They emerge onto a narrow strip of sand on the riverbank that's littered with cigarette butts and bottle caps and cluttered with folding picnic tables under yellow Corona beer umbrellas. Several ratty canvas-and-wood lawn chairs are scattered about, occupied by a dozen pale people sunning themselves.
Tequila's is a snack shack made of weathered timber and corrugated metal and festooned with banners, a poor but enthusiastic attempt to evoke a Mexican cantina.
A short jetty leads to a rusted barge carpeted with Astroturf and covered with plastic chaise lounges, picnic tables, and beach umbrellas, where a handful of people are drinking beers and eating bowls of tortilla chips.
McGrave grimaces as if the sight is causing him physical pain. "You call this a beach?"
"It is more than that," she says.
"It looks like a lot less to me."
"Before the wall fell, this was a no-man's-land between repression and freedom, watched over by guards in gun towers and patrol boats," she says. "Now it is a place where people can play and relax. Surely you can appreciate the symbolic value."
"Sure. Its mud with some sand spread on top. Very moving."
McGrave scans the pale bodies and spots Beimler on the barge.
Beimler is shirtless, wearing a pair of loud, floral board shorts and sitting alone at a table, sipping a beer and talking on his cell phone. He looks like Jabba the Hutt after gastric bypass surgery.
McGrave marches down the gangplank to the barge, Maria right behind him.
He strides up to Beimler's table. "Hey, Hans, how's it hanging?"
Beimler ends his call and says, "Ich spreche nicht Englisch."
McGrave has no idea what that means and doesn't care. "There's a Rembrandt I saw over in the Louvre that I think would look just fabulous hanging in my apartment. You know anybody who can steal it for me?"
Beimler looks at him blankly with his shar-pei face.
Maria turns to McGrave. "He doesn't speak English."
"My ass," McGrave says.
"In case you haven't noticed, McGrave, you're in a foreign country. People aren't required to be fluent in English. How many languages do you know?"
"The only one that counts."
Maria sighs. This is going to be a long fucking day.
She flashes her ID at Beimler, introduces herself, and proceeds to explain to him in German that they are looking for a man who pulled off a bloody heist in Los Angeles, one that led to several deaths. She says if Beimler arranged the heist and is holding back information, he could be extradited to the U.S. and tried as an accomplice.
Beimler tells her he's an innocent businessman who knows nothing about robberies.
This goes on for a while.
McGrave gets more and more frustrated until finally, without any warning, he yanks Beimler out of his chair and pushes him in the river.
Maria is shocked. "What did you do that for?"
"He's lying."
"How do you know? You haven't understood a word that he's said."
"I know bullshit when I hear it," McGrave says, watching Beimler splash around in the water. "In any language."
Beimler is fighting to stay afloat. He yells, "Hilfe! Ich kann nicht schwimmen!"
McGrave grabs a nearby life preserver but doesn't toss it in. "Sorry, pal, me no comprendo Germano."
"I don't know how to swim!" Beimler says.
McGrave turns to Maria and smiles. "He speaks English. It's a miracle." He looks back down at Beimler. "Give me a name."
Beimler disappears under the water. Maria reaches for the life preserver, but McGrave yanks it away from her.
"He's going to drown," she says.
"I feel sorry for the fishes."
Beimler pops back up, coughing and gagging. "Richter! His name is Sebastian Richter! Now help me!"
"How do I contact him?" McGrave asks.
"I leave a message with an automated service."
"Call him, tell him you've got a job for him, and set up a meet," McGrave says. "Can you do that for me?"
"Yes!" Beimler says, but it comes out sounding more like a scream.
McGrave tosses him the life preserver, then turns to Maria. "What a helpful guy."
Beimler, shivering and wet, closes his cell phone and looks across the table at McGrave and Maria, who are both nursing beers.
"Tomorrow. Midnight. The Maifeld," Beimler says. "He'll find you."
"He'd better or I'll be back," McGrave says. "I won't be so friendly next time.
McGrave and Maria get up and walk across the dock and across the beach to the car. She stops at the car and confronts him.
"You said you'd be on your best behavior."
"I was."
"You threw him in the river."
"Yes," McGrave says. "But I didn't shoot him first."