My first bullet struck his shoulder, the second his forearm. As he slid off his chair, roaring, I crawled over the stack of headlights, grabbed his black monster gun, and jumped to one side, both my guns at the ready.
“Next guy makes a move I don’t like, I’ll drill a hole in his skull!”
No one was even contemplating such a move. No one, that is, who knew what a gun is. I heard his paws hit the floor, then a throaty sound and panting. I whipped around and fired twice without looking. It was incredible. Even though the Remington had torn off half of his side, Rambo kept coming. Dragging his bloodstained ass across the floor, showing no sign of pain, he charged me on three legs. I pulled the trigger again, and I had to pull it four more times before the animal, deformed into a red blob, finally lay there motionless. I took a deep breath. Then I turned. Charlie lay whimpering between two oil cans, Axel had curled up in pain under the table, and Slibulsky looked paralytic. He surveyed the battlefield with an absentminded stare, seemingly trying to figure out what was going on. When that stare got around to me, it skipped.
“Slibulsky.”
“Mm-hmm …?”
I got up and went to the table.
“You have a gun?”
He raised his left arm slowly, raised his right arm, still in its plaster cast, and shook his head. Our eyes met for a moment. His were empty, expressionless as buttons. I indicated that he could put his hands down again.
“Turn off the radio and take care of Fatso.” I turned. “Charlie! Join the company.”
While Slibulsky heaved Axel onto the chair and Charlie came stumbling over, holding a handkerchief to his mouth, I looked around the room. Tall metal shelves filled with spark plugs, fan belts, and other parts stood in tight rows stretching to the end of the room. No windows, no ventilation. Dirty yellow light was provided by a row of caged light bulbs strung diagonally across the ceiling.
“Any more of those monsters here?”
No response. Chin on chest, holding his shoulder, Axel leaned over the table and breathed heavily. Now and again he opened his mouth, but all that came out was saliva. I stuck his Remington behind my belt.
“All right. You first, Charlie.”
He removed the handkerchief, let the hand holding it rest on his lap. Still pretending innocence, he said: “Me? But why me?”
I had had enough condescension from a pimp. Before Charlie could raise his arms, I slapped him, hard enough for the sound to echo across the room. He covered his face with his hands.
“Shut up and listen to what I have to say.” I lit a cigarette and started pacing. I was furious. “Since you like to think that everybody else is an idiot, you had to check me out yesterday morning, in person. Slibulsky could have taken care of that quite unobtrusively, and I wouldn’t have suspected from the very beginning that you either knew who kidnapped Mrs. Rakdee or were involved in it yourself. In the meantime, I had some other ideas, but when Slibulsky panicked and tried to send me on a wild goose chase—if not before—I decided to pay attention to you again. And, of course, to Slibulsky.”
I took a drag on my cigarette. Slibulsky didn’t move. He had been motionless for the last five minutes, resting his good arm on the cast and staring holes into the floor.
“The anonymous note was a gigantic mistake. Not only because of the shaky handwriting—it looked exactly like something written by a right-handed person who has to use his left—but also because I was bound to realize, at the After Hours if not before, that the note was meant to distract me—from Gellersheim, since I hadn’t planned on going anywhere else. And only you knew about that … So, while I was in the shower …” I had walked up to him. Now I reached into the inside breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out his Interconti notepad. Slibulsky reacted only by calmly smoothing the front of his jacket. I tossed the pad on the table.
“Then I did drive to Gellersheim, and so forth.”
I ground out the cigarette butt with my heel and kicked it under a shelf. Then I turned back to Charlie.
“At some point, Eberhard Schmitz told you about my visit, and you gave Axel orders to go to the villa. To take me to the bunker was the second big mistake. If Axel had just locked me up somewhere else for a day, the refugees could have been deported in all directions of the compass, and everything would have been hunky dory. Axel may be a big guy, but he’s not all that smart. And that gets us back to you. As soon as I showed up at your place tonight, you realized that I had to be eliminated. Schmitz had given you the use of the villa, and if anything happened there, you were responsible. So you decided to pretend that it was all your brother’s doing, A pretty dumb idea, especially considering that it was I who suggested it. I don’t know what your plan was—maybe you were going to tell these two to liquidate me by tomorrow morning. All I know is that if I had come through this door first, I wouldn’t have stood much of a chance of informing the press.”
