Harry.'
'Good; find that fake. And there's one thing you can tell me that might help a lot. Do you have van Cortlandt's appointment calendar?'
'It isn't on the desk in Room 2100?'
'No, but Jessick's sure he had one. Blue, he thinks.'
'I haven't seen it, but I'll have a look. I have a few of Peter's files in my room.'
'That's fine. Well, I don't know about you, but I'm bushed. Let's figure out how we split the check. Your salad was ten marks, right? My chicken was only nine, so…'
The night had turned a dry, bitter cold, and on the walk back to Tempelhof Harry humped along with hunched shoulders, buried in his parka like a turtle, so that nothing below his eyes showed over his collar. And everything above was hidden by a thick knit cap, so he seemed to be peering warily out of the slit of a big, soft tank.
'Oh, by the way, Chris,' he said from deep in the coat as we waited to cross the eight-lane Tempelhofer Damm, 'did Flittner ever come up in your conversations with van Cortlandt?'
'No.'
'How he got along with him, that kind of thing?'
'Harry, maybe if you'd just trust me and come out and tell me why you're so interested in Flittner I'd be able to help you. Since we're on the same side, it'd be nice to know just what the hell is going on.'
He had to swivel the whole thickly encased upper half of his body to look at me. I think I heard him laugh, or he might have grunted; the sound was lost somewhere in the depths of the coat. 'You know, you've got a point. All right, did you know that he's not on leave from the National Gallery-that he was canned?'
'Canned? Why?'
'Bad PR, lousy attitude, uncooperative behavior-all those curmudgeonly leanings you told me about. Come on, the light's changed.'
Berlin traffic lights do not encourage dawdling. We jogged quickly across the broad street and onto the Platz der Luftbrucke, dark except for the spotlit monument. 'I suppose,' Harry went on, 'you didn't know that Robey's dumping him too, effective the end of the month, for pretty much the same reasons.'
'I didn't have any idea. Poor guy. Does he know?'
'Yeah, Robey told him a couple of weeks ago.'
'Hm. So why did you want to know if Peter-'
'Because he's the one who talked Robey into getting rid of him-according to Robey. Let me ask you: Would van Cortlandt do something like that? Go to Robey and ask him to get rid of somebody else?'
'If he thought the paintings were being endangered or the show was being compromised, yes. Definitely. He'd consider it a matter of honor.' I turned to look at him. 'Are you saying you think Earl might have killed him- arranged to have him killed-out of… what, revenge?'
'I don't think anything yet. I'm trying to get my facts in order. Here's the funny part: Robey says van Cortlandt told him he'd had a couple of tough talks with Flittner about it.'
'That sounds like Peter. He'd want to be aboveboard. What's funny about it?'
'What's funny is that when I asked Flittner about it, he said he didn't know what I was talking about; Peter never talked to him about his behavior or anything else.'
'So somebody is lying.'
'Right. And Flittner's got a pretty good reason. With me poking around asking questions, he's probably scared to admit he had any reason for hating van Cortlandt.'
'Which makes him worried, but not necessarily guilty. Earl's pretty paranoid at the best of times.'
'That's right,' Harry said. 'I never said he was guilty.'
Once in the lobby at Columbia House, Harry woofed and stamped his feet as if we'd been trudging in three feet of snow. 'Sheesh, it's freezing outside! Brr.' He began unraveling himself from gloves, hat, scarf, and coat, emerging like an undersize moth from its cocoon. 'I gotta get some wool socks.'
'Harry, I was thinking. It's pretty natural for people's guard to be up with you questioning them-'
'I don't question them; I'm pretty subtle.'
'Yeah, you really had Egad fooled.'
He laughed. 'You didn't do any better. He's madder at you than at me.'
'That's true, but with me, anything about the show is a legitimate concern. I might get people mad, but I'm not going to make them suspicious. I thought maybe I might do a little… well, talking to people-'
'Forget it,' he said firmly. 'Here's the deal: You leave the investigation to me, and I'll leave the forgery to you.'
'Look, I didn't mean I was going to confront Earl about Peter. I could do it indirectiy. Maybe if I got a little more information from Robey-'
He sighed. 'Let's go sit down for a couple of minutes.'
We went to the same grouping of chairs that Peter and I had sat in when I'd first arrived in Berlin. Harry heaped his peeled-off garments on the chair next to him, and sighed again. 'Flittner's not the only one I've got questions about.'
'Who else? Not Mark?'
'Yeah, Mark.'
'What questions?'
'Two of them. Why he went to Frankfurt with van Cortlandt the day van Cortlandt got killed-'
'What?' I exclaimed, then lowered my voice at Harry's wince. 'But-Peter would have mentioned it. He went alone; I'm sure of it.'
'Not exactly. Robey was on the same plane, sitting twenty rows behind him, in the smoking section.'
'Well… why? What did he say?'
'That's my other question: Why won't he admit he went?'
'He out-and-out denied it?'
'No, I wouldn't say that. Didn't I tell you I'm subtle? I just gave him about ten different chances to mention it- you know, 'Been to Frankfurt lately?'-that kind of stuff. He wouldn't bite.'
'Then how do you know he went?'
'High-class police work, pal. I checked the passenger list of van Cortlandt's plane to see if anything turned up. Robey's name did.'
'Wow, I don't have any idea what to make of that. When did he come back, do you know?'
'Not till just before that staff meeting. Two days and three nights in Frankfurt, right when van Cortlandt bought it, and it slipped his mind. Funny, huh?'
I sagged back against the soft chair and thought about all this. 'Yes, it's funny. Earl's such a miserable character I don't have any trouble imagining him as a murderer. But I like Mark. I don't like to think… hey, that gives him a reason for lying, doesn't it? About whether Peter really talked to Earl, I mean. He could have been trying to throw you off, to invent a motive for Earl's killing him.' I suddenly knew what Anne had meant about feeling as if she were in a movie.
'It's conceivable. But let me find out what's what in my own simpleminded way, OK? I mean, as much as I value your help-'
'All right,' I said, smiling, 'I won't get in your way.'
'And don't look so gloomy. One of the things you learn in this business is that people spend a hell of a lot of time sneaking around and lying, and if you assume that the particular lie you just found out about has something to do with the case you're working on, you're gonna be wrong ninety-five percent of the time. People just act that way out of habit.'
He stood up and began the lengthy process of gathering up his clothes. 'So don't assume anybody killed anybody until we know a lot more.'
'I'll remember that,' I said, and got up too. 'But you know, on second thought I think I was happier not knowing what was going on.'
'So next time don't ask. See you in a couple of days; I'm gonna spend some time in Frankfurt.' He shambled
