The Third Place Read online

  With the pack almost dealt out, he finished the trick dramatically by suddenly calling out, ‘Here you are, my lovelies!’

  Then, with his eyes closed and the cards face down in his hands, he slapped down four in a row – all aces.

  The nursemaid’s eyes grew even wider at the bit of legerdemain; she could not help but clap her hands in glee, at which the baby in the pram awoke, crying. She suddenly remembered her duty and hurried the child off toward the less carnival-like regions of the Prater.

  ‘That was very fine of you to leave a bit of trinkgeld,’ Bachman shouted sarcastically at her. Then, noticing Werthen watching him at a distance, he said, ‘I won’t bite, you know. You can come closer. I enjoy performing for free.’

  Werthen tipped his homburg at the card sharp and approached. ‘Herr Bachman?’

  This made the man look up from the deck he was again shuffling. ‘Never heard of the man.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I haven’t come to collect a debt.’

  Bachman eyed him closely. ‘No, I suppose you haven’t. By the looks of you, you’ve come about other quasi-legal matters, though. The hat, the coat, the way you carry yourself. Let me guess. A mortician.’ He laughed at his little joke, and the laughter turned into a deep, wracking cough that brought tears to the man’s eyes.

  Recovering, Bachman said, ‘A lawyer, to be sure. I can’t afford lawyers.’

  ‘I haven’t come to offer my services. I’ve come to ask you about Herr Karl.’

  ‘Does he have a last name?’

  ‘I think you know who I mean.’

  Bachman set the cards down. ‘You really don’t remember me, do you, Advokat Werthen?’

  This took Werthen aback. ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘It was a number of years ago, now, but there you have it. Story of my life. I remember people, but I’m not the sort people remember.’

  Except for his red, pitted, bulbous nose, Bachman was right: he was nondescript. For the life of him, Werthen could not place the man.

  ‘Graz,’ Bachman hinted. ‘The criminal justice system, to be specific.’

  Had he been a client? Werthen would surely remember … And then he had it.

  ‘Bachman. Advokat Bachman.’

  ‘The very one,’ Bachman said. ‘Though they did take my license away, if you remember. I’m not a lawyer any longer.’

  ‘Yes,’ Werthen said, now remembering that Bachman had been caught improperly influencing a witness in an attempt to get a wealthy client off. He had been lucky to escape with expulsion from the Lawyers’ Chamber and not a prison term himself.

  ‘And so you have turned to …’

  Bachman raised his hands in a monumental shrug. ‘What’s a man to do? At university I used to make a bit of cash on the side with friendly card games, even a bit of magic. So, once I lost my license, I went back to what I knew. Couldn’t stay in Graz, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ Werthen agreed.

  ‘And yes, I was only too familiar with Herr Karl, damn his eyes. I even went to his funeral, hoping to get a chance to urinate on his grave, but the people lingered and it was getting cold.’

  Werthen marveled at the man’s candor. ‘So you admit you had a grievance with the Herr Ober?’

  ‘Grievance? Call it what it is, man. He cheated me. Should have been drummed out of his Waiters’ Association as I was from the Lawyers’ Chamber.’

  Werthen shook his head. ‘I don’t understand what you’re getting at.’

  ‘What I am getting at …’

  Bachman’s attention was diverted for a moment by a street urchin who came up to the booth hoping for free entertainment.

  ‘Hop it out of here, you,’ Bachman growled at the youth, who wisely moved off, but thumbed his nose once he was a safe distance away.

  Bachman noticed the gesture. ‘Makes a man happy he never married, never fathered such a brat.’ Then, turning back to Werthen, he said, ‘Anyway, as I was saying, Herr Karl swindled me out of a full month’s payment. One of the customer’s complained to him that I was cheating. Well, of course I was cheating. How do you think I make a living? That’s what I paid the jumped-up waiter for. A bit of protection.’

  ‘You mean you were paying Herr Karl to play cards at his café?’

