Goldstein, page 22
On that momentous day, when he let Skinny Sally go free, Goldstein’s passage was already booked. The letter from Berlin a few days before had made the decision easy. He spent the four days prior to his departure in a cheap hotel with his suitcases packed, venturing outside only to buy papers and cigarettes. The day before leaving he read that there had been a gunfight in the Congo Club on Amsterdam Avenue, a bloodbath, in which five people had lost their lives. The Congo was one of Moses Berkowicz’s Speakeasies. Fat Moe ought to have been dead, but had broken his routine and left the club at ten. After that he had gone to ground. The incident finally brought home to Abe how important it was that he skip town. A wounded Moses Berkowicz was more dangerous than ever.
A day later, Goldstein stood on the upper deck of the Europa. Leaning against the rail he saw two young men in light-grey summer coats on the pier below. He had never seen them before, but was in no doubt they were sharing board and lodging with Fat Moe in some lice-ridden apartment out in the Bronx. The fat man’s last reserves: two amateurs picked off the street, who looked as though they had never worn suits before in their lives. When one of them spotted him and pointed up, he gave them a friendly wave, knowing he was safe. The steamer had already cast off, and the foghorn issued its deafening farewell to Manhattan. Nevertheless, one of the two – perhaps thinking no one would be able to hear over the noise – drew his weapon and took aim. His partner stopped him pulling the trigger. A cop had seen them, and Moe’s kindergarten killers made themselves scarce.
After searching in vain for Moses Berkowicz’s obituary notice, Goldstein leafed through the sports section. The Dodgers had lost again.
‘Anything else, Sir?’ the waiter said in English. His tone was polite and worldly, in anticipation of a hefty dollar tip.
‘Schwarzwälder Kirsch, please.’
The waiter gave a nod of acknowledgement hearing Goldstein’s impeccable pronunciation. He had probably never taken an order like that from an American tourist before.
Goldstein leaned back, lit a Camel and surveyed a girl in a light summer dress. She seemed to notice; at any rate, she gave him an enchanting smile. He smiled back and crumpled the empty cigarette packet. He only had one pack of twenty left in his suite, and still hadn’t located an alternative source. Despite an otherwise excellent selection, the hotel tobacconist’s didn’t have any Camel, nor, surprisingly, did the big train station opposite. Maybe he should write to the American embassy. Or try here in this neighbourhood. The rich west was where most American tourists seemed to spend their time.
Someone had left a Berlin paper on the neighbouring table. Goldstein’s gaze fixed on a familiar portrait. He reached over and grabbed it. B.Z. am Mittag the title page said, and on the first page of the regional section stood the headline: SA man murdered. Below it was the photo. The man wore a neat parting, but aside from that bore a fatal resemblance to Knuckleduster Gerd from Humboldthain. The image line also carried his name: Victim of a political brawl? Gerhard Kubicki (27).
‘One Schwarzwälder Kirsch. Would the gentleman like anything else?’
The waiter placed a plate containing a large slice of cake on the table and discreetly removed the crumpled cigarette packet. Goldstein continued reading the paper.
BERLIN. The bloody corpse of a 27-year-old man was discovered by police yesterday morning in Volkspark Humboldthain, near the Himmelfahrtkirche. The victim suffered cut and stab wounds. The man, who later succumbed to his injuries, has been identified as SA-Rottenführer Gerhard Kubicki, resident at Berlin Gesundbrunnen, currently unemployed. Police suspect that Kubicki was the victim of a politically motivated brawl, and have requested the assistance of B.Z. readers. Did you notice anything suspicious in Volkspark Humboldthain on Tuesday night? Witnesses are asked to contact their nearest police precinct, or get in touch directly with CID at police headquarters, Alexanderplatz. Telephone: Berolina 0023.
Goldstein pushed the cake plate aside. His appetite was gone. The police were making a real fuss over this. Damn it! He stubbed out the Camel and pushed five dollars under the saucer. Instinctively he smelled trouble. He had to do something.
