Stardust(188)

Everything snapping into place. His hand throbbing, just the first shot. Keep him talking.

“Who told you about Genia?”

Dieter moved his head, physically taken aback. “At such a moment that’s what you want to know?” he said.

“Liesl told you.”

“Liesl,” Dieter said, dismissive. “You told me.”

“Not Liesl,” Ben said, as if he hadn’t heard.

“You. On the beach. After Salka’s lunch. A great favor to me, to know that. I had to act. If she talked to you, she would talk to others. I was always secret. Only someone from those days would know and here she was, talking to—well, Otto’s son, maybe she thought it was all right. But no discipline. Even Otto’s son. Something happened to her in the war, I think.”

“So you killed her.”

“I had to,” he said easily. “Once you told me. So I thank you for that. You know, I have an idea that she knew. What had to be done. When I called her, she came, no questions. The old discipline.”

“Because she was a threat, just knowing you,” Ben said, still stitching things together.

“Do you have any idea what we are doing here? How important it is? They’re making weapons so powerful—well, that’s for another time.”

“I want to know.”

“Why? You’ll be dead. What can it matter to you? Or do you think someone’s coming to save you? Texas Rangers, maybe. The marshal,” he said, drawing the word out, sarcastic. He shook his head. “No one is coming.”

Ben glanced around. His gun had been kicked toward the door, too far away. Something else. A nightclub table to duck behind. A bottle to smash. Any kind of weapon. But what was real? If he smashed the bottle would he have jagged glass or breakaway Plasticine? The stage telephone, the fire alarm, everything useful, was behind him, impossible to reach. Keep talking.

“You’re not going to kill me yet.”

“No?”

“Not before you know how much I know.”

“It doesn’t matter what you know. You’ll be dead.”

“Or how much I told Polly.”

Dieter looked at him.

“You don’t want to kill her if you don’t have to. You don’t want that kind of attention.”

Dieter sighed, a mock concession. “So what did you tell her?”

“First you tell me.”

“What?”

“Why you killed Danny. I want to know.”

Dieter shrugged. “I said, it’s a difficult family. Always their own ideas.” He nodded to Ben. “Not in the beginning. Otto’s son. Anything we needed. But this place, it changed him. The life here. Liesl.”

“Liesl?”

“You know a wife changes things. In France, I thought, well, it’s good, he can get her out, he’ll make her serious. But it was the other way. Kino, this stupid Quatsch he makes. She was ambitious for him. No politics here, it’s another country. Well, what did she know about it? So he has to hide it from her, the work he does for me.”

“Hide it?”

“Of course. What would she think? Her father.”

“Slow down,” Ben said. “Her father.”

“That was the beginning. They wanted someone close to Hans.” He smiled. “Him they worried about. The Conscience of Germany. What did he think? Who did he see? So Riordan talks to Daniel, they know each other from those movies, he thinks Daniel’s a good American. Well, he was a good American. But also a son-in-law. Close, you understand. So he comes to me. What should I do? And of course I see at once what a thing this is. At first, even, suspicious—what if it’s a trap? But no, an opportunity. To work with the FBI. To have a man there.

Not high up, but still. Just how they make the files. The organization. Even this is valuable. They want to watch the German community? Good. Show them where to look. Imagine, Hans Ostermann’s son-in-law. Their man inside.”

“Their spy.”

“Well, what was there to spy on? Even Brecht. Daniel tells them about the girlfriend, and of course that’s all they can see after that. They even follow him to New York. Where does he sleep at night? How long does he stay? Quatsch.”

“But not you.”

“Me? I don’t have girlfriends. I don’t go to New York. I salute the flag. I’m happy to be alive. I think here it’s paradise. My colleagues. My numbers. It’s all I need, my numbers. Nothing else in my head. It’s more interesting, Brecht’s secretary.”

“And some of those colleagues are at Northridge.”

“Yes, some. And I know what some of them do. So that’s one piece. And of course they investigate us. Are we loyal? Can we be trusted? Look at my FBI file, a German, yes, but now American. It’s all in the file.”