“Fine. Off on a trip.”
“And how was Berlin, rat? You knew I had a couple of days off.”
“A pure and unsuccessful business venture, laced with too many Martinis—and an assassination waiting for me when I got back.”
Fredl had nestled her head on my shoulder. Her blond hair tickled my ear. It smelled clean and feminine and fresh. I didn’t see why it needed washing. I let the comment sink in and she sat up with a jerk. I almost spilled my drink.
“You’re kidding me again.”
“Well, it happened like this. Two men came in and shot another one. Dead.” I sat back and drew on my cigarette. Suddenly Fredl was all reporter. She fired questions and didn’t take any notes either, and I had a hard time deciding whether Fraulein Doktor Arndt or Lieutenant Wentzel knew more about the killing. It was probably a draw.
“Does Mike know?” she asked.
“I haven’t seen him today,” I lied. “He’ll probably think it’s good for business. And God knows the correspondents will descend on us tomorrow at lunch. By the time they stagger out there’ll be a dozen theories and inside stories ranging from a political assassination to a grudge killing by a couple of superannuated SS members.”
“It depends upon the paper they work for,” Fredl said.
“And the number of drinks they’ve had.”
“It might be interesting at that. Buy me lunch tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
“Now you can kiss me again.”
“I haven’t kissed you for the first time yet.”
“I’m too proud to admit it.”
I kissed her and, like always, it was as if I were kissing her for the first time—as if everything were new and we both were very, very young but had been born into the world with a postgraduate degree in technique.
“Get the light, darling,” Fredl whispered.
“Both of them?”
“Just the one. You know I like to see what I’m doing.”
I left Fredl reluctantly at four A.M. She was sleeping, a slight smile on her lips, her face slightly flushed but relaxed. The bed looked warm and inviting. For a long moment I was tempted to lie down again. Instead I padded barefooted and buck-naked into the kitchen, groped for the Scotch bottle, took a long drink, and moved back into the living room, where I dressed quietly. I leaned over and kissed Fredl gently on the forehead. She didn’t stir. That irritated me, so I kissed her again, this time on the lips. She wriggled and opened her eyes and smiled.
“I just wanted you to know what you’re missing,” I said.
“Are you leaving, darling?”
“I must.”
“Come back to bed. Please.”
“Can’t. I have to see the police again. Don’t forget lunch.”
She smiled and I kissed her again. “Go back to sleep,” I said. She smiled again, drowsy and content. I let myself out, rode the elevator down, and got into the car.
At four in the morning Bonn seems like an abandoned Hollywood set. In fact, most of the good burghers have bolted the doors by ten, unmindful of—even indifferent to—the fact that theirs is one of the world’s most important capitals. In some respects, Bonn is very much like Washington. So I made it from Fredl’s place to mine in something less than ten minutes, a new kind of record, considering that we lived a good six miles apart. I parked the car in the garage, closed and locked the overhead door, and walked up the steps to my apartment.
After five moves in eight years I finally had an apartment that suited. Up in the hills outside Muffendorf, it was a duplex built by a bicycle manufacturer from Essen who had struck it rich in the early 1950s, when bicycles were the major form of personal transportation in postwar Germany. He had a penchant for contemporary architecture, but as a widower he spent most of his time following the girls and the sun. I think he was in Florida then, or it may have been Mexico. His frequent and prolonged absences gave me the privacy I wanted, and even when he was in Germany he spent a great portion of his time gossiping with cronies in the cafes of Dusseldorf—or just watching the girls walk by. He was a Social Democrat, and sometimes we would sit around, drink beer, and speculate on how long it would be before Willy Brandt was Chancellor.
The house was a two-level affair, built of dark-red stone with a shake-shingle shed roof, and it had what my parents would have called a veranda running the full length of two sides. The owner had the smaller, lower flat; I had the upper one, which consisted of a bedroom, a small study, a kitchen and a large living room with a fireplace. I had to walk up twelve steps to reach my front door. I climbed the steps and put the key in the lock and turned. The voice came from the deep shadows to my left.
“Good morning, Herr McCorkle. I’ve been waiting for you for quite some time.”
It was Maas.
I shoved the door open. “The cops are looking for you.”
He moved out of the shadows. In one hand he carried his familiar briefcase, in the other he held the Luger. It wasn’t pointed at me. He just held it loosely at his side.
“I know. A regrettable affair. I’m afraid that I must invite myself in.”
