wish I could think of some other way. Really, I do. But you are what you are.”
“Max!” This time Dora screamed his name. Then she turned and ran, as if there had been someplace else for her to go.
Reles uttered a profound sigh that almost made me feel sorry for him. I could see he regretted having to kill her. But I’d given him no choice. That much was now obvious. He leveled the gun and fired after her. It sounded like a cannon on a pirate ship. The shot took her down like a cheetah tripping a gazelle, and her head seemed to explode with a pinkish thought made entirely of blood and brains.
He fired again, but this time he wasn’t aiming the gun at Dora Bauer. Facing me, she was lying in a pool of thick, dark red that was already spreading across the deck, twitching slightly, but probably dead. The second shot hit Gerhard Krempel. It took him by surprise and lifted the crown of his head like the top of a hard-boiled egg. The impact was such that it flipped him over the rail of the boat and into the water.
A strong smell of cordite filled the air and mixed neatly with the acrid scent of my own mortal fear.
“Aw, shit,” moaned Reles, staring over the side. “And I was going to weigh them down together. Like something from an opera. One of those fucking German operas that go on forever.” He made the gun safe, and dropped it on its lanyard. “I guess I’ll have to leave him be. Can’t be helped. Dora, on the other hand. Dora?”
He walked fastidiously around the pool of blood and kicked the back of her head softly with the toe of his white shoe, and then kicked it a little harder, as if making quite certain she was dead. Her eyes, still wide with fear, remained motionless, staring at me accusingly, as if she held me entirely responsible for what had happened to her. And she was right, of course. Reles could never have trusted her.
He came over and inspected my ankles and then untied the rope that was attached to the three concrete blocks. Then he tied it tightly around her shapely ankles.
“I don’t know why you’re looking like that, Gunther. I’m not going to kill you. Of course, that makes it your fault she’s dead.”
“What makes you think you can afford to let me live?” I asked, trying to contain my very real fear that, in spite of what I’d said by way of a threat, and what he’d said by way of an answer, he was going to kill me anyway.
“You mean, what’s to stop you from sending that letter to the Gestapo anyway if you manage to come out of this alive?”
I nodded.
He chuckled his sadistic chuckle and pulled hard on the knot securing Dora’s ankles to the concrete blocks. “That’s a very good question, Gunther. And I will answer it, just as soon as I’ve sent this little lady on her last and most important voyage. You can depend on that.”
The concrete blocks were attached to the rope like a series of fisherman’s weights. One after the other he carried them, grunting loudly, to the side of the boat and then opened a gate in the rail. And then, one after the other, he pushed the blocks over the side with the sole of his shoe. The weight of the blocks turned Dora’s body and started to drag her toward the side.
It was probably the sensation of being moved that brought her back to consciousness. First she moaned, then she inhaled loudly, the breasts on her chest lifting up like two tiny lavender-colored circus tents. At the same time she flung out an arm, turned onto her stomach, lifted up what was left of her head, and spoke. To me.
“Gunther. Help me.”
Max Reles laughed at the surprise of it and fumbled for his automatic to shoot Dora again before the three weights could drag her through the gate in the rail; but by the time he had worked the slide on the Colt it was too late. Whatever she had tried to say to me was lost in a scream as she realized what was happening. The next second she was dragged over the side of the boat.
I closed my eyes. I could do nothing to help. There was a loud splash, and then another. The screaming mouth filled with water, and then there was a terrible silence.
“Jesus,” said Reles, staring down at the water. “Did you see that? I could have sworn the bitch was dead. I mean, you saw me give her a kick to make sure. And I’d have shot her again, to spare her that. If there’d been time. Jesus.” He shook his head and let out a nervous breath. “How about that?”
Once more he made the gun safe, and dropped it on the lanyard. From the coat he took out a hip flask and took a large pull on it before offering it to me. “Hair of the dog?”
I shook my head.
“No, I guess not. That’s the thing about alcohol poisoning. Be a while before you can even tolerate the smell of schnapps, let alone drink any.”
“You bastard.”
“Me? It was you that killed her, Gunther. Him, too. Once you’d said what you said, there was no alternative. They had to die. They’d have had me over a barrel with my pants down and fucked me from now until Christmas, and there’s nothing I could have done about it.” He took another swig of liquor. “You, on the other hand. I know exactly what’s to stop you from doing that very same thing. Can you think what it is?”
I sighed. “Honestly? No.”
He chuckled, and I wanted to kill him for it. “Then it’s lucky I’m here to tell you, asshole. Noreen Charalambides. That’s what. She was, is, in love with you.” He frowned and shook his head. “Christ only knows why. I mean, you’re a loser, Gunther. A liberal in a country full of Nazis. If that doesn’t make you a loser, then there’s that hole in your fucking shoe. I mean, how could a dame like that fall for a schmuck with a hole in his fucking shoe?
“Just as important, however,” he continued, “you are in love with her. No point in denying it. You see, we had a talk, she and I, before she left Berlin to go back to the States. And she told me how you two felt about each other. Which, I have to say, was a disappointment to me. On account of the fact that she and I had a thing ourselves on the boat from New York. Did she tell you that?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t matter now. All that does matter is that you care enough about Noreen to stop her from being killed. Because here’s what’s going to happen. As soon as I’m off this boat, I’m going to send a telegram to my kid brother in New York. To be honest, he’s my half brother. But blood is blood, right? Kid Twist, they call him, because it’s fair to say he’s a little bit fucking twisted in the head. Well, there’s that and the fact that he used to like twisting the necks of guys he didn’t like. Until they broke. That was before he developed his real skill. With an ice pick. Anyway, the fact is, he likes killing people. Me, I do it because I have to. Like just now. But he enjoys his work.
