“Sign this, please,” Hessinger said, laying a sheet of paper on the table.
“What is it?” Cronley asked, and then read. “I’ll be damned, ‘Special Orders No. 1, Headquarters, Military Detachment, Directorate of Central Intelligence-Europe. Subject: Promotion of Enlisted Personnel.’ What took you so long, Freddy? Or should I say ‘Staff Sergeant Hessinger’?”
“I didn’t know how to do it, so I called Sergeant Major Thorne.”
“Who?”
“General Greene’s sergeant major.”
“And he told you how?”
“Correct.”
“I was hoping that you had spent the night thinking about how we’re going to get Mannberg, Ostrowski, and the fifty thousand to Vienna.”
“I came up with several ideas, all of which are probably illegal,” Hessinger said.
“Save them until the general and Mannberg get here.”
General Gehlen, in another of his ill-fitting, ragged suits, and Colonel Mannberg, in his usual Wehrmacht uniform stripped of all insignia but a red stripe down the trouser legs, came in almost precisely at eight.
Cronley wasn’t sure if he was impressed with their Teutonic punctuality or annoyed by it. He rose as Gehlen approached the table, as a gesture of courtesy, and Gehlen waved him back into his seat, shaking his head to suggest he didn’t think the gesture was necessary.
By quarter after eight, the others — Dunwiddie, Schultz, Ostrowski, and Tedworth — had taken their places and begun their breakfast, and Cronley had finished his.
“What we left hanging last night,” Cronley said, “was the question of getting Mannberg, Ostrowski, and the fifty thousand dollars to Vienna. The problem is that neither of them can get on the Blue Danube because they’re not Americans. And the one solution I see for the problem is predictably illegal.”
“What’s your solution?”
“Give both of them DCI-Europe identity cards.”
“You’re right,” Dunwiddie said. “That would be illegal. And it wouldn’t be long before Colonel Mattingly heard about it. And he’s just waiting for you to screw up.”
“Your suggestion?”
“Put Colonel Mannberg in a Provisional Security Organization uniform and give him a PSO identity card. No one would question you having two Wachmann — Mannberg and Ostrowski — with you.”
“That would work,” Mannberg said.
No, mein lieber Oberst, it wouldn’t.
“No, it would not,” Cronley said. “I don’t think this officers’ hotel… what’s it called?”
“The Bristol,” Hessinger furnished. “And it’s not just an officers’ hotel. Majors and up.”
“… this majors-and-up officers’ hotel is going to accommodate two DP watchmen,” Cronley finished.
“So what’s your solution?” Dunwiddie asked.
“I’m going to give both Mannberg and Ostrowski DCI identity cards.”
“I don’t think that would be smart,” Schultz said.
“Well, then the choice is yours, Jefe,” Cronley said. “Relieve me and you figure this out. Or let me do what I think is best. And giving Mannberg and Ostrowski DCI identity cards is what I think is best.”
It took thirty seconds — which seemed much longer — for El Jefe to reply.
“When I think about it,” he said finally, “I still think it’s risky as hell, but I don’t think it would be illegal. You’re the chief, DCI-Europe. You can do just about anything you want.”
“Until somebody catches him doing something we all know he shouldn’t be doing, you mean,” Dunwiddie said.
“Discussion over, Captain Dunwiddie,” Cronley said. “How are you with a tape measure?”
“Excuse me?”
“While we’re getting the DCI credentials filled out and sealed in plastic, we need somebody who knows how to determine sizes to take the colonel’s and Ostrowski’s measurements. Are you our man to do that?”
“What for?”
“So that you can go to the QM officers’ clothing sales store and get Colonel Mannberg a couple of sets of ODs and a set of pinks and greens.”
“I didn’t think about that,” Hessinger said.
“And get Ostrowski a set of pinks and greens while you’re at it,” Cronley said. “We don’t want anyone to look out of place in this majors-and-up hotel in Vienna, do we?”
“I have one more thing to say, and then I’ll shut up,” Dunwiddie said.
“Say it.”
“I can see the look—‘I’ve got the sonofabitch now’—on Colonel Mattingly’s face when he hears about this.”
Cronley looked as if he was about to reply, but then changed his mind.
“I’d much prefer to put the colonel — and Max, too — in civilian clothing,” he said. “Suits and ties. But that’s out of the question, isn’t it?” Cronley asked.
“I have civilian clothing,” Mannberg said. “Or my sister does.”
“Your sister?”
“And I think Max could wear some of it,” Mannberg said.
“Your sister has your civilian clothing?” Cronley asked.
Mannberg nodded.
“I sent it to her when the general and I went to the East,” he said.
“And she still has it?” Cronley asked. “Where?”
“We have a farm near Hanover,” Mannberg said. “In the British Zone.”
“Pay attention,” Cronley said. “The chief, DCI-Europe, is about to lay out our plans. While General Gehlen’s documents people are doing their thing with the DCI credentials, and Captain Dunwiddie is measuring Mannberg and Ostrowski and then going shopping for them, First Sergeant Tedworth is going to get in one of our new Fords and drive to Hanover to reclaim Colonel Mannberg’s wardrobe. Any questions?”
The olive-drab 1943 Ford Deluxe pulled to the curb and stopped. The driver, yet another enormous black sergeant, this one Sergeant Albert Finney, got out from behind the wheel and ran around the back of the car to open the rear passenger door.
Cronley got out. He was wearing an OD woolen uniform. His shoulder insignia, a modification of the wartime insignia of Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), identified him as being assigned to the European Command (EUCOM). The gold bars of a second lieutenant were pinned to his epaulets, and the insignia of the Quartermaster Corps to his lapels.
Hessinger got out of the front seat. He was also wearing an OD Ike jacket and trousers. The first time Cronley had ever seen him not wearing his pinks and greens was that morning. His uniform now was adorned with staff sergeant’s chevrons, QMC lapel insignia, and the EUCOM shoulder patch.
Two other of Tiny’s Troopers and the ambulance were parked down the street just within sight of Hachelweg 675. The fourth had made his way to the back of Hachelweg 675, with orders from Sergeant Hessinger to “follow anyone who comes out the back door when we knock at the front.”
Staff Sergeant Hessinger had orders for Second Lieutenant Cronley and Sergeant Finney, as well. “Remember,” he said in German, “the only German either of you knows is ‘Noch ein Bier, bitte’ and ‘Wo ist die Toilette?’”
“Jawohl, Herr Feldmarschall,” Cronley had replied.
“You already told us that, Freddy,” Sergeant Finney said in German.
He opened the trunk of the Ford and took out an open cardboard box. Four cartons of Chesterfield cigarettes, on their ends, were visible. So was an enormous canned ham.
Hessinger opened a gate in a stone wall and walked up to the house, with Cronley and Finney following him. The tile-roofed two-story building looked very much like Cronley’s house in the Pullach compound, except that it desperately needed a paint job, several new windows, and roof repairs.