The only sound in the room came from the humming lights. Slibulsky was chewing on a matchstick, Axel had closed his eyes, Charlie was patting his nose with the handkerchief. They looked like three guys who had gone in on a Porsche and then totaled it immediately. While the wrecker was picking up the pieces, everyone realized how much he disliked the other two.
I lit a new one and took a couple of drags. “Now as for you, Slibulsky—I had been hoping all along that I was mistaken. I didn’t think you were the kind of guy who robs every last dime from people and then sends them off to their deaths. You’re working for Charlie, so if he tells you to keep an eye on me—that’s all right. And since you couldn’t just go back to him and tell him that I was on my way to Gellersheim, you had to write that note. But now I see you here, divvying up the spoils, and that goes beyond your duties as an employee. What’s your share? Twenty, thirty thousand? And a kilo of earrings? You’re just another one of those cheapskates who will crawl into any sewer if there’s money in it.”
Slibulsky kept chewing his match and staring holes into the floor. Only his left hand had now moved into his pocket for warmth.
Charlie cleared his throat, discreetly.
“I hope you realize that you’re just making up a bunch of shit.”
I went to the table, picked up a handful of jewelry and flung it into his face.
“And what about that? Is that just a bunch of shit?”
He started jabbing his index finger into the air and screeched hysterically: “You’re out of your mind, snooper, you’re completely out of your mind!” Then, to Slibulsky: “Tell your buddy that he’s out of his mind—tell him to take the money and leave us alone!”
“Are you guys crazy?” Axel emerged from his stupor. His face, as far as it was visible in all that hair, was pale and contorted by hate. Beads of sweat were dripping off his eyelashes. “You’re scared of this asshole—this asshole?”
He turned, spraying a trail of blood on the floor.
“What do you think would happen if I told the cops that you wanted to liberate that bunch of illegals—eh? Those guys don’t give a shit about noble ideals, any more than we give a shit about your talk about friends! Listen, Ali, we’re not in the Balkans here—and Slibulsky is no Sir Galahad! None of us gives a shit if your dago brothers are sent home!”
“They’re not being sent home. They—”
“I know, they get offed. Let me tell you, Ali, I wipe my ass with your bleeding heart!”
There was a pounding in my temples. I pulled the Remington out, slowly, and aimed the revolver at his left eye, the automatic at the right. “Where is the money?”
The holes in his arm must have deprived him of all common sense. His eyes open wide, he hissed: “You wouldn’t dare,” and his shadow advanced toward me. “We’ve been putting up with your shit long enough. Check your knees, they’re shaking. You’re just a bad April Fool’s joke. So why don’t you just say ‘April Fool,’ and give my gun back, and fuck off!”
He was only inches away from grabbing the guns. Blood began to boil in my ears. Suddenly, a voice
behind me said “April Fool!” There were two gunshots, and Axel’s head snapped back, now covered in a paste of brains and hair. He was dead before the echoes of those shots subsided.
Charlie shook. He had jumped up from his chair and was staring at the huge bleeding body toppling to the floor. He turned as pale as only a man shaking with fear in a dirty yellow light could turn pale. A red puddle was spreading out around Axel’s head. I turned. Slibulsky sat where he had been sitting all along. The only difference was that he held a pistol in his left hand. Slowly he slipped it back into the side pocket of his jacket and took the match out of his mouth. His lips twitched a little.
Without a word we dragged the corpse past fenders and hubcaps to a grassy spot where the ground was softer. While Charlie kept vomiting between two wrecked cars, Slibulsky and I dug a hole. The moon stood directly overhead. I seemed to be evolving into a gravedigger.
