Private Berlin (Private 5)

CHAPTER 80

MY FRIENDS, FELLOW Berliners, cruising at one hundred and thirty kilometers an hour, I should make it home to my city of scars just in time for a late-afternoon appointment I cannot afford to miss.

I yawn. It took me more than an hour and a half to reach the train station and ride back to the auto show. But the Mercedes was right where I left it, far from the police sure to be jamming hall number one.

I’ve been driving ever since, and I confess I’m tired.

I should pull over and sleep, my friends.

But there is so much left to do before I can even think of resting.

So I reach in the glove compartment and get out a bottle of amphetamines. I take two, think about it, and then down another.

I turn on the radio and listen to descriptions of Artur Jaeger’s murder and the chase on the autobahn. They’ve found the Maserati and are taking DNA samples from it.

It doesn’t bother me. There’s nothing that can match me to the car.

As the uppers kick in, I glance over at the folder on the seat beside me. I open it and turn over the picture of Artur and his mother from his archived file. Beneath it is a picture of two girls, one nine, one six. They’re hugging each other.

Ilona and Ilse.

I tried every trick I knew to get Ilse to tell me where Ilona lived. But she refused right up until the end. The only thing she’d tell me was that Ilona was mentally ill and a methadone addict because of me.

And then it hits me.

Methadone addict.

It means she has a license. It means Ilona goes to a clinic.

She can be found.

She can die tonight, if I’m lucky, and with her almost all my secrets.

Ilona Frei? I muse. Ilona?

I glance at the photo.

Such a name someone gave you. Ilona. What did your name used to be?

No matter. I’d remember you no matter what they called you. You looked so very much like your younger sister, not like your mother at all.

CHAPTER 81

BURKHART AND MATTIE followed Michelle as she sashayed down a hallway at the Paradise FKK. There were doors on both sides.

“Where are we going?” Mattie asked, feeling uneasy.

“To talk to Genevieve,” Michelle said as she rounded a corner.

Mattie followed reluctantly, with Burkhart walking beside her, still clutching his towel. Set against the walls of the hall and between the doors were gilded sofas with deep purple velvet upholstery. On one couch, a naked woman’s head bobbed in the lap of a man whose eyes were closed.

“They’re doing it in public?” Mattie whispered sharply at Burkhart.

He sputtered, “It’s not my idea of fun.”

Michelle meanwhile went to the last door on the right, rapped loudly, and said, “It’s Michelle, Genevieve. Please stop what you’re doing, and tell your client he will incur no charges for time spent.”

A moment later, an irate Italian man appeared in the doorway and started to upbraid Michelle for the interruption. Burkhart stepped forward, towering over the guy, and told him to hit the showers. The man hesitated but then stormed away, railing in Italian.