Cronley and Finney had been given a lecture by Professor Hessinger on the history of Strasbourg on the way from Pullach. He told them that over the years it had gone back and forth between being French and German so often that Strasbourgers never really knew to whom they owed their allegiance.
Cronley was surprised, even a little ashamed, that he had never given the subject much thought before. His mother spoke German; she had taught him to speak German from the time he was an infant. He had naturally presumed that she was a German. Or had been before his father had brought her to Midland, after which she was an American.
But when they had crossed the border today, it had been into France. Strasbourg was in France.
Hessinger told them it had been French until after the Franco-Prussian War, when, in 1871, the Treaty of Frankfurt had given it to the newly formed German Empire. The Germans had promptly “Germanified” the area, and surrounded it with a line of massive forts, named after distinguished Germans, such as von Moltke, Bismarck, and Crown Prince von Sachsen.
After World War I, Hessinger had lectured, the area was given back to the French by the Treaty of Versailles. The French, after renaming the forts — Fort Kronprinz von Sachsen, for example, became Fort Joffre, after the famous French general, and Fort Bismarck became Fort Kléber — held Strasbourg until June of 1940, when the Germans invaded France and promptly reclaimed Strasbourg for the Thousand-Year Reich.
Four years later, Hessinger said, the French 2nd Armored Division rolled into Strasbourg and hoisted the French tricolor on every flagpole they could find.
“Strasbourgers,” Hessinger said, and Cronley couldn’t tell if his leg was being pulled or not, “keep German and French flags in their closets, so they can hang the right one out of their windows depending on who they’re being invaded by this week.”
There was a large door knocker, a brass lion’s head, on the door. Freddy banged it twice.
Jesus, this is my mother’s house, Cronley thought. She went through this door as a little girl.
And where we got out of the car is where Dad punched her father’s — my grandfather’s — lights out.
The door was opened — just a crack.
Cronley could see a woman. She had blond hair, brushed tight against her skull. She looked to be in her thirties, and she didn’t look as if she was close to starvation.
“We are looking for Herr Luther Stauffer,” Hessinger announced in German.
The woman shook her head, but otherwise didn’t reply.
“Then Frau Stauffer,” Hessinger said. “Frau Ingebord Stauffer.”
The woman tried to close the door. She couldn’t. After a moment, Cronley saw why: Hessinger had his foot in the doorjamb.
He also saw the fear in the woman’s face.
It grew worse when Hessinger snapped, like a movie Nazi in a third-rate film, “Papiere, bitte!”
The woman, her face now showing even more fear, stepped back from the door.
And then the door opened.
A man appeared. He was blond, needed a shave, appeared to be in his middle to late thirties, and looked strangely familiar.
Why do I think my cousin Luther has been hiding behind the door?
“Oh, you’re American,” the man said in German, and then turned and said, “It’s all right, dear, they’re Americans.”
Then the man asked, “How can I help you, Sergeant?”
“We’re looking for Herr Luther Stauffer,” Freddy said.
“May I ask why?”
“It’s a family matter, not official,” Freddy said.
“A family matter?” the man asked, taking a close look at Cronley.
“A family matter,” Freddy repeated.
“I am Luther Stauffer.”
“Lieutenant,” Freddy said in English, “I think we found your cousin.”
Hessinger, Cronley, and Finney all decided, judging by the man’s reaction to Freddy’s question, that Luther Stauffer spoke — or at least understood — English.
“Tell him, Sergeant, please, that I have some things for him from his aunt, Wilhelmina Stauffer Cronley,” Cronley said.
Freddy did so.
“Give him the box, Sergeant Finney,” Cronley ordered.
As Finney extended the box, Stauffer pulled the door fully open and said, gesturing, “Please come in.”
“What did he say?” Cronley asked.
Hessinger made the translation.
“Then go in,” Cronley ordered.
“Yes, sir.”
They found themselves in a small living room.
Finney extended the box to Stauffer again.
“This is for me?” Stauffer asked.
“From your aunt, Wilhelmina Stauffer Cronley,” Hessinger said. “You are that Luther Stauffer, right? Frau Cronley is your aunt?”
“Yes,” Stauffer said, as he put the box on the table.
“If that’s so,” Hessinger said, “then Lieutenant Cronley is your cousin.”
Stauffer and Cronley looked at each other. Stauffer put out his hand, and Cronley took it.
Stauffer turned to his wife and quite unnecessarily announced, “The officer is my cousin.” Then he turned to Cronley and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”
Cronley almost told him, but at the last second caught himself, and instead asked, “What’s he asking?”
“He wants to know your name,” Hessinger said.
“James. James D. Cronley Junior.”
Stauffer took his hand again and said, “James. Ich bin Luther.”
Frau Stauffer took a look in the box.
“Oh, so much,” she said.
“Tell her my mother got a letter from them, and then wrote me, and here we are,” Cronley ordered.
Hessinger made the translation.
Frau Stauffer pulled out a drawer in a massive chest of drawers, came out with a photo album, laid it on the table and began to page through it. Finally, she found what she wanted, and motioned for Cronley to look.
It was an old photograph. Husband, wife, and two young children, a boy of maybe ten and a girl who looked to be several years younger.
“Luther’s Papa,” Frau Stauffer said, laying her finger on the boy, and then moving it to the girl. “Dein mutter.”
“She says the girl in the picture is your mother,” Hessinger translated.
“Ask him,” Frau Stauffer asked, “if he has a picture of his mother now.”
Hessinger translated.
As a matter of fact, I have two of her. Right here in my wallet.
Let me show you.
The first one was taken at College Park, the day I graduated from A&M. That’s Mom, the lady in the mink coat with the two pounds of pearls hanging around her neck. The girl sitting on the fender of the custom-bodied Packard 280 is our neighbor’s kid. Sort of my little sister. I called her “the Squirt.”
In this picture, that’s my mom standing next to President Truman. That’s my dad, pinning on my captain’s bars. This was taken the day after I married the Squirt, and the day she got herself killed.
“Tell her, ‘Sorry. I have a couple, but I left them back at the Kloster.’”
Hessinger made the translation, but, picking up on Cronley’s slip, said, “kaserne,” not “Kloster.”
Cronley saw on Luther’s face that the translation was unnecessary.
Why is Cousin Luther pretending he doesn’t speak English?
“Kloster?” Luther asked.
And he picked up on that, too.
“The lieutenant’s little joke,” Hessinger said. “Our kaserne is in the middle of nowhere, twenty miles outside Munich. The lieutenant jokes that we’re all monks, kept in a kloster far from the sins of the city.”
Luther smiled and then asked, “What exactly do you do in the Army?”
“Lieutenant, he wants to know exactly what you do in the Army.”
“Tell him the 711th is responsible for making sure that the equipment in every mess hall in the European Command — and for that matter, in U.S. Forces in Austria — meets Army standards.”
