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“Would anyone care to offer odds,” Cronley asked, “on whether Wilhelm Reiss has somehow slipped away from where Casey ordered he be locked up, or that when we get to Sergeant Brownlee’s love nest, his fiancée will have departed for parts unknown?”
There were no takers.
“And I don’t suppose anyone
knows where I can acquire a coffin at a reasonable price?”
“Why do you want to buy a coffin?” Colonel Thomas asked.
“The late Sturmführer Luther Stauffer was my cousin, Colonel. My mother would want me to see that he receives a proper burial.”
XV
[ONE]
The Bar
Farber Palast
Stein, near Nuremberg
American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1955 1 March 1946
Miss Janice Johansen of the Associated Press was sitting at a table when Cronley walked in with Tiny Dunwiddie and their bodyguards.
“I wonder how long Guinevere has been patiently—maybe impatiently—waiting for her Galahad to come home,” Dunwiddie asked softly.
“Fuck you,” Cronley said, and then as they approached the table, “Well, if it isn’t Miss Johansen of the Associated Press. What a pleasant surprise!”
“Sit down, Super Spook, and tell me all about Murder in the Tribunal Prison.”
“You know he can’t talk about that,” Tiny said.
“After I have a double Johnnie Walker Black on your tab and you swear on your mother’s grave that you won’t file it until I tell you you can,” Cronley said.
“Deal,” she said, and waved to attract the attention of a waiter. “I’ll even buy one for Tiny.”
As the drinks were being served, Ivan Serov and his aide-de-camp, Major Sergei Alekseevich, approached the table. Alekseevich was carrying a large bundle of flowers and Serov two bottles, one champagne and the other vodka.
“And now I wonder how long they’ve been waiting,” Tiny said softly.
Alekseevich handed the flowers to Cronley, and Serov set the bottles on the table.
“With the compliments of General Iona Nikitchenko,” Serov said.
“I’m flattered that the Number Two Soviet judge sends me flowers, but you’re going to have to tell him that Janice has already won my heart,” Cronley said.
Alekseevich’s face tightened at the implication. Serov laughed heartily.
“The general knows we’re chums . . .”
Chums?
Is that what we are?
My trouble with Comrade Ivan is that while my brain knows what an unmitigated—and dangerous—sonofabitch he is, I still like him.
