Spoils of Victory (17 page)

“Doing what?” Mason asked.

“I was—how you say . . . an independent businessman, but most of my work was for them. I was a courier—running messages, documents, and correspondence. I made deals with diamond merchants and other black market wholesalers and . . . well, some narcotics dealers.” He leaned forward and raised his finger. “But I did those things for a good reason. Eddie Kantos said he would help me smuggle my family to Italy, then put me in contact with the Jewish Brigade. In exchange, I would do jobs for him—no questions asked—and earn money to pay him off.”

Mason could have lectured Yaakov about making bargains with the devil, but it would serve no purpose. Then a thought came to him. “What if we can find and contact someone from the Jewish Brigade?” he said to Abrams.

“Don't look at me,” Abrams said. “Just because I'm Jewish doesn't mean I have some kind of special Jew radar.”

“Through Laura. She's been on the smuggling routes and she talked to Kantos about the Brigade. If I know Laura, she's met others like him, or she has contacts herself.” He turned to Yaakov. “It might take a couple of days, but I think we can do this.”

Yaakov beamed with excitement and grabbed Mason's hand, shaking it wildly. “That would be wonderful.”

“But the only way this can work, and you and your family survive this, is if you stay put. You can't go out at all. Not even for food. If there's an emergency, have the bookstore owner go for a doctor. I assume you can trust him, since he's letting you stay here.”

“His name is Isaac,” Yaakov said, while still holding Mason's hand. “He's a good man.” He pumped Mason's hand as he said, “Like you, my friends.” He finally released Mason's hand and turned serious. “Now, how did you find out I was an informant for Agent Winstone?”

“When we searched his office, we saw your name written on his chalkboard.”

“He promised to keep my name a secret. What was he thinking, writing my name on the chalkboard for all to see?”

Abrams said, “We don't know that Winstone was the one who did it. We feel certain that someone broke into his office, and there's a chance that whoever did that altered the information on the chalkboard to throw us off. It could be that they added your name as a dead end, to throw us off the path, or . . .” Abrams hesitated.

“Or what?” Yaakov demanded.

Mason answered for Abrams. “Or someone suspected you might be an informant, and hoped that we or the CIC would try to track
you down. To see if you talked. Then all it would take is a crooked MP or CIC staff member to pass on that information, and you'd wind up like Kantos.”

Yaakov groaned and let his head slump toward the table.

“Yaakov,” Mason said, “you have to trust us. We won't divulge your name or even mention you exist.”

When Yaakov nodded his agreement, Mason asked, “What did you report to Agent Winstone?”

“Mostly about Kantos's partnership with Herr Giessen and Bachmann.”

“Winstone told me he had documents that could prove who is taking over the black markets, but we didn't find them in his home or his office. We suspect someone has taken them and probably destroyed them, but on the off chance they're still hidden, do you have any idea where they might be?”

“I know of no such documents. And I don't think he trusted me enough to tell me where they were hidden.”

“Near your name on the chalkboard,” Abrams said, “Winstone had written a Herr X and Herr Y. Do you know who they referred to?”

“No. Agent Winstone always spoke of them as X and Y. But . . .” Yaakov hesitated. “I think he put ‘Herr' in front of the letters because he didn't want anyone to know.”

“You mean they're Americans. Ones so highly ranked that Winstone didn't want to mention their names?”

Yaakov shrugged. “I believe so, yes.”

“Winstone also had a Herr Z up there. Is that Sturmbannführer Volker?”

“I don't know.”

“Did you ever meet Herr Z?”

“No. But he is as feared as Kantos. Someone who kills with pleasure, they say.”

“And who is ‘they'?” Abrams asked.

“Some of the low-ranking men who worked for Giessen.”

“Mason said, “I asked you about Volker before: He's tall, thin, with gray hair, a pronounced chin, and a pointed nose.”

Yaakov shrugged again.

“Remember I said he also smoked Turkish cigarettes, with a gold foil tip.”

