Garden of Beasts

touch him off. From where he now crouched, though, he had no good shooting angle. The trees and brush waved in the hot wind and not only impaired the sight of his prey but could deflect the bullet.
    The door to the Mercedes opened and a balding man in a brown jacket climbed out. Paul looked past him into the backseat. Yes! Ernst was inside. Then the door slammed and he lost sight of the colonel, who remained in the car. The man in brown carried a large folder to a second car, an Opel, near Paul, where the wooded hill bottomed out. He set the folder in the backseat and returned to the far side of the field.
    Paul’s attention was drawn to the Opel; it was unoccupied.The car would give him a good shooting position, provide some cover from the soldiers and offer Paul a head start back into the woods to the truck for his escape afterward.
    Yes, he decided, the car would be his hunting blind. Cradling the Mauser in the crook of his arm, Paul moved slowly forward, hearing the soft buzz of insects, the snap and crunch of the dusty July vegetation beneath his body and the shouts and laughter of young men enjoying their soccer game.
    •   •   •
    The faithful set of Auto Union wheels clattered along the highway at a paltry sixty kilometers per hour, rattling madly despite the mirror-smooth surface of the road. A backfire erupted and the engine gulped for air. Willi Kohl adjusted the choke and stomped on the accelerator once again. The car shuddered but finally picked up a bit of speed.
    After he’d left Kripo headquarters through the forbidden back door—defiantly and, yes, foolishly—the inspector had walked toward the Hotel Metropol. As he’d approached he gradually became aware of music; the notes penned by Mozart so many years ago were dancing from the strings of a chamber quartet in the magnificent lobby.
    He’d looked through the windows at the glittering chandeliers, the murals of scenes from Wagner’s Ring, the waiters in perfect black trousers and perfect white jackets balancing silver trays on their palms. And he’d continued past the hotel, not even pausing. The inspector had known all along, of course, that Paul Schumann was lying about coming here. His investigation had revealed that the American was a man who was comfortable not with champagneand limousines and Mozart, but with Pschorr ale and sausages. He was a man with worn shoes and a love of boxing rings. A man with some connection with the fringe neighborhood around November 1923 Square. If a man had no hesitation to take on four Stormtroopers with his fists, he would not be checking into an effete place like the Metropol, nor could he afford it either.
    Yet this place had been the first location Schumann had thought of in response to Kohl’s question about his new address—which suggested that the American might have seen it recently. And since Miss Richter’s boardinghouse was far across town, it was logical that he had seen the hotel on his way to Berlin North, the tough neighborhood that began just a block past the hotel. This was an area that was akin to Paul Schumann’s temperament and tastes.
    It was a large district; under most circumstances a half dozen investigators would be needed to canvass the locals and gather information on a suspect. But some evidence Kohl had found might, he believed, help him narrow his search considerably: At the boardinghouse he’d discovered in Schumann’s pockets a limp box of cheap matches, tucked into the packet of German cigarettes. Kohl was familiar with these. He often found them in the possession of other suspects, who’d picked them up in establishments in bad areas of the city, like Berlin North.
    Perhaps the American had no connection here, but it was a good place to start his search. Armed with Paul Schumann’s passport, Kohl had made the rounds in the southern end of the neighborhood, noting first what kind of matches they gave away and, if they were the same, then showing the American’s picture to waiters and bartenders.
    “No, Inspector . . . I am so sorry. Greet God, Inspector . . . I have seen no one like that. Hail Hitler. I’ll keep on the lookout for him. . . . Hail Hitler hail Hitler hail Hitler . . .”
    He tried a restaurant on Dragoner Street. Nothing. Then walked a few doors farther on, to a club on the same street. He’d flashed his ID card to the man at the entrance and walked into the bar. Yes, the matches were the same as Schumann had had. He’d