Free The Sleepwalkers by Paul Grossman Page A

if she hadn’t eaten in days. But when she sipped her coffee, she extended her pinkie delicately, as she’d no doubt seen in the cinema. Despite himself Willi was enchanted. He felt as if something terribly real and poignant was trying to break through the aura of a dream she wore as resolutely as her costume.
    She swallowed, putting down her coffee cup. “Okay. So let’s have it, Willi. What’s the deal?”
    “Gina Mancuso.”
    The last crumbs of cake fell off her fork.
“Mein Gott.”
    “We’re not certain it’s her we found. But we think so. We want you to help us make certain.”
    “I don’t suppose she’s . . . alive?”
    “No.”
    Paula sat motionless except for the tears that burst down both cheeks, carrying away the mask of mascara in thick black swaths.
    “I really didn’t think she could be. After all these months. Oh, her parents will just be devastated. They came all the way from Schenectady, New York, looking for her.” She buried her head in her napkin and wept. “I loved that girl. The only real friend I ever had. Poor kid. Came here because she heard it was the only place to be. Everybody’s gotta see Berlin! God, she loved life. Lived itlike there was no tomorrow. Which there wasn’t for her, was there?”
    “Where did you two meet?”
    “A nightclub on Kleist Strasse. Could that child ever dance. You think I have legs? Don’t be stupid, Willi: I saw you staring before. Gina’s would have knocked you out.”
    Willi’s throat tightened at the thought of how those legs looked now.
    “Fräulein, when I spoke to your mother earlier, she said you’d mentioned to her that Gina had gotten into the wrong crowd. What did you mean?”
    Paula’s eyes, so green and sparkling but strangely distant all this time, now clouded completely over. “Ever hear of Gustave Spanknoebel?”
    “The Great Gustave?”
    “Yeah, Great.”
    Willi had to strain to keep from shouting,
Eureka!
Gina Mancuso, the Mermaid, and Princess Magdelena Eugenia had
both
fallen into the same hands. Not only Dr. Meckel but the Great Gustave,
both
were involved. What kind of sick, sinister circle was this? But then again, hold on a second. Logic took him back a step or two. How is it possible that I should so conveniently stumble on this, as if some higher power had so nicely set it all up?
    “I saw the Great Gustave’s stage show recently. It seemed perfectly harmless.”
    “The show, sure. It’s what goes on behind the curtains, Willi. Behind. Gustave has this yacht, see. Takes it out on the Wannsee and Havel, weather permitting. Has parties. If you want to call them parties.”
    “How do you know? You ever go?”
    “Gina told me plenty enough. Gustave’s a big Nazi. Well, maybe not really, but hangs around with all the Party big shots. Predicted Hitler would come to power next year.”
    “So I heard.”
    “They all come to his yacht for these . . . getaways. He always has the most beautiful girls in Berlin on hand. And hypnotizes them. Lets the men do whatever they want with them. It was all fun and games, until Gina.” The green in Paula’s eyes almost faded away. “She was the first who never came back.”
    “There have been others?”
    “I don’t know. I hear things.”
    “Fräulein Hoffmeyer, when Gina went missing, did you report what you knew about the Great Gustave to the police?”
    “Did I. To anyone who’d listen. Ask me if they cared. I told you, this guy has friends. Big friends.”
    “Fräulein—”
    “For Christ’s sakes, stop calling me that. Only my customers call me Fräulein, and only once I order them to. Please. It’s Paula.”
    “Okay, Paula. Let me ask you this. Do you think there’s any way to arrange it so I might get invited to one of Gustave’s ‘getaway’ outings?”
    She looked at him and burst into laughter. “Forgive me, Herr Inspektor-Detektiv. Willi. Really. But you don’t exactly look like a Nazi.”
    “There are ways to disguise yourself, Paula. I believe