by Wolf Haas
She was so stunningly friendly now, and when I said confidence and bog just now, then I must have meant: if Brenner’s up to his neck, then his only hope is in that mop of hair of his.
And to that I should add: Brenner’s confidence was unfortunately wearing a wig. And try pulling someone out of a bog by their wig sometime. You could really philosophize over that one, of course. But I’ll just say it straight, even though it pains me to do so: Brenner smiled back gratefully. And when he looked into her eyes, he was struck by how, forty years ago, the main road that runs through Puntigam had been asphalted over. Because never before in his life had he seen something so glistening black as the fresh tar that they paved that street with.
And then Brenner realized. The look and the friendly question weren’t intended for him but for the customer who’d walked into the shoe store just after him. And believe it or not, it was the woman from TV who does the daily weather in Styria. But Brenner only had eyes for the shoe seller, who had long, dark-red hair and black tar-eyes, in other words, a rarity.
And that truly was a coincidence, because Angie had had red hair, too, and the weather woman, also red hair. And there just aren’t that many redheads. But that’s how it goes—then you’ll only meet brunettes for an entire year, and then only blondes—life’s got a sense of humor all its own.
By the time the weather woman left, the saleswoman was so accustomed to acting friendly that, in the same tone of voice, she said to Brenner, “Could you maybe come by this evening? There’s too much going on here.”
“Gladly. Should I come by at six?”
“If that works for you.”
Yes. Thank you. Good-bye. Brenner was happy. Now he could start all over again with the woman. And besides, she’s really quite nice, he was thinking to himself now. And besides, now I can walk around for a few hours. Good weather, beautiful city—suddenly he saw his life in a completely different light. Just because the woman smiled at him. Men are such fools.
When Brenner returned to the shoe store at five to six, the door was already locked. And just as it was hitting him that shops close at five the first Saturday of the month, a black-haired woman said to him, “I had to get a quick dye job.”
You see, red hair, black eyes, doesn’t add up, this should’ve occurred to Brenner.
“Was the barber working overtime?”
Because Brenner was thinking, best not to show any surprise. Wrong time for games, though, and the shoe seller got right down to business without mincing a single word.
“How long has my sister been missing?”
“A week and a half.”
“And so he got a detective right away?”
“Actually it was your sister who called me.”
“Mmhmm.”
Mmhmm. Never had Brenner dreamed that a shoe seller would give him goosebumps. But you should know, when he was a kid there was nothing he liked better than watching old Westerns, especially the Winnetou movies. And with her black hair, the shoe seller looked so much like the Apache knight’s sister—if he hadn’t known for a fact that Nscho-tschi died in Winnetou’s very arms, he would’ve believed she was standing here in the flesh before him.
“Your sister called me a week ago. I was supposed to look into the matter with the bones. But when I got to Klöch, she wasn’t there.”
“I’m just surprised she didn’t take off sooner.”
“This isn’t the first time she’s left,” Brenner said.
“No, but I always knew about it before.”
“She’d come to you, then?”
“After a week at most, she’d go back again. To her chicken paradise.”
“You don’t think all that much of your sister’s husband.”
“What husband?”
Mmhmm. The arrogance of this Nscho-tschi shoe seller was disarming. And these days, of course, it’s never good when a detective lets himself be so easily disarmed.
“Are you actually twin sisters?”
“I’m five years younger.”
Now, thank god, a good excuse: “The photos I have of your sister are probably old.”
Nscho-tschi only gave him a fake look, though, as if to say: you think I need a compliment? “The photos are fine. That’s how she looks. In photos we always look very much alike. But in person, not at all. I don’t know how that works, either.”
“Just a way about you.”
“Yeah, probably just a way.”
Yeah, the older sister must have a nice way, Brenner thought.
“Why was your sister always leaving Klöch, then?”
“And here I’ve been asking myself why she always went back.”
“For love, maybe.”
“Or pity.”
“For who?”
“How should I know. For the chickens, probably.”
