12.
With the light of morning pushing
through the curtains everything seemed far more positive. All going
well, this should be the last day of the mission. If they got
everything finished off they could be out of here by nightfall, and
perhaps on a plane before the next dawn broke.
Jim stood in his room carefully folding
and packing clothes back into his suitcase. He still had to wash and
shave, but that would only take a couple of minutes, and soon
everything would be packed in the trunk of his car, ready for a
getaway. He would be dressed as a businessman in order to deposit his
part of the money stolen by Barney and Willy. Cinnamon would be chic
and well-presented and waiting for her portion of the funds in a
small Volkswagen Beetle. After taking it to various banks around the
city they would all rendezvous at a pre-arranged site in the
warehouse district, and from there, with a swift change of licence
plate on Jim’s non-descript car, they would leave the city.
Somewhere in Berlin Rollin would be
putting together his story for the Berlin Daily. Liesl was probably
safe and going through the process of rebuilding her life. Jim felt a
moment of wistfulness for that kind of life. She could turn her back
on things like this, hopefully forever. He pushed himself into them,
of his own volition, every few weeks. But he didn’t feel right
without that surge of adrenaline to keep him going. Too long at home
and he went a little crazy.
The little pocket radio buzzed, and Jim
snatched it up, instantly alert.
‘Barney? Trouble?’
‘Something like that,’ Barney
replied, his voice distorted through the speaker. ‘We’ve just got
through to the back of the safe and I’ve punched one drill hole
through, but there’s light in there, Jim. Someone must have the
door open, and from the noises I think Bauer’s down there.’
Jim pressed his lips together, his gaze
slipping to his suitcase and car keys lying nearby.
‘He might be gone in a couple of
minutes, Barney,’ he suggested. ‘Can you see anything useful
through the hole?’
‘Give me a moment, Jim.’ There was
a muffled half-silence, and then Barney’s voice came again, ‘Jim,
I think he’s counting the takings. He’s got the money out on the
table. He could be there for a long time.’
‘Damn,’ Jim murmured. He hesitated,
eyes unfocussed, considering what to do. ‘You and Willy hang on,’
he said abruptly. ‘Give me ten minutes, and I’ll get him out of
there. But I don’t know how long I’ll be able to give you. Once
he’s out of that room, move!’
******
The club was still closed when Jim
arrived, the blinds drawn on the windows and the main door unyielding
when he turned the handle. Jim stood for a moment before the
blind-fronted building, then his eyes turned to the alley at the
side. It was a grim place, half-blocked with dirty snow that had been
blown or swept from the streets. But there was a side door down
there, one that the dancers and musicians and bar staff used, and
when he tried it he found that it was open and unguarded.
He stood
for a moment with the door cracked open, looking inside. Then he
pushed it open with a bang, letting it slam into the wall behind so
hard that paint and plaster flaked to the floor. He swaggered into
the corridor and through into the back rooms of the club, dressed in
the guise of Otto Baum, last night’s stubble still on his cheeks,
the scent of alcohol on his breath, and an ugly expression on his
face.
‘Hey!’
he shouted roughly, banging his fist on one of the doors. ‘Hey!’
There was
no indignant response, and he pushed further into the club, shouting
more loudly. Eventually a wary looking man that Jim recognised as the
barman came out into the corridor, holding a pint glass in his hand.
Jim paused
momentarily, recognising that the glass could be turned into a nasty
weapon with one strike against something hard. He would have to risk
it.
‘Hey,
I want to see Bauer,’ he growled, his voice slightly slurred as if
he was reasonably drunk.
‘Herr
Bauer’s not here,’ the man said, looking shifty.
‘He’s
here. I know he is. I saw him come in,’ Jim lied. ‘Where is he?
Where is the bastard?’
‘What
do you want with him?’ the barman asked warily, shifting the glass
from hand to hand.
‘I
want Greta back,’ Jim growled, taking advantage of the man’s
nervousness to push a little closer to him. ‘I want to see that
bastard scum and I want him to give Greta back to me.’
‘Herr
Bauer is busy,’ the barman told him, stepping backwards, edging a
little closer t the door behind him.
In one
movement Jim lunged forward and grabbed at the man’s throat with
his right hand, pulling out a revolver with his left and levelling it
at his head. The glass dropped to the floor and smashed as the man
flailed and then registered the gun, and froze.
‘I
want to see Bauer,’ he said again, his voice harsh and so low it
was almost a whisper. He pulled the man a little toward him by his
collar and then smashed him back against the wall. ‘So get him.’
‘All
right, all right,’ the man said, all the fight gone from him at the
sight of the revolver. ‘I’ll get him. He’s – downstairs. Just
– just wait here.’
‘I’ll
come, if it’s all the same to you,’ Jim told him.
He followed
the man to the end of the corridor to a door marked ‘cellar.’
‘Don’t
be stupid,’ Jim warned him as he saw the man glance at a payphone
affixed to the wall nearby.
‘All
right,’ the man said again. He opened the door and called, ‘Herr
Bauer, there’s a man here – ’
A shout
came up from below. ‘Not now, Friedrich, I’m busy.’