  ‘You always were a bright one, Advokat Werthen. Yes. Five crowns a month so that if a customer complained he would say no, no, no, Herr Bachman is a most trusted client. And so forth. But this customer was a bit more important than the others. I should have figured that out, the way the fool tossed his money around. He threatened to go to the Waiters’ Association, and so Herr Karl suddenly found his ethics and banished me. Got the whole Association to do so. Bastard.’

  This turn of events left Werthen speechless for a moment.

  Bachman suddenly smiled broadly. ‘Now, hold on. If you’ve come to me with questions about Herr Karl, I doubt very much it has to do with my card playing. So I ask myself, what would a criminal lawyer be doing making noises about the accidental death of a crooked head waiter? And I tell myself, Bachman, Advokat Werthen would not waste his valuable time unless, yes, unless Herr Karl’s death was not so accidental after all. Hah! Wonderful. You mean some hero saved me the trouble and killed the little sneak?’

  ‘That is about the size of it,’ Werthen allowed. ‘It would appear to be murder.’

  Bachman pressed hands together as if in prayer, looking heavenward in thanks. Then to Werthen: ‘And you suspect me?’

  Werthen nodded, beginning to feel something of a fool. Attempting to salvage some bit of dignity out of this meeting, he said, ‘But by the way you are so broadly smiling, I assume that you have some proof that you were not involved.’

  ‘That’s the Advokat Werthen I remember. Too true. I seem to remember from the newspaper accounts that the fellow slipped on icy paths last Monday night. Is that so?’

  ‘Yes. His body was not discovered until the next day.’

  ‘Monday night.’ Bachman’s face squinched up in a mock display of attempting to remember something. ‘I seem to recall that Monday. That would be the tenth of March, right?’

  Werthen nodded again. ‘Out with it, Bachman. Enough with the silly games.’

  ‘As you wish, though games seem to be all I have left. At any rate, I have the lawyer’s dream come true – an ironclad alibi. After closing up my booth that day – miserable weather it was with frozen walkways. The cold plays havoc with the fingers, you know. Slows down the shuffle something awful—’

  ‘Bachman!’

  ‘All right. I closed up early and stopped off at my favorite tavern just down the row here.’ He gestured to his left. ‘Well, it seems I imbibed a bit too much on an empty stomach. A fellow customer made a disparaging comment about my ability at card tricks – I am not a violent man by nature, you understand, but this remark just caught me at the wrong moment. So I smashed my mug of wine over his head. Next thing I knew, one of Vienna’s finest constabulary had me by the collar and I spent the night in jail. Happy days, though. The other fellow did not press charges.’ He tapped his nose, a secret to share. ‘Couldn’t really, as he’s got his own strange business in “imported” linens he wouldn’t want the police to become curious about.’

  ‘When did this occur?’

  ‘Well, as I said, I started at the wine earlier than usual. I believe I had found my way to my cell by nine o’clock. Check with the local station on Taborstrasse – I’m sure they’ll remember me. Managed to take a few coins off the duty sergeant in a friendly game before they released me the next day.’ Bachman smiled at him, displaying browning teeth. ‘Sorry I couldn’t be more obliging. Now, if you’ll forgive me, I have a dishonest living to make.’

  SIX

  Falk was at his position at the Café Burg when Werthen arrived. Today, however, he was dressed in the cutaway of a Herr Ober. He directed Werthen to a table in the far corner.

  ‘That was fast,’ Werthen said, nodding to the man’s new attire.

  ‘Tempor
ary only, sir,’ Falk replied as he pulled out a chair for Werthen. Their nearest fellow customers were several tables away. ‘It is rumored they will hire from outside.’

  Werthen sat, raising his eyebrows at this comment. ‘Not the usual practice, is it?’

  Falk shook his head, clearly disappointed.

  ‘And why do you think that would be, Falk?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell, sir. One would have to inquire of Herr Regierungsrat Mintz. After all, he is the owner.’

  Werthen made no reply to this.

  After a moment, Falk inquired: ‘What would sir like today?’

  ‘Some honesty, for starters. You haven’t really been straight with me, have you, Falk?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ He looked around as if fearful someone might be eavesdropping.

  ‘About Herr Karl and his little improper payments, shall we call them. Were you a part of it?’

  ‘Only in so far that I had to pay into his phony retirement fund.’

