must have appeared.
There was no such voice for Becker, hoarse or otherwise. Yelling at Poliza to stop, he broke into a smooth and powerful running action. I struggled to keep up with him, but after only a few strides he was well ahead of me. Another few seconds and he would have caught the man.
Then I saw the gun in his hand, a long-barrelled Parabellum, and yelled at both men to stop.
Almost immediately Poliza came to a halt. He began to raise his arms as if to cover his ears against the noise of the gunshot, turning as he collapsed, blood and aqueous humour spilling gelatinously from the bullet's exit wound in his eye, or what was left of it.
We stood over Poliza's dead body.
'What is it with you?' I said breathlessly. 'Have you got corns? Are your shoes too tight? Or maybe you didn't think your lungs were up to it? Listen, Becker, I've got ten years on you and I could have caught this man if I'd been wearing a deep-sea-diver's suit.'
Becker sighed and shook his head.
'Christ, I'm sorry, sir,' he said. 'I only meant to wing him.' He glanced awkwardly at his pistol, almost as if he didn't quite believe it could have just killed a man.
'Wing him? What were you aiming at, his earlobe? Listen, Becker, when you try and wing a man, unless you're Buffalo Bill you aim at his legs, not try and give him a fucking haircut.' I looked around, embarrassed, almost expecting a crowd to have gathered, but the alley stayed empty. I nodded down at his pistol. 'What is that cannon, anyway?'
Becker raised the gun. 'Artillery Parabellum, sir.'
'Shit, haven't you ever heard of the Geneva Convention? That's enough gun to drill for oil.'
I told him to go and telephone the canned-meat wagon, and while he was away I took a look around Poliza's studio.
There wasn't much to see. An assortment of open-crotch shots drying on a line in the darkroom. A collection of whips, chains, manacles and an altar complete with candlesticks, of the sort that I had seen in the photographed series of the girl with the cucumber. A couple of piles of magazines like the ones we had found back at Helmut's office. Nothing to indicate that Poliza might have murdered five schoolgirls.
When I went outside again I found that Becker had returned with a uniformed policeman, a sergeant. The pair of them stood looking at Poliza's body like two small boys regarding a dead cat in the gutter, the sergeant even poking at Poliza's side with the toe of his boot.
'Right through the window,' I heard the man say, with what sounded like admiration. 'I never realized there was so much jelly in there.
'It's a mess, isn't it?' said Becker without much enthusiasm.
They looked up as I walked towards them.
'Wagon coming?' Becker nodded. 'Good. You can make your report later.' I spoke to the sergeant. 'Until it arrives, you'll stay here with the body, sergeant?'
He straightened up. 'Yes, sir.'
'You finished admiring your handiwork?'
'Sir,' said Becker.
'Then let's go.'
We walked back to the car.
'Where are we going?'
'I'd like to check on a couple of these massage parlours.'
'Evona Wylezynska's the one to talk to. She owns several places. Takes 25 per cent of everything the girls make. Most likely she'll be at her place on Richard Wagner Strasse.'
'Richard Wagner Strasse?' I said. 'Where the hell is that?'
'It used to be Sesenheimerstrasse, running on to Spreestrasse. You know, where the Opera House is.'
'I suppose that we should count ourselves lucky that it's opera Hitler loves, and not football.'
Becker grinned. Driving there he seemed to recover some of his spirits.
'Do you mind if I ask you a really personal question, sir?'
I shrugged. 'Go right ahead. But if it works out, I might have to put my answer in an envelope and mail it to you instead.'
'Well it's this: have you ever fucked a Jew, sir?'
I looked at him, trying to catch his eye, but he kept both of them determinedly on the road.
'No, I can't say I have. But it certainly wasn't the race laws that prevented it. I guess I just never met one who wanted to fuck me.'
'So you wouldn't object if you got the chance?'
I shrugged. 'I don't suppose I would.' I paused, waiting for him to go on, but he didn't, so I said, 'Why do you ask, as a matter of fact?'
Becker smiled over the steering-wheel.
'There's a little Jewish snapper at this rub-joint we're going to,' he said enthusiastically. 'A real scorcher. She's got a plum that's like the inside of a conger-eel, just one long piece of suction muscle. The kind to suck you in like a minnow and blow you right out of her arse. Best bit of damned plum I've ever had.' He shook his head doubtfully. 'I don't reckon there's anything to beat a nice ripe Jewess. Not even a nigger-woman, or a Chink.'
'I never knew you were so broad-minded, Becker,' I said, 'or so damned cosmopolitan. Christ, I bet you've even read Goethe.'
Becker laughed at that one. He seemed to have quite forgotten Poliza. 'One thing about Evona,' he said. 'She won't talk unless we relax a little, if you know what I mean. Have a drink, take things easy. Act like we're not in a hurry. The minute we start to act like a couple of official stiffs in our trousers she'll haul down the shutters and start polishing the mirrors in the bedrooms.'
'Well, there's a lot of people like that these days. Like I always say, people won't put their fingers near the stove if they figure you're stewing a broth.'
Evona Wylezynska was a Pole with an Eton crop smelling lightly of Macassar oil, and a dangerous crevasse of cleavage. Although it was only the mid-afternoon she wore a peignoir of peach-coloured voile over a matching heavy satin slip, and high-heeled slippers. She greeted Becker like he was there with a rent rebate.
'Darling Emil,' she cooed. 'Such a long time since we seen you here. Where have you been hiding?'
'I'm off Vice now,' he explained, kissing her on the cheek.
'What a shame. And you were so good at it.' She gave me a litmus-paper sort of look, as if I was something that might stain the expensive carpet. 'And who is this you've brought us?'
'It's all right, Evona. He's a friend.'
'Does your friend have a name? And does he not know to take his hat off when he comes into a lady's house?'
I let that one go, and took it off. 'Bernhard Gunther, Frau Wylezynska,' I said, and shook her hand.
'Pleased to meet you, darling, I'm sure.' Her thickly accented, languorous voice seemed to start somewhere near the bottom of her corset, the faint outline of which I could just about make out underneath her slip. By the time it got to her pouting mouth it had more tease than a fairy's kitten. The mouth was giving me quite a few problems too. It was the kind of mouth that can eat a five-course dinner at Kempinski's without spoiling its lipstick, only on this occasion I seemed to be the preoccupation of its taste-buds.
She ushered us into a comfortable sitting-room that wouldn't have embarrassed a Potsdam lawyer, and stalked towards the enormous drinks tray.
'What will you have, gentlemen? I have absolutely everything.'
Becker guffawed loudly. 'There's no doubt about that,' he said.
I smiled thinly. Becker was starting to irritate me badly. I asked for a scotch whisky, and as Evona handed me my glass her cold fingers touched mine.
She took a mouthful of her own drink as if it were unpleasant medicine to be hurried down, and tugged me on to a big leather sofa. Becker chuckled and sat down on an armchair beside us.
'And how is my old friend Arthur Nebe?' she asked. Noting my surprise, she added: 'Oh yes, Arthur and I have known each other for many years. Ever since 1920 in fact, when he first joined Kripo.'
'He's much the same,' I said.
