Ultimate Issue (36 page)

The railings prevented Verago getting near the window, but he signaled to the man, mouthing: “Can you let me in?”

The face suddenly disappeared, and then, almost to his surprise, the front door opened, and the man stood there. He wore carpet slippers and needed a shave. He was elderly and regarded Verago with undisguised hostility.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“Braunschweig,” said Verago. “flat C.”

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“Not here.” He made to shut the door.

Verago put his foot in the way. “When will they be back?”

“I didn’t say they’re out, I said they’re not here,” growled the man. He scratched his unshaven chin as if it itched.

“What do you mean, not here?”

“Don’t you understand German?” the man said rudely. “I’ve told you. They’re not here. They’ve gone. Departed.”

Verago felt his stomach tightening. “Since when?”

“I don’t know,” the man said sullenly. “Who are you?”

He had shapeless trousers, and they were held up by a belt that had makeshift holes punched into it. Maybe the man had lost weight.

“I’m a friend,” Verago said vaguely.

“Foreigner, oh?”

“Who are you?” asked Verago.

“The caretaker.” He tried to close the door again, but Verago wouldn’t shift his foot.

“Look here,” said Verago, “they can’t have disappeared into thin air. When did they go? Have you got their new address? Did they tell you anything? It’s important.”

“Nothing to do with me,” said the man, “and if you’ve got so many questions, you’d better go to the authorities. I don’t want anything to do with foreigners.”

He said it quite loudly, as if he wanted the world to hear.

“Especially not Americans,” he added for good measure. “Now let go of the door.”

“Just a moment.”

“I tell you for the last time, the Braunschweigs have gone and you won’t see them here again. The flat’s already been let.”

It was hopeless. Verago stepped back, and the man slammed the front door in his face.

Verago stared up at the windows of the flats as if they would yield a clue, but there was no sign of life beyond the dirty windows and their soiled curtains.

He wondered why the man had made the crack about Americans. Sure, Verago looked like a foreigner. His clothes were too good. His German was accented. But why take him to be an American? He could have been an

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Englishman, or even a Russian. Was his nationality that obvious?

Half an hour in Last Berlin, and he had reached a dead end.

Damn it, I’m not beaten yet, he said to himself, even if it sounded a little bit like whistling in the dark.

He turned back to find the cab.

It had gone.

London

The torpedo boat raced across the water, skimming the waves, straight at the yacht with the bright yellow sails. Then, as collision seemed inevitable, it suddenly altered course and veered around in a big circle, making for the schoolboy standing at the edge of the Round Pond who was operating the craft’s radio controls.

Ivanov sighed.

“I wish I’d had toys like that when I was his age,” he said. He held out his bag of bread to Laurie. “Here, you want some more?”

She took some crusts, broke them up, and flung them toward the ducks. But a seagull swooped down and stole most of it as it fell.

“You always come here feeding the ducks?” she asked. Sometimes he surprised her.

“But of course,” he replied, mockingly. “I am a Communist. I share my last crust with the underprivileged.”

“They look pretty well fed to me,” she observed.

“It’s all in the eyes of the beholder. Sometimes things are not what they seem.” He looked her in the eyes. “Are they, Laurie?”

She studiously followed the course of the little torpedo boat.

“There,” said Ivanov. He emptied the last of the crumbs on the ground, screwed up the paper bag, and tossed it aside.

“Heyl” exclaimed Laurie. “That’s against the law. No litter.”

He took her arm. “You keep forgetting. I have diplomatic immunityd’ It amused him. “Absolute immunity. So I can get away with all sorts of things …”

“I know.” She nodded. “But I wouldn’t push it, Gene.”

They were walking between the trees toward the big bronze statue of the muscular man riding the huge horse.

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“I am surprised about your friend,” he remarked suddenly.

“What friend?”

He shook his head almost pityingly. “Please, Laurie, it’s not playtime. What other friend can there be?”

A slight breeze blew some hair into her eyes. She brushed it away. “I have lots of friends, you’d be amazed.”

“I thought Captain Verago was a smart man,” he went on, as if she hadn’t made any comment. “Instead he seems to have … well, if one wanted to be melodramatic one could say a death wish.”