“Or the old man?” Brenner asked, and he was surprised when suddenly she answered in all seriousness,
“Could be. My sister felt sorry for the old man with his damn war injury. And the crazy ways he tries to make up for it.”
“What kind of ways?”
“Maybe you think it’s normal to grill a thousand chickens every day? And then every year having to put another addition on the restaurant because it’s not enough for him? It’s in the overcompensating that it becomes very clear just how perverse men are.”
Back to the topic at hand, Brenner said, “And you have no idea where your sister could be?”
“If I think of anything, I’ll call you. Where can you be reached?”
“Klöch. Staff’s quarters.”
“Aha. Well, good night.”
Well, good night. It was only now when Brenner was alone again that he was struck by how deserted the pedestrian mall had become. The more he paced up and down the street, the clearer it became to him that he wasn’t actually getting a single step farther.
“In Manhattan once lived an old knight
whose cock got clocked off in a fight.”
Now, Brenner was quite happy that he still had a night in Graz ahead of him. Even though all day long he’d been a little apprehensive about it. Because Löschenkohl’s daughter-in-law’s sister was only of secondary interest for going to Graz. Of primary interest, needless to say: the Horvath exhibit that Palfinger had told him about.
Brenner had only been to an art opening once in his life. The wife of Salzburg’s chief of police did needlepoint, Dutch windmills, and she couldn’t bear to part with her works, but, a charitable cause. Because otherwise, just her husband’s dark past always being dredged up in the newspapers for her windmills to do battle against.
But an art opening, a Vernissage in the proper sense of the word, with expensive works of art, this was Brenner’s first time. The Horvath opening didn’t go all that differently than the chief of police’s salon, though. Because back then, all the young cops were busy kissing the chief’s ass—so much so that the next business day saw Vaseline shares skyrocketing. And here in the Haselsteiner Gallery it looked just about the same, as if everyone had only come to pay court to one man.
This man was the exact opposite of the chief of police, though. Because the chief of police, of course, tall as a tree, wiry build, snow-white hair—you might’ve thought, freshly imported from Argentina. And here in the the Haselsteiner Gallery, a nondescript, forty-year-old man at most, who was so small that you might’ve thought, so this is why starving artists are all hunchbacks, because they’re constantly having to bend down over him.
But I don’t wish to be unfair now—there weren’t only hunchbacks here—no, I should add: Brenner had never before seen so many beautiful and elegant people together in one place as he saw here in the Haselsteiner Gallery. And believe it or not, the most beautiful and elegant of them all first struck Brenner by the way he held his wineglass in front of his nose:
“How do you find Horvath?” Kaspar Krennek asked and pressed the wineglass into Brenner’s hand.
“I’m not looking for him.”
Somehow this
answer reminded Kaspar Krennek of his father, the self-opinionated, post-War Hamlet, August Krennek. Needless to say, he didn’t tell Brenner this. Because that was perhaps a topic for the therapist next Tuesday, not for an art opening. And now he just smiled and said, “I’ve already closed on it.”
“You’ve got Horvath?”
“Two, in fact. The pencil drawing over there. And an etching in the other room. Because today I was able to stay in the bidding. In a month, though, the large sculptures that cost a fortune will be sold.”
“But you’ve got to watch out. Because a Horvath can disappear—just like that,” Brenner said and tasted the wine. But compared to the wine at the chief of police’s, this was pure hooch.
“It’s not exactly detrimental to the works that Horvath’s disappeared,” Kaspar Krennek laughed. “Before, I could’ve gotten my two prints for a tenth of the price.”
“That ought to make the collectors who’ve been buying them all along happy.”
“One collector above all,” Kaspar Krennek said. “The rubber manufacturer, Marko, has bought a couple million’s worth of Horvath’s works over the last few years. And in a month, he’ll sell them.”
“For ten times as much?”
“If they don’t go up even more.”
Brenner noticed that Kaspar Krennek kept looking over at the small nondescript man. But the man must have noticed it, too, because now he was excusing himself from his young onlookers and coming over to Krennek.
