The Sleepwalkers (10 page)

“
Ach.
You don’t want to face it.”

“What I want from you, Kurt, is to explain how it’s possible for a person who’s been awakened from a hypnotic trance and is seemingly completely normal, to suddenly, inexplicably, revert back into it hours later.”

Kurt put down a stack of books. “Easy.” He pulled off his
glasses and started cleaning them with a handkerchief. “It’s called posthypnotic suggestion. A person’s given a cue under hypnosis. A word, a sound, a time of day. When that cue is triggered, no matter how many hours later”—he put the glasses back on and stared at Willi—“they feel an irresistible compulsion to carry out whatever they’d been commanded.”

Astonishing. The ugly pieces of this puzzle were filling in. The Bulgarian princess with her sprained ankle had gone to Dr. Meckel. He probably sent her to Klub Hell for dinner. Gustave had chosen her as a “volunteer” and given her a posthypnotic command, so that when it reached midnight, she put on her coat, took the S-Bahn out to Spandau, and went to the Black Stag Inn. Willi was dealing with a level of conspiracy here he would never have believed possible. More than ever he was glad he had enlisted von Schleicher, who now wielded the entire power of the German state.

Before saying good-bye to the last of his extended family here, he needed to ask one more thing. It was hard.

“Kurt, can you explain to me why a person would get sexual pleasure from . . . pain.”

“Oh-ho. Now there’s a topic we could spend several weeks discussing, and not come up with any conclusive answers. But just now, I’m afraid there isn’t time, Willi. There just isn’t—”

As if to punctuate his point, the bells of the Kaiser Wilhelm Church began pealing the hour.

Dr. Shurze was kind enough to give Willi the gold Nazi Party pin allegedly found on the Mermaid’s gray garment in order to try to trace its origin. He was even kind enough to give Willi the name of the goldsmith that manufactured all Nazi Party pins, H. Bieberman on the Dorotheen Strasse. Willi got there before the jeweler shut and had the kind assistance of H. Bieberman himself, who examined the item under a magnifying glass and identified
its manufacture number and was able to say with certainty that the twenty-four-karat solid-gold pin had been given to Hermann Meckel on the seventh anniversary of the November 9 Beer Hall Putsch, for his longtime service to the SA medical staff.

Adding flesh to the unmistakable finger of guilt pointing directly at the doctor was that the surgeon, according to his jeweler, came into the store only Wednesday morning, extremely upset, and told Bieberman he’d inexplicably lost this pin at a dinner party the night before. He wished a replacement made at once, for which he would personally pay. Only he must have an exact replica. Imagine, losing such a thing! And he demanded Bieberman make every effort to finish the replacement with all haste. What doubt then could there be that Meckel, top orthopedist and longtime Nazi, was the surgeon Willi was after?

Except that if the pin went missing Tuesday night—and why would Meckel lie to his jeweler about that?—it could certainly not have got on the Mermaid’s garment while she was still alive because she’d already been dead for three days. It had to have been nipped off his lapel at some point, most likely at that dinner party, then planted in the morgue. Meckel may or may not have sent the Bulgarian princess to Klub Hell, but he definitely was not the surgeon who’d mangled Gina Mancuso’s legs.

Someone was trying to frame him.

“Herr Bieberman, thank you. You’ve been of tremendous service.”

Willi decided to pay a visit to the “retired” Dr. Hoffnung, out in Wilmersdorf.

To his great chagrin, however, he learned from the building concierge that the Hoffnungs no longer resided there.

“But where have they gone?”

“This, I can not say. Only that they have gone and left no forwarding address.”

For the first time real fear shivered through Willi’s body.

Hoffnung and his wife both disappeared, with no forwarding address?

He suddenly felt as if dark hands were weaving a web around him.

And he was a stupid fly.