Hessinger made the translation. Luther confessed he didn’t completely understand. Hessinger made that translation, too.
“You tell him what we do, Sergeant,” Cronley ordered.
Hessinger rose to the challenge. He delivered a two-minute lecture detailing the responsibility the 711th QM Mobile Kitchen Repair Company had with regard to maintaining the stoves, ovens, refrigerators, dishwashers, and other electromechanical devices to be found in U.S. Army kitchens.
He explained that there were three teams who roamed Germany, Austria, and France inspecting and repairing such devices. Team 2 was commanded by Lieutenant Cronley. A dishwasher had broken down in Salzburg, and Team 2 had been dispatched to get it running.
Lieutenant Cronley had decided, Hessinger told Luther, that since Strasbourg was more or less on their way to the malfunctioning dishwasher, it was an opportunity for him to drop off the things his mother had sent to her family.
Cronley wasn’t sure whether Hessinger had prepared this yarn before they got to Strasbourg or was making it up on the spot. But it sounded credible, and Cousin Luther seemed to be swallowing it whole.
“So you’re going to Salzburg?” Luther asked.
Hessinger nodded.
“And from there?”
Why don’t I think that’s idle curiosity?
Before Hessinger could reply, Cronley said, “Ask him what he does.”
“The lieutenant asks what your profession is,” Hessinger said.
“I’m an automobile mechanic,” Luther replied. “Or I was before the war. Now there are very few automobiles.”
Hessinger translated.
“Ask him what he did in the war,” Cronley ordered.
As Hessinger translated, Cronley saw that not only had Cousin Luther understood the question as he had asked it, but that he didn’t like it, and was searching his mind for a proper response.
What the hell is this all about?
“Do you understand about Strasbourg?” Luther asked. “How over the years it has passed back and forth between French and German control?”
“Not really,” said Hessinger, who had delivered a ten-minute lecture on the subject on the way to Strasbourg.
“Well…” Luther began.
Hessinger shut him off with a raised hand.
“Lieutenant, your cousin says Strasbourg has been under German and French control for years.”
“Really?”
“Go on, Herr Stauffer,” Hessinger ordered.
“Well, before the war, we were French,” Luther explained. “And then when the Germans came, we were Germans again.”
Hessinger translated.
“So what?”
“The lieutenant says he doesn’t understand,” Hessinger said to Luther.
“When the Germans came, they said I was now a German, and in 1941 I was conscripted into the German Army,” Luther said.
There’s something fishy about that.
When Hessinger had made the translation, Cronley said, “Ask him what he did in the German Army.”
“The lieutenant wants to know what you did in the German Army.”
“I was a common soldier, a grenadier, and then I escaped and hid out until the war was over.”
Cousin Luther, that is not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.
What the hell are you up to?
Hessinger made the translation.
“Tell him I’m glad he made it through the war,” Cronley said, and then asked, “How are we fixed for time, Sergeant?”
Hessinger looked at his watch.
“Sir, we’re going to have to get on the road,” Hessinger replied, and then told Luther the lieutenant was glad that he had made it through the war.
“Tell him we have to leave,” Cronley ordered.
When Hessinger had done so, and Luther had replied, he made that unnecessary translation:
“He said he’s sorry to hear that, but understands. He says he’s very happy with your mother’s gifts, and that he hopes this will not be the last time you come to Strasbourg.”
“Tell him that if my mother sends some more things, I’ll see that he gets them,” Cronley said, and put out his hand to Luther.
“And where will you go from Salzburg?” Luther asked.
Hessinger looked to Cronley for permission to answer. Cronley nodded, hoping Luther didn’t see him.
“Vienna,” Hessinger said, and then, “He wanted to know where we’re going from Salzburg. I told him. I hope that’s all right.”
“Sure. Why not?”
Frau Stauffer said “Danke schön” when she shook Cronley’s hand, and looked as if she wanted to kiss him.
He smiled at her and walked to and out the door.
The Stauffers waved as they drove off.
When Sergeant Finney pulled the Ford up behind the ambulance, another of Tiny’s Troopers — this one a corporal — got out of it and walked to the car.
Finney rolled the window down.
“We’re through here. Go get Sergeant Graham,” he ordered. “He’s somewhere behind the house.”
“You got it, Sarge,” the corporal said, and took off at a trot.
“Tell me, Sergeant Finney,” Cronley said, “now that you are a member of DCI-Europe, what is your professional assessment of Herr Stauffer?”
Finney thought it over for a moment, and then said, “That Kraut is one lying motherfucker.”
Cronley didn’t reply for a moment, then, coldly furious, said softly, “Sergeant, if you ever say that — or something like that — in my hearing again, you’ll spend the rest of your time in Germany as a private walking around Kloster Grünau with a Garand on your shoulder.”
“Yes, sir,” Finney said, and then, “Captain, I’m sorry. I guess I just forgot he’s your cousin.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Cronley said. “My lying Kraut kinsman doubtless has many faults, but I don’t think we have any reason to suspect that he ever had incestuous relations with his mother.”
“Sorry, Captain.”
“You might want to pass the word around that that phrase is strengstens verboten. It turns my stomach.”
“Jawohl, Herr Kapitän.”
“And your take on Luther Stauffer, Mr. Hessinger?”
“The question is not whether he was lying to us, but why,” Hessinger said. “I think we should find out why.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“I think the first thing to do is see if we can find the Strasbourg office of the DST.”
“The what?”
“The Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire,” Hessinger said. “It’s sort of the French CIC, except that it’s run by the French National Police, not the army. They may have something on Cousin Luther.”
“Okay.”
“And before we do that, I suggest we change out of our Quartermaster Corps uniforms,” Hessinger said. “I think we’ll get more cooperation from our French Allies as CIC agents than we would as dishwasher machine repairmen.”
“Why don’t we go whole hog and dazzle them with our DCI credentials?”
“Because (a) I would be surprised if word of the DCI’s establishment has worked its way through the French bureaucracy, and (b) even if it has, we want to make discreet inquiries.”
When his sergeant showed Cronley, Hessinger, and Finney into his office, Commandant Jean-Paul Fortin of the Strasbourg office of the DST rose behind his desk.
He was a natty man in his early thirties with a trim mustache. He was wearing U.S. Army ODs with French insignia. There were shoulder boards with four gold stripes attached to the epaulets, and a brass representation of a flaming bomb pinned to his left breast pocket. On his desk, in what Cronley thought of as an in-basket, was his uniform cap.
Cronley thought the hat was called a “kepi.” It had a flat circular top and what looked like a patent leather visor. The top was red. There were four gold stripes on a dark blue crown, and in the center of the top was another flaming bomb.
Cronley remembered what Luther had said about his being conscripted into the German grenadiers. A flaming bomb was a grenade.
“Thank you for seeing us, Commandant,” Cronley said.