After the ground had been flattened out again and the shovels had been returned to their shed, Slibulsky handed me my wallet. I went to the office to order two taxicabs. Meanwhile, Slibulsky got a black suitcase from the Toyota. After that we went back to the warehouse, stuffed the dead dog into a plastic bag, and collected the jewelry.
The three of us regained the street, and I dropped the plastic bag into a public wastebasket. Green-faced, Charlie leaned against a lamppost, staring vacantly into space and crumbling a small cigar between his fingers. Slibulsky sat on the curb. I stepped into the light of the streetlamp and lit a cigarette.
“If any of this becomes public, I’ll blame it all on you—a fight over the loot, something like that. If that should happen, Schmitz’s name would hit the papers, too, and I’m not sure who would get the worst of his fury, you or me.”
Charlie nodded.
A little later, the first cab arrived, and Charlie got in. Soon after that the second one came, and Slibulsky and I got in the back with our suitcase full of money and the bag of jewelry. I told the cabbie to take us to the airport.
We rode in silence for a while, and the cabbie cast several suspicious glances at us in the rearview mirror. Then he started to discuss the pointlessness of Daylight Saving Time, all by himself, and all by himself he stopped discussing it. Finally he decided to turn on the radio.
When we got to the autobahn, I asked Slibulsky: “Why didn’t you hand me that gun?”
Leaning forward a little, Slibulsky fussed with his cast. “You already had two,” he replied without looking up. “No one can use three guns at the same time.”
“But if I had really searched you, how do you think I would have reacted?”
Slibulsky didn’t say anything. I looked out the window at the passing lights of American high-rises. My arm throbbed, and I could still feel the tetanus and rabies shots in my ass.
“What I don’t understand is why Schmitz let you use that villa. Never mind what his cut may have been, those are ridiculous sums by his standards.”
“He gave it to us because Axel was his nephew.”
I gave a start. “So it was Schmitz’s nephew you—.” I stopped myself just in time. The cabbie seemed to find it hard to get comfortable in his driver’s seat. Slibulsky must have forgotten him, or he just didn’t give a damn at that moment; in any case, he shrugged and said: “Axel would have killed you. He kept ranting all day about his moment of weakness there in front of the bunker. And after his doggie got atomized … I had no choice. Unless you had pulled the trigger—and it didn’t look like you would.”
When we arrived at the airport and I handed the driver his money, he did not look at me, and his hand shook.
On the way to the police sub-station I bought two soccer magazines. Then we had to wait a while until Benjamin Weiss got rid of a female reporter who had managed to get into the attorneys’ room. She explained that she was working for the illustrated magazine Schampus and wanted to secure an exclusive “picture story” on the refugees in the bunker. As they were released, the refugees could recreate scenes of that “heavy time”, and the “kicker” would be that they would all be wearing “the new Gaultier winter collection, with sunglasses, the women with veils but otherwise real sexy.”
After she was gone, we handed the money and the jewelry to Weiss. He drank a schnapps with us, chased it with aspirin, chain-smoked and told us that no one had been deported so far and that the attorneys thought no one would be during the next few days or weeks. Then I went to the cells and gave Abdullah the soccer magazines. We left the building. Outside, police guards with helmets and pistols were stationed at five-yard intervals. Facing them, a dozen reporters hung out next to a potted palm, passing thermos bottles to each other. The area between them was covered in discarded leaflets.
“Now what? Would you like me to buy you a drink?”
Slibulsky shook his head. “I have a date with Schlumpi.”
“A midnight date?”
The sliding doors flew apart, and we entered the arrival hall. Slibulsky stopped. Looking determined, he told me: “I think we’re quits now, and if I have a midnight date with Schlumpi, then that is where I have to go. But we can have a drink afterwards.”
“If you’re still able to lift a glass.”
He gave me a suspicious look. Then he waved his hand at the ceiling. “I don’t care what you think, but you better stay out of it.”
