by Wolf Haas
And one more maybe:
Maybe, if after his conversation with Junior, Brenner hadn’t been immediately dispatched on an über-Scheisshäusltour to Vienna General, who knows, maybe he never would’ve solved the case.
But, needless to say, when you’re already at Vienna General, why not look in on Rosi for a spell?
“Liver transplant?” Rosi asked.
“Well, when you put it that way.”
“That’s clever,” Rosi smirked. She wasn’t particularly tall, but her trailer-converted-into-a-kitchen was so low that she always had to stoop a little while standing. And she was quite fat. And she had a lot of mustard and ketchup stains on her white surgeon’s smock. And she had this fiery-red wavy hair that absorbed so much sweat from standing over a hot grill that it stuck out like horns from her head. “Sour mustard because you’re sweet?”
“Did you go to the cemetery today or something?”
“Now why would I do a thing like that?”
“Where else would you dig up that old smarm?”
“Don’t get fresh with me, young man!” Rosi smirked and popped a liver transplant right out in front of him.
“Young man? You could be my daughter.”
“Nuh-uh! For that I’d have to shell out a ton on cosmetic surgery.”
Brenner was glad to have his Leberkäse to turn to. And only after he took a couple of bites did he say: “Now, the way I reckon it, it’s been all of two weeks since you shot Leo Stenzl.”
“Yeah, and you better watch out, because today I’ve got an itch in my finger again.”
“As long as it’s just your finger.”
Another bite of Leberkäse now, and then: “Only thing saving you’s the fact that you’ve got no window on the music-pavilion side. Otherwise, you’d be a prime suspect.”
“It hasn’t got to the point that I need a window on that side yet. Not until I don’t know where to put the chocolate bars and the Neapolitan wafers anymore.”
“So you didn’t see anything.”
“I saw something, alright. I was counting my money just then. And that’s what I saw.”
“Why wasn’t Lanz in the photo in the newspaper? Just Bimbo and Munz?”
“Lanz wasn’t even here. Bimbo got it all wrong. Lanz only pulled in as fast as he did because he was actually coming from the airport with a donor kidney just then. I still have to laugh about him. Because he was up at surgery like lightning.”
“Like lightning. And then it thundered.”
“Exactly. Then it thundered. But not for Lanz—for Stenzl,” Rosi had to laugh again.
“What did Stenzl actually do?”
“Nothing. He was a real desk jockey.”
Brenner hadn’t meant Stenzl’s job, because that was the one and only thing he did know. So he tried it a different way: “Let me guess, more jockey than desk, though, right?”
“You can say that again.”
“But nobody used it against him?”
“Why use something like that against him when you’ve got a perfectly good bullet?” Rosi grinned. “Besides, how should I know? You’re the one who should know better.”
“Why me?”
“Your organization makes its living off blood donors. So you must’ve known Stenzl.”
“My organization?”
“You and your whole Pro Med.”
That was Rosi’s favorite joke. As a matter of principle, she called the Pro Meddlers Rapid Responders and the Rapid Responders Pro Meddlers. Just like she called the Brothers of Mercy the Sisters of Charity and vice versa.
In this case, though, it really didn’t make a difference for once. Because Pro Med Vienna makes its living off blood donors and Vienna Rapid Response makes its living off blood donors. And so did Leo Stenzl. Only, he wasn’t living anymore.
CHAPTER 7
“Maybe I’ll actually see some profits today,” Rosi said, surprised. “Those two from the detective squad were back again.”
“And? Whose sports coat did you like better?”
“The boss’s.”
“How could you tell which one was the boss?”
“He didn’t eat anything.”
“They’re always thinking about their cholesterol, those leadership types,” Brenner said, before shoveling another bite of Leberkäse into his mouth.
“Sindelka’s different. He already came by today, too.”
“Sindelka from Autopsy?”
“No, Sindelka from the state-certified virgins.” Because Rosi was one of those people who couldn’t give a straight yes.
“He usually doesn’t come by until the afternoon. Him and his heart transplant, day in and day out, and still as skinny as a pencil.”
“Maybe he’s really into sports.”
“Nuh-uh! His only sport’s carving up corpses.”
“So that’s why.”
“That’s why what?”
“Why he doesn’t ever gain any weight. Cadaverine,” Brenner said, gravely.
“Nuh-uh!”
Brenner used his last bite of bread to wipe up some mustard while Rosi continued: “He even had to cut Stenzl and Irmi apart.”
“What do you mean, ‘cut them apart’?”
“I mean cut them apart,” Rosi explained. “Because first the bullet went through his tongue and then it went through hers. And the heat from the bullet melted their two tongues together.”
“Nuh-uh!”
“Really!” Rosi shot back. “Do you think Sindelka is lying to me?”
“That’s some job he’s got,” Brenner said, his own career situation suddenly appearing to him in a somewhat rosier light.
“Terrible,” Rosi said, making a face and cutting a ten-pack of Weisswurst out of its foil. “A tongue like that must be grisly. Have you ever had beef tongue before?”
“Of course.”
“Me, too. Once—and once was enough! It comes with a layer of Letscho served over it so that you can’t really see the tongue. The nubs and all. But I ate the goulash layer first.”
