A Quiet Flame

“No, no, he’s dead, alas. Interestingly, salvarsan and neosalvarsan are dye-based compounds, too. Which is where the problem with them lies. In the color. And that must be where this new compound scores. Someone must have worked out how to remove the color without compromising the antibacterial activity.” He nodded, as if imagining the chemistry appearing on an invisible blackboard in front of his eyes. “Ingenious.”

“So let’s say we have a drug trial, here in Berlin,” I said. “For patients suffering from big jelly and little jelly? Syphilis and gonorrhea.”

“If it was effective against one, it might well be effective against the other, too.”

“How many patients would we be talking about? For a trial?”

“In the beginning? A few dozen. A hundred at the most. And all highly confidential, mind you. No doctor’s going to tell you which of his patients is suffering from a venereal disease. Not only that, but if it works, a drug like this could be worth millions. The clinical trials are very likely top secret.”

“How would you recruit your volunteers?”

Illmann shrugged. “Neosalvarsan treatment is no ice cream treat, Bernie. Its reputation precedes it. And most of the horror stories you’ve heard are true. So I’d have thought there would be no shortage of volunteers for a new drug.”

“All right. Suppose some T-girl gives our man a dose of jelly. Which makes him hate women enough to want to kill one. Meanwhile he volunteers for a drug trial to get his meat and two veg sorted.”

“But if a T-girl gives him a dose,” said Illmann, “then why not kill a T-girl? Why kill a child?”

“T-girls are too savvy. I saw one the other night. Built like a wrestler, she was. Some fritz came in and wanted her charged with assault. She’d hit the bastard with her riding crop.”

“Some men would pay good money for that kind of thing.”

“My point is this. He kills Anita Schwarz because she’s easier prey. She’s crippled. Makes it hard for her to get away. Could be he didn’t even notice it. After all, it was dark.”

“All right,” allowed Illmann. “That’s just about possible. Just.”

“Well then, here’s another thing. Something I haven’t told you yet. On account of the fact that I’ve only just remembered I can trust you. And this is hot stuff, mind. So keep it under your hat. Anita Schwarz may have been disabled. And she may have been just fifteen. But she wasn’t above earning herself some pocket money on the side.”

“You’re joking.”

“One of her neighbors told me the girl had a major morals problem. The parents won’t talk about it. And I didn’t dare mention it at the press conference after the lecture Izzy gave me about trying to keep the Nazis sweet. But we found quite a bankroll in her coat pocket. Five hundred marks. She didn’t get that from running errands to the local shop.”

“But the girl was crippled. She wore a caliper.”

“And there’s a market for that, too, believe me, Doc.”

“My God, there are some evil bastards in this city.”

“Now you sound like my sergeant, Grund.”

“Then maybe you are right. You know I never thought to test her for syphilis and gonorrhea. I’ll do it, immediately.”

“One more thing, Doc. What kind of dyes are we talking about here? Food dyes, cloth dyes, hair dyes, what?”

“Organic dyes. Direct or substantive dyeing. Direct dyes are used on a whole host of materials. Cotton, paper, leather, wool, silk, nylon. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know.” But somewhere, at the bottom of the sock drawer I called my mind, there was something important. I rummaged around for a moment and then shook my head. “No. It’s probably nothing.”

MY ROUTE BACK from Charlottenburg took me in a straight line all the way from Kaiserdamm to the Tiergarten. There were wild boars in the Tiergarten. You could hear them grunting as they wallowed in their enclosure, or sometimes squealing like the brakes on my old DKW as they fought with one another. Whenever I heard that sound, I thought of the Reichstag and German party politics. The Tiergarten was full of animal life—not just boars. There were buzzards and woodpeckers and pied wagtails and siskins and bats—there were lots of bats. The smell of cut grass and blossom that came through the open window of my car was wonderful. It was the clean, uncorrupted smell of early summer. At this time of year, the Tiergarten was open until early dusk, which also made it popular with grasshoppers—the amateur prostitutes with no room money, who did it with their fritzes lying down on the grass or in the shrubbery. Nature is wonderful.