The Devil's Dozen

Ten

“Rotspon?” the sommelier asked.

I nodded. Red wine flowed into crystal glasses. Around us, wealthy patrons of the Schabbelhaus, Lubeck’s most exclusive restaurant, dined in sedate ease. With the typical stubborness of Lubeckers, they permitted themselves only furtive glances at Vera, who looked as if she were born to wear low-cut evening dresses. Her blonde hair was piled high and decorated with a single emerald. Her lively smile showed none of the awe most Americans have in European restaurants, especially in places like the Schabbelhaus with its sixteenth century luxury. Vera was plainly no ordinary Mafiosa. We brought our glasses together in a mutual toast.

“Prost, Raki. And congratulations.”

“And the same goes to you, my partner.”

“I said we’d be good together,” she sipped her wine, as we ate artichoke hearts in Bearnaise sauce.

Our waiter appeared with a silver tureen and dished out wine-simmered veal à l’ancienne. An errant drop of juice spotted the edge of Vera’s plate, and he dabbed it off with a napkin held ready for the purpose. Rotspon, actually a French wine imported by the Lubeckers for centuries, was a little heavy for the veal, and I ordered a white Traminer, spicy and aromatic.

“Something tells me you’ve ordered wine here once or twice before,” Vera remarked while the sommelier vanished toward the cellar.

“No. It’s simply a matter of knowing what you want.”

“You always seem to know that. You’re like a one-man computerized army. DeSantis isn’t even in the same league with you. I should have realized that when we started out.”

“Well, Vera, now you know.”

“But, I still know almost nothing about you. Were you born rich or poor? Were you a smuggler or a mercenary soldier, or both? We’ve traveled through Turkey, Greece, Portugal, Spain, France, and now Germany. How is it you speak every language? When I tell them about you, they’ll say you’re too good to be true.”

“Is that bad?”

“Unusual, Raki.”

“Then let’s say I’m unusual.” I chose to ignore the rest of her questions.

The Traminer arrived with fresh glasses. By then, Vera was holding my hand with an intimation of another kind of treat when we returned to our hotel room.

On the way to the hotel, though, we stopped at the Petrikirche cathedral and went up the tower for a panoramic view of the city of Lubeck. It was late afternoon and a cool breeze off the sea blew around the high spire.

“You’re finally going to tell me why we came to this city?” Vera asked after the guide had been paid and went on his way down the tower staircase.

“Just look around.”

Lubeck is the most medieval of all Germany’s major cities. The Petrikirche dates from the thirteenth century. The town’s best known landmark is the Holstentor, a dark, massive gate with twin dartlike spires standing in the middle of the central plaza. The Holstentor is famous enough to adorn the German 50 mark note. The town is crammed with narrow streets and tall, graceful houses also many hundreds of years old. At one time, Lubeck was the powerful capital of the Hanseatic League, and it retains a fierce independence. No army ever took it by siege. Hitler never visited, choosing even at the height of his fuhrership not to chance his popularity here. Typically, Willie Brandt was from Lubeck and ferried from there north to Norway to fight Hitler. Just as typically, Lubeckers still insist on calling Brandt by his pre-Resistance name of Herbert Frahm.

“I see a lot of interesting examples of medieval architecture,” Vera said. “What else should I see?”

I pointed over the city to the north. On the horizon was a green ribbon of water.

“That’s the Baltic Sea, the Lubeck Gulf of the Baltic Sea. Ships from the gulf go on to Kiel and take the Nord-Ostsee-Kanal through the peninsula to the North Sea and the Atlantic. And on to New York. Now, do you know anything about the people of Lubeck?”

“Nothing.”

“Once, during a siege, the people here ran out of flour. The army outside was trying to starve Lubeck to death. Instead of surrendering, though, the people ground up almonds and made bread out of almond powder. The almond bread is called marzipan, and today Lubeck is the marzipan capital of the world. They had some marzipan at the restaurant. Here.”

I gave her a piece. It was artfully shaped like a pig and colored pink. Miss Van Hazinga at AXE would have gobbled it up. Vera just looked at the candy sculpture with the eye of an art appreciator and returned it to me.

“A little sweet for me, thanks, Raki. I hadn’t realized before that you were such a walking almanac.”

“Not just a walking almanac. Over on the left in that street of red brick houses is the Hauffmann Obersee Gesellschaft. That’s me. I also export marzipan.”

Vera frowned and stared back and forth from the street I’d pointed at to me.

“Darling, I assumed that your little company here was the cover for the railway shipment of almond powder and that made the perfect camouflage for getting the opium here. That’s done. When are you going to tell me how you’ll get the opium to New York?”

I let her irritation mount for a few moments and then I answered.

“Vera, I just did.”