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Authors: Marshall Browne

BOOK: The Eye of the Abyss
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He'd have a glass of champagne before he left. Fraulein Dressler had loved champagne.
S
CHMIDT SAT ON the edge of his bed trying to bring an eerie dizziness under control. For a few seconds, still entangled in his last dream, he was puzzled by Helga's absence. Then he remembered the beerhall, and the stark fear on Wagner's face as von Streck and his blond companion had disappeared into the night. He stared across the bedroom, now seeing only that vivid image.
After breakfast he gave Maria instructions about Trudi's toys, and regretted the maid's dismayed look. A good girl – Helga'd left him in capable hands. He went to the bank. Breeze from the west; acrid factory smells drifting in from the outskirts; no fog, but dark and drizzling. Through the tramcar's blurry windows the city was impressionistic.
Watching the passing streets he felt let down from the drama of the recent days, as though things were finished. Clearly it was a deceptive sensation; the flow of danger had merely fallen back to a slower tempo, like a footballer varying his pace to confuse the defence on the point of attack. He
must
find time to deal with his mother's affairs. The unpublished cantatas were the foremost concern; in today's world, in the midst of his difficulties, what to do with them?
At the bank, he opened the post, sorted it, and sent it on its way. Yesterday, between events, he'd concentrated on bringing his work up to date. Today, feigning normality,
he continued in the same vein, treading a wheel towards 6.30 pm.
 
 
Under Director Schloss's penetrating gaze Otto had never been at ease, and this interview was no different. He resettled his ample backside in the chair, and nervously but stubbornly continued the ‘pitch' — as Dietrich termed it – to his superior.
‘It's worth looking at. I mean, here we have seventeen million of the Party's funds sitting in our safe in Reich bonds earning a mere 3 per cent – or in the cash accounts earning peanuts. Why not place them in foreign currencies, invest in these bargain Jewish businesses? Make some real money. Bring in a more
aggressive
strategy.'
For Otto, the meeting with the Ruhr industrialists had been an eye-opener. His ambition suddenly rampant, excited by a newfound creative energy, he'd decided that if he were the agent to introduce Aryanisation business into the bank and into Party investments, rewards would follow. But he'd have to work hard. He suspected his uncle was going to be a stumbling-block.
‘More aggressive?' Schloss tapped huge blunt fingers softly on his desk. He thought: Peanuts! God save us. After a long pause, he added:
‘Foreign currencies?'
Even Otto detected the irony, and blinked quickly. ‘Yes. I've no doubt the Party would instruct the Reichsbank on the approvals.' He spoke defensively, cursing inwardly. Such a prickly bastard. Ingrained with outmoded ethics. By God! Wait till
he
was in charge!
‘You haven't by any chance overlooked Wertheims' responsibility as a member of the Reich Loan Consortium, have you? Or the chronic shortage of foreign exchange for
essential
purposes? Even our esteemed account-holder might baulk at the anti-patriotic proposal of retaining such for speculation. You know they imprison people these days for foreign currency transgressions?'
His sarcasm cleaved the air.
Otto said warily, 'Whatever the Party does is for the greater good of the Reich.' He'd a minor imagination, but he'd come to equate Schloss's eyes with the freezing Baltic which abutted the man's wretched Rostock. He stared in fascination at the long white duelling scar – from beneath his left eye, to the corner of his mouth. Inwardly, he shuddered.
Schloss smiled, as though he'd heard something both inept and ridiculous, but from this source predictable.
‘I'm certain Herr Dietrich would be in favour.' Otto regretted this immediately. He was finding it impossible to detect where Dietrich stood on anything.
‘I suggest to you, mein herr, that it's not the Wertheim way – regardless of what our account-holder may, or may not think.'
‘The Wertheim way's changing,' the younger director muttered sullenly. God! What a struggle this was!
Schloss was silent. With the same precision that he applied to a balance sheet, he examined Otto's flaccid face, the unsavoury bags under his eyes, the broken capillaries high on his cheeks … the Nazi Party badge. Unfortunately, here was the next general-director. Hopefully, not for many a year yet. Though God knows what was going on in the mind of his uncle. Recently the G-D seemed to be trying to walk a tightwire. It was incomprehensible. Wertheims was Schloss's life and the big director was extremely worried about it. At last he said, ‘I can't support any of that.'
‘May I bring it up, informally, with my uncle?'
‘By all means,' Schloss said acidly.
Otto withdrew, relieved, but cursing under his breath in
the hall. The staff said Schloss marched through these corridors as though to the beat of a drum. One day, he'd put an end to that damned parade.
 