When that didn't elicit a response, Mason said, ”Cigarettes that smelled like burned flowers.”

Yaakov's face lit up. “I remember that smell. I've seen a man like you described, but his hair is black. Once in a meeting with Giessen, and once at a house in the mountains. I was making a pickup, and I was taken to the mountain house blindfolded. Very secretive. There were maybe fifteen men. I recognized someone I've done business with before, a third son of a baron of Silesia, and he was talking to a man like you described.”

Mason checked to see if Abrams was writing this down, which he was.

Yaakov added, “There was an American officer there, too.”

“You know his name?”

Yaakov shook his head. “I was only there a few minutes, and things seemed very tense when I walked in. He was in uniform, which surprised me. A major. Forty, maybe. Just a little taller than you. Not
big
, you know? But strong. Black hair, slicked back with enough grease to lubricate a tank, and big bushy eyebrows.”

Mason looked at Abrams. “Schaeffer.” He turned back to Yaakov. “Was Agent Winstone aware of Major Schaeffer's association with Herr Volker?”

“I have no idea.”

Mason turned to Abrams. “Winstone had information on some untouchable American brass. Could be that Schaeffer's one of them.”

“We should put a phone tap on the Casa,” Abrams said.

Mason nodded and turned back to Yaakov. “Did you see any other Americans at that meeting in the mountains?”

“No one else was in uniform, and the few minutes I was there, I
heard only German. There is one other person I haven't mentioned that Agent Winstone was very curious about.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice as if that person had omnipotent powers. “A Lester Abbott. I never met him, but whenever his name came up people grew nervous. The rumors are that he used to be with the OSS.”

“Not the CIC?” Abrams asked.

Yaakov thought a moment then shook his head. “I'm sure I heard OSS. Supposedly he turned bad when the OSS was dismantled. That's about all I know.”

OSS stood for Office of Strategic Services, the wartime American clandestine intelligence agency that had been disbanded in September 1945. The files on the OSS missions and the people involved were sealed to all but those with the highest clearance levels, though stories were emerging of legendary exploits, and men and women of extraordinary bravery. But Mason had also heard his commanders in G2 speak of the OSS in derogatory terms, considering it a rogue organization, with the higher ranks composed of Wall Street lawyers and bankers, and Ivy League academics, answerable only to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A cabal of spooks, they said, who often exceeded their mandate and carried out unauthorized assassinations and sabotage and God knows what else beyond the eyes of army authorities. Mason had taken these rumors with a grain of salt, as the G2 was a direct rival of the OSS. And, it being a secret organization, Mason could confirm none of it, but he did know they were highly trained and, in the case of one gone bad, extremely dangerous.

Mason asked, “You have no idea what Abbott looks like or where we might find him?”

Yaakov shook his head. “I've never seen him.”

“How about the Casa Carioca?” Mason asked. “Do you know if it's being used as a black market base of operations?”

“All I know is that Agent Winstone was looking hard at the Casa Carioca, but security around that place is very tight. Hilda tried to get in deeper, but failed, or was killed before she could succeed.”

Mason sat back, feeling overwhelmed, and yet he suspected that Yaakov's information was only the tip of the iceberg.

“How are we going to approach the American officers?” Abrams asked. “We have nothing on them except the word of an informant.” He turned to Yaakov. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

“Our only leverage, right now, is going after the Germans,” Mason said. “See if threats of prison can turn one of them.” He turned back to Yaakov. “Anything else?”

Yaakov shook his head. “Every one of my sources is now dead.”

“I want you to write down every German gang member you can think of: a description, an address, his function, any crimes. Even if you have no direct knowledge. If you just overheard something, innuendos, you didn't like his face. Write it all down.”

“Are we going to try and bring them all in?” Abrams asked.

“As many as we can track down in the next few hours. We'll start with Willy Laufs.”

Abrams whistled long and low. “We're going to have half the town wanting our hides.”

