The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [237]
“Four men. Just got out of a car and are approaching the front gate. By description one looks like the American, Osborn. Another might be McVey .”
Von Holden swore under his breath. “Hold them at the gate! Under no circumstances are they to be let inside!”
Abruptly he heard a man identify himself as Inspector Remmer of the BKA and say that he had police business inside the palace. Then he heard the familiar voice of Pappen, his security chief, defy him. This was a private affair, with private security. The police had no business there. Remmer said that he had a warrant for the arrest of Erwin Scholl. Pappen said he never heard of an Erwin Scholl, and unless Remmer had a warrant to enter the property, he would not be allowed inside.
McVey and Osborn followed Remmer and Schneider across the cobblestone courtyard toward the palace entrance. When even the threat of the fire marshal’s closing the building didn’t dissuade them. Remmer had radioed for three backup units. Lights flashing, they’d arrived within seconds and taken the chief of security and his lieutenant into custody for interfering with a police operation.
Racing through traffic, Von Holden pulled up in the snarl created by Remmer’s action just as Pappen and his second in command were wrestled into a police car and driven away. Getting out of the cab, he stood beside it and watched the remainder of his central gate security force step aside as the intruders reached the front door and entered the building.
Scholl would be furious, but he’d brought it on himself. Von Holden knew at the time he should have argued longer and harder, but he hadn’t, and it made the truth all that more bitter.
There was no doubt in his mind, none whatsoever, that had he been at the Hotel Borggreve, neither Osborn nor McVey would now be at Charlottenburg.
119
* * *
WEARING A big Hollywood smile, Louis Goetz came down the grand stairway toward the men waiting at the bottom.
“Detective McVey,” he said, immediately picking McVey out and extending his hand. “I’m Louis Goetz, Mr. Scholl’s attorney. Why don’t we go someplace we can talk.”
Goetz led the way through a maze of hallways and into a large paneled gallery and closed the door. The room had polished gray-white marble floor and was coupled at either end by enormous fireplaces of the same material. A sidewall groaned with the weight of heavy tapestries and opposite, French doors opened to a lighted formal garden that faded quickly into the darkness beyond. Over the door they had entered hung a 1712 portrait of Sophie-Charlotte herself, the corpulent, double-chinned queen of Prussia.
“Sit down, gentlemen,” Goetz gestured toward a gathering of high-backed chairs placed around a long, ornate table. “Geez, Detective, that’s a mess. What happened?” he said, looking at McVey’s facial burns.
“I was kind of sloppy about watching what was cooking,” McVey said with a straight face and eased into one of the chairs. “Doctor suspects I’ll live.”
Osborn sat down across from McVey, and Remmer pulled up a chair beside him. Schneider stood back near the door. They didn’t want this looking like an invasion of detectives.
“Mr. Scholl had set time aside to see you earlier. I’m afraid he’s tied up for the rest of the evening. Right afterward he leaves for South America.” Goetz sat down at the head of the table.
“Mr. Goetz, we’d just like to see him for a few minutes before he leaves,” McVey said.
“That won’t be possible tonight, Detective. Maybe when he gets back to L.A.”
“When’s that?”
“March of next year.” Goetz smiled as if he’d just given a punch line, then held up a hand. “Hey, it’s true. I’m not trying to be a wise-ass.”
“Then I guess we better see him now.” McVey was dead serious and Goetz knew it.
Goetz sat back sharply. “You know who Erwin Scholl is? You know who he’s entertaining up there?” He glanced at the ceiling. “What the hell do you think, he’s gonna get up in the middle of everything and come down here to talk to you?”
From upstairs came the sound of an orchestra playing a Strauss waltz. It reminded