He pointed to the bandstand, where a clarinet player had stood up, licking his reed as he waited for the lead-in. When he started, he did play Goodman, “Memories of You,” the sad opening notes mellow as liquid. Another sound of home, the music so unexpectedly beautiful that it seemed a kind of reproach in the smoky room. On the dance floor couples drew closer, swaying instead of bouncing, as if the clarinet were charming them. The player swayed too, eyes closed, blotting out the bright, ugly room to let the music take him somewhere else.
“Everything seems to bring…” The music of romance, not good times and quick gropes, a song for girls looking for love. Jake watched them move dreamily on the floor, heads leaning on uniformed shoulders, giving themselves something to hope for. At the tables people had grown quieter, pretending to watch the solo but really drawn by something else, the world they’d known before Ronny’s, brought back, close enough to touch, by the sentimental notes. “… memories of you.” Even here. There was Lena’s dress, across the floor, the same deep blue, her going-out dress. He remembered the way she’d brush the back as she got up, a quick touch to smooth out the wrinkles, so that it clung to her afterward, moving with her. On the front there’d been a patch of glitter going up to the shoulder, little fingers of bright sequins, like a sprinkling of stars. But wool, too warm for a summer’s night in a crowded room, and this one had a wet patch showing between the shoulder blades, stretched over a girl too big for it, with blond hair piled on top of her head like Betty Grable. Still, the same deep blue.
When the band came in behind the clarinet, ending the solo, there was a restless stirring at the tables, a kind of relief to be out of the spell, back to just music.
“What did I tell you?” Danny said, his eyes shiny, but Jake continued to watch the dress, the damp spot now covered by an American soldier’s hand. Fragebogen. Message boards. Why not here, dancing at Ronny’s? But the waist was too thick, bulging over the belt.
Gunther was making his way steadily across the room, skirting the dancers. There was a sudden roar at the door as a large party swept in, looking for tables. “Memories of You” floated away.
“Gunther, you old sod,” Danny said, standing up, a show of respect. “Take a pew.” He pulled out a chair. Gunther sat down and poured a drink.
“Meet the general?” Jake said, nodding in Sikorsky’s direction.
“I know the general. Sometimes a useful source.”
“But not this time,” Jake said, reading his face.
“Not yet.” He downed the glass and sat back. “So. You’ve had a good talk?”
“Danny’s been telling me about his real estate. He’s a landlord.”
“Yes. A kino for parachute silk,” Gunther said, shaking his head, amused.
“Steady,” Danny said. “No tales out of school now.”
Gunther, ignoring him, raised his glass. “You will dress half the women in Berlin. I salute you. Parachutes.”
“You can’t beat it for quality,” Danny said.
But silk hadn’t reached the dance floor yet, just the cheap cotton prints from the last wartime ration. Lena’s dress was gone from the floor, hidden somewhere among the crowded tables. The band had started a jazzy version of “Chicago.”
“You have the actual report?” Gunther said.
Jake pulled the flimsy from his breast pocket and watched Gunther look it over, sipping as he read.
“A Colt pistol,” he said, nodding, a western fan. “M-1911.”
“Is that special?”
“No, very common. Forty-five-caliber. Very common.” He handed the paper back.
“So now what?” Jake said.
“Now we look for an American bullet. That changes everything.”
“Why?”
“Not why, Herr Geismar. Where. Potsdam. All along, it’s a problem. The Russians closed down the market. But there are two things in Potsdam. The market, but also the conference. With many Americans.”
“He wasn’t at the conference.”
“But perhaps at the compound in Babelsberg. Invited there. What could be more likely? All the Americans are there, even Truman. Just down the road from the conference site. On the same lake, in fact.” He looked pointedly at Jake. “He was found at the Cecilienhof, but was he shot there? The night before the conference? No one there, guards only?” He shook his head. “Bodies drift. An obvious point.”
“Frigging Scotland Yard, isn’t it?” Danny said, frankly admiring. “You’re a caution, Gunther. No mistake.”
“But what isn’t obvious is the money,” Jake said.
“Always with you the money,” Gunther said.
“Because it was there. Let’s say he did have a pass to the compound, that he saw an American. He still picked up ten thousand dollars. You only make that kind of money in the market. So, all right, an American in the market. Who’s also at the conference? Most of those guys were just flown in. They’re not allowed out. You don’t see any of them here.” He waved his hand toward the noisy room.
“That is to their credit,” Gunther said dryly. “Nevertheless, he was in Potsdam. And so was an American bullet.”
“Yes,” Jake said.
“And who is at the conference? We can except Herr Truman.”
“Washington people. State Department. Aides,” Jake said, ticking them off.
“Not at the meeting. In Babelsberg.”
“Everybody,” Jake said, thinking of Brian’s requisition list. The last blowout of the war. “Cooks. Bartenders. Guards. They’ve even got somebody to mow the lawn. Everybody except press.”
“A wide net,” Gunther said glumly. “So we eliminate. Not everybody can authorize. First you will find out who issued his papers. Then after—” He drifted off, back to his own list.
“That still doesn’t tell me what he was selling.”
“Or buying,” Danny said casually.
“What did you say?” Gunther said, wide awake, putting his hand on Danny’s arm.
“Well, any transaction, there’s two sides, isn’t there?”
Gunther said nothing for a second, then patted his arm. “Thank you, my friend. A simple point. Yes, two sides.”
“I mean,” Danny said, encouraged, “he’d have dollars, wouldn’t he? An American. What—”
“It wasn’t dollars,” Jake said. “Marks. Occupation marks.”
“Oh. You might have said. Russian or American?”
“I thought they were the same.” Engraving plates, handed over.
“They’re worth the same, of course, but now the look- Here.” Danny picked up one of Sikorsky’s dropped notes. “Now, this is Russian. See the little dash before the serial number? You won’t see that on the American ones.” Somebody in the Treasury Department, careful after all. Jake wondered if Muller knew.
“You sure?”
“Things like that, you notice,” Danny said. “I thought it was fake, see, so I asked. Doesn’t make any difference, really, just something to keep track, I reckon.”
“Who has the money?” Gunther asked Jake.
“I’ve got one of the bills. Not on me.” Back in the drawer of the frilly pink vanity, next to the still of Viktor Staal.
“Then look,” Gunther said.
“But they circulate back and forth, don’t they?”
Gunther nodded. “It might be suggestive, however.” He turned to Danny, raising his glass. “Well, my friend. To your good eye. Most helpful.”
“On the house, Gunther, on the house,” Danny said, clinking glasses, pleased with himself.
“But if he was buying, what was he buying?” Jake said insistently.
“That’s an interesting question,” Gunther said as Danny poured another drink. “More difficult.”
“Why?”
“Because whatever it was, he never got it. He still had the money,” Gunther said, repeating an earlier point to a slow pupil.
