Read Online The Sleepwalkers by Paul Grossman - Free Book Online Page B

wrong crowd, Paula used to tell her about that. Which crowd? She had no idea. He’d need to speak with Paula personally.
    “Where might I find her, Frau Hoffmeyer?” Willi was writing everything down.
    “I can tell you where she works. Where you’ll find her, who the hell knows. Try Tauentzien, between Marburger and Ranke.”
    For a moment their eyes met.
    Go on,
hers seemed to say.
Make something of it. Shouldn’t I be ashamed? Humiliated? No, Herr Inspektor-Detektiv. Humiliated am I only when I haven’t food to put in an empty stomach.
    “Is there some way I could recognize your daughter, ma’am?” he asked, knowing that dozens of girls worked that block, just down from one of Berlin’s main train stations. He walked past them every morning on his way to work.
    “Yeah, sure. You can pick her out in a second.” Frau Hoffmeyer dropped back to her knees with a grunt. “The one in the purple, lace-up boots.”
    The boots radiated even across the avenue.
    In Berlin, a city whose main industry some said was sex, the Boot Girls of Tauentzien Strasse were a virtual brand name, elite among the many layered cultures of prostitution thriving here. Ten thousand women were registered with the Berlin city government, certifying them as disease-free professionals. Countlesstens of thousands more competed on an amateur level, at lower cost/higher risk. Boot Girls were in a category all their own: professionals of the most highly specialized type, for a boot on Tauentzien Strasse was no mere footwear. It was carefully coordinated advertisement.
    Of the kinkiest variety.
    “Mud bath?” the girl in the brown anklets might whisper as you pass; her friend in hip-high yellow counters, “Better yet, how about a nice refreshing shower this morning, huh,
Bübchen
?”
    Entire guidebooks were devoted to interpreting the color codes.
    Before crossing the street Willi observed Miss Paula Hoffmeyer. Quite a creation. Waist up she was in full men’s formal attire: black tails, bow tie, white carnation in the lapel. Every detail perfect down to the leather riding crop under her arm. Her brown hair, blunt at the neck, was oiled into tight marcel waves, her hands wrapped in fingerless black gloves. The eyes were covered in almost as much dark makeup as the Great Gustave’s. Waist down she was femme fatale. Black silk short-shorts revealed the garters and straps holding up her stockings. And those boots. Extra-high-spike-heeled, pointy-toed, purple patent leather with flaming red laces up the front.
    Without a guidebook Willi was helpless to decipher the meaning. Only that unlike the other girls, who walked almost exclusively in teams, Paula strut the sidewalk alone, holding her body erect, fiercely almost. He darted behind two passing streetcars across the busy avenue.
    A truck honked.
    A motorcyclist roared around him.
    On the far corner a newspaper vendor shouted the early evening headlines: “Hitler—
Nein
to Vice Chancellorship! Hindenburg—
Nein
to Hitler!”
    “Fräulein.” Willi tapped Miss Hoffmeyer on the shoulder.
    She turned around with a brash smile. “Craving discipline? Why, you must have been a very naughty—” The smile droppedas she saw the badge. “What? I’m up-to-date. So now I have to show my permit card?” She started fishing through her jacket. “
Mein Gott,
this place is turning into a real police state.”
    “I’m not interested in your card, miss. I’m with the Kriminal Polizei.”
    He could see the color flush from her face.
    “Might I buy you a cup of coffee?”
    “It’s a joke, right? You want to buy
me
coffee. Well, this must be really bad. Just tell me, Inspektor. Come on. I can take it. Who got it this time?”
    “Please. Let me buy you a coffee. Anywhere you’d like.”
    “Anywhere I’d like? Hmmm. Let me think . . .” She tapped her half-gloved hands on her chin. “How about the Romanische then.”
    Willi had to hand it to her. She could have said the Kaiserhof or Adlon. But this