Garden of Beasts

you, or you stole it from us. I don’t recallwhich. But the Britons, ach, they had the Vickers. Water-cooled. Now, that was a snuff grinder, for you. That was quite a piece of metalwork. . . . No, no, we don’t want another war, whatever the Little Man says, none of us do. That would be the end of everything. And that’s what the colonel is up to.” Webber slipped the hundred marks into his pocket and puffed on his vile ersatz cigar. “What do you need to know?”
    “His schedule at Wilhelm Street. When he arrives for work, when he leaves, what kind of car he drives, where he parks, will he be there tomorrow, Monday or Tuesday, what routes he takes, any cafés he favors in the area.”
    “One can find out anything, given enough time. And egg.”
    “Egg?”
    He tapped his pocket. “Money. I must be honest, Mr. John Dillinger. We are not talking about palming off three-day-old canal trout from the Landwehr as fresh from the Havel. This is a matter that will require me to retire for a time. There will be serious repercussions and I will have to go underground. There will be—”
    “Otto, just give me a number.”
    “Very dangerous . . . Besides, what is money to you Americans? You have your FDR.” In English he said, “You’re rolling on dough.”
    “ In dough,” Paul corrected. “A number?”
    “A thousand U.S. dollars.”
    “What?”
    “Not marks. They say the Inflation’s over but nobody who’s lived through that time believes it. Why, in 1928 a liter of petrol cost five hundred thousand marks. And in—”
    Paul shook his head. “That’s a lot of money.”
    “But it’s really not—if I get you your information. And I guarantee I will. You pay me only half up front.”
    Paul pointed to Webber’s pocket, where the marks resided. “ That’s your down payment.”
    “But—”
    “You get paid the rest when and if the information pans out. And if I get approval.”
    “I’ll have expenses.”
    Paul slipped him the remaining hundred. “There.”
    “Hardly enough but I’ll make do.” Then Webber looked over Paul closely. “I’m curious.”
    “About what?”
    “About you, Mr. John Dillinger. What’s your tale?”
    “There is no tale.”
    “Ach, there’s always a tale. Go ahead, tell Otto your story. We’re in business together now. That’s closer than being in bed. And remember, he sees all, the truth and the lies. You seem an unlikely candidate for this job. Though perhaps that is why you were chosen to visit our fair city. Because you seem unlikely. How did you get into this noble profession of yours?”
    Paul said nothing for a moment, then: “My grandfather came to America years ago. He’d fought in the Franco-Prussian War and wanted no more fighting. He started a printing company.”
    “What was his name?”
    “Wolfgang. He said printing ink was in his veins and claimed that his ancestors had lived in Mainz and worked with Gutenberg.”
    “A grandfather’s stories,” Webber said, nodding. “Mine said he was Bismarck’s cousin.”
    “His company was on the Lower East Side of New York in the German-American area of the city. In 1904 therewas a tragedy—over a thousand people from there were killed in an excursion ship fire in the East River. The General Slocum.”
    “Ach, what a sad thing.”
    “My grandfather was on the boat. He and my grandmother weren’t killed but he was badly burned saving people and he couldn’t work any longer. Then most of the German community moved to Yorkville, farther north in Manhattan. People were too sad to stay in Little Germany. His business was going to fail, with Grandpapa being so sick and fewer people around to order printing. So my father took over. He didn’t want to be a printer; he wanted to play baseball. You know baseball?”
    “Ach, of course.”
    “But there was no choice. He had a wife and my sister and my brother and me to feed—my grandparents now too. But he, we would say, rose to the occasion. He did his duty. He moved to Brooklyn, added English-language printing and expanded the company. Made it very successful. My brother couldn’t go into the army during the War and they ran the shop together when I was in France. After I got back I joined them and we built the place up real nice.” He laughed. “Now I don’t know if you heard about this, but our country had this thing called Prohibition. You know—”
    “Yes, yes, of course. I read the crime shockers, remember. Illegal to drink liquor!