“The same thing that makes a man like him attractive to a girl like you. Money. Lots of it. You see, it’s my opinion, Dora, that if there was enough money involved, you’d betray the infant Jesus. As it happens, there’s even more money than that hidden in Max Reles’s bathroom at the Adlon. There’s a bag full of money behind a panel that’s screwed in front of the lavatory cistern. Thousands of marks, dollars, gold Swiss francs, you name it, angel. All you need is a screwdriver. Reles has one somewhere in his drawers. That’s what I was looking for when you and your mouse came and disturbed me.”

She leaned toward me. Close enough for me to taste the coffee that was still on her breath. “You’ll have to do better than that, polyp, if I’m going to help you.”

“No, I don’t. You see, angel, I’m not telling you so that you’ll help me. I’m telling you so that maybe you’ll help yourself and, in the process, you’ll have to shoot him. Or maybe he’ll shoot you. It certainly won’t make any difference to me at the bottom of Lake Tegel.”

She stood up abruptly. “You bastard.”

“True. But then again, at least this way you can be sure I’m on the level about the money. Because it’s there, all right. Enough to start a new life in Paris. To buy a nice apartment in a smart part of London. Hell, there’s enough there to buy the whole of Bremerhaven.”

She laughed and looked away.

“Don’t believe me if you don’t want to. It makes no odds to me. But ask yourself this, Dora dear. A guy like Max Reles. And the kind of people he needs to pay off to stay in business. They’re not the kind who take a personal check. Graft is a cash racket, Dora. You know it. And a whole sack full of cash is what it takes to keep a racket like this one afloat.”

She stayed quiet for a moment, looking preoccupied with something. Probably she was picturing herself walking up Bond Street with a new hat and a thick wad of pound notes underneath her garter. I didn’t mind contemplating that picture myself. It was certainly preferable to contemplating my own situation.

Max Reles came up on deck again, followed closely by Krempel. Reles was wearing a thick fur coat and carrying a big Colt .45 automatic attached to a lanyard around his neck, as if he didn’t trust himself not to lose it.

“I always say, you can’t be too careful with your firearm when you’re planning to shoot an unarmed man,” I said.