 
Dressler was abroad on a burglary case, but as he went through the streets his mind was ranging further. The atmosphere at his station wasn't pleasant. He was circumspect in his relations with his colleagues, who were mainly younger. Aloof, they considered it. His stolid performance, the trauma of his war experiences never articulated, set him apart. ‘Nose to the grindstone. A big dopey bear with a piece of steel in his head,' they said suspiciously. He'd never involved himself in the politics played out in the state police; he ignored the ‘new' variety under the shadow of the SS, which was consolidating the Reich police forces.
However, he wasn't oblivious to the further distancing that'd been going on. This morning when he'd arrived for duty the detective signing off had been stiff and embarrassed. Of course, his problem was all over the station. But it wasn't only that: his arrest of the two SA rapists had raised dust, as had their cracked skulls.
So what? He shrugged massively, shedding the station atmosphere, welcoming the street. A change of this nature was the least of his worries. He transferred scraps of paper from his left overcoat pocket to the right. From the in-tray to the out. He didn't believe in deskwork, spent hardly any time at the station. Did his paperwork on the zinc bars of coffee houses.
He stopped at a phone booth, looked in his notebook, and dialled the number of the man in touch with Herr Rubinstein. Guardedly, he made his request. Call back in an hour.
Into the Jewish streets he went, swaying from side to side with his distinctive gait. The boarded-up shops reinforced
the bankrupt atmosphere. With the chronic shortage of glass, would they ever look like shops again? These incidental thoughts drifted in his mind, like the mist loitering at the ends of alleys.
He entered another phone box. Herr Rubinstein would see them at 7.00 pm, but at a different address. Quite understandable. The eyes of Gestapo informers were everywhere. He knew precisely where some were. Surreptitiously, they unearthed the leads for their masters' missions. Now, it was up to Herr Schmidt. He re-examined the street, continued on his way to the scenes of the string of overnight burglaries. He knew the identity of the perpetrator already: the modus operandi matched up with an index card in his brain.
 