She shivered slightly, but it wasn’t the cold. The July afternoon air was soft and balmy. “I don’t “

“He’s sticking his nose into things he doesn’t understand.”

She looked at him defiantly. “But perhaps he does, have you ever thought of that?”

They came to a bench, and he nodded at it. “Let’s sit down.”

For a moment he said nothing. She gazed back at the Round Pond and the outline of Kensington Palace in the distance with unseeing eyes.

“You know what I’m talking about,” he said at last. “We all do, because we’re all in this together. Your Captain Verago is a fool if he hasn’t worked that out yet. How can he take on everybody? Your people, my people, the Germans? Doesn’t he realize that this is a game without frontiers and without sides?”

She was still staring straight ahead. “Why are you telling me this?”

He shrugged. “I think you’re quite fond of the guy, and if somebody could get to him, before it’s too late….”

She turned to him. “You’re talking to the wrong person, Gene. There’s nothing I can do.”

But he put his head closer to hers. “Laurie, you can pass the word. Everybody wants to see this Tower business dealt with. What do any of us gain from it? But if he goes on tipping the balance, meddling unnecessarily….” He spread his hands helplessly. “My people won’t sit by. There’s too much at stake.”

A woman walked by with a Pekingese and a Shih Tzu terrier. The Pekingese tottered along sedately, like a dignified elderly functionary, but the Shih Tzu darted all over

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the place. It rushed up to Ivanov and sniffed his shoes. He leaned forward and stroked the dog.

“What exactly have you heard about the Tower trial?” asked Laurie.

“Come along, Sanki!” came the woman’s command from where she stood some yards away.

Ivanov watched the Shih Tzu run toward her. “Nothing officially,” he said. “But I know they’re worried about the way it’s gone so far. And when my people get worried, they do drastic things.”

Laurie stood up. “I m cold,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” said Ivanov, and he sounded sincere. “I had to tell you. After all, what are friends for?”

East Berlin

Verago sat in the cafe, feeling like a fly caught in an invisible web. He knew he was caught when the cab had gone; not even in East Berlin did taxi drivers take off without being paid.

He walked into the cafe and sat down to take stock. It was in a small side street, near Kolwitz strasse, and had seen better days. There were four tables. On the wall hung a rack of newspapers for patrons to borrow; but the only paper displayed were three copies of Neues Deutschland, the official organ of the East German Communist Party. By the toilet, whether by acident or design, hung a portrait of goateed Walter Ulbricht.

Verago ordered a beer. The Czech-brewed Pilsner tasted good. The place smelled of boiled cabbage and needed redecorating. A radio faintly played brass band music. At one of the tables sat a man, noisily slurping the contents of a big bowl of lentil soup.

Only one person came in, a red-haired girl. She wore thick lisle stockings and limped slightly.

“Hello, Trudi,” called out the woman behind the counter, “how’s tricks?”

“Shitty,” snapped the redhead, and sat down by herself. She gave Verago a cursory look.

He was thinking he had three days. That was all. The courtmartial resumed on Tuesday. Here was the key to it, somewhere, and he had to get to it before returning to England. To Laurie. To … He sighed. At this moment England, Laconbury, the whole circus, seemed as remote as a distant planet. So did the chance of finding what he needed to throw a wrench in the works.

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The redhead got up and came over.

“It is okay to sit down?” she asked in English

He hesitated and then shrugged.

“Sank you,” she said. Her accent was atrocious. And close up, she looked thin and undernourished. Her makeup was grotesque, a red slash that passed for lipstick on her mouth, and heavy eyeshadowthat made her look tired and badly in need of a good night’s sleep.

“You are a Yankee?”

Jesus, and he had kidded himself that if he didn’t wear uniform he wouldn’t be so conspicuous.

“My boyfriend is a Zhee I,” she continued without waiting for him. “He will take me to Texas. He is an MP.”

“Oh, yes?”

“I go to the West to see him at weekends,” she added. “You buy me a drink?”

He felt sorry for her. Her blouse had a button missing, and she was clutching a cheap plastic handbag. A thread was running in her worn wool skirt.

“What would you like?” asked Verago. She didn’t need a drink, he figured, but something to eat.

