Hoffner stared up as they passed under the gate. A few stars had managed to break through the cloud cover, but for the most part it was just swirls of black hovering above the iron rings.
Two or three guards strolled along the plaza beyond; all were careful not to notice Radek and his companion.
Hoffner said, “Do you smell that?”
“What?”
“Bad beer and piss.”
“I do,” said Radek.
“And that’s not a problem?”
“Not much they can do about it when the wind shifts.”
Hoffner was surprised at the ease of the answer. “So this happens all the time?”
“Three times a day.”
Hoffner was waiting for an answer.
“Strength Through Joy Village,” Radek finally said. “The thing’s about half a kilometer from here. It’s even got its own train station.”
“You’re joking.”
“Would I joke about that?”
They made their way between the central columns and into the stadium’s main entryway. Their footfalls began to echo.
Radek said, “It comes equipped with Strength Through Joy Beer Halls, Strength Through Joy Children’s Tents, Strength Through Joy Crappers. There might even be some Strength Through Joy Tits thrown in, but I think those girls are reserved for the pure Aryan clientele. That’s something you don’t get on the cruises.”
The Strength Through Joy recreation camps and holiday cruises had been set up by the Reich as a thank-you to the working class of Germany. The simple folk were, after all, the very spirit of the Reich. And such spirit-pungent as it was-deserved a little knockwurst and dancing on the cheap.
“Your boots are good?” said Radek. “It’s going to be wet.”
They mounted a stairway, arrived on the second level, and then moved down a short tunnel. Somewhere toward the middle of the tunnel, the stadium grounds began to come into view.
If Hoffner had hoped to find something clever or demeaning to say, he couldn’t. The place was overwrought, militaristic to a fault, self-consciously classical, larger than any other space he had ever seen, and breathtaking.
The curve of the stands pressed up and outward like the perfect ripple of a stone dropped into a still lake. The color was somewhere between the cream white of porcelain and the rough green-gray of sanded limestone. Empty, the seats looked like flawlessly laid tracks-twenty, thirty, sixty of them, circling the field in a series of infinitely rising loops. Everything was bright from the overhead lights, and yet there was no glare. Most remarkable, though, was the field itself, broad and masculine, its grass tufted and thick, glistening from the rain as if its own exertions had produced this rugged sheen. The smell, full and green, lingered, with just a taste of polished stone in the mouth. Hoffner stood in silent wonder.
“It’s even better on the grass,” said Radek, as he started down the steps. Hoffner had no choice but to follow.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs, both men stepped up onto the low wall and then jumped down to the field. Hoffner felt a slight twinge in his knee. He did what he could to ignore it as they made their way across the six lanes of cinder track and out to the infield. At the far end, the top of the bell tower loomed through the wide and solitary opening in the stadium wall. Even the sky seemed more immense here.
“That’s where he’ll be coming through tomorrow,” Radek said. “Arm up, strutting,
“I thought you liked Berlin just now?”
“What’s not to like?”
They made it to the center of the field and Radek stopped. The silence and size of the place came together in a single rush; odd to feel dizzy without moving.
Radek set the bag down. “And despite what you’ve heard, he asks for girls.” He knelt down and opened the bag. “Young ones. You never want to know what he does with them. The girls never say a word after. It’s unpleasant, but he pays well.”
Hoffner was still finding his bearings. “I didn’t know you’d taken to pimping,” he said. “Or are the economic trends good there, too?”
Radek pulled a bottle of champagne and two glasses from the bag. “It’s one client, Nikolai. I don’t think that makes me a pimp.” He stood and handed a glass to Hoffner. “A marked man, yes, but not a pimp.”
“So he’ll kill you one day.”
Radek snorted a laugh. “He’s going to kill a great many people one day, Nikolai. At least I’m getting paid.”
Radek stepped back and let go with the cork. The echo brought a stream of guards running out onto the first-tier balcony-small, shadowy figures from this far off-and Radek shouted, “Champagne, gentlemen! No worries!”
His voice continued to echo as the men disappeared as quickly as they had come.
“Like trained dogs,” said Hoffner.
“They’re terrified,” said Radek, as he filled Hoffner’s glass. “Sabotage. They think some Russian or Jew is going to infiltrate the place, set off a bomb, ruin their fun. Truth is, there’s nothing they could do to stop it, but the SS likes to show an effort.” Radek poured his own. “No uniforms. You saw that?”
“I did.”
Radek smiled and raised his glass. “It’s all so damned ridiculous.”
Hoffner raised his as well. “And this is for…?”
Radek shook his head easily. “An end. A beginning. Whatever you’d like it to be.” He drank.
“The poet pimp,” said Hoffner. He drank as well.
“We’re going to nip that one in the bud, Nikolai. No more pimp, all right?” Radek finished off his drink and, staring into the glass, said, “You could come work for me. Now that you’re done at the Alex.”
Hoffner nearly choked as the fizz ran up into his nose. He coughed before answering. “I appreciate the joke.”
Radek poured himself a second. “It’s no joke.”
The two men stared at each other until Hoffner finally said, “Yes. Yes, it is.”
Radek needed another few moments before tossing back his drink. He then nodded. “I’m glad I waited, then. Wouldn’t have looked so good if you’d said no at Rucker’s.” He crouched down and set the bottle and glass on the grass. “Pimm said he was waiting until you were done with the Kripo to give you this stuff.” He reached into the bag. “I’m sure he had something pithy he wanted to say before handing it over. I don’t.”
Radek pulled out half a dozen canisters of film. Each had a small strip of adhesive attached to it, with a name and an initial written in fading ink. He set them on the grass.
“Jesus,” Hoffner said in a whisper. He was stunned at what he was seeing.
“Yah,” said Radek. “Turns out they never knew he had them. There’s some nice stuff of Hess and Streicher. Apparently old Julius shares the Fuhrer’s tastes.”
The films had been made in 1927 by members of the then fledgling National Socialist German Workers Party, long before they had decided to trim the party name. At the time, the films were innovative, some of the first to take a crack at synchronization of sound. They were also remarkable for having broken new ground with an unimagined kind of depravity-violent and sexual. Hoffner had spent months trying to forget them. His boy Sascha had been in one.
“I thought Pimm burned these,” said Hoffner.
“And give up this kind of leverage? He wasn’t stupid.”
“A lot of good they did him.”
Radek said nothing as he continued to stare into the bag. Finally, standing, he said, “Yah.” He looked at Hoffner. “You get in trouble, you can always ask Streicher if he wants to run an editorial in
