Garden of Beasts (7 page)

The ice broken, they talked about the plan some more. Paul was surprised that Hank sounded almost tearfully touched at this overture. Family was key to Hank and he couldn’t understand Paul’s distance in the past ten years.

Tall, beautiful Marion, Paul had decided, would like that life too. Oh, she played at being bad, but it was an act, and Paul knew enough to give her only a small taste of the seamy life. He’d introduced her to Damon Runyon, served her beer in a bottle at the gym, taken her to the bar in Hell’s Kitchen where Owney Madden used to charm ladies with his British accent and show off his pearl-handled pistols. But he knew that like a lot of renegade college girls, Marion would get tired of the tough life if she actually had to live it. Dime-dancing would wear thin as well, and she’d want something more stable. Being the wife of a well-off printer would be aces.

Hank had said he was going to talk to his lawyer and have a partnership agreement drawn up for Paul to sign as soon as he got back from his “business trip.”

Now, returning to his room at the dorm, Paul noticed three boys in shorts, brown shirts and black ties, wearing brown, military-style hats. He’d seen dozens of such youngsters here, assisting the teams. The trio marched toward a tall pole, at the top of which flew the Nazi flag. Paul had seen the banner in newsreels and in the papers but the images had always been in black and white. Even now, at dusk, the flag’s crimson was striking, brilliant as fresh blood.

One boy noticed him watching and asked in German, “You are an athlete, sir? Yet you’re not at the ceremony we are hosting?”

Paul thought it better not to give away his linguistic skills, even to Boy Scouts, so he said in English, “Sorry, I don’t speak German so well.”

The boy switched to Paul’s language. “You are an athlete?”

“No, I’m a journalist.”

“You are English or American?”

“American.”

“Ach,” the cheerful youngster said in a thick accent, “welcome to Berlin,
mein Herr.
”

“Thank you.”

The second boy noted Paul’s gaze and said, “You are liking our Party’s flag? It is, would you say, impressing, yes?”

“Yeah, it is.” The Stars and Stripes was somehow softer. This flag sort of punched you.

The first boy said, “Please, each parts is having a meaning, an important meaning. Do you know what are those?”

“No. Tell me.” Paul looked up at the banner.

Happy to explain, he said enthusiastically, “Red, that is socialism. The white is, no doubt, for nationalism. And the black… the hooked cross. You would say swastika….” He looked at Paul with a raised eyebrow and said nothing more.

“Yes,” Paul said. “Go on. What does that mean?”

The boy glanced at his companions then back to Paul with a curious smile. He said, “Ach, surely you know.”

To his friends he said in German, “I will lower the flag now.” Smiling, he repeated to Paul, “Surely you know.” And frowning in concentration, he brought the flag down as the other two extended their hands in one of those stiff-armed salutes you saw everywhere.

As Paul walked toward the dorm, the boys broke into a song, which they sang with uneven, energetic voices. He heard snatches of it rising and falling on the hot air as he strolled away:
“Hold high the banner, close the ranks. The SA marches on with firm steps…. Give way, give way to the brown battalions, as the Stormtroopers clear the land…. The trumpet calls
its final blast. For battle we stand ready. Soon all streets will see Hitler’s flag and our slavery will be over….”

Paul looked back to see them fold the flag reverently and march off with it. He slipped through the back entrance of his dorm and returned to his room, where he washed, cleaned his teeth then stripped and dropped onto his bed. He stared at the ceiling for a long time, waiting for sleep as he thought about Heinsler—the man who’d killed himself that morning on the ship, making such a passionate, foolish sacrifice.

Thinking too of Reinhard Ernst.

And finally, as he began to doze, thinking of the boy in the brown uniform. Seeing his mysterious smile. Hearing his voice over and over:
Surely you know… surely you know….

III

G
ÖRING
’
S
H
AT

S
ATURDAY
, 25 J
ULY
, 1936

Chapter Five

The streets of Berlin were immaculate and the people pleasant, many nodding as he walked past. Carting the beat-up old briefcase, Paul Schumann was walking north through the Tiergarten. It was late morning on Saturday and he was on his way to meet Reggie Morgan.