 
Otto's lustful inclinations were notorious within Wertheims – had been whispered about for a decade behind the hands of typists. Periodically, the family had removed young female staff from his reach. Generous settlements had always bought silence. To Otto's chagrin and frustration, Fräulein Dressler had outmanoeuvred him, but her successor looked like easier pickings. A simple country girl, ripe and juicy for his attention, he'd decided on the morning of her arrival. He'd gone to the general-director's anteroom for the express purpose of viewing her. From the door, his eyes had narrowed as they'd glazed with lust. Otto couldn't conceal his sexual reactions. Having made his judgement on her type, he'd turned on his heel and left.
After his interview with Schloss, he came upon Fräulein Blum, statuesque but ill at ease in the unfamiliar surroundings. A corridor of the fourth floor. He was surprised to encounter her here but his brain, facile in such matters, made a quick calculation: his uncle wouldn't come to the bank until lunchtime today. But caution was needed: the general-director's
secretary wasn't to be compared with a typist from one of the departments. He blocked her path.
‘Heil Hitler!' He'd adopted this salute with a calculated enthusiasm. ‘Fräulein, this is
very
convenient. I require assistance in locating a file in the archive. Come with me, please.'
He led the way around a corner, and opened a frosted glass door into a long room jammed with high shelving, stacked with chipped, gilt-lettered ledgers, and neat brown paper packages. Outsiders might've recoiled from this graveyard of financial and social history, of Wertheim & Co's past endeavours; or, might've been fascinated by the potential of its secrets. Otto was oblivious to such nuances. He threaded his way to a remote corner.
Fräulein Blum, surprised, flustered, blushing, followed obediently.
‘Here we are,' Otto said. He leaned negligently against a shelf marked 1921, and through half-closed eyes arrogantly inspected her body, causing her eyes to widen. ‘You know, fräulein, I'm a director of the bank
and
a member of the Party.' He used his throaty, overbearing voice.
‘What do you wish of me, Herr Director?'
He was gratified at her quick breathing. He grinned, and his fleshy lips drew back, displaying gold-rimmed front teeth. ‘This.' He moved his rotund body adroitly forward, forcing her into the corner. His teeth clashed against hers, his tongue forced its way into her mouth. They were exactly the same height. The transition from arrogant repose to arrogant action was seamless. His lips and tongue were working vigorously, filling her mouth. His hands dropped to roam roughly around her waist, went under her sweater, plucked blouse out from skirt. She gasped as they got to her warm flesh, then again, as his fingers slid under her brassiere, burst it off, and began kneading her breasts.
‘Fat, Munich pig!' he hissed, quickly out of breath,
dribbling saliva into her gasping mouth. His erection throbbed painfully against his trouser flies. He was overwhelmed now by his lust to penetrate; to reduce this Amazon to a suppliant, mewling victim. To make good his losses with the Dressler bitch! He ripped open his flies, spraying buttons on the floor, baring his genitals. His left hand pinioned her to the wall by one of her breasts, which overspilled his flabby fingers. He thrust his right hand under her skirt, tore down her bloomers. Expertly, two more flabby fingers found her declivity.
‘Aha! You big
wet
pig!'
He stiffened in shock. Her large nail-polished hand had shot out and seized his testicles in an unbreakable grip, was kneading them as fiercely as he'd worked on her breasts. Fiercer! Herr Otto's firmament came ablaze with wheeling lights; through his every fibre, paroxysms of pain and pleasure rippled. His raucous groans filled the room. His trousers fell down. His penis was free, jagging awkwardly, uncontrolled, straining for that place. Her long, muscular legs came horizontally out from the wall, and trapped his arse.
Her hand had gripped it.
‘Oh God, fräulein!'
What'd happened to the woman?!
‘Gently!'
Her pelvis had descended on it, muscles like oscillating steel bands had taken it, were dragging it in, were going to tear it out by the roots! ‘Agony!' he cried, fighting to withdraw, the drive to ejaculate gone. Thank God! He crashed back against the shelves, his chest heaving, his penis burning, but free of that churning, mince-meat-making vice. He was dazed, in shock, his trousers and underpants tangled around his ankles.
Fräulein Blum quickly, efficiently, was straightening her stockings, thwacking her garters into place. With a nervy gesture she pushed her blonde hair back. ‘Herr Director, you did
not
satisfy me,' she said succinctly. Her lips enunciated this with an exaggerated twist. Her mouth drooped disdainfully.
Stunned, his eyes protruding, Otto looking over his
shoulder watched her leave. The pain! The air froze his podgy, defeated-looking arse. His heart was bounding in his chest like a hammer. This Munich pig had thrown his directorship, his Nazi Party membership –
his manhood –
back in his face like a handful of chickenfeed. Otto couldn't believe it. The Dressler bitch was responsible for this! Gingerly he felt his testicles, and groaned afresh to the Wertheim records.
A
N HOUR TO wait; Schmidt slipped into meditation. The day had evaporated. Though he'd been half-listening for it, the sound of the bank shutting down took him unawares. Chesty coughs, footsteps, faded away in the corridor leaving a pregnant silence. The scene's being set, he thought. Another ten minutes …
His thinking picked up speed. Until last night's rendezvous with Dressler, he'd been adrift in the convoluted passage of events, reacting on impulse. Through following his conscience, following his heart, he'd moved to Lilli Dressler's side; just doing it. But
failure
. Then the plan had come, out of the new necessity; a mad, dangerous plan. But a thing of concrete, putting his previous fumbling to shame.
The Nazi Party's bonds would finance her release and escape from Germany!
As he'd stood with her father at the cathedral, the knight implanted in him had ridden out of the mists, and lowered his lance to the point. They'd exchanged comradely greetings.
Not a fantasy.
Not to him. And the knight had the humanistic character of Dürer's, not of his ruthless ancestor of the Teutonic Order.
Sitting, waiting, immobile with his thoughts, in the deep silence of the closed bank, he realised that the hold of the Teutonic Knights on him had gone; that he'd been moving towards this moment as he understood more and more how the Order had been debased by greed and the lust for power.
For twenty years, his research had been like water dripping on a rock; suddenly the rock had cracked.
Someone walked quietly along the corridor. He listened to the sound die, took up his thoughts again. It was a catharsis. But immediately it'd been outshone by what he'd realised about his father: the surgeon had arrived at the identical destination. His father had said nothing about
his
catharsis. He'd left Schmidt to find his way to his own. Why had it taken so long? The classic case of the auditor with his nose too close to the grindstone? So his father had given him Dürer's knight. Left him this symbol of knightly virtue. In waiting.
He became aware of the Wertheim grade three clock, his grade at the bank, ticking away. He glanced at it: 5.33 pm.
After returning from the beerhall, in the grip of a slow burn of excitement and fear, he'd concentrated on that glimmer of an idea; the lifeline he'd spoken of to Wagner. He'd moved it around in his mind. How to cover up the theft; to save their lives. He'd had the weird notion that von Streck might've been sitting in the corner, a sardonic smile on his lips.
He was still turning it over in his mind.
This morning several envelopes imprinted with the Nazi insignia had arrived. He'd placed them in the confidential pouch for the G-D, wondering about their tidings. He stroked his lips with his fingers. More crucial to the moment, how was Wagner bearing up?
Five forty: time to begin, but he allowed himself a minute. Not a faltering of will; more like a parachutist pausing to check the quick release lock on his harness before the jump. Go! He flexed his shoulders, took out an unopened packet of quartosized paper, inserted it in a large expandable envelope used for safe-custody items, and sealed the adhesive flap. Carefully he wrote the words certifying to a face value of ten million, to match the envelope in the vault.
What he did next he'd spent some time practising. From
a drawer he took out tracing paper, and from two pieces of memoranda in his in-tray traced the signatures of Dietrich and Herr Otto on the envelope beneath the certificate. Quickly, confidently, he wrote over them in ink. He studied the result. Satisfactory. From his safe he took the bank's official metal seal, then from his desk drawer, sealing-wax and a piece of string. He lit a match, coaxed the string alight, and held it to the shiny red bar, which began to drip into a pool on the envelope's flap. When the quantity was sufficient, he pressed the seal into the wax. He locked the seal away, and placed the envelope in his attaché case. Then he destroyed the tracings.
A fading clue to the clandestine act lingered: the acrid smell of the liquefied wax.
At three minutes to six, carrying the case, he went into the corridor. As expected, he saw no-one. Otto Wertheim's office was on the same floor but on the far side; the light-shaft, black as a coal-pit, lay between. On each floor corridors formed a square upon which opened the doors of rooms and departments.
Quietly Schmidt traversed the deserted building. The light was burning in Otto's anteroom. The auditor walked in, excuses prepared, in case … a glance told him that the director's secretary, a fiftyish, Wertheim veteran, hand-picked for the job by the elder Wertheim, had left for the night.
He knocked on the connecting door, and went in. Otto's office was messy; presumably he was still around. Schmidt crossed to the handsome carved oak desk inherited from the director's paternal grandfather, slid open a drawer, and sighed, with both relief and regret. The latter emotion pertained to Otto's unforgivable transgression. A mere employee would have been dismissed on the spot. The three numbers, 4, 14, 44, were on the scrap of paper stuck to the side of the drawer. Schmidt committed them to memory, quietly closed the drawer, and listened.
The aroma of brandy was all that he picked up. He glanced at the cupboard door behind which Otto's liquor bottles were concealed.
 
