‘How about if I sit down?’
He seemed to consider this idea briefly, and then jerked his chin in the direction of the bamboo chair. I strolled the few metres over to it, moved the chair slightly, sat down carefully as if to test the sturdiness of its thin struts, crossed my legs, looked around the vast hall again, and finally said in casual tones, ‘I kind of wonder why someone who takes such trouble furnishing his office doesn’t even have a little tiger stuck to the dashboard of his car. Or one of those humorous coconut cushions on the back seat. Do you never take the ladies home afterwards? Must be quite a contrast for them, out of here and into a BMW that looks like it just rolled off the production line. Maybe there’s one of them you’d like to see again, she’d notice the moment she got in that car how phoney this pad of yours is.’
As a surprise it wasn’t a thunderclap, but it did at least get some reaction out of him at last. He frowned and folded his arms, and his biceps, steely from the weights room at the gym, began twitching in a quiet, unpleasant rhythm.
‘And incidentally,’ I went on, ‘it occurs to me to wonder on what occasion the BMW was really stolen? Even more interesting, when and how did the thief get hold of your keys? I’m assuming that even someone as comfortably off as you are doesn’t leave a brand new car worth umpteen thousand marks outside a bar with its engine running.’
No doubt about it, something was going on underneath his blow-dried hairdo. I leaned back comfortably in the chair, looked at him in a friendly way and let him take his time. When the silence began to put him at a clear disadvantage, he said, ‘I get it,’ and suddenly a nasty little smile came to his lips. ‘You stole the car and you want to sell it back to me.’
For a split second I wondered if I was on entirely the wrong track, but I knew that now I couldn’t back out anyway. I sighed and said, sounding bored, ‘Come on, Ahrens, don’t try that old trick on me. Why not tell me where you were for those four days when the BMW went missing?’
It really had been just a trick. The anger that now spread over his face couldn’t possibly be because I was taking the mickey out of him. I’d been doing that for the last ten minutes, and so far he hadn’t been particularly impressed. But he had just come down to my level, so to speak, and instead of simply throwing me out he’d looked for what he thought was a way out of the situation I’d set up. For a moment he had been the one sitting in front of the desk, and I’d been behind it, and that moment was now pumping the blood into his face.
‘Who are you?’ he asked as his body tensed in a way that told me I wasn’t going to spend much more time in his office today.
‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘And who are you working for?’
‘Only myself at the moment.’
‘Ha,’ he said, and it sounded like the maximum penalty imposed by the law. As he spoke, he pushed himself away from the table, chair and all, and rested his hands on the arms of the chair. ‘And what’s a wanker like you doing, making his way in here and telling me some kind of crap about my car?’
‘I know where it is, and I thought you might be interested to know how it got there.’ I stopped, adjusted my shirt slightly, and looked out through the wall of windows at industrial yards and heavy goods vehicles. A staring match to see who would look away first was not my kind of thing, but I could do well in a who-keeps-his-mouth-shut-longest competition.
‘So how did it get there?’
‘A bunch calling themselves the Army of Reason was driving around in it extorting protection money. But two of the extortionists had to leave the car the day before yesterday. And now I have it.’
‘Ah.’ He opened his mouth in the grimace of a teenage lout and jutted his chin in my direction. ‘So why don’t I have it? It’s my car! It was stolen from the yard out there. What do I have to do with this Army of whatever it was?’
‘Reason. Perfectly simple, just Reason.’
‘Interesting name.’
‘Oh, not all that interesting.’
‘Why not?’ he asked, and for a moment he looked genuinely curious. My God, like something out of the psychology supplement to a magazine. And good heavens, how quickly I’d got where I wanted. Or so I thought, anyway.
‘You know, what I don’t understand.’ I leaned forward. ‘It was all so elaborately done. The disguise, the powder, the mute trick, the name – how could you be stupid enough not to change the car number plates?’
He was in the act of getting out of his chair to do who knew what – probably come round from behind his desk and squash me flat between two fingers. But suddenly he stopped, his shoulders dropped back into place, and his face assumed an expression as if a very attractive idea had just dawned on him.
‘Suppose there’s something in the nonsense you’re babbling,’ he said, and there was almost a smile on his lips, ‘then why don’t you go to the cops with it? Why come to me? What do you really want?’ And when I didn’t answer right away he thrust his head towards me, and a really hearty smile came over it. ‘You surely weren’t thinking of blackmailing me? Oh, wow, you have no idea at all!’ He smiled a little more, then leaned back in his chair and inspected me with satisfaction.
‘I want to know who the two men driving the car the night before last were.’
‘What?’
‘The two extortionists after that protection money. Where they came from, how they lived, what they were planning to do.’
The satisfaction left his face. ‘Were planning to do?’
‘Were.’
For the first time I realised how quiet it was in his desert kingdom. The engines of the HGVs and forklift trucks in the yards outside must be making a lot of noise. But there was nothing to be heard except quiet clicking as Ahrens undid the metal strap of his watch and did it up again.
Finally he said, ‘Piss off.’
