leave the judging to someone else.”

Hoffner flicked a bit of ash onto the floor. “I enjoyed your article.”

Jogiches poured out a second glass for himself. “Not nearly the entire story, but then someone had to prod your case into life again.”

“And what is my case?”

“Rosa.” He spoke the name as if it were part of some incantation, hushed and filled with meaning. Then, too casually, he added, “You’ve heard, of course, that tomorrow’s Lokalanzeigerwill say she’s in Russia, plotting with Herr Lenin to overthrow the Ebert government.” Jogiches was too busy reordering the ashtray, table lamp, and salt shaker to allow a response. “‘Where’s the body, Berlin?’ they’ll ask. ‘Rosa dead? Nonsense. Watch yourselves. For she’ll sweep in and rip your hearts out when she brings her revolution back again.’” No less intent on his task, he added, “But then, we both know she’s dead, lying on a slab on the fourth floor of the Alexanderplatz. Still, it’ll make for a good bit of press.”

Hoffner had his glass to his lips when Jogiches let go with this little tidbit; Hoffner wondered how many other items Jogiches might be holding in reserve. He tossed back the brandy and set his glass on the table. “No reason for me to play coy, is there?” said Hoffner.

“No.”

“You have someone inside the Alex.”

“Yes.” Jogiches seemed satisfied with his redecorations: order had been achieved. He sat back.

Hoffner said, “So who’s been working for you?”

For the first time, Hoffner was aware that Jogiches was studying him. He wondered which crime Jogiches might be imagining for his own future. Hoffner was about to ask when Jogiches’s eyes suddenly seemed to lose themselves, as if they were looking directly through him.

“You know,” Jogiches said vacantly, “she was much cleverer than all of us.” It was as if he were admitting to some long-held secret. His gaze remained distant.

Hoffner had spent enough time with Rosa now to come to her defense. “Shame you never told her,” he said.

“Yes,” said Jogiches. His gaze refocused and he looked directly into Hoffner’s eyes. “I suppose it was.”

Guilt, thought Hoffner, had an uncanny way of exposing itself. Jogiches, however, had spent too many years denying his own faults to allow any instinct for atonement to take hold for more than a few seconds.

Jogiches said, “You’ve never read any of her work, have you? Her real work, I mean.” Hoffner shook his head. “I didn’t think so. No, no, I don’t mean it that way. I’m sure you could have understood it. She was quite superb in that way. Theories only the geniuses could master, and she made them simple. Marx’s Capital-a morass, completely impenetrable, and then Rosa writes her Accumulationand suddenly Marxist economics has a place in the twentieth century. She even improved on the old man, with a little help, of course.”

“Of course,” said Hoffner.

Jogiches liked the challenge. “You think she could have done it without me?”

Hoffner had neither the inclination nor the ammunition to take on Jogiches. “That story about the gun,” he said. “Did she really pull it on you?”

Jogiches seemed surprised by the question. His answer came with a bit more bite. “She wrote about that?”

“In great detail,” said Hoffner. “I would have thought that you’d have been the first to read through the journals, cover to cover.”

“Evidently you have.”

“But not you?”

Jogiches tapped out his cigarette. “And slog through an endless tirade of revisionist history, Inspector? I’ll take a pass.”

Hoffner heard the self-rationalization in his tone. “So she never pulled the gun?”

“Of course she pulled it. Why not? She couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t permit her to continue seeing that idiot Zetkin.”

Hoffner could feel Jogiches rising to the bait. “You wouldn’t permit her?” he said.

“Something like that.” Jogiches took a last pull, then crushed out his cigarette; he continued to play with the stub. “She thought she could make him into a novelist or a painter, or something equally ludicrous. You’ve read through it. I forget which. Waste of time.” He let go of the stub and brushed off his hands. “She couldn’t accept the man for what he was, and when she tried to make me into something that was her fantasy-” Jogiches caught himself. It was only a momentary hitch, but it was enough to sour his tone. “Zetkin. When she insisted Zetkincould be all of her marvelous romantic ideals-it was pathetic. A woman her age. I told her so. She became very dramatic. Rosa loved the drama. And so out came the little revolver.” He shrugged it off with too much indifference. “She said she never wanted to see me again, which made it even more ridiculous.”

Even now, Jogiches had no idea what the drama had been masking. Hoffner poured himself a second glass and said, “The journals said you promised to kill her if she stayed with Zetkin.”

Jogiches tried an unsuccessful laugh. “That again. The woman was obsessed.”

“She seemed to think it was the other way round.”

