“Schmidt.”

It was a sensible choice of name, given the fact that I might have heard her use it already. The only trouble was I knew Pension Schmidt to be the most upscale brothel in Berlin.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Perhaps we’d better go downstairs, and then we can ask the desk clerk if he can tell me what room I’m supposed to be in.” This was her, not me. Cool as a cucumber.

“Oh, I’m sure you got the right room. Kitty Schmidt was never known to make a mistake about something as elementary as giving the right room number to one of her joy girls.” I jerked the brim of my hat toward the door. “It’s just that the fleas change their minds sometimes. They think of their wives and their children and their sexual health and then they lose the nerve for it. He’s probably in there listening to every word and pretending to be asleep and getting ready to complain to the manager if I knock on the door and accuse him of soliciting the services of a girl.”

“I think there’s been some sort of a mistake.”

“And you made it.” I took hold of her by the arm. “I think you’d better come with me, Fräulein.”

“Suppose I start screaming.”

I grinned. “Then you’ll wake the guests. You wouldn’t want to do that. The night manager would come, and then I’d be forced to call the polenta, and they’d put your pretty little ass in cement for the night.” I sighed. “On the other hand, it’s late, I’m tired, and I’d rather just throw you out on your ear.”

“All right,” she said brightly, and let me lead her back along the corridor to the stairs, where the light was better.

When I got a proper look at her, I saw that the full-length coat she was wearing was nicely trimmed with fur. Underneath she wore a violet-colored dress made of some gossamer-thin material, opaque shiny white silk stockings, a pair of elegant gray shoes, a couple of long pearl strings, and a little violet cloche hat. Her hair was brown and quite short, and her eyes were green, and she was beautiful in a thin, boyish way that was still the fashion, despite everything the Nazis were doing to persuade German women that it was all right to look and dress and, for all I know, probably smell like a milkmaid. The girl on the stairs next to me couldn’t have looked less like a milkmaid if she’d arrived there on a shell blown along by some zephyrs.

“You promise you’re not going to hand me over to the bulls,” she said on the way downstairs.

“So long as you behave yourself, yes, I promise.”

“Because if I go up before a magistrate, he’ll put me in the tobacco jar and I’ll lose my job.”

“Is that what you call it?”

“Oh, I don’t mean the sledge,” she said. “I just slide a bit when I need a bit of extra money to help my mother. No, I mean my proper job. If I lost that, I’d have to become a full-time joy lady, and I wouldn’t like that. It might have been different a few years ago. But things are different now. A lot less tolerant.”