“Schnapps,” she said and smiled. “You join me?”

“One schnapps,” Verago called to the woman behind the counter.

She pouted. “Only one?”

“I have to go in a minute.”

The brandy came, and she raised her glass. “To America, chin chin.”

“Where did you learn English?”

“I pick it up,” she said, and coughed. “From boyfriends. Zhee I’s.”

Verago wondered what kind of GI had taught her to say “chin chin.” He began to rise.

“Wait,” she said. She had taken a crumpled handkerchief from her purse and was dabbing her mouth. “You sell me some dollars?”

So, thought Verago. That’s it. A setup. The man with the pince-nez crossed his mind. “It is a serious offense to speculate … currency….” That’s what they want. An excuse.

“I’m sorry, fraulein,” he said, rather formally, and in a loud voice. “I only have a little money, and I need that.”

“Not fraulein, please,” she said. “I am Trudi. And I give you a good price. A very good price.”

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“I’m sure.” Now he was on his feet. “Thank you very much Trudi. Some other time.” He signaled to pay.

“Please sit down.”

It was her tone that made him look at her again.

“It is important,” she added, in a low voice.

He glanced around the cafe. The man was still eating his soup.

“Please,” said Trudi, her tired eyes pleading.

Slowly Verago sat down again. The woman came over with the bill.

“Noch ein bier, bitte,” said Verago, “und ein schnapps.”

“Sank you,” said the redhead.

Careful, thought Verago. Be very careful what you say from now on.

“What is so important, Trudi?” His voice was soft.

“You have been asking questions. About the Braunschweigs.”

He tensed. “How do you know?”

“I know,” she said, rather sadly.

The drinks came. Verago took a sip of his beer, looking at her across the rim of his glass.

“How?” he repeated.

“Do you want to know about Helga or don’t you?” she demanded with a touch of impatience.

“I want to know who you are.”

“Go to hell.” She almost spat at him. She had finished her Srst schnapps and now took a big gulp of the second one. Again she coughed. She got up.

“Good-bye,” she said curtly, and began to walk back to her table.

“Just a moment.”

She paused. “Yes?”

“What about Helga?”

“You want to find her?”

You’re a damn fool, Verago said to himself. But he risked it.

“Maybe.”

The girl turned her head, to make sure nobody was listening. Then she whispered, “She’s at Reinhof’s.”

“Where?”

“Reinhof’s. Liebermann Platz forty-three. On the ground floor.”

He started to say something, and she put a hand on his arm. Two of her fingernails were broken.

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“You must go now,” she said urgently.

“Now wait a second,” began Verago.

The door of the cafe opened and a man with cropped hair and rimless glasses came in.

“Please,” hissed Trudi. “Go. Not a word. Just go.”

Verago threw ten marks on the table and walked out

He wondered if this was how a fish felt when it swallowed the bait.

East Berlin

It was an undertaker’s shop. “Reinhor’ read the sign, and underneath “Leichenbestatter.”

Verago didn’t know the German word for mortician, but he knew what leichen were. Bodies. Corpses. Cadaver ers.

And the shop window made the message clear. It was a simple display. Just a marble urn.

He stood across the road, in the Liebermann Platz, and he thought, This is where I should get off. Back to the Friederichstrasse, jump aboard the first S-train, and half an hour later order a triple scotch in the Golden City bar of the Hilton. That would be the wise thing to do.

Because of course Trudi was a setup. Maybe the idea had been to frame him. To lure him into doing some illegal currency deal. Or get him shacked up with a prostitute. Then they could charge him with almost anything

black rnarketeering, immorality, you name it.

But obviously they had prepared for all contingencies. And when he didn’t play the game, they had this joker up their sleeve. An address for Helga

And yet …

Why an undertaker! Why not an ordinary address, some faceless building? And supposing Trudi wasn’t one of them? Supposing somebody had sent her to help him find Helga?

No, you’re a god damn fool, Verago, his caution kept saying. Get out of this while you can. He stood in a doorway, took out a pack of cigarettes, and lit one. He saw a man at the nearby bus stop stare at him. He must have seen the cigarette pack. Lucky Strikes. From the PX. Nobody smokes Lucky Strikes in East Berlin.