He offered his CIC credentials. Commandant Fortin examined them and then looked questioningly at Hessinger and Finney. They produced their credentials and Fortin examined them carefully.
“Bon,” he said. “I regret that I have not much the English.”
Oh, shit!
“It is to be hoped that you have the French?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Hessinger said.
“Is possible German?”
“We all speak German, Major,” Cronley said.
“Wunderbar!” Fortin said. “But of course, being in the CIC, you would. Now, how may the DST be of service to the CIC?”
“We’re interested in a man named Luther Stauffer,” Cronley said. “We’ve heard he was originally from Strasbourg, and we’re wondering if the DST has anything on him.”
“Herr Cronley, if you don’t mind me saying so, you sound like a Strasbourger yourself.”
“My mother, Commandant Fortin, was a Strasbourgerin. I learned my German from her.”
“So was mine, a Strasbourgerin, I mean.”
“Mine married an American right after the First World War,” Cronley said. “And if you don’t mind my asking, I’ve always been led to believe the DST was a police organization.”
“It is. I’ve been seconded to it,” Fortin said, and then bellowed, “Sergeant!”
When the sergeant appeared, Fortin said, “Check in the files for a man named…” He looked at Cronley.
“Stauffer,” Hessinger furnished. “Luther Stauffer.”
“Oui, mon Commandant.”
“What is this Stauffer fellow wanted for?” Fortin asked.
“We didn’t mean to give that impression,” Hessinger said. “His name came up in an investigation of black market activities, that’s all. We’d just like to know who he is.”
“I thought your Criminal Investigation, DCI, did those sort of investigations.”
“Most of the time, they do,” Hessinger said.
Commandant Fortin is good. Is this going to blow up in our faces?
“To return to your earlier question,” Fortin said, “there were… how do I say this delicately?… certain awkward problems here in Strasbourg. When the Germans came in 1940, there were some policemen, including senior officers, who were not too terribly unhappy.”
“‘Better Hitler than Blum’?” Hessinger said.
“Exactly,” Fortin said. “I’m glad you understand.”
“I don’t,” Cronley blurted, and immediately regretted it.
Fortin looked at Hessinger and signaled that Hessinger should make the explanation.
“He was premier of France for a while,” Hessinger began. “A Jew, an anti-fascist, and a socialist, who thought the state should control the banks and industry. This enraged the bankers and businessmen in general, and they began to say, ‘Better Hitler than Blum.’ He was forced out of office before the war. After 1940, he was imprisoned by the Vichy government, and then by the Germans. We liberated him from a concentration camp, and he returned to France.”
“I’m glad you understand,” Fortin said. “The only thing I would add to that is that when he returned to France, Blum immediately re-divided the Fourth Republic into those who love him, and those who think he should have been shot in 1939.”
“May I ask where you stand on Monsieur Blum?” Hessinger asked.
“A career officer such as myself would never dream of saying that a senior French official should be shot. Or fed to the savage beasts.”
“I appreciate your candor, Commandant,” Cronley said. “And I apologize for my ignorance.”
Fortin waved his hand, to signal No apology was necessary.
“As I was saying, when the Germans came, many senior police officers were willing to collaborate with them. Many, perhaps most, of the junior policemen were not. The Germans hauled them off to Germany as slave laborers. Many of them died in Germany.
“When we — I had the honor of serving with General Philippe Leclerc’s Free French Second Armored Division — tore down the swastika and raised the Tricolor over the Strasbourg Cathedral again, some of the senior police officers who had collaborated with the Boche were shot trying to escape, and the rest were imprisoned for later trial.
“That left Strasbourg without a police force worthy of the name. General Leclerc established an ad hoc force from the Second Armored and named me as its chief. He knew I was a Strasbourger. I have been here since, trying to establish a police force. That has proved difficult, as there are very few men in Strasbourg from whom to recruit. And policemen from elsewhere in France are reluctant to transfer here—”
He was interrupted when his sergeant came back into the office.
“I found two in the files, mon Commandant,” he announced. “A Stauffer, Karl, and a Stauffer, Luther.”
He laid the files on Fortin’s desk, as Cronley wondered, Do I have another cousin?
Fortin examined the folders.
“I believe you said ‘Stauffer, Luther’?”
“That’s the name we have, Commandant,” Hessinger said.
“I thought it rang a bell,” Fortin said. “Very interesting man. You’re not the only one, Herr Cronley, who’d like to talk to him.”
“You want him?” Cronley asked.
“That’s why he’s interesting,” Fortin said. “We’ve been looking for him, but so, I’ve come to believe, was the Schutzstaffel.”
He offered the file to Cronley, who overcame his curiosity and handed it to Hessinger with the explanation, “Mr. Hessinger is my expert in reading dossiers.”
“I mentioned before,” Fortin went on, “that when the Germans came in 1940, some of our fellow Strasbourgers, Herr Cronley, were not unhappy to see them. Some of them, in fact, were so convinced that Hitler was the savior of Europe, and National Socialism the wave of the future, that they joined the Légion des Volontaires Français.
“Luther Stauffer was one of them. He joined the LVF as a feldwebel—sergeant — and went off to Germany for training.”
“So he was a collaborator?”
“So it would appear,” Fortin said. “The LVF, after training, was sent to what the Boche called ‘the East,’ as the Wehrmacht approached Moscow. They fought the Russians there, and whether through bravery or ineptitude, suffered severe losses and were returned to Germany.”
“You seem to know quite a bit about this volunteer legion,” Cronley said.
“Keeping up with them became sort of a hobby with me while we were in England. And as I had been assigned to military intelligence, it wasn’t difficult.”
“How’d you get to England?”
“I was with Général de Brigade de Gaulle at Montcornet, and I was one of the officers he selected to accompany him to England when he flew there on June seventeenth, 1940.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Cronley confessed.
“There are those, including me,” Hessinger chimed in, “who believe the only battle the Germans lost in France in 1940 was Montcornet.”
“You know about it?”
“De Gaulle attacked with two hundred tanks and drove the Germans back to Caumont,” Hessinger replied.
“Where most of our tanks were destroyed by Stukas,” Fortin said. “Who attacked us at their leisure because our fighter aircraft were deployed elsewhere,” Fortin said. “Anyway, to answer Herr Cronley’s question, a month to the day after Montcornet, I flew to England with Général de Gaulle.”
If de Gaulle flew you to England with him, and you were with Leclerc when he liberated Strasbourg, and then became the Strasbourg chief of police, how come you’re still a major?
Answer: You’re not. You just want people to think you’re not as important as you really are.
Colonel Sergei Likharev of the NKGB didn’t want people to think he was as important as he is, so he called himself Major Konstantin Orlovsky.
I wonder if your real name is Fortin, Commandant — probably Colonel — Fortin?
“What was left of the Légion des Volontaires Français,” Fortin went on, “was assigned relatively unimportant duties in Germany — guarding supply depots, that sort of thing.”
