Engelbertina finished smearing ointment on the stump of my finger and then covered it with a piece of gauze and sticking plaster. She said, “Anyway, now you know all of that, you’ll know how it is I come to have a whore’s manner. And that it’s not something I can help. When I like a man, I go to bed with him. It’s as simple as that. And I like you, Bernie. I like you a lot.”

I’d had more straightforward and matter-of-fact propositions, but only in my dreams. If I’m being honest, I might have judged her more harshly if she’d looked like Lotte Lenya or Fanny Blankers-Koen. But since she looked like the Three Graces rolled into one Hellenistic erotic show, I was more than happy to let myself be played. Like a Steinway, if she felt so inclined. Besides, it had been a while since a woman had looked at me with anything more than puzzlement or curiosity. So, later that night, while Gruen was asleep and Henkell back at the state hospital in Munich, she came to my room to administer a different kind of healing. And over the next ten days, my recovery proceeded to our mutual satisfaction. Mine, anyway.

It’s funny the way you feel when you’ve made love after a long furlough. Like you joined the human race again. As things turned out I hadn’t done either of those two things. I didn’t know that then. But I was used to not knowing what was what. Being in the dark is an occupational hazard for a detective. Even when a case is closed, it’s remarkable how much you still don’t know. How much remains hidden. With Britta Warzok I wasn’t at all sure if she represented a closed case or not. It was true I had been paid, and handsomely. But there was so much that remained unexplained. One day I managed finally to remember her telephone number and resolved to ring her up and ask her some straight questions about what still puzzled me. Like how it was she knew Father Gotovina. Also, I thought it was time she became aware of just how hard her thousand marks had been earned. And so, while Engelbertina was helping Gruen in the bathroom, I picked up the telephone and dialed the number I had remembered.

I recognized the maid’s voice from before. Wallace Beery in a black dress. When I asked to speak to her mistress the already guarded voice grew scornful, as if I had suggested that we might meet for a romantic dinner before going back to my place. “My what?” she growled.

“Your mistress,” I said. “Frau Warzok.”

“Frau Warzok?” Scorn turned to derision. “She is not my mistress.”

“All right, then, who is?”

“That’s really none of your business,” she said.