Garden of Beasts

the patio a moment earlier.
    “In our haste,” he muttered to Janssen, “we’ve burnt the crust, but perhaps we can salvage some of the remaining loaf.” He turned and stalked back toward the front door of the Summer Garden.
    •   •   •
    Paul, Morgan and the skinny, nervous man known as Max stood fifty feet up Rosenthaler Street in a small cluster of linden trees.
    They were watching the man in the white suit and his younger associate in the garden, beside the restaurant, looking up and down the street, then they returned to the front door.
    “They couldn’t be after us,” Morgan said. “Impossible.”
    “They were looking for someone, ” Paul said. “They came out the side door a minute after we did. That’s not a coincidence.”
    In a shaky voice, Max asked, “You think they were Gestapo? Or Kripo?”
    “What’s Kripo?” Paul asked.
    “Criminal police. Plainclothes detectives.”
    “They were some sort of police,” Paul announced. There was no doubt. He’d suspected it from the moment he’d seen the two men approach the Summer Garden. He’d taken the window table specifically to keep an eye on the street and, sure enough, he’d noticed the men—a heavyset one in a Panama hat and a slimmer, younger one in agreen suit—asking diners on the patio questions. Then the younger one had stepped away—probably to cover the back door—and the white-suited cop had walked to the posted menu, examining it for far longer than one normally would.
    Paul had stood suddenly, tossed down money—paper bills only, on which fingerprints would be nearly impossible to find—and snapped, “Leave now.” With Morgan and a panicked Max behind him, he’d pushed through the side door and waited at the front of a small garden until the cop had gone inside the restaurant, then walked fast down Rosenthaler Street.
    “Police,” Max now muttered, sounding near tears. “No . . . no . . .”
    Too many people to chase you here . . . and too many people to follow you, too many people to rat on you.
    I’d do anything for him and the Party. . . . 
    Paul looked again down the street, back toward the Summer Garden. No one was in pursuit. Still, he felt an electric current of urgency to learn information of Ernst’s whereabouts from Max and get on with the touch-off. He turned, saying, “I need to know . . .” His voice faded.
    Max was gone.
    “Where is he?”
    Morgan too turned. “Goddamn,” he muttered in English.
    “Did he betray us?”
    “I can’t believe that he would—it would mean his arrest too. But . . .” Morgan’s voice faded as he looked past Paul. “No!”
    Spinning around, Paul saw Max about two blocks away. He was among several people stopped by two men in black uniforms, whom he apparently hadn’t seen. “An SS security stop.”
    Max looked around nervously, waiting his turn to bequestioned by the SS troopers. He wiped his face, looking guilty as a teenager.
    Paul whispered, “There’s nothing for him to worry about. His papers are fine. He gave us Ernst’s photos. As long as he doesn’t panic he’ll be all right.”
    Calm down, Paul told the man silently. Don’t look around. . . . 
    Then Max smiled and stepped closer to the SS.
    “He’s going to be fine,” Morgan said.
    No, he’s not, Paul thought. He’s going to shank it.
    And just at that moment the man turned and fled.
    The SS troops pushed aside a couple they’d been speaking with and began running after him. “Stop, you will stop!”
    “No!” Morgan whispered. “Why did he do that? Why?”
    Because he was scared witless, Paul thought.
    Max was slimmer than the SS guards, who were in bulky uniforms, and was beginning to pull away from them.
    Maybe he can make it. Maybe—
    A shot echoed and Max tumbled to the concrete, blood blossoming on his back. Paul looked behind him. A third SS officer across the street had drawn his pistol and fired. Max started to crawl toward the curb when the first two guards caught up to him, gasping for breath. One drew his pistol, fired a shot into the poor man’s head and leaned against a lamppost to catch his breath.
    “Let’s go,” Paul whispered. “Now!”
    They turned back onto Rosenthaler Street and walked north, along with the other pedestrians moving steadily away from the site of the shooting.
    “God in heaven,” Morgan muttered. “I’ve spent a month cultivating him and holding his hand while he got details on Ernst. Now what do we