Jim pushed
past the barman to look down into the brightly lit cellar where Bauer
was stood by a table covered in neat piles of notes, intent on noting
something down in a large cash book.
‘Now,
Bauer,’ Jim said grimly, angling his gun down the tired wooden
stairs at the man.
Bauer
jumped at the new voice, almost sending a pile of notes tumbling.
‘Now,’
Jim repeated, giving the gun a meaningful jerk. ‘Up here where I
can see you. I want to talk to you.’
Bauer’s
eyes moved over the piles of cash and the open door of the safe
behind him, then he looked back to the sleek black revolver, and
nodded.
‘All
right, Herr Baum,’ he nodded.
He closed
the cash book and came up the stairs, taking great care to lock the
cellar door behind him.
‘What
do you want, Herr Baum?’ he asked once they were together in the
tatty corridor.
‘You
come in here,’ Jim said, kicking a door open with his foot and
gesturing both men into the room behind. It looked like a dressing
room for the dancers, full of mirrors and bulbs that were not
switched on, the counters scattered with make-up and small items of
costume.
‘What
is this all about, Baum?’ Bauer asked again, glancing between Jim
and the door as if he was anxious to get back to his money.
‘You
sit down,’ Jim said, shoving Bauer roughly into a chair. ‘You
too,’ he told the barman. ‘I want to talk to you about Greta,
Bauer. I want her back.’
Bauer
stared at him.
‘It
was a simple transaction, Baum,’ he shrugged. ‘I don’t give
girls back.’
‘Like
hell you don’t,’ Jim growled. By now Bauer must know that
Cinnamon had supposedly been taken by the police, but Jim didn’t
expect him to admit to that. ‘I’ve heard about how you treat
women in your house. Those ‘special’ rooms you have.’
Bauer
looked even more bewildered, understandably so, since Jim had largely
fabricated his drunken argument for Greta’s return on his way over
here. Of all the things that could be said about Bauer, he rarely
physically hurt the women in his possession – at least, not
personally.
Of course,
if Bauer knew the right place to look he would find the woman that he
thought of as Greta Hoch just a few blocks away, sitting at the wheel
of a small car, waiting to take his money and deposit it the accounts
owned by Bauer’s political opposition. The plan had changed very
little on the discovery that Bauer was in the cellar with the safe
open as Barney and Willy were drilling through into it. The only
problem was that Jim was dressed more like a bank robber than a sleek
businessman now, complete with stubble and mussed hair, so Cinnamon
would be depositing the money alone and meeting Jim and the others
later.
Jim slipped
a look at his watch. Bauer had been out of the cellar for about two
minutes. He wanted to give Barney and Willy at least ten to complete
the breach of the back of the safe and to get the money. He only
hoped the hole would be large enough for one of them to scramble
through and get the stuff off the table. But the door to the cellar
was locked, at least. Only Bauer could get down there, so it was only
Bauer he needed to keep out of the way.
‘I
don’t know what you’re talking about, Baum,’ Bauer said
carelessly, as if he could shrug away the gun and the angry man
holding it. ‘There are no ‘special’ rooms in my house, and
Fräulein Hoch is perfectly well treated.’
‘Yeah,
that’s what you’d have me believe,’ Jim growled. ‘I want to
see her, though. I want her back.’
‘Herr
Baum, there is no – ’ Bauer began, but Jim lunged forward and
grabbed hold of his jacket.
‘Get
up,’ he said. ‘Get up and take me to her.’
‘I
can’t take you to her,’ Bauer said eventually. ‘She’s not at
the house today.’
‘I’m
going to show you what happens to men that treat women like you do,’
Jim snarled, shaking the man by the front of his jacket.
Bauer tore
himself away from Jim’s hands, looking to his barman and then back
at Jim. Jim’s fear was that he would tell the barman to take the
key and put the money back in the safe himself. Better that, Bauer
would think, than that it was left out on the table. Jim didn’t
want to end up shooting the barman and it was imperative that he
didn’t kill Bauer and make a martyr out of him.
‘Come
on,’ Jim told him fiercely, pushing him towards the door. ‘Outside,
in the alley. And you can watch,’ he told the barman. ‘Just to
see it’s all square.’
Once they
were out in the alley he hauled off and punched Bauer as hard as he
could. Bauer staggered back against the wall, then recovered, coming
at Jim with his fists up. Briefly Jim recalled reading that Bauer
had been a member of a boxing club during his university studies –
and then Bauer hit him, and the explosion of pain in his jaw sent him
stumbling into one of the icy piles of drifted snow.
The pain
galvanised him, and he started forward again, letting adrenaline take
over as he swung a fist into Bauer’s midriff. He needed to keep
this up for maybe fifteen minutes – or to put Bauer out cold so he
wouldn’t think of going back into that cellar for a while. But it
was not going to be easy.
******
Near Barney
and Willy’s fake roadwork signs Cinnamon waited in her little
Volkswagen, her hands on the steering wheel in impeccable leather
driving gloves. Every now and then she glanced at her watch as the
second hand sped round, the minute hand following it with a sluggish
pace. Any moment now Barney and Willy should be emerging with the
cash, and she had her escape route committed to memory. Barney and
Willy would strike the tent and the signs and get into the van, and
no sign would be left above ground of what they had done.