“Did she?” Jogiches was now fully engaged. “I’ll tell you something about obsession, Inspector. A nine-year sentence in Mokotw-and we both know what goes on inside those walls-and she thinks I’mhaving an affair with some woman halfway across the country? I don’t see daylight for five months, and I’m the one carrying on. Guilt is a remarkable thing, don’t you think? She should have shot me when she had the chance. Would have served her right.”

Crushing out his cigarette, Hoffner said blandly, “So who’s in Munich?”

For just an instant, Jogiches winced. It was hardly a movement, the recovery as immediate, but it was enough to tell Hoffner that he had hit a nerve. In that moment, Jogiches knew that he had been outmaneuvered. His eyes grew cold. Hoffner said nothing.

“I see,” said Jogiches icily. “You let me ramble on like a fool, and I give you Munich. Well done, Inspector.”

Hoffner had known to hook Jogiches by his pride-Rosa had told him as much in the journals-but he had never expected this level of self-reproach. “I’m not sure I’d have used the word ‘fool,’ mein Herr,” said Hoffner, “but I think we’re at the point where you can volunteer a little something.”

Jogiches answered cagily, “Am I so easily manipulated?”

“I don’t imagine anything of the kind.”

Jogiches was still cold: “And you think I’m eventually going to trust you, don’t you, Inspector?”

Hoffner pulled a second cigarette from his pack. “I wouldn’t want to set a precedent, mein Herr.”

“No,” said Jogiches, eyeing him more closely. “That would be dangerous, wouldn’t it?”

Aclarinet had joined the band. There was hardly space between the tables, yet someone had decided that that meant dancing. Luckily, all the bouncing was keeping itself to the other side of the room.

Jogiches said, “It’s when the smoke clears that the trouble begins, Inspector.” He was on his fourth glass of brandy, though as sober as when he had first sat down. “Berlin wants to dictate to the rest of Germany, but the rest of Germany isn’t all that keen to listen. Communists in Bremen, Social Democrats in Hamburg, royalists in Stuttgart, God knows what else in Berlin, and on and on and on. The revolution isn’t over. It’s simply waiting to see who has the will to see it through.”

“And Munich?” said Hoffner.

Jogiches spoke with absolute certainty. “Munich will make all the difference, even if Berlin doesn’t know that, just yet.”

“But you do.”

Jogiches had a habit of staring at the ember of his cigarette as he held it by his glass. “Did you ever ask yourself whythey’re keeping Rosa’s body on a slab of ice in Alexanderplatz?”

“Every day.”

“Yes, but you’ve been asking for the wrong reasons.” He looked across at Hoffner. “You think it’s something to do with your little Belgian.”

“No, I think it extends far beyond that, but I have nothing to tell me why. Isn’t that the reason we’re having this little chat?”

Jogiches conceded the point. He took a pull on the cigarette. “There’s the obvious answer.”

“Which is?”

“She makes your murder case political.”

Hoffner disagreed. “That’s not enough. She’ll be forgotten the moment these idiots they’re rounding up get a slap on the wrist. You don’t actually think anyone’s going to pay for her death?”

Hoffner was expecting a bit of fire in the answer, but Jogiches was no longer biting. “That would be something, wouldn’t it?” said Jogiches, his eyes drifting for a moment. “Justice for a socialist.” He again stared across at Hoffner. “They’re keeping her so as to use her. This is about taking the reins, Inspector, and the when and the how are what matter. The why is far too obvious.”

It made Hoffner uneasy to see how much pleasure Jogiches took in the prospect of something so far-reaching. Men like him saw conspiracies and revolutions at every turn, but the more Hoffner sifted through the pieces he himself had brought together, the less implausible those possibilities seemed. “Munich,” he said, still unsure why.

Jogiches smiled elusively. “Precisely.”

There was nothing remotely satisfying in the answer. Whatever Jogiches thought he had been making clear was as impenetrable as that insufferable smile. “You know I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Hoffner.

“I imagine you have more than you realize, Inspector.”

Impatience was seeping into Hoffner’s tone: “Then tell me what makes Munich so important.”

For the first time, Jogiches hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said with frustration. “In the same way I don’t know why a Prussian business interest, or a discontinued military ointment, or a substitute madman who was willing to kill himself so as to protect your little Belgian, are involved. But I do know they all revolve around Rosa. The when and the how, Inspector. That’s what you need to find out.”