The park was beautiful, filled with dense trees, walkways and lakes, gardens. In New York’s Central Park, you were forever aware of the city around you; the skyscrapers were visible everywhere. But Berlin was a low city, very few tall buildings here, “cloud catchers,” he overheard a woman say to a young child on the bus. On his walk through the park with its black trees and thick vegetation he lost any sense that he was in the city at all. It reminded Paul of the dense woods in upstate New York where his grandfather had taken him hunting every summer until the old man’s failing health had prevented them from making the trips.

An uneasiness crept over him. This was a familiar feeling: the heightened senses at the beginning of a job, when he was looking over the touch-off’s office or apartment, following him, learning what he could about the man. Instinctively he paused from time to time and would glance casually behind him, as if orienting himself. No one seemed to be following. But he couldn’t tell for sure. The forest was very dim in places and someone might easily have been eyeing him. Several scruffy men looked his way suspiciously and then slipped into the trees or bushes. Probably hoboes or bums but he took no chances and changed direction a number of times to throw off anyone who might be tailing him.

He crossed the murky Spree River and found Spener Street then continued north, away from the park, noting that, curiously, the homes were in vastly different states of repair. Some were grand while right next door might be others that were abandoned and derelict. He passed one in which brown weeds filled the front yard. At one point the house had clearly been very luxurious. Now, most of the windows were broken and someone, young punks, he assumed, had splashed yellow paint on it. A sign announced that a sale of the contents would be taking place on Saturday. Tax problems, maybe, Paul thought. What had happened to the family? Where had they gone? Hard times, he sensed. Changed circumstances.

The sun finally sets…

He found the restaurant easily. He saw the sign but didn’t even notice the word “Bierhaus.” To him it was “Beer House.” He was already thinking in German. His upbringing and the hours of typesetting at his grandfather’s plant made the translations automatic. He looked over the place. A half dozen lunchers sat on the patio, men and women, solitary for the most part, lost in their food or newspapers. Nothing out of kilter that he could see.

Paul crossed the street to the passageway Avery had told him about, Dresden Alley. He walked into the dark, cool canyon. The time was a few minutes before noon.

A moment later he heard footsteps. Then a heavyset man in a brown suit and waistcoat strode up behind him, working a toothpick in his teeth.

“Good day,” the man said cheerfully in German. He glanced at the brown leather briefcase.

Paul nodded. He was the way Avery’d described Morgan, though he was heavier than Paul had expected.

“This is a good shortcut, don’t you think? I use it often.”

“It certainly is.” Paul glanced at him. “Maybe you can help me. What’s the best tram to take to get to Alexander Plaza?”

But the man frowned. “The tram? Do you mean from here?”

Paul grew more alert. “Yes. To Alexander Plaza.”

“Why would you take the tram? The underground is much faster.”

Okay, Paul thought; he’s the wrong one. Get away. Now. Just walk slowly. “Thank you. That’s most helpful. Good day to you.”

But Paul’s eyes must have revealed something. The man’s hand strayed to his side, a gesture Paul knew well, and he thought: pistol!

Goddamn them for sending him out here without his Colt.

Paul’s fists clenched and he started forward but, for a fat man, his adversary was surprisingly quick and leapt back, out of Paul’s reach, deftly pulling a black pistol from his belt. Paul could only turn and flee. He sprinted around a corner into a short offshoot of the alley.

He stopped fast. It was a dead end.

A scrape of shoe behind him and he felt the man’s weapon against his back, level with his heart….

“Don’t move,” the man announced in guttural German. “Drop the bag.”

He dropped the briefcase on the cobblestones, feeling the gun leave his back and touch his head, just below the sweatband of his hat.

Father, he thought—not to the deity but to his own parent, gone from this earth twelve years.

He closed his eyes.