“May I introduce,” Kaspar Krennek said quite formally, because his good upbringing was getting the better of him again, “Nikolaus Marko, Austria’s most significant art collector today. My colleague, Herr Brenner.”
So my job as a private detective seems so lousy to him that he introduces me as a colleague, to be on the polite side, Brenner thought. But then he moved on to other thoughts. Because Marko was saying to Kaspar Krennek, “It’s tragic how it’s always the case that a dead artist is worth more than a living one.”
“I’ve got to pat myself on the back,” Kaspar Krennek smiled. “Just today, I, too, bought my first two Horvath prints. Ten times the price is but a fair penalty.”
“A good purchase nevertheless,” Marko congratulated him. “There’s a lot of imagination in Horvath’s works. And you’re now in the fortunate position of being able to contribute something yourself. Your colleagues on the court are still making it difficult for us to get an official death certificate before the big exhibition next month.”
“Maybe he’s not dead at all,” Brenner said, meddling.
Art collector Marko looked at him, surprised, and said, “I pray you’re right. But I’d wager you’re wrong.”
“Praying and wagering,” Kaspar Krennek said, imitating Marko’s smile. The collector’s speech had been so slurred that the two words sounded practically the same.
“Praying and wagering.”
With each and every word, the Detective Inspector imagined the post-War Hamlet rolling over in his grave.
CHAPTER 8
From Graz to Vienna, it’ll take you an hour and a half by car. But by train, nearly three hours. Because via the Semmering pass—that’s the famous mountain railway—well, the architect of it used to be on the old twenty-schilling bill: Freiherr Ritter von Ghegha. Make a note of it, never hurts.
A hundred years ago, of course, technical tour de force—don’t even ask. But nowadays, the one thing you notice above all else is how slow the train is. And Brenner was already feeling impatient because he’d gotten held up by the never-ending Horvath business. The time had come for him to find out: what’s with the girlfriend of the beheaded Ortovic?
In his impatience, he’d set a pace for himself that he could scarcely keep up with anymore. BAM! find a conductor on the train who would sell him a prepaid phone card. BAM! find the onboard phone and look up the number for the Vienna PD’s Vice Squad. BAM! request to be connected with Squad Head Winkler.
And didn’t lose his cool about that thing with Winkler’s wife—but I’m not going to go into that just now. Because it was fifteen years ago that Brenner had done that. And Winkler had been practically divorced anyway.
Didn’t lose his cool, though. When the police operator picked up, normally that alone would’ve been enough for Brenner to catch a whiff of the police barracks again. Because nineteen years on the force, you don’t just forget overnight.
Nineteen years of post-War furnishings, all of it first-class military quality, and nothing ever broke. At most, a fresh coat of paint when a suspect deliberately injured himself during an interrogation. Or, let’s say, his nerves sent him puking higher up on the wall than a coat of paint could reach, so it’d needed to be whitewashed out. And the phone system had been updated, and computers, too, of course, but still the same old typewriters. Because for some documents, typewriters—simply irreplaceable.
The lamps, the laminate flooring, the bulletin boards, the desks, the coffee makers, usually all it took was a surly “Police Precinct Two” and there’d be that smell. Usually! But Brenner—like a changed man now. He got redirected three times, he even heard background noise, but he didn’t let in any of the funk.
“Hofrat Winkler.”
“Hofrat, eh? Congrats on the promotion.”
“What promotion? Who is this?”
“Brenner. The last time we saw each other, you were still an inspector. And I was, too.”
“Ah, Brenner, I almost didn’t recognize you there. Didn’t think I’d be hearing from you again.”
Winkler was always good-natured. His wife walked all over him, it wasn’t even funny anymore. She looked like that actress in the French film—real quick, what’s it called again, the one they reran on TV recently.
Winkler didn’t let anything show, though. Who knows, maybe he’d completely forgotten about it. Men are all very different. And Winkler had always been an uncomplicated type. It’d been an eternity, too. Anyway, where am I going with this: two minutes later Brenner had Jurasic’s address. And shortly after noon, he was already standing at the Praterstern roundabout.
