The Shadow Man (50 page)

She said nothing, and he laughed again.

‘Will it not make you a better policeman, Miss Martinez?’

‘What?’

‘The more you know about death, the better you will be at detecting it. Is this not so? It was for me. And for many others, like me. I think you probably know some men like me, Miss Martinez. It is just that it is not always so pleasant to admit it.’

He laughed again.

lSie glauben wohl ich bin ein boser alter Mann, he said. I must seem to you to be a terrible old man. When his daughter hesitated, in her translation, he grunted at her, gesturing with the knife. ‘And perhaps I am so. But I will tell you a story, about the Shadow Man, and then you may do with it what you will.’

‘Maybe it would be better if I just asked questions—’ Martinez started, but the sick man’s glare made her stop. The daughter managed to blurt out a few words in German, and then halted as abruptly.

‘Ich erzahle Ihnen jetzt die Geschichte,’ he said. I will tell the story. He reached to his side and seized the oxygen mask, cupping it across his face, breathing deeply.

‘It was 1941 when I was transferred into Section 101, and I had just been promoted to the rank of sergeant. Sergeant! Not bad for the son of a coal hauler whose wife had to take in laundry to help make ends meet. These people, my parents, my daughter never knows of them,

because they die in an air raid in ‘forty-two.’

The old man stared at his daughter.

‘Du weisst ja was Seide ist,’ he said sharply. You know silk. ‘Silk and Mercedes cars, because of your international bank. You know money. We knew none of that! I was raised poor and shall die poor!’

The daughter did not translate this, but Schultz did, quietly, beneath his breath. Espy Martinez saw the daughter’s face constrict, and she knew that she was glimpsing some longtime pain between them.

‘You do not care,’ the old Nazi continued. ‘And so, I do not care either.’ He turned away from his daughter and back to Espy Martinez.

‘The transports were running constantly then. Roundups daily. Sometimes twice a day’

‘Roundups?’

‘Jews. Transports to the East. To the camps.’ He smiled. ‘Diese Ziige waren immer punktlich.’ Those trains always ran on time.

Espy Martinez tried to keep a poker face. ‘The Shadow Man?’

Klaus Wilmschmidt turned away, just for an instant, his eyes searching out the window. He stared at the glass.

‘I can see nothing,’ he said bitterly. ‘I lie here, and all I can see is a corner of the neighbor’s house and a little piece of the sky past it. There is no light.’ He spoke the last words rapidly, and he reached across for the oxygen mask again, as breath started to wheeze from his chest.

In a moment he turned back to Espy Martinez.

‘The Shadow Man was in the major’s office. I was called in…’

On his bed, the old man lurched into a position approximating a man snapping to attention.

‘… The major knew something. That he was different.

I only saw the boy sitting there. He was dressed like a workman. Heavy boots. Woolen pants and coat. He had a hat pulled down, so it was hard to see his face. The major says to me: “This Jew will help us. He will catch other Jews

for us___” and I salute. This is something I expect. But

what comes next is unusual, because the major, he turns to the Jew and he says, “Willem, you are a Jew, are you not?” as if he is joking. And this boy, he is perhaps nineteen, twenty years of age, he makes a face like some beast in the zoo. Filled with anger and capture. And after a moment, he replies, “Yes, Herr Major, I am a Jew!” and the major, he laughs and turns to me and says, “Willem is not much of a Jew, Sergeant. Just the littlest bit. What bit is that, Willem?” and the boy, he answers, “My grandmother, damn her.”’

The old man looked at Espy Martinez.

‘You are a woman of laws, correct?’

‘Yes. I am a lawyer and a prosecutor….’

‘Sie haben keine Gesetze wie wir sie hatten! Die Rassenge-setze!’ You have no laws like we had. The race laws. He laughed. ‘Poor Shadow Man! A half-Jewish grandmother who renounced her religion when she married before the first war. Who died before he was born. What a great joke that was, was it not, Miss Martinez? This woman whom he never knew put her blood in his veins, and because of that, he was to die. 1Ist das nicht ein guter Witz?’ Is that not a great joke? ‘Can you not see the devil’s own hand making sport of the poor Shadow Man?’

He paused, as if waiting for an answer, but she did not reply, so he continued.

