Collar Robber by Hillary Bell Locke

for my wallet to pay the tab the waiter had just dropped off. “‘Us’ meaning ‘guys,’ of course. Chicks can get complicated.” I pulled out a Visa card. I had plenty of cash, but I figured it might come in handy later in the evening.
    â€œWell, thanks for partial credit on mensch, anyway.” Nesselrode still had his eyes locked on mine. “A step up from your first impression this afternoon, I hope.”
    â€œPretty much. One reason I don’t trust first impressions.”
    ***
    We took the subway to a station called Westbahnhof. No bikes on the street we reached after our climb up the stairs from the station. Not many people either, except for a blonde in lederhosen and her twin sister, shivering in a white-leather mini-skirt. Stepping out of shadows the blonde asked us something in what I assumed at first was German. Three strides past her I figured out that she’d actually been taking a stab at “Wanna date?” in English—except with a V in place of the W . Three more strides and I’d pulled Danke, nein out of some cubbyhole in my memory. Too late, but it’s the thought that counts.
    In the middle of the next block Nesselrode stopped at a building with dim light visible behind dark curtains drawn over smallish, nine-pane windows on either side of the door. He pointed to a plaque-sized sign at eye-level.
    â€œThat says, ‘This establishment welcomes native speakers of German.’”
    â€œI’ll keep my mouth shut.”
    â€œGood plan.”
    Shouldering the door open, he led me inside. A few tables with wooden chairs, and wooden benches built into the walls. Most empty. A couple of kids with “nineteen” written all over them sat on the bench in the near corner, making out in a homecoming-dance sort of way. A hawk-faced twenty-something glanced up from a laptop to give us a wary glare, then went back to committing poetry or Marxism—or hedge-fund managing, for all I knew. I picked up a smell of burning dust, like the one you get in your house in autumn when the furnace kicks back in after its summer vacation.
    I followed Nesselrode to a bar running lengthwise from the back wall. Nesselrode said something that produced two bottles of schnapps. Handing one of them to me, he took the other to a table where he could keep his eye on both the door and a flight of rickety, naked stairs opposite the bar.
    He checked his mobile phone. Frowned. Glanced up over my right shoulder with his eyebrows rising and his eyes widening, and shook his head. I looked in time to see a woman retreat back into shadows under the stairs. Nesselrode took a schnapps hit. Checked his mobile phone. Frowned. I looked at my watch. 9:31.
    The front door opened. The chick in lederhosen came in, followed by a middle-aged, portly guy. He was working hard at not looking nervous, but not hard enough. They headed straight up the stairs. Less than a minute later the fraulein’s golden braids reappeared above the bannister three steps below the second floor as she leaned over to address the bartender.
    No idea what the two Teutonic syllables she barked at him meant, but they got the job done. Next thing I knew the barkeep was around the near end of the bar and hustling for the stairs. Not quite running, but not wasting any damn time either.
    As the bartender clumped up the stairs I saw Nesselrode coiled tight, as if it took a lot of effort to contain himself. He managed it until we heard the first loud rap on a door that couldn’t have been very far down the second-floor hallway. By the second rap Nesselrode was already rising from his chair. He put a strong right hand on my forearm.
    â€œStay here.”
    â€œBullshit.” I muscled my arm free and stood up.
    â€œSuit yourself.”
    Nesselrode headed for the stairs, with me right behind him. Somewhere around the fourth stair the door pounding stopped and I heard keys rattling. Actual keys—kind of a