Silbermann merely glanced through it and said, “I see you’ve mastered the technical side of theft as well as the theoretical. Should I sign this, or do we want to have it notarized?”

“It’s already six thirty,” Becker stated. “The notary will be closed, but if you sign the contract and the receipt—naturally you’ll receive a counter-receipt from me—and if you hand me the letter, I’ll pay you your share right away. You can keep the company shell, as long as my name is removed. There are hardly any liabilities, and in any case they’ll be fully covered by what’s in the postal checking and bank accounts. As far as the receivables are concerned, well, I’ll let you have fun with that. I don’t think you’ll get Ollmann to pay, now that nothing’s left … Apart from that there aren’t any. You have methodically dismantled the business. If it were up to you, in half a year I would be penniless and you’d be in Paris. I’m not completely stupid.”

“I didn’t dismantle anything, we just took the entire capital in order to … but it’s pointless to talk about it. Here is your letter.”

Becker opened his briefcase, took out a few packets of bills, and began to count.

“Forty-one thousand five hundred marks,” he said, when he was finally finished. “So there, I gave you fifty percent after all. Be so kind as to count it.” Then he bent over the table and whispered confidentially, “See that you manage to get it over the border.”

“Spare me your advice,” Silbermann said dismissively.

After they finished the transaction, Becker sighed. “No offense, Otto,” he said, suddenly lapsing back into the old, friendly tone. “Once I really start winning, you know my system, you’ll get your money back with interest. Yesterday I lost nine thousand marks because I had to stop too early. But now I’m going to win back every penny I ever lost.”

Silbermann stood up abruptly. “For a real villain,” he said, “you’re lacking in flair. And for a decent human being, but above all for a friend, you’re decidedly too slimy for my taste.”

He walked out of the café. Becker watched him, taken aback.

The Jew isn’t all that wrong, he thought. But I have to pay my debts once and for all. I can’t cheat the people out of their money. This last moral consideration calmed him once again. A pity, though, he went on thinking, as he left the café, we were friends for so long—I’ll make up for it all eventually!

FOUR