49
Dull as it might be playing Abraham Goldstein’s minder, Rath was satisfied with his working day as he got into the Buick at Anhalter Bahnhof. Soon they’d have the Yank worn down. How must it feel to spend the whole day trapped in your hotel room? Lunch was the only meal Goldstein had left his suite for. Breakfast had been taken to his room, likewise dinner the night before. As Czerwinski had painstakingly noted: a platter of cold roast beef and a bottle of chilled champagne. The man had to console himself somehow.
The garage had done a good job; the Buick felt good as new. Marlow would expect a favour in return, but Rath would supply. His investigation for Dr M. was a hundred times more interesting than being on shift at the Excelsior. Or searching for Charly’s guttersnipe, a task that was as ridiculous as it was futile.
Those endless hours in the hotel had given him too much time to think about his quarrel with Charly. Again and again, he saw the image of her green hat as it disappeared between the S-Bahn scaffolding poles. A few times he had been on the verge of calling her; the telephone he had brought up to the desk kept urging him on. Once he even dialled the operator, only to hang up before he could give Charly’s number.
He was furious at her pig-headedness, but couldn’t stop thinking about her. At the same time he would have liked nothing more than to take her in his arms, and not just because they usually landed in bed when they made up after quarrelling. But yesterday was different, he could feel it.
He should have proposed like he planned, but the timing in the last few months had never been right. He wanted it to be special, which was why he had organised the trip to Cologne, even got hold of football tickets. Everything had been planned down to the final detail, including booking a table in the Bastei for the day after the game. After that he’d have performed his filial duty by officially introducing Charly as his fiancée, making it clear once and for all that he was determined to marry a Protestant. Then he’d have disappeared back to Berlin and finally been rid of his parents and their advice.
The Bastei was one of the classiest restaurants in the city, a generously proportioned, modern build with spectacular views of the cathedral and the Rhine. The waiter had been in on it: rings in the champagne. But then they had run into his mother. How could he forget that she shopped at Leonhard Tietz every Monday?
They had gone out to eat that night as planned. The table was booked, but the timing wasn’t right. He managed to catch the waiter at the last moment, and had the rings taken out of the glasses. They were now hidden in his living room cabinet, waiting to be deployed again.
He cursed his indecision. He should have asked her long ago, or left it once and for all.
Should he really propose to a woman whose career was evidently more important to her than marriage and children? Rath no longer knew what was right and what was wrong. Sometimes he wished he belonged to his parents’ generation; things were easier for them. Or, at least, so he thought.
He had been engaged before, but Doris had dropped him after he hit the headlines following the shoot-out in Cologne’s Agnesviertel. At best, their marriage would have resembled that of his parents, and that was something he could do without.
He wanted Charly and no one else. So, why hadn’t he told her that long ago?
‘Damn it!’ he shouted, and Kirie, who had been dozing peacefully on the passenger seat, woke with a start and stared at him.
He wanted her, damn it! Why shouldn’t he just tell her, right now? Then she could decide one way or another. There was no other way, no more waiting, no more half measures. He needed to know! He would accept her answer, whichever way it came out. He couldn’t bear the uncertainty anymore. It was now or never.
He felt a sudden surge of optimism, like a suicide candidate who, at long last, had summoned the courage to enter the lift at the Funkturm in preparation for one final jump.
Essaying a U-turn under the steel bars of the elevated train, he drove the Buick back up Stresemannstrasse, past the Excelsior, heading further and further north until finally he reached Moabit.
Arriving at Spenerstrasse, he sat in the car for a moment. Should he get out or not? Give in to impulse or come to his senses? He tapped a cigarette out of the case, and Kirie looked on in surprise. Why was no one getting out of the car?
She hadn’t expected his advice to be so clear, but his clarity did her good; the whole conversation did her good. She should have called him ages ago; the only reason she hadn’t was Gereon’s stupid jealousy. Guido’s presence was like a red rag to a bull. Well, so what? Whose problem was that? Not hers anyway.
