'And you haven't seen or heard from Kurt since?'
'He's too smart to contact me. If he's got any sense, he'll have done a U-Boat by now.'
'Does he have any friends?'
'A few. But I don't know who. His wife left him, so you can forget her. She spent every pfennig he had earned, and when she'd finished she took off with another man. He'd die before he'd ask that bitch for help.'
'Perhaps he's dead already,' I suggested.
'Not Kurt,' said Bock, his face set against the thought. 'He's a clever one.
Resourceful. He'll find a way out of it.'
'Maybe,' I said, and then: 'One thing I can't figure is you going straight, especially when you end up working here. How much do you make a week?'
Bock shrugged. 'About forty marks.' He caught the quiet surprise in my face. It was even less than I had supposed. 'Not much, is it?'
'So what's the deal? Why aren't you breaking heads for Red Dieter?'
'Who says I ever did?'
'You went inside for beating up steel pickets, didn't you?'
'That was a mistake. I needed the money.'
'Who was paying it?'
'Red.'
'And what was in it for him?'
'Money, same as me. Just more of it. His sort never gets caught. I worked that one out in the cement. The worst of it is that now that I've decided to go straight it seems like the rest of the country has decided to go bent. I go to prison and when I come out I find that the stupid bastards have elected a bunch of gangsters. How do you like that?'
'Well, don't blame me, friend, I voted for the Social Democrats. Did you ever find out who was paying Red to break the steel strikes? Hear any names maybe?'
He shrugged. 'The bosses, I suppose. Doesn't take a detective to work that one out. But I never heard any names.'
'But it was definitely organized.'
'Oh yes, it was organized all right. What's more it worked. They went back, didn't they?'
'And you went to prison.'
'I got caught. Never have been very lucky. You turning up here is proof of that.'
I took out my wallet and thumbed a fifty at him. He opened his mouth to thank me.
'Skip it.' I got to my feet and made for the hut door. Turning round, I said, 'Was your Kurt the type of puzzler to leave a nut he'd cracked open?'
Bock folded the fifty and shook his head. 'Nobody was ever tidier round a job than Kurt Mutschmann.'
I nodded. 'That's what I thought.'
'You're going to have quite an eye in the morning,' said Inge. She took hold of my chin and turned my head to get a better look at the bruise on my cheekbone.
'You'd better let me put something on that.' She went into the bathroom. We had stopped off at my apartment on our way back from Brandenburg. I heard her run the tap for a while, and when she returned she pressed a cold flannel to my face. As she stood there I felt her breath caress my ear, and I inhaled deeply of the haze of perfume in which she moved.
'This might help to stop the swelling,' she said.
'Thanks. A jaw-whistler looks bad for business. On the other hand, maybe they'll just think that I'm the determined type you know, the kind who never lets up on a case.'
'Hold still,' she said impatiently. Her belly brushed against me, and I realized with some surprise that I had an erection. She blinked quickly and I supposed that she had noticed it too; but she did not step back. Instead, almost involuntarily, she brushed against me once more, only with a greater pressure than before. I lifted my hand and cradled her ample breast on my open palm.
After a minute or so of that I took her nipple in between my finger and thumb.
It wasn't difficult to find. It was as hard as the lid on a teapot, and just as big. Then she turned away.
'Perhaps we should stop now,' she said.
'If you're intending to stop the swelling, you're too late,' I told her. Her eyes passed lightly over me as I said it. Colouring a little, she folded her arms across her breasts and flexed her long neck against her backbone.
Enjoying the very deliberateness of my own actions, I stepped close to her and looked slowly down from her face, across her breasts and her belly, over her thighs to the hem of the green cotton dress. Reaching down I caught hold of it.
Our fingers brushed as she took the hem from me and held it at her waist where I had placed it. Then I knelt before her, my eyes lingering on her underthings for long seconds before I reached up and slipped her knickers round her ankles. She steadied herself with one hand on my shoulder and stepped out of them, her long smooth thighs trembling slightly as she moved. I looked up at the sight I had coveted, and then beyond, to a face that smiled and then vanished as the dress rose up over her head, revealing her breasts, her neck and then her head again, which shook its cascade of shiny black hair like a bird fluttering the feathers on its wings. She dropped the dress to the floor and stood before me, naked but for her garter-belt, her stockings and her shoes. I sat back on my haunches and with an excitement that ached to be liberated I watched her slowly turn herself in front of me, showing me the profile of her pubic hair and her erect nipples, the long chute of her back and the two perfectly matched halves of her bottom, and then once more the swell of her belly, the dark pennant that seemed to prick the air with its own excitement, and the smooth, quivering shanks.
I picked her up and took her into the bedroom where we spent the rest of the afternoon, caressing, exploring and blissfully enjoying a feast of each other's flesh.
The afternoon drifted lazily into evening, with light sleep and tender words; and when we rose from my bed having satisfied our lust, we found our appetites the more ravenous.
I took her to dinner at the Peltzer Grill, and then dancing at the Germania Roof, in nearby Hardenbergstrasse. The Roof was crowded with Berlin's smartest set, many of them in uniform. Inge looked around at the blue glass walls, the ceiling illuminated with small blue stars and supported with columns of burnished copper, and the ornamental pools with their water-lilies, and smiled excitedly. 'Isn't this simply wonderful?'
'I didn't think that this was your sort of place,' I said lamely. But she didn't hear me. She was taking me by the hand and pulling me on to the less crowded of the two circular dance-floors.
It was a good band, and I held her tight and breathed through her hair. I was congratulating myself on bringing her here instead of one of the clubs with which I was better acquainted, such as Johnny's or the Golden Horseshoe. Then I remembered that Neumann had said that the Germania Roof was one of Red Dieter's chosen haunts. So when Inge went to the ladies' room I called the waiter over to our table and handed him a five.
'This gets me a couple of answers to a couple of simple questions, right?' He shrugged, and pocketed the cash. 'Is Dieter Helfferrich in the joint tonight?'
'Red Dieter?'
'What other colours are there?' He didn't get that, so I left it. He looked thoughtful for a moment, as if wondering whether or not the ringleader of German Strength would mind his being identified in this way. He made the right decision.
'Yes, he's here tonight.' Anticipating my next question, he nodded over his shoulder in the direction of the bar. 'He's sitting in the booth furthest from the band.' He started to collect some empties from the table and, lowering his voice, added, 'It doesn't do to ask too many questions about Red Dieter. And that's for free.'
'Just one more question,' I said. 'What's his usual neck-oil?' The waiter, who had the lemon-sucking look of a warm boy, looked at me pityingly, as if such a question hardly needed to be asked.
'Red drinks nothing but champagne.'
'The lower the life the fancier the taste, eh? Send a bottle over to his table, with my compliments.' I handed him my card and a note. 'And keep the change if there is any.' He gave Inge the once-over as she came back from the ladies' room. I didn't blame him, and he wasn't the only one; there was a man sitting at the bar who also seemed to find her worthy of attention.
We danced again and I watched the waiter deliver the bottle of champagne to Red Dieter's table. I couldn't
