The Odessa File

‘I suppose that’s the end of what Stuttgart has to offer in the way of night life,’ observed Miller as he slipped into his own.

‘Ha, silly boy. That’s all you know. We have a great little city here, you know. Half a dozen good cabarets. You fancy going on to one?’

‘You mean, there are cabarets, with strip-tease and everything?’ asked Miller, pop-eyed.

Bayer wheezed with mirth.

‘Are you talking? I wouldn’t be against the idea of watching some of the little ladies take their clothes off.’

Bayer tipped the coat-check girl handsomely and waddled outside.

‘What night-clubs are there in Stuttgart?’ asked Miller innocently.

‘Well now, let’s see. There’s the Moulin Rouge, the Balzac, the Imperial and the Sayonara. Then there’s the Madeleine in Eberhard Strasse …’

‘Eberhardt? Good Lord, what a coincidence. That was my boss in Bremen, the man who got me out of this mess and passed me on to the lawyer in Nuremberg!’ exclaimed Miller.

‘Good. Good. Excellent. Let’s go there then,’ said Bayer and led the way to his car.

Mackensen reached the Three Moors at quarter past eleven. He inquired of the head waiter, supervising the departure of the last guests.

‘Herr Bayer? Yes, he was here tonight. Left about half an hour ago.’

‘He had a guest with him? A tall man with short brown hair and a moustache?’

‘That’s right. I remember them. Sitting at the corner table over there.’

Mackensen slipped a twenty-mark note into the man’s hand without difficulty.

‘It’s vitally important that I find him. It’s an emergency. His wife, you know, a sudden collapse …’

The head waiter’s face puckered with concern.

‘Oh dear, how terrible.’

‘Do you know where they went from here?’

‘I confess I don’t,’ said the head waiter. He called to one of the junior waiters. ‘Hans, you served Herr Bayer and his guest at the corner table. Did they mention if they were going on anywhere?’

‘No,’ said Hans. ‘I didn’t hear them say anything about going on anywhere.’

‘You could try the hat-check girl,’ suggested the head waiter. ‘She might have heard them say something.’

Mackensen asked the girl. Then he asked for a copy of the tourist booklet, ‘What’s on in Stuttgart’. In the section for cabarets were half a dozen names. In the middle pages of the booklet was a street map of the city centre. He walked back to his car and headed for the first name on the list of cabarets.

Miller and Bayer sat at a table for two in the Madeleine night-club. Bayer, on his second large tumbler of whisky, stared with pop eyes at a generously endowed young woman gyrating her hips in the centre of the floor while her fingers unhooked the fasteners of her brassie`re. When it finally came off Bayer jabbed Miller in the ribs with his elbow.

‘What a pair, eh, lad, what a pair?’ he chuckled.

He was quivering with mirth.

It was well after midnight and he was becoming very drunk.

‘Look, Herr Bayer, I’m worried,’ whispered Miller. ‘I mean it’s me who’s on the run. How soon can you make this passport for me?’

Bayer draped his arm round Miller’s shoulders.

‘Look, Rolf, my old buddy, I’ve told you. You don’t have to worry, see? Just leave it to old Franz.’ He winked broadly. ‘Anyway, I don’t make the passports. I just send off the photographs to the chap who makes them, and a week later back they come. No problem. Now, have a drink with old pal Franz.’