  ‘Slowly, Falk. What fund is that?’

  ‘Like I say, a non-existent one. It was a monthly contribution. All the staff had to pay into a retirement fund, supposedly with the Waiters’ Association. In reality, it was Herr Karl’s retirement fund. We paid and the account never seemed to grow. Bad investments, he would tell us. A shortfall at the Borse. What do any of us know about stock exchanges? But I did a little investigating. It’s been fine days at the stock market these past years.’

  ‘Did you know that certain customers were paying him? A card shark, for one.’

  Falk shook his head. ‘I didn’t know, but that’s not a surprise. Herr Karl was an inventive one. Every supplier to the café, from toilet paper to coffee beans, had to pay Herr Karl a little gratuity, a percentage off the top of the bill or risk losing his account.’

  ‘And no one thought to tell the owner?’

  ‘And then what? Herr Mintz would have simply replaced Herr Karl with someone who would only do the same, maybe even worse. It comes with the job, you know. Nobody becomes a Herr Ober because of the honor attached to the position.’

  Werthen marveled at his own naiveté: that was exactly what he had thought. But reflecting on it now, it made perfect sense. A Herr Ober held power at a café, and power meant nothing if it was not used.

  ‘Is there anything else I should know about Herr Karl before I go? Any other reason someone might want to kill him?’

  ‘You think somebody did him in because of his little money schemes? Half the Herr Obers in Vienna would be dead if that were the case.’

  ‘How about the rest of the staff? Were they as resigned to Herr Karl’s extortion as you were? Nobody harboring a grudge.’

  ‘We’re talking about a few crowns here and there. Hardly enough to kill for.’

  ‘Then something else. Anything odd transpire with Herr Karl lately?’

  ‘Well, I was thinking after I talked with you the other day. There was a man came in here about a week ago. It might have even been the day Herr Karl died. He had a talk with Herr Karl, like we are doing now. Private. Out of the way. It was a busy day, though, and a valued customer was asking for Herr Karl. So I came back here to see if I could get his attention. Before I did, the man said something like, “Be sure you do.” That idea, anyway, like he was giving the orders. And Herr Karl’s face was as pale white as one of our tablecloths. The man noticed my presence then and put on a broad smile, and Herr Karl went to the customer and nothing more was said of it. But it seemed strange at the time.’

  ‘This man. Can you describe him?’ Werthen asked.

  Karl chewed his lip for a moment. ‘He was one of those fellows that don’t stand out very much, if you know what I mean. Slight build, medium height, so far as I could tell with him sitting down. Clean-shaven, close-cropped hair. Nothing about him to make him memorable. It was just the way he made his face change once he saw me approach that makes me remember. It was like he put on a mask in an instant. There was something almost scary about that change.’

  ‘Could he have been the assailant you witnessed killing Herr Karl?’

  ‘That is what I have been mulling over since seeing you. I just don’t know. Maybe they were both about the same size, that’s all I could say. But there’s something else I’ve been trying to remember. Something peculiar. Something about the awkward way he held his cup. But it won’t come.’

  Werthen knew the feeling. ‘Don’t focus on it too much – sometimes that helps. And when you remember, get in touch, no matter how trivial it seems.’

  Falk sighed and nodded. ‘And you haven’t gone to the police.’

  Werthen shook his head. ‘I told you that I would protect you as much as I could, but you have to be completely honest with me.’

  ‘I am. I swear I am. So, can I get you something, Herr Werthen?’

  ‘A small mocha would be good, Falk. No need for you to serve it. We don’t want the others getting suspicious.’

  As Werthen sat over his coffee, he made notes in his pocket notebook and then read where things stood thus far. ‘Herr Karl Andric, head waiter at the Café Burg, died the night of Monday, March the tenth after leaving the café. Apparent accidental death by slipping on ice between twin museums and cracking his head on a concrete pillar. Not so, says waiter Rudolph Falk, nephew of Herr Otto’s wife – Otto is to be trusted. He got his nephew the job at Burg. Falk, put upon by Herr Karl, followed him that night to talk with him and witnessed his brutal slaying by a man or woman of medium height but with enough strength to cave the back of Karl’s head in. According to Falk, this had to be planned, for the killer brought what appeared to be a length of pipe along tucked up the sleeve of his overcoat. Do I believe Falk? Is he using me to help make himself look innocent? Falk had a motive – he wanted to be head waiter, though in the event it did not work out that way. Also, Herr Karl was basically extorting the young waiter, along with the other staff and commercial suppliers.