Now Guido, with whom she had studied – and suffered – together for most of her university years, was back in her kitchen, and it was just like old times, like when he advised her to resit the state examination. She couldn’t have wished for a better guide when it came to her dilemma. Court Assessor Guido Scherer was a man who knew a thing or two about making a career in law.
‘You have to take up Heymann’s offer,’ he said. ‘Do you know what an honour that is?’
‘Of course I do, but what good is it?’
‘You’d have a name in the academic world.’
‘I don’t want a name in the academic world. I want more justice in this one.’
Guido smiled. He smiled often. That was another thing Gereon hated about him, but he had never been able to stand her old classmate anyway. She had explained to him countless times that he had no cause for jealousy, but he never seemed to believe her.
‘He’s still pursuing you, you realise that?’
‘Don’t exaggerate. He knows he won’t get anywhere with me, and he’s fine with that.’
‘But the way he looks at you, like . . . like . . . And that stupid grin!’
‘Oh, cut it out with your jealousy, and stop trying to dictate who I see!’
Gereon had eased back on his criticism, but somehow she met Guido less often.
Suddenly Charly was furious again. Gereon had succeeded in putting her off one of her best friends. It was only now, more than a year since she last saw him, as they spoke about the law and everything else under the sun, that she realised how much she had missed these conversations. Conversations that weren’t possible with Gereon Rath were exactly what she needed now, after her trouble at Lichtenberg. It did her good to speak with someone who knew about these things; who valued her ability when it came to questions of the law. Despite everything, with Gereon, she still wasn’t sure.
‘Another drop?’
Guido nodded and Charly poured a little more of the red wine she had intended to share with Gereon. So that they could discuss the same subject: Heymann’s offer.
She stood up. ‘If you’ll excuse me. I have to go to the little girls’ room.’
Charly disappeared and, just as her guest raised the glass to his mouth, the doorbell rang.
Rath unwrapped the flowers nervously. His brio on the journey, his determination, his certainty that he was doing the right thing, all shrivelled as he stood in front of the door. On the street he had needed to take a little walk to calm himself down, and had bought a bunch of roses before returning to her flat. Kirie, who was used to going straight into the drawing room from the car, looked at her master patiently, knowing that humans are fickle.
She wagged her tail; she must be able to smell Charly already. Even so, there was nothing doing in her flat. Rath rang a second time. He was starting to think he had made the trip for nothing, that she must be back in Friedrichshain, at the Müggelsee or somewhere else looking for the escaped girl, when he heard steps. His heart pounded, they were going to make up, he knew it, but whether she would accept his proposal . . . he wasn’t at all sure. He’d need more than simple charm. Damn it, he thought, you have to see this through. Do it right, or not at all!
The door opened and Rath’s boyishly cheeky smile froze.
‘Herr Rath!’ said Guido, grinning.
It couldn’t be! He had been through this exact situation once before, managing, on that occasion, to vent his fury elsewhere. This time he stood rooted to the spot. Rage consumed him. The knowledge that he had nothing to counter it with seemed, finally, to release him. He drew back and, just as Guido was saying something like ‘Won’t you come in?’, slashed the roses to the left and right across his face, long-stemmed flowers, with big, sharp thorns.
Kirie barked, because she barked at anyone her master fought, and it was this barking that returned Rath to his senses, and prevented him from wiping the stupid grin off the man’s face with a straight left. For the grinning man was, of course, still grinning, even though his face was streaked with blood. Flinging the shredded roses at the man’s feet, Rath took Kirie by the lead and returned to the car.
50
The landlord placed two beers on the table, with two schnapps glasses alongside. Rath and Gräf clinked glasses, downed the schnapps and cleansed their palates with beer.
‘So?’ Rath asked. ‘How’s it going?’
‘I arrested a suspect yesterday evening, but Böhm’s the one conducting the interview.’
‘What are you going to do? He’s leading the investigation. Just be glad if your name turns up somewhere in the file.’
‘Well, I suppose it’s better than hanging around the Excelsior. Goldstein still hasn’t left town?’
