A Quiet Flame

“Yeah.” Grund flashed his warrant disc for good measure. “Try the Eldorado.”

Gerda thought that was funny. The Eldorado was a club for transvestite men. The bubi, sullen and predatory-looking, like someone’s outcast uncle, got up and went away. We sat down on chairs as wobbly as Gerda’s remaining teeth.

“I know you,” she told me. “You’re that cop, aren’t you?”

I put a ten under her bottle.

“What’s the idea, putting a shine on my table? I don’t know nothing.”

“Sure you do, Gerda,” I told her. “Everyone knows something.”

“Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t.” She nodded. “I’m glad you’re here, anyway, Commissar. I don’t like that mon bijou scene. You know? The ladies’ club scorpions. I mean, beggars can’t be choosers, and I’d have done it with her if she’d asked me nicely, you know? But I take no pleasure in a woman touching me down there.”

I put a cigarette in Gerda’s mouth and lit it. She was thin, with short red hair, bluish eyes, and a reddish face. She drank too much, although she could hold it well enough. Most of the time. The one time I knew she couldn’t, she’d fallen down in front of a number 13 tram on Köpenicker Strasse. She might easily have been killed. Instead she lost her left arm and her left leg.

“I remember now,” she said. “You put Ricci Kamm in the hospital.” Smiling happily, she added, “You deserve an Iron Cross for that, copper.”

“As usual, you’re well informed, Gerda.”

I lit my own cigarette and tossed her the pack. Easily amused—I figured that was how he became a Nazi in the first place—Grund was already paying more attention to the show than to our conversation.

“Tell me, Gerda. Did you ever see a snapper with a caliper, age about fifteen? Blond, boyish, carried a stick. Name of Anita. She had cerebral palsy. A spastic. We know she was selling it, because we found a bedroll in her pocket and because the neighbors said she was selling it.”

“Neet? Yeah, I heard she was dead, poor kid.” Gerda poured herself a drink from the bottle and swallowed it in one, like it was cold coffee. “Came in here sometimes. Nicely spoken girl, considering.”

“Considering what?” asked Grund. His eyes remained on the stripper’s teats, which were altogether larger than would have seemed probable.

“Considering she couldn’t speak very well.” Gerda made a noise that came mostly out of her nose. “Talked like that, you know?”

“What else can you tell us about her?” I refilled Gerda’s glass and poured one for myself, just to look sociable.

“From what I gathered, she didn’t get on with her parents. They didn’t like her being a gimp, you know? And of course they didn’t like her being on the sledge. She didn’t do it all the time, mind. Just when she wanted to irritate them, I think. Her dad was something in the Nazi Party, and it used to piss him off that she’d come out and sell it sometimes.”

“Hard to believe,” murmured Grund. “That anyone would. You know. With a disabled kid.”

Gerda laughed. “Oh no, darling. It’s not hard to believe at all. Lots of men do it with disabled girls. In fact, it’s quite the thing these days. I expect it’s something to do with the war. All those terrible injuries some of the men came home with. Left a lot of them feeling quite inadequate, in all sorts of ways. I think that doing it with gravel helps them find the confidence to get it up. Makes them feel superior to the gimp they’re with. It’s cheaper, too, of course. Cheaper than the regular. People don’t have the money for that kind of thing. Not like they used to.” She shot Grund an amused, pitying look. “Oh no, dearie. I’ve seen girls with half a face find a fritz in here. ’Sides, most fritzes aren’t looking at you anyway. Won’t meet your eye. So what a girl’s shine looks like or whether she’s got all her bits is not as important as the fact that she’s got her mouse.” Gerda laughed. “No, darling, you ask some of your mates at work and they’ll tell you the same thing. You don’t look at the whole house when you’re putting a letter in the box.”

“Coming back to Anita,” I said. “Was there ever anyone in particular you saw her with? A regular fritz? Anything at all.”

Gerda grinned. “How about a name?” She put some raw-looking fingers on the ten. “Make it a gypsy and I’ll give you his Otto Normal.”

I took out my wallet and put another ten on the table.

“As a matter of fact, there was a guy. One guy in particular. Licked his lollipop myself once or twice. But he preferred Anita. Name of Serkin. Rudi Serkin. She went to his apartment once or twice. It was in that big rent barracks on Mulackstrasse. The one with all the entrances and exits.”

“The Ochsenhof?” said Grund.

“That’s the one.”

“But that’s in Always True territory,” he said.

“So take an armored car.”