The Rendition (18 page)

She said softly, “We're going to have to spring him.”

“Spring who?” Unfortunately, I knew who.

“Brinkman. Who else? You just heard Mehling. Brinkman's a dead man otherwise.”

“How much power does this guy have?”

“He swings a great deal of weight, Alex. Believe me. He's got money and he's the publisher of a news magazine. People fear him. He can publish an article and destroy a politician's reputation. He's got people in the government under his thumb.”

“Like who?”

“Cabinet ministers, for starters.”

Cabinet ministers? How did I get into this situation?

“Our job is to see that Doug Brinkman doesn't get convicted. I told you that back in New York. We're pulling out all the stops. That's why we're going to have to spring him.”

“You and me?” What she'd just said sounded ridiculous. “You have a great sense of humor, Sylvia.”

Sylvia looked at me unsmilingly, letting me know she was dead serious. It was the same look that Sergeant Robinson, one of our DIs at Fort Bragg, had on his face when in basic training he'd assigned me to a week of KP for having my hair a quarter inch too long.

I'm not a big fan of early-morning telephone calls, so when my cell phone went off at 0700 the following day I expected the worst. Adding to my irritation was the fact I'd left the phone in the living room, and I had to leave a warm bed to go answer it.

Since only Max had this number, I said, “What's up?”

“I hope I'm not calling too early.”

“I'm fine. Still a little sleepy.” Standing half-naked in the middle of the room with a draft sending a chill through me, I was thinking of my warm bed, and wondering why Max was calling at such an ungodly hour. Through the slightly ajar bedroom door I could see my room mate's skirt and brassiere lying on a chair next to the bed.

“I'm wide awake. When you're my age,” Max said, “you'll be wide awake at this time every day too. I promise.”

“I'm sensitive to your sleeping problems, Max. I hope you appreciate that. I also hope you didn't call just to tell me about them.”

“You remember where I live?” When I said I did, Max said, “Drop by. Right now I'm going out to the baker. How many
Semmeln
can you eat?”

Before leaving, I knocked on the door of Sylvia's bedroom, said I was on my way out. When I heard a muffled response, I pushed open the door. She was sitting upright on the bed rubbing sleep from her eyes with one hand and struggling to hold up the blanket with the other. So Sylvia slept topless.

“Max called,” I said. “He wants to see me.”

“About what? Why are you staring?”

“I'm not staring.” I could have told Sylvia that when you're living at close quarters with another person you have to get used to being seen in a state of dishabille.

“You're gawking like a sixteen-year-old who's never seen a woman's breasts. I don't like being stared at.”

I was staring, of course. I was also wondering whether she slept naked. “He didn't say. When I see him, I'll ask him.”

“You're still staring. You're making me self-conscious.”

“I was about to say—”

“Don't tell me I have nice tits. Just pay attention. It sounds like you may be talking with the German cops.” When I said I didn't know who I'd be talking with, she tossed off the blanket, flung two great legs over the side of the bed and stood up. “Let me think.” She slept topless, but not bottomless. Her eyes were red, and strands of chestnut-colored hair were going off in every direction. When she asked, “Where's my robe?” I pointed to a chair next to the bureau. “Alex, listen.”

“I'm listening.”

As she slipped on her robe, she said, “Keep your lip buttoned, if that's possible. Those people aren't your friends.”

“Who are my friends?”

“You don't have any.”

“Anything else I need to be reminded of?”

Our early-morning exchange only served to remind me that I was sharing these quarters with an extremely attractive woman. I was doing my best not to forget that she not only outranked me, but that she was also my boss. Again, I reminded myself to keep things businesslike and impersonal.

But the truth was, this job and this living setup were making me very nervous.