“So what I’m going to tell him. In this telegram I’m going to send. Is this, see? That if anything happens to me while I’m in Germany. Like me getting arrested by the Gestapo. Anything. Then he should track down Mrs. Charalambides and kill her. With a name like that, believe me, she won’t be hard to find. He can rape her, too, if he’s got half a mind. Which he has. And if he’s in the mood. And quite often he is.”
He grinned.
“You can think of it as my own denunciation, if you like, except that unlike yours, Gunther, her being Jewish has got nothing to do with anything. Anyway, I’m sure you can grasp the general idea of what I’m talking about. My leaving you alone is guaranteed by the letter you’ve addressed to the Jew Desk at the Gestapo. And your leaving me alone is similarly guaranteed by the telegram I’m going to send to my kid brother just as soon as I’m back in my suite. We hold each other in check. Just like stalemate in a chess game. Or what the political scientists call a balance of power. Your insurance canceled out by mine. What do you say?”
A sudden wave of nausea hit me. I leaned to the side and retched again.
“I’m going to take that as a yes,” said Reles. “Because, let’s face it, what other choice do you have? I like to think I can read a man like a newspaper, Gunther. That was easier during Prohibition. The guys I dealt with were black-and-white, and mostly you knew where you were with them just by looking in their eyes. Then, after the repeal of the Volstead Act, my organization had to diversify. Find some new rackets. Gunther, I virtually started labor and union rackets in the States. But a lot of these guys are harder to read. You know, guys in business. It was hard to find out what they fucking wanted because, unlike the guys running booze, they themselves didn’t know what that was. Most people don’t, and that’s their problem.
“You, on the other hand, my friend. You are a little bit of both. You think you’re a black-and-white kind of guy. You think you know what you fucking want. But really you’re not, and you don’t. When I first met you, I thought you were just another dumb ex-copper looking to make a quick bill. I expect there are times when that’s even the way you think of yourself. But you’re more than that. I expect that’s what Noreen saw. Something else. Something complicated. Whatever it was, she wasn’t the type to fall for a guy who didn’t fall for her in the same way.” He shrugged. “With her and me, it was just because she was bored. With you, I think it was the real thing.”
Reles spoke calmly, even reasonably, and, listening to him speak, I found it was hard to believe that he had just murdered two people. If I’d felt any better, I might have argued with him, but with the stomach I had and the talking I’d already done, I was more or less exhausted. All I wanted to do was sleep and stay asleep for a very long time. And maybe puke a bit more if and when the need hit me. At least then I would know I was alive.
“As I see it,” he said, “there’s just one remaining problem.”
“I imagine it’s not a problem you can fix with that Colt.”
“Not directly, no. I mean, you could do it for me, but I bet you’re the picky type. Well, you are now. I’d like to meet you in ten years’ time to see how picky you are then.”
“If you mean I’m picky about murdering people in cold blood, then you’re right. Although I could make an exception in your case. At least I could until you’ve sent that telegram.”
“Which is why I’m going to leave you on the boat until I’ve had time to go to the Palace Hotel in Potsdam and send the message to Abe. That’s a nice hotel, by the way. I have a suite there, too, for when I’m in Potsdam.” He shook his head. “No, my problem is this. What am I going to do about that Gestapo captain in Wurzburg? What was his name? Weinberger?”
I nodded.
“He knows too much about me.”
I nodded again.
“Tell me, Gunther. Is he married? Does he have any kids? Anyone he loves who I can threaten if he gets out of line?”
I shook my head. “I can honestly say that the only person he really cares about is himself. To that extent at least he’s fairly typical of anyone working for the Gestapo. All Weinberger cares about is his career and getting on, at any price.”
Reles nodded and walked around the deck for a moment. “To that extent at least, you said. In what way is he atypical?”
I shook my head and realized I had a blinding headache. The kind that feels likely to leave you blind. “I’m not sure that I understand what you’re driving at.”
“Is he queer? Does he like little girls? Can he be bribed? What’s his Achilles’ heel? Does he have one?” He shrugged. “Look, I could have him killed, probably, but it makes waves when a cop gets killed. Like that cop who got killed outside the Excelsior, in the summer. The Berlin polenta made all sorts of heat about that, didn’t they?”
“Tell me about it.”
“I don’t want to have him killed. But everyone’s got a weakness. Yours is Noreen Charalambides. Mine is that fucking letter that’s in some cop’s desk drawer, right? So what’s this Captain Weinberger’s weakness?”
“Now you come to mention it, there is something.”
He snapped his fingers at me. “All right. Let’s hear it.”
I said nothing.
“Fuck you, Gunther. This isn’t about your conscience. This is about Noreen. This is about her opening the door one night and finding my kid brother, Abe, on her doorstep. In truth, he’s not as skilled with an ice pick as I am. Few people are, except maybe my old man, and the doctor who taught him. Me, I’m just as happy to use a gun. Gets the job done. But Abe.” Max Reles shook his head and smiled. “One time back in Brooklyn, when we were both working the Shapiro brothers-local underworld figures-the kid murdered this guy in a car wash because he didn’t clean his car right. He left the wheels dirty. So Abe told me, anyway. Broad daylight, and the kid knocks him out and then stabs him in the fucking ear with an ice pick. Not a mark. The coppers thought the guy had a heart attack. As it happens, the Shapiros? They’re dead, too. Me and Abe buried Bill alive in a sandpit last May. That’s one of the reasons I came to Berlin in the first place, Gunther. To wait for the heat on that murder to die down a little.” He paused. “So. Am I making myself clear? You want that I should tell the kid to bury the bitch alive, like Bill Shapiro?”
I shook my head. “All right,” I said. “I’ll tell you.”
