Zehrt’s paranoia had infected Fritz. All the way back to his apartment, Fritz checked his mirrors, making certain he wasn’t being followed. At times he was the only car on a side street; he knew he was travelling alone.
Still he couldn’t shake the sense of unease as he stopped the car in front of his apartment building. The streetlights were bright here, and the sidewalks empty. The shadows were deep, though, near the trees and in the doorways. He paused in the car, checked as best he could, then let himself out.
In the morning he would report Zehrt’s terror to the Chief and see if something could be done to prevent the police coroner from being blackmailed by the NSDAP. In the morning, Fritz would also find a safer place for the paintings, and the negatives of Geli’s body.
In the morning he would find Frau Dachs and make her talk to him. Now more than ever he was convinced they had kept her from him, that she knew something she shouldn’t.
He closed the car door and the sound echoed on the empty street. His heart was pounding. If Zehrt had explained the nature of the blackmail, Fritz wouldn’t have been quite as nervous. But Zehrt had left it up to his imagination… and Fritz’s imagination was extremely vivid.
He walked around the car, keeping an eye open for any movement in the shadows before him. When he stepped into the pool of light left by the streetlight he heard a scrape behind him. He started to turn –
– as a body crashed into him. Only his preparedness kept him from being knocked off balance. He threw the man off him as another grabbed his side. Fritz stumbled sideways, threw the second man off, only to be hit by a third, and then a fourth.
The first came back for more, as did the second. Fritz punched the man in front of him while elbowing the one beside him and kicking the legs out from under the third. Then Fritz grabbed the fourth and tossed him into a nearby car. The first hit again, catching Fritz in the kidneys and sending pain shooting through his back. He punched the first man hard, brought the second down, and took a deep breath –
– when more men attacked him from the shadows. This time the men were too many to count. He was already winded from the first assault. They were hitting and kicking him, but Fritz fought back, using fists, elbows and feet. One attacker fell to the street, another hit the hood of the car, still another banged into the streetlight and slumped to the ground.
But they kept coming. A fist connected with Fritz’s nose, and blood spurted down his face. He was hitting blindly now, not sure how many attackers there were, how many still hiding. It seemed like for each he hit, another appeared. He was being buffeted by the strength of their blows, arms and legs flailing, connecting, being satisfied with each exclamation of pain from the other side.
Then hands clapped him around the ears, making him dizzy. He was choking on blood, its iron taste filling his mouth. He couldn’t breathe through his nose. He lashed out with his fists, but hands grabbed his wrists and pulled them together while a booted foot knocked his legs out from underneath him.
He landed hard on the bodies of the men he had felled. The wind left his body in a painful rush. The blood was in his mouth, his eyes, his nose. He couldn’t breathe.
Everything became a struggle for one mouthful of air. He rolled off his back, and encountered a foot. More feet – kicking him, his ribs, his back, his legs. He bent his head and pulled his arms around his head, feeling the blows in his shoulders. A metal-toed boot connected with his elbow, sending shooting, shuddering pain down his arm, but the blood was out of his mouth. He was breathing. He was breathing again.
But he couldn’t get up. He tried to pull himself toward the curb, but the boots wouldn’t let him. No one said anything. All he heard were the thuds and his own grunts of pain. They were all around him. He couldn’t get away. He thought of crawling under the car, but he couldn’t go in that direction either. The men below him were stirring, knocking him loose, and he fell to the cobblestone, his belly turned toward the kicking feet.
He rolled, lay flat, wishing they would stop, praying they would and suspecting they wouldn’t until they kicked him to death. He kept crawling and they kept pushing him back, until he had no more strength. Counter-intuitive, but part of the training: he had no hope, so he pretended to have none. He let his arms drop and his body go flat. When they kicked him, he kept the sounds bottled in his throat. He was beyond pain. Every part of him hurt, he couldn’t hurt any more. Blood ran hot and thick from his nose and pooled against his cheek on the cold stone.
The kicking stopped. Still he didn’t move. Something clattered on the stone beside him, but he didn’t look up to see what it was. The booted feet marched off in a unit – goose-stepped like they did at the Brown House. His eyes were closed. He saw flickering colours against his lids – green, red, sometimes yellow. He knew he should get up, but he didn’t want to, not yet. He was sure they would kick him again.
He was cold and the blood had dried on his face. He might have passed out; he didn’t know. All he knew was that someone was approaching. He heard a whistle – a tin whistle, Schupo whistle – and then voices, hushed, and frightened. As if they expected to get kicked for approaching him.
‘– call a doctor –’
‘– Kripoman who lives upstairs –’
‘– knew something would happen. Those men were here before dark –’
‘– is really famous, you know. Pictures in the papers and –’
‘– break into the apartment, ma’am?’
He focused on that voice. It was male. It sounded official.
‘Oh, no.’ The woman had spoken before. ‘I would have called for help if someone suspicious was in the building.’
Thanks, Fritz wanted to say, but he couldn’t get his lips to move. It felt as if every part of him was broken.
A car pulled up. He could feel its rumble in the stones beneath him. The men he had landed on were gone. He wondered when they left. He didn’t remember them getting up.
The conversation swirled around him, but he concentrated on the car. The door opened and someone wearing boots got out. He cringed at the sound of booted feet on cobblestone.
‘Ah, Christ!’
The Chief. The Chief was there. Fritz felt a relief so deep he nearly cried.
‘– know this man?’
‘Yeah.’ The Chief crouched beside him, cherry pipe tobacco mixing with the smell of blood. ‘Fritz, can you hear me? Fritz?’
Fritz lifted his right hand off the cobblestone, the pain so great he nearly passed out. He grabbed the Chief’s coat. The wool was warm and familiar.
‘The apartment,’ he said. ‘Don’t let them go. Guard it. Zehrt warned me.’
‘Zehrt is dead,’ the Chief said. ‘I was coming to tell you. He was hit by a car when he left his office tonight.’
Zehrt dead, and Fritz left for dead. He hadn’t got close. He had solved the case. The proof was all in the negative. They would have left him alone if he hadn’t been this close. They wouldn’t have killed Zehrt if the time of death weren’t important.
They were protecting Hitler.
All along, they had been protecting Hitler.
‘What’s this?’ the Chief said. He picked up something near Fritz’s face. Fritz squinted. A bit of silver reflected in the light. He had seen it before. A swastika, once the symbol for the Teutonic Knights, lately co-opted by the Brownshirts. Hitler’s men. They had meant the attack as a warning.
But to whom?