Twenty minutes later, Max and I were standing at the marble-topped counter in his kitchen, sipping coffee and smearing jam on warm Bavarian rolls. I had just poured my second cup of coffee. The kitchen was as cozy as I remembered it, with a round mahogany dinette in the alcove, light-blue cotton curtains tied back in front of the large window.
With Max's wife, Anna, doing the honors, I'd had many a weekend breakfast here. I recall particularly one sunny New Year's Day—being here with a dozen other people, one of whom was Irmie, and welcoming in the New Year with a champagne brunch. That was another memory that I was better off without. Who knows how my life would have worked out if I hadn't left this city so suddenly?

But now I was wondering why Max had rousted me out of a sound sleep to get me over here. I knew it wasn't just to eat rolls, kick around the latest political scandal, and speculate on the chances of FC Bayern, Munich's soccer team, winning another championship—which is what we did for fifteen minutes. One thing I knew: Max would only tell me what he wanted to tell me when he felt like telling me.

Finally, after checking his watch, he said, “It's this Albanian club, Alex. The Kalashni Klub. That is, if you want to call it a club.” He looked at me. “I guess you didn't go in there the other night.”

“You're right—but how did you know?”

“I figure you wouldn't be up and around this morning if you had. I know you too well. You'd have antagonized someone in there and bought yourself some big trouble. You might even be at the bottom of the Isar.” The Isar is the river that runs down from the Alps and bisects Munich. The first warm spring days bring out bevies of young women to the English Garden, where they swim nude in the Isar, sunbathe on its shores, and wave saucily at overly curious passersby. It's an annual ritual to which the tabloids never fail to give full pictorial coverage.

“You're right. I followed your advice, Max. I didn't go out there. But I'm still curious.”

“Can I ask why?”

I didn't like telling the Kosovo story to anyone. I think you're better off burying experiences like that as deep in your subconscious as you can possibly get them. In fact, I know you are, regardless of what Dr. Freud may think. I hadn't mentioned Kosovo to the female shrink in D.C. either, at least not in any kind of detail. But I had an idea Max had gotten me over to his place for a reason, so I said the Vogt case could connect to Kosovo, but I left it at that.

“How did you get onto this Albanian club?” Max asked. He was being persistent, one of the qualities of a good cop.

I remembered what Sylvia had said, then decided I could tell him that much. “I spoke with Brinkman out at Stadelheim. He mentioned that the handyman hung out there.”

Max nodded, seemingly satisfied with that answer.

Max was silent for a long moment during which he drank the last of his cup of coffee and began washing up the dishes. Then he said, “Quemal is probably a common name down in Kosovo. Like Jim or George in America.”

“Or like Fritz over here. Or Adolph.”

“Why is it that I knew you were going to say that?”

“Because you know what a pain in the ass I am.”

“All right. It's a common name, but maybe we should check it out anyway.” When he'd finished rinsing, he looked at me and said, “Thanks, Alex. I appreciate your telling me why you're over here. At least a little bit.”

“Sure, Max. No secrets.” Not too many anyway.

“You think there's some kind of connection, is that it?”

Thinking of how Sylvia seemed to be keeping certain things to herself, I said, “I haven't been told everything. I'm working in the dark. I'm not particularly happy about it.”

“Lighting a candle is always better than cursing the darkness.”

“Sure, but cursing the darkness is much more fun.”

As the former cop liaison to military intelligence, Max knew how things worked. Without saying anything more, he grabbed the receiver from the wall phone and headed into the next room. Still wondering what he had in mind, I stepped toward the door, but couldn't make out what he was saying. But there was something in his tone that made me think he might be talking to a woman. While he was gone, I busied myself leafing through a copy of the
Süddeutsche,
Munich's big newspaper.

When Max returned to the kitchen, he was zipping up his jacket. “C'mon, we're going downtown.” By “downtown” Max meant the Ettstrasse,
and the green fortresslike building located not far from the Marienplatz—Munich police headquarters.