Hoffner was impressed; Jogiches had mentioned virtually everything except, of course, the design of the Rosenthaler station, but then how could he have known about that? Hoffner was the only one to have put it together. It made the link to Munich even more startling: Stankevich’s letter had come from the engineer; the engineer was the only link to the station. Now Jogiches was mentioning Munich without any knowledge of the engineer.

Hoffner measured out two more glasses. “You seem to be doing fine on your own.”

“That has its limitations,” said Jogiches. “A revolutionary crying foul doesn’t exactly provoke a response, especially when the powers that be already consider him dead.”

“Your article.”

“The final nail, as they say. And dead men don’t have much luck catching trains out of Berlin.”

Jogiches was right. There was nowhere he could turn: the Social Democrats would do nothing to protect him; the right-wing troops would stop at nothing to eliminate him; and the police. . well, not really their jurisdiction. His only option had been the truth, and that was something Jogiches had never managed terribly well on his own. “Your source is very thorough,” said Hoffner.

“He has to be. There’s a great deal at stake now.”

And there it was, thought Hoffner. The catchphrase. There was always “a great deal at stake” for men like Jogiches: grand causes tended to subordinate every motivation to a singular truth. Only action mattered, which, as Hoffner now thought about it, made Jogiches’s approach not all that different from his own. The one distinction was in how each of them saw the confluence of events. For Jogiches, the details came together like pieces in a boundless jigsaw whose cover had gone missing, so that the final picture, though dimly imagined, remained forever a mystery: completion was always just another few days off, which made the eternal search all the more compelling. For Hoffner, the pieces produced a finite picture, smaller, of course, and without a sense of the greater totality, but no less coherent: the final product might have been only a tiny segment of the larger puzzle, but it brought resolution, and that, in the end, was all that mattered. There was either truth and causes and sacrifice, or there was practicality and cases and death. Hoffner had never questioned which took precedence.

He said, “So I have an ally inside the Alex?”

From his expression, Jogiches had never thought of it that way. Truth to tell-until this moment-neither had Hoffner. “I suppose you do,” said Jogiches.

Hoffner waited as a lifetime of mistrust stared back at him. Luckily, the dead are quick to realize that they have nothing to lose.

“Groener,” Jogiches finally said. “Detective Sergeant Ludwig Groener.”

Jogiches enjoyed the moment immensely. “Oh, don’t look so surprised, Inspector. Why do you think he never won promotion? Bit of an embarrassment to his uncle the General, I suspect, but then maybe that’s the reason he became one of us in the first place. I never asked. Groener’s far more than you ever imagined.”

In fact, Hoffner had never even conceived of it, not that he had heard much beyond the name. It had come at him like a wave of gibberish, a word in a child’s game with syllables and cadence but no meaning. Groener?The name was, at this moment, completely incomprehensible.

It was the perfect lead-in to the garbled singing that suddenly erupted from one of the tables by the front door. A drunk had taken to his feet and was already at full throttle:

“When lovely eyes begin to wink, when full glasses gleam and clink, there comes once more the call to drink, to drink, to drink, to drink!”

Everyone at the table laughed. It was loud enough to draw half the caf’s attention, Hoffner with them. When he turned back, Jogiches was on his feet. “We’ll do this again, Inspector,” he said as he reached for his hat. “There’s another door through the kitchen. They won’t have anyone there.”

“You still haven’t told me how you know about Munich.”

Jogiches placed his hat on his head. “And you, Herr Inspector, have to leave me some secrets.” Jogiches grabbed his umbrella and, without another word, headed for the back of the cafe.

It was only then that Hoffner remembered where he had seen Jogiches before. Rcker’s bar, the day they had found Mary Koop, the professor with the umbrella. It was a startling image. Hoffner wondered: Had Jogiches been watching him even then?

The front doors opened and a Polpo detective appeared; the man was too obvious to be anything else. Hoffner watched as the singing drunk suddenly maneuvered himself out into the aisle and clumsily blocked the detective’s path. Jogiches had picked his lookout well: the man showed a tremendous dedication to his task.

Taking advantage of the commotion, Hoffner stood and quietly made his way back toward the kitchen.

Martha was asleep by the time he stumbled in. As always, she had left a light on for him.

Hoffner was still mulling over his first encounter with Jogiches as he tossed his clothes in a pile and turned out the light: had Munich been a consideration back in January? Had Jogiches stayed in the shadows and allowed three more women to be killed rather than expose what he knew? Had Groener done worse? Hoffner quietly slipped into bed. His head was still thick from the brandy as he lay back, closed his eyes, and tried to piece it all together.

“Late night.” Martha’s voice filled the darkness.

