Back from the Dead (18 page)

“Harry, it’s the German girl,” Phyllis said on the intercom. “Should I tell her you’re busy? Just kidding.”

Phyllis transferred the call. Harry picked up the phone. “Hello.”

“Harry, they’ve got me.” It was Colette, voice sounding strange, distant.

“Fraulein Rizik is understandably upset,” Hess said, coming on the line. “She’s not herself. You better come and help her, Harry. You’re the only hope she has.”

“Let me talk to her.”

“You can talk when you see her. You’ve got forty-two hours. Someone will meet you at Frauenplatz, behind the church – the day after tomorrow, four p.m.”

Harry started to say something but Hess had already hung up.

Cordell said, “Harry, you’re fuckin’ with me, right? You’re not goin’ back ’cause you can’t. Remember those two days you spent in the prison in Munich, goin’ out of your mind? Now add like twenty years.”

“More than that,” Harry said.

They were in Harry’s kitchen, sipping drinks at the island counter.

“Okay, so you’re not crazy.”

“I don’t know.”

“Harry, let me understand something, okay? You’re gonna give yourself up for Colette, is that right?”

“It’s a challenge. Hess is saying: you want her, let’s see how good you are. Come and get her.”

“He knows the police are gonna be after you?”

“They’re after him too. That makes it more interesting.”

“Like a game, huh?” Cordell sipped the Courvoisier and Coke. “Don’t see how you can win though.”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“Then you better have a plan and a good one. Where we gonna fly into? And don’t say Munich.”

“I was thinking Innsbruck. Go through customs in Austria, rent a car, drive north through the Bavarian Alps.”

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about, Harry,” Cordell said, smiling now.

“You can’t go back either, remember?” Cordell had been implicated on Harry’s gun possession charge by the Munich police. Now he could conceivably be prosecuted as an accessory to murder.

“I’m goin’ and that’s it. Now what exactly did the Nazi say?”

Harry called a travel agent and booked two flights to Innsbruck, Austria by way of London. It was 4:45 p.m. They were leaving in three hours.

“What kind of gun do you want?” Harry said to Cordell. “If we’re going to do this we better be armed.”

“A .45 in nickel-plate be my first choice. And a rifle, Harry, something accurate at distance.”

“Where’d you learn to shoot?”

“The army, where you think?”

“You any good?”

“I can hit the target ninety-five per cent of the time from three hundred meters.”

“That may come in handy.”

“What I was thinking.”

Next, Harry called Fedor Berman, a Holocaust survivor and private detective who had supplied the .38 Colt he’d used to defend himself against the Blackshirts, the gun Detective Huber had. Harry told Berman he needed the guns right away and Berman said, no problem. “What are you hunting, Herr Levin, big game?”

“The biggest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Harry carried his suitcase upstairs, unpacked and repacked with warm clothes for Bavaria in November. He thought about Colette, hoping Hess would keep her alive till he got there. Harry didn’t question what he was doing. In his mind there was no other way. This time he would face Hess and finish it.

Cordell came downstairs, duffel bag over his shoulder, wearing the winter green leisure suit, a comb sticking out of his Afro. “Okay, Harry, let’s go?”

“I think you should wear something a little more subdued. On this trip we want to blend in, not attract attention.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I’d leave the leisure suits here. Dress more conservative.”

“Harry, I don’t have anything conservative.”

“Or we can pick something up in Munich if you like.”

“Tried that, you may recall.”

“Yeah, and you fit right in.”

“Fit right in on the set of
Heidi
maybe – with Shirley Temple and grandfather.”

“I’ve got some clothes that might work.”

“This ought to be good.”

Harry took him up to his bedroom, opened the closet, took out a white dress shirt on a hanger and handed it to him. Cordell took off the leisure suit jacket, folded it over the back of a chair, unbuttoned the animals-rampant polyester, slid out of it. Harry handed him a pair of black pants, a light blue shirt with a button-down collar and a camel sweater. Try it on. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Cordell was checking himself out in the full-length mirror when Harry came back in the room.

“You look good.”

“I look like you with an Afro. Brothers see me like this they gonna kick me out the tribe.”

“The comb in your hair’s a nice touch.”

Cordell pulled it out and slid it in the right side pocket. “How’s that? I pass inspection?”

They landed at Gatwick airport outside London the next morning at 7:56. Had an hour wait and then a two-hour flight to Innsbruck, Austria, arriving at 11:03 a.m. Collected their luggage and went through customs. Harry rented a Mercedes-Benz sedan with tire chains.

