Where the Bones are Buried (5 page)

She said, “You obviously take your hobby very seriously.”

“It is more than a hobby,” said Drumming Man. “It is our spiritual quest.”

“Sorry. I didn't mean to make light.”

“Don't apologize,” said Eichen. “Drumming Man has a sensitive ear and is constantly on the defensive against mockery.”

“As am I. I wouldn't like to think that your imitation of American Indians was a send-up.” She softened the comeback with a smile.

The group apparently favored the dress of the Great Plains tribes, although it appeared to be a mix-and-match affair. Little Deer wore her blond hair in a perky mushroom bob with a plush scarf coiled around her neck like every other woman in Berlin.

“I assure you our admiration is sincere,” said Eichen. “We Germans live pragmatic, prosperous lives, but we feel an absence. We have become alienated from nature and
der Indianer
club is an outlet for our nostalgia. One might say, a nostalgia for the forest.”

“We dream a past that is innocent of the lust for conquest and the industry of murder,” added Drumming Man, his face somber and spookily earnest. “We put on the simple garments that your Indian ancestors wore and harmonize our thoughts with the music of the drums, which is the heartbeat of life. In dreaming, we transcend this soulless time. In drumming, we are forgiven.”

Little Deer giggled. She looked a lot younger than her husband and Dinah inferred that she wasn't entirely on board with his desire to transcend this soulless time.

Farber looked uncomfortable. It was an awkward moment between husband and wife, but Dinah got the feeling that Drumming Man's painful earnestness embarrassed Farber. He said, “Swan has told me that her Seminole ancestors are the only tribe that did not surrender to the United States Government. Is that true, Dinah?”

“The Florida Seminoles were never officially defeated. Like the rest of the Indian nations, they lost anyway.”

Drumming Man said, “We are anxious to meet your mother. Her profile in the Native American registry says that her name was shortened from Suwannee, a river of wild black water and deep channels. She must be
geheimnisvoll
.”

“Mysterious,” Eichen translated with a twinkle. “If she is anything like her daughter, she is a most attractive woman.”

Not sure how to respond, she said, “Tell me about Chief Winnetou. I understand he's practically deified in Germany.”

“Not deified,” said Farber. “The stories of Winnetou are fairy tales, good against evil. It was Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show in Munich in eighteen-ninety that gave rise to clubs like ours.”

“The Indians are a tragic people,” said Drumming Man, sounding tragic. “They were vanquished from their land and murdered, just as Winnetou was murdered by the Yankees who lusted for Indian gold.”

“And what a
fine
time we had last year searching for the burial mound of the great chief,” said Little Deer, the bite of sarcasm unmistakable. “In Wyoming I understood what it feels like to be buried.”

Eichen clapped an arm around Drumming Man's shoulders. “Karl May made many mistakes in his books about the Indians, but with Winnetou and his German blood brother Old Shatterhand, he evoked a spirit of loyalty and comradeship. Like the knights of legend, they rode through the wilderness, fighting off enemies and righting wrongs.”

The kettle whistled and Little Deer lifted it off the fire and stood up. She was as tall as her husband, with an athletic body and a goading smirk. She smirked at Dinah and asked, “Did the Seminoles take the scalps of white people as trophies?”

“In rare cases,” said Dinah, staring pointedly at her blond bob.

Drumming Man looked as if he might strike his wife, but Eichen intervened. “We each have our view of the Indians and their history. It is not required that we believe the same things in order to enjoy a shared general interest.”

Dinah didn't perceive an excess of congeniality among these Indians, but she hadn't seen or heard anything to suggest they might have shanghaied her mother. If what Farber had said about Hess was true and he hadn't participated in the club's powwows for a long time, it was possible that Swan's interest in this group was incidental to her dealings with Hess. In any case, Dinah was back to square
eins
. “It was a pleasure to meet you all, but I need to check on my friend Margaret and find my mother.”

“We look forward to seeing the three of you this evening at the powwow,” said Eichen, shaking her hand again.

She said good-bye, shook hands again all around, even with Little Deer, and Florian Farber ushered her back through the shop. The chair where Margaret had been resting was empty.

“She must have gone out for a breath of air,” said Farber.

Suckered again, thought Dinah. Another of Cleon Dobbs'
geheimnisvoll
ex-wives was in the wind. She wondered if Margaret knew all along where Swan had gone and was on her way to meet her, or if she'd had a brainstorm. Either way, Dinah ruled out abduction. She almost felt sorry for Reiner Hess.

Chapter Eight

Dinah stormed out of the Happy Hunting Ground and collided with a woman encumbered with too many shopping bags.

“
Pardon
,” said Dinah.