When Brenner was a kid in Puntigam, he would always listen to “Hit the Road” on the radio while he had lunch. It was really a very good program. Robert Stolz and Peter Alexander and call-ins and tips and everything. And every day at noon they would broadcast the midday bells from a different place in Austria. Except Puntigam never got featured, supposedly a slight because someone came forward with a sex scandal involving the town priest.
So Brenner knew the Praterstern from the traffic reports long before he ever set foot in Vienna for the first time. Interesting, though! Even though Brenner had only ever heard it mentioned when there was a traffic jam or construction or an accident in one of the traffic circle’s six lanes in the middle of downtown, he always imagined the Praterstern roundabout as something beautiful, almost a different planet. And it must’ve been that way for Helene Jurasic too, for her to name her Praterstern bar the Milky Way, of all things.
When the train let Brenner off directly on the Praterstern, first thing he did was walk over to the police trailer. Because he was feeling a little lost in the middle of the roundabout, which was supposed to be his starting point to look for the Milky Way bar. So, out of old habit perhaps, straight over to the police, this should’ve been a clue. Basically, they’d put this trailer there—you’ve definitely seen these at construction sites, the trailer where the masons go to drink at nine in the morning. No masons here, though, just police.
And once he was standing at the police trailer, he could see for himself that across the street next to the Nissan dealer, the red lights of a bar were blinking. Now he just had to cross the four, five, six lanes of traffic, direction Nissan dealer.
When Brenner got to the Nissan dealer, he was still alive, that’s the good news. The bad news, though: the bar wasn’t Helene Jurasic’s Milky Way. So he continued walking around the Praterstern: from the Nissan dealer, he crossed the Heinestraße to the Hansy Restaurant, cros
sed the Praterstraße, then the underpass at the Franzensbrückenstraße, then the metro underpass, Hauptalle, nothing, Ausstellungsstraße, nothing. Lassallestraße, nothing.
He saw it all: the Admiral Tegetthoff Monument, the Jamaica Sun Solarium, the Ferris wheel, the Avanti gas station, a fast-food place, and if he’d walked down the side streets, too, he would’ve even found some other bars: Rosi, Susi, the Black Cat. After forty-five minutes he was standing right back in front of the Nissan dealer, but not a Milky Way in sight.
Now, you really don’t want to be caught walking around the Praterstern for long. Because maybe there’s a brutal murderer afoot in Klöch, but what’s one murderer when you’ve got the whole Praterstern. And you can’t forget what bad drivers the Viennese are. Paris, not good, either. Nairobi, also not good. But Vienna—terrible. And when you’ve got six lanes of the worst drivers in the world driving around your ears, you can lose your cool pretty easily.
But it wasn’t the honking and braking and screeching that tugged on his nerves as he was making his second lap around. No, it was the white Mercedes that came out of nowhere, rumbling right up onto the sidewalk and narrowly grazing Brenner’s toes.
Now, who’s that sitting there gloating in his white Mercedes, you’re probably wondering.
“Hey, Brenner, what brings you to Vienna?” Vice Squad Head Winkler asked innocently.
He must have remembered that fifteen-year-old story with his wife after all.
“Very funny, Milky Way,” Brenner said.
“What, you’re looking for the Milk Way?” Winkler grinned. “You’re in the wrong place. This is just a roundabout. It doesn’t go anywhere near the Milk Way. It’s just a simple traffic circle down here on Earth.”
“You don’t say.”
Brenner was still as pale as a sheet. Because, first of all, a beer in the dining car on the train that morning, which he’s not used to. And then an hour and a half circling the Praterstern. And then going under the wheels of Frau Winkler’s husband’s Mercedes.
Brenner must’ve been feeling a little weak in the knees. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for why he took Winkler up on his offer. Because he held the car door open to him and Brenner, knowing no pride, got in.
