Berlin Burning Read Online Free

panic. He rose and turned his back on her, putting on one of his gloves to pick up the photograph of Maria.
    â€˜Hey, now then...’ she began.
    â€˜Thank you. That will be all.’
    â€˜Hey... don’t you go telling him I sent you, you hear me? You hear me?’
    Chapter 4
    â€“–––––––
    â€˜W ell, she thinks the girl killed him,’ Trautmann said once he’d made sure the apartment door was shut. ‘Unless she was trying to throw me off.’
    â€˜Sir, I found this.’ Roth held up a wallet. ‘It was under the bed. Don’t get excited though, there’s nothing in it. Nothing with an address, anyway.’
    They went down the stairs to the murder apartment, passing a couple of Schupo. ‘Fingerprints?’
    Roth shook his head. ‘Lab boys reckon they won’t get anything usable off the leather.’
    Trautmann opened the wallet. As Roth had said, there was nothing in there bar a photo of a young boy of three, perhaps four years of age. The photo looked as though it had been cut out of a larger picture.
    â€˜This boy could be a relative of Meist’s, of course,’ Trautmann said.
    â€˜No sir. Meist’s wallet was in the dresser. No money, but his party membership card was in it.’
    â€˜So, then this brings us a step closer to our mystery second man.’
    â€˜Not much.’
    â€˜Now now, Roth. It’s another piece of the jigsaw. It’ll fit somewhere.’
    They entered the apartment and gave a verbal report to the lab boys, adding the need to get the landlady fingerprinted.
    â€˜We’ll have time to go through all this later,’ Trautmann said.
    â€˜Why, where are we going?’ Roth asked.
    â€˜Gird your loins, Markus,’ Trautmann replied, in a low voice. ‘We’re paying Fleischer a visit. And quickly too, before Kessler gets there. We’re going to take him into custody.’
    Roth looked at Trautmann like the older man had lost his mind.
    Chapter 5
    â€“–––––––
    H arry the Horse was doing his usual shtick at the entrance to Fleischer’s club, singing ‘A girl or a woman’ from The Magic Flute at the top of his baritone voice with thin falsetto back up from Little Eva, a six-foot tall prostitute rumour had it was really a transvestite.
    Roth reached for his police ID.
    â€˜Put it away, Roth,’ Trautmann said, placing five Reichsmark in Harry’s proffered hat.
    The Horse nodded them past, ahead of the line of hopeful tourists who’d been waiting. Eva followed the two detectives into the fug of sweat and sweet tobacco smoke inside. It was crowded in there: three deep at the bar and every seat taken at every table. Trautmann’s top lip broke out right away.
    â€˜Hey, you didn’t wait for your champagne,’ Eva said, tugging at Trautmann’s arm.
    â€˜We don’t want any,’ Roth said.
    â€˜But that’s how it works, you know that. Five marks on the door for your champagne.’
    â€˜Besides, it’s not real champagne, is it?’ Trautmann added, watching Eva place a cigarette in her mouth while fluttering the desiccated butterfly corpses that clung to her eyelids in imitation of lashes.
    He scanned the place for Fleischer, wondering why Eva was stalling them and what it signified. No sign of the big man himself. He reached for his pipe, feeling the unwelcome weight of the Walther PPK in his jacket pocket.
    A band of white musicians in boaters and black face performed on a small raised stage in front of the large plate glass window onto the street. If ‘perform’ was the right word. They were sending forth a racket of kick-drum, high hat and scratchy banjos.
    â€˜What’s that caterwauling?’ Trautmann asked Eva, lighting a match for her with his thumbnail.
    â€˜New this week from England,’ Eva said, holding Trautmann’s hand to steady the