The Informer (2 page)

“There’s no ‘just’ about her,” said Felix.

The man shrugged.

“Of course,” he said. “Anything you say.”

“Do you want her, or not?” said Felix. “She’s been telling me how much she is ready to go all out. She doesn’t get in that mood all the time.”

The driver turned his head slowly, too. Everything about the car, the dark, boxy bulk of it at the curb, the sweet smell, the perfectly dressed man in the back, left Felix with the cool scent of money.

“Yes,” said the man. “We’d like her.”

“Just hang on,” said Felix. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He stepped off the car’s running board, the squeak of the springs, the small, silvery sound hanging there like a note against the dark. Then he
looked around, thinking, Well, it’s her lookout. She can take care of herself, can’t she? He had his worries, too.

Gaelle adjusted her jacket, ran a finger through her hair. She remembered how her mother used to like to touch her hair, which her mother had said was like “spun gold.” The people she was worried about could come out of the shadows, the dim entrances of the buildings, from the trees in the park. At night, in Berlin, the ordinary was so perfectly blended with the unusual.

“He wants you,” said Felix. “I got a little extra. Maybe a tip if you treat the gentlemen right? See?”

“Yes,” said Gaelle.

“Still feeling funny?”

“No,” she said. She shook her head. “I’m ready.”

“I feel funny, too, sometimes,” he said. “I get over it. A kind of mood, but that’s all it is.”

“Sometimes I really need you,” she said.

“Sure,” he said. “We need each other. We don’t have to argue. It’s going to be fine.”

“We’ll go out for dinner,” she said.

“That’s the way,” he said.

Gaelle looked both ways. Maybe they would come in two cars. That was a possibility, she guessed. It would look like business as usual, and when she walked up to the car she was going to get into, they would come up in another one. They would want to know some details, too, and she knew they were good at that kind of work.

She came up to the car.

“Good evening,” said the man in the back.

“Good evening,” she said.

“What’s your name?” he said.

“Gaelle.”

The car appeared in grays and blacks. The man wore a wristwatch, and he checked the time, the silver glint of it hanging there like a piece of foil. Only the driver and the man in the back, or, at least, she couldn’t see anyone crouching behind the driver’s seat. Still, it was possible someone was there. She wondered if there was something else that would tip her off, an
impalpable sense of things about to explode: wasn’t there something in that moment? Then she thought, No, there isn’t. It’s absolutely ordinary.

“Would you like to get in?” the man said.

Gaelle looked around.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Take your time,” said the man. “We’ve agreed on a price. That’s correct, isn’t it?”

“Yes, yes,” she said. She still looked around. She wondered how much Felix was holding for her. But it wasn’t going to be enough to leave, to start over, to go to Munich or some other place. And here, where could she go? Home? They knew where she lived, not only her apartment, but where her parents lived, too. Why hadn’t she been smart enough to find someplace that no one knew about, that she could go to, an apartment that she rented under an assumed name and that she hardly ever went to? Because, she thought, it always seemed like I could keep everyone in line.
In line
. She looked around.

“Well?” said the man in the car.

“I want my friend to come with me,” said Gaelle.

“You mean the boy?” said the man.

“Yes.”

She turned so that he could see her face, and as she moved her head it was as though a change were sweeping over her … then she waited, the scarred side toward the car. The man inside was silent. The driver stared straight ahead.

“Of course, before this happened, you had a different attitude,” said the man. “Didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Gaelle. She looked around. Was it better to be in the car or on the street. Felix stood at the side of the building, hands in his pocket.

“Like what?” he said.

She turned and stared at the man, not wanting to give him anything beyond her physical presence. If she was going to have to talk, she was going to have to get paid, especially since she couldn’t lie, not in her current mood. It took energy to lie.

“I don’t know,” she said. She shrugged. “I want my friend to come.”

“Why don’t you just get in?” said the man.

He sniffed a little, as though her perfume and her beguiling fragrance blew slowly in the open window. “Felix,” she said. “Felix!”

“It won’t take long,” said the man in the car.