“That was a mistake.”
“You can say that again. Because then you see the cow’s tongue lying there on your plate. The shape and the nubs and everything.”
“That’s not good.”
“And then, while you’re eating it, all the sudden you realize that you’ve got a tongue on top of your tongue. Terrible, I tell you. You don’t know anymore if the cow’s sucking on your tongue or you’re sucking on its.”
“But something like that wouldn’t bother Sindelka.”
“Nothing bothers him at all. That kind of thing’s right up his alley!”
“That’s the feeling I get, too.”
“Do you know what he said about Irmi and Stenzl’s tongues being melted together?” Rosi said, grinning.
“What would I know?”
“That at least they’re joined for life.”
“He’s right, if you look at it that way.”
“It was getting to the point that Nicole started to get jealous.”
“And who might Nicole be?”
“Stenzl’s secretary over at the blood bank. She and Irmi were at each other’s throats over Stenzl, and I’m not kidding—the claws came out.”
Nuh-uh, Brenner thought.
And then crossed the street and walked right into the blood bank.
When he walked in, he thought he was in the wrong place at first. Even though he’d been in there countless times before, because needless to say, distributing packaged blood to the hospitals is one of the main Scheisshäusltouren that EMTs loathe doing. But usually Brenner was always there in the mornings, when the place was teeming with EMTs and nurses lined up to get the blood. And now, completely deserted.
The dispensing window for the blood didn’t look much different than the baggage window at the train station, where they were always shooing the bums out of the storage lockers. Except that here, there wasn’t a train employee sitting behind the window. Instead, a young woman was lying moti
onless on the floor. And believe it or not, the first thing Brenner noticed is how pretty her long brown hair looked as it fell on the parquet floor all around her head. And only as a second item of business did he notice how her white lab coat had slid up to her hips.
And I wonder how come everybody in the hospital has always got those white coats on. Even Rosi’s always got one on, with mustard and ketchup stains all over it. At least in her case, you can say she needs it. But what’s a secretary at the blood bank need a lab coat for? The blood packs are completely sealed and sterilized—not like at Rosi’s. Or maybe it’s just a practical matter at a hospital so you can tell the staff apart from the patients. You see, that must be the reason right there.
“Ever hear of knocking?” the dead woman asked Brenner, but still without moving a muscle, expect for her mouth, of course.
“I did knock.”
She opened her eyes and, in all honesty, I’ve got to say—though I’ve never looked a Martian in the eyes, this is roughly how I’d imagine it. And not what you’re thinking, green—no, brown. It was the shape, though, a rather unnatural slant to the pupils that’d make you think Martian eyes, i.e. mesmerizing.
“Sometimes when I’m doing my stretches, I feel so relaxed that I don’t even hear anyone knocking.”
“So that’s what they call sleeping on the job these days: stretching.”
“What a load of papperlapapp—sleeping on the job,” and as she said so, she rolled onto her side in one effortless movement. “Do you know what the most important thing is? You can’t ever go from lying flat on your back to standing up. Always roll onto your side first.”
Then she stood up with such intent that you’d have thought there was some kind of religious practice going on, Buddhism or somesuch where they can’t eat cows, and it used to be that we made fun of them for it, but now, mad cow disease, and they’re the ones laughing at us.
It even seemed to Brenner like her hair fell over her back in slow motion. And I have to say, maybe that was the reason she had a lab coat on. Her brown hair supplied such a pleasing contrast, such bounce and body to it, when just moments earlier on the parquet floor, Brenner had been thinking it was the hair of a dead woman.
Then she finally smoothed down her lab coat, sat down on her swivel chair, and with a highly official blink of the eyes, said: “How can I be of service?”
“I’ve been dispatched to help with today’s stretches.”
“Very funny.”
“So, I’m always getting these terrible headaches, you know. Migraines. And the doctor said they’re from muscle cramps in my neck. And only stretching will help. Unfortunately the insurance won’t cover it. But then I got some advice: go to the blood bank, there are stretches to be had—under the counter.”
“Very, very funny.”
You’re going to say, a little pushy, the way Brenner’s talking, a bit much, like the way men used to talk. But I’m only going to tell you once. Here it is: people connect by talking. And by saying “very funny” a few times, already it’s turned out that the secretary really does do her stretches for her own headaches. And after the two suits pestered her again with questions today—for the third time now in two weeks—well, she really needed those stretches.
And for her part, she could gather that Brenner really was the foremost expert in headaches. “But do you know what the good thing about headaches is, Nicole?” he asked.
She looked at him, stunned, as if her and her brown eyes had never been called by her own name before. But did she say anything out loud? No.
“At least you know that you’ve still got a head.”
“Very funny.”
“Because if you put a bullet in someone’s head, they won’t ever have the chance of getting a headache.”
“But I don’t put bullets in people’s heads.”
“But somehow a bullet got put in your boss’s head.”
“Watch what you say. He may have been a bad boss, a lazy dog who had me doing all his work, but I wouldn’t have shot him for it.”
“Maybe not because he was a bad boss. Maybe you shot him because of what a bad lover he was.”
