old raincoat borrowed from Olga's closet, with a serviceable black nylon briefcase slung over his shoulder. He wore a knit cap on his shaved head. And for the first time in a long time, he looked possessed of a certain decency.
He strolled casually down the drive, head bowed in the rain, his eyes on the puddles forming at his feet. His gloved hands swung idly at his sides. He seemed oblivious to gray vans and their questionable occupants, although he was making directly for their position at the curb.
He went up to the blue car sitting two spaces behind the van and groped in his pockets for keys. They would be studying him in the rearview mirror now, ready to drive on at a moments notice. He let his eyes drift indifferently over the bulky old vehicle, its lettering scratched and the bumper eaten with rust, and then his expression changed to one of joyful interest. He had need of an electrician himself. He had been meaning to call one today. He sauntered up to the driver's window and tapped on the glass with one large knuckle, grinning foolishly at the guy behind the wheel.
They were polite to a fault, these Americans.
When the window slid down, Otto put a bullet in the driver's brain. His companion died reaching for a gun.
Thirteen
Berlin, 9:17 p.m.
Wally called a taxi for Caroline and gave the driver instructions to take her directly to the Hyatt. But the moment the lights of Sophienstrasse dwindled in the distance, she tapped on the man's window and told him in passable German to pull over. She handed him some marks and set off alone, on foot, into the darkness of the Jewish Quarter. She was looking for Oranienburger Strasse and Mahmoud Sharif.
The abandoned building that Wally had called the Tacheles was really the remnant of a much larger structure that had been mostly destroyed by Allied bombs. It rose five stories above the street and consumed most of a city block. Neon lights and clouds of steam punctuated the Berlin darkness. She stopped in front of Obst und Gemiise, a restaurant across the street, and studied the wreck of a building from a safe distance. It was the sort of structure a giant might assemble as a play toy, all tumbled blocks of concrete, jagged frames where there had once been windows, a few massive Art Nouveau figures still poised on the ends of columns. Arches that trailed away into nothing. An elevator shaft exposed to sky. Most of the windows were boarded up or bricked over; the scorch marks of intense heat still flickered up the walls. Derelict pipes and the remains of a refrigerator were scattered on the ground, found art. And from within came the sounds of laughter, a racking cough, the current of voices.
The helmeted Volksturm guards were there, of course, pacing along the broken sidewalk with machine guns raised. But the policemen seemed less menacing against a backdrop of smoky light and laughter. It was remarkable, Caroline thought, that they even allowed the Tacheles to exist. It looked like the kind of building the Fritz Voekis of the world tore down.
There were several entrances punched in the building's side. She chose one, hitched her purse higher on her shoulder, and dashed across Oranienburger Strasse.
A rusted iron door, standing ajar. She slid inside and paused an instant, allowing her eyes to adjust. Before her, a corridor tunneled into the Tacheles, bare bulbs swinging from an outlet in the ceiling. She followed it until it dove right and presented her with a flight of stairs; then she went up, heels clattering on the bare iron treads.
The second floor was less claustrophobic. A gallery ran around the open stairwell, with doorways opening off it. Some were dark, some glaringly lit. A jangle of guitar chords floated through one yawning entry; Caroline peered inside.
A man stood before a table, blowtorch raised. He wore a steelworker's metal helmet and canvas overalls, but his arms were bare; a hammer and sickle was tattooed on his right bicep. Before him on the table was a mass of metal; beyond it, entirely nude, a woman posed in a chair. A boom box played at maximum volume — German techno rave — and the man was shouting his own lyrics, enthusiastically off-key. A window was open to the night, cold enough to raise gooseflesh on the model's thigh; her teeth, when she glanced at Caroline, were chattering.
Caroline turned to go, but the woman in the chair barked an unintelligible word, and the man wheeled, thrusting his visor skyward, and shouted in her direction.
Caroline stopped in the doorway. The blowtorch was switched off. Another word in broken German, and his bloodshot eyes were staring at Caroline from a face streaming with sweat.
She managed a few sentences. She was looking for an artist — a man who worked in wood. Did he know someone named Mahmoud? He jerked one thumb over his shoulder, toward the other end of the building, and then pointed at the floor. Downstairs.
The naked woman in the chair lit a cigarette, as though it might keep her warm.
Caroline followed the thread of a Billie Holiday song filtering into the corridor, followed it down another flight of steps, the darkness viscous like fog against her face. Bye, bye, blackbird, Holiday sang, her voice as plaintive as midnight rain. And then Caroline glimpsed the door to the café.
It was named, incongruously, America.
A yawning hole, a botte de nuit, dense with conversation and smoke. The ceiling was very high and painted black. So were the walls. Against them, canvases of massive figures sprang to life, more vivid than the people ranged around tables below. A woman with red hair and blue fingernails tapped cigar ash into her wineglass. Caroline was sharply aware of loneliness. Of herself, poised on the threshold of a place not her own. And of the pulse in her head, beating faster now.
There was an empty stool near the corner of the bar. She made her way through the tables, her shoes sticking to the spilled beer on the floor.
“What can I get you?” the bartender asked in German.
“Radeburger,” she replied. A Dresden beer she remembered Eric ordering.
He nodded and slapped a glass on the counter. Poured the beer with precision, as only a German can, until the head was two inches thick. She was afraid to lift the glass, afraid of making a fool of herself, and so she smiled at him and laid some money on the counter. He took it without a word and punched some buttons on the register, his eyes scanning the room beyond. All his movements were quick and thoughtless; he was a man who knew his own mind. He was also a careful man.
The cash register faced outward and there was a mirror over the bar, so that on the rare occasions when he had to turn his back, he could see what needed to be seen. Was the fear of crime so universal in Berlin despite the Volksturm parading on the sidewalk, despite the heedless woman sitting naked upstairs or was the caution habitual, something to do with this man's life?
“Do you speak English?” she asked. He shook his head, unsmiling.
“You're from the States,” he said, in German again. “American girl.”
Caroline nodded.
He whistled tunelessly under his breath, eyes roving. As she followed his gaze in the mirror over the bar, she realized he was watching the helmeted police.
“Do you know a man named Mahmoud Sharif?”
The whistling died away, and his eyes slid back to her face.
“Mahmoud? Why do you want Mahmoud?”
“You know him?”
He turned away from her without a word and disappeared through a doorway to the left of the bar. Caroline found the courage to lift her beer. After her first sip, she gained confidence. After the second, an older and much larger man was standing where the bartender had been.
“You're the lady who asked about Mahmoud.”
This time, the words were in English.
“Yes. Do you know him?”
“Do you?” The man was white-haired, with an enormous mustache curling up at the tips and muddy brown eyes swimming in false tears.
“I weep for you,” the walrus said: “I deeply sympathize.” He wore a dingy shirt with a soiled collar. A brown
