Private Berlin (Private 5)

“That’s not true,” he said, and turned as if to get away from her.

But Inspector Weigel stood in his way.

CHAPTER 112

MATTIE AND HIGH Commissar Dietrich exited the S-Bahn at Alexanderplatz. They crossed the plaza where the protests had peaked before the fall of the wall.

Dietrich was on his cell phone. Mattie snapped hers shut in frustration; since leaving central Kripo headquarters, she’d been trying unsuccessfully to reach her aunt Cäcilia, Niklas, and Tom Burkhart. She’d not heard from any of them the entire day.

Mattie glanced at the high commissar, who was listening closely. She had thought his career was finished when he admitted to lying his way into Berlin Kripo, but his boss, Carl Gottschalk, had surprised her, telling Dietrich he would face a severe disciplinary hearing and probably suspension, but in the meantime he was to use his father’s contacts to find Falk.

Dietrich hung up and smiled at her in chagrin. “Your associate, Frau Doruk, was right. Weigel just placed Rudy Krüger and his girlfriend under arrest for Agnes’s murder.”

Mattie shook her head. “The anarchist did it for the money.”

They turned onto Karl-Marx-Allee just as night fully seized Berlin. The temperature had been climbing all afternoon, but a wind was picking up. As they passed the Café Moskau, Mattie smelled ozone.

A storm was coming. Fast.

“There he is,” Dietrich said, slowing and gesturing toward a glass-walled and steel-framed box of a building that exuded a soft, silvery glow. “Other side of the bar, his back to the wall.”

Mattie peered into the Bar Babette, one of the hippest watering holes in Berlin, with a retro 1960s décor and an artsy clientele. The place was sparsely populated at this early hour of the evening. Even so, the stout old man in the gray suit and dark topcoat looked jarringly out of place.

“Let me do the talking,” Dietrich said and went to the front door.

Mattie followed him into the bar and looked over his shoulder at the man sitting in the suit and topcoat before a tumbler of vodka.

His face was rectangular, sloughing, and pale. Pouches of wrinkled skin hung below his watery eyes, which were huge, dull blue, and watchful. He studied Dietrich and Mattie in turn.

“Who is this woman, Hans?” the old man asked.

“Her name is Mattie Engel, Willy,” Dietrich said. “She used to be a valued member of Kripo, but we lost her talents to Private Berlin a few years ago. She’s been working on the same case.”

The man nodded and held out his hand. “You can think of me as Willy Fassbinder. It’s not my real name, but no matter. Hans tells me you wish to talk about life in the East before the wall fell. Are you new to Berlin?”

“I grew up in West Berlin,” she said. “But to be more exact, we—”

But Fassbinder spoke right over her. “Did you know that this was the cultural center, the nucleus of the arts and society in the GDR?” He pointed out the window. “The Kino International across the street was where all the great films premiered. The Café Moskau was the most famous club in the East. Just next door here was the Mokka-Milch-Eisbar, the best place for children to eat ice cream in all of East Germany. They had these little slivers of chocolate they’d put on sundaes that they called Pittiplatsch. My daughter loved them. Do remember the Eisbar, Hans? They wrote a song about it. A big hit.”

Dietrich replied, “I remember the song, but I never came here, Willy.”

“No?” Fassbinder said, seeming surprised. He smiled at Mattie. “And this place was a beauty salon: Babette’s Cosmetique. My late wife would come here every other Tuesday to have her hair and nails done in the latest styles from Moscow and Leningrad.” His face was melancholy with nostalgia. “It’s why I suggested this place to meet when Hans said you wanted to speak of the past. I often come here to think of those days.”

CHAPTER 113

A WAITRESS CAME to take their orders, espressos for Mattie and Dietrich and two more fingers of vodka on the rocks for Fassbinder.

As soon as she walked away, Dietrich said, “Actually, Willy, we wanted to talk to you about things and events that may have occurred within the Ministry for State Security, things and events that my father may have described to you in a drunken late-night telephone conversation many, many years ago.”

Fassbinder’s nostrils flared instantly, and Mattie sensed a wall go up around him. She doubted they would get cooperation from the old man.

“Most Berliners have moved on, Hans,” Fassbinder said crisply after several moments of silence. “They no longer wish to talk of the ministry.”

“Please, Willy. I tried to talk of these things with my father right before he collapsed and died. His secrets killed him. I saw it with my own eyes.”

Fassbinder’s attitude changed several degrees, as though he were wondering about his own impending fate. Finally, he asked, “What things?”

Mattie said, “The slaughterhouse in Ahrensfelde and a man named Falk. We believe he worked there for the Stasi.”