Garden of Beasts

Plaza was too large to search effectively, this was a far smaller square and could be more easily canvassed.
    Kohl now looked over the people here: beggars, vendors, hookers, shoppers, unemployed men and women in small cafés. He inhaled the air, pungent, ripe with the scent of trash, and asked, “Do you sense our quarry nearby, Janssen?”
    “I . . .” The assistant seemed uncomfortable with this comment.
    “It’s a feeling,” Kohl said, scanning the street as he stood in the shadow of a courageous, defiant bronze Hitler. “I myself don’t believe in the occult. Do you?”
    “Not really, sir. I’m not religious, if that’s what you mean.”
    “Well, I haven’t given up on religion completely. Heidi would not approve. But what I’m speaking of is the illusion of the spiritual based on our perceptions and experience. And I have such a feeling now. He’s near.”
    “Yes, sir,” the inspector candidate said. “Why do you think so?”
    An appropriate query, Kohl thought. He believed young detectives should always question their mentors. He explained: because this neighborhood was part of Berlin North. Here you could find large numbers of War wounded and poor and unemployed and closet Communists and Socis and anti-Party Edelweiss Pirate gangs, petty thieves and supporters of labor who’d gone to ground after the unions were outlawed. It was populated by those Germanswho sorely missed the early days: not Weimar, of course ( no one liked the Republic), but the glory of Prussia, of Bismarck, of Wilhelm, of the Second Empire. Which meant few members of the Party and its sympathizers. Few denouncers, therefore, ready to run squealing to the Gestapo or the local Stormtrooper garrison.
    “Whatever business he’s up to, it’s in places like this that he’ll find support and comrades. Stand back somewhat, Janssen. It is always easier to spot a person on the lookout for a suspect, such as us, than to spot that suspect himself.”
    The young man moved into the shadows of a fishmonger’s store, whose stinking bins were mostly empty. Gamy eels, carp and sickly canal trout were all he had for sale. The officers studied the streets for a few moments, looking for their quarry.
    “Now let us think, Janssen. He got out of the taxi with his suitcase—and the incriminating satchel—at Lützow Plaza. He did not have the car drive him directly here from the Olympics possibly because he dropped his bags off where he is now staying and came here for some other purpose. Why? To meet someone? To deliver something, perhaps the satchel? Or to collect something or someone? He has been to the Olympic Village, Dresden Alley, the Summer Garden, Rosenthaler Street, Lützow Plaza and now here? What ties these settings together? I wonder.”
    “Shall we survey all the stores and shops?”
    “I think we must. But I will tell you, Janssen, the food-deprivation concern is now serious. I am actually feeling light-headed. We will first query the cafés and, at the same time, get some sustenance for ourselves.”
    Inside his shoes Kohl’s toes flexed against the pain. The lamb’s wool had migrated and his feet were stinging onceagain. He nodded to the closest restaurant, the one he’d parked in front of, the Edelweiss Café, and they stepped inside.
    It was a dingy place. Kohl noted the averted eyes that typically greeted the appearance of an official. When they were through looking over the patrons on the off-chance that their Manny’s New York suspect might be here, Kohl displayed his ID to a waiter, who snapped instantly to attention. “Hail Hitler. How may I assist?”
    In this smoky dive, Kohl doubted anyone had even heard of the position of maître d’, so he asked for the manager.
    “Mr. Grolle, yes, sir. I will get him at once. Please, sit at this table, sirs. And if you wish some coffee and something to eat, please let me know.”
    “I will have a coffee and apple strudel. Perhaps a double-size piece. And my colleague?” He lifted an eyebrow at Janssen.
    “Just a Coca-Cola.”
    “Whipped cream with the strudel?” the manager asked.
    “But of course,” Willi Kohl said in a surprised voice, as if it were a sacrilege to serve it without.
    •   •   •
    As they were walking back from the gun dealer toward the Edelweiss Café, where Morgan would call his contact at the information ministry, Paul asked, “What will he get us? About Ernst’s whereabouts?”
    “He told me that Goebbels insists on knowing