“
Ist nicht
,” said the woman, summing matters up better than she knew. “Nothing,” as in nothing good. As in, nothing but clouds.

The first fat drops of rain splashed onto the pavement and umbrellas began to go up. Dinah ducked under a construction scaffold and considered her options. She could A, stake out the gallery and hope that her mother eventually turned up; B, call the friendly cop she had promised to call and report her missing; C, hang around with the Indians and try to cajole some information about Hess out of them; or D, go home and prepare for her class next Tuesday.

Arguing against Option A, there was no guarantee Swan would turn up ahead of her heralded appearance at the powwow tonight. In light of the note she'd left, Option B seemed premature. Why would the police waste manpower scouring the city for a ditzy American tourist who'd been missing for only a couple of hours? There were factors that might galvanize them into action. She could show them the mutilated Indian doll. Germany had laws against hate crimes based on ethnicity or national identity. But something about that doll, or Swan's reaction to it, smelled fishy.

As for Option C, Florian Farber had seemed none too eager to discuss Hess, and if he did tell her where to find him, what could she do? Telephone for an appointment? Ask him if he'd taken a potshot at the Golf? Demand money—Swan's and Margaret's just desserts for time they spent married to Cleon? The more she thought about that scheme, the nuttier it sounded. No, Option D was the only one that made sense. D as in delay. D as in don't make matters worse. D as in denial, which had always been her strong suit. Like mother, like daughter.

***

She climbed the stairs to the apartment just as her across-the-hall neighbor Geert poked his head out the door to retrieve the
Berliner Morgenpost
. He worked from midnight to six or seven as a bartender at the White Noise Club on Schönhauser Allee. His stubble of yellow beard was always the same length and his gaunt face was perpetually wreathed in cigarette smoke. It was impossible to tell if he'd been to bed yet, or if he ever went to bed.

He took the cigarette out of his mouth. “
Moin
, Dinah.”

“
Moin
, Geert. Did you notice anyone suspicious in the hall last night as you left for work?”

“Only myself. Why?”

“Someone left an effigy of a dead Indian in front of my door.”

“
Saublöd
.” His eyes pinched tight as paper cuts and he blew a mare's tail of smoke down the hall. “Bloody stupid. No fascist punks around here. The
faules
in boots and donkey jackets live in Lichtenberg and Marzahn. Where is Thor?”

“Oslo. On business. I'm spending the week with my mother and a friend.”

“Don't worry. I will test the downstairs lock. And I will kill this
Dummkopf
if he comes back. I will rip out his eyes.”

“Thanks, Geert. Will you get his name first?”

“No problem.” He put the cigarette back in his mouth and vanished like a fume into his apartment.

Dinah confirmed that her apartment door was locked before inserting her key and pushing inside. Everything appeared normal. Aphrodite had ignored the scratching post and continued to shred one end of the new sofa. Dinah fed her, fixed herself a grilled cheese sandwich, and sat down to sort out her feelings. Anger, fear, aggravation, guilt, and a feeling of ambivalence about the make-believe Indians. The romanticization of the “noble savage,” uncorrupted by civilization, had been a common theme since the sixteenth century. It was simplistic and patronizing, although preferable to attitudes of racial and cultural superiority. But what was that slam about scalpings? Maybe Little Deer had been thinking about an episode in one of Karl May's books.

As a matter of fact, American tribes weren't the only practitioners of scalping. The Germanic tribes of yore were enthusiastic scalpers. In the ninth century, the Visigoths scalped their victims, as did the Franks and the Angles and the Saxons. During the Crusades, lopping off the entire head was all the rage. But during the colonial and French Indian wars in North America, the British and European colonists offered bounties for Indian scalps, including those of women and children, and conducted scalp-hunting expeditions.

The subject was not one to dwell on. She finished her sandwich and rummaged in the freezer for the tub of Mövenpick Swiss chocolate ice cream. She had gained five pounds since moving to Berlin, but so far she hadn't opened the pack of Pall Mall filters stashed away in the pantry for emergencies. In fact, cigarettes were losing their psychological appeal. Back in the States, smoking had a subversive, outlaw cachet. In Berlin, it was commonplace. Although it was verboten to light up in public buildings, the streets reeked of smoke and when Geert was at home, smoke leaked from under his door and invaded this apartment. The odor lingered in spite of regular applications of Febreze.

She grabbed a spoon and dug into the ice cream. She ought to call the Wunderbar to see if either Swan or Margaret had returned. She ought to call her mother's cell again, or Margaret's, or Farber's gallery. She ought to take the Golf to the repair shop. She ought to compartmentalize this Hess farrago and concentrate on her class prep. She ought…

The buzzer sounded. Terrific. The wanderers had returned. She stuck the lid back on the ice cream and chucked it into the freezer. What kind of a story could she concoct, or what kind of threat, that would motivate them to get the hell out of Dodge? If she told them she had it from a reliable source that Hess had moved to Argentina, would they believe her?