“There is a young lady waiting in your office, Herr Inspektor-Detektiv.” Ruta smiled through curls of cigarette smoke. “Very sexy. Indeed, one of the sexiest young ladies I’ve ever met.” She was laying it on thick, staring at Willi with motherly scrutiny. “Normally I would not approve of such a woman. I wouldn’t think her wholesome. But this one, well, don’t ask me why—I find agreeable. Perhaps because she’s a chorus girl. Like I was. Yes, we had a nice long chat, Fräulein Hoffmeyer and I.”

Willi closed the door behind him.

Paula sat cross-legged on the chair opposite his desk. Gone were the short-shorts. The garters. The purple boots. Instead, a suit: coordinated shoes, matching jacket, sweater blouse. It was as if a magic wand had transformed her into a respectable young woman. The black lace demi-gloves were replaced with suede kid. The hat, in the latest fashion, high peaked, short brimmed,
dipped in a curve over one eye. She even had the latest 1933 skirt, he noticed, tragically several inches longer than last year’s. But she looked fantastic in it.

Perfect.

How dignified her composure. How resolute her self-assurance. She must have spent most of the fifty marks he’d given her on the outfit. And it thrilled him. It was far more than just the clothes. She was showing respect. To herself. To him. Without the garish makeup her face was so lovely. He was ashamed of the sudden swelling of his eyes. It
was
possible then. She
could
change. He
had
helped her. And now she’d come to help him.

“Don’t look so shocked, Herr Inspektor-Detektiv,” she said with a half smile. “A little assistance and most any girl can look nice.”

“No. You have to be nice to look nice. And you look just . . .” He lowered his voice. “Wonderful.”

“I’m sorry to barge in like this unannounced. But I thought you’d like to know right away. The Great Gustave is holding a holiday party on his yacht this Saturday. I wrangled us invites.”

“Us?”

“Well, you can’t go to these things unescorted. It just isn’t done.”

Willi laughed.

“Besides, you need someone to look out for you in that crowd.”

“Do I?”

“Who knows . . . maybe you’re not so smart as you think. And even if you are, brains sometimes aren’t enough. You need street smarts with these characters. They may be dressed in top hats and tails, but they’re gutter rats, all of them.”

“Well, it just so happens some of my best friends are gutter rats.”

“Oh, you.” She play-slapped him.

“Had breakfast yet? There’s a wonderful place around the corner.”

“I’d be honored.” She daintily clasped her purse.

When he pulled the door open, Ruta pretended not to be listening.

“Fräulein Hoffmeyer and I will be out for a short time, Frau Garber. I’ll check in for my messages.”

“
Jawohl,
Herr Inspektor-Detektiv,” she said drily.
“Bon appétit.”

They wound up going directly to his place.

After Vicki died and the boys went to Dahlem, he’d moved into a small but comfortable one-bedroom in Nuremberger Strasse, just a block from Tauentzien where Paula worked. “Familiar neighborhood,” she said as he held the door for her, the deep tolling of the Kaiser Wilhelm Church bells following them inside.

The living room was filled with sunlight, overlooking the busy street below with its screeching streetcars and traffic. Two of the four walls were completely filled with bookshelves. She looked around with genuine amazement.

“What’s this, a library?”

Opposite the windows she stopped to examine a dozen or so old family photos, transfixed by the long-bearded men with funny hats, the wedding ceremonies under elaborate canopies, the young boys wrapped in Hebrew prayer shawls. Entrancing to her was the picture of little Willi on his first day of school in 1903, in a sailor suit with short knickers, carrying a decorated paper cone filled with fruit and candies.

“Look how precious.”

Next to it hung a group portrait of twenty or so young men in the imperial uniform of the Great War. Willi had been a captain, she saw. And had won the Iron Cross, First Class. It didn’t seem to surprise her. More visceral was the wedding portrait with Vicki. Her chest heaved as she looked at it.

“Wow,” she said, wiping a tear with her suede-gloved finger. “She really was beautiful. So . . . refined. How you must have
loved her. And look here, the boys.” Paula moved on to Erich and Stefan. “How they take after you.”

