To Catch a King (6 page)

“By the stage door.”

“Leave the same way.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Look after yourself, Irene. I'll be in touch.”

When Irene Neumann left by the stage door it had started to rain. She paused to button her overcoat and found an old beret in one pocket which she pulled on.

There was a street lamp bracketed to the wall at the end of the alley, giving the SD man, on surveillance duty inside the delivery truck parked on the corner, a clear view of her as she walked toward him. He managed to take several photos of her before she turned into the main street and disappeared into the evening crowds.

“Uncle Max—you're a Communist?”

“Labels,” he said, “are meaningless these days. The only question that matters is which side are you on. Look, try and understand. In New York, after twenty-five years, I owned a hotel and two nightclubs. Everything paid for and I had half a million dollars in the bank I didn't know what to do with. I was bored. So, I got involved with a Zionist organization that was trying to do something about what was happening to our people in Germany. Your mother knew nothing about it. I came back here in thirty-seven to help organize an escape line for Jews. I gradually got drawn into the other side of things. The only people who are really doing anything worth doing are the Socialist Underground, and by their very nature their links are with Moscow.”

“And Frau Neumann?”

“Irene is a dedicated Communist. Not a card-carrying member. What they call a sleeper. Available to party orders since she was a seventeen-year-old student. She really believes Karl Marx walked on water and she loathes the Nazis. She's a clerical worker at Gestapo headquarters. There are people like her in positions of trust all over the country. You'd be surprised.”

“And this?” She held up the report.

“I told you Schellenberg was important, didn't I?”

“But this business about trying to win the Duke of Windsor over to their cause. It's nonsensical. He'd never do such a thing.”

“I agree, but Schellenberg's instructions seem real enough. If necessary, he's to kidnap the Duke and Duchess. It's as simple as that.” He smiled. “You see, Liebchen. It's now more important than ever that you leave here Monday and make your way to Lisbon.”

“Taking this with me?”

“You'd probably do better to memorize it.”

Suddenly, she was filled with a fierce exhilaration. “You know, Uncle Max, being a Jew never really meant all that much to me until I came here and saw how Jews were treated. It was all right for me. Good clothes, position, an American passport. But I've had to walk by while old ladies with yellow stars on their coats have been kicked into the gutter by animals in uniform. God, but it would be nice to hit back for a change.”

“You'll do it, then?”

“Why not.” She folded the report, raised her skirt, and slipped it into her stocking as Irene Neumann had done. “I'll read it again later.”

There was a knock at the door and Vogel, the headwaiter, looked in, holding a bunch of red roses. “I thought you'd like to know we've got distinguished company tonight.”

“And who would that be?” Max Winter asked.

“Heydrich himself and General Schellenberg.” Vogel handed the roses to Hannah. “These are for you, with General Schellenberg's compliments, and will you join them after the show?”

The Garden Room was not particularly busy. Vogel gave Heydrich and Schellenberg a booth that was usually reserved for guests of the management.

“Champagne,” Heydrich said. “Krug. Two bottles and put more on ice.”

“Certainly, General.”

Vogel bustled away and Heydrich looked the place over. As usual with such clubs, there were a number of pretty young hostesses available, seated at the bar. He looked them over with the eye of the true connoisseur.

Vogel appeared with the champagne and Heydrich said, “The blonde, third from the end of the bar. Tell her to come over.”

The girl came immediately. Heydrich didn't ask her name. Simply told her to sit down and poured her a glass of champagne. Then he pulled back her skirt and stroked her silken knees while he talked to Schellenberg.

Connie and his boys were playing “Some of These Days,” and Heydrich drummed out the tempo on the edge of the table with the fingers of his free hand.

“Excellent—really quite excellent. You know, Walter, one of the more fatuous requirements of our present system is that it expects me to consider Negroes as my inferiors—rather unfortunate in my case as I adore Louis Armstrong, the music of Duke Ellington, and the piano playing of Fats Waller.”

Schellenberg said, “The Jewish situation creates the same personal difficulties, don't you find. I mean, almost every mathematician or musician or scientist of note seems to be a Jew, and rather large numbers of them have left. I wonder just how long we can stand that?”

