A Death in Vienna (9 page)

Gabriel resumed his search of the unconscious man and found, in the breast pocket of his jacket, a small leather-bound policeman’s notepad. Written on the first page, in childlike block letters, was the registration number for Gabriel’s rental car.

N
EXT MORNING
, G
ABRIEL
made two telephone calls upon his return to Vienna. The first was to a number located inside the Israeli Embassy. He identified himself as Kluge, one of his many telephone names, and said he was calling to confirm an appointment with a Mr. Rubin in Consular. After a moment the voice at the other end of the line said, “The Opernpassage—do you know it?”

Gabriel indicated, with some irritation, that he did. The Opernpassage was a dingy, pedestrian thoroughfare beneath the Karlsplatz.

“Enter the passage from the north,” the voice said. “Halfway down, on your right side, you’ll see a hat shop. Walk past that shop at precisely ten o’clock.”

Gabriel broke the connection, then dialed Max Klein’s apartment in the Second District. There was no answer. He hung the receiver back on the hook and stood for a moment, wondering where Klein could be.

He had ninety minutes until his meeting with the courier. He decided to use the time productively by ridding himself of the rental car. The situation had to be handled carefully. Gabriel had taken the Staatspolizei officer’s notebook. If by some chance the policeman had managed to remember the registration number after being knocked unconscious, it would have taken him only minutes to trace the car to the rental agent in Vienna, and then to an Israeli named Gideon Argov.

Gabriel crossed the Danube and drove around the modern United Nations complex, looking for a parking space on the street. He found one, about a five-minute walk from the U-Bahn station, and pulled in. He raised the hood and loosened the battery cables, then climbed behind the wheel and turned the key. Greeted by silence, he closed the hood and walked away.

From a phone booth in the U-Bahn station he called the rental car office to inform them that their Opel had broken down and needed to be collected. He permitted a note of indignation to creep into his voice, and the attendant at the other end of the line was highly apologetic. There was nothing in the clerk’s voice to indicate the company had been contacted by the police concerning a burglary the previous evening in the Salzkammergut.

A train rolled into the station. Gabriel hung up and boarded the last carriage. Fifteen minutes later, he was entering the Opernpassage—from the north, just as the man from the embassy had instructed. It was filled with morning commuters spilling from the Karlsplatz U-Bahn station, the air thick with the stench of fast food and cigarettes. An Albanian with drugged eyes asked Gabriel for a euro to buy food. Gabriel slipped past without a word and made his way toward the hatter.

The man from the embassy was coming out as Gabriel approached. Blond and blue-eyed, he wore a mackintosh raincoat with a scarf wrapped tightly around his throat. A plastic bag bearing the name of the hatter hung from his right hand. They were known to each other. His name was Ben-Avraham.

They walked side by side toward the exit at the other end of the passage. Gabriel handed over an envelope containing all the material he had gathered since his arrival in Austria: the dossier given to him by Renate Hoffmann, the watch and the ring taken from Ludwig Vogel’s armoire, the photograph concealed in the Bible. Ben-Avraham slipped the envelope into the plastic bag.

“Get it home,” Gabriel said. “Quickly.”

Ben-Avraham nodded tersely. “And the receiving party at King Saul Boulevard?”

“It’s not going to King Saul Boulevard.”

Ben-Avraham raised an eyebrow suggestively. “You know the rules. Everything goes through headquarters.”

“Not this,” Gabriel said, nodding toward the plastic bag. “It goes to the Old Man.”

They reached the end of the passage. Gabriel turned and started in the opposite direction. Ben-Avraham followed after him. Gabriel could see what he was thinking. Should he violate a petty Office dictum and risk the wrath of Lev—who loved nothing more than enforcing petty Office dictums—or should he perform a small favor for Gabriel Allon and Ari Shamron? Ben-Avraham’s deliberation did not last long. Gabriel had not expected it would. Lev was not the type to inspire personal devotion among his troops. Lev was the man of the hour, but Shamron was the
Memuneh,
and the
Memuneh
was eternal.

Gabriel, with a sideways movement of his eyes, sent Ben-Avraham on his way. He spent ten minutes pacing the length of the Opernpassage, searching for any sign of surveillance, then went back up to the street. From a public telephone he tried Max Klein’s number a second time. There was still no answer.

He climbed on a passing streetcar and rode it around the city center to the Second District. It took him a few moments to find Klein’s address. In the foyer, he pressed the buzzer for the apartment but received no response. The caretaker, a middle-aged woman in a flowered frock, poked her head from her apartment and eyed Gabriel suspiciously.

“Who are you looking for?”

Gabriel answered truthfully.

