The Commissar (21 page)

‘He’s turned over a new leaf,’ says Porta, spitting out of the window. ‘Stopped stealing from people. One of my pals, feller who cleans the windows for the Gestapo at
Prinz Albrecht Strasse
, took him to the dentist to have his teeth looked at. There was some trouble so my pal borrowed the dentist’s drill to fix it for him. Slipped a bit now an’ then and made a hole or two in his tongue.’

‘Don’t suppose “Porky” liked that?’ laughs Sally, wickedly.

‘No, he didn’t, to be sure,’ answers Porta, with a hard laugh. ‘There weren’t any teeth left, and the holes in his tongue make him stammer. He has trouble asking for other people’s 80 percent now. People get tired of waitin’ for him to finish what he’s saying.’

‘Yes, he boasted a lot about his having put one over on you,’ says Sally, handing Porta the cognac bottle. ‘Remember that fellow “Fat Pino”, who used to be always boasting about how big he was? Well, a fellow steps out of a car on the
Hohenzollerndamn
right in the middle of the day. He throws
his arms round “Pino”, gives him a big, smacking pansy kiss right on his mouth, and pushes a knife into his back at the same time. Straight to the heart, and all finished very neatly. He was off, knife and all, before people had finished staring at what had been happy “Fat Pino”, only a moment before.’

‘They call it the kiss of death in Sicily,’ explains Wolf. ‘I’ve used it a couple o’ times here in Russia. Makes the opposition pull in its horns for quite a time, an’ gives a bloke room to work in!’

Porta swings off the highway, and edges the heavy staff-car through narrow, snow-covered streets, sounding his horn continually. Pedestrians dodge to all sides. With a flamboyant swing he stops outside Wolfs residence with its forest of ‘No Entry’ signs.

The Chinese goons open the double doors to allow plenty of room for Wolf and his two companions to enter.

Two Russian POWs stand ready to polish Wolfs boots. They are graciously permitted to polish ‘War Minister’ Sally’s boots as well.

Porta sits drinking cognac while these operations are carried out. ‘Time enough to polish your boots when the war’s over,’ he thinks.

Chairs clatter as they enter the main office, and the clerks spring to attention.

Chief Mechanic Wolf touches the tip of his swagger-stick to his cap-peak. He has seen British officers do this in films. Things like that give a man class, he feels. His two bookkeepers, specialists with erasers and forged signatures, put thoughtful expressions on their faces as ‘Field-Marshal’ Wolf goes by. He tramps heavily on each step of the iron staircase on his way up it, making his spurs jingle merrily.

‘Hi!’ he greets his two wolfhounds, who are lying with fangs bared, ready to attack. ‘They had a swamp German for dinner last week,’ he laughs. ‘Wasn’t a lot left
of him
! The idiot came in here, somehow, without warning, and said he’d pinched something or other from King Michael’s
army. Or whatever it is their boss’s called down there in Rumania!’

‘Now then! Let’s get down to business,’ says Sally, when they are seated at an extremely well-furnished dinner table. Wolfs bodyguards have been thrown out, and the door locked behind them. ‘After what I’ve heard I doubt very much whether this deal can be carried through. It fairly stinks of
untermensch
treachery and Jew-boy traps!’

‘Now don’t come here puffin’ yourself up, as if you
were
somebody,’ shouts Porta angrily, pointing his fork at Sally. ‘You do what I say. You don’t need to do no more or no less to put this job through.
And
you get 5 per cent for doin’ it. Personally I’d have thought half that was enough.’

‘You
don’t
think it’s too much.’ Sally smiles acidly. ‘That’s enough for today! You going to drive me to the airstrip, or do I have to take a taxi?’

‘Have a good trip.’ grins Porta, ‘an’ see you soon!’ He helps himself, with apparent indifference, to a plateful of pickled pigs’ trotters.

Wolf goes mad, and explodes with rage. He knocks the pigs’ feet out of Porta’s hands and rushes after Sally, who has his hand almost on the door knob.

‘Hands off, you dope.’ he screams. ‘Want to blow us all to bits? You’re not back in your bloody vicarage now. You’re in a headquarters that’s important to the war effort. An’ I’ll tell you something else, too, you brain-fucked little pygmy. We don’t care a streak of piss what you do or don’t have doubts about. You do what we tell you. or you’ll soon be finished with creepin’ around playing War Minister. We’ve knocked off bigger meatheads’n you, you imitation, operetta shagbag you!
Panjemajo
?’