It had been a long time since she had waited up for him. “You’re awake, then,” he said. He listened for movement; when none came, he added, “Not that late. Go back to sleep.”

There was the hope that she would give in, but they both knew better. She spoke quietly and without any hint of judgment. “Nothing you want to tell me, is there, Nicki?” She kept her back to him.

It always came here, he thought, with no distractions, nothing to run to for a moment of relief: a newspaper lying about, a package recently delivered, a boy passing by the door. Only darkness and conversation and the unbearable weight of the two.

“Tell you what?”

“That’s up to you, isn’t it?”

She had always had the good sense to wait until things had sputtered out before posing the question. It was safe by then, each of them aware of what he had done and how he had chosen not to let it drag on. There was a kind of victory in that for them both. Now, however, it was four years on since his last slip, and her timing had gone off.

“The Wouters case,” he said. “Loose ends.” He did his best to wrap it in the truth, which, of course, only made it more cruel: anything other than his confession signaled her miscalculation.

“Oh,” she said vaguely. She was trying not to sound betrayed.

“Yes. I might have to take a few days in Munich.”

“Munich?” she repeated with false blandness.

The stupidity of what he had just said struck him at once. A few days in Munich? Could anything have been more obvious? The truth had snuck in and was now lashing away. He said, “Two days, at the most. I’m not even sure how the trains are running.” He would have given anything for an outburst of anger or despair or loathing, but Martha always let her strength work its magic.

She said, “Sascha’s friend is coming up at the weekend.” Hoffner had no idea what she was talking about. “Kroll’s niece. The girl from Frankfurt. It’s all planned. So I’m sure the trains are running fine.”

Hoffner wondered if, perhaps, they had moved past the worst of it. Unpleasantness loomed somewhere, but he chose to ignore it. “Geli,” he said: the name came to him like an unexpected gift. Sascha had met the girl on his last summer holiday: she was bright and pretty and thirteen and equally taken with the boy. Hoffner recalled something being said around the table last week. It was all very hazy.

“He’s in such a nice mood about it,” said Martha. She rolled toward him. “And you’ve been very good, Nicki. A boy needs that sort of thing.”

The air was clearing. They were well beyond it now. “He’s a good boy,” said Hoffner. Not that he knew his son well enough to say it, but he knew Martha needed to hear it.

“I saw the Mrike,” she said. It took Hoffner a moment to follow. “I found it in your jacket. You haven’t read him in years.”

Again, he needed a moment. “No. I-just came across it.”

“You were always so fond of him.”

“Yes.”

She continued to stare up at him. “You don’t love her, do you?”

And there it was, the banality of the question so much more painful than its answer. It might have been comical had Martha known the book’s source, but then again, he had chosen to keep it. Perhaps the question wasn’t as absurd as he thought. “No,” he said with quiet certainty. “I don’t.” Hoffner waited, wondering if she might drag them back into it; instead, she rolled away and onto her side.

She said, “I saw the gloves. They’re lovely. Thank you, Nicki.”

He had left them for her this morning with a little note on her pillow. “With warm affection,” or some such thing. It would have been too much on poor Herr Taubmann to return them now.

“ Does everyone have a partner!”

Tamako-he might have been Japanese, but it was anybody’s guess-called out from high above on his catwalk to the throng of dancers below. As always, he was immaculately togged in silk tuxedo and vest, and stood shouting into his now-infamous white megaphone, which he had named “Trubo.” Tonight, Tamako was keeping his dyed ginger-blond hair greased back to show his inordinately high forehead, which, for some reason, was powdered in white.

“You!” he said, leaning over the railing and pointing an accusatory finger at no one in particular. “Higher knees! Herr Trrrrrubo wants higher knees!”

A woman at the edge of the floor began to lift her legs with greater abandon. Her dress flew up and she laughed as the men around her helped to hike it up farther each time she kicked.

“I see knickers!” shouted Tamako. “Black and gold knickers! Oh, those lovely knickers! Three cheers for the lady in blue!”

The dance floor erupted, and the orchestra took it as its cue to raise the decibel level. Everything grew more feverish, while Fichte, seated at the bar with a vodka and orange, watched in delight.

He enjoyed the view from the bar. More than that, he enjoyed how he could be viewed from the bar. Hardly a quarter-hour passed without a handshake or a drink for the young detective. The girls had grown less attractive over the weeks-after all, who could keep a Haller Girl interested for more than a few days? – but some of the middling ones were still coming by. Tonight a buxom counter girl from one of the stores along the Kurfrstendamm was on his arm: she had a flat of her own; she had made that very clear early on in the evening. She was drinking champagne, but Fichte was figuring it would be worth the extras.