Willi felt like a schoolboy himself, playing hooky. He couldn’t believe he’d actually brought a girl home at ten in the morning. On a workday. Not since he’d sneaked off to a French whorehouse before the battle of Passchendaele had he felt such a buzz of illicit excitement. Paula here with him, transformed into a wholesome young woman, it was just . . . a fantasy come true. He’d mourned for Vicki so long he didn’t even realize how strong his passion for life remained. Not mere existence. But life itself: thrilling, satisfying, full of promise. He didn’t want to be alone anymore, living only for his work. He wanted to really live. To love and be loved. To screw Paula every day!

He took her in his arms and kissed her as he had once kissed Vicki, with all his heart and soul. She trembled and sighed, succumbing tenderly. They fell to the couch, their breaths increasing. He pulled up her sweater and went for her breasts. But she wouldn’t take off her gloves.

“Willi, give me a minute.” She wiggled away. “Unmake the bed, sweetheart. Put on some music.” Taking her purse, she disappeared behind the bathroom door.

Willi prepared the bed as commanded, stiff as a cannon. He stayed that way for endless minutes. When she emerged, she was completely naked except for those black lace demi-gloves. The sight of them felt like a bucket of ice water. Why had she gone and done that—reminded him of what she did for a living?

As she approached though, holding her large, white breasts toward him, their long pink nipples erect, her eyes glazed with such watery desire he had to admit his prick got stiffer than ever. When she climbed atop him, the connection was so warm, so wonderful, he felt as if she’d been sent like an angel from above, to ease him out of his years of grief.

Then he began to fear the moment she would beg to get hit. The thought sent his mind reeling. Since their last time together he’d read up on the subject. Psychiatrists theorized sexual masochism
was a neurotic “eroticizing” of early childhood trauma. Whether or not that was true in Paula’s case, or at all, he decided the relevant point was that
he
did not get pleasure from it. That in fact he found it genuinely
un
pleasurable. What he was going to do if she wanted it again, he didn’t know.

He wanted to give the woman her share of happiness.

Fortunately, she remained as conventional in her lovemaking that day as in her dress. They stayed in bed all morning, and well into the afternoon. Only the sunlight fading from his bedroom and the tolling bells of the Kaiser Wilhelm Church roused him from her charms.

“My God,” he said, feeling like a teenage truant. “I’ve got to get back.”

After his shower she was still lying in bed, stroking her hair with her demi-gloved fingers. “You can stay, you know,” he said. “All day if you’d like.”

“Can I really?” she replied dreamily.

“Yes. Yes.” He kissed her up and down the neck. As he stepped into his trousers though, she sat up, pulling the blanket over her breasts.

“Willi, you know you never told me. How did Gina die?”

He paused before pulling up his zipper. “She drowned,” he said, grabbing his shirt. “In the Havel. Her body washed up just beneath the citadel in Spandau.”

“Mein Gott,”
Paula stammered, clutching the blanket to her throat. “You mean . . . they threw her off that yacht?”

“No,” he replied without thinking.

Her green eyes flashed on his, demanding the truth. “How do you know?”

He pictured Gina Mancuso’s deformed legs lying there in the icy water. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

When he got back to the office, it was nearly three o’clock. He expected Ruta to be all over him like a ruffled mother hen, but
found her instead in a state more akin to apoplexy. “Willi,” she stammered, not even realizing she’d addressed him informally, something she only did at parties when they’d been drinking. “You cannot imagine who just left this office ten minutes ago.”

“Pancho Villa,” he said, making a stab at humor.

“Nein, nein.”
She looked at him, positively white with fear, unable even to get her cigarette to light. “A captain of the Brownshirts, Willi . . . with a message from the SA führer! Ernst Roehm invites you to dinner tonight at the Kaiserhof. Nine p.m.!”

Willi felt his throat dry out. So, von Schleicher hadn’t been bluffing.

“Well, Ruta, nothing to fret over a little dinner invitation.”

One by one he’d been examining the dossiers of the top orthopedic surgeons in Germany, but so far nothing seemed to link anyone else to this case. Meckel may have been just a fall guy, but what choice was there except to go after him and try to figure out who’d laid the frame?