It was clear he wasn’t going to say it again, and I’d be lucky if I got away unscathed. I rose and set off for the door. Before I pressed the handle down I turned once more. ‘I mean it. I want to know who those two were. Perhaps that’ll be enough for me and then I’ll leave you alone. But not without knowing that.’ I tapped my forehead. ‘See you soon. And don’t think any of this set-up made any lasting impression on me.’
I slowly closed the door behind me, and then I moved fast. I raced past the lift door and went down the stairs as quietly as I could. No one came to meet me, and I heard no voices or other sounds on any of the office floors. I went the last few steps to the ground floor on tiptoe, peered around the corner, and saw to my relief that there was no one waiting for me outside the lift. Perhaps Ahrens was telling himself a little bastard like me couldn’t harm him. Or perhaps he simply had no one available just now to wait for me there.
I went down the corridor to the telephone switchboard and leaned against the narrow counter. Miss Chewing-Gum looked up from a swimwear magazine.
‘Your boss is really weird. Ever been on safari with him?’
She raised her eyebrows, not as if she were surprised, looked searchingly at me, and finally shook her head. ‘Wouldn’t be much of a safari. Nothing to be seen but a fat pig.’
I couldn’t help grinning, and for a brief, careless moment I enjoyed the sight of her thin, perky face with a layer of freshly applied, impossible turquoise lipstick echoing her fingernails. Too late, I saw the alarm in her eyes. When I followed the direction of her gaze and turned, a small, fat man was standing very close to me.
‘So how you doing, mate?’ he asked, pulling his thick lips into something that was probably supposed to be a smile. ‘I hear you found the boss’s car, right? I want the keys, so let’s have ’em, OK?’ he said, and I was just thinking, I know that voice, and wondering why he was holding his hand behind his back in such an odd way, when he made a movement that was remarkably fast for someone of his girth, and my face exploded.
*
Someone was tugging at my shirt. At the same moment the pain in my head started up a rockers’ party with everyone d
ancing and stamping, beer bottles clashing, brain cells scrapping with each other. Something wet and sticky splashed over my face, I flinched back and opened my eyes. Through a red haze, I saw Miss Chewing-Gum bending over me with a bottle of Fanta.
‘Come on, get up!’ she whispered. ‘You have to get out of here!’
I held out my hand, and she pulled at it until I was more or less sitting up and could see all the blood around me.
‘Go on, hurry! He’s only gone to get someone to take you down to the cellar.’
To the cellar. I managed to concentrate for a moment and imagine what the fat man would do to me in some dark hole if he was prepared to hit me so hard in broad daylight and in the presence of a witness that I felt I was now minus practically everything you can see on a passport photo. With all the strength I could muster, and Miss Chewing-Gum’s assistance, I managed to get to my feet. My face was dripping like lettuce that’s just been washed.
‘Hit me!’
‘What?’
‘I’m supposed to be watching to make sure you don’t get away, and I can do without trouble, so go on, hit me!’
I tried to raise my arm, but the rockers instantly opened up a new dance floor in my shoulder, and it dropped back to my side.
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ she hissed, took my hand, raised it in the air, making me cry out again, and smashed it down on her turquoise mouth. No idea if it was my blood or hers, but anyway she stayed behind, smeared with red, as I staggered out of the door into the yard. The rain beat in my face, it was cold and windy, the twenty metres to the street seemed endless, and my head felt like one huge open wound. I felt like flinging myself down on the tarmac and howling. The last thing I saw when I reached the street and turned once more was Dr Ahrens smiling as he promised Pleasure On My Plate, and in return I promised him all the tortures in the world.
Chapter 8
‘Oh no!’
Romario jumped up from the armchair, took my arm and helped me to lie down on the sofa.
‘What … what happened?’
‘Found the Army of Reason.’ My voice sounded as if I were talking underwater. ‘Get me a bottle of vodka and call the emergency doctor.’
When the doctor closed his bag about an hour later, he said, ‘That needs to be X-rayed. You’d better go straight to the hospital. I can call you a cab if you like.’
‘Anything broken?’
He shrugged. ‘Can’t tell because of the swelling. How did you come by that?’
‘Sheer stupidity.’
‘Looks as though someone hit you in the face by mistake with his garden hoe or something.’
‘With a knuckleduster, and not by mistake.’
‘Ah.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Well, if you want to rest for a while before you go to the hospital, put some ice on it.’
The doctor left, and I sent Romario to the supermarket round the corner for supplies of alcohol and an Ahrens packet soup. Then I went to sleep. When I woke up two hours later, Romario was sitting beside me holding a tea-towel full of ice to my cheek.
‘How’s it feel?’ he asked.
I was going to say something, but I couldn’t get anything out, and made a so-so gesture with my hand.
‘Soon as you feel strong enough to stand up I’ll call a taxi and we’ll go to the hospital. By the way, they didn’t have your soup. But maybe you shouldn’t eat anything just now anyway. Wait and see what the X-ray shows. In case they have to operate, I mean.’
I watched him trying, with an expression of concern, to hold the tea towel full of ice so that it cooled my face but didn’t press against it. After a while I fell asleep again.
It was just after ten when we came back from the hospital. Nothing broken but a good deal of damage done, whatever the doctor meant by that. They’d bandaged my head, injected a painkiller, and I was to spend the next few days in bed. While I settled down on the sofa with the remote control and a mineral water, Romario went into the kitchen and cooked up some stuff he’d bought at an all-night convenience store on our way back. Fumes of burnt butter floated out of the kitchen door. I leaned back and switched the TV on.
After we’d eaten, and after I’d wondered yet again why Romario had ever chosen the profession of chef, I told him about my morning visit to Dr Ahrens. He sat in front of me the way I imagine one of my unknown grannies would have sat in front of me in such a situation: hands clamped between his knees, nodding vigorously at the exciting moments of my tale, and for all his sympathy constantly casting critical glances at my plate, which was still half full.
‘Which means,’ I concluded, ‘that you’ll have to stay awake tonight.’
Romario hesitated. Now that it had all been told and cleared up he seemed to be thinking of his usual daily life again, and regular sleep at civilised times played a not unimportant part in it. ‘Why?’
‘Because Ahrens could find out who I am, and then he’ll be marching in here.’
‘Hm,’ said Romario sceptically. ‘So then what? Do I march out to meet him?’
‘Then you wake me up. I have my shotgun and pistols, and before they even get in here half the neighbourhood will have called the police.’
He began stacking the dishes with his one good hand. ‘How did you know Ahrens had anything to do with it?’
‘I didn’t know. I went off there to poke around a bit, and suddenly it all came clear, just like that.’
He took the dishes into the kitchen and clattered around there for a while. Then he came back with two dishes of ice cream, gave me one of them, sat down in the armchair again and began slowly spooning up the other.
‘OK, Romario, I get the idea. You want to say something, so go ahead and say it.’
‘Well, look at it like this … when it all started up last week I thought, this is just a normal protection-money racket, same as usual. And I’m not a coward, you can believe me there. Out of eight goes at extortion since the Schmitzes left, I’ve dealt with five …’
As far as I knew Romario was not in fact a coward, which always surprised me slightly. I’d seen him deal with two thugs who were trying to take him apart in front of his assembled customers. He had reminded me of those well-brought-up young ladies who, setting out in a mood of mingled adventurousness, naiveté and arrogance to explore the world beyond places with guest loos and country houses with underfloor heating, find themselves in very tricky situations without being aware of it, so that perhaps for that very reason almost nothing bad ever happens to them. Anyway, Romario treated the thugs like idiots who’d do better to stop and think how, if they kept getting in his way while the restaurant was at its busiest, he was ever going to make the money they were demanding from him. After half an hour, and when Romario had wrecked their digestive systems with two free Lambruscos, they went away with their nerves in shreds.
‘… So I figured, with a pistol and some shooting lessons, I could handle whatever came. You can get rid of most of them, but if someone won’t be got rid of and if you can afford it, well, you pay up. I mean, it was just the enormous amount this weird Army was asking made me ask you for help. But now I’m thinking – always assuming the insurance people don’t make difficulties – it’d be better if I do pay. And then you can give them the car back, and we’ll forget the whole thing.’
‘Oh yes? And do I give the dead bodies back too?’
‘You just explain to this Ahrens how it happened – self-defence. They understand such things in those circles.’
‘But I don’t move in those circles. And you’re forgetting about my face. How about that?’
Romario shrugged slightly and hummed and hawed. Perhaps he thought a smashed-in face didn’t alter my appearance too drastically. I also suspected that it was just because of my face he was trying to persuade me to drop the whole thing. Up to now his plan had been to get the insurance money, go underground for a while, and try his luck again somewhere else once the situation had calmed down. The fact that I wasn’t letting it go, and he was in it with me wh
ether he liked it or not, meant that his plan was in danger, and so, not least, was his own face. In particular his own face. A reverse projection of that kind was the only way I could account for the touching and apparently completely unselfish nursing care he had lavished on me all afternoon.
At that moment the phone rang. Grateful for the interruption, Romario jumped up and brought it over to me. Then he disappeared into the kitchen. I took the receiver off and said, ‘Hello.’
‘Hey, Kayankaya,’ an obviously elated Slibulsky shouted in my ear, ‘you sound as if you’d found those bloody Army characters and they’d chucked a concrete bar in your face by way of hello.’ He laughed cheerfully, and after my rather stuffy evening in the company of Granny Romario it was like a breath of fresh air. ‘What’s up? Been screwing Deborah under a ventilator and caught a cold?’
‘I did find those bloody Army characters, and they did indeed chuck a concrete bar in my face by way of hello.’
‘What? No joking?’
I told him briefly what had happened, and how I was beginning to feel a bit better after the injection. ‘Your face is bandaged up?’
‘That’s right.’
‘When does the bandage come off?’
‘No idea.’
‘Are you fairly recognisable all the same?’
‘What are you getting at? Is this a confession that you feel deprived if you don’t get to see my face every few days?’
‘Gina’s giving a dinner party next Friday, the whole works, candles and tablecloth and all. She’s been appointed head of a department at the museum. So a lot of her women friends and colleagues are coming. Very elegant ladies, some of them. But if all they can see is your pot belly, those aren’t exactly the best conditions for a first meeting.’
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