Garden of Beasts

calm down, big guy. You want to know the truth? Here’s the lowdown: There’re a lot of people back home that don’t want to get into another fight over here.”
    “That’s what I’m doing, for God’s sake. Stopping the rearmament.”
    “Actually, we don’t give a fig about Hun rearmament. What we care about is keeping Hitler happy. Get it? Show him the U.S. is on his side.”
    Paul finally understood. “So I was the Easter lamb. You set me up as a Russian killer, and then you rat me out—so it looks to Hitler like the U.S. is his good pal, is that it?”
    Taggert nodded. “Pretty much on the money, Paulio.”
    “Are you goddamn blind?” Paul said. “Don’t you see what he’s doing here? How can anybody be on their side?”
    “Christ, Schumann, what’s the hitch? Maybe Hitler takes over part of Poland, Austria, the Sudetenland.” He laughed. “Hell, he can even have France. No skin off our nose.”
    “He’s murdering people. Doesn’t anybody see that?”
    “Just a few Jews—”
    “ What? Are you hearing what you’re saying?”
    Taggert held up his hands. “Look, I don’t mean it like that. Things here are only temporary. The Nazis’re like kids with a new toy: their country. They’ll get tired of this Aryan crap before the year is out. Hitler’s all talk. He’ll calm down and realize eventually that he needs Jews.”
    “No,” Paul said emphatically. “You’re wrong there. Hitler’s nuts. He’s Bugsy Siegel times a thousand.”
    “Well, okay, Paulio, it’s not for you or me to decide stuff like that. Let’s concede you caught us. We tried to pull afast one and, good for you, you tumbled to it. But you need me, buddy-boy. You’re not getting out of this country without my help. So here’s what we’re going to do: Let’s you and me find some Russian-looking sap, kill him and call the Gestapo. Nobody’s seen you. I’ll even let you play the hero. You can meet Hitler and Göring. Get a goddamn medal. You and the broad can go back home. And I’ll sweeten the pot: I’ll throw some business to your friend Webber. Black market dollars. He’d love it. How’s that sound? I can make it happen. And everybody wins. Or . . . you can die here.”
    Paul asked, “I’ve got one question. Was it Bull Gordon? Was he behind it?”
    “Him? Naw. He wasn’t part of it. It was . . . other interests.”
    “What the hell does that mean, ‘interests’? I want an answer.”
    “Sorry, Paulio. I didn’t get to where I am now by having a loose tongue. Nature of the business, you know.”
    “You’re as bad as the Nazis.”
    “Yeah?” Taggert muttered. “And who’re you to talk, button man?” He stood up, dusting his jacket off. “So whatta you say? Let’s find ourselves some Slav hobo, cut his throat and give the Huns their Bolshevik. Let’s do it.”
    Everybody wins. . . . 
    Without shifting his weight, without narrowing his eyes, without giving any hint of what he was about to do, Paul drove his fist directly into the man’s chest. Taggert’s eyes snapped wide as his breath stopped. He never even glanced toward Paul’s left fist as it shot forward and crushed his throat. By the time Taggert dropped to the floor, his extremities were shivering in death throes and a rattle echoed from his wide-open mouth. Whether it was aruptured heart or a broken neck that killed him, he was dead within thirty seconds.
    Paul stared down at the body for a long moment, hands shaking—not from the powerful blows but from the fury within him at the betrayal. And at the man’s words.
    He can even have France . . . Just a few Jews . . .
    Paul hurried into the bedroom, stripped off the sweat clothes he’d stolen at the stadium, sponged off with water from the basin in the bedroom and dressed. He heard a knocking on the door. Ah, Käthe had returned. He realized suddenly that Taggert’s body still lay visible in the living room. He hurried out to move the corpse into the bedroom.
    Just as he was bending down to drag it into the closet, though, the front door to the apartment opened. Paul looked up. It hadn’t been Käthe knocking. He found himself staring at two men. One was round, mustachioed, wearing a wrinkled cream-colored suit with a waistcoat. A Panama hat was in his hand. A slim, younger man in a dark suit stood beside him, gripping a black automatic pistol.
    No! It was the very same cops who’d been dogging him since yesterday. He sighed and slowly stood.
    “Ach, at