I did what I was told. I’d seen what a bullet from a Mauser can do to a man. It wasn’t the hole it makes going in that gave me pause for thought, but the hole it makes going out. It’s the difference between a peanut and an orange.

I opened the bathroom door and switched on the light.

“Take the key out of the door,” she said. “And put it back in the lock on this side of the door.”

Besides, Dora was an ex-whore. Probably still was a whore. And whores are less particular about shooting people. Especially men. Myra Scheidemann was a whore who had shot three of her clients in the head with a thirty-two while they were having sex in a forest. Sometimes I get the feeling that a lot of whores don’t much like men. This one was giving every impression that she didn’t mind putting a bullet in me. So I took the key and put it in the lock on the other side of the door, just as she’d told me to do.

“Now close the door.”

“And miss the show?”

“Don’t make me prove I can handle a gun.”

“Perhaps you should try for the Olympic shooting team. I don’t think you’d have any problem impressing the selectors, dressed like that. Of course, pinning a medal on your chest might prove to be difficult. Although you could always use an ice pick.”

Dora lengthened her arm, took very deliberate aim at my head, and steadied the Mauser.

“All right, all right.” I kicked the door shut, angry with myself for not thinking to bring the little automatic I’d taken from Erich Goerz. Hearing the key turn in the lock, I pressed my ear to the door and tried to continue the conversation.

“I thought we were friends, Dora. After all, it was me who got you the job with Max Reles. Remember? It was me who gave you the chance to climb off the sledge.”

“By the time you and I met, Gunther, Max was already a client. You just gave me a chance to be here with him legitimately. I told you before. I love being in big hotels like this one.”

“I remember. You like the big bathrooms.”

“And whoever said I wanted to get off the sledge?”

“You did. And I believed you.”

“Then you’re a pretty poor judge of character, aren’t you? Max thinks you’re all over him like fleas, but I think you’ve just been pinning the tail on the donkey. And got lucky. Max thinks that because you went to Würzburg you must know everything. But I don’t think so. How could you?”

“As a matter of interest, how did he find out? That I’d gone to Würzburg.”