or the secretary; it had been quite a while since anyone as attractive as that little fraulein had caressed me with her eyelashes. I put it down to the new suit I had bought at Oberpollinger. It fit me like a glove. Kaufmann's suit was better. It fit him like a suit.
I guessed that he was about sixty. But I didn't have to guess very hard to know that he was a Jew. For one thing, there was something written in Hebrew on a little plaque by the door. I felt pleased about that. Things in Germany were getting back to normal. It made a very pleasant change from a yellow Star of David daubed on his window. I had no idea what had happened to him under the Nazis, and it wasn't the kind of thing you asked. But in the few years since they'd been gone it was plain he'd done very well for himself. It wasn't just his suit that was better than mine, it was everything else as well. His shoes looked handmade, his fingernails were beautifully manicured, and his tie pin looked like a birthday gift from the Queen of Sheba. Even his teeth were better than mine. He was holding my card in his chubby fingers. And he came straight to the point without any of the time- wasting courtesies that can plague Munich business life. I didn't mind that one bit. I'm not big on courtesies. Not since my time in a Russian POW camp. Besides, I was in a hurry to be in business myself.
'I want you to interview an American soldier,' said Kaufmann. 'A private in the U.S. Third Army. His name is John Ivanov. He's a guard in War Crimes Prison Number One. You know where that is?'
'Landsberg, I imagine,' I said
'That's right. That's exactly where it is. Landsberg. Check him out, Herr Gunther. Find out what kind of character he is. Reliable or not reliable. Honest or dishonest. An opportunist or sincere. I take it you respect the confidentiality of your clients?'
'Of course,' I said. 'I couldn't be more close-lipped if I were Rudolf Hess.'
'Then in confidence I tell you that PFC Ivanov has made a number of allegations regarding the treatment of Red Jackets. Also that the executions of so-called war criminals in June of last year were deliberately botched by the hangman so that it would take longer for the men to die. I'll give you an address where you can make contact with Ivanov.' He unscrewed a gold fountain pen and started to write on a piece of paper. 'By the way, a propos of your remark about Hess. I don't have a sense of humor, Herr Gunther. It was beaten out of me by the Nazis. Quite literally, I can assure you.'
'Frankly, my own sense of humor isn't up to much, either,' I said. 'Mine was beaten out of me by the Russians. That way you'll know I'm not joking when I tell you my fees are ten marks a day, plus expenses. Two days in advance.'
He didn't bat an eyelid. The Nazis had probably done quite a bit of that to him. They were good at batting eyelids. But it was enough to persuade me that I might have priced myself too low. Back in Berlin I had always preferred it when people complained a little about my fees. That way I avoided the clients who wanted me to go on fishing trips. He tore the page off his pad and handed it to me.
'It says on your card that you speak some English, Herr Gunther. You do speak some English?'
'Yes,' I said, in English.
'The witness speaks basic German, I believe, so some English might help you to get to know him better. To gain his confidence, perhaps. Americans are not great linguists. They have an island mentality, like the English. The English speak good German when they speak it at all. But the Americans regard learning all foreign languages as essentially a waste of time. Akin to playing football when they themselves play a strange variety of catch.'
'Ivanov sounds like a Russian name,' I said. 'Maybe he speaks Russian. I speak excellent Russian. I learned it in the camp.'
'You were one of the lucky ones,' he said. 'I mean, you came home.' He looked at me for a long moment, as if sizing me up. 'Yes, you've been lucky.'
'Definitely,' I said. 'My health is good although I took a piece of shrapnel in the leg. And I had a bump on the head a couple of years ago. It gives me an itchy scalp sometimes. Usually when something doesn't make sense. Like now, for example.'
'Oh? What doesn't make sense?'
'Why a Jew cares what happens to a few lousy war criminals?'
'That's a fair question,' he said. 'Yes, I'm a Jew. But that doesn't mean I'm interested in taking revenge, Herr Gunther.' He got out of his chair and went over to the window, summoning me to his side with a peremptory nod of the head.