“And Stauffer was among them?” Cronley asked.
“Oh, yes. The Boche liked him. He’d been awarded the Iron Cross and promoted to leutnant for his service in the East. Then, in September 1944, a month after Général Leclerc and the French Second Armored Division liberated Paris, the Germans merged all French military collaborators into what they called the ‘Waffen-Grenadier-Brigade der SS Charlemagne.’”
“‘All French military collaborators’?” Cronley parroted.
“The Boche had also formed the Horst Wessel brigade of young Frenchmen. Other collaborators had had a quasi-military role in Organisation Todt, which built the defenses in Normandy and elsewhere — the defenses that had failed to stop the Allied invasion. Then there was the collaborationist version of the Secret State Police, the Geheime Staatspolizei, which was known as the Milice. And there were others who fled as the Allies marched across France.
“The Germans didn’t trust many of them, but they apparently did trust Leutnant Stauffer. He was taken into the SS as a sturmführer—a captain — and put to work training the newcomers.”
“And here is Sturmführer Stauffer,” Hessinger said, as he handed Cronley the dossier.
Cronley looked at the photograph of a young man in uniform.
I’ll be a sonofabitch, Cousin Luther was an SS officer.
Fortin extended his hand for the dossier, looked at it, and said, “Forgive me for saying this, Mr. Cronley, but he looks very much like you.”
“I noticed,” Cronley said.
“In February 1945,” Fortin went on, “the brigade was renamed ‘the Thirty-third Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS Charlemagne,’ then loaded on a train and sent to fight the Red Army in Poland. On February twenty-fifth it was attacked by troops of the Soviet First Belorussian Front and scattered. What was left of them retreated to the Baltic coast, were evacuated by sea to Denmark, and later sent to Neustretlitz, in Germany, for refitting.
“The last time anyone saw Sturmführer Stauffer was when he went on a three-day leave immediately after getting off the ship in Germany,” Fortin said matter-of-factly. “We think it reasonable to believe he deserted the SS at that time, even before his comrades reached Neustretlitz. It is possible, even likely, that he made his way here to Strasbourg and went into hiding.”
“You think he deserted because he could see the war was lost?” Cronley asked.
“I’m sure he knew that, but I think it more likely that he heard somehow — he was an SS officer — what the Boche had in mind for them.”
“Berlin?” Hessinger asked.
Fortin nodded.
“The remaining collaborators,” Fortin amplified, “about seven hundred of them, went to Berlin in late April, just before the Red Army surrounded the city. A week later, when the Battle for Berlin was over, what few were left of them — thirty — surrendered to the Russians.
“According to the Russians, they fought bravely, literally until they had fired their last round of ammunition. I’d like to believe that. But on the other hand, what other option did they have?”
“Desertion?” Cronley asked.
“Desertion was more dangerous than fighting the Russians, as those thirty survivors learned. Of the seven hundred men who went to Berlin, seventy-two died at the hands of the SS for attempting to desert. They were hung from lamp poles pour encourager les autres.”
“You have no idea where Luther Stauffer is?” Cronley asked.
“I have not been entirely truthful with you, Mr. Cronley,” Fortin said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if at this moment he’s at Hachelweg 675 here in Strasbourg.”
They locked eyes for a moment.
“And I have not been entirely truthful with you, either, Commandant Fortin,” Cronley said.
He took his Directorate of Central Intelligence identification from his Ike jacket and handed it to Fortin.
Fortin examined it carefully and then handed it back.
“I’m impressed,” he said. “The DCI has only been in business since the first of January, and here you are — what? a week and two days later? — already hard at work.”
“And I’m surprised that the Strasbourg chief of police has even heard about the DCI.”
“I’m just a simple policeman,” Fortin said, with a straight face, “but I try to stay abreast of what’s going on in the world. Are you going to tell me what your real interest in Luther Stauffer is, Mr. Cronley?”
“He’s my cousin. I should lead off with that. He — actually his wife — wrote my mother begging for help, saying they were starving. She sent food — canned hams, coffee, cigarettes, et cetera — to me and asked that I deliver them to him.”
“And?”
“When we were in his house, all three of us sensed that he wasn’t telling us the truth. He said he was conscripted into the German Army…”
“Where he served as a common soldier, a grenadier,” Hessinger injected.
“… which sounded fishy to us, so Mr. Hessinger suggested that the police might be able to tell us something about him.”
“I’m disappointed,” Fortin said. “Frankly, I was hoping the DCI was working on the Odessa Organization. I’m almost as interested in that as I am in dealing with our collaborators.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It stands for the Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen,” Hessinger said. “Organization of Former German SS Officers.”
“Sort of a VFW for Nazis?” Cronley asked.
“‘VFW’?” Fortin parroted.
“Veterans of Foreign Wars,” Cronley explained. “An American veterans organization. My father has been president of VFW Post 9900 in Midland as long as I can remember.”
“Your father was in the First War?” Fortin asked.
“He was. And he was here in Strasbourg when the Communists tried to take over the city. That’s where he met my mother.”
“Which you said is why you speak German like a Strasbourger,” Fortin said. “And your mother, I gather, maintained a close relationship with her family here?”
“No. Quite the opposite. Once she married my father, her family wanted nothing to do with her. The only contact she ever had with them was a letter before the war saying her mother had died. And then the letter asking for help.”
“What would your reaction be if I told you that once I get what I want to know from Luther Stauffer about Odessa, I’m going to arrest him and charge him with collaboration?”
“Why is Odessa so important?”
“The purpose of Odessa is to help SS officers get out of Germany so they can’t be tried for war crimes. I like SS officers only slightly more than I like collaborators.”
“What I have heard of Odessa,” Hessinger said, “is that it’s more fancy than fact.”
“Then, Herr Hessinger, you have heard wrong,” Fortin said simply.
“I can ask General Greene what he knows about Odessa,” Cronley said to Hessinger.
“And what is your relationship with the chief of CIC of the European Command?” Fortin asked.
So he knows who Greene is. Commandant Fortin does get around, doesn’t he?
“He tells me what I want to know,” Cronley said.
“I’m just a simple policeman,” Fortin repeated. “So when I look at you, Mr. Cronley, I see a young man. Logic tells me you are either a junior civilian, or a junior officer. And that makes me wonder why the chief of CIC, European Command, would tell you anything he didn’t want to tell you.”
When you can’t think of anything else, tell the truth.
“Actually, I’m a captain seconded to DCI,” Cronley said. “The reason General Greene will tell me everything I want to know is because he has been ordered to do so by Admiral Souers, who speaks with the authority of President Truman.”
“And who do you work directly for, Captain Cronley?”
Army captains are rarely, if ever, directly subordinate to Navy admirals. And “Commandant” Fortin knows that. So the truth — that I work directly under Admiral Souers — won’t work here.