“That's the idea.”

L
ike pilot fish around a shark, four German lawyers followed Mason's every step. Whittman, a particularly tenacious lawyer, tried to cut Mason off. “Investigator Collins, you cannot hold my client—our clients—without specific charges.”

The other three lawyers nodded in agreement. Mason ignored their protests and moved around Whittman to intercept a team of MPs that had picked up another German gangster.

One of the MPs said, “Hermann Auerbach, racketeering, suspected kidnapping, grand larceny.”

“Put him in the room and get a statement,” Mason said.

The MPs led Auerbach away, and Mason continued down the hallway in the main administrative building at the Sheridan barracks. The lawyers tried to keep pace, their scuffling footsteps and collective murmuring echoing off the hard surfaces of the corridor.

“Hermann Auerbach is also my client,” Whittman said. “You can't do this.”

“Military authority supersedes civil law in this case. He is to be detained for questioning, like all the others. If and when I am satisfied with his cooperation, he will be released into the hands of the German police. What they do with him and his pals after that is up to them.”

Mason strode into a conference room that had been converted into a holding area, where MPs asked the arrestees preliminary questions before processing them and putting them into holding cells. He had recruited a dozen MPs to pick up the persons of dubious character on Yaakov's list, and another five to perform the preliminary interviews. Some of the arrestees yelled and stomped their feet in protest. In one corner Abrams had Willy Laufs, the person Laura had named in connection with Kantos. He looked surprisingly confident despite his recent ordeal and arrest. Mason would let Abrams handle Laufs for now. Abrams's softer approach could sometimes get results, plus he didn't want to get close to Laufs until he was sure he could keep his temper in check.

Willy Laufs's residential address hadn't appeared in any telephone directory, an official register, or even a police rap sheet, for that matter, but anyone in the know in the world of sleaze could point out Laufs's notorious compound, and generally without a moment's hesitation. It therefore required little effort on Mason and Abrams's part to discover its whereabouts. It was, in fact, not far from Winstone's villa, in the same neighborhood of walled estates on vast parcels of land. Of those who knew of its existence none would ever admit to entering the compound, let alone partaking of Laufs's repugnant offerings.

Willy had become a specialist in procuring teenaged and younger prostitutes of both sexes for wealthy clients who shared his appetites. He would pose as a priest and troll the ruins of German towns for desperate and starving orphans, recruiting them with a promise of food, shelter, and God's grace. These were the rumors, of course, as no one would admit to firsthand knowledge. Willy's brothels had been raided several times in the last nine months, and at various locations, but each time he'd been tipped off, and the raids uncovered nothing. Willy would then move on to another location, and the villa Mason's team had raided happened to be his latest and most opulent . . . at least according to the handful of locals in the flesh
trade that Mason and Abrams had interviewed over the past couple of hours.

This sordid dossier had taken Mason and Abrams about two hours to glean from the flesh trade locals. Mason had taken no chances of a tip-off this time, and they went into Willy's compound swift and furious with one M20 armored car to smash open the gates, and a squad of handpicked men to subdue the bodyguards. A dozen girls and boys from ten to sixteen had been liberated from forced prostitution. They had arrested three clients of high repute and deep pockets. And Willy himself had been caught in the act with a fourteen-year-old girl. It had taken three men, including a traumatized Abrams, to pull Mason off Willy before he could beat Willy to a pulp.

It had taken another three hours to round up the other thirty-odd men who were now in the conference room, all black marketers, gang members, and smugglers, and now it was close to ten
P.M.
Mason turned to look for the coffeepot and noticed he'd picked up a fifth lawyer. They burst into a renewed frenzy of protests. Mason held up his hands. “Gentlemen, please. You're not supposed to be in here. You're now interfering with an official investigation and subject to arrest. Any one of you could be a lucky guest of our fine facilities, with all the hospitality the American military can offer.”

The lawyers fell silent, and Mason signaled two MPs to step forward. “These nice officers will escort you out. You can file your complaints with them.”