“No?” she said. “Where do you want to go?”

“To my apartment,” the man said. “We could have a glass of champagne. We could listen to opera. Do you like opera?”

“No,” said Gaelle. “It’s too pretty.”

Felix came up to the car.

“Yes?” he said.

“I want you to come,” said Gaelle.

“What’s the idea?” said Felix. “I can wait here, and if someone else—”

“I want you to come,” said Gaelle.

“I don’t get it,” said Felix. “I thought we had everything settled.”

“Tell me,” said the man. “Did you have any ambitions? Any desires?”

“Hey,” said Felix. “That’s personal. It costs.”

“All right,” the man said. He reached into his pocket, took out his wallet, and removed a bill. Felix took it with a wild jab, like a snake killing a rat. Felix opened the door.

“Will you come?” said Gaelle. “Please, baby. Be nice.”

“You’ve got to get hold of yourself,” said Felix. “I’m not saying I don’t understand. I’m saying you’re letting your nerves run away with you.”

“Please, baby,” she said. “I’m asking you.”

“OK,” he said. “Sure.”

Felix always bent a little at the waist, like a man trying to run under water dripping from a roof, and now he came into the car, with that same bent-over, protective way of moving.

“I’m here to help,” he said. “You know that.”

“Here,” said the man in the back. He flipped down the jump seat, and Felix got in and sat on it, hands together in his lap. It was as though he always sat there, and this quickness, this ability to fit in someplace new, took Gaelle’s breath away.

“Well?” said the man in the back. He held out his hand, white there in the darkness of the car to Gaelle, who stood on the curb.

“Hey,” said Felix. “Gaelle. Are you listening, or not?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Then come on,” he said. “Be sweet.”

She felt herself rise on the running board, the car tilting in her direction, and then she disappeared into the passenger compartment, the door clicking shut behind her. That click. The car pulled into traffic, and then she smelled the odor of the pomade that the man in the back of the car used, and as the perfume of it swept around her she wondered if they had already contacted Felix. If they had promised him something to help out with this. She looked closely now, and Felix glanced at her once and then out the window, just as blank and ordinary as always. It was one of the things she had always liked about him, his frank, unshakeable ability to continue, no matter what.

They went up Hof Jager Allee, into the Tiergarten, where it was darker. The driver seemed to be a part of the machine. The man next to her said, “I wonder if it’s going to rain.”

“It ain’t going to rain,” said Felix. “It’s too late for any of that. Take it from me.”

“Oh,” said the man. “I can depend on you?”

“As much as anyone,” said Felix. He turned to Gaelle. “Don’t you think that’s right?”

“I depend on you,” she said.

“That’s good,” said Felix. “That makes me feel better.”

The man glanced at Gaelle. That was how they usually began, with a small, delicious glance. The driver went up to the middle of the Tiergarten and turned right onto Charlottenburger. The trees appeared beguiling, and Gaelle wished that she could get out and walk among them. Often, late at night, when she was finished with her work, she went into the park, needing a bath but craving the dark even more. She was happy there, or something like happy, calm and hidden.

“Where are we going?” she said.

“Neu König Strasse,” he said.

“Oh?” said Felix. He shrugged. Nationalists, he guessed. He didn’t really like the Communists more than the Social Democrats. Everybody had an angle, he guessed.

The man next to Gaelle put his hand on the seat, by her hip. She felt
her almost gravitational effect on him as he leaned her way, just to get a little closer to … what was it? Possibility and beauty, tragedy and fate?

The man turned to Gaelle. “And so, tell me, what did you want to do. Before.”

“Me?” said Gaelle. The car slowed down. She looked at the chrome handle of the door and moved a little closer to it. Just shifting her weight. It was almost sexy, as though she were too bothered to sit still. Felix watched her. He had never seen her work before.

“A dream,” the man said. “Did you have a dream?”

“I had a boyfriend,” she said.

She looked around now. Why was she telling the truth? They moved along the avenue. “He wanted to pretend nothing had happened to me, but it was impossible. He tried.”

“And what happened,” said the man, “when he tried?”