She walked into the living room and stopped short. What if it wasn't her mother and Margaret at the door? What if it was the shooter or the phantom who'd left the doll? She eyed her purse with the Smith & Wesson still inside.

The caller buzzed again, longer and more insistently. She pushed the button on the intercom. “Yes?”

“Reiner Hess. I am here to speak with Frau Calms.”

She caught her breath. Now what?

“Hello? Is this the apartment of Dinah Pelerin?”

“Yes. Wait, please.”

She went out into the hall and pounded on Geert's door.

After a minute, he materialized in a cloud of smoke.

“Geert, I have company downstairs. I don't know what he wants and I don't want to meet him alone. Will you come over and stay for a few minutes? Just in case?”

“
Ja
, sure. If you don't like, I will bounce him.” He stubbed out his cigarette and followed her across the hall.

She spoke into the intercom. “Come up now, Mr. Hess.” She buzzed him in and held her apartment door open.

Geert slouched onto the sofa and hitched his pipe-stem arms across the back.

Hess took the steps to the second floor two at a time. He had chiseled features, arrogant blue eyes, and a bristly head of pale hair that reminded her of a hedgehog. Geert would be no match for this well-muscled hunk if he became threatening.

“You are Frau Pelerin?”

“Yes. Won't you step inside?”

“
Danke
.” He projected a brash sexuality and looked too young to have been one of Cleon's contemporaries. Then again, the drug business was an equal opportunity employer and Cleon had probably recruited plenty of muscle from Generation X. As he entered the room, he slung a sidelong glance at Geert. “Who are you?”

Geert didn't rise or offer to shake hands. “I am Geert Hendrik. Do not try nothing funny, I am warning you.”

Hess frowned. So did Dinah. She had expected a touch more discretion from Geert.

Hess leveled his blue eyes on Dinah. “Is Frau Calms here?”

“No, she isn't.”

“Hendrik, I would like to speak with Frau Pelerin in private.”

“I am not going noplace.” Geert unhitched his skinny arms from behind the sofa and rocked forward. “I have seen you before. At one of the
massagesalon
brothels in Oranienburger Strasse,
nicht wahr
?”

The veins in Hess' neck bulged.

Dinah reconsidered the wisdom of inviting Geert's help. “Will you have a seat, Herr Hess?” She moved away from the foyer table and motioned him toward a chair. “Would you care for coffee, or a glass of iced tea?”

“I've come to bargain with your mother. She said she would be here.”

“She's on her way home to Georgia, actually. I took her to the airport this morning.”

“You are lying. She came to Berlin to bargain. She will not leave until she has what she came for.”

“You're wrong. Someone tried to kill her and she left.”

“You can't fool me. She is like Cleon Dobbs, greedy and cunning. She will have what she wants.”

It was one thing for Dinah privately to question her mother's integrity, quite another to hear this gorilla insult her. “My mother said you were a lawyer, but you don't act like one. You act like a thug. What exactly did you do for Cleon Dobbs?”

“Ask your mother, why don't you?”

“I will, if and when she returns to Germany.”

His lip curled. “I have no time for games. She has something I want and I am willing to pay. Four hundred thousand Euros, no more. This is not the Orient. In Germany, we don't haggle. Tell her to be at the Müggelturm tonight at nine o'clock and bring the item she wishes to sell.” He lobbed a menacing look over his shoulder at Geert and stalked out the door, slamming it behind him.

“
Das Arschloch
,” said Geert, pushing himself off the sofa.

If it meant what Dinah thought it did, she couldn't agree more. “What's the Müggelterm?”

“An old, falling-down tower in the hills above Müggelsee, a lake east of the city.”

Müggelsee was where the powwow had been scheduled. So there was a connection after all.

In her mind's eye, Dinah saw Hess lurking in the dark behind a dilapidated tower. He had killed two federal agents and God only knew how many others while he was running drugs for Cleon. How likely was it that he would meekly turn over a suitcase full of cash to Swan and let her walk away? He'd never be sure she hadn't made copies of the incriminating material and try to bleed him again. Where was Swan now?

Her stomach growled and she was beset by a gnawing hunger. It was as if that cheese sandwich and ice cream never happened. She couldn't think straight until she got something else to eat. “Would you like a sandwich, Geert? I'm starving.”

“You have now the
Kummerspeck
.”

“The what?”

“When you feel trouble in your gut, it is like hunger. In German, we call it
Kummerspeck
. Grief bacon.”