‘Very well, then.’ grumbles Sally, sitting down again at the table, but keeping his silk cap on. Angrily he snatches a piece of black pudding, spoons sugar over it and then syrup, ‘I usually play along with the people whose bread I have eaten.’ he says, stuffing his mouth with the black pudding.

‘What a shit you are,’ says Porta, round a mouthful of
trotters. ‘Don’t you try to shove me around like that. When it comes to it you’re not a real War Minister, you’re just a bloody clerk in a lousy office. Any prat can be one o’ them!’

‘Oh, to the devil with it,’ Sally gives in. ‘Good health, boys! And let’s get on with it! We’ll all end up in shit creek anyway, sooner or later.’ He takes a swig at his glass, and gives out a long, ringing belch. ‘But why in the world,’ he goes on, thoughtfully, ‘don’t you just pick up that gold yourselves. Nice and quiet. It’d be cheaper and easier for you, surely? By what they say in Berlin, Russia’s fallen on its backside. There’s nothing left to do but a routine clean-up, so. as far as I can see, the gold’s just normal spoils of war!’

‘An’ you call yourself “War Minister”?’ Porta shouts, contemptuously. ‘Man, you sound more like a pregnant virgin in a Turkish knocker!! This kinda job can only go through with the help of sensible Russians, who, like us, don’t give a shit for the Fatherland an’ its need for
lebensraum\
We can stick together like shit to a blanket. Look, the plan’s worked out an’ ready. I’m fuckin’ a bint just now as has been parked here by her Teller. He’s a commissar. She’s got that fond of my joystick she’s told me all about this Kremlin gold that her commissar husband had the job of hiding away till peace breaks out again. He’s got the brilliant, genius-type of idea of goin’ on his travels and taking the gold with him. We put together a combined German-Russian battle group. The commissarfixes things up back where he is, and we look after things here. Fits like a prick does up Lizzie. We drive off to Liban with the liberated gold, and from there we sail to Sweden. Goodbye to the Thousand Year Reich and the Soviet Paradise both!’

‘The Swedes no longer have customs and passport checks then?’ asks Sally, taking another mouthful of black pudding. Syrup dribbles from the corners of his mouth. ‘You’re out of your minds. Bullshit, the lot of it! I have to deal with paperwork acrobats every day. We run into a couple of inky-fingered coolies in the wrong place, and they’ve had it. That kind of thing’s too easy!’

‘Sven’s looking after all that! He talks the lingo,’ says Porta, confidently. ‘All he does is tell the Swedes we’re resistance. And it ain’t even a
lie!
That’s what we’re doing, leaving Adolfand Joe’s armies. Social Democrats, we bloody are!’

‘Two thousand three hundred and twelve kilometres and four and a half metres,’ says Sally thoughtfully, looking at the General Staff map spread out over the food on the table. ‘That’s only to where the gold is hidden! We also have to get back again. A Panther goes 100 kilometres on a full tank, and then there’s the lorries. Got to have
them!
You can’t carry the gold in your pockets. Where’s the petrol coming from? They say the petrol pumps’re all closed down in the neighbours’ area.’

‘You
worry
too much!’ shouts Porta, waving a sausage around angrily in the air. ‘This commissar whore o’ mine guarantees all that. They’ve got a petrol reserve big enough for an armoured division, if you’ve got one to spare. All you’ve got to do is cover us with the sodding Prussians, so they don’t go pissing around the world looking for us.
You
get us departure orders, battle orders, movement orders, and all the rest of the paperwork shit we need to get around in this bloody war. And the orders’ve got to be top priority. Get that straight, Mr “War Minister”! We don’t want every barrack-square bastard with a brain the size of a walnut, an’ coloured rag on his hat. tryin’ to stop us!’

‘Is
that
all you need?’ replies Sally. ‘That’s easier than wiping your backside and shaking the drops off your cock afterwards. You’ll get papers. Papers signed by Field-Marshal Keitel with all the usual loops and squiggles. No asexual iron-hat’ll start shouting at you. He’ll just salute, and pass you on!’

‘Well then,’ smiles Porta,’ why all the nonsense? All you do’s what you used to do when mum sent you down to the shops with a list in your hot little hand!’

Wolf fills their glasses quickly, and shouts ‘Skole!’ before Sally realizes what Porta has said to him.