 
Dietrich strode vigorously along the corridor to the chief auditor's office and burst in – on the empty room. He pulled up, his ready-made grin fading. Schmidt's hat and coat hung on the peg. The Nazi meditated on them for a moment, sniffed the air at a slight odour, and glanced at the clock: 5.59 pm. He stroked his chin, changed his mind and went out. He stood thoughtfully in the corridor rocking on the balls of his feet.
This was annoying: he'd a particular reason for wanting to see the auditor tonight. He would drop in on Otto, return here later. Ha! Herr Otto! Dietrich bared his yellowish teeth in a private grin. As though he'd taken off one coat and put on another, he prowled away to his left.
 
 
Schmidt didn't retrace his steps but, following pre-planned moves, went left when he came out of Otto's anteroom, and reached the corner at its west end, seconds before Dietrich arrived at the east end. He didn't return to his room but went to the lift which was situated on the north side. With its customary clunk and whirring, it began its descent.
Wagner was waiting in the basement's foyer, a sardonic expression on his face. He wore his overcoat against the bone-numbing chill.
‘All set,' Schmidt said as he entered.
The deputy foreign manager nodded tersely.
Schmidt gave his colleague a measuring look, and unlocked the grille door. They entered the vault and walked
through one room into another. The Party's safe with its three combination tumblers faced them. Wagner stepped forward, brushed his hair from his eyes, twirled the centre one to the start-point, and removed his combination. Schmidt removed his own. Then, pausing for an instant to bring the numbers into his mind, he addressed the top tumbler, Herr Otto's. Precisely, he revolved it onto each mark. On the last, he paused for a second, then turned it back. Like a train hitting a buffer it stopped dead. The safe was open.
They glanced at each other. Schmidt swung open the door, took the sealed envelope from his attaché case, exchanged it with the similar sealed envelope in the safe, and put the latter in his case. He closed the door, and spun each tumbler to reset the combinations.
Each had been listening and now they gave the silence their undivided attention. The bank was as deeply quiet as a mausoleum. Wagner, as ever, seemed careless of the occasion. But his face was gaunt.
The auditor said quietly, ‘Thank you, my friend. Could you come to my apartment tomorrow night – say at seven? The next step … '
The deputy foreign manager nodded.
‘Good. Let's leave quickly, you by the lift, me, the stairs.' He looked up — as though his single vision could pierce the floors above, and reveal where enemies might lurk. He perceived danger pulsing in the air.
 
