She said, “The name-does this have to do with… you know. The girl?”
Drummond didn’t look like he understood, then he worked back in his memories and finally got it. “Oh, no. I’m sure it doesn’t.”
Christ, but these people could lie so well.
16
Though she picked up a bottle as usual and even exchanged a few words with Herr al-Akir, when her home phone rang at nine thirty-five, she hadn’t even opened the bottle. Instead, she was sitting at the kitchen table, her cell phone beside her landline, staring at the two phones. Waiting.
She had expected the call to come later, and when she heard Berndt Hesse’s hoarse voice-he’d never been used to long bouts of talking-she thought he sounded confused. “Can you get over to Schwabing?”
“If it’s necessary, Berndt. What’s wrong?”
“I’d rather tell you in person. Come to Theodor’s house. You… you know where it is?”
“It’s been a long time, and it’ll take me a while. Could you remind me of the address?”
She drove the half hour to the northern Munich suburb without speeding, and on the way considered calling Oskar. She wanted to at least know if she should be prepared for failure, but there was no point to it. Either it had gone according to plan, or it hadn’t.
Instead, she thought of Milo Weaver, and the unexpected connection that had come to her after their brief phone call two weeks ago. She’d hung up, and like a spotlight the realization had swept over her body. No, she had never known Milo Weaver, but his name had come up during an interrogation with an American woman, a terrorist. Three decades ago.
Ellen Perkins, in 1979, had been stewing in a German prison because she was one of those many young people who believed that with a gun, Marx, and some catchphrases, an entire civilization could be torn down. However, this one had a son she had secretly shipped off to America to live with her sister. Over the interrogation table, Erika had explained that she knew about the boy, Milo, and tried to use this knowledge to leverage a little cooperation.
Perkins had been harder than she looked, and the day after the interview she hanged herself in her cell, using the pants of her own prison uniform. She knew how to kill a conversation.
Then, almost thirty years later, she’d interrogated the son. What a truly remarkable world it was.
Theodor Wartmuller’s Potsdamer Strasse apartment was high up in one of the many postwar buildings that had been rebuilt to prewar specifications. Two blue Bundespolizei BMWs were parked at awkward angles on the sidewalk in front of it, and farther down the street was a van from N24, the twenty-four-hour news channel. There were also people who, having seen the police and the man outside the building with a huge camera on his shoulder, were standing around, full of dumb curiosity. It took her ten minutes to find a parking space on the next street and walk back, passing Teddi’s MINI and cutting through the crowd, waving her BND card to the policeman on duty at the front door. A reporter she recognized from television asked if she believed the story about Wartmuller. She said, “No comment,” and continued inside.
The entryway was empty, though another policeman-a local one-stood at the elevator and checked her ID again before letting her take it up to the fifth floor. It was there that everyone had collected. Berndt, Franz and Birgit, Gaby from the public relations department, Robert from Administration, Hans from Operations, Claudia from Fraud. No one was speaking aloud. Only whispers filled the living room of Wartmuller’s immense apartment. They were grouped around objects-an art nouveau floor lamp, a Restoration sofa, the drinks cabinet. When she entered, they all looked at her, but only Berndt detached himself from Hans to come over.
“About time you got here.”
“What’s going on?”
He shook his head. “Paintings. From the E. G. Buhrle Museum.”
“The robbery in February?” she said, trying to sound shocked. “What does that have to do with Teddi?”
“Two paintings. The final missing ones. They were found here in his apartment.”
Erika shook her head. “What do you mean, found? No one just finds something. You come in and search for it. How did that happen?”
“Anonymous call to Interpol. Interpol brought it to the Feds. They arrived with a warrant a few hours ago.”
“Where were the paintings?”
Berndt opened his mouth, then closed it, as if his next words couldn’t be believed. “Under his bed. Theodor says he’s never seen them before in his life.”
She exhaled loudly. “The real question is who contacted the press.”
He shrugged.
She found Theodor in the guest bedroom-the master bedroom had been taped off for forensics to go over- guarded by two policemen. She didn’t bother asking them to leave, because they wouldn’t anyway. The bedroom, like all the rooms, had a huge window through which he could easily escape-and through which anyone who knew the alarm code could easily get in.
He was sitting at the bottom of the bed, feet on the floor and elbows on his knees, staring at a large, very dark photograph. It was too dark to make out the subject, and she wondered if it was one of those postmodern works, called something like Blackness #23.
He finally raised his eyes to look at her; they were full of red veins. He’d been crying. He knew, just as she knew, that his career was over. Maybe he could get himself out of this, maybe not. The rumors were enough. His face on international television; his biography suddenly of public interest. He would have to start again. The knowledge of this was all over his face, and she was impressed that he had put it together so quickly.
She considered things to say. She could play so many different roles. She could tell from his eyes that he knew, though, and there was no point going through the motions. She was too tired for that, and so was he.
So without a word passing between them, she returned to the living room and joined various conversations about how to control the damage. Even out here, no one was wondering if Theodor had stolen those paintings. No one cared, not even Franz and Birgit. He’d been abandoned so quickly that even as someone-Claudia, perhaps?- suggested that Erika take over the department for a while, she could only feel a dull, quiet sympathy for the lonely man in the other room.
Her phone rang. It was Oskar. He was breaking the rules, and she almost didn’t answer. She carried the phone to the doorway, where another policeman was standing with an unlit cigarette, wondering if he could smoke in the stairwell. “Oskar. It’s a surprise to hear from you so late. Is everything all right?”
“Yes, but that’s not why I’m calling.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s Milo Weaver. He’s been shot. Alan Drummond claims Andrei Stanescu did it.”
“Andrei? The father-not the uncle?”
“They’re sending over CCTV footage from JFK Airport. He’s on a plane now, headed back to Berlin.”
“The father,” she said again. “That’s a surprise.”
She fell silent, watching the policeman finally give up and slip the cigarette into a box and put the box into his pocket. She wondered if violence lived in the blood, passed from mother to son, dooming both to abrupt, early deaths.
Oskar said, “What’s your order? Drummond wants him arrested when he lands.”
She’d stopped thinking of Milo Weaver, languishing in some American hospital, and had moved on to Andrei Stanescu, and the fact that he would risk everything for a single shot at the man who had taken his daughter. There’s violence in us all, she thought, but only said, “Can you blame him?”
Olen Steinhauer
