The Minotaur's Head: An Eberhard Mock Investigation (Eberhard Mock Investigation 4) Page 5
Mock turned to Pohler.
“Goodnight, Pohler!”
“Goodnight, Captain, sir.” The cabby grasped the door handle but a few seconds later let it go. “I know you don’t remember me, sir. You were pretty tipsy at the time. I want to thank you, Captain.”
“But you’ve already thanked me!” replied Mock in a tired voice. “For treating you like a human being. You’ve already said that … Go on or Bibi’s going to turn your cab into a bordello!”
“Not for that, Captain,” Pohler went on as if he had not heard Mock’s words. “Not for that but for not now going on about where you’re supposed to know me from, how we met and so on … You knew that talking about it would be torture for me. That I’ve got a wife and children. That’s what I’m thanking you for.”
Mock laughed and held out his hand to Pohler.
“Good luck in the New Year!”
“Thanks, and the same to you, Captain!” The cab driver squeezed Mock’s hand firmly.
“But don’t think, Pohler,” he added with a smile, “that I’m as considerate as I appear. I didn’t ask you because all those grubby stories bore me now. The private history of this city’s inhabitants is a history of sin and shame. My head is so full of such goings-on there’s no room for any more. God be with you, Pohler, and go on sinning, but do so on the quiet and don’t catch the eye of any Gestapo.”
“You treated me like a human being today, too. You even told that gatekeeper that I work for you. And let me tell you – I can work for you if you want. There’s always a lot going on here by the station and my eyes are wide open. But only for you.”
“Listen then, Heinrich,” said Mock after a moment’s thought, as he handed Pohler his business card. “If any sort of pervert appears on Morgenzeile, let me know, alright? Regardless of whether he talks Silesian or Apache, understood?”
“Of course.” Pohler opened the car door. “Good night, Captain!”
“Good night, Heinrich.”
Mock laughed even louder. And once again his joyful voice echoed in the car. Despite everything, today had been his lucky day. First, he had managed to avoid Pastor Krebs, then he had found a new informant. Not bad for one evening! To hell with some impudent lackey! A good spirit, Eudaemon, had prompted him to do two things: firstly, to tell the butler Gorsegner that Pohler “worked” for him, and secondly to refrain from uttering a certain sentence when the cabby kept testing whether Mock recognized him. He refrained from making a certain comparison out loud, and thanks to that reticence had gained a new and valuable informant. Had he spoken out loud he would most certainly have lost Pohler’s goodwill. The maxim was to have been: “Why are you so surprised that I don’t recognize you? Do you think it’s easy to distinguish one piece of shit in a dunghill from another?”
BRESLAU, SUNDAY, JANUARY 10TH, 1937 HALF PAST TEN AT NIGHT
Mock did not go home, even though Pastor Kreb’s visit must certainly have come to an end. Sitting in the car, he mindlessly watched a group of youths carrying skis and backpacks, a drunken Bibi bantering with Pohler, and a sausage vendor who kept opening his cauldron to entice travellers with its appetizing smell while he warmed himself over its hot steam. Mock knew that these moments of vacuous gawping would presently set a chain of images in motion. It was not original ideas or some revelatory solution he had in mind; no – his ambitions were, at that moment, considerably more modest. He simply wanted to catch hold of a thought which had come to him as Pohler was about to get out of the car, and which had been stifled by the cabby’s prolonged expressions of gratitude. Two officers in black coats and visor hats caught his eye as they approached the station. He slapped his brow. He could not explain why precisely this sight had recalled the other thought.
He climbed out of the car and made towards the station, paying no attention to the smiling Bibi, her thin colleague or the sausage vendor. Casting his eyes around the concourse enclosed by a hemispherical vault, he saw his objective – a pole from which hung timetables of stiff, varnished cardboard attached lengthwise to a moveable ring. He approached the boards and began to flick through them. The noise as they thwacked against each other aroused the curiosity of a man whose foolish smile and bloodshot eyes showed he had not yet stopped celebrating the New Year. Mock found the relevant board of afternoon and evening train arrivals at Breslau’s Main Station. His gaze quickly fell on the underscored itineraries of trains coming from abroad. Only one train pulled into Breslau just before ten in the evening, round about the time cabby Pohler had picked up his two mysterious passengers – an express which arrived every other day at half past nine. Mock took out his notebook bound with a rubber band and, on a ruled page, carefully noted all the information concerning the train. Ignoring the drunkard who clearly wanted to borrow some money for a beer, he approached another pole marked DEPARTURES. After a long search he found the number of the express train he was looking for. It departed every other day in the early hours of the morning. Mock jotted down all the intermediate stations, underscored one and wrote “border” next to it. Remembering his momentary intellectual blackout in the car, he added expressis verbis what he was to do the following day: “Phone the border crossing in Morgenroth.”