She pulled away from him and showed a bit of thigh as she flapped her skirt. “I want to dance, Hans. Let’s dance.”

Fichte imagined the treats in store for him. He placed his drink on the bar and followed her out as a photographer flashed a shot. It was a slow night. Who knew? Fichte might even make it back into the morning papers.

The girl was all thrusts and kicks, and she liked it when Fichte kept his hand clamped around her buttocks. He bent closer in and placed his cheek on hers, and little beads of sweat started where their skin touched. She smelled of talc and matted hair as Fichte reached up and stole a squeeze of her breast. She slapped at him playfully, and the cloth clung momentarily to his palm as he pulled it away.

Back at the bar he bought her another champagne. He was handing it over when a familiar voice from behind broke through the crowd.

“Something of a madhouse tonight, isn’t it?” said the voice.

Fichte turned to see Polpo OberkommissarGustav Braun reaching out for two glasses of his own. Fichte took a moment to process the image. Smiling, and with his hair mussed at the front, Braun looked almost human.

Fichte’s girl was growing impatient. “Hans-my drink?”

Fichte recovered and handed her the champagne. Braun, however, remained no less perplexing. With a false camaraderie, Fichte said, “Herr Oberkommissar.What a surprise.”

Braun was handing one of the drinks to a lady friend of his own. “We’re not at the Alex now. It’s Gustav, please. Allow me to present Frulein Tilde Raubal. Frulein Raubal, Herr Fichte. This is the young detective I’ve been telling you so much about.” The woman extended her hand.

Fichte took it and brought it to his lips. “A pleasure,” he said. “This is-” He had forgotten the girl’s name. There were several moments of uncomfortable silence before the girl said with an unflattering tartness, “Frulein Dimp. Vicki Dimp.” She extended her hand, though not with quite the same grace as her counterpart.

Suffering through the girl’s sweaty little hand, Braun said, “You must come and join us. Wouldn’t want to drag you away from the cameras, but we do have a table away from the noise, unless you prefer the bar.”

Fichte answered instantly. “Wonderful.” He motioned for Braun to lead the way. Frulein Dimp, though less than enthusiastic, followed Frulein Raubal into the crowd.

The air was slightly less steamy away from the bar, which made squeezing into the half-moon booth more pleasant than it might have been. Even so, the women were forced to sit shoulder to shoulder, while Fichte kept most of his heft teetering on the edge of the banquette: he placed a hand on the side of the table for balance. He smiled awkwardly at Frau Raubal, who seemed expertly bored.

“He might be a she,” said Braun, gazing up at the catwalk and a strutting Tamako. “There are rumors.” Fichte peered up with him. “Then again,” said Braun, “he might just be a diseased homosexual.”

Fichte found Braun’s chumminess thrilling. If only for a few moments, he was being invited into the inner circle. Fichte had guessed at Tamako’s darker secrets. Now here was a man who could more than merely speculate. Fichte said eagerly, “If only Herr Trubo could speak.”

Braun was momentarily confused by the response-seeing that Herr Trubo was, in fact, a megaphone whose sole purpose wasto speak-but he nodded anyway and raised his glass. “To the times ahead,” he said.

The four toasted, and Fichte turned to his girl. “Herr Braun”-he corrected himself-“Gustav is very high up with the Polpo. They handle the more complex cases at the Alex.”

Frulein Dimp needed no coaching “I know what the Polpo does, Hans. I read the papers, too.”

Braun said genially, “We don’t spend a lot of time in the papers, Frulein.” He was becoming more human by the minute. “We leave that to heroes like Hans, here.”

Fichte would have blushed, but his face was too busy sweating.

“What we do,” continued Braun, “is always less interesting to the public.”

Fichte perked up. “Not true at all. You manage what’s most interesting to them without their even knowing it. The Polpo keeps a different kind of peace.”

Braun said, “You’ve been talking with Walther Hermannsohn, from the sound of it. Good man, Hermannsohn. Knows his business.”

Fichte had in fact spent more than a little time chatting with the young Kommissarover the last few weeks: a few chance meetings at a lunch spot around the corner from the Alex. Hermannsohn was, as Braun said, quite a good fellow. Fichte said, “Yes, not what one expects, really.”

Braun gave him no time to backtrack: “And what did you expect?”