“He usually goes to the synagogue in the morning. Have you tried there?”

The Jewish Quarter was just on the other side of the Danube Canal, a ten-minute walk at most. As usual, the synagogue was under guard. Gabriel, despite his passport, had to pass through a magnetometer before being admitted. He took a
kippah
from the basket and covered his head before entering the sanctuary. A few elderly men were praying near the
bimah.
None of them was Max Klein. In the foyer he asked the security guard whether he’d seen Klein that morning. The guard shook his head and suggested Gabriel try the community center.

Gabriel walked next door and was admitted by a Russian Jew named Natalia. Yes, she told him, Max Klein often spends his morning at the center, but she hadn’t seen him today. “Sometimes, the old ones have coffee at the Café Schottenring,” she said. “It’s at Number Nineteen. You might find him there.”

There was indeed a group of elderly Viennese Jews having coffee at the Café Schottenring, but Klein wasn’t one of them. Gabriel asked if he’d been there that morning, and six gray heads shook in unison.

Frustrated, he walked back across the Danube Canal to the Second District and returned to Klein’s apartment building. He pressed the buzzer and once again received no response. Then he knocked on the door of the caretaker’s apartment. Seeing Gabriel for a second time, her face turned suddenly grave.

“Wait here,” she said. “I’ll get the key.”

T
HE CARETAKER UNLOCKED
the door and, before stepping across the threshold, called out Klein’s name. Hearing no reply, they went inside. The curtains were drawn, the sitting room was in heavy shadow.

“Herr Klein?” she called out again. “Are you here? Herr Klein?”

Gabriel opened the double doors leading to the kitchen and peered inside. Max Klein’s dinner was sitting on the small table, untouched. He walked down the hallway, pausing once to peer into the empty bathroom. The bedroom door was locked. Gabriel hammered on it with his fist and called Klein’s name. There was no response.

The caretaker came to his side. They looked at each other. She nodded. Gabriel seized the latch with both hands and drove his shoulder into the door. The wood splintered, and he stumbled into the bedroom.

Here, as in the sitting room, the curtains were drawn. Gabriel ran his hand along the wall, groping in the gloom until he found a switch. A small bedside lamp threw a cone of light on the figure lying on the bed.

The caretaker gasped.

Gabriel eased forward. Max Klein’s head was covered by a clear plastic bag, and a gold-braided cord was wrapped around his neck. His eyes stared at Gabriel through the fogged plastic.

“I’ll call the police,” the caretaker said.

Gabriel sat at the end of the bed and buried his face in his hands.

I
T TOOK TWENTY
minutes for the first police to arrive. Their apathetic manner suggested an assumption of suicide. In a way this was fortunate for Gabriel, because suspicion of foul play would have significantly altered the nature of the encounter. He was interviewed twice, once by the uniformed officers who had first responded to the call, then again by a Staatspolizei detective called Greiner. Gabriel said his name was Gideon Argov and that he worked for the Jerusalem office of Wartime Claims and Inquiries. That he had come to Vienna after the bombing to be with his friend Eli Lavon. That Max Klein was an old friend of his father, and that his father suggested he look up Klein and see how the old man was getting on. He didn’t mention his meeting with Klein two nights earlier, nor did he inform the police of Klein’s suspicions about Ludwig Vogel. His passport was examined, as was his business card. Telephone numbers were written in small black notebooks. Condolences were offered. The caretaker made tea. It was all very polite.

Shortly after noon, a pair of ambulance attendants came to collect the body. The detective handed Gabriel a card and told him he was free to leave. Gabriel went out into the street and walked around the corner. In a shadowed alleyway, he leaned against the sooty bricks and closed his eyes. A suicide? No, the man who had survived the horrors of Auschwitz had not committed suicide. He had been murdered, and Gabriel couldn’t help but feel that he was partly to blame. He’d been a fool to leave Klein unprotected.

He started back toward his hotel. The images of the case played out in his mind like fragments of an unfinished painting: Eli Lavon in his hospital bed, Ludwig Vogel in the Café Central, the Staatspolizei man in the Salzkammergut, Max Klein lying dead with a plastic bag over his head. Each incident was like another weight being added to the pan of a scale. The balance was about to tip, and Gabriel suspected he would be the next victim. It was time to leave Austria while he still could.

He entered his hotel and asked the desk clerk to prepare his bill, then walked upstairs to his room. His door, despite the D
O
N
OT
D
ISTURB
sign hanging from the latch, was ajar, and he could hear voices emanating from inside. He eased it open with his fingertips. Two men in plainclothes were in the process of lifting the mattress off the box spring. A third, clearly their superior, was sitting at the desk watching the proceedings like a bored fan at a sporting contest. Seeing Gabriel standing at the door, he stood slowly and put his hands on his hips. The last weight had just been added to the pan.

