heat. Harry glanced over for another eyeful of the bartender. She was wiping the bar top, but stopped, her attention fixed on something in the dining room. She dropped the cloth, walked quickly down to the end of the bar, and disappeared in the kitchen.
Harry looked behind him and saw two skinheads in black outfits with red armbands in the back of the room just standing there. The few remaining diners noticed them too, got up and moved out of the restaurant. What the hell was going on?
He turned to Cordell. “We’ve got company.” Looked over his shoulder again, and now there were six of them, reminding Harry of blackbirds on a power line. Look up, see one, then there are twenty. They were coming toward the bar, carrying lengths of wood that looked like ax handles.
They came at them fast, moving through the tables, gripping the wood like baseball bats. Harry slid off his bar stool, squeezed the handle of his beer mug, moving along the front of the bar. Cordell was on his feet, holding the heavy china dinner plate at his waist with two hands.
The first Blackshirt came at Harry, swinging for the fence. He timed his move, faked right, went left as the ax handle swished past his head and hit the bar top like a gunshot. Harry swung the two-pound beveled glass mug on top of his shaved neo-Nazi head, watched him crash into a barstool and take it with him to the floor.
To his right, he saw Cordell launch the dinner plate like a Frisbee into the face of an advancing Blackshirt, splitting open his forehead. Then another Blackshirt was on him, Cordell ducking, bobbing, weaving, throwing punches and connecting.
Harry, moving, grabbed the top of a barstool and flipped it behind him into a charging Blackshirt, trying to slow him down. He ran into the dining room, pulled a chair out from a table, picked it up and held it in front of him, blocking a blow from an ax handle. Harry gripped the back of the chair and swung into the man’s upper body. The Blackshirt went down on the floor, looking dazed.
Harry saw a flash of movement to his left and felt his ribs explode as an ax handle thudded into his side. He went down on his knees, wind knocked out, trying to draw a breath. Saw the Blackshirt raise his weapon again, ducked under a table and came out on the other side. Cordell finished the Blackshirt off with a straight right-left hook combination and helped Harry to his feet. They ran out of the ratskeller, down the street lined with cars to the BMW, sidewalk congested with people out for the night. Harry looked back, saw the Blackshirts running toward them, fumbled with the keys.
Cordell, on the other side of the car, said, “Yo, Harry, you see ’em? The fuck you doing?”
Harry got in and unlocked the passenger door. Cordell jumped in next to him. He started the BMW and the Blackshirts were on them, circling the car, waving their ax handles.
“Put the motherfucker in gear,” Cordell said.
Harry slid the shifter in reverse, turned the steering wheel trying to maneuver out of the space. He heard a siren in the distance. Saw an ax handle hit his side window. The glass shattered and buckled. Two ax handles smashed the windshield. It cracked and cobwebbed. The window next to Cordell exploded, glass flying. Harry could feel his heart pounding. He shifted into first, cut the steering wheel hard left, floored it and pulled out, hit a Blackshirt, man bouncing over the hood and off. The rest of them were running next to the BMW, ax handles banging into sheet metal. He saw flashing lights approaching, heard the siren getting louder, a police car pulled up in front of him, and the Blackshirts took off.
They were taken to the Kriminalpolizei station, escorted to a conference room, just the two of them. Door closed. Sitting across a long table from each other, waiting for someone to take their statements. They had given their passports to a cop in uniform when they arrived.
Harry looked around the room at the light-green walls and nondescript decor, fixed his attention on Cordell. “Thanks for helping me.”
“Didn’t have much choice. It was us or them.”
The adrenalin had worn off and Harry felt the pain in his side getting sharper, more intense. It was hard to breathe.
“Yo, Harry, you all right?”
“I think so.”
“Maybe you better have someone look at that. Might’ve busted something.”
“I’m OK.”
“What was that all about back there?”
The door opened and a detective came in. He was pale, mid-forties, thin dark hair combed back, shirt and tie, small semiautomatic in a holster on his hip. He introduced himself as Huber. Sat at the end of the table between them. He had a pocketsize notebook in his hand, opened it to a blank page, put it on the table. Took their passports out of his shirt pocket, opened the first one, looked at the photo and handed it to Cordell. He put Harry’s in front of him.
“What is your purpose for coming to Munich?” Heavy Bavarian accent. Sounded like he was interrogating them.
“Visiting,” Harry said.
Huber looked at Cordell.
“Same here. Seein’ the sights.”
Huber turned back to Harry. “What happened tonight?”
He took a pen out of his pocket, pulled off the cap and fit it on the bottom.
“We were attacked by six skinheads carrying ax handles.”
Huber glanced at Cordell. “Do you have anything to add?”
Cordell said, “Wore black shirts‚ had swastikas on them.”
“Did you provoke them?”
“Did we provoke them?” Harry said to Cordell.
“Not hardly.”
“They came in swinging,” Harry said.
“Why do you think they attacked you?” Huber said to Harry.
“Maybe they don’t like Americans.”
“Or maybe it was me. Black men scare these master-race dudes.”
Huber wrote something on the pad. “You are able to identify them?”
“They looked a lot alike,” Harry said. “Six skinheads in black shirts. Not much more to tell you. It was dark, it happened fast. Talk to the bartender at the ratskeller. She might be able to give you a description. She got a good look at a couple of them.”
“I was you I’d check the hospitals. One of them is going to need a whole lot of stitches in his forehead.”
Harry said. “You know who they are, Detective?”
“The Blackshirts,” Huber said in the same flat monotone.
“Sound like a heavy metal group,” Cordell said. “Teach ’em to play music, spit blood, make a fortune.”
Huber ignored him. “They are the new Nazis, terrorizing in the name of nationalism. You are fortunate. You might have been injured or killed. If you see them again, call the police immediately.”
“That’s it? You’re not going to do anything?”
“They have thousands of members. Without accurate descriptions, what can we do?”
Cordell was happy to get out of there. Police stations made him nervous. They stood out front, waiting for a taxi. “These Germans are a lot of fun, huh? Like‚ could the man be any less helpful? Goin’ through the motions, like he don’t want to waste his time helpin’ a couple Americans.”
“He did seem to want to get rid of us,” Harry said, “didn’t he?”
“I don’t trust cops,” Cordell said. “Period, in a sentence.”
Cordell took out his sterling silver cigarette case, opened it. “Want one? That’s a Davidoff, world’s finest tobacco.”
“No thanks,” Harry said.
A police sedan pulled up in front of the building, two cops in uniform got out and escorted a handcuffed prisoner past them inside. They walked out to the street, saw a taxi pull over.
Harry said, “Want a ride?”
