When the sixth pair of headlights appeared at the end of the street, I just nodded, feeling bored with the show by now. But after the car had stopped in the yard and the doors had opened, I heard voices for the first time that evening.
‘Right, lads, see you Saturday. Work in the morning first, pleasure in the evening!’
By now I was back at the corner of the wall, and I saw Ahrens laughing. Two huge hulks in suits stood beside him.
‘Don’t worry, boss, the faggots will get what faggots always hope for – they’ll die in their sleep.’
At that moment the passenger door opened, and at first I was simply amazed – the way you’re amazed when something turns out almost exactly as you imagined it. Black hair loosely braided at the back of the neck, slim body, economical movements. I saw her only from behind, in a light-coloured coat, but it had to be her, no doubt about it. Hesitantly, like a woman facing something disagreeable but inevitable, she approached the front door.
‘Wait a minute, pet!’ Ahrens waved to the two hulks, turned and followed her. As the doors of the BMW closed, Ahrens came up to the woman from behind and put his Michelin man arms around her waist. Then the BMW drove out of the entrance, I had to retreat into the shadows, and when I next looked round the corner the door was just closing behind them.
I stood there for a while motionless, as if my head had been swept empty. Finally I lit a cigarette and paced up and down for a bit. I couldn’t make it out. Leila’s mother might not have looked happy, but she certainly hadn’t looked as if he were mistreating her either. And what did I know about her – about her relationship with Ahrens, any deal she might have made to get her husband out of jail, or her chance of getting hold of a great deal of money? Certainly not enough for me to shoot my way in through the door here and now, and get her out of there. The one thing I was sure of was that, although she was obviously relatively free to move about, she hadn’t sent Leila any news of herself since Sunday. And if she could find the time to screw around with Ahrens, you’d have thought a quick call to the refugee hostel wasn’t too much to ask. With Ahrens, too! Even if it was a case of getting hold of large sums of money, or for all I knew freeing the most wonderful man in the world from jail – surely no human being with the faintest aesthetic sense could do that.
I stood there in the entrance, looking up with revulsion at Ahrens’s desert domain, now bathed in warm yellow light. Was he telling her something about the constellations on the ceiling? Or the wonderful world of the children of Nature? No, she’d know all that off by heart. It would be romantic hits on the CD player, and rumpy-pumpy among the coconut and banana cushions!
I turned away, striding fast, picked up my bag and marched down the street to my car. She could wait till Saturday. Which might even suit her. And after all, I had something more important to do. I was in the business of chasing a Mafia gang out of the city, I couldn’t waste time bothering with a woman who had, perhaps, looked hesitant, but had gone straight from the car to the front door of the building. And that was the whole point: do you go to the front door of a building or don’t you? There are always reasons. Reasons are the most tedious things in the world.
I roared the engine, put the car into gear, and stepped on the gas.
Chapter 16
‘Saturday evening, I’m just about certain.’
‘Just about …’ repeated the Albanian. But it didn’t, like his usual repetition of a word, sound like a sign that he was paying relative attention, or like a way of unsettling whoever he was talking to; it sounded distrustful. I was standing near the toilets in the Owl, holding the telephone receiver and a glass of cider, and I wanted to get this conversation over with as quickly as possible. Phoning the Albanian, but not really caring in the least what he thought and thus possibly striking the wrong note, wasn’t the kind of thing you really wanted to try in this town.
‘Well, you can’t be absolutely sure until you’re there watching the lads eat their dinner.’
‘Ah, I see. So you can’t. Tell me, is this case proving a little too much for you?’
‘Too much for me? How do you mean?’
‘Well, you sound so … oh, I don’t know … agitated, nervous. Not a good state to be in for pulling off something like this.’
‘That’s nothing to do with it. Private business.’
‘Fine. I’m relying on you …’
That, in his mouth, wasn’t reassuring. I cleared my throat. ‘So if nothing else happens, I’ll meet you in the New York on Saturday morning.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want to tell me where this Army of Reason will be meeting? You have my word that everything will go as you want. But suppose something happens to you …’
‘Nothing’s going to happen to me.’
‘I lost two more of my men last night, and a woman who sells sausages over in Sachsenhausen died.’
The bit about the sausage seller was a lie. They had said on the radio that a snack bar had been blown up, but the proprietress got out alive. And if his boys couldn’t get their guns out of their trouser pockets fast enough, that wasn’t my problem.
‘Sorry to hear that.’
He audibly breathed in and out. ‘I just want to make sure that if we have to wait until the day after tomorrow to get after this gang, we’ll really be able to strike hard then.’
‘Look, I’ll have to go. My small change is running out.’
‘Small change …?’ he asked, as if I had told him I was planning to fight with a bow and arrows on Saturday. ‘Don’t you have a …’
I pressed the rest of the phone down. Another discussion of mobiles and I might actually have forgotten my respect for him, just for a moment. Wiser to break off in mid-conversation.
I bought another glass of cider and called Slibulsky.
‘How’s it going? Where are you?’
‘In a phone box.’ The Owl was one of the bars we patronised. It more or less stood for relaxation after work, silly jokes, cheerful boozing. To say I was here would have been a lie.
‘In a phone box? Since when do you hear loos being flushed from a phone box?’
‘Since when did I have to tell you exactly where I’m calling from?’
‘Oh, what a great mood you’re in. Was there anything else, or shall we ring off?’
‘How’s Leila?’
‘Lying in front of the TV. Like you said, she’s all strung up but OK otherwise. Have you found her mother?’
‘More or less. I’ll tell you tomorrow. And how are the two of you getting on with Leila?’
‘I’m on my own. Gina’s at the museum. But we’re not having any problems. She says what she doesn’t want, and I can guess the rest. You’re right, she’s delightful in her way. She even watched half an hour of table tennis with me just now. If she keeps this up she’ll be someone’s dream woman in a few years’ time.’