Rath shook his head. ‘Looks like you’re going to lose your bet.’
‘It isn’t the weekend yet. Where’s your dog by the way?’
‘In bed.’ Rath fumbled an Overstolz out of his case and lit it. ‘What case are you investigating? The dead fence?’
Gräf shook his head. ‘Böhm passed that one to Lange. It’s connected with the KaDeWe break-in somehow. No,’ he said. ‘I get to deal with gay Nazis.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Gerhard Kubicki. The dead SA man from Humboldthain. He was a fairy.’
Rath couldn’t help but laugh. ‘So that’s why Goebbels hasn’t made him into a second Wessel.’
‘You wouldn’t believe how many homosexuals there are in the SA. Especially in the new SA. The gay clique heading them are like a red rag to Stennes’ old guard.’
The SA war had kept Berlin on tenterhooks for months. Oberführer Walther Stennes, the highest-ranking SA chief in Berlin, Brandenburg, East Prussia and Pommern, had rebelled against Hitler and Gauleiter Goebbels, on one occasion occupying Berlin party headquarters in Hedemannstrasse. With Hitler’s backing, Goebbels had managed to apply the brakes: Stennes was relieved of office, over five hundred of his supporters were expelled from the SA, and a clean sweep was made of Berlin members. Rival SA factions had clashed with increasing frequency ever since.
‘Do you have any leads?’ Rath asked.
‘We picked up a Communist with Kubicki’s blood on his clothes.’
‘There you are then. Business as usual. Red on Brown.’
Gräf looked sceptical. ‘The man admitted to hiding the corpse, but denies killing the SA man. He says he was propped against the church wall, dead as a doornail. He just hid the corpse to avoid getting into trouble.’
‘When does he say he found the body?’
‘In the early hours. He meets his girl in front of the Himmelfahrtkirche every day before work. Before her work, that is. He’s unemployed.’
‘Handy. Is she providing his alibi?’
‘No, that’s just it. She didn’t see him at all on the morning in question. He says he noticed the blood on his jacket and went straight home.’
‘Strange story.’
‘Which is why I’m inclined to believe it.’
‘Who killed the dead Nazi then?’
‘I don’t know.’
Gräf lifted his empty beer glass, which caught Schorsch’s attention. The Nasse Dreieck landlord brought a fresh beer, exchanging it for Gräf’s empty glass and glancing disapprovingly at Rath’s, which was still half full.
‘It could be,’ Gräf said, ‘that the victim’s homosexuality is relevant somehow.’
‘A gay Nazi the victim of a homophobic murderer? Doesn’t sound right to me. Always leaves a funny taste when these Nazis or Commies style themselves as victims.’
‘The man isn’t styling himself. He is a victim. He was killed after all.’
‘You’re right. It’s just that since Goebbels made a hero out of that pimp Wessel . . .’
‘Wessel was no pimp. That’s Communist propaganda!’
‘Well, he was no martyr either. I know the case pretty well.’
Rath decided to back down. He had no desire to quarrel with his friend over politics. They usually avoided such topics, just as they avoided talking about Charlotte Ritter. ‘You’re saying this Kubicki died because he was a homosexual.’
‘It’s a possibility. I found something interesting in the files. About a week ago Stennes’ men threatened one of the leaders of the new Berlin SA. Karl Ernst, the local Gau’s aide-de-camp, was sitting with a few fellow officers in a bar in Halensee when a group of Stennes’ supporters tried to lay into them. Before it could go too far a riot squad took them in.’
‘So?’
‘One of Stennes’ men said some pretty nasty things to Ernst and his pal Paul Röhrbein. It’s the first time I’ve ever read the phrase arse-fuckers in a police statement. There was talk of gay boys and faggy bastards too.’
‘Sounds pretty homophobic.’
‘Right. Ernst and Röhrbein are both homosexual.’
Rath nodded pensively.
‘But the most interesting thing about the file was something else,’ Gräf said. ‘Among the brownshirts in the bar was a certain Gerhard Kubicki.’
