She had a point. I felt it keenly, as if the point was one that had been made by Vlad the Impaler.
'I spoke to you one night a few weeks ago. I gave you my name and my telephone number and asked you to ask Frau Warzok to call me. And since she did I presume that you and she are at least on speaking terms. And here's another thing. It's an offense to obstruct a policeman in the execution of his duty,' I said. I hadn't actually said I was a cop. That was an offense, too.
'Just a minute, please.' She put the phone down somewhere. It sounded like someone hitting the bass key on a xylophone. I heard muffled voices, and there was a longish pause before the receiver was gathered up again and someone else came on the line. The well-spoken voice was a man's. I half-recognized it. But from where?
'Who is this, please?' asked the voice.
'My name is Bernhard Gunther,' I said. 'I'm a detective. Frau Warzok is my client. She gave me this number to get in touch with her.'
'Frau Warzok does not live here,' said the man. He was cool but polite. 'She never did live here. For a while we collected messages for her. When she was in Munich. But I believe she has gone home now.'
'Oh? And where's that?'
'Vienna,' he said.
'Do you have a telephone number where I can reach her?'
'No, but I have an address,' he said. 'Would you like me to give it to you?'
'Yes. Please.'
There was another longish pause while, I presumed, whoever it was looked up the address. 'Horlgasse forty- two,' he said, finally. 'Apartment three, Ninth District.'
'Thanks, Herr . . . ? Look, whoever are you? The butler? The maid's sparring partner? What? How do I know that address isn't a phony? Just to get rid of me.'
'I've told you all that I can,' he said. 'Really.'
'Listen, chum, there's money involved. A lot of money. Frau Warzok hired me to track down a legacy. And there's a substantial recovery fee. I can't collect if I don't get a message to her. I'll give you ten percent of what I'm on if you help me out here with some information. Like--'
'Good-bye,' said the voice. 'And please don't call again.'
The phone went dead. So I called again. What else could I do? But this time there was no reply. And the next time the operator told me that the number was out of order. Which left me sitting in the ink and without a change of trousers.
I was still pondering the possibility that Britta Warzok had kicked some sand in my eyes and was now a perfect stranger to me when another stranger came out of the bathroom. He was sitting in Gruen's wheelchair, which was being pushed, as usual, by Engelbertina but, already confounded by my telephone conversation with Wallace Beery and friend, it was a few seconds before I realized the stranger was Eric Gruen.
'What do you think?' he said, stroking his now smoothly shaven face.
'You've shaved off your beard,' I said, like an idiot.
'Engelbertina did it,' he said. 'What do you think?'
'You look much better without it,' she said.
'I know what you think,' he said. 'I was asking Bernie.'
I shrugged. 'You look much better without it,' I said.
'Younger,' she added. 'Younger and better-looking.'
'You're just saying that,' he said.
'No, it's true,' she said. 'Isn't it, Bernie?'
I nodded, studying the face more carefully now. There was something familiar in its features. The broken nose, the pugnacious chin, the tight mouth, and the smooth forehead. 'Younger? Yes, I believe so. But there's something else I can't quite put my finger on.' I shook my head. 'I don't know. Maybe you were right, Eric. When you said that you thought we'd met before. Now that you've got rid of the face guard, there's something about you that does strike me as familiar.'
'Really?' He sounded vague now. As if he wasn't quite sure himself.
Engelbertina uttered a loud tut of exasperation. 'Can't you see it?' she said. 'You pair of idiots. Isn't it obvious? You look like brothers. Yes, that's it. Brothers.'
Gruen and I looked at each other and straightaway we knew that she was right. We did look quite alike. But she still fetched a hand mirror and obliged us to bow our heads together and view our reflection. 'That's who each of you is reminded of when you look at the other,' she announced, almost triumphantly. 'Yourself, of course.'
'I always did want an older brother,' said Gruen.
'What's with the older?' I asked.
'Well, it's true,' he insisted, and started to fill his pipe. 'You look like an older version of me. A little more gray and worn-looking. Harder-bitten, certainly. Perhaps even a little coarser, on the edges. And I think you look less intelligent than me. Or maybe just a little puzzled. Like you can't remember where it was you left your hat.'
'You forgot to mention taller,' I said. 'By about two and half feet.'
He looked at me squarely, grinned, and lit his pipe. 'No, on second thought, I do mean less intelligent. Perhaps even a little stupid. The stupid detective.'
I thought of Britta Warzok and how it didn't make any sense her retaining me if she had any idea that Father Gotovina was part of the Comradeship. Unless she did know all along and I was just too stupid to see through what she had been up to. Which of course I didn't. The stupid detective. It had a nice ring to it. Like it might just have been true.
TWENTY-FIVE
The next day Heinrich Henkell turned up for the weekend and declared he was going straight on to his laboratory. Gruen wasn't feeling very well and had stayed in bed, so Henkell offered to take me with him.
'Besides,' he added, by way of an extra reason for me to accompany him. 'You've not really seen anything of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, have you, Bernie?'
'No, not yet.'
'Well then, you must come along and have a look. It would do you good to get out of here for a while.'
We drove slowly down the mountain, which was just as well, since, around a bend, we encountered a small herd of cattle crossing the road that ran parallel to the railway track. A little farther on, Henkell explained just how significant the railway track was in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
'The railway line provides the clearest division between the two old towns,' he said. 'Garmisch, on our left and to the east of the track, is a little more modern. Not least because that's where the Olympic ski stadium is. Partenkirchen, to the west of the track, feels a lot older. It's also where most of the Amis are based.'
As we drove onto Bahnhofstrasse and along Zugspitzstrasse, he pointed out the facades of houses that were decorated with what were called 'air paintings,' some of them resembling the facades on some of Munich's elaborate rococo churches. Garmisch-Partenkirchen could not have seemed more Catholic if the pope had owned a ski chalet there. But the town also looked prosperous, and it was easy to see why. There were Americans everywhere, as if the war had only just ended. Most of the vehicles on the roads were Jeeps and U.S. Army trucks and, on every second building, was hanging the Stars and Stripes. It was hard to believe we were in Germany at all.
'My God, look at it,' I exclaimed. 'Next thing, they'll be painting frescoes of Mickey Mouse on the buildings they've requisitioned.'
'Oh, it's not that bad,' said Henkell. 'And you know, they mean well.'
'So did the Holy Inquisition,' I said. 'Pull up at that tobacconist's. I need to get some Luckies.'
'Didn't I warn you about smoking?' he said, but he pulled up anyway.
'With all this fresh air around?' I said. 'Where's the harm?'
I stepped out of the car and went into the tobacconist's. I bought some cigarettes and then walked several times around the shop, enjoying the sensation of behaving like a normal person again. The shopkeeper eyed me suspiciously.
'Was there something else?' he asked, pointing at me with the stem of his meerschaum.
'No, I was just looking,' I said.
