‘OK, but how does this concern us?’
Weiss raised his eyebrows before responding. ‘Abraham Goldstein, nickname Handsome Abe, is on his way to Berlin. He went through customs at Bremerhaven yesterday evening.’
‘If he’s so dangerous, why did the Yanks let him leave in the first place?’
‘Because they don’t have a case against him. Goldstein was put on file a few times in his youth: larceny, criminal damage, grievous bodily harm, but since then nothing, not even a parking ticket. He’s thought to be responsible for a number of underworld killings. Our American colleagues believe that he kills on behalf of Italian and Jewish gangster syndicates. The one thing no one disputes is that he has links to underworld heavyweights. Only, that isn’t a crime.’
‘Goldstein’s Jewish?’
‘Yes.’ Weiss didn’t bat an eyelid. As if it were unimportant – though of course it was anything but. A Jewish gangster in Berlin, that fact alone would be grist to the mill of the anti-Semites. Newspaper reports about the Sklarek Brothers’ fraud had been full of anti-Semitic undertones. Suddenly Rath understood why Weiss himself had intervened.
‘What’s Goldstein doing in Berlin?’ he asked. ‘Any ideas?’
‘None. The one thing we know for sure is that he is coming, on a tourist visa. Perhaps it’s only to visit the Wintergarten or the Sportpalast, or he means to throw himself into the local nightlife, like the other tourists who come here because it’s so cheap. Anything’s possible.’
‘Could he be taking care of a contract in Berlin? Eliminating someone who’s making problems for the New Yorkers?’
Weiss adopted a sceptical expression. ‘Links between local criminal circles and American gangster syndicates are not particularly well developed. Mostly drug-smuggling or alcohol. I can’t believe that an American underworld feud would reach Europe.’
‘Things aren’t exactly peaceful here at the moment,’ Rath said. ‘If you think back to the last few weeks. Maybe one of our lot sent for him, to carry out a job…’
‘There is tension in the city,’ Weiss agreed. ‘The Ringvereine know about Goldstein. Even before the Bureau got in contact, our underworld informants heard rumours that an American was expected in Berlin.’
‘What are we supposed to do if the Yanks don’t have anything on him?’
‘Round the clock surveillance, and we want him to know it too. Make it clear he is being watched, that he can’t so much as move without our knowledge. If he really has come to Berlin to kill someone, we have to show him that the best thing he can do is return straight home. Empty-handed.’
‘With all due respect, Sir, isn’t this a job for Warrants?’
‘I’m certainly not about to discuss whose jurisdiction it falls under with you.’ Weiss’s voice took on a shrill, piercing tone like something from the parade ground. The man had served as an officer in the war and would brook no arguments.
‘As you yourself have just observed,’ he continued, ‘we are talking about preventing a potential homicide. That alone ought to underline the importance of this assignment.’ Rath nodded like a schoolboy. ‘You’re in charge of this operation. Round up a few men and get on your way. Goldstein has reserved a suite in the Excelsior. I understand you’re familiar with it.’
Rath had stayed in the Excelsior for a time after arriving from Berlin two years before, but in the cheapest available single room. Weiss appeared to have done his research there too.
‘Do you want me to greet him off the train with a bunch of flowers?’
‘I don’t care whether it’s on the platform or at the hotel, so long as you make it clear that he is to behave himself in our city. He should…’
The telephone rang. Weiss picked up. ‘What is it,’ he said, annoyed.
Rath wasn’t sure whether his audience with the deputy was over. He remained seated.
Weiss adopted a serious expression. ‘I’ll come out myself,’ he said. ‘Send for a car and let Heimannsberg know.’ He hung up. ‘I think we’re finished here, Inspector. Now, get to work, and report to me tomorrow morning in person. I have to go to the university.’ Clearly Weiss had been intending to leave it at that, but he must have registered Rath’s quizzical expression. ‘Student riot,’ he said. ‘The rector has requested police assistance.’
3
The Germans were strange, he decided. Everywhere he went, they wanted to see his passport: on the boat, in the harbour, on the train, and now in the hotel too. The head porter carefully entered his name, address and passport number into the big, black-leather guest register.
‘We didn’t expect you so early, Mister Goldstein,’ the man said in English. His parting was so straight it might have been made with a ruler. ‘But suite three-o-one is now ready for you.’ He pronounced the name Gollt-schtein, like everyone in this country.
Goldstein pocketed his passport. ‘Very kind, thank you.’
‘You speak German!’ The head porter raised his eyebrows as he waved a page boy over.
‘Sure.’
The head porter handed the page the keys to the room. ‘Three-o-one,’ he said, and the boy stowed the suitcases onto a trolley.
‘If you would care to follow me, Sir,’ said the page, setting off for the lift. In his ill-fitting gold-braided livery, he looked like a monkey escaped from his organ grinder. Goldstein wondered why they hadn’t given the boy, who wore a golden number thirty-seven on his cap, anything in his size.
It reminded him of his mother, Rahel Goldstein, who had made her only son wear his trousers for so long even the tramps would realise they were too small. The same Rahel Goldstein who left her dingy flat only to go to the synagogue or the market, and refused to learn the language of her adoptive country. Abe never understood why his parents had gone to America in the first place. Their existence had played out over such a tiny area that he wondered why they had chosen so big a country, so big a city, in which to live. He could never stand the confinement and, even as a little boy, had left the flat as often as possible until his mother’s illness drove him onto the streets for good.
While Mother battled typhus and Father prayed for her salvation, Abe started hanging around with Moe and his gang by Williamsburg Bridge. They respected him, even if he was a few years younger. After Mother died, his father tried to pass him into the care of friends, then into a home, but Abe had resisted. Moe’s gang was his family, and he didn’t need anyone else. At fourteen Abe Goldstein earned his first paycheck, more in a single day than his father could scrape together in weeks. People in the neighbourhood had already started talking about him after Mother’s funeral, which was the last time he had been to synagogue, and all the more when, on the occasion of Father’s funeral, he had appeared drunk at the cemetery. They were still talking about him, too, though these days with respect, which was the only thing that mattered.
The lift sped upwards, barely making a sound. They made two stops, but only when the liftboy announced the third floor did number 37 turn his attention to the luggage trolley. Suite 301 wasn’t too far from the lifts, just around the corner. The page opened the door and Goldstein stepped inside. Everything seemed to be in order. Exactly the level of comfort one would expect from the price category. A spacious, bright living room, big windows pointing towards the enormous station roof, immediately in front of them a large desk, and a comfortable, upholstered corner sofa against the wall. On the table was a fruit bowl, and, to the right, a double leaf door that led into the bedroom. The page had set the luggage down and was now waiting expectantly in the door, the flat of his hand facing discreetly upwards. Goldstein pressed a dollar note into the boy’s hand – he still hadn’t got around to trading his dollars for German money – and waited until the page had wished him a pleasant stay and departed.