After a moment, though, Webber’s face broke into a smile. “But I will admit I am not as insulted as I ought to be, Mr. Schumann.”

Paul blinked. He’d never told Webber his name.

“You see, I had my doubts about you too. At the Aryan Café, our first meeting, when you walked past me to refresh your makeup, as my girls would say, I palmed your passport and had a look. Ach, you didn’t smell like a National Socialist but, as you suggest, one can never be too careful in this mad town of ours. So I made inquiries about you. You have no connection with Wilhelm Street that my contact was able to uncover. How was my skill, by the way? You felt nothing, did you, when I took your passport?”

“No,” Paul said, smiling ruefully.

“So I think we have achieved enough mutual respect ” – he laughed wryly – “to be able to consider a business proposition. Please continue, Mr. John Dillinger. Tell me what you have in mind.”

Paul counted out a hundred of the marks Morgan had given him and passed them to Webber, whose eyebrow rose.

“What do you wish to buy?”

“I need some information.”

“Ach, information. Yes, yes. That could cost one hundred marks. Or it could cost much more. Information about what or whom?”

He regarded the dark eyes of the man sitting across from him. “Reinhard Ernst.”

Webber’s lower lip jutted out and he cocked his head. “So at last the pieces fall into place. You are here for a very interesting new Olympic event. Big-game hunting. And you have made a good choice, my friend.”

“Good?” Paul asked.

“Yes, yes. The colonel is making many changes here. And not for the country’s benefit. He’s getting us ready for mischief. The Little Man’s a fool but he gathers smart people around him and Ernst is one of the smartest.” Webber lit up one of his foul cigars. Paul, a Chesterfield, breaking only two matches from the cheap box to get a flame this time.

Webber’s eyes were distant. “I served the Kaiser for three years. Until the surrender. Oh, I did some brave things, I’ll tell you. My company once advanced over a hundred meters against the British and it only took us two months to do it. Earned us some medals, that one did. Those of us who survived. There are plaques in some villages that say only, To the fallen. The towns couldn’t afford enough bronze to put all the names of the dead on them.” He shook his head. “You Yankees had the Maxims. We had our Machine-Gun. Same as the Maxims. We stole the design from you, or you stole it from us. I don’t recall which. But the Britons, ach, they had the Vickers. Water-cooled. Now, that was a snuff grinder, for you. That was quite a piece of metalwork… No, no, we don’t want another war, what ever the Little Man says, none of us do. That would be the end of everything. And that’s what the colonel is up to.” Webber slipped the hundred marks into his pocket and puffed on his vile ersatz cigar. “What do you need to know?”

“His schedule at Wilhelm Street. When he arrives for work, when he leaves, what kind of car he drives, where he parks, will he be there tomorrow, Monday or Tuesday, what routes he takes, any cafés he favors in the area.”

“One can find out anything, given enough time. And egg.”

“Egg?”

He tapped his pocket. “Money. I must be honest, Mr. John Dillinger. We are not talking about palming off three-day-old canal trout from the Landwehr as fresh from the Havel. This is a matter that will require me to retire for a time. There will be serious repercussions and I will have to go underground. There will be-”

“Otto, just give me a number.”

“Very dangerous… Besides, what is money to you Americans? You have your FDR.” In English he said, “You’re rolling on dough.”

“ In dough,” Paul corrected. “A number?”

“A thousand U.S. dollars.”

“What?”

“Not marks. They say the Inflation’s over but nobody who’s lived through that time believes it. Why, in 1928 a liter of petrol cost five hundred thousand marks. And in-”

Paul shook his head. “That’s a lot of money.”

“But it’s really not – if I get you your information. And I guarantee I will. You pay me only half up front.”

Paul pointed to Webber’s pocket, where the marks resided. “ That’s your down payment.”

“But-”

“You get paid the rest when and if the information pans out. And if I get approval.”

“I’ll have expenses.”

Paul slipped him the remaining hundred. “There.”

“Hardly enough but I’ll make do.” Then Webber looked over Paul closely. “I’m curious.”

“About what?”

“About you, Mr. John Dillinger. What’s your tale?”

“There is no tale.”

“Ach, there’s always a tale. Go ahead, tell Otto your story. We’re in business together now. That’s closer than being in bed. And remember, he sees all, the truth and the lies. You seem an unlikely candidate for this job. Though perhaps that is why you were chosen to visit our fair city. Because you seem unlikely. How did you get into this noble profession of yours?”

Paul said nothing for a moment, then: “My grandfather came to America years ago. He’d fought in the Franco-Prussian War and wanted no more fighting. He started a printing company.”

“What was his name?”

“Wolfgang. He said printing ink was in his veins and claimed that his ancestors had lived in Mainz and worked with Gutenberg.”

“A grandfather’s stories,” Webber said, nodding. “Mine said he was Bismarck’s cousin.”

“His company was on the Lower East Side of New York in the German-American area of the city. In 1904 there was a tragedy – over a thousand people from there were killed in an excursion ship fire in the East River. The General Slocum.”

“Ach, what a sad thing.”

“My grandfather was on the boat. He and my grandmother weren’t killed but he was badly burned saving people and he couldn’t work any longer. Then most of the German community moved to Yorkville, farther north in Manhattan. People were too sad to stay in Little Germany. His business was going to fail, with Grandpapa being so sick and fewer people around to order printing. So my father took over. He didn’t want to be a printer; he wanted to play baseball. You know baseball?”

“Ach, of course.”

“But there was no choice. He had a wife and my sister and my brother and me to feed – my grandparents now too. But he, we would say, rose to the occasion. He did his duty. He moved to Brooklyn, added English-language printing and expanded the company. Made it very successful. My brother couldn’t go into the army during the War and they ran the shop together when I was in France. After I got back I joined them and we built the place up real nice.” He laughed. “Now I don’t know if you heard about this, but our country had this thing called Prohibition. You know-”

“Yes, yes, of course. I read the crime shockers, remember. Illegal to drink liquor! Madness!”

“My father’s plant was right on the river in Brooklyn. It had a dock and a large warehouse for storing paper and the finished jobs. One of the gangs wanted to take it over and use it to store whisky they’d smuggle in from the harbor. My father said no. A couple of thugs came to see him one day. They beat up my brother and, when my father still resisted, they put his arms in our big letterpress.”

“Oh, no, my friend.”

Paul continued. “He was mangled badly. He died a few days later. And my brother and mother sold the plant to them the next day for a hundred dollars.”

“So you were out of work and you fell in with a difficult crowd?” Webber nodded.

“No, that’s not what happened,” Paul said softly. “I went to the police. They weren’t interested in helping find these particular killers. You understand?”

“Are you asking if I know about corrupt police?” Webber laughed hard.

“So I found my old army Colt, my pistol. I learned who the killers were. I followed them for a week straight. I learned everything about them. And I touched them off.”