As he left the station he saw Pohler whipping his horse. He waved, but the latter must not have noticed him. “Ah well,” thought Mock, amused, “it is not every day a cabby has the chance to drive Hitler’s praetorians.”
Sprawled out nonchalantly in the cab, cigarettes in hand, sat the two SS-men who a few minutes earlier had walked past Mock’s car.
LWÓW, MONDAY, JANUARY 11TH, 1937 SEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING
Few of Lwów’s decent, moral inhabitants knew that in the heart of the city, among the beautiful old tenements not far from Rynek, almost beneath the dome of the Dominican church, was a place which had little in common with high morals. The Sea Grotto tavern was located in the inner courtyard of the splendid tenement at Dominikańska 4. A visit to this temple involved two quite different hazards. The first of these – the danger of spraining if not breaking a leg – lurked in the unlit gateway leading to the minuscule yard. The second danger was the den’s drunken regulars. With alcohol running through their blood, they either declared their love to the whole world, or attacked their neighbour. Furthermore, the drunken rogues were quick to reach into their pockets for flick-knives or razors.
Commissioner Popielski was neither a decent nor a moral citizen. He knew the rogues well and always carried a torch with him when he went to the den, not to mention a Browning revolver in his pocket. Today, however, he had forgotten both and consequently felt quite insecure. He kept close to the wall as he struggled to see anything at all in the feeble flickering of a lantern hanging in the yard over the dive. He walked slowly, step by step, feeling for the slippery surface with his feet, and anxiously glanced at his left arm which he still could not straighten having broken it very badly at the elbow two years earlier. He was far less worried by the fact that he had no weapon; he knew his presence in one of the worst drinking-dens would immediately be known to all the ruffians east of Halicki Square, that is, in Łyczaków. Unfailing word of mouth operated here and the characteristic figure of the bald Commissioner in his bowler hat and white scarf was known to every child. During his sixteen years in the Criminal Police he had often seriously incurred the anger of Łyczaków’s daredevils, but no Lwów bandit in his right mind would risk an attempt on the commissioner’s life.
Popielski passed through the treacherous gate without slipping, but did not manage to avoid a quite different hazard. As soon as he found himself in the yard he felt his polished Salamander brogue, his beautifully stitched, aerated shoe which had cost fifty złotys, sink into a soft, sticky substance.
“Damn it!” he yelled. He wiped the sole against the cobbles in disgust and cursed his tendency to dress like a dandy. “If I had worn thick winter shoes and not these elegant brogues,” he thought, “there’d have been no problem.”
He scraped
the sole of his shoe for several metres over the cobblestones until he found himself beneath the only lantern in the yard, which feebly illuminated the entrance to the cellar which housed the drinkingden. Popielski lifted his foot and studied his shoe. The sole was relatively clean whereas the sides were wet and soiled with brown gunge. He knew perfectly well what he had stepped into. The inhabitants of this tenement frequently complained to the police about excrement left in the yard by den regulars. He looked around. The only thing to wipe his shoe on was the rough wall, but this could mean scuffing the elegant leather of the uppers. Popielski opened the door to the tavern. A shaft of light fell from the interior into the yard. An old cabbage sack lay on a beer crate. Although it too was rough, it did not risk ruining the leather, and Popielski could find nothing better. As he cleaned his shoe, he gazed at the clouds of smoke wafting up from the dive. Slowly he descended the steep stairs and found himself three metres below the surface of Lwów’s pavements. With each step the Sea Grotto grew increasingly silent. He stood at the threshold, removed his bowler hat and for a moment relished the silence which had descended and the heat which radiated from the stove. Here and there he heard a hiss. He knew the thieves and bandits were quietly repeating his nickname: Hairless-s-s.
