Garden of Beasts

end of the courtyard and up two flights of stairs, which reeked of onion and pickle.
    “How long had he lived here?” Kohl asked.
    “Three months. He paid for six in advance. And tipped me . . .” Her voice faded. “But not much.”
    “The rooms were furnished?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Any visitors you recall?”
    “None that I knew of. None that I let into the building.”
    “Show her the drawing, Janssen.”
    He displayed the picture of Paul Schumann. “Have you seen this man?”
    “No, sir. Is he dead too?” She added abruptly, “I mean, sir, no, I’ve never seen him.”
    Kohl looked into her eyes. They were evasive, but with fear, not deception, and he believed her. Under questioning, she told him that Morgan was a businessman, he took no phone calls here and picked up his mail at the post office. She didn’t know if he had an office elsewhere. He never said anything specific about his job.
    “Leave us now.”
    “Hail Hitler,” she replied and scurried off like a mouse.
    Kohl looked around the room. “So you see how I made an incorrect deduction, Janssen?”
    “How is that, sir?”
    “I assumed Mr. Morgan was German because he wore clothes made of Hitler cloth. But not all foreigners are wealthy enough to live on Under the Lindens and to buytop-of-the-line at KaDeWe, though that is our impression.”
    Janssen thought for a moment. “That’s true, sir. But there could be another reason he wore ersatz clothes.”
    “That he wished to masquerade as a German?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Good, Janssen. Though perhaps he wanted not so much to masquerade as one of us but more to not draw attention to himself. But either makes him suspicious. Now let’s see if we can make our mystery less mysterious. Start with the closets.”
    The inspector candidate opened a door and began his examination of the contents.
    Kohl himself chose the less demanding search and eased into a creaking chair to look through the documents on Morgan’s desk. The American had been, it seemed, a middleman of sorts, providing services for a number of U.S. companies in Germany. For a commission he would match an American buyer with a German seller and vice versa. When American businessmen came to town Morgan would be hired to entertain them and arrange meetings with German representatives from Borsig, Bata Shoes, Siemens, I.G. Farben, Opel, dozens of others.
    There were several pictures of Morgan and documents confirming his identity. But it was curious, Kohl thought, that there were no truly personal effects. No family photographs, no mementos.
    . . . perhaps he was somebody’s brother. And maybe somebody’s husband or lover. And, if he was lucky, he was a father of sons and daughters. I would hope too that there are past lovers who think of him occasionally. . . . 
    Kohl considered the implications of this absence of personal information. Did it mean he was a loner? Or wasthere another reason for keeping his personal life secret?
    Janssen dug through the closet. “And is there anything in particular I ought to be looking for, sir?”
    Embezzled money, a married mistress’s handkerchief, a letter of extortion, a note from a pregnant teenager . . . any of the indicia of motive that might explain why poor Mr. Morgan had died brutally on the immaculate cobblestones of Dresden Alley.
    “Look for anything that enlightens us, in any way, regarding the case. I can describe it no better than that. It is the hardest part of being a detective. Use your instinct, use your imagination.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Kohl continued his own examination of the desk.
    A moment later Janssen called, “Look at this, sir. Mr. Morgan has some pictures of naked women. They were in a box here.”
    “Are they commercially made? Or did he take them himself?”
    “No, they are postcards, sir. He bought them somewhere.”
    “Yes, yes, then they do not interest us, Janssen. You must discern between the times that a man’s vices are relevant and when they are not. And, I promise you, voluptuous postcards are not presently important. Please, continue your search.”
    •   •   •
    Some men grow calm in direct proportion to their desperation. Such men are rare, and they are particularly dangerous, because, while their ruthlessness is not diminished, they are never careless.
    Robert Taggert was one such man. He was livid that some goddamn button man from Brooklyn had out-thoughthim, had jeopardized his future, but he was not going to let