She thought, I’m not going to get weak. No weeping. But she wasn’t able to forget her boyfriend, who had finally put his head in her lap and cried inconsolably, not knowing what to do, or how to confront this thing that had happened to her.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “What good does it do?”

“It’s interesting to think about the past,” said the man.

“It depends,” said Gaelle.

The neon of Berlin went by in a blur, like a rainbow laid on its side.

“Tell me,” said the man. “Do you make much money?”

“What’s it to you?” said Felix.

“Just curious,” said the man.

“It’s not healthy to be too curious,” said Felix.

The man looked Gaelle.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

Felix shrugged. “Where’s the apartment?” he said.

“Not too far,” said the man.

The car pulled up in front of a row of flats.

“Here we are,” said the man.

Felix opened the door. She got out. The man came across the seat and got out, too, and even though he was in the street and she was on the
curb, he was much taller than she was. His complete calmness was worse, she thought, than if he had been nervous. He turned to the driver and said, “Wait here.”

He gestured toward the front door of a building. A few marble steps, a lamp, some brass that could have been polished but now just had a dull, tarnished glow in the light from the street. The hall was marble, as though they were in a tunnel through an enormous blue cheese, the veins of mold black and green. They went up to the lift, into the cage. From up above, like some machine of utter indifference, the gears and the pulleys started drawing them up.

“It’s cold,” said the man.

“What’s cold?” said Felix.

“The champagne,” he said.

“Have you got something to eat?” said Felix.

“Of course,” said the man. “Are you hungry?”

“She should eat,” said Felix. “She should take care of herself. I’ve been trying to tell her, but she won’t listen.”

“Maybe later,” said the man.

“I’m all right,” said Gaelle.

The door of the cage swung open, and all three of them walked up to the front door. Felix went in first and looked around, as though to make a list of anything valuable. Then Gaelle. Then the man. He passed them both and went into the living room, which had a view of Berlin: the avenues, the darkness of the Tiergarten, the lights on the streets like drops of water on a web.

“Come in,” said the man.

He turned on a floor lamp. She sat close to it and looked out at the city. Felix sat down like a gargoyle, or a stone figure that was so still as to be hardly breathing. He looked around. Some crystal doodads, a picture, a gold lighter, what would the entire lot bring? The man went into the kitchen.

“What do you think?” said Gaelle.

“Maybe the frame is worth more than the picture, see?” he said. He gestured.

“Maybe,” said Gaelle. “But I mean about this guy?”

“Him?” said Felix. “The usual. He might take his time. Nothing to worry about.”

From the kitchen she heard the sound of a cork coming out of a champagne bottle. The man came in, the tray and the champagne and the glasses on it gliding in front of the window like a tray in a cabaret magic show. Floating in the dark.

“Here,” he said.

He gave her a glass. Felix refused by a shake of his head.

“I’m all right,” he said.

The man took Gaelle’s other hand, and like a couple in a dream they went through the apartment to his bedroom. Felix just glanced at them once and turned back to going over the things in the room, the slight, almost imperceptible movement of his eyes showing what a precise inventory he was taking.

The bedroom also had a view of the red, yellow, and blue lights of the city, at once cool and romantic. A chair stood at the side of the bed. The bubbles in the champagne rose in tiny globes, which she thought of as small worlds, all moving with a kind of rush. She sat down on the chair and faced him.

“There’s so much trouble in the city these days,” he said. “Have you noticed?”

“I guess,” said Gaelle. “I’m not interested in trouble.”

She smiled, crossed her legs.

“Of course, you can have a coffee and a sweet when there’s street fighting,” he said. “Is that what you do?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

He nodded and sipped his champagne. Then she thought, He isn’t going to touch me, at least not that way. He isn’t going to ask me to do that.

“Or maybe drugs,” he said. “I’ll bet you like them? What do you like? Maybe that’s something we could help you with.”

“What do you want?” she said.

He looked right at her, thinking it over.

“It’s pretty straightforward,” he said.

He sat on the bed next to her, the mattress giving in with his weight. He was heavier than he looked.