The sun was up high and the road was snow-covered, the snow so bright it was blinding. They’d climb a steep mountain grade and fly down the other side, Harry trying to pass slow-moving trucks. Then the clouds rolled in and it started to snow, Harry watching the windshield fog up and the wipers thump back and forth, headlight beams coming the opposite way out of the grey gloom, holding the steering wheel with two hands.

They crossed the border into Germany, Harry nervous, thinking he was going to be arrested as a sleepy-eyed border guard glanced at their passports and took them into a little shack.

“What’s up with that?” Cordell looked worried now.

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s making a copy.”

“So they’re gonna know we’re here.”

“But they’ve got to find us.”

The guard came back and handed Harry the passports.

They drove on to Munich, arriving at 12:57 p.m. Harry was exhausted. He’d only slept a couple hours on the transatlantic flight, and not at all on the flight to Innsbruck.

They met Berman at the Bavaria statue at Theresienwiese, the Oktoberfest grounds deserted now in early November. Berman got out of his car, smoking a pipe, looking dapper in a Loden sport jacket and Tyrolean hat. Harry introduced him to Cordell and they shook hands. Berman opened his trunk and brought out a box that he handed to Harry. “The weapons you requested, with appropriate cartridges.” He went back to his trunk and took out the rifle wrapped in brown paper. “Who would like this?”

Harry nodded at Cordell and Berman handed him the rifle. “A silenced Mauser, eight millimeter, seven point nine to be exact, fitted with a scope.” Berman paused. “You have returned, Herr Levin, and you need a lot of guns. I hope everything is okay.”

“Now it is,” Harry said.

They drove to a secluded area north of the city, parked in an empty lot next to an abandoned building. Cordell unwrapped the rifle. There were four five-round stripper clips taped to the stock. He loaded the rifle, screwed the silencer on the end of the barrel, adjusted the scope and got out of the car. Cordell brought the stock to his shoulder, worked the bolt, fed a round into the chamber, aiming at a chemical barrel about a hundred yards away. He squeezed the trigger, heard a
pfft
sound, felt the rifle buck and hit the center stripe he was aiming for.

Harry opened the box, looking at a Smith & Wesson .38 with a rubber grip, a matte black .45 Colt Commander, and a box of cartridges for each gun. Harry opened the cylinder and slid in five .38 cartridges, snapped it closed and put the hammer on the empty chamber.

Harry parked down the street from Martz’s house. They needed a place to spend the night. Staying in a hotel was way too risky. Their passports would have been registered with the police and Harry would be on his way to jail.

Harry had no idea if the house had been sold, rented or what. He got out and walked to the front door, looked in the front window. Martz’s furniture was still there. He rang the bell. No one came. Harry walked around the side of the house. Tried the door, expecting it to be locked, but it wasn’t.

He went through the kitchen into the dining room, checked the salon and Martz’s study. Everything looked the same as it did the night Martz and Lisa were murdered.

Harry turned the light on and walked down the stairs into the cellar, thinking about the night he’d found Martz and Lisa naked and dead on the floor. Hess had shot both of them in the back of the head and positioned them next to each other. The chalk outlines of their bodies and bloodstains were still there.

“I think we’re okay,” Harry said, opening the front passenger door of the Mercedes. They brought in their suitcases and the guns. Harry was tired. He carried his things upstairs, stretched out on Martz’s bed and fell asleep.

When he woke up it was dark. Harry got up and went downstairs. Cordell was asleep on a couch in the salon. Harry shook him. Cordell opened his eyes and yawned. “What’s up?”

“Hungry? I’ll go pick something up. What do you feel like?”

“What do I feel like, Harry? I feel like gumbo with lots of okra. But what am I gonna get?”

“Roast chicken or bratwurst, or how about Chinese?”

“Yeah, okay, I could go for something Chinesey. You know ribs, sweet-and-sour chicken, egg rolls.”

“You got it. You can take a shower upstairs in Lisa’s room, but let’s keep the lights off. I don’t want any neighbors calling the police.”

Harry picked up the food and they ate by candlelight in the kitchen, neither talking while they polished off three entrees and four egg rolls. When Cordell finished he said, “Nervous about tomorrow?”

“Not yet.”

“Well I’m gonna be there watchin’ your back.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Remember coming to the hospital with the bolt cutter? You didn’t show up when you did I wouldn’t be here.” Cordell stacked the empty takeout containers and threw them in the trash.

“Better get some sleep,” Harry said.

“Don’t take credit for anything, do you? Just get the job done.”

“We’ll see.”

Harry opened his eyes looking at the clock. It was 5:05 a.m. He was thinking about Colette, picturing her coming in the hotel restaurant the day they met, every eye in the room on her as she sat at his table, Harry hoping she was single and available before he even met her. Today was the day. He’d meet someone at Frauenplatz. Harry would go with him and trade himself for Colette. But he had a surprise for them.