On my way over I took in the photograph of Kaufmann in the uniform of a German soldier in the first war, and a framed doctorate from the University of Halle. Standing beside him I saw that his light gray pinstripe suit was even better than I had imagined. It rustled silkily as he removed his light tortoiseshell-framed glasses and polished them vigorously on a white handkerchief that was as immaculate as his shirt collar. I was more interested in him than in the bird's-eye view of Karlsplatz his office window afforded him. I felt like Esau standing next to his smoother brother, Jacob.
'That's the Justice Palace and the New Law Courts,' he said. 'In a year or two--maybe less, God willing, because the noise drives me mad--they'll be just like they were before. You'll be able to walk in there and see a trial and not know that the building was ever destroyed by Allied bombs. That might be okay for a building. But the law is something different. It grows out of people, Herr Gunther. Placing mercy ahead of justice, with an amnesty for all war criminals, will foster a new beginning for Germany.'
'Does that include war criminals like Otto Ohlendorf?'
'It includes all prisoners,' he said. 'I'm just one of a number of people, Jews included, who believe that the political purge imposed upon us by the occupation authorities has been unjust in virtually every respect, and has failed monstrously. The pursuit of so-called fugitives needs to be ended as quickly as possible, and the remaining prisoners released so that we can all draw a line through the sad events of an unfortunate era. I and a group of like-minded lawyers and church leaders intend to petition the American high commissioner regarding these prisoners at Landsberg. Gathering any evidence of prisoner ill-treatment is a necessary prelude to our doing so. And my being Jewish has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Do I make myself clear?'
I liked the way he cared enough to give me a little lecture on the new Federal Republic. It had been a while since anyone had taken that kind of trouble with my education. Besides, it was a little early in our professional relationship to get smart with him. He was a lawyer, and sometimes, when you get smart with a lawyer, they call it contempt and throw you in jail.
So I went to Landsberg and met PFC Ivanov and came back to meet Kaufmann again, and as it happened, that was time and opportunity enough to work in every smart remark I could think of. He had to sit there and take it, too. Because it was what we private detectives call a report, and coming from me a report can sound a lot like contempt if you're not used to my manner. Especially when none of it was what he really wanted to hear. Not if he was ever going to save the likes of Otto Ohlendorf from hanging. Because Ivanov was a liar and a cheat and, worst of all, a doper--a worthless gorilla who was looking to settle a cheap score with the U.S. Army and get paid for it in the bargain.
'For one thing I'm not convinced he's ever worked in Landsberg,' I said. 'He didn't know that Hitler had been imprisoned there in 1924. Or that the castle had been built as recently as 1910. He didn't know that the seven men hanged at Landsberg in June 1948 were Nazi doctors. Also, he said the hangman was a guy named Joe Malta. In fact, Malta left the army in 1947. They have a new hangman at Landsberg and his identity is kept a secret. Also, he said the gallows is located indoors. In fact it's outside, near the rooftop. These are the kind of things you'd know if you really did work there. My guess is that he's only ever worked at the displacement camp.'
'I see,' said Kaufmann. 'You've been very thorough, Herr Gunther.'
'I've met more dishonest men than him,' I told Kaufmann, concluding my report with just a lick of relish. 'But only in prison. The only way Ivanov would make a convincing witness was if you made sure there was a hundred dollars inside the Bible when he took the oath.'
Kaufmann was silent for a moment. Then he opened his desk drawer and took out a cash box from which he paid me the balance of what he owed, in cash. Finally, he said, 'You look pleased with yourself.'
'I'm always pleased when I've done a good job,' I said.
'You're being disingenuous,' he said. 'Come now. We both know it's more than that.'
'Maybe I am a little pleased with myself at that,' I admitted.
'Don't you believe in a fresh start for Germany?'
'For Germany, yes. Not for people like Otto Ohlendorf. Being a bastard wasn't a necessary condition of joining the SS, although it certainly helped. I should know. For a while, I was in the SS myself. Maybe that's part of the