Heydrich frowned, which hardly surprised Schellenberg. He was well aware of his superior's dark secret, which was that his maternal grandmother, Sarah, had been Jewish.

“That kind of talk will get you into nothing but trouble, Walter. There are times when I despair of you. Times when a definitely suicidal strain shows through.” He refilled Schellenberg's glass. “Here—drink up and shut up!”

The trio started to play a little louder, Uncle Max's voice boomed out, and a moment later Hannah emerged onstage and started to sing.

A great many of her numbers were in English, which was what the crowd expected. She worked her way through a number of popular songs of the day including “The Continental,” “That Old Feeling,” “Time On My Hands,” a Noel Coward number, “Mad About the Boy,” and ended with a really beautiful rendition of “These Foolish Things” that had the diners standing up and cheering.

Schellenberg had been totally absorbed and was on his feet applauding madly when he glanced to one side and noticed Heydrich still sitting down, one arm around the young girl, frowning up at him in a strangely calculating way.

As the applause died down, he said, “Careful, Walter, you're letting your enthusiasm run away with you. I think you like this one—too much, perhaps.”

Schellenberg nodded to Vogel, who went and spoke to Hannah, who had stopped beside the piano to talk to Connie. She came across, pausing here and there to speak to well-wishers.

He stood up. “You were marvelous—truly.”

He held her hands tightly for a moment, and she responded in spite of herself. “Thanks—I enjoyed doing it and that's usually good for the audience.”

“General Heydrich, may I present Fräulein Hannah Winter?”

Heydrich didn't bother to get up. “Excellent, Fräulein. Really very, very good.” His manner was cool enough to border on the offensive. He said to Schellenberg, “Actually, Walter, I've decided to have an early night. I'll take the car and send it back for you—if you want to stay on, that is.”

“Yes, I think I will.”

“Suit yourself.” Heydrich got up, clutching the blonde girl firmly by one arm. “Fräulein—a pleasure.”

Hannah and Schellenberg watched them go. He poured her a glass of champagne. “You have another show?”

“Yes, in an hour.”

“May I escort you home afterwards?”

She put a hand on her thigh, aware of the folded report that she had pushed into her stocking. It gave her a strange feeling of power over him so that she smiled and said yes and was aware of that familiar hollow feeling of excitement.

“Your General Heydrich,” she said. “Does he usually take bar girls home with him?”

“Frequently.”

“He should beware of young Lotte. The word I heard was that she was having to see the doctor.”

Schellenberg laughed. “We have a saying in the SS. A soldier's pay—a soldier's risks.”

She leaned forward, a sudden urgency in her voice. “You're not like him—like the rest of them. I don't understand.”

He took her hand and said gently, “Are you familiar with a song called ‘Moonlight on the Highway’?”

“Yes.”

“I have a record of it sung by the English crooner Al Bowlly. It is an especial favorite of mine. Will you sing it for me?”

“If you like.”

“I love good jazz singing. Billie Holiday was my favorite—until now. Your trio is really quite excellent.”

“Connie and the boys. Oh, yes—terrors with the girls. Women seem to be their main spare-time interest.”

She got up and he said, “I'll see you later?”

She didn't reply. Simply nodded and walked away.

Max was waiting impatiently in her dressing room. “What happened, for God's sake?”

“Nothing much. Heydrich was rude and left with young Lotte. I hope she gives him gonorrhea. Schellenberg was rather nice. Gave me champagne and asked to take me home.”

“And what did you say?”

“Yes.”

“You're crazy.”

“Not really. I'm intrigued, that's all.”

There was a knock on the door and Connie looked in. “Here we go again.”

She kissed her uncle on the cheek. “You worry too much.”

As she started for the door, he said, “By the way, can I have your passport? I'll get your exit visa and money in the morning.”

“Top drawer of the dressing table,” she said and went out.

Her second show was even more successful than the first and she ended, as Schellenberg had asked, with the hauntingly beautiful “Moonlight on the Highway.”