The sun finally sets…

The shot was abrupt. It echoed briefly off the walls of the alley and then was smothered by the brick.

Cringing, Paul felt the muzzle of the gun press harder into his skull and then the weapon fell away; he heard it clatter on the cobblestones. He stepped away fast, crouching, and turned to see the man who’d been about to kill him crumpling to the ground. His eyes were open but glazed. A bullet had struck him in the side of the head. Blood spattered the ground and brick wall.

He looked up and saw another man, in a charcoal-gray flannel suit, approaching him. Instinct took over and Paul swept up the dead man’s pistol. It was an automatic of some sort with a toggle on the top, a Luger, he believed. Aiming at the man’s chest, Paul squinted. He recognized the fellow from the Beer House. He’d been sitting on the patio, lost in his newspaper—Paul had assumed. He held a pistol, a large automatic of some kind, but it wasn’t pointed at Paul; he was still aiming at the man on the ground.

“Don’t move,” Paul said in German. “Drop the gun.”

The man didn’t drop it but, convinced the man he’d shot wasn’t a threat, slipped his own weapon into his pocket. He looked up and down Dresden Alley. “Shhhh,” he whispered then cocked his head to listen. He slowly approached. “Schumann?” he asked.

Paul said nothing. He kept the Luger aimed at the stranger, who crouched in front of the shot man. “My watch.” The words were in German, a faint accent.

“What?”

“My watch. That’s all I’m reaching for.” He pulled out his pocket watch, opened it and held the crystal in front of the man’s nose and mouth. There was no condensation of breath. He put the timepiece away.

“You’re Schumann?” the man repeated, nodding at the briefcase on the ground. “I’m Reggie Morgan.” He too fit the description Avery had given him: dark hair and mustache, though he was much thinner than the dead man.

Paul looked up and down the alley. No one.

The exchange would seem absurd, with a dead body in front of them, but Paul asked, “What’s the best tram to take to get to Alexander Plaza?”

Morgan replied quickly, “The number one thirty-eight tram… No, actually, the two fifty-four is better.”

Paul glanced at the body. “So then who’s
he?”

“Let’s find out.” He bent over the corpse and began to rifle through the dead man’s pockets.

“I’ll keep watch,” Paul said.

“Good.”

Paul stepped away. Then he turned back and touched the Luger to the back of Morgan’s head.

“Don’t move.”

The man froze. “What’s this?”

In English Paul said, “Give me your passport.”

Paul took the booklet, which confirmed that he was Reginald Morgan. Still, as he handed it back, he kept the pistol where it was. “Describe the Senator to me. In English.”

“Just easy on the trigger, you don’t mind,” the man said in a voice that placed his roots somewhere in New England. “Okay, the Senator? He’s sixty-two years old, got white hair, a nose with more veins than he ought to have, thanks to the scotch. And he’s thin as a rail even though he eats a whole T-bone at Delmonico’s when he’s in New York and at Ernie’s in Detroit.”

“What’s he smoke?”

“Nothing the last time I saw him, last year. Because of the wife. But he told me he was going to start again. And what he
used
to smoke were Dominican cigars that smelled like burning Firestones. Give me a break, pal. I don’t want to die ’cause some old man took up a bad habit again.”

Paul put the gun away. “Sorry.”

Morgan resumed his examination of the corpse, unfazed by Paul’s test. “I’d rather work with a cautious man who insults me than a careless one who doesn’t. We’ll both live longer.” He dug through the pockets of the dead man. “Any visitors yet?”

Paul glanced up and down Dresden Alley. “Nothing.”

He was aware that Morgan was staring in chagrin at something he’d found in the dead man’s pockets. He sighed. “Okay. Brother, here’s a problem.”

“What?”

The man held up an official-looking card. On the top was a stamp of an eagle and below it, in a circle, a swastika. The letters “SA” appeared on the top.

“What does that mean?”

“It means, my friend, that you’ve been in town for less than a day and already we’ve managed to kill a Stormtrooper.”