Day of Judgment [antikvár]

ONE As Meyer turned the corner in the old hearse, he reduced speed, his hands slippery with sweat as they gripped the wheel, his stomach tightening as he drove toward the Checkpoint, clear in the night under the harsh white light of the arc lamps. "I must be mad," he said softly. "Crazy. The last time, I swear it." There were two Vopos at the red-and-white bar-rier wearing old-fashioned Wehrmacht raincoats, rifles slung. An officer lounged in the doorway of the hut, smoking a cigarette. Meyer braked to a halt and got out as one of the sentries opened the door. The street ran through an area in which every house had been demolished, to the wall itself. Beyond, in a patch of light, was the Western Zone Checkpoint. He fumbled for his papers, and the officer came forward. "You again, Herr Meyer. And what have we this time? More corpses?" Meyer passed his documents across. "Only one, Herr Lieutenant." He peered anxiously at the officer through steel-rimmed spectacles. With his shock of un-tidy gray hair, the fraying collar, the shabby overcoat, he looked more like an unsuccessful musician than anything eise. "Anna Schultz," the lieutenant said. "Age nineteen. A trifte young, even for these hard times." "Suicide," Meyer explained. "Her only relatives are an uncle and aunt in the Western Zone. They've claimed her body."