Brenner! I’m compelled to criticize him some. Earlier with Rosi, maybe he’d just been teasing her when he suggested she’d shot Stenzl. But the fun stops here. And Nicole’s eyes can only serve as a partial excuse. I can only explain this type of sink-or-swim method of Brenner’s on account of the fire that Junior had lit under his ass. And with a fire under your ass, you tend to take a certain plunge.
He saw Nicole dial her eyelids up to level three, and she’d just managed to wipe the moist film from her eyes when something occurred to him now: A trick: say something nice.
“So does the stretching actually do anything for headaches?” he asked with a smile.
First something nice, and then something interesting: “I haven’t had any more headaches since I started working EMS.”
And Nicole eyed him suspiciously: “That’s usually when people start getting headaches.”
Then Brenner showed her the packet of pills that Czerny had sold him. Because Czerny, with his head for business, also happened to carry on some modest drug dealing. And I don’t want to go around blabbing too much now, it’s really no big deal, but thanks to his access to doctors, he’d amassed a small arsenal of drug samples and was selling them to his circle of friends and associates. Just an on-the-side thing and nothing more.
“Every day before breakfast, and ever since, no headaches.”
Only now did the tears vanish from those Martian eyes for good. Brenner could tell that for a fact when she batted them open to look at the packet he was showing her.
Then she left the room, and came back a few minutes later with a giant red folder, from which she read the side effects to Brenner.
“How long have you been on them?”
“Three, four months.”
“Then you should be glad they haven’t taken you to the hazardous-waste station by now,” she howled. “If I were you, I’d check myself into the Intensive Care Unit pronto. Let me have that poison right now!” Her eyes were as narrow as the slot in the disposal box for expired meds.
Brenner handed the pills over without objection, because at home he had hundreds. Not just hundreds of pills, but hundreds of packets.
“I don’t understand why EMTs are at such risk of addiction,” Nicole said, shaking her head. “I’m sure you got this poison from Czerny.”
“And I’m sure you know that from Stenzl,” Brenner said, imitating her girly singsong voice.
“Papperlapapp! Everybody knows about Czerny and his pill services, that greedy jackal. If I were the cops I’d have him under the magnifying glass in no time. Because he’s got no scruples. And besides, he’s the only one who profits from Stenzl’s death.”
“Because he takes over Stenzl’s job and goes from smalltime to big-time?”
“Papperlapapp! A lot of bad things can be said about Leo. But this pill business of Czerny’s was the one thing he never had anything to do with.”
“But he was doing business with Czerny?”
“Czerny can talk a deal up to anybody, and you can bet he’ll always be the one who comes out ahead. He’s got life insurance deals going with every other hospital employee that are based on matching funds. Of course, Czerny’s never the one that dies, though. It’s the others that die, of course.
“And he had a deal like that with Stenzl?”
“That’s what I’m trying to say.”
“But how can he afford something like that? Insurance ain’t cheap.”
“What do you mean, ‘afford’? He pushes policies for the insurance company, and his commission nets him back half of what he put in. Allegedly he’s got over a hundred active policies. Each one for over a million at least.”
“And statistically, at least one person out of a hundred is going to die each year,” Brenner calculated.
“Spare me your statistics.”
�
�Otherwise there’d be people over a hundred years old.”
“If you look at it like that, sure.”
“Of course you’ve got to factor in the age pyramid, though. And balancing the premium payments with the mortality rate, it gets complicated. The insurance companies aren’t stupid, either.”
“No they’re not. But people are. Czerny’s already worked it all out with the insurance.”
“You mean the balancing part?”
“If it so happens that in a given year the balance is off and nobody dies, then you’ve just got to give them a little nudge,” Nicole said. And then suddenly she smiled. “I’m just talking nonsense. I hope you don’t take it too seriously!”
“Seeing as they shot your boyfriend a few weeks ago, you’re in an awfully good mood.”
“Who says so?”
“I do. Or do you see somebody else here?”
“Who’s calling him my boyfriend?”
“Everybody is.”
Brenner took a step back just to be on the safe side. But Nicole didn’t try to take a lunge at him. She just asked in an icy Martian tone: “What is it that everybody’s saying?”
“That you and Irmi were at each other’s throats.”
“Well, that’s true. But it doesn’t mean for a second that I was interested in Stenzl. I wanted Irmi out of here because she was always snooping around. There was something off about her.”
“And there was nothing between you and Stenzl?”
“No, thank you very much.”
How are you supposed to tell if someone is telling the truth with eyes like that? So now Brenner just said: “Well, if you didn’t shoot him, then it must’ve been Czerny.”
“Very funny. I admit I don’t like Czerny with all his wheeling and dealing. But that whole thing with the insurance is really nothing more than a game of roulette. He puts his money on different people and hopes that one of them will die on time.”
“I hope it’s not Russian roulette.”
“It’s not all that different than you and your fellow EMTs, gambling away your paychecks. Your organization plays down at the Kellerstüberl,” Nicole said, acting the stern nurse again, “and the Pro Meddlers play at the Golden Heart. It’s the same everywhere. Doesn’t surprise me one bit about Lanz and Bimbo.”