“We have a phrase, Commandant, ‘Need to Know.’ With respect, I don’t think you have the need to know that.”
“I’m familiar with the phrase, Captain.”
“If you don’t mind, Commandant, I prefer ‘Mr. Cronley.’”
“Of course,” Fortin said. “I asked you before, Mr. Cronley, what your reaction would be if I told you I sooner or later intend to arrest your cousin Luther and see that he’s tried as a collaborator?”
Cronley very carefully considered his reply before deciding again that when all else fails, tell the truth.
“I don’t think I’d like the effect that would have on my mother.”
“But you just told me she’s had no contact with him since she married.”
“He’s her nephew. She’s a woman. A kind, gentle, loving, Christian woman.”
“And that would stop you from helping me to put him in prison?”
“The way you were talking, I thought you meant you were going to put a blindfold on him and stand him against a wall.”
“If I had caught him when we liberated Strasbourg, I would have. But Général de Gaulle says that we must reunite France, not exacerbate its wounds, and as an officer, I must obey that order. The best I can hope for is that when I finally go to arrest him, he will resist and I will be justified in shooting him. If he doesn’t, he’ll probably be sentenced to twenty years. Answer the question.”
“I have no problem with your trying him as a collaborator,” Cronley said. And then, he thought aloud: “I could tell my mother I knew nothing about him, or his arrest.”
“But you would be reluctant to lie to your mother?” Fortin challenged.
Cronley didn’t reply.
“Because she is, what did you say, ‘a kind, gentle, loving, Christian woman’?”
Again Cronley didn’t reply.
“Allow me to tell you about the kind, gentle, and loving Christian women in my life, Mr. Cronley. There have been two. One was my mother, and the second my wife. When the Mobilization came in March of 1939, I was stationed at Saumur, the cavalry school. I telephoned my mother and told her I had rented a house in Argenton, near Saint-Martin-de-Sanzay, near Saumur, and that I wanted her to come there and care for my wife, who was pregnant, and my son while I was on active service.
“She would hear nothing about it. She said that she had no intention of leaving her home to live in the country. She said what I should do is send my family to my home in Strasbourg.
“I reminded her that we seemed about to go to war, and if that happened, there was a chance — however slim — that the Germans would occupy Strasbourg as they had done before. Mother replied that it had happened before and she’d really had no trouble with the Germans.
“So my wife went to stay with my mother.
“About six months after I went to England with Général de Gaulle, the Milice and the SS appeared at her door and took my mother, my wife, and my children away for interrogation. They apparently believed that I hadn’t gone to England, but was instead here, in Strasbourg, organizing the resistance.
“That was the last anyone saw of my mother, my wife, or my children. I heard what had happened from the resistance, so the first thing I did when I got back to Strasbourg with Général Leclerc was go to the headquarters of the Milice. The collaborators, my French countrymen, had done a very good job of destroying all their records.
“I have heard, but would rather not believe, that when the Milice, my countrymen, were through with their interrogation of my mother, my wife, and my children, their bodies were thrown into the Rhine.”
“My God!” Cronley said.
“Your kids, too? Those miserable motherfuckers!” Sergeant Finney exclaimed bitterly in English.
Cronley saw on Fortin’s face that he had heard the expression before.
Which means he speaks English far better than he wanted us to think.
Of course he speaks English, stupid! He spent almost four years in England.
Both Hessinger and Finney looked at Cronley, who had his tongue pushing against his lower lip, visibly deep in thought.
Finally he said, very softly, “My sentiments exactly, Sergeant Finney.”
He turned to Fortin.
“Commandant, I really don’t know what to say.”
“I don’t expect you to say anything, Mr. Cronley,” Fortin said. “I just wanted you to understand my deep interest in your cousin, and in Odessa.”
“Just as soon as we get back, I’ll find out what General Greene knows about it, and get back to you with whatever he tells me.”
I will also go to General Gehlen, who probably knows more about Odessa than anyone else.
But I can’t tell you about Gehlen, can I, Commandant?
Even if Gehlen’s never mentioned it to me.
And why hasn’t he?
“I would be grateful to you if you did that.”
“Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Possibly.”
“Anything.”
“You didn’t tell your cousin you’re an intelligence officer?”
“Of course not.”
“What did you tell him you do?”
“Repair dishwashing machines,” Cronley said, chuckling.
“Excuse me?”
“Freddy, tell Commandant Fortin all about the 711th QM Mobile Kitchen Repair Company.”
Hessinger did so.
“I wondered,” Fortin said, when Hessinger had finished his little lecture. “The European Command has no record of the 711th anything. When you parked your car in front of Hachelweg 675 and the ambulance with the red crosses painted over down the street, it piqued my curiosity, and I had Sergeant Deladier”—he pointed to the outer office—“call Frankfurt and ask about it.”
“I hope Frankfurt… I presume you mean EUCOM… didn’t have its curiosity piqued,” Cronley said.
Fortin shook his head.
“Deladier’s a professional. He’s been with me a long time,” Fortin said. “And you would say your cousin accepted this?”
“I think he did.”
“You would think so. What about you, Sergeant? Do you think Herr Stauffer thinks you’re dishwashing machine repairmen?”
“Yes, sir. We had our act pretty much together. I think Stauffer believed us.”
“Your act pretty much together?”
“We were all… not just me… in uniform. Mr. Cronley as a Quartermaster Corps second lieutenant, Mr. Hessinger as a staff sergeant. Stauffer had no reason not to believe what we told him.”
“In addition to you being dishwashing machine repairmen, what else did you tell him?”
“We told him our next stop was Salzburg,” Hessinger answered for him. “He seemed to find that very interesting.”
“Because it would take you across the border into U.S. Forces Austria from EUCOM,” Fortin said. “Crossing borders is a major problem for Odessa. Tell me, Sergeant, how much talking did you do when you were in the house?”
Finney thought it over for a moment before replying, “Commandant, I don’t think I opened my mouth when I was in the house. All I did was carry the black market stuff.”
“In other words, all you were was the driver of the staff car?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let me offer a hypothetical,” Fortin said. “Let us suppose you were too busy, Second Lieutenant Cronley, to yourself deliver more cigarettes, coffee, et cetera, to your cousin Luther and instead sent Sergeant Finney to do it for you.
“Do you think your cousin might either prevail upon Sergeant Finney to take something — maybe a few cartons of cigarettes, or a canned ham — to, say, Salzburg as either a goodwill gesture, or because he could make a little easy money doing so?”
“I see where you’re going, Commandant,” Hessinger said.
“Start out more or less innocently, and then as Sergeant Finney slid down the slippery slope of corruption, move him onto other things such as moving a couple of men—‘going home, they don’t have papers’—across the border. Und so weiter.”
“Yeah,” Cronley said.
“These people routinely murder people who get in their way. With that in mind, would you be willing to have Sergeant Finney do something like this?”