He walked unhurriedly through the centre of the tavern and surveyed what he knew so well: dirty fingernails rapping the table; eyes looking askance from beneath cloth caps; gnarled fingers holding lit roll-ups of the vilest tobacco; greasy, plastered-down hair. He picked up the smell of steaming greatcoats, unwashed shirts and sodden felt boots. He did not study the faces; he knew the bandits sought by the police – warned by word of mouth – had long since scampered to their hovels. He approached a table where three men were sitting. All had their elbows and forearms on the table and did not take their eyes off Popielski. An accordion player began a lively melody and sang:
On Kołłątay Street
Fayduli, fayduli, fay,
An old hag a policem’n beat,
Fayduli, fayduli, fay,
Punch his gob, and kick his balls,
Fayduli, fayduli, fay,
Down the old policem’n falls,
Fayduli, fayduli, fay.
Popielski applauded the accordionist for a few moments, and although his applause was unduly loud, the musician did not show the least gratitude. The police officer hung his overcoat on the back of a vacant chair at the table of the three men, adjusted his black jacket and bowtie and sat down without removing his bowler hat. He rested his arms on the table like the others, then suddenly extended them to both sides, knocking two of the men’s elbows off the table. The men pushed their chairs back, ready for a fight. The third, sitting opposite Popielski, motioned to them to remain calm.
“Don’t you know the rules of good manners, boys?” asked Popielski, noticing with horror that he had stained the sleeve of his suit in a pool of liquid on the table. “You don’t sprawl your weight around like that!” He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the remains of some vodka in front of the men – a drink which “did not stain uniform or honour” as his deceased uncle, an officer in the Austrian army, was wont to say.
“Calm down, you idiots” said the man sitting opposite the Commissioner. “He’s only playing at being fancy! Such a fancy man!”
“Over here, old chap!” Popielski was now in a better mood and clicked his fingers loudly. “Here, old chap! A pork cutlet, some cucumbers and a quarter bottle of vodka! But don’t spit under the cutlet” – he laughed, slamming the table – “because I’m going to be eating with these here citizens!”
“We’re not hungry,” replied the man sitting to Popielski’s right.
“Keep it down, damn it,” Popielski hissed at him and grabbed him tightly by the arm. “You’re not going to gorge on my food, but he” – with his eyes he indicated the waiter who was emerging from behind the counter – “doesn’t have to know and then he won’t spit into it! Hey, Gum” he said, turning to the man opposite, “calm your pals down so they don’t butt in!”
The waiter, hair slicked down with pomade and wearing a stained dinner jacket and collarless shirt, approached the table and whacked it a few times with the rag which always hung over his forearm. He stood a small bottle labled Pure Monopol Vodka in front of Popielski along with a glass and a plate on which lay a roll, a cold schnitzel and four pickled cucumbers. Then he slid a stand of napkins across the table.
“Pay up front,” muttered the waiter gloomily.
“Old chap!” called Popielski, handing him his bowler hat and a one-złoty coin. “And glasses for my friends?”
The waiter thanked him for the considerable tip and returned behind the counter as if he had not heard the request. He hung up Popielski’s hat and began to wipe down the counter. The man whom Popielski had addressed as Gum spoke out, and his voice resonated powerfully in the silence.
“No offence, Commissioner, sir, but we don’t eat with police. We’re not informers. We won’t eat with you. Either Walerku, or Alfonik, or me. You want something, I listen. And Walerku and Alfonik are going to listen too.”
Popielski was familiar with the practice of having a witness present during informal talks between police and underground crooks. These talks always took place in a crowded tavern and the witnesses were the thickest and most hard-line of outlaws who never lied to their collaborators, and who reacted violently if accused of deception. They acted as guarantee that the crook was not a police informer, and everyone believed them.
“Very well.” The Commissioner glanced at the bloated, pimply faces surrounding him. “But only these two citizens are to be witnesses.” He stood up abruptly, swept his eyes across the room and yelled: “And not the entire tavern! Well? Heads down to your plates!”
