“You think I might hurt myself? No.” He held up the razor, looking at it. “Do you know how many times I’ve thought how easy it would be? One cut, that’s all, and it’s over.” He shook his head. “I could never do it. I don’t know why. I tried. I put the razor here,” he said, touching his throat, “but I couldn’t cut. You think it would cut me now? An accident?” He turned sideways to look at Jake. “I don’t believe in accidents.” He faced the mirror again. “So tell me about our case.”
Jake shifted on the tub rim, disconcerted. Not the drink talking, the voice behind the drink, suddenly naked, not even aware of being exposed, like someone in a window taking off his clothes. What goes through your head when you feel a razor on your throat? But now it was there again, taking a calm, neat stroke upward through the soap, guided by a survivor’s steady hand.
Jake started to talk, his words following the rhythmic scraping, trying to match the logical path of the shave, down one cheek, curving around the corners of the mouth, but soon the story went off on its own, darting from one place to another, the way it had actually happened. There was a lot Gunther didn’t know. The serial-number dash. Kransberg. Frau Dzuris. Even young Willi, loitering in Professor Brandt’s street. At times Jake thought Gunther had stopped listening, stretching his skin to draw the razor closer without nicking, but then he would grunt and Jake knew he was registering the points, his mind clearing with each swipe of his soapy face.
Bernie came in with more coffee and stayed, leaning against the door and watching Gunther’s expression in the mirror, for once not interrupting. A Russian kneeling in front of a Horch, gun out. Meister Toll. Gunther rinsed the blade and splashed his face clean.
“Is this presentable enough for you?” he said to Bernie.
“Just like new. Here’s a shirt,” he said, handing it over.
“So what do you think?” Jake said.
“Everything’s mixed up,” Gunther said absently, wiping his face.
“I’ve confused you.”
“It’s more, I think, that you have confused yourself.”
Jake looked at him.
“Herr Geismar, you cannot do police work by intuition. Follow the points, like a bookkeeper. You have two problems, so you make two columns. Keep them separate, don’t leap from column to column.”
“But they connect.”
“Only at Kransberg. Who knows? Maybe the one coincidence. The obvious point, you know, is that Tully wasn’t looking for Herr Brandt. The others, yes. Not him.” He shook his head, slipping into the shirt. “No, put your numbers down in order, each in its own column. It is only when the same number comes up that you have a match, the connection.”
“Maybe they connect at Potsdam. That keeps coming up.”
“Yes, and why?” Gunther said, buttoning the shirt. “I’ve never understood about Potsdam. What was he doing there? And that day, a closed city.”
“You asked me to check on that,” Bernie said. “Passes into the American compound. Zero. No Tully.”
“But he was found there,” Jake said. “Russian sector, Russian money.”
“Yes, the money. It’s a useful point.” Gunther picked up the coffee cup again, drinking. “If he got Russian money, it must have been here. But not from an Ivan buying watches, I think. Who has so much? Have you heard anything from Alford?” No.
“Try again. The tie also?” he said to Bernie.
“You want to look your best for the judge,” Bernie said.
Jake sighed, stymied. “Danny won’t get us anywhere. We have to find Emil.“
Gunther turned to the mirror, slipping the tie underneath his collar. “Keep your columns separate. There isn’t yet the connection.”
“And I suppose the shooting in Potsdam wasn’t connected either.”
“No. There a number matches.”
“Shaeffer, you mean.”
“Herr Geismar, you have a gift for ignoring the obvious. A gift.” He leaned toward the mirror, knotting his tie. “There are three people standing in the market. Close. When you describe it, you see a gun pointing at the photographer. But I see her bending down. I see it pointing at you.”
For a second Jake just stared at Gunther, the sharp eyes no longer cloudy, now cleared by caffeine. “Me?” he said, little more than a surprised intake of air.
“A man who finds a body, who investigates a murder. Do you mean this hasn’t occurred to you? Who else? A soldier, for raiding the Zeiss works? Perhaps. The lady? And it might be, you know-you’re quick to look away from her. The person shot is usually the one intended. But let’s say this time you’re right, a piece of luck. Luck for you.”
Stepping into his bullet, dead because he was lucky.
“I don’t believe it.”
“When did you first see the Horch? On the Avus, you said. Soon after you left Gelferstrasse.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Try this point. Nobody started shooting until we met Shaeffer.”
“Away from the crowd. And if you had both been shot? An incident. No longer just you.”
“But why-”
“Because you are dangerous to someone, of course. A detective is.”
“I don’t believe it,” Jake said, his voice less sure than before.