‘We’ll also want you to have a flat-bottom lying in Libau,’ Porta goes on, emptying his glass in one gulp. ‘The Navy job, with the propeller that goes round twice as fast as any of the other grey-painted bathtubs. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be in a hurry, just about then.’

‘Small stuff for me,’ declares Sally self-confidently, adding a new note to his long list. ‘It’s only a question of finding the right papers and stamping a red GEKADOS
*
across the lot. With the right documentation those Navy pricks’ll sail you where you want to go, and never ask what’s in the boxes. But who’s going to help us in Sweden? My stamps and signatures have no force there!’

‘The Swedes?’ grins Porta, easily. ‘I’ll buy ’em. They’re only Social Democrats. They stopped using their brains long ago.’

‘Social Democrats!’ mumbles Wolf. ‘We got to share with
them
? Don’t they believe everybody should have the same pay?’

‘You’re stupider than you were the day you were born,’ bubbles Porta. ‘When it’s money you’re talking about, the secret’s to keep the share-out to as few as possible! The commissar’s bint an’ me have got everything worked out. In the end we do the lot of ’em in the eye and off we go with all the loot.’

‘You were perhaps thinking of pissing us in the eye, too?’ asks Sally in an obviously threatening tone.

‘What the devil do you take me for?’ asks Porta, with a deceiving laugh. ‘You two are with
me
. The others
ain’t
!’

‘Sounds very nice, I’m sure,’ says Wolf, sceptically. ‘But the fellers we leave behind on the quay, waiting, are going to be very annoyed when they realize what’s happened. And they’ll start looking around under all kinds of bushes and stones, to have a little talk with the chaps who’ve done it to ’em!’

‘Are you really that stupid?’ asks Porta. He dips a frog’s
leg carefully into jam. ‘I’ll cut it out in cardboard for you, then, so both you
and
your Mongols can understand it. When we get to Libau with our load marked SECRET all over, we start straight off shouting and giving orders. Tiny an’ me puts on long leather coats and trilby hats with the brims pulled down over our eyes, so’s any squareheaded German can see we’re tough tecs from
Prinz Albrecht Strasse
. No smiles from us. Who’s goin’ to dare question us?’

‘That reminds me, by the way, of one Herr Barsch, who used to live in
Phasanenstrasse
. He was an estate agent, with a diploma, and he knew how to take people, if anybody did. Everything went fine for him until he was unlucky enough to hit on one of these surefire certainties, which more often than not get a chap inside the box with the key turned three times and the door bolted from the outside. Some time previous Herr Barsch had met a Jew Stockbroker who he considered to be a sucker. The Jew had bought a villa in Dahlem from him that was that full of creepy-era wlies an’ all sorts of rottenness, it was a wonder it hadn’t walked off on its own out into the Spree. Herr Barsch had been going round for some time with the feeling that he was lettin’ the Jew get away with something by not taking him again. He had a word with a couple of his pals about it, at last, and they agreed with him it’d be money for jam for people like them. They arranged a meeting with the Jew, at an office they’d rented for the day, and after a bit o’ natterin’ to and fro and fro and to they agreed on a new deal. The Jew puts 500,000 marks on the table, and so did Herr Barsch an’ his two mates. Their ducats were, however, in the form of forward-dated cheques on a newly-opened bank account. They’d never even
seen
that much money all at one time. After that they went out and took a gander at some hot industrial buildin’ areas. It was raining so the Jew-boy stayed in his car. smokin’ a cigar. He didn’t want to get his Paris-tailored coat wet.

‘After a good dinner at Kempinski they said goodnight to one another. Herr Barsch and his two scoundrelly pals took
a long time getting home that evening. They kept breaking down into screams of laughter all the way home, at the thought of all the ducats they had picked up. The old Jew went off innocently to Bad Gastein to have himself a roll in the healthy mud they’ve got there. Four weeks later Herr Barsch & Co were invited to a little chat at “Alex”. They were taken into department 9B which looks after fraud, swindle and rubber cheques. The interview with the three friends ended with them inside Moabitt where they sat counting their toes till they were brought into court. They were shackled at their wrists and ankles, so’s it was quite clear they really
were
criminals.

‘The judge was a woman they called “the Devil’s Sister”, because of her wicked nature and the heavy sentences she handed out. She stared at the three tycoons, when they were escorted into court in their rattling chains.