Jeffery Deaver - Garden of Beasts: A Novel of Berlin 1936

Twisted: Collected Stories The Vanished Man* The Stone Monkey* The Blue Nowhere The Empty Chair* Speaking in Tongues The Devils Teardrop The Coffin Dancer* The Bone Collector* A Maidens Grave Praying for Sleep The Lesson of Her Death Mistress of Justice Hard News Death of a Blue Movie Star Manhattan Is My Beat Hells Kitchen Bloody River Blues Shallow Graves A Century of Great Suspense Stories (Editor) A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime (Editor) Mary Shelleys Frankenstein (Introduction)

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To the memories of Hans and Sophie Scholl, brother and sister, executed in 1943 for anti-Nazi protests; journalist Carl von Ossietzky, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935 while imprisoned in Oranienburg camp; and Wilhelm Kruzfeld, a Berlin police officer who refused to let a mob destroy a synagogue during the Nazi-sponsored anti-Jewish riots known as the Night of Broken Glass four people who looked at evil and said, No.

[Berlin] was full of whispers. They told of illegal midnight arrests, of prisoners tortured in the S.A. barracks. They were drowned by the loud angry voices of the Government, contradicting through its thousand mouths.

He wiped sweat off his palm, looking around the place, which was quiet as a morgue, except for the faint sounds of Hells Kitchen traffic late at night and the ripple of the greasy shade when the swiveling Monkey Ward fan turned its hot breath toward the window.

The whole scene was off. Out of kilter Malone was supposed to be here, smoked on booze, sleeping off a binge. But he wasnt. No bottles of

corn anywhere, not even the smell of bourbon, the punks only drink. And it looked like he hadnt been around for a while. The New York Sun on the table was two days old. It sat next to a cold ashtray and a glass with a blue halo of dried milk halfway up the side.

Well, there was a side door, like hed noted yesterday from the hallway, looking over the place. But it was nailed shut. And the window that let onto the fire escape? Brother, sealed nice and tight with chicken wire he hadnt been able to see from the alley. The other window was open but was also forty feet above cobblestones.

No way out And where was Malone? Paul Schumann wondered. Malone was on the lam, Malone was drinking beer in Jersey, Malone was a statue on a concrete base underneath a Red Hook pier. Didnt matter. Whateverd happened to the boozehound, Paul realized, the punk had been nothing more than bait, and the wire that hed be here tonight was pure bunk. In the hallway outside, a scuffle of feet. A clink of metal. Out of kilter Paul set his pistol on the rooms one table, took out his handkerchief and mopped his face. The searing

air from the deadly Midwest heat wave had made its way to New York. But a man cant walk around without a jacket when hes carrying a 1911 Colt .45 in his back waistband and so Paul was condemned to wear a suit. It was his single-button, single-breasted gray linen. The white-cotton, collar-attached shirt was drenched.

casket at his wake and he didnt know any morticians good enough to fix bullet or bird-shot damage. Who was gunning for him? It wasnt Luciano, of course, the man whod hired him to touch off Malone. It wasnt Meyer Lansky

either. They were dangerous, yeah, but not snakes. Pauld always done top-notch work for them, never leaving a bit of evidence that could link them to the touch-off. Besides, if either of them wanted Paul gone, they wouldnt need to set him up with a bum job. Hed simply be gone.

convict him and get him into the electric chair up in Sing Sing. More voices in the hall. More clicks, metal seating against metal. But looking at it one way, he reflected wryly, everything was silk so far; he was still alive. And thirsty as hell. He walked to the Kelvinator and opened it. Three bottles of milktwo of them curdledand a box of

removed the cap from a bottle of the soft drink. From somewhere he heard a radio. It was playing Stormy Weather. Sitting down at the table again, he noticed himself in the dusty mirror on the wall above a chipped

enamel washbasin. His pale blue eyes werent as alarmed as they ought to be, he supposed. His face, though, was weary. He was a large manover six feet and weighing more than two hundred pounds. His hair was from his mothers side, reddish brown; his fair complexion from his fathers German ancestors. The skin was a bit marrednot from pox but from knuckles in his younger days and Everlast gloves more recently. Concrete and canvas too.

Paul considered his situation. If it was OBanion or Rothstein or Valenti, well, none of them gave a good goddamn about Malone, a crazy riveter from the shipyards turned punk mobster, whod killed a beat cops wife and done so in a pretty unpleasant way. Hed threatened more of the same to any law that gave him trouble. Every boss in the area, from the Bronx to Jersey, was shocked at what hed done. So even if one of them wanted to touch off Paul, why not wait until after hed knocked off Malone?

The idea of being stuck in the caboose till he was executed depressed him. Yet, truth be told, in his heart Paul wasnt too torn up about getting nabbed. Like when he was a kid and would jump impulsively into fights against two or three kids bigger than he was, sooner or later hed eventually pick the wrong punks and end up with a broken bone. Hed known the same thing about his present career: that ultimately a Dewey or an OBanion would bring him down.

Thinking of one of his fathers favorite expressions: On the best day, on the worst day, the sun finally sets. The round man would snap his colorful suspenders and add, Cheer up. Tomorrows a whole new horse race.

Yeah? Paul, a crisp, young voice said. No neighborhood slur. You know who it is. Im up the hall in another apartment. Therere six of us here. Another half dozen on the street. Twelve? Paul felt an odd calm. Nothing he could do about twelve. Theyd get him one way or the