‘So, the major, he turns to me again, and he says, “Willem can be a very useful boy. He will find Jews for us. And he will do other things too. For me. Is that not correct, Willem?” and the boy replies, “Yes, Herr Major.” I do not

know, but I suspect the major knows of this boy, and has experience with him in the past. I do not ask this, because the major gives me my orders: I am to train the boy. Surveillance. Pursuit. Weapons. Techniques of detection. Even some code work. Also forgery, which he has quite a fine hand for. ‘Der Junge soil das Geschdft der Gestapo lernen!’ The boy is to learn to be Gestapo! ‘A Jew! And so, I teach him, and do you know, Miss Martinez, no teacher ever had a pupil quite like him.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Because he understands always, he can be on the next transport. And because he hates so fully and completely.’

‘The major, why did he …’

‘Because the major was a smart man. A brilliant man! Still today, I salute when I remember him. He knew that finding Jews was his job. But he knew too that it would be useful to have a man like the Shadow Man always ready, always expert, for whatever task you might have. Did you want a document stolen? A rival murdered? What better man than the Shadow Man to perform any small, deadly task the major might have had. Because, Miss Martinez -er war bereits tot!’ He was dead already! ‘All the Jews were. And he knew he owed his life only to his special capabilities.’

Again the old Nazi smiled.

‘We were killers together, Miss Martinez. He and I. Student and teacher. But he was far superior to me….’ The man on the bed rubbed a hand across his forehead. ‘I feft guilt. He did not.’

Again he paused.

“He was our perfect killer, and you know what else, Miss Martinez?’

•What?’

‘The Shadow Man truly enjoyed his job. Behind all his hate, he loved bringing death. Especially to the people he blamed for his own blood.’

‘What happened to him?’

Klaus Wilmschmidt nodded his head. ‘He was clever. He stole. Diamonds, gold, jewels, whatever. He stole from the people he found. Then he saw to their deaths. He knew, you see, Miss Martinez, he knew his own existence relied on his ability to detect Jews and to perform the major’s special tasks. As the number of Jews to catch dwindled, in ‘forty-three and ‘forty-four, his own existence became more precarious. And so, he took precautions.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He took steps to survive, Miss Martinez. We all did. No one believed, anymore. When you can hear Russian artillery, it is hard to believe. But long before that, we knew. When you have helped create the lies, Miss Martinez, you would be quite a fool to believe them yourself.’

‘The Shadow Man?’

‘He and I had an agreement. A mutual convenience. Of what he’d stolen, I was to receive half. And papers. He was quite the forger, Miss Martinez. And, of course, I was able to help obtain stamps and proper forms. So, when the time was right, we could disappear. Become something new. I was to be Wehrmacht. A soldier wounded on the Western front and disabled. Ein ehrbarer Mann.’ An honorable man. ‘A soldier who merely followed orders and now wanted to go home in peace. Not Gestapo. And this, one day, when all was finished, I became. Handed myself in to the British.’

‘But the Shadow Man?’

‘His task was more complicated. And, he was more clever than I, He searched for a man. Every day, he hunted. A man to become.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘A different identity. A Jew, like himself. Of close to the same age, size, education. With the same coloring. And, when he found this man, he did not put him on the transport, although that is what the records said. No, he killed him, himself. And he kept this man’s person safe for his own use. He began to starve himself….’

‘Starved?’

‘Yes. To become, you see! And he had his arm tattooed with a number as they did at the camps. And then, one day, he disappeared. A wise choice, that day.’

Again the old man laughed, which prompted a coughing fit.

‘It was wise, because that day the major, his protector, was drunk and asleep when the bombers came over, and did not awaken in time to go to the shelter, and so, when he did awaken - er war bereits fest auf dem Weg zur Holle.’ He was already fast on his way to Hell!

Wilmschmidt again choked on his laugh, reached for the oxygen, then smiled toward Espy Martinez.

‘A good plan. I suspect he’d sewn his money into his coat. A rich man! He probably headed west, toward the Allies. I did. You did not want to be questioned by the Russians. But the Americans, like you, and the English, they still wanted to be fair. And if you landed with them, complete with a tale of escaping from a camp, starved and tattooed, would you not be embraced? Zumindest glaubte man Ihnen?’ At least believed?

Espy Martinez didn’t answer. Her own throat felt tight and dry, and the small room seemed filled with an illness different from the one that racked the body of the old Nazi, She felt a thickness, a dullness, as if sorting through the story she’d heard would require a razor, and she had none.

‘And so, he escaped?’ she asked.

‘He escaped. I was sure of it. I escaped, doing much the same.’

She stumbled internally, thinking hard.

