Werner Deutlich pleaded with Bergemann not to disclose what he had discovered. Yes, he had visited the whorehouse. Yes, more than once. ‘My wife is not well, Herr Detective.’ He confessed he was a sometime client of a voluptuous blond who called herself Lili Marlene. ‘Just like the song.’ For some reason Werner sang the first lines:
Vor der Kaserne, vor dem großen Tor
Stand eine Laterne und steht sie noch davor …
A dim red light illuminated the door at number seven Pfortzheimgaße. Bergemann knocked and the door was opened by a man with slicked-back hair, a pencil mustache, and a complexion that looked sallow even in the red glow. He wore a suit that may have fit him once, but now made him look like a scarecrow.
Bergemann showed his police ID and asked to see Lili Marlene. She was with a client, said the man. Bergemann said he would wait. He was shown into a dimly lit room with pink wallpaper, a badly worn Persian rug, and plush chairs and a sofa in various states of decrepitude. Some awful perfume had been sprayed around the room. The skinny man disappeared. Bergemann took a seat and waited.
Women and girls in various stages of undress wandered through from time to time, mostly ignoring Bergemann. Thirty minutes passed before Lili Marlene – her real name was Ingeborg Lützmann – swept into the room. Her chubby face was framed by a cloud of platinum-blond hair. She wore a filmy, flowered shift that revealed more than it concealed. Despite her near nakedness, she had an air of authority about her. Bergemann wondered whether she was the proprietress of this establishment, and she assured him she was. She produced a folder with permits and health exams for all her girls. ‘It’s all in order and up to date,’ she said.
Bergemann explained that none of that concerned him now. He wondered whether she herself still saw customers.
‘Why wouldn’t I?’ she said, tossing her platinum locks and allowing her shift to open even wider. She received only men she favored. ‘Only gentlemen,’ she said, giving Bergemann an appraising look.
‘And is Werner Deutlich one of those gentlemen?’
She said he was. Bergemann named the other two.
‘Yes, them too,’ said Lili Marlene. ‘What’s this all about?’
‘And were they with you on these particular evenings?’ He listed the dates and she checked them against her calendar. They had been there then, yes.
‘All three of these men were robbed after they left you on those nights, Frau Lützmann.’ Lili Marlene looked startled, then thoughtful. ‘What can you tell me, Frau Lützmann, about the man who works your front door?’
‘Jacky? Jacky Prinz. He belongs to one of the girls, Liesl. He’s been on the door about two months now.’
‘Do you know where he was before that, Frau Lützmann?’
‘Liesl told me he was down on his luck, that he needed the work. He seemed all right, so I didn’t ask too many questions. But I had my suspicions.’
‘And what were those suspicions, if I may ask?’
‘He looked to me like somebody just out of prison. Herr Detective, I don’t …’
‘Do you have any other men in your employ, or are there other men – I’m thinking tradesmen – who come by on a regular basis? Delivery men, cleaners, anyone like that?’
‘There are occasional delivery men, but nobody regular.’ Lili Marlene pulled her shift tighter around her again, like she suddenly wanted to hide her nakedness.
‘Frau Lützmann, I’m going to insist you not talk to anyone about our conversation.’
She nodded her head adamantly.
‘Certainly not to Jacky Prinz,’ said Bergemann. ‘Or to Liesl – I’ll need her full name.’
Jacky Prinz had done two years for armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. He had come out of prison a few months back with a raging drug habit. Liesl had pleaded with Frau Lützmann to give him the doorman job, and had told Jacky which of Lili Marlene’s clients were worth robbing. Jacky followed them a few blocks, held the pistol up to their faces, and took their money. Bergemann went with two uniformed policemen to arrest the two of them.
‘Nicely done, Detective,’ said Hermann Gruber after listening to Bergemann’s summary of the case. Bergemann handed him the paperwork and Gruber leafed through it. ‘What was the whore’s name? And where’s the house?’
‘Number seven Pfortzheimgaße, Sergeant. Lili Marlene.’
‘Don’t know it,’ said Gruber, a little too quickly.
The Logbooks
Gruber was momentarily distracted from his pursuit of Willi Geismeier. While he didn’t know Lili Marlene well, he had met her, and he knew a number of her girls and had enjoyed their services – of course, only after his divorce from Mitzi. Still, if it was discovered that he had been diddling local whores, his closure rate would be the least of his worries. He saw the girls’ faces go by in his mind’s eye, one after the other. This imagined parade of faces suddenly made him think of someone else.
Hans Bergemann was putting together the final version of the robbery report – Gruber had read through the first draft and ordered some changes to it – when he sensed Gruber standing behind him looking over his shoulder. He continued working, waiting for Gruber to speak.
‘Hans,’ he said finally. ‘Do you remember? It’s been a long time now, two or three years at least, maybe more. This pretty redhead came in, said she was looking for Willi Geismeier?’
Bergemann paused and thought. ‘When was that, Sergeant?’
‘No, I’m sure you were here, Hans. Let’s see: when would that have been? Do you remember when that was?’
‘I don’t think it was me, Sergeant.’ Bergemann went back to assembling the robbery report, but his heart was pounding. Of course he remembered. He had followed Lola from the station that day. She had overheard talk of the SS raid that was meant to arrest Willi. He had warned her, and then had told Gruber that he hadn’t found her. He had hoped that would be the end of it,
