Mila 18 - Leon Uris [124]
Sauer proceeded to the booth next to the interrogation room. There, through an arrangement of mirrors, he could watch the interrogation without being seen. Sensitive microphones piped sounds back to him, refined to pick up heartbeats.
“Bring in that woman,” Sauer ordered.
He watched closely as Wolf sat fidgeting in the hard chair. All Wolf could think of now was to keep his mind on Rachael and keep thinking of her and keep saying to himself that she would be proud of him, no matter what happened.
The iron door creaked open.
Wolf looked toward it slowly. Two Gestapo men stood on either side of the figure of a woman, holding her up. They let her go. The woman staggered, then fell face first to the floor.
Wolf edged out of the chair toward her.
Sauer watched and listened. ...
He knelt and rolled the woman over. It was Rebecca Eisen. Her face was bloated and distorted. One eye was locked tight, a multitude of colors, and blood gushed from her broken mouth and her torn fingernails. She quivered the other eye open. They recognized one another.
“Lady,” Wolf said, “lady, are you alive? I wish I could do something for you, lady.”
“Boy ... boy ... water ...”
A small smile crossed Gunther Sauer’s lips. If they were actors, they had played it to perfection. Hershel Edelman was obviously clean, but the story was so pat—so untraceable—the boy mystified him so. ...
“What do you think, sir?” an assistant asked.
“They don’t know each other,” Sauer said. “On the other hand, they don’t have to if he was actually a contact. The violets—I’m not sure of the violets.”
“Shall we send a dog in there?”
“Let me think about it.”
The Club Miami on Karmelicka Street inside the ghetto was the Jewish counterpart of the notorious Granada Club in the Solec as the center of smuggling, fencing, and prostitution. At the moment, members of Max Kleperman’s Big Seven were the ruling gentry.
The Club Miami had a unique distinction as a “free trading zone.” All activities within the bounds of this unholy sanctuary were looked upon as “off the record.” This confidence was respected even by the Germans. The Nazis realized that, as often as not, they too would need the facilities of a “free trading zone” and thus allowed the operation to exist. A half dozen rooms in back of the main bar were used to carry out transactions which were never taped, nor were the transactors followed or photographed. Unwritten law, gentlemen’s agreement, honor among thieves.
Max Kleperman knew that something strange was afoot when he received a phone call from Rabbi Solomon to go to the Club Miami.
Max arrived, filled with eager anticipation of a huge deal. The bartender advised him his contact waited in one of the back rooms. He entered and closed the door. Andrei Androfski turned and faced him. Max’s inevitable cigar smoke billowed around the room. Extraordinary for Androfski himself to come to him.
“One of our people has been picked up,” Andrei said.
Max grunted in disappointment. From time to time the Zionists had come to him to arrange releases for those stupidly picked up by Piotr Warsinski for the labor battalions. Kleperman had made one big killing when Rodel, the Communist, was thrown into Pawiak. It may be a big one again, Max hoped. After all, Rabbi Solomon personally made the call and Androfski personally made the contact.
“Who?”
Andrei halted for a moment. “Wolf Brandel.”
Max whistled. It was getting interesting. He polished his outlandish ring hastily on his vest.
“Where is he?”
“Gestapo House.”
Max put his cigar down and shook his head. Work camps ... easy to make a fix. Pay off a few shnook guards. Koenig’s factories in the ghetto, a little harder. The money went right to Koenig and cost more. The Jewish Militia, hadn’t found one yet who wouldn’t go for two hundred zlotys. Pawiak Prison—difficult, but he always came through.
“Gestapo House,” Max said. “Brandel’s boy. I don’t know.”
Max calculated the pros and cons quickly. He could rat on the Brandel boy and endear himself to the Germans. It would be