“That’s up to Sergeant Finney,” Cronley said.
“Hell yes, I’ll do it. I’d like to burn as many of these moth— sonsofbitches as I can,” Finney said.
“Thank you for cleaning up your language, Sergeant Finney,” Cronley said. “I really would have hated to have had to order Mr. Hessinger to wash your mouth out with soap.”
Finney smiled at him.
“I would suggest that in, say, a week Sergeant Finney deliver another package to Herr Stauffer,” Fortin said. “How does that fit into your schedule?”
“Not a problem,” Cronley said. “We have to be in Vienna on the fourteenth.”
“Vienna?” Fortin asked.
“So we can be back at the monastery on the sixteenth. Finney could deliver a second package the next day, the seventeenth. That’s a week from today.”
“Why do I think you’re not going to tell me what you’re going to do in Vienna?”
“Because you understand that there are some things simple policemen just don’t have the need to know,” Cronley said.
“That’s cruel,” Fortin said, smiling, and put out his hand. “I’m perfectly willing to believe you’re a second lieutenant of the Quartermaster Corps.”
“It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Simple Policeman,” Cronley said. “I look forward to seeing you soon again.”
It was time to go to what everybody hoped would be a meeting with Rahil, A/K/A Seven-K, at the Café Weitz, and Cronley and Schultz had just finished putting the fifty thousand dollars intended for her in former Oberst Ludwig Mannberg’s Glen plaid suit when there came a knock at the door.
Putting the money into Mannberg’s suit had proved more difficult than anyone had thought it would be. It had come from the States packed in $5,000 packets, each containing one hundred fifty-dollar bills. There were ten such packets, each about a half-inch thick.
Mannberg’s suit was sort of a souvenir of happier times, when young Major Mannberg had not only been an assistant military attaché at the German embassy in London, but in a position to pay for “bespoke” clothing from Anderson & Sheppard of Savile Row.
Cronley had not ever heard the term “bespoke” until today, but now he understood that it meant “custom-tailored” and that custom-tailored meant that it had been constructed about the wearer’s body, and that meant room had been provided for a handkerchief, wallet, and maybe car keys, but not to accommodate twenty packets of fifty $50-dollar bills, each half an inch thick and eight inches long.
When they had finished, Mannberg literally had packs of money in every pocket in the suit jacket, and every pocket in his trousers. He also had a $2,500 packet in each sock. The vest that came with the suit was on the bed.
Ostrowski was larger than Mannberg and just barely fit into one of Mannberg’s suits, providing he did not button the buttons of the double-breasted jacket. But to conceal the .45 pistol he was carrying in one of the holsters Hessinger had had made, he was going to have to keep his hand in the suit jacket pocket to make sure the pistol was covered.
“Who the hell is that?” Cronley asked, when the knock on the door came.
“There’s one way to find out,” El Jefe said, and went to the door and opened it. Ostrowski hurriedly shoved his pistol under one of the cushions of the couch he was sitting on.
There were three men at the door, all wearing ODs with U.S. triangles.
The elder of them politely asked, “Mr. Schultz?”
El Jefe nodded.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions,” the man said, and produced a set of CIC credentials. “May we come in?”
El Jefe backed away from the door and waved them in.
The three of them looked suspiciously around the room.
“What’s the nature of your business in Vienna, Mr. Schultz, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“What’s this all about?” Schultz asked.
“Please, just answer the question.”
“Why don’t you have a look at this?” Schultz said, extending his DCI identification. “It will explain why I don’t answer a lot of questions.”
“Don’t I know you?” one of them, the youngest one, asked of Cronley.
“You look familiar,” Cronley said, and found, or thought he did, the name. “Surgeon, right?”
“Spurgeon,” the man corrected him.
“I never saw one of these before,” the CIC agent said, after examining El Jefe’s DCI credentials.
“I’m not surprised,” El Jefe said.
“Major, I knew this fellow at Holabird,” the younger agent said.
“What?”
“We took Surveillance together,” the younger agent said. “Right?”
“Under Major Derwin,” Cronley confirmed.
“Terrible Tommy Derwin,” Agent Spurgeon said. He put out his hand. “Cronley, right?”
“James D., Junior.”
“Are you working?”
Cronley nodded.
“Doing what?”
“I’m sort of an aide-de-camp to Mr. Schultz.”
“You’re CIC?” the older agent asked.
Cronley produced his CIC credentials.
“I should have known it would be something like this,” the older agent said.
“What would be something like this?” Schultz asked.
“Well, we encourage the people in the hotel to report suspicious activity, and one of the assistant managers did.”
“Did he tell you what I did that was suspicious?” El Jefe asked.
“Well, he said he heard your men speaking Russian.”
“Guilty as charged,” Ostrowski said. “He must have overheard Ludwig and me.”
He nodded toward Mannberg.
“You sound English,” the older CIC agent said.
“Guilty as charged,” Max repeated, and showed him his DCI credentials.
“Gentlemen, I’m sorry,” the older agent said, “but you’re in the business, and you know how these things happen.”
“Not a problem,” Schultz said. “You were just doing your job.”
“You going to be in town for a while, Cronley?” Agent Spurgeon asked.
“We’re leaving tomorrow,” Schultz answered for him.
“Pity,” Spurgeon said. “I was hoping we could have a drink and swap tales about Terrible Tommy Derwin and other strange members of the faculty of Holabird High.”
“Sorry, we have to go,” Schultz said.
“I guess you know that Derwin is here,” Cronley said.
“He’s here?”
“He’s the new CIC/ASA inspector general for EUCOM,” Cronley said.
“Oh, yeah,” the senior agent said. “The old one, Colonel Schumann, blew himself up, didn’t he?”
“Him and his wife,” Cronley confirmed.
“Well, we’ll get out of here,” the senior agent said. “I’m really sorry about this, Mr. Schultz.”
“You were just doing your job,” El Jefe repeated.
“If there’s ever anything we can do for you, just give us a yell.”
“Can’t think of a thing, but thanks.”
Hands were shaken all around, and the Vienna CIC team left.
When they had, Cronley asked, “What the hell was that all about?”
El Jefe shrugged, then looked at his wristwatch and said, “We’d better get going.”
When Cronley, El Jefe, and Finney walked into the Café Weitz, several of the waiters were drawing heavy curtains over the large windows looking out on the street. This would keep people on Gumpendorferstrasse, and on the trolley cars running down it, from looking into the café.
The curtains were drawn every night as darkness fell. During the day, the curtains were open, so Café Weitz patrons could look out onto Gumpendorferstrasse and the trolley cars.
But drawing the curtains did something else. During the day, looking out from the café gave the patrons a look at the empty windows of the bombed-out, roofless five-story apartment buildings across the street. With the curtains drawn, they were no longer visible.