The protests continued as the two MPs herded them toward the exit.

Abrams joined Mason. “Laufs isn't talking. Says he's no rat.”

“He should have just said he doesn't know. Claiming he's no rat means he knows but isn't saying. We'll have a go at him after he spends a night in a cell with a few inmates who know he's a pedophile.”

Abrams indicated the rest of the room. “I bet most of these guys
won't give up a thing. They've all managed to beat raps before, and we've got nothing concrete to pin on them.”

“One or two might sing if they see it's to their advantage. Besides, this little operation is to smoke out the bigger players. We'll see who blunders into our net.” Mason then nodded toward the door. “And ladies and gentlemen, we have our first contestant.”

They both watched Densmore enter and look around the room in astonishment. He zeroed in on Mason. “What the hell is going on?”

“Just taking a census of Garmisch's gangster community.”

“Have you got anything on them?”

“No,” Mason said. He wasn't about to tell Densmore about Yaakov's list.

“You're supposed to clear this kind of operation with me.”

“I went to Gamin. All these men and women are involved in the Communist plot to steal army office supplies.”

Densmore fell quiet as he studied Mason. He had never perfected the art of the poker face, and Mason could tell he was processing all this, trying to determine Mason's strategy. There was, however, something in his expression that Mason hadn't seen before—sincerity.

Densmore said, “I'd give you grief for going over my head on this, but you'd just ignore it.”

“What do you want?”

Densmore seemed to have difficulty forming his words. “I've been thinking about what you've said: that we've got a turf war on our hands.”

“And?”

“This is some dangerous shit we're talking about. After looking at the murders in Kantos's house, the wife and son . . . That was a professional hit job.”

“The real question is, do you now believe that Winstone and Hilda Schmidt were hit by the same group?”

Densmore glanced around at nothing while his hands fidgeted in his pockets. “Look, the methods are not the same, but if—I'm just
saying if—you set aside the method of murder and consider the idea that these guys are pros, then, yeah, I can see the possibility.”

“Then there's the three German gang leaders. Same execution-style murders, probably with silencers, a quick in and out, without anyone seeing. And think about this: They had to know of an imminent bust at the Steinadler, and know to wait out back and let Giessen, Bachmann, and Plöbsch come to them.”

“Oh, come on. Now you're reaching.”

“Then you're not going to like the next part. I believe that an ex-OSS agent and an American major managing the Casa Carioca are in league with some ex-SS officers in taking over the black market operations in this town—hell, this whole area. And my bet is there are more behind them. In fact, I was betting you were getting kickbacks to cover it all up.”

Densmore's face twisted in anger. “I ought to break your neck.”

“I wouldn't recommend trying.”

“I don't know what you're playing at here, but I'm going to make a point to not give a damn.”

Mason decided against saying any more. He'd let Densmore dangle a bit from the hook.

Densmore said, “Word of your antics has gotten to the provost marshal of Bavaria, Colonel Walton. He's making noise about getting you out of Germany.”

“Yeah, Colonel Walton's threatened me before, back when I worked under him in Munich. Said he was going to bust me down to private and transfer me to a border patrol in the mountains. He likes to blow a lot of hot air.”

“Well, he blew it our way, because Colonel Udahl is ordering you to his office. I'm not expending energy to keep you here out of the goodness of my heart. I need an experienced investigator. You go, and all that's left of my CID detachment are kids still wet behind the ears. I'm asking you as a fellow cop, don't screw this up any more than you already have. Okay?”

Densmore walked away, and Abrams asked, “What do you think? Did we net one?”

“I don't know. First he's trying to throw a monkey wrench into this case, and the next minute he's just trying to save his skin. He's afraid of something, and he knows more than he's letting on.”

“I don't see him having the ambition or imagination of a big player,” Abrams said.

Mason nodded as he considered that. “Continue to supervise here. Try to put on some pressure. One of them might talk. I'll go see what the colonel has up his sleeve.”