15
The blocks around the railway station were really jumping. It was the Americans’ night off, and the Eintracht team had taken a bath in Mannheim, zero to one. Frustrated G.I.s and even more frustrated soccer fans reeled down the sidewalks, and cars shaking with music were gridlocked around the block. Shell game artists gathered crowds on street corners. Flickering neon; honking horns, shouting and singing blended into one garish surge. We passed two derelicts fighting over a can of beer while a third one was busy spilling its contents over his shirt front and reached the entrance to The Smiling Die.
Slibulsky went inside. I sat down on the trunk of a parked car. Two women were patrolling the sidewalk. The air was warm and smelled relatively clean; for this night, at least, the rainy weather had washed exhaust fumes and male odors into the gutter.
Turkish music was playing behind a window. I took a cigarette from my pack and noticed that I was out of matches.
“Need a light, darling?” One of the women planted herself in front of me and smiled. Thirtyish, she had a pretty but slightly fleshy face. Her white patent leather outfit didn’t quite cover her ass, and her legs were encased in tall pointy boots.
I nodded, and she produced a lighter.
“Got an ashtray, too, upstairs.”
I shook my head. “Thanks, but I’m waiting for somebody.”
She checked me out, from top to toe. “You like the exotic types better? My roommate’s the sweetest seductive thing since chocolate …”
I shook my head again. “I told you, I’m just waiting for somebody.”
“For the guy you were with? Charlie’s pet? You may have to wait a long time.”
“How so?”
“Cause he’s a loser.”
I dragged on my cigarette, expelled the smoke through my nose, and shrugged. “None of my business.”
“So why are you sitting here?”
“When he comes out, we’ll go have a drink.”
“He’s a buddy of yours?” She made a face. Then she looked me up and down again and asked, contemptuously: “What kind of an asshole are you?”
Shaking her head, she strutted back to her beat. I watched her go, tossed my butt, got off the car trunk and went in. The joint was packed. Clouds of smoke hung under the ceiling, and the waiters’ faces glistened with sweat. I made my way to the bar. Ignoring the instant angry chatter of the woman working the beer tap I opened the door marked Office and saw Schlumpi, the man I didn’t know, and Slibulsky. Slibulsky’s right cheek was red; now the left cheek turned the same color.
“Kayankaya! Oh, shit! Fuck off”
I slammed the door shut behind me. The man I did not know
pursed his lips, looked indignant. Schlumpi wiggled his fingers and very carefully moved a little to one side. I opened my jacket to show the handles of the guns I was still wearing tucked behind my belt. “Take a good look before you make a mistake.”
Schlumpi froze, and the man I didn’t know cleared his throat.
“Such manners.…” Suddenly I knew him, all right—I recognized his voice.
“Is it better manners to break someone’s arm when he can’t pay his debts?”
He was sitting behind a desk in a yellow and brown checked jacket, a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles on his nose, and some open ledgers in front of him. His hands were folded around a gold-plated ballpoint pen. He looked for all the world like a postal employee, maybe even a postmaster. One of those faceless types that make one wonder if they invented the rubber stamp or if the rubber stamp invented them.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ll explain it to you. Slibulsky here lost a bunch of money he inherited, fifty thousand marks to be exact, at your roulette table. And since he is a goddamn idiot, he then went on to borrow the next fifty thou, or whatever, from you, and proceeded to lose those as well. So now you’re giving him the business, and he gets involved in a lot of bad shit in order to pay you back. You follow me?”
“Kayankaya.…” Slibulsky sighed.
Ignoring him, I walked up to the guy to whom I had spoken on the phone the day before. I aimed my index finger at his nose. “But here’s the kicker. To whom does he owe that money, and for whom are you collecting? For Wang. And who are you? You are Eberhard Schmitz’s secretary. We spoke yesterday. Now the fifty-thousand-mark question is: Where has Wang been hiding since his wife was strangled and her lover fell out of the window? Even the cops should be able to find an answer to that. And while you’re mulling that over, Schlumpi can tell the croupier …” I turned. “… to fix the wheel so that our numbers come up when we’re playing.”
One Man, One Murder Page 12