And with the drawn curtains shutting out any light from the street, the only light in the café came from small bulbs in wall fixtures and in three chandeliers and small candles burning in tiny lamps on all the tables. This served to hide the shabbiness of the café’s curtains and walls and everything else, and to offer at least a suggestion of its prewar elegance.
In one corner of the room, a string quartet (or quintet or sextet, it varied with the hour) of elderly musicians in formal clothing played continuously, mostly Strauss, but sometimes tunes from Hungarian light opera.
Cronley knew all this because he had come to the café three times before. So had everybody else. Cronley thought of it as reconnaissance, but Schultz called it “casing the joint.”
After the first visit, they had gone back to the hotel, then, at Mannberg’s suggestion, drawn maps of the café from memory. Very few of the first maps drawn agreed on any of the details except the location of the doors and the musicians, but the third, final maps drawn were pretty much identical.
It was decided that Cronley, El Jefe, and Sergeant Finney, who were all wearing OD Ike jackets with civilian insignia, would enter the café first and take the closest table they could find to the musicians. This would give them a pretty good view of most of the interior. Then Mannberg would enter, alone, and take a table that would be in clear view of anyone coming into the café. On his heels, but not with him, would be Maksymilian Ostrowski, who would take the closest table he could find to the door of the vestibule outside the restrooms, which, they were guessing, would be where, presuming she showed up, Seven-K/Rahil would take the money from Mannberg.
Or where agents of the NKGB would attempt to steal the fifty thousand dollars from Mannberg. Ostrowski’s job was to see that didn’t happen.
Cronley pointed to a table near the musicians, and a waiter who looked like he was in his mid-eighties led them to it and pulled out chairs for them.
A dog yipped at Cronley and he turned to see a tiny hot dog, as they called dachshunds back in Midland, in the lap of an old lady. About half the old women in the place had dogs of all sizes with them.
Cronley barked back at the tiny dachshund, wondering if it was a puppy or whether there was such a thing as a miniature dachshund.
Then he ordered a pilsner, the same for Finney, and El Jefe said he would have a pilsner and a Slivovitz.
“What the hell is that?”
“Hungarian plum brandy. Got a kick like a mule.”
Cronley was tempted, but resisted. If they were going to meet a top-level agent of both the NKGB and the Mossad, he obviously should not be drinking anything that had a kick like a mule.
“And ask him if they have any peanuts,” El Jefe said.
“I brought some, when they didn’t have any last night,” Finney said, and produced a tin can of Planters peanuts, opened it, and put it on the table.
The tiny dachshund barked.
Cronley looked at him.
“Franz Josef,” the old lady said in English, “likes peanuts.”
Cronley offered Franz Josef a peanut, which he quickly devoured.
“Is that a full-sized dog, or is he a puppy?” Cronley asked in German.
He felt Finney’s knee signal him under the table, and saw that Mannberg had come into the café.
“Franz Josef is four,” she said, this time in German.
“He’s so small,” Cronley said, and fed the dog another peanut.
He took a closer look at the woman. She wasn’t as old as he had originally thought, maybe fifty-something, or sixty-something, but not really old. She had rouged cheeks and wore surprisingly red lipstick.
“Good things come in small packages,” the old lady said.
“So they say,” Cronley said. “Would you like a peanut? A handful of peanuts?”
“You are very kind,” the old lady said in English. “A kavalier.”
Cronley offered her the can of peanuts.
“A what?” he asked.
“You know, a man in armor on a horse. Thank you for the peanuts.”
“My pleasure,” Cronley said, and fed Franz Josef another peanut.
Finney’s knee signaled him again, and he saw Max Ostrowski walk across the room, take a table near the door to the restroom vestibule. Then he leaned a chair against the table to show it was taken and walked into the restroom vestibule.
Cronley saw an old woman wearing an absurd hat and two pounds of costume jewelry march regally across the room and enter the restroom vestibule.
Shit!
Whatever is going to happen in there is now going to have to be put on hold until the old lady finishes taking her leak.
“Let me taste that,” Cronley said, pointing to Schultz’s Slivovitz.
El Jefe handed him the glass, and Cronley took a small sip.
His throat immediately started burning, and he reached quickly for his beer.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” El Jefe said, chuckling.
Five long minutes later, Cronley asked rhetorically, “What the hell’s taking that old woman so long?”
Three minutes after that, the old woman finally came out and marched regally back across the café to her table.
“How long have you been in Vienna?” the old lady with the dog asked.
“This is the fourth day. We leave tomorrow.”
“You’re in the Army?”
“I work for the Army. I work with kitchen equipment.”
“You Americans do everything with a machine.”
“Yes, ma’am. We try to.”
Finney’s knee signaled him again and he saw Mannberg stand up and walk into the restroom vestibule. A moment later, Ostrowski followed him.
The waiter delivered the beer and the Slivovitz.
Finney paid for it.
Ostrowski came out of the restroom vestibule and sat at his table.
A minute or so later, Mannberg came out of the vestibule, laid money on his table, and, standing, drank what was left of his pilsner.
Then he walked out of the Café Weitz.
Ostrowski got to his feet a minute later and did the same thing.
I don’t know what the hell went on in the bathroom, but obviously Mannberg somehow found out Rahil/Seven-K wasn’t coming.
Shit!
I wonder what spooked her?
El Jefe had obviously come to much the same conclusion.
“I don’t know about you two, but I’m going to go back to the hotel,” he said.
“Yeah,” Cronley said. “So long, Franz Josef.”
The dog yipped at him again.
Cronley gave the can of peanuts to the woman.
“It was nice talking to you,” he said.
“Yes, it was,” she said. “And I thank you and Franz Josef thanks you for the peanuts.”
“My pleasure. Auf wiedersehen.”
Cronley, Finney, and El Jefe had gone to the Café Weitz in the Ford staff car. Mannberg had taken the streetcar from Ringstrasse, and Ostrowski had walked.
They returned to the Hotel Bristol the same way.
When Ostrowski walked into the lobby of the hotel, Cronley, Finney, and Schultz were in the dining room.
When they saw him, Schultz asked, very concerned, “Where the hell is Ludwig? We should have brought everybody back here.”
He stopped when he saw Mannberg come through the revolving doors into the lobby.
Mannberg walked to them and sat down.
“So what do we do now?” Cronley asked.
“Flag down the waiter so I can get one of those,” Mannberg said, indicating Cronley’s glass of whisky.
“That’s not what I meant,” Cronley said.
“Oh,” Mannberg said, thinking he now understood the question. “We go back to Pullach. We’re through here.”
“Jesus Christ!” Cronley flared. “What do we do about getting the money to Seven-K?”
“By now, I’m sure she has it,” Mannberg said. “I gave it to her man — actually her woman — in the restroom vestibule.”
“Seven-K was there?”
“Yes, Jim, she was,” Mannberg said, smiling broadly.
“She was in the café? Where?”
“Sitting next to you while you were feeding her and her dog peanuts.”