“You think
he's
slipped into our net?”

Mason shook his head. “He's one of the good guys.” He started to go, then turned back to Abrams. “At least, I think he is.”

*   *   *

C
olonel Udahl's office was on the top floor of the Rathaus. As a regional military governor, Udahl had been awarded the former mayor's office, though it was said that he rarely occupied said office. Instead, he was often absent, touring his domain, attending numerous ceremonies and political forums. A real hands-on kind of man, some said, while others claimed that “his highness” left the running of his kingdom to others while enjoying the royal perks of the job.

Colonel Udahl's sergeant secretary snapped to when Mason entered Udahl's outer office. “I'll let the colonel know you're here.”

The colonel's outer office was meant to impress visitors. Framed photographs filled the walls, all of the colonel, of course: several with the colonel in African hunting gear kneeling before a dead lion or a rhinoceros with his high-powered rifle; the colonel reading a map with attentive staff; the colonel in uniform as the governor, inspecting troops in Munich or speaking at a podium to a large group of German businessmen; the colonel shaking hands with the man himself—Ike. Curiously, none from the war. Then, in one corner,
completely incongruous with the rest of the décor, hung an intricately carved Black Forest cuckoo clock. The clock reminded Mason of a similar one belonging to the depraved killer he'd hunted in Munich. The memory almost made him shudder.

The sergeant came out again and announced as if admitting someone to the king's court, “The colonel will see you now.”

Mason entered a large office with wide windows overlooking the town and the inky black silhouette of the mountains. A sofa and chairs—austere considering the colonel's reputed champagne taste—sat at one end, with a boat-sized desk at the other. Colonel Udahl and, to Mason's surprise, General Pritchard, sat enjoying cigars in the high-backed chairs like two men at a gentlemen's club discussing the stock market or world domination.

Mason had expected a sharp reprimand for turning the town upside down in arresting the German suspects, the excessive use of valuable MP manpower, or bamboozling Major Gamin. Instead, Udahl offered him a cigar, which Mason declined. They invited him to sit. He declined that as well, thinking it bizarre to deliver a report about the five murders at the Kantos house, including a child, as if recounting an amusing story with a couple of the old boys. They insisted, so he sat in a chair facing Udahl, still refusing the cigar. Pritchard took the honorary spot on the sofa.

“You wanted to see me, sirs?” Mason asked once he'd settled into the plush cushions.

Pritchard gave him a serious look. “General Clay has expressed great interest in your investigation.”

“General Clay?” Mason said, stunned. As the deputy military governor of Germany's American zone of occupation, General Clay was the second most powerful American in the country.

Pritchard arched an accusatory eyebrow. “Someone sent him copies of your daily reports.”

“My . . . I don't get it. Who would do that, and why?”

“We were wondering the same thing,” Udahl said. “In fact, we suspected you, knowing your reputation for ignoring the chain of command.”

Mason trolled through the handful of people familiar with the case, but couldn't think of who would have done such a thing, unless . . . Gamin, the old, crafty buzzard, knew more about what was happening around him than he let on.

“You haven't answered us, Mr. Collins,” Pritchard said.

“It wasn't me, and I have no idea who would.”

Pritchard said, “Considering General Clay's acute interest, I thought it prudent to come down here myself and converse with Colonel Udahl about the situation. As you know, I've been interested in your case from the start, but now that General Clay is concerned, I am doubly so. In fact, I'm so interested that I halted the shipment of Agent Winstone's remains back to the States and ordered an immediate autopsy.” He looked directly into Mason's eyes. “They found the missing parts of Hilda Schmidt's face.” He paused. “They were in Agent Winstone's esophagus and stomach. Unchewed. In fact, by the lacerations and swelling in the back of his mouth and throat, it's clear that he was forced to swallow them.”

A moment of silence passed. Mason tried to push away the images of those last horrible moments in Winstone's and Hilda's lives.