At first light he woke Cordell.

It was cold and clear, light traffic as they drove to Frauenplatz, seeing the orange roof and onion-dome towers of the Frauenkirche looming in the distance.

“You gonna tell me what we’re doin’?”

“Planning our moves.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I’ll show you.”

Harry parked on Löwengrube and got out of the car, looking at the long rectangular side of the Frauenkirche. They walked to the square at the rear of the church, deserted now, but it would be crowded when they returned at four that afternoon. There was a fountain but the water was turned off. There were restaurants and shops in the buildings on the opposite side of the square.

Cordell said, “You really think they’re gonna bring Colette?”

“They better or it’s over.” Harry paused. “They’re going to want me to go with them and I will, but where’re you going to be? How’re you going to follow me?”

“I don’t know.”

“They could come from any direction,” Harry said. “Take me out to any of the streets around here, car pulls up, we get in. They’ve scoped the place out. They’ve got a plan, and we have to figure out what it is.”

Harry and Cordell walked around Frauenkirche, Harry looking for something that made sense. “I think their car’s going to be here,” Harry said, pointing to a side street to the west of the church. “It’s the closest, most direct way in and out.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

Huber was getting ready to go home when he received a wire from customs and immigration, saying that Harry Levin had crossed the Austrian border into Germany at a remote station somewhere north of Innsbruck. It seemed incomprehensible. Why would Levin, knowing the charges facing him, risk returning to Germany?

Huber had admired the man, a Holocaust survivor who stood up for himself. He had even believed Levin’s allegations against Ernst Hess, believed the arrogant former Nazi had murdered Jews during the war. So, of course he was sympathetic when Levin was arrested in the young Jewish couple’s apartment. Arrested not for murder, but for carrying a concealed weapon – still a serious charge.

Huber had stuck his neck out, put his reputation on the line when he stood up for Levin, had him released from prison and deported. A few weeks later Huber felt like a fool when a hunter discovered three badly decomposed bodies in the forest outside Munich, and ballistics confirmed they had all been shot with the same weapon, an unregistered revolver the police had taken off Harry Levin.

Huber knew Levin had not checked into a hotel or his department would have a record of his passport. So where would he stay? Levin’s friend, the journalist Colette Rizik, had an apartment on Wagnerstrasse, and that’s where Huber had gone, but no one was there.

Next he checked Martz, the murdered Jew’s house and found takeout containers in a trash bin in the kitchen, a duffel bag full of clothes on the floor in one of the bedrooms, and an open suitcase in the other. People were staying there, and Huber had no doubt it was Harry Levin. He had the house watched but so far Levin had not returned.

Back at his desk, Huber received an anonymous phone call about Ernst Hess.

“I know where he is,” the man said.

“Who is this?”

“Who I am is not important. But what I can give you is.” After the newspaper article had appeared, Hess was a hot topic again. “Come to police headquarters and we’ll talk.”

“It’s not safe. Hess has friends everywhere.”

“You choose the place.”

“English Gardens this afternoon at one.”

This is what Huber had been waiting for, hoping for, a connection to Hess, a way to find and arrest him. They had almost had him at the Bayerischer Hof. Conlin, the American detective, had given him accurate intelligence about Hess murdering and assuming the identity of an American citizen named Max Hoffman. Hoffman’s passport had been registered with the police. That’s how Huber knew he was staying at the hotel. They had found his clothes and passport in the room. Huber had leaked the story to a reporter at
Suddeutsche Zeitung.

Arresting Hess would be a real coup. It would make his career. Whatever influence Hess had had with the police was eroding fast. From what Huber had heard, Hess had even lost standing with the Blackshirts.

Huber was in the English Gardens at the agreed time, at the agreed place. It was too cold to sit. He moved around, paced and rubbed his gloved hands together trying to stay warm. There were a couple tourists taking pictures of the Chinese Tower. Huber saw a thin, nervous-looking guy, maybe thirty-five, approach and knew he was his man.

“Detective Huber?”

“And you are?”

“That’s not important at the moment.”

“Where is Hess?”

“I don’t know. But I know where he’ll be this evening.”

“How many men does he have?”

“Six.”

“It’s hard to believe there are six Germans naive enough to still believe in him.”

“It’s difficult to say no.”

Huber could relate. With sheer force of will Hess made you do things you didn’t want to do. But now he was an outcast.

“Did you bring the money?”

“It doesn’t work that way. When we have Hess in custody we’ll talk about the reward. Tell me your name?”

“Franz Stigler.”

“Where will Hess be this evening?”