The Good Thief's Guide to Berlin by Chris Ewan Read Free Book Online Page A

Strasse.
    We took in the scene without speaking. There was a very good reason for that. Victoria was giving me the silent treatment. Actually, she was giving me a variation of the silent treatment. She was huffing a lot, and clucking her tongue a lot, and making a sort of dry rasping noise in the back of her throat whenever I tried to communicate with her. In short, she was leaving me in absolutely no doubt that she was miffed. But there was nothing wrong with her hearing, and when I asked again if I could borrow her phone, she dumped it in my hand.
    I knew Victoria expected me to apologize for breaking into the homes of the three German editors. But really, I wasn’t sure why. Yes, I’d done it. But that shouldn’t have come as a surprise. I was a burglar. Stealing things was what I did. Victoria had known that for a very long time. And though I don’t mean to shock you, I wasn’t the least bit sorry.
    Listen, I’m not a guy who believes in making things difficult for himself. In an ideal world, I like to case a joint before I break in to it, and if I happen to learn that a venue is likely to be vacant for a couple of days, I’m only too happy to exploit the situation and avoid unnecessary risks.
    Victoria’s information file had given me a great head start. True, it had been buried in the bottom of her suitcase—a suitcase I’d been expressly forbidden to snoop through—but, hey, telling a professional thief not to take a tour through your things is like telling a compulsive eater not to peek in your fridge. It doesn’t work. The temptation is too much. And I’m a sucker for temptation.
    I’m also a sucker for handsome belongings, and during my time in the editors’ homes, I’d found plenty to tickle my fancy. I’d picked up a selection of expensive silk ties, and I’d had my choice of e-readers. I’d located a reasonable amount of hard cash and an intriguing sculpture from an up-and-coming German artist. I’d even taken a peek at the new manuscript from a best-selling crime author I happened to admire.
    So all things considered, Victoria’s tiff really wasn’t a terribly high price to pay for such a golden opportunity, let alone three of them, and I wasn’t about to apologize for being who I was and doing what I did, no matter how annoyed she might be.
    Instead, I led her around the corner and along the street toward the destination Freddy had included in his text. To my mind, we were now in the extreme northwest corner of the Turkish district of Kreuzberg. Others would disagree. To the city’s young and hip, the neighborhood was little more than a tourist zone, oozing out from Mitte and the redeveloped Potsdamer Platz, with its skyscrapers and multliscreen cinemas and shopping malls and food courts. For them, the real Kreuzberg was farther east, where bohemians, punks, and anarchists had squatted following the collapse of the Wall, and where musicians, artists, and creatives had settled, in the years since.
    I don’t suppose it mattered all that much. It certainly didn’t concern me. The only thing weighing on my mind just then (apart, of course, from Victoria’s sulk and the unfortunate murder I’d happened to witness) was the way time appeared to be racing on. Freddy had told me that the function the embassy’s staff were attending would conclude at midnight. It was nudging toward ten o’clock already, and I still had as many as three properties to tick off my list. And we all know what happens when the big hand and the little hand hit the magic number twelve. That’s right, princesses turn back into servant girls, carriages into pumpkins, and burglars into sitting ducks.
    The Mövenpick Hotel had a multicolored light canopy hanging above its entrance. I guided Victoria inside and to our left, where I deposited her at the hotel bar. The bar was very dark, lit only by a series of colored neon tubes and an image of a crackling fire that was being projected onto the far wall. It was moderately