“Good afternoon, Allon,” said Manfred Kruz.

“I
F YOU’RE CONSIDERING
the possibility of escape, you’ll find all the exits blocked and a very large man at the bottom of the stairs who’ll relish the opportunity to subdue you.” Kruz’s body was turned slightly. He gazed at Gabriel, fencerlike, over one shoulder and held up his palm in a placatory gesture. “There’s no need for this to get out of hand. Come inside and close the door.”

His voice was the same, underpowered and unnaturally calm, an undertaker helping a grieving relative to select a casket. He had aged in thirteen years—there were a few more wrinkles around his cunning mouth and a few more pounds on his slender frame—and, based on his well-cut clothing and arrogant demeanor, he had been promoted. Gabriel kept his gaze focused on Kruz’s dark eyes. He could feel the presence of another man at his back. He stepped across the threshold and swung the door shut behind him. He heard a heavy thud, then a curse muttered in German. Kruz held up a palm again. This time it was a command for Gabriel to stop.

“Are you armed?”

Gabriel shook his head wearily.

“Do you mind if I put my mind at ease?” Kruz asked. “You do have something of a reputation.”

Gabriel raised his hands above his shoulders. The officer who’d been behind him in the hall entered the room and conducted the search. It was professional and very thorough, starting with the neck and ending with the ankles. Kruz seemed disappointed by the results.

“Remove your coat and empty your pockets.”

Gabriel hesitated and was spurred on with a painful jab to the kidney. He unzipped his coat and handed it to Kruz, who searched the pockets and felt the lining for a false compartment.

“Turn out the pockets of your trousers.”

Gabriel complied. The result was a few coins and the stub of a streetcar ticket. Kruz looked at the two officers holding the mattress and ordered them to reassemble the bed. “Mr. Allon is a professional,” he said. “We’re not going to find anything.”

The officers plopped the mattress back onto the box spring. Kruz, with a wave of his hand, told them to leave the room. He sat down again at the desk and pointed toward the bed.

“Make yourself comfortable.”

Gabriel remained standing.

“How long have you been in Vienna?”

“You tell me.”

Kruz acknowledged the professional compliment with a terse smile. “You arrived on a flight from Ben-Gurion Airport the night before last. After checking into this hotel, you proceeded to Vienna General Hospital, where you spent several hours with your friend Eli Lavon.”

Kruz fell silent. Gabriel wondered how much else Kruz knew about his activities in Vienna. Did he know about the meetings with Max Klein and Renate Hoffmann? His encounter with Ludwig Vogel at the Café Central and his excursion to Salzkammergut? Kruz, if he did know more, was unlikely to say. He was not the kind to tip his hand for no reason. Gabriel imagined him a cold and emotionless gambler.

“Why didn’t you arrest me earlier?”

“I haven’t arrested you now.” Kruz lit a cigarette. “We were prepared to overlook your violation of our agreement because we assumed you’d come to Vienna to be at the side of your injured friend. But it quickly became apparent that you intended to conduct a private investigation of the bombing. For obvious reasons, I cannot allow that.”

“Yes,” Gabriel agreed, “for obvious reasons.”

Kruz spent a moment contemplating the smoke rising from the ember of his cigarette. “We had an agreement, Mr. Allon. Under no circumstances were you to return to this country. You’re not welcome here. You’re not supposed to be here. I don’t care if you’re upset about your friend Eli Lavon. This is our investigation, and we don’t need any help from you or your service.”

Kruz looked at his watch. “There’s an El Al flight leaving in three hours. You’re going to be on it. I’ll keep you company while you pack your bags.”

Gabriel looked around at his clothing strewn across the floor. He lifted the lid of his suitcase and saw that the lining had been cut away. Kruz shrugged his shoulders—
What did you expect?
Gabriel bent down and started picking up his belongings. Kruz looked out the French doors and smoked.

After a moment, Kruz asked, “Is she still alive?”

Gabriel turned slowly around and fixed his gaze on Kruz’s small, dark eyes. “Are you referring to my wife?”

“Yes.”

Gabriel shook his head slowly. “Don’t speak about my wife, Kruz.”

Kruz smiled humorlessly. “You’re not going to start making threats again, are you, Allon? I might be tempted to take you into custody for a more thorough questioning about your activities here.”

Gabriel said nothing.

Kruz crushed out his cigarette. “Pack your bags, Allon. You don’t want to miss your plane.”