Lotte's stretch of green baize and sitting down directly opposite her.
She surveyed the pile of chips that I neatly arranged in front of me and made an equally neat purse of her lips. 'I didn't figure you for a quirk,' she said, meaning a gambler. 'I thought you had more sense.'
'Maybe your fingers will be lucky for me,' I said brightly.
'I wouldn't bet on it.'
'Yes, well, I'll certainly bear that in mind.' I'm not much of a card-player. I couldn't even have named the game I was playing. So it was with some considerable surprise that, at the end of twenty minutes' play, I realized that I had almost doubled my original stock of chips. It seemed a perverse logic that trying to lose money at cards should be every bit as difficult as trying to win it.
Lotte dealt from the shoe and once again I won. Glancing up from the table I noticed Traudl seated opposite me, nursing a small pile of chips. I hadn't seen her come into the club, but by now the place was so busy that I would have missed Rita Hayworth.
'I guess it's my lucky night,' I remarked to no one in particular as Lotte raked my winnings towards me. Traudl merely smiled politely as if I had been a stranger to her, and prepared to make her next modest bet.
I ordered another drink and, concentrating hard, tried to make a go of being a real loser, taking a card when I should have stayed, betting when I should have folded and generally trying to sidestep luck at every available opportunity. Now and again I tried to play sensibly in order to make what I was doing appear less obvious. But after another forty minutes I had succeeded in losing all of what I had won, as well as half my original capital. When Traudl left the table, having seen me lose enough of her boyfriend's money to be satisfied that it had been used for the purpose I had stated, I finished my drink and sighed exasperatedly.
'It looks as if it's not my lucky night after all,' I said grimly.
'Luck's got nothing to do with the way you play,' Lotte murmured. 'I just hope you were more skilful in dealing with that Russian captain.'
'Oh, don't worry about him, he's taken care of. You won't have any more problems there.'
'I'm glad to hear it.'
I gambled my last chip, lost it and then stood up from the table saying that maybe I was going to be grateful for K/nig's offer of a job after all. Smiling ruefully, I walked back to the bar where I ordered a drink and for a while watched a topless girl dancing in a parody of a Latin American step on the floor to the tinny, jerking sound of the Oriental's jazz band.
I didn't see Lotte leave the table to make a telephone call but after a while K/nig came down the stairs into the club. He was accompanied by a small terrier, which stayed close to his heels, and a taller, more distinguished- looking man who was wearing a Schiller jacket and a club-tie. This second man disappeared through a bead curtain at the back of the club while K/nig made a pantomime of catching my eye.
He walked over to the bar, nodding to Lotte and producing a fresh cigar from the top pocket of his green tweed suit as he came.
'Herr Gunther,' he said, smiling, 'how nice to meet you again.'
'Hello, K/nig,' I said. 'How are your teeth?'
'My teeth?' His smile vanished as if I had asked him how his chancre was.
'Don't you remember?' I explained. 'You were telling me about your plates.'
His face relaxed. 'So I was. They're much better, thank you.' Tipping in a smile again, he added, 'I hear you've had some bad luck at the tables.'
'Not according to FrSulein Hartmann. She told me that luck has nothing at all to do with the way I play cards.'
K/nig finished lighting his four-schilling corona and chuckled. 'Then you must allow me to buy you a drink.' He waved the barman over, ordered a scotch for himself and whatever I was drinking. 'Did you lose much?'
'More than I could afford,' I said unhappily. 'About 4,000 schillings.' I drained my glass and pushed it across the bartop for a refill. 'Stupid, really.
I shouldn't play at all. I have no real aptitude for cards. So I'm cleaned out now.' I toasted K/nig silently and swallowed some more vodka. 'Thank God I had the good sense to pay my hotel bill well in advance. Apart from that, there's very little to feel happy about.'
'Then you must allow me to show you something,' he said, and puffed at his cigar vigorously. He blew a large smoke ring into the air above his terrier's head and said, 'Time for a smoke, Lingo,' whereupon, and much to its owner's amusement, the brute leaped up and down, sniffing excitedly at the tobacco-enriched air like the most craven nicotine addict. 'That's a neat trick,' I smiled.
'Oh, it's no trick,' said K/nig. 'Lingo loves a good cigar almost as much as I do.' He bent down and patted the dog's head. 'Don't you, boy?' The dog barked by way of reply.
'Well, whatever you call it, it's money, not laughs I need right now. At least until I can get back to Berlin. You know it's fortunate you happened to come along. I was sitting here wondering how I might manage to broach the subject of that job with you again.'
'My dear fellow, all in good time. There's someone I want you to meet first. He is the Baron von Bolschwing and he runs a branch of the Austrian League for the United Nations here in Vienna. It's a publishing house called +sterreichischer Verlag. He's an old comrade too, and I know he would be interested to meet a man like yourself.'
I knew K/nig was referring to the SS. 'He wouldn't be associated with this research company of yours, would he?'
'Associated? Yes, associated,' he allowed. 'Accurate information is essential to a man like the Baron.'
I smiled and shook my head wryly. 'What a town this is for saying going-away party when what you really mean is a requiem mass. Your research sounds rather like my imports and exports, Herr K/nig: a fancy ribbon round a rather plain cake.'
'I can't believe that a man who served with the Abwehr could be much of a stranger to these necessary euphemisms, Herr Gunther. However, if you wish me to do so, I will, as the saying goes, uncover my batteries for you. But let us first move away from the bar.' He led me to a quiet table and we sat down.
'The organization of which I am a member is fundamentally an association of German officers, the primary aim and purpose of which is the collection of research excuse me, intelligence as to the threat that the Red Army poses to a free Europe. Although military ranks are seldom used, nevertheless we exist under military discipline and we remain officers and gentlemen. The fight against Communism is a desperate one, and there are times when we must do things we may find unpleasant. But for many old comrades struggling to adjust to civilian life, the satisfaction of continuing to serve in the creation of a new free Germany outweighs such considerations. And there are of course generous rewards.'
It sounded as if K/nig had said these words or their equivalent on a number of other occasions. I was beginning to think that there were more old comrades whose struggle to adjust to civilian life was remedied by the simple expedient of continuing under a form of military discipline than I could guess at. He spoke a lot more, most of which went in one ear and out of the other, and after a while he drained the remainder of his drink and said that if I were interested in his proposition then I should meet the Baron. When I told him that I was very much interested, he nodded satisfiedly and steered me towards the bead curtain.
We came along a corridor and then went up two flights of stairs.
'These are the premises of the hat shop next door,' explained K/nig. 'The owner is a member of our Org, and allows us to use them for recruiting.'
He stopped outside a door and knocked gently. Hearing a shout, he ushered me into a room which was lit only by a lamppost outside. But it was enough to make out the face of the man seated at a desk by the window. Tall, thin, clean-shaven, dark-haired and balding, I judged him to be about forty.
'Sit down, Herr Gunther,' he said and pointed at a chair on the other side of the desk.
I removed the stack of hat-boxes that lay on it while K/nig went over to the window behind the Baron and sat on the deep sill.
'Herr K/nig believes you might make a suitable representative for our company,' said the Baron.
'You mean an agent, don't you?' I said and lit a cigarette.
'If you like,' I saw him smile. 'But before that can happen it's up to me to learn something of your personality and circumstances. To question you in order that we might determine how best to use you.'
'Like a Fragebogen! Yes, I understand.'
