you’re not careful.”
“They go to Teitel.”
“I’ll save you the trip.” He started riffling through, glancing at the pages. “Not rocket notes, I take it. Want to tell me?”
“Reports from Nordhausen,” Jake said. “Facts and figures from the camps. Slave labor details. What the scientists knew. Lots of interesting stuff. Keep looking-you’ll find a lot of your friends there.”
“Is that a fact. And you think this might make things a little embarrassing for them.”
“It might make them war criminals.”
Shaeffer looked up from the files. “You know, your trouble is you’re in the wrong war. You’re still fighting the last one.”
“They were involved,” Jake said, insistent.
“Geismar, how many times do I have to tell you? I don’t care.”
“You should care,” Lena said. “They killed people.”
“That’s good, coming from a German. Who do you think killed them? Or do you just want your husband to take the rap? Convenient.”
“You can’t talk to her that way,” Jake said, starting to get up, wincing as Shaeffer pushed him back.
“Watch your shoulder. Well, now we’ve got a situation. What a pain in the ass you are.”
“I’ll be a bigger pain in the ass if Teitel doesn’t get those files. Not even Ron’s going to spike this story.”
“Which one is that?”
“Try a congressman bringing Nazis into the States.”
“He wouldn’t like that.”
“Or a tech team playing hide-and-seek with the Russians. Lots of ways to go, if I want to. Or we could do it the right way. You helping the Military Government do what it says it’s trying to do, bring these fucks to trial. A trial story. This time, you’re the hero.”
“Let me explain something to you,” Shaeffer said. “Plain and simple. Look at this country. These scientists are the only reparations we’re likely to get. And we’re going to get them. We need them.”
“To fight the Russians.”
“Yes, to fight the Russians. You ought to figure out whose side you’re on.”
“And it doesn’t matter about the camps.”
“I don’t care if they banged Mrs. Roosevelt. We need them. Got it?”
“If Teitel doesn’t get those files, I’ll do the story. Don’t think I won t.
“I think you won’t.”
Shaeffer turned the papers sideways, and before Jake could move, tore them across.
“Don’t,” Jake said, starting to rise, the sound of tearing jolting across him like the pain shooting through his shoulder. Another tear, Jake only half out of his seat, then falling back, watching helplessly as the paper became pieces. “You bastard.” A final rip.
Shaeffer took a step toward the window and flung them out, large bits of paper, suspended, then caught by the wind, flying over the garden-not small; about the same size, Jake saw, staring hypnotically, as the bills that had danced and blown over the Cecilienhof lawn.
“Like I said,” Shaeffer said, turning back, “you’re in the wrong war. That one’s over.”
Jake watched him go, brushing past Lena and wide-eyed Erich, who had already known everything was kaput.
“I feel I’ve let you down too,” Jake said to Bernie. “You more than anybody, I guess.”
They had come to Gunther’s to pick up the persilscheins and found the room ransacked, stacks pulled apart, torn boxes littering the floor.
“Join the crowd. Everybody lets me down,” Bernie said, a light growl, not really angry. “Christ, look at this. Word gets around fast. Ever notice how the liquor’s the first thing to go? Then the coffee.” He picked up the folders from the floor and stacked them. “Don’t beat yourself up too much, okay? At least I know what to look for. That’s more than I had before. There’s lots of evidence floating around Germany-some of it could still land on my desk.”
“You’ll never get them,” Jake said, gloomy.
“Then we’ll get someone else,” Bernie said, going through a bureau drawer. “Not exactly a shortage.”
“But doesn’t it bother you?”
“Bother me?” He turned to Jake, shoulders sagging. “Let me tell you something. I came over here, I thought I was really going to do something. Justice. And where did I end up? At the back of the line. Everybody’s got a hand out. ‘We can’t do it all.’ Feed the peoplethey’re starving. Get Krupp up and running again, get the mines open. The Jews? Well, that was terrible, sure, but what are we supposed to do this winter if we don’t get some coal out of the Russians? Freeze? Everybody’s got a priority. Except the Jews aren’t on anybody’s list. We’ll deal with that later. If anybody has the time. So I lose a few scientists? I’m still trying to get the camp guards.”
“Small fry.”
“Not to the people they killed.” He paused. “Look, I don’t like it either. But that’s the way it is. You think you’re going to set the world on fire and you come here-all you do is pick through the damage. Without a priority. So you do what you can.”
“Yeah, I know, one at a time. An eye for an eye.”
Bernie looked up. “That’s a little Old Testament for me. There isn’t any punishment, you know. How do you punish this?”
“Then why bother?”
“So we know. Every trial. This is what happened. Now we know. Then another trial. I’m a DA, that’s all. I bring things to trial.”
Jake looked down, fingering the persilscheins on the table. “I still wish I had the files. They weren’t guards- they should have known setter.”
“Geismar,” Bernie said softly, “everybody should have known better.”
“Would it help if I wrote something? Got you some press?”
Bernie smiled and went back to the drawer. “Save your ink. Go home. Look at you, all banged up. Haven’t you had enough?”
“I’d like to know.”
“What?”
“Who the other man is.”
“That? You’re still on that? What’s the point?”
“Well, for one thing, he could still be working for the Russians.” Jake dropped the folder on the table. “Anyway, I’d like to know for Gunther, finish the case for him.”
“I doubt he cares anymore. Or do you have ways of getting messages up there?”
Jake walked over to the map, left in place by the scavengers. The Brandenburg. The wide chausee, where the reviewing stand had been.
“Why would someone working for the Russians tip off the Americans where Emil was going to be? Why would he do that?”
“You got me.”
“Now, see, Gunther would have figured it out. That’s the kind of thing he was good at-things that didn’t add up.”
“Not anymore,” Bernie said. “Hey, look at this.”
He had pulled an old square box from the back of the drawer, velvet or felt, like a jewel case, opened now to a medal. Jake thought of the hundreds lying on the Chancellery floor, not put away like this, treasured.
“Iron Cross, first class,” Bernie said. “Nineteen seventeen. A veteran. He never said.”
Jake looked at the medal, then handed it back. “He was a good German.”
“I wish I knew what that meant.” “It used to mean this,” Jake said. “Almost done?” “Yeah, grab the files. You think there’s anything in the bedroom? Not many effects, are there?”
“Just the books.” He took a Karl May from the shelf, a souvenir, then moved to the table and picked up one of the folders and flipped it open. A Herr Krieger, said to have been in a concentration camp, now Category IV, no
