Prague Fatale Read Online Free PDF Page B

restaurant for longer than it took to inspect the china in the men’s room so I came straight to the point.
     
    ‘When I was in Paris I liberated some coffee,’ I said. ‘Real coffee, not the muck we get in Germany. Beans. Algerian beans. A whole kilo.’ I put the bread bag on Willy’s desk and let him inspect the contents.
     
    For a moment he just closed his eyes and inhaled the aroma; then he groaned a groan that I’d seldom heard outside a bedroom.
     
    ‘You’ve certainly earned that drink. I’d forgotten what real coffee smells like.’
     
    I hit my tonsils with the sherry.
     
    ‘A kilo, you say? That’s a hundred marks on the black market, last time I tried to get any. And since there isn’t any coffee to be had anywhere, it’s probably more. No wonder we invaded France. For coffee like this I’d crawl into Leningrad.’
     
    ‘They haven’t got any there, either.’ I let him refill my glass. The sherry was hardly the best but then nothing was, not even in the Adlon. Not any more. ‘I was thinking that you might like to treat some of your special guests.’
     
    ‘Yes, I might.’ He frowned. ‘But you can’t want money. Notfor something as precious as this, Bernie. Even the devil has to drink mud with powdered milk in it these days.’
     
    He took another noseful of the aroma and shook his head. ‘So what do you want? The Adlon is at your disposal.’
     
    ‘I don’t want that much. I just want some food.’
     
    ‘You disappoint me. There’s nothing we have in our kitchens that’s worthy of coffee like this. And don’t be fooled by what’s on the menu.’ He collected a menu off the desk and handed it to me. ‘There are two meat dishes on the menu when the kitchen can actually serve only one. But we put two on for the sake of appearances. What can you do? We have a reputation to uphold.’
     
    ‘Suppose someone asks for the dish you don’t have?’ I said.
     
    ‘Impossible.’ Willy shook his head. ‘As the first customer comes through the door we cross off the second dish. It’s Hitler’s choice. Which is to say it’s no choice at all.’
     
    He paused.
     
    ‘You want food for this coffee? What kind of food?’
     
    ‘I want food in cans.’
     
    ‘Ah.’
     
    ‘The quality isn’t important as long as it’s edible. Canned meat, canned fruit, canned milk, canned vegetables. Whatever you can find. Enough to last for a while.’
     
    ‘You know canned goods are strictly forbidden, don’t you? That’s the law. All canned goods are for the war front. If you’re stopped on the street with canned food you’d be in serious trouble. All that precious metal. They’ll think you’re going to sell it to the RAF.’
     
    ‘I know it. But I need food that can last and this is the best place to get it.’
     
    ‘You don’t look like a man who can’t get to the shops, Bernie.’
     
    ‘It isn’t for me, Willy.’
     
    ‘I thought not. In which case it’s none of my business what you want it for. But I tell you what, Commissar, for coffee like this I am ready to commit a crime against the state. Just as long as you don’t tell anyone. Now come with me. I think we have some canned goods from before the war.’
     
    We went along to the hotel storeroom. This was as big as the lock-up underneath the Alex but easier on the ear and the nose. The door was secured with more padlocks than the German National Bank. In there he filled my bread bag with as many cans as it could carry.
     
    ‘When these cans are gone come and get some more, if you’re still at liberty. And if you’re not then please forget you ever met me.’
     
    ‘Thanks, Willy.’
     
    ‘Now I have a small favour to ask you, Bernie. Which might even be to your advantage. There’s an American journalist staying here in the hotel. One of several, as it happens. His name is Paul Dickson and he works for the Mutual Broadcasting System. He would dearly like to visit the war front but apparently such things