“No.” It might have been nice.
“Just old Shaeffer, huh? You saved the wrong one, if you ask me.”
“She was already dead.”
Ron shook his head. “Fucking Dodge City. Nobody’s safe out there.”
Jake thought of Gunther, reading westerns, going through his points. “So we fire the police,” he said.
“We’re the police,” Ron said, looking at him curiously. “Anyway, what difference would it make?” He turned to go. “You never know, do you? When your number’s up, that’s it.”
“That wasn’t it. Somebody shot her.”
“Well, sure,” Ron said, then turned back. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying somebody shot her. Not an accident.”
Ron peered at him. “Are you all right? There were only about a hundred witnesses, you know.”
“They’re wrong.”
“Everyone but you. Then who did it?”
“What?”
“Who did it? Somebody shoots, not an accident, it’s the first thing I’d want to know.”
Jake stared. “You’re right. Who was he?”
“Some Russian,” Ron said, at a loss.
“Nobody’s just some Russian. Who was he?” he said to himself, then gathered up the photographs to leave. “Thanks.”
“Where are you going?”
“To see a policeman. A real one.”
But it was Bernie who answered the door in Kreuzberg.
“You picked a fine time. Come on, as long as you’re here. We have to get him on his feet.”
Jake looked around the room-the same messy hodgepodge as before, everything smelling of fresh coffee. Gunther was bent over a mug, breathing in the steam, head nodding, the map of Berlin behind him.
“What’s up?”
“The trial. He’s in the witness box in an hour, so what does he do? Goes on a bender. I get here, he’s on the fucking floor.”
“What trial?”
“Your pal Renate. The greifer. Today’s the day. Here, help me get him up.”
“Herr Geismar,” Gunther said, looking up from the mug, eyes bleary.
“Drink the coffee,” Bernie snapped. “All these weeks and now he pulls this.” Gunther was rising unsteadily. “Think you can manage a shave, or should we do it for you?”
“I can shave myself,” Gunther said stiffly.
“What about clothes?” Bernie said. “You can’t go looking like that.” A dirty undershirt marked with stains.
Gunther nodded toward the closet, then turned to Jake. “So how goes your case? I thought you had given up.”
“No. I’ve got lots to tell you.”
“Good,” Bernie said. “Talk to him. Maybe that’ll wake him up.” He opened the closet and pulled out a dark suit. “This fit?”
“Of course.”
“It better. You’re going to make a good impression if I have to hold you up.”
“It’s so important to you?” Gunther said, his voice distant.
“She sent your wife to the ovens. Isn’t it important to you?”
Gunther looked down and took another sip of coffee. “So what is it you want, Herr Geismar?”
“I need you to talk to your Russian friends. Find out about somebody. There was a shooting in Potsdam.”
“Always Potsdam,” Gunther said, a grunt.
“A Russian shot a friend of mine. I want to know who he is. Was.” Gunther raised his eyes. “Somebody shot back.”
“His name isn’t on the report?” Gunther said, a cop’s question.
“Not just his name. Who he was.”
“Ah, the who,” Gunther said, drinking more coffee. “So, another case.”
The same case.
“The same?” Bernie said, following the conversation from the closet. “They said it was an accident. A robbery. It was in the papers.”
“It wasn’t a robbery,” Jake said. “I was there. It was a setup.” He looked at Gunther. “The shooting was the point. They just happened to get the wrong person.”
“That was your friend.”
Jake nodded. “The man they wanted took one in the shoulder.”
“Not a sharpshooter, then,” Gunther said, using the western term.
“It’s easy to miss in a crowd. You know what the market’s like. All hell broke loose. Shooting all over the place. Ask your friend Sikorsky.”
Gunther looked up from his coffee. “He was in the market? In Potsdam?”
Jake smiled. “Peddling cigarettes. Maybe he was buying a rug, I don’t know. He got out fast enough when the shooting started, just like everybody else.”
“Then he didn’t see the first shots.”
“I saw them.”
“Go on,” Gunther said.
“Talk while you shave,” Bernie said, nudging him toward the bathroom. “I’ll get more coffee.”
Gunther shuffled to the sink, obedient, and stood for a minute in front of the mirror looking at himself, then started to lather his face with a brush. Jake sat on the edge of the tub.
“Don’t be long,” Bernie said from the other room. “We have to go over your testimony one last time.”
“We’ve been over my testimony,” Gunther said to the mirror grimly, his grizzled face slowly disappearing under a film of soap.
“You don’t want to forget anything.”
“Don’t worry,” Gunther said, to himself now, leaning on the sink. “I won’t forget.”
He picked up a straight-edge razor, his hand shaking.
“Are you going to be all right?” Jake said quietly. “Do you want me to do that?”