After arriving at the Police Presidium, we got buzzed in and headed upstairs. Max led me to a room at the end of the third-floor corridor. Except for us, the room was empty, and we sat down across from one another at a long wooden table. The only window was barred. In the far corner were a small basin and a water faucet. This was the kind of place you could use for everything from hatching conspiracies to conducting searching interviews with uncooperative prisoners. The walls were cement blocks painted green, obviously soundproof, and although I didn't see any bloodstains, I could imagine police detectives using the basin to rinse their hands after a tough interrogation. In Germany, suspects in criminal investigations don't enjoy quite as many rights as they do in the United States.

“We'd like to close the Kalashni Klub,” Max said. “It's a
Poof—
”

“A brothel, in other words. Why don't you?”

“They've got clout with the right people, people in the government.”

I frowned. “The city government?”

Max shook his head. “Someone way up.” I wondered whether he was talking about the federal government, in Berlin. That would mean that whoever was running the Kalashni Klub would have to be very well connected.

Max looked at his watch. “We're waiting for someone.” When I nodded and said “Okay,” Max paused, let a couple of seconds go by. “It's someone you know, Alex.”

I frowned, wondering who else in Munich I still knew—and who I knew that would be likely to turn up here in police headquarters. And then it hit me.

Max nodded, shrugged. “Irmie. She's a detective now.”

“Irmie? Irmie knows I'm here?”

“I told her.”

“Irmie's a detective?” I don't know why I should have been surprised, but for some reason I was.

“She's with the
Mordkommission
.” The
Mordkommission
is Munich's homicide squad.

I didn't know whether I should be happy or unhappy. I do know I suddenly became nervous. I could feel my stomach beginning to churn, my face beginning to burn. Although I made an effort to remain calm, I was aware of a drop of perspiration on my forehead.

“She's gone to get the file concerning that club. There was a murder there not too long ago. She's been involved in the investigation. We want to talk to you about that.”

“To me?” When Max nodded, I recalled what Sylvia had said that morning—that I didn't have any friends.

A minute later the door opened, and there she was.

Irmie handled the moment much better than I did. Both Max and I got to our feet. I stammered a greeting, and Max said, “You two remember one another, I'm sure.”

“Of course,” Irmie said. She smiled and we shook hands.

As she stood there, I noticed that beneath her dark-blue pantsuit all Irmie's curves were still in the right places.

She had some colored folders with a lot of paper in them, printouts and official-looking forms mostly. When she put on a pair of reading glasses, they made her appear older. Was it really nearly nine years since we'd seen one another?

Except that she seemed a shade more mature than the young policewoman I remembered and at least in this situation not quite as bubbly, Irmie didn't look much different—medium length blonde hair, blue-green eyes, round face, just the shade of a smile in her expression. She still wore eye shadow and she had a pink gloss on her lips.

How many hundreds of times had I kissed those lips? Or thousands of times? I made a determined effort to return my thoughts to the present.

“Max tells me you're here back in Munich on a case, Mr. Klear.”

I didn't like the “Mr. Klear” mode of address particularly, but I didn't see that there was much I could do about it. Not at the moment anyway. When I said that was right, she said, “Can you give me some of the background?”

I thought for a second before speaking. Irmie might be the perfect
person to provide some help. “Some of our military people in Kosovo ran into some trouble with some members of the Kosovo Liberation Army. We got word that one of those KLA people, an individual named Quemal, has come to Munich. I'm here to check that information out. We'd like to ask him some questions.” I decided not to mention that I suspected Quemal of having murdered Ursula Vogt.

“Is Quemal his first name or family name?” When I said I wasn't sure, and that it could even be a nickname, she said, “Who exactly would like to ask him some questions? Would that be you?”

As she leaned forward, I saw the softness of her breasts. I thought her silk blouse might be buttoned a shade too low, and I wondered if there was a police regulation governing things like that. Well, why not? In Germany there's a regulation to govern just about everything else.

The truth was, I'd never been able to keep my eyes off Irmie. I was fascinated by her every movement. I could spend hours just gazing at her, observing every small detail, from the way she blinked her eyes to the way she moved her hands. And I had an idea she was aware of it.