She
wondered how Jim was getting on. He hadn’t had time to be anything
more than vague about his plan, which was about distracting Bauer in
some way and then meeting up with the others as planned in the
warehouse district at the pre-arranged time. Cinnamon was to deposit
more money than previously planned at each bank, so that she wasn’t
delayed with extra stops.
The tent
flap moved, and Willy pushed out through the striped fabric, a canvas
bag clutched to his chest. As Barney came out behind him Willy passed
the bag through the car door to Cinnamon.
‘Any
trouble?’ she asked quietly.
‘Jim
kept it clear,’ Willy said concisely. ‘Go. We’ll meet you
later.’
Cinnamon
nodded, put the car into gear, and went.
******
The dirty
snow in the alley was reddened with spots of blood as Jim hauled
himself up off the floor, pressing a hand to his ribs. He wondered if
one of them was broken, but he considered that a light punishment
considering Bauer could have taken his gun from him once he’d
felled him and shot him in the back. But Bauer was too much of the
politician for that. He wasn’t beyond kicking a man he had already
punched to the floor, but there was no need to go further. No need to
involve himself in the nasty murder of a man who, left alive,
wouldn’t dare to go to the authorities anyway because his only
business was the illegal trafficking of women.
Jim stayed
kneeling for a few moments, his hands splayed on the ground. Half of
his face was numb from what he thought might have been a few minutes
of unconsciousness in the snow. His nose had evidently been bleeding,
but it had stopped now. He was alone. Bauer must have gone back
inside. But he couldn’t help that. He just had to hope that Barney
and Willy had completed their task in time, and got out before they
were caught.
Jim jerked
himself awkwardly to his feet and walked cautiously out of the alley,
choosing to come out on the street behind the club instead of in
front. If Bauer was inside now it was only a matter of time before he
discovered the theft of his money, and there was a chance he might
realise that ‘Otto Baum’ had been deliberately distracting him.
He glanced
at himself in a window, seeing that the orbit of his left eye was
bruised and swollen and there was blood smeared across his mouth and
cheek. He pulled out a handkerchief and tried to gingerly wipe some
of the mess away from his bruised face, but getting away from the
club was more important than the blood on him. He turned his coat
collar up, tilted his head down, and walked as fast as his throbbing
ribs would let him.
He allowed
himself the luxury of a hot-water wash and a shave before he changed
and finished packing up to leave the apartment. He still looked as if
he had been beaten up, but at least he was dressed now in a smart
suit, his hair was brushed, and he was clean. He carried his case
downstairs, and dropped off the key with the janitor on the first
floor, parrying the man’s questions about the state of his face
with an embarrassed-seeming few sentences about a night out drinking.
Once out of the place he got into his car and drove towards the
warehouse district to the pre-arranged rendezvous. Barney and Willy
were already there, cleaned up and changed out of their workmen’s
overalls, and they slipped into the back seat of Jim’s car and
settled down.
‘You
did it,’ Jim said, more as a statement than a question.
‘Thanks
to you,’ Barney nodded, leaning forward to look harder at Jim’s
reflection in the rear-view mirror. ‘Are you all right, Jim? What
did you do?’
‘I
distracted Bauer,’ Jim said succinctly, pressing a hand lightly to
his ribs. When he had washed in the apartment he had seen the vivid
flush of an impressive bruise on his chest in the shape of a man’s
shoe.
‘You
sure you can drive, Jim?’ Willy asked in concern. Always conscious
of health and well-being, he had noticed instantly that Jim was
avoiding twisting his torso.
‘I
can drive,’ Jim nodded. ‘I’ll get it looked at once we’re
over the border.’
In the
mirror he caught Barney exchanging a glance with Willy.
‘Get
in the back, Jim,’ Barney said firmly. ‘I’ll drive.’
Jim met his
eyes in the mirror. He knew that tone. Barney didn’t often go
against Jim’s orders, but when he did Jim knew he would be like a
dog with a bone. He didn’t argue. He just got out of the driver’s
seat and painfully got into the back of the car. It was as he was
settling himself on the seat that Cinnamon’s Volkswagen drew up,
and Willy vacated his back seat to allow her in to sit next to Jim.
‘Broken
ribs, I reckon,’ Willy said succinctly at Cinnamon’s concerned
look. ‘See what you can do for him.’
‘Really,
you don’t need to – ’ Jim began, but Cinnamon reached under the
seat in front and pulled out a first aid kit and began to rummage
through for iodine and bandages.
‘Really,
I do need to,’ she said as the car moved off.
‘You
deposited the money all right?’ Jim asked her, wincing a little as
she dabbed iodine on a split in his cheek.
‘And
spoke to Rollin, too,’ Cinnamon said with a smile. ‘His story’s
going to the presses as we speak. It’s going to be the front cover
exposé
of all of Georg Bauer’s little vices.’
Jim
grinned, and then winced again at the movement of his bruised face
muscles. Even Bauer wouldn’t easily talk that story down – not
with the photographs that went along with it.
