The Arms Maker of Berlin

SIX

Was it real or was he dreaming?

Berta Heinkel crawled toward Nat across the bed in the half-light before dawn. She wore a short nightgown of antique silk, the kind of precious material that might once have been traded for war ration coupons or black-market Luckies. Slinky and smooth, like her skin. He stroked his fingers down her back, the perfect start to his day.

A sharp knock at the door rudely answered Nat’s question. He awoke to full daylight, an empty bed, and a painful erection. The innkeeper shouted crankily through the keyhole.

“Mr. Turnbull?”

“Yes?”

“You’re wanted downstairs. A Mr. Holland. He says it’s urgent.”

“Tell him five minutes.”

The bedside clock read 6:07 a.m. He knew Holland was in a hurry for him to finish the boxes by this afternoon, but this was ridiculous, seeing as how he had worked until almost ten o’clock the night before.

The innkeeper’s footsteps receded down the stairs, but their sound was soon drowned out by the brusque approach of a heavier tread. Nat barely had time to pull his trousers over the bulge in his briefs before the door flew open. In stepped Clark Holland, suit pressed, tie knotted.

“Is this really necessary?”

“Gordon Wolfe is dead. We’ve got work to do.”

“What? Gordon’s dead? How?”

“Heart attack, less than an hour ago. They found him on the floor of his cell. An EMT revived him for a minute or two, but that was it. Pronounced dead at 5:23 a.m.”

Nat sagged onto the bed and took a deep breath. His voice emerged from high in his throat, as if someone were squeezing his windpipe.

“His medication. Viv said-”

“That wasn’t the problem. He got his pills yesterday.”

“Does she know yet?”

“You’re going to tell her. It’s our first stop. But first I need some answers.”

Holland swung himself onto the room’s one and only chair, facing backward. He folded his arms on the top of it while Nat absorbed the blow. Nat was sitting where Berta had just been on all fours in his dream, and he was annoyed that he still couldn’t shake the image, even in the face of this terrible news. Gordon was dead. Impossible. It felt as if twenty years of his life had just been wrenched loose, thrown into a box, and abruptly carted away before he could even catalog the contents.

“I can’t believe he’s gone.”

“How did he seem when you spoke to him yesterday?”

He wished Holland would slow down with the questions.

“Well?”

“Same as always, I guess. Only sober. In a way he was almost happy spoiling for a fight. He looked pretty good. Or I thought he did.”

“Was he especially agitated about anything?”

“He wasn’t thrilled to be in jail, if that’s what you mean. But I wouldn’t say he was overwrought. Viv’s the one I would have pegged for a breakdown. And you want me to tell her?”

“Did you visit him last night?”

“No.”

“Or any other time since you saw him in the courtroom?”

“No. That’s the only time.”

“Any phone calls between you?”

“None.”

“You’re certain?”

“Absolutely. What are you getting at?”

“What about the girl, the German you met at the diner at lunch yesterday? Did she visit him?”

At the mention of Berta he hunched over to hide the lingering evidence of his dream.

“Doubtful. You’ll have to ask her.”

“Did she relay any messages between you, either oral or written?”

“As far as I know she hasn’t even spoken to him.”

“Answer the question.”

“No.”

Holland stared for a few seconds, as if waiting for Nat to break. Then he stood quickly.

“Get dressed. We’re going.”

“There was one thing.” It had just occurred to Nat, along with a nasty stab of guilt.

“Yes?”

“Gordon told me yesterday to ask you guys for better protection. And I never did, of course. I thought it was just more of his usual dramatics.”

“Protection? Against what?”

“He said you’d know.”

Holland shook his head, irritated.

“He was talking nonsense. Just like this morning.”

“What do you mean?”

“In his only moment of consciousness, the EMT asked what he’d had for dinner the night before. He smiled and said he’d been to the Metropolitan Club in Washington. Those were his last words. The doctor figured it was some kind of private joke. Maybe you’d know the context?”

“The Metropolitan Club? Never heard of it.”

“You’re certain?”

“He must have been delirious.”

Yet the phrase tugged at some old memory, just out of reach. Not from his shared experiences with Gordon-they had never been to Washington together-but from somewhere. Viv might know. Ugh. Telling her was going to be an ordeal for both of them.

But it wasn’t Viv he was thinking of by the time Holland and he reached the bottom of the stairs. It was Berta Heinkel. Obviously he had been impressed by her performance in the diner. But now he was upgrading his review, because she had seemed to know things about Gordon that the old man had never told him. And now he would never be able to ask.

Over the next few days he would continue to be impressed. Because, by day’s end, Berta Heinkel’s peculiar expertise would be in great demand. And within a week she and Nat would be seated together on a Swissair nonstop from Washington to Bern-the very place where, long ago, Gordon Wolfe had begun assembling the makings of his own destruction.