Fichte was suddenly on the spot. “Well, you know,” he said, trying to buy some time. “What people imagine goes on inside the Polpo.”

“ Uninformed people,” said Braun.

“Yes. Exactly,” said Fichte, trying not to show his relief. “The common misconceptions.”

Braun raised his glass and with a knowing look-one that only confused Fichte-downed his whiskey in one swallow. He then reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Why don’t you two girls have a spin at the roulette wheel? Give Herr Fichte-”

“Hans,” corrected Fichte enthusiastically.

“-Hans and me a chance to talk.” Braun pulled a five-mark bill from his wallet.

Frulein Raubal looked relieved, as if she had been waiting for the suggestion all along; Frulein Dimp simply marveled at the amount of money.

Braun was on his feet. The women slid over, and Frau Raubal placed a nice kiss on Braun’s cheek as she took the bill.

“You talk as long as you want,” said Frulein Dimp as she reached across the table for her drink. She made sure to give Fichte a nice view of her cleavage. “We’ll be just fine, Hans, darling. Don’t you worry about us.”

And like that, the girls were gone. Braun settled back into his seat and managed to wave down a passing waiter. He ordered two whiskeys. He said, “Nice-looking girl, Hans. Very enthusiastic.”

Fichte tried his best to keep up. “I certainly hope so.” He laughed a bit too loudly, but Braun let it pass.

“I imagine you’ve been on quite a tear since the Wouters case broke.”

“I can’t complain.”

Braun offered him a cigarette. “You enjoy that kind of work, do you? Murders and the like.” The two men lit up.

“I don’t know if I’d say ‘enjoy,’ but it is interesting.”

“Of course. Interesting in a limited sort of way.” He saw Fichte’s confusion. “I only mean that the cases have fixed parameters.” This didn’t seem to help. Braun spoke more slowly. “You catch the killer and the case is closed. That sort of thing. They don’t really lead anywhere else.”

“Oh, I see what you mean. Well. . yes and no. There are some cases that lead elsewhere.”

“And you like those?”

Fichte tried to find the right words. “Well, I haven’t had the chance yet to work on one that’s led beyond the. . you know, beyond the case. But I’ve certainly read about the ones that have.”

Braun nodded amiably. “Of course.” He took a drag. “Pretty much all we do in the Polpo. Nothing ever seems to find an end up on the fourth floor. Always leading from one thing to the next to the next.” He picked at a piece of stray tobacco on his tongue. He examined it as he said, “From what I’ve seen, you look like you might have a talent for that sort of thing.” He flicked the tobacco away and looked across at Fichte warmly. “We were all very impressed with your work on the Wouters case.”

Fichte tried an awkward pull on his cigarette and began to nod his head quickly. “No. Of course. That’s the sort of thing I do best.”

“Have you ever considered the Polpo?”

The suggestion caught Fichte completely by surprise. “Considered the Polpo?”

Braun was still unnervingly relaxed. “It’s just something I wonder about when I see work of that caliber, that’s all. A bit of healthy competition, you understand. Wanting the best that the Kripo has to offer.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t listen to me, Hans. I’m just a jealous detective who’d like to filch from the boys on the third floor. You’ll be getting quite a bit of that in your career, I imagine.” The waiter arrived. Braun said, “Shall I order two more while we have him here?”

Fichte fumbled with a nod.

Braun waited until they were alone before continuing: “I’ve made you uncomfortable. Forgive me. You’re a Kripo man, through and through.” He raised his glass. “To fine work on whichever floor it happens to be coming from.” The two men drank.

Fichte sat with his glass in hand. He was feeling a bit light-headed, although he was doing his best to keep himself under control. Not that he had ever thought of the Polpo. They were safe in deep water, shoals closer in, or something like that: he could never remember the exact words Hoffner had used. But that seemed so far from the truth, given tonight, more so given his recent encounters with Hermannsohn. Still, Fichte knew to be wary. “I need a bit more under my belt before I start thinking about any of that.” He took a sip.

Braun nodded. “That’s your KommissarHoffner speaking now.” Braun corrected himself. “Your Oberkommissar.Pardon me. How can we forget the great promotion ceremony at the Royal Palace? Quite a show they put on.”

The word “show” pricked at Fichte. It reminded him who was sitting across the table. “Yes,” he said. “The Kripo spares no expense.”

Braun seemed surprised by the answer. He smiled. “I’ve offended you again. My apologies.” He took a slow pull on his cigarette. “I’d like to say it’s the whiskey, but we both know it’s that jealousy rearing its ugly head. Ignore it, Hans. I do.”