The Pale Criminal by Philip Kerr

Author:Philip Kerr [Kerr, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thriller, Historical
Published: 2011-04-01T22:00:00+00:00

Back at the Deutscher Hof we called in at the hotel’s café restaurant for a brandy and were met by an astonishing sight. Sitting at a corner table, loudly drunk, was a party of three that included a couple of brainless‐looking blondes and, wearing the single‐breasted light‐brown tunic of an NSDAP political leader, the Gauleiter of Franconia, Julius Streicher himself.

The waiter returning with our drinks smiled nervously when we asked him to confirm that it was indeed Julius Streicher sitting in the corner of the café. He said that it was, and quickly left as Streicher started to shout for another bottle of champagne.

It wasn’t difficult to see why Streicher was feared. Apart from his rank, which was powerful enough, the man was built like a bare‐fist fighter. With hardly any neck at all, his bald head, small ears, solid‐looking chin and almost invisible eyebrows, Streicher was a paler version of Benito Mussolini. His apparent belligerence was given greater force by an enormous rhino‐whip which lay on the table before him like some long black snake.

He thumped the table with his fist so that all the glasses and cutlery rattled loudly.

‘What the fuck does a man have to do to get some fucking service around here?’ he yelled at the waiter.

‘We’re dying of thirst.’ He pointed at another waiter. ‘You, I told you to keep a fucking eye on us, you little cunt, and the minute you saw an empty bottle to bring us another. What, are you stupid or something?’ Once again he banged the table with his fist, much to the amusement of his two companions, who squealed with delight, and persuaded Streicher to laugh at his own ill‐temper.

‘Who does he remind you of?’ said Korsch.

‘Al Capone,’ I said without thinking, and then added: ‘Actually, they all remind me of Al Capone.’ Korsch laughed.

We sipped our brandies and watched the show, which was more than we could have hoped for so early in our visit, and by midnight Streicher’s and our own were the only parties left in the café, the others having been driven away by the Gauleiter’s incessant cursing. Another waiter came to wipe our table and empty our ashtray.

‘Is he always this bad?’ I asked him.

The waiter laughed bitterly. ‘This? This is nothing,’ he said. ‘You should have seen him ten days ago after the Party rallies were finally over. He tore hell out of this place.’

‘Why do you let him come in here, then?’ said Korsch.

The waiter looked at him pityingly. ‘Are you kidding? You just try stopping him. The Deutscher is his favourite watering‐hole. He’d soon find some pretext on which to close us down if we ever kicked him out. Maybe worse than that, who knows? They say he often goes up to the Palace of Justice on Furtherstrasse and whips young boys in the cells there.’

‘Well, I’d hate to be a Jew in this town,’ said Korsch.

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