The Cold War Swap Read Online Free PDF Page B

got into the car.
    At four in the morning Bonn seems like an abandoned Hollywoodset. In fact, most of the good burghers have bolted the doors by ten, unmindful of—even indifferent to—the fact that theirs is one of the world’s most important capitals. In some respects, Bonn is very much like Washington. So I made it from Fredl’s place to mine in something less than ten minutes, a new kind of record, considering that we lived a good six miles apart. I parked the car in the garage, closed and locked the overhead door, and walked up the steps to my apartment.
    After five moves in eight years I finally had an apartment that suited. Up in the hills outside Muffendorf, it was a duplex built by a bicycle manufacturer from Essen who had struck it rich in the early 1950s, when bicycles were the major form of personal transportation in postwar Germany. He had a penchant for contemporary architecture, but as a widower he spent most of his time following the girls and the sun. I think he was in Florida then, or it may have been Mexico. His frequent and prolonged absences gave me the privacy I wanted, and even when he was in Germany he spent a great portion of his time gossiping with cronies in the cafés of Düsseldorf—or just watching the girls walk by. He was a Social Democrat, and sometimes we would sit around, drink beer, and speculate on how long it would be before Willy Brandt was Chancellor.
    The house was a two-level affair, built of dark-red stone with a shake-shingle shed roof, and it had what my parents would have called a veranda running the full length of two sides. The owner had the smaller, lower flat; I had the upper one, which consisted of a bedroom, a small study, a kitchen and a large living room with a fireplace. I had to walk up twelve steps to reach my front door. I climbed the steps and put the key in the lock and turned. The voice came from the deep shadows to my left.
    “Good morning, Herr McCorkle. I’ve been waiting for you for quite some time.”
    It was Maas.
    I shoved the door open. “The cops are looking for you.”
    He moved out of the shadows. In one hand he carried his familiarbriefcase, in the other he held the Luger. It wasn’t pointed at me. He just held it loosely at his side.
    “I know. A regrettable affair. I’m afraid that I must invite myself in.”
    “That’s nice,” I said. “The bath’s on the right and there are fresh towels in the linen closet. Breakfast is at ten, and if there’s anything special you want, just tell the maid.”
    Maas sighed. “Your English is very fast, Herr McCorkle, but it seems you are making a joke. I think it is a joke,
ja
?”
    “I guess so.”
    Maas sighed again. “Shall we go in? You first, if you do not mind.”
    “I don’t mind.”
    We went in—me first. I walked over to the bar and poured myself a drink. Maas watched with a disapproving manner. Perhaps it was because I didn’t offer him one. To hell with him. It was my booze.
    I drank the first one and then poured another. Then I sat down in an easy chair, put one leg over the arm, and lighted a cigarette. I thought I was putting on a very good show. Calm, nonchalant. The epitome of the sophisticated barkeep. Maas stood in the middle of the room, fat, middle-aged and tired. The briefcase was clutched in one hand, the Luger still dangled from the other. The brown suit was rumpled; his hat was gone. I said: “Oh, hell. Put the gun down and go fix yourself a drink.” He looked at the gun as if he had just grown a second thumb and tucked it away in his shoulder holster. He fixed himself a drink.
    “Please, may I sit down?”
    “Put your feet up. Make yourself at home.”
    “You have a very nice apartment, Herr McCorkle.”
    “Thank you. I chose it for its privacy.”
    He sipped his drink. His gaze wandered around the room. “I suppose you’re wondering at my presence.”
    That didn’t seem to call for an answer.
    “The police are searching for me, you know?”
    “I