He waited for her outside the club beside the Mercedes which had returned to pick him up. It was after two o'clock now, the streets were deserted, and the water carts were out.

When she finally emerged from the club she'd changed into sweater and slacks, over which she wore a fur coat.

She said, “It's only half a mile. Do you mind if we walk? It helps me unwind.”

“Not at all.”

He nodded to the driver, and as they started to walk the Mercedes crawled along behind at the edge of the curb.

“New York, Chicago, Paris, Berlin,” she said. “All different by day, but at night, the same fresh smell. The same rain on the wind.”

“And always the feeling that just around the corner at the end of the street something strange and exciting is waiting.”

“That's it exactly,” she said and took his arm.

“Twenty was a good age,” he said. “One could sniff that cold bracing nip in the air on those autumnal evenings and actually believe that life was full of a kind of infinite possibility.”

They continued in silence for a while and then she said, “I asked you a question earlier and you didn't answer. Will you answer me now? For some reason, it's important.”

“It's simple really,” he said. “First, I was a medical student, then I became a lawyer. I also spoke several languages and yet there was no work for me, you know this? No work for thousands of young Germans like me. If I could have done what I wanted, I would have gone into the theater because I suspect I am the kind of neurotic who is a natural-born actor. So—I joined the ultimate theatrical company—the SS.”

“That's not good enough.”

“It was a job—it was a nice uniform. It was having respect from people where there had been none before.”

“From kicking old Jewish women into the gutter? From running concentration camps. I thought that the prime function of your SS.”

They had reached the block in which her apartment was. He said, “Hannah, it's easy to climb on the merry-go-round. Not so easy to jump off once it starts moving. I'm afraid that's true for most of us in Germany today.”

“Then I'm sorry for you.”

She turned and ran up the steps to the front door. Schellenberg stood there for a while, then went to the Mercedes and leaned down.

“You can go home, boys, I'll walk.”

It started to rain again and he pulled up the collar of his leather trench coat, shoved his hands into his pockets, and started to walk, his face grim.

5

A
t ten o'clock the following morning, Heydrich was at his desk, working his way through a mass of correspondence, dictating replies to Frau Huber, when there was a knock on the door and Schellenberg entered, carrying a couple of files. There were dark smudges under Heydrich's eyes as if he had not slept, and the paleness of his face was accentuated by the fact that he was in full black dress uniform.

“I'm due at the Führer's weekly conference at the Chancellery at eleven,” he said. “And I've this lot to attend to. Can it wait?”

“Not really,” Schellenberg said. “Priority One, which means a memo is already on its way to the Reichsführer.”

Heydrich frowned. “Go on.”

“The Winter affair. As you know, we've had a photographic surveillance team working on his club for some time. Last night they came up with a new face.”

He laid a selection of photos on the desk. They showed Irene Neumann leaving the stage door of the Garden Club and walking up the alley. The one taken as she was actually passing the truck was very good indeed.

“Do we know her? Is there something on file?”

“I'm afraid so. You know Schultz in photography with that encyclopedic memory for faces? He recognized her instantly. You're not going to like it one little bit.”

“Tell me the worst.”

“She's a clerk in Central Records.”

Heydrich looked at him in astonishment. “You mean here?”

“I'm afraid so. Here's her file.”

He opened it and placed it on the desk. There were the usual double identity photos of Irene Neumann pinned to the inside cover. Ilse Huber, who had got up on Schellenberg's entrance, had been standing quietly at the side of the desk awaiting Heydrich's instructions. She could see the photos plainly.

She said, “Excuse me, Obergruppenführer, I know this woman, but she doesn't work only in Central Records. I saw her yesterday in the copying room on temporary duty.”

“Are you certain?”

“Oh, yes. I'd just done the confidential report on the meeting between General Schellenberg and Reichsminister von Ribbentrop. I went to have the usual three copies done. As I didn't recognize her, I asked her who she was.”

There was a heavy silence. Schellenberg said gently,

“You stayed with her, Ilse, while she made those copies?”

“Of course I did,” she said. “Standard procedure with confidential documents. You know that, General.” And then she remembered and her face sagged.