  ‘Falk later informs me that there was a man who seemed to upset Herr Karl a couple of weeks before. A nondescript man of medium height with nothing remarkable other than something odd or awkward about the way he held his coffee cup. Falk cannot remember exactly – check back in later about that? What to make of that? Could be anything. “Be sure you do,” Falk overheard the man ordering Karl. More interesting. Still, where does that lead? Could it be about Herr Karl’s little money-making scheme that he was running at the Café Burg? And what is the “something peculiar” that Falk is trying to remember about this mysterious stranger?

  ‘From Kraus, off the top of his head, I received a small list of others who might stand to gain from Herr Karl’s death: the disgruntled customer, Herr Bachman, who in fact turned out to be a former colleague in the legal profession from Graz. Bachman opens up the new angle with news of Herr Karl’s kickbacks. But he also has a perfect alibi for the night of the murder: he was in jail.

  ‘There was also the suggestion of descendants of the previous head waiter at the Café Burg whose legacy was expunged when Herr Karl took over. Possible retribution? Unlikely, but worth tracking down. And then there are other ambitious waiters, not only at the Burg, but at other establishments who might actually kill for the position of head waiter. Or perhaps even professional jealousy vis-à-vis other head waiters in the Waiters’ Association. I need to follow up on that as well.

  ‘Less likely was Kraus’s theory about Herr Karl’s Bosnian Serb roots, of his father’s revolutionary activities somehow coming to impact on the son, and of the ominous-sounding Black Hand. Kraus the dramatist? Put to the bottom of the list.

  ‘A “maybe” is Herr Moritz Fender, the literary critic who scolded cafés such as the Burg for fostering lightweight literary circles. Not urgent, but must talk to him eventually.

  ‘And finally, from a visit to the landlady, Frau Polnay, I learned that Herr Karl had one friend, and he a mightily influential one at that: Oberstabelmeister Johann Czerny, Master of the Staff at the Hofburg. Would Czerny know anything of Kerr
Karl’s illicit dealings? Would he have more information about his friend’s state of mind just before his death? Any word of threats or the like? Yes – follow up with Czerny.’

  Werthen stared at the page for a moment, then noticed a slip of paper just protruding from the top of the notebook behind the final sheets. He opened the notebook to these sheets and saw the piece of crumpled paper he had taken from one of Herr Karl’s suits at his rooms. Written on it was the name ‘Hermann Postling.’ He had quite forgotten about that, but now inserted it in the notebook as a bookmark for his notes on Herr Karl. A piece of detritus, but he had earlier thought it worth keeping. Perhaps he should check the handwriting to see if it was Herr Karl’s or not.

  He looked at the clock near the entrance. Four-fifteen. Where had the time gone? Tomorrow would be another day, and Czerny would be at the top of the list.

  PART TWO

  SEVEN

  Three days to spring, Werthen thought with irony the next morning as he trod through the half foot of snow that had fallen during the night. Buds on the lime trees in the Volksgarten looked like they might reconsider their early unfurling. The roses were still tied down and mulched: gardeners at the city’s park never erred on the side of optimism.

  He didn’t mind the snow; in fact, he was enjoying it as Vienna had strangely little of it this winter. It was mild enough to overturn rational faculties and make one wonder what odd forces had been released with the new century.

  He made his way through the Volksgarten on his usual route to the office on Habsburgergasse, stopping off at the House Master’s Bureau in the Albertina wing of the vast urban palace cum castle of the Hofburg. It was stifling warm inside the front office; a bell over the door announced his arrival and a grey-faced man in his forties, bundled in muffler and white housecoat, looked his way with an expression bespeaking either irritation with the public in general or distress at an attack of gastritis. His pinched nostrils flared as he spoke.