A hostile murmur and hissing rumbled through the smoky atmosphere. Popielski sat down and extracted a silver watch from his waistcoat pocket. At about seven every evening his body invariably sent signals that it was time for dinner. He skewered the cutlet on his fork, examined it carefully, then bit off a large mouthful. Tavern food served only one purpose: to temper the taste of vodka. The Sea Grotto’s all-in-one cook and barman, who arranged eggs in mayonnaise, cold sausage with equally cold cabbage, herrings, fried pork and pickled cucumbers on the bar counter, did not heed fashionable modern diets. No, he wanted only to make the consumption of alcohol more enjoyable, although many of his customers had not caught on and were drinking without nibbling on anything at all. The delicacies displayed beneath glass covers, and never fresh, made Popielski think of the girls who stood out on bridges; those prostitutes were no longer at their freshest, and they were rarely taken on either.
He poured himself a glass of vodka and swallowed it, helping it down with a piece of cucumber. A moment later he crunched the cutlet’s thin batter between his teeth. He adored the food in sordid taverns, even if he knew that he risked an upset stomach. He spent a long time savouring the taste of the meat. Downing another glass, he looked around the room. It was noisy, but the hubbub was more muted than it had been when the commissioner had first entered. It amused him that the thieves and bandits could not broach their usual subjects now. He bit off half a cutlet and this time devoured it greedily. He wiped his mouth with a napkin, pulled out his cigarette case and lit up an “Egyptian”, without offering one to his companions at the table. He knew what their response would be.
“Right, Gum, let me tell you why I’ve come to see you. What do you know about the assault on the old Jewish woman on Gęsia Street?” His eyes pierced the man sitting facing him. “That was not the work of an ordinary pickpocket. Someone robbed her and beat her up.”
“I don’t know anything about it. But I know something else …”
“Like?”
“It’s gonna be sad news to you, Commissioner.” Gum lit up his own shag. “It’s about your daughter. She’s in with some rough company.”
A curious defence mechanism switched on in Edward Popielski whenever he heard that someone was a
bout to say something bad about seventeen-year-old Rita. A scene from the mid-twenties would immediately appear before his eyes: a peaceful evening, the city quiet beneath a thick cover of snow, vespers at the Church of St Mary Magdalen near the Baworowski library. He is standing in the congregation with three-year-old Rita, pleased that the child is exceptionally calm and not running up and down the church or shouting and subjecting him to the unpleasant glances of women as old as mortal sin, as Bolesław Prus had once put it. He does not hold it against his little girl that she is not singing the Latin responses to the Mass which he has just taught her, or the carols as they had so entreated her to at Christmas Eve dinner. Despite a severe hangover resulting from his New Year’s celebrations, he is happy because Rita is standing obediently, not even demanding to sit in a pew. And then “Silent Night” begins, a carol he always sang softly to Rita throughout the year as she lay in bed at night, regardless of whether it was Lent, Advent or Easter. It was the little girl’s favourite song. As the organist draws out “in heavenly peace”, Popielski feels the girl huddle up to him. A moment later she is in his arms, pressing her burning face to his freshly shaven cheek. She is not singing, not playing up, but kissing her father on a cheek wet with tears.
Whenever this recollection thrust itself upon him, Popielski was prepared to forgive his daughter anything, even her first poor marks at school, one of them for Latin what’s more, and given by a teacher with a heart of gold who was a good friend of her father’s. This moment long past, one of the most beautiful in his life, allowed him to adopt a defensive attitude; whenever he suspected someone was about to criticize Rita, he would recall the scene. It was his shield. Up until now, however, the grievances had come from teachers, tutors, the school catechist, possibly from a shopkeeper at the local delicatessen to whom Rita had made a rude remark. At such times this image from the past had power. It muted the attacks, filtered complaints, extinguished all speculations. It appeared again now, but it was blurred, distorted, foggy, barely visible. In this current recollection Rita was not kissing her father. Instead she came close to his face in order to give him a hard bite. What he heard was no ordinary complaint, of which there had been many over the last few years. This accusation came from the mouth of Felicjan Kościuk, alias Felek Dziąsło, known as “Gum”, a dangerous criminal suspected of drowning his own illegitimate child in a cesspit. Popielski felt rivulets of sweat run down the smooth skin on his head and looked at the men around the table. They were smiling maliciously. They knew what Gum was going to tell him. They watched with satisfaction as Hairless wiped his head with a napkin and turned purple.