 
Dietrich paused as he heard the abomination of a lift start up on the northern corridor, from where he'd just come. Now that was strange. He slanted his head, and pursed his lips; the floor had seemed deserted. Descending. The sound faded away, the pervading Wertheim after-hours' silence moved back in.
He went on. He entered Otto's anteroom, then the inner room. He studied the desk, smelt the brandy. A toast to absent friends – or enemies? The thought was more irritated than incisive. Tonight undercurrents of mysteriousness seemed to be flowing through these empty corridors and rooms. Frowning, he returned to the corridor, and abruptly increased his pace.
 
 
‘What is it Otto, at this time of day?'
On the first floor, Herr Wertheim regarded his nephew with polite scepticism. The young director had an unsettled air, though plainly he'd spruced himself up. The general-director scanned the sagging jowls, the Party badge, the staring blue eyes, caught the faint aroma of brandy, and once more wondered whether he'd imposed sufficient checks and balances on his kinsman. Indubitably, he'd dived head first into the Nazi pool.
Breathlessly, Otto said, ‘I've been speaking to Herr Schloss about the NSDAP account. About a more productive investment strategy. Seventeen million marks are sitting there earning a mere 3 per cent or less. And daily the money flows in.' He blinked rapidly, nervously, at his uncle. ‘He agreed I should mention it to you.'
The elder Wertheim doubted it and gazed down the room to the painting. He fully understood any reservations Herr Schloss might have in dealing with Otto.
‘Yes? What have you in mind?'
In the hard-back chair his uncle had directed him to, Otto shifted forward the large posterior which, two hours before, had been imprisoned by Fräulein Blum's muscular legs.
He said, ‘A good portion to be reinvested in foreign currencies
and
Aryanisation opportunities. I thought the Ruhr people were most informative.'
Wertheim interlaced his fingers and, put them to rest on the desk. A family trait: the elderly male Wertheims had fingers that looked as fragile as sticks of chalk. On them the gold bands glinted.
What a fascinating picture! He felt it had X-ray powers, was seeing deep into his brain. He must meet the artist. One day. He withdrew his gaze, and reappraised Otto. His nephew's intellectual qualities were mediocre, but he did possess a native cunning which, occasionally, enabled him to hit the mark. He must have received
something
from their ancestors' genes. On the other hand, Schloss's character and intellect were admirable, though a lifetime of private banking had rendered him ultraconservative.
‘My dear Otto, you might have something. But foreign currencies – no. Political dynamite, I would think. The Reich's gold and currency reserves are practically exhausted. The other – yes, possibly.'
He'd been considering what to do about the Ruhr industrialist's loan application with its special purpose. Despite the sea change in him, the general-director still understood banking as well as he ever had. The banks were being prostituted in respect of the Aryanisation business. Doubtless other customers were going to require such loans. Why not the Nazis? Did he really have a choice in the matter?
Otto said earnestly, ‘The Party's above politics. What it wishes to do, it can do.'
‘Perhaps I meant, public relations.' Face-to-face, Herr Wertheim had been surprised by the Field-Marshal's extravagant uniform and persona. A mixture of egocentricity and circus showmanship. He'd been amazed to see something of his own self in the man.
His nephew shrugged, and blinked again, nervously. He'd waited until that bitch had gone home to come to his uncle's office. His stunned confusion following their encounter had
settled into a bruised anxiety, was changing into a brooding anger. Tonight he'd seek solace at an establishment as removed from his uncle's world as Mars.
‘I'll speak to Herr Schloss.'
Otto nodded respectfully, hauled himself up and withdrew from his uncle's presence, with gratification, and the usual relief.
 
 
Ablaze with electric light – unlike the dim corridors with their low-power bulbs – Schmidt's office seemed to await his next move. One could compare it to a chessboard at a tournament left overnight, the pieces in place, the next moves in a sealed envelope. This kind of thinking smoothed his nerves.
He paused, and continued to listen. Quietly he pushed the door almost shut, sat down at his desk, took a rubber thumb-stall, slipped it on, removed the sealed envelope from his attaché case, slit it, lifted the bonds out, squared them adroitly, and began to count them off.
Working fast, he inserted five certificates each for 100,000 Reichmarks into a fresh envelope and placed it in his attaché case; he was allowing plenty of margin. The remainder – for 9,500,000 marks – he returned to the original envelope and carried it to the safe. He revolved the tumbler to lock it, straightened up, and turned around.

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