‘So that is how he came to be,’ she said. She abruptly reached down into her leather satchel and removed a copy of the composite drawing that Leroy Jefferson had created. She thrust it toward the old man, who held it in front of him. After a second staring at it, he burst into a harsh, raucous laugh. He shook the picture in front of himself and said: ‘Es ist so gut, dich zu sehen, mein alter Freund!’ It is so good to see you, my old friend!

Then he turned to Martinez. ‘He has changed less than I would have thought.’

Martinez nodded. ‘You’ve told me about the past,’ she said. ‘How do I find him? Now. Today.’

Klaus Wilmschmidt lay back on his bed, eyeing her. He lifted a hand and gestured toward the vials of pills, the oxygen, and then toward himself.

‘I am dying, Miss Martinez. I am in pain, and I can count the breaths I have left.’

Maria Wilmschmidt sobbed slightly as she translated.

‘Gibt es einen Himmel? Is there a Heaven, Miss Martinez?’

‘I do not know.’

‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. So, once I was part of terrible things, Miss Martinez. Things you cannot begin to understand. I hear cries at night. I see faces on these walls. Ghosts in this little room, Miss Martinez. They are here with me. More every day. They call to me, and soon enough I will try to take a breath, but I will not be able. I will grab for the oxygen, but it will not work. And I will choke and die. That is what is left for me.’

He paused, gathering himself.

‘So, I wonder, can I die with what I know about this man? Tell me, Miss Martinez, will I now know peace? Now that I have spoken of him, and what we did?’

‘I don’t know,’ she answered, but she did.

The old man seemed to grow smaller, darker, as if night and fog had covered him like a coat. His breathing was raspy, erratic.

‘Find the Shadow Man? That I cannot do, Miss Martinez.’

‘But—’

‘But I do know the name of the man who he became.’

‘Tell me!’ she demanded quickly, as if she needed to know before the man on the bed coughed again.

He grinned, his face not unlike the death’s head on the dagger he’d waved about earlier.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I can tell you the name. And I can tell you something else.’

‘What is that?’

Klaus Wilmschmidt, the dying man, whispered his response: ‘Ich weiss was fur eine Nummer der Schattenmann auf seinem Arm hat…’

The old man’s daughter paused for an instant, breathing once harshly, before she quietly translated: ‘I know the number the Shadow Man tattooed on his arm.’

Simon Winter and Walter Robinson, standing slightly apart, watched as the rabbi and Frieda Kroner examined the composite drawing of the Shadow Man. The old people were quiet, studious, like a pair of scholars poring over some faded ancient hieroglyph, before they each sat back abruptly. Frieda Kroner had a slightly wild, runaway look on her face as she declared:

‘That is him. Except for the chin. It should be much stronger–-‘

‘The eyebrows are not quite right. They should be more pinched, as if angry all the time,’ Rabbi Rubinstein said stiffly. ‘That would make his eyes more, I do not know, what Frieda? Do you remember his eyes?’

‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘Narrow, like a vicious dog’s.’

‘But the rest?’ Robinson asked.

‘The rest is the man we saw fifty years ago.’ Frieda Kroner said this in a firm, fierce voice. She turned to the rabbi. ‘Older. No longer young. Like us. Is this not so?’

‘Yes. That is the Shadow Man,’ the rabbi agreed. He reached across and placed his hand on her arm. He turned to the detective. ‘I would know him in an instant.’

‘I also,’ Frieda Kroner added. She took a deep breath. ‘And, I am thinking, so would have poor Sophie and

Irving. If our memories told us short or tall, thin or thick, dark or light, this was because so much was in there cluttered about and made it difficult to remember. But now, seeing this, I can say, that is him.’

She shivered, but spoke in a firm, determined voice.

‘So, Detective - and you too, Mr Winter - you think he is out there tonight,’ she gestured toward the windows and beyond, ‘searching for us, as he did the others?’

Simon Winter nodded.

Frieda Kroner laughed slightly, as if this were amusing. ‘So, perhaps it will be difficult to sleep. I remember this was the same, once before. A long time ago.’

Walter Robinson had been controlling himself with difficulty, watching the old couple. ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ he said. ‘I think the risk is simply too great. This man is almost a professional killer. More than that. A homicidal psychopath. I think what would be wisest would be for each of you to visit relatives and let me use what information I already have to find him. That way you’ll be safe and I won’t have to worry about protecting the two of you. We can slip you out of town, and still trap him when he makes some sort of move toward the apartment here, or yours, Mrs Kroner. But the important thing is, we won’t have another death.’