‘Bring her to the phone, would you?’
A moment later a breathless ‘She there?’ came down the line, and I couldn’t help smiling. It was good to hear her voice.
‘No, sorry, but I know where she is. Now, listen carefully …’
I told her that at the moment her mother was moving heaven and earth to get her father out of jail. That meant she was negotiating with Ahrens and some powerful Croatians, she was going to meet people in other cities, of course she was under severe pressure the whole time and hardly had a minute to herself. All the same, as I had found out by devious means, she kept leaving phone messages in the refugee hostel, but Frau Schmidtbauer obviously wasn’t passing them on – silly old cunt that she was.
Leila listened to all this without putting in a word, and when I’d finished there was a pause. Then she asked gravely, ‘Why Schmidtbauer not tell me my mother call?’
‘Well, I strongly suspect she’s jealous. Don’t you remember the way she went on about your mother in her office? Schmidtbauer is in love with Ahrens and thinks your mother wants to pinch him from her. But that’s just nonsense. All your m
other’s interested in is getting your father out of jail.’
‘You think?’
‘Now listen, what’s all this? I don’t just think so, I know. At the moment, so I’ve been told, she’s in Munich meeting an industrialist from Zagreb. But she’ll be back by Saturday at the latest, and then I’ll manage to get word to her that you haven’t been getting her messages because of that stupid cow.’
‘Saturday.’ She made it sound like ‘next year’.
‘Two days. They’ll pass quickly.’
‘Oh, well,’ she sighed, and fell silent.
‘OK, look, I still have something to do this evening. I don’t think I’ll be able to drop in. How about I fetch you tomorrow morning, and we’ll go to those other animal rescue centres and look for Susi?’
‘Hm.’
‘Was that a yes?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Then I do. So … see you tomorrow. Sleep well.’
‘… You too.’
I hung up, stared at the phone for a moment, picked up my glass and went upstairs to the bar. What I still had to do this evening was find a free seat in a quiet corner. The bar was beginning to empty at this time. People playing cards still sat at the long, rough wooden tables around me, a pair of lovers and a small birthday party lingered on. No one I knew.
I leaned back against the wall, drank cider and smoked. With every glass the truth I suspected became more like the story I’d spun Leila. Soon I felt there could be no other explanation of her mother’s behaviour. I couldn’t believe the woman I’d seen in the video yesterday would simply abandon her daughter just to screw around with Ahrens and get her hands on a few marks.
I took a large gulp and waved to the waiter for another glass.
… If they were screwing around at all. They had gone into Ahrens’s office building – and if she had to negotiate with him, why not? As for the way Ahrens was pawing her from behind, well, that was hardly surprising with a man like him. Any more than it was surprising for Schmidtbauer to fail to pass on messages. On the phone I’d simply been making it up; by now I was sure I’d hit the bull’s-eye … I nodded to myself. There was a good reason for everything.
‘Last orders, please!’
I ordered a last glass, and as I smiled at the waiter I realised how a few ciders had brightened my spirits and my general mood. I emptied the glass, and decided they’d be even brighter if I had another drink. I went round the corner to a run-down bar that stayed open all night. When I somehow, some time, got home, my spirits and my general mood must have been as bright as a dazzling summer sky. Unfortunately I couldn’t remember anything about it next morning.
Chapter 17
Around twelve I woke up beside the sofa, surrounded by video cassettes, packets of cigarettes, and an empty vodka bottle. The blue of the video channel shone out of the TV screen. I lay there for a moment, working out where I hurt and where, as I gingerly felt myself, I seemed to be all right. Then I heaved myself up and launched into the usual routine: Alka Seltzer, cold shower, smart clothes for my battered body, a litre of water, open the windows and off to the nearest café to get some food inside me.
An hour later the ground beneath my feet was still making peculiar swaying movements, but I felt fresh enough to get into the car and keep my appointment with Leila. Obviously all the drivers on the streets today were learners. As I managed, with some difficulty, to avoid their strange manoeuvres I couldn’t shake off the thought that I’d forgotten something during my phone conversation with the Albanian yesterday. Forgotten to tell him something … ask him something … no, I couldn’t pin it down. And then I found that I’d reached Slibulsky’s place.
The afternoon passed much like the last Susi-search, except for Leila’s compliments on my suit and her way of moving my chin aside every time I spoke to her directly.
‘Smell like rubbish from party.’
While Leila looked at dogs I spent most of the time sitting on the nearest crate and drinking bottle after bottle of water, unable to believe how long, loud and painfully those animals could bark. In the Kelkheim dogs’ home a passing keeper groused at us suspiciously as if we were gypsies. Perhaps because of my suit, perhaps because of Leila’s brightly coloured dress or her silver bracelets and earrings, don’t ask me which. When we didn’t reply he stopped, planted himself in front of us, chin jutting, and asked if we were planning to eat the dogs. Good heavens!
‘No, drink dogs,’ said Leila, winking at me.
The keeper narrowed his eyes, turned his head first to her and then to me, and jerked his thumb. ‘What’d she say?’
I sighed. ‘You heard. We boil the animals, then we distil the liquor and get tanked up. Do you have any problem with that?’
Obviously he hadn’t expected an answer, or at least not one in complete sentences. He stepped back, looked from one to the other of us, shook his head, and turned away with a sour expression, as if we were suddenly none of his business.
Then, in Oberursel, a shrill cry of delight drowned out all the barking. I almost fell off the crate where I was sitting. Next moment Leila came racing up, gabbling something excitedly, grabbed my arm and hauled me over to one of the pens. To me, the dog looked like any other German shepherd, but Leila was convinced that the animal leaping up and down in there was my last two weeks’ salary. The dog did