“Sounds like a real hole. Did this man have a name?”
“Just Spiros.”
“That narrows it down nicely. And what was the client’s name?”
Leventis grinned patiently. “Spiros told Choc to look for a client file in the name of Fischer. Georg Fischer. He did the job as asked. Went in and out without a trace. Took the client file back to the club a few hours later, and got paid.”
“So everyone was happy.”
“Now it just so happens that Frizis’s diary contains an appointment with a Mr. Fischer just a few days before he was murdered.”
“Well, it would if he was a client.”
“Fischer is a German name.”
“That’s right.”
“I was hoping you might have a theory on that one.”
“It’s the fourth most common German surname there is. That narrows it down.”
“Come on, Ganz. You can do better than that. Whose side are you on here?”
“Whose side? I don’t know the names of the teams that are on the pitch here. And even if I did I certainly couldn’t pronounce them.”
“You know, I think I must have left my sense of humor in my other uniform.”
“The clean one?”
“I’d hate to kick you on the leg, Ganz. I’d probably get gangrene. What kind of commissar were you, anyway?”
“I wore a shirt and tie, turned up for work every day, carried a warrant disc, and sometimes they let me arrest people. But none of the bosses really gave a shit about me detecting any crimes because they were too busy committing crimes themselves. Nothing serious. Crimes against humanity and that kind of thing. Look, Pat—Lieutenant—I was making a living and trying to stay alive, not preaching the First Crusade. Let me ask you this. Did you show this Choc fellow your photograph of Brunner? The one you showed me?”
“Yes, but he’s quite sure it wasn’t him who put him up to the job.”
“Hmm.”
“What does that mean?”
“Hegel said it once. It’s German for ‘I’m thinking.’”
After a while I shook my head for emphasis, just to let him know I’d finished the thought.
“What do you think you’re dealing with here? An insurance claim? Look, I know you know more than you’re saying. I can see it written on your face.”
“Now you know why I stopped being a criminal and became a cop instead. All right. Maybe I do know something. But don’t get mad when I tell you. I only just figured this out myself. And I’d feel better about telling you what that is if we walked across the street and you let me buy you a drink.”
Leventis picked up his cap and walked toward the office door, buttoning his tunic.
“Two things I can smell from a hundred meters away. My mother’s giouvetsi lamb stew and a lying cop.”
“I keep telling you. I’m in the insurance business.”
“It’s my guess your company hired you because you’re an ex-cop and you’ve got a dirty mind. I’m just doing the same as them. Detection is in your blood, Ganz, as if it was a disease.”
“If you mean it’s one that I can’t seem to shake off, then you’re right. It’s like leprosy. I keep winding bandages around my face but nothing seems to work. One day I’m afraid I’m going to lose my nose.”
“That’s an occupational hazard for all detectives.”
His secretary handed him his gloves and a little swagger stick and we went downstairs and outside.
Behind the long marble bar at the Grande Bretagne was an old tapestry as big as the fire screen on a theater stage, depicting the triumph of some ancient Greek who probably wasn’t Hector on account of the fact that he was riding in a chariot instead of being dragged behind one. It was a nice quiet bar; the prices were fixed to make sure of that, like heavily armed hoplites. Facing the tapestry were eight tall stools and sitting at the bar was like watching a large projection screen with just one stationary, rather dull picture, a bit like Greek television. They had so many bottles behind the bar I guessed they must have some navy-strength gin and since the barman evidently knew the difference between a fresh lime and the liquid green sugar that came in a bottle I ordered a gimlet and the lieutenant ordered iced raki.
We sipped our drinks politely but I was already ordering another and a packet of butts.
“All excuses sound better after a drink. So now you’ve had yours, start talking, Commissar.”
“All right. When you showed me Brunner’s picture, I took my time about it, right? That was me, racking my brains, trying to remember where I’d seen him before. France, Germany, the Balkans—it’s taken me until now to realize I was opening the wrong drawers. I couldn’t remember him because he wasn’t in my memory. He was at the end of a bar. This bar.”
I only told Leventis this small lie because I didn’t want him asking about Fischer at the bar of the Mega Hotel and discovering I’d already asked questions about him myself.
“You mean Brunner was in here? In this hotel?”
“That’s right. In this very bar. About a week ago we got to talking, the way two men do when they discover they’re both from the same part of the world. He told me his name was Georg Fischer and that he was a tobacco salesman. Gave me a packet of Karelia to try. There’s not much more to it than that. I didn’t remember him right away because he’s almost fifteen years older than that picture you showed me. Less hair. Put on a little weight, perhaps. Gruff voice like he gargles with yesterday’s brandy. I mean, you don’t connect a wanted Nazi war criminal with a friendly guy you meet in an Athens bar. Well, when you mentioned the name Georg Fischer back in your office I suddenly put two and two together and came up with the man I’d met in this bar.”
“This story you’re telling—you spread it on a field of sugar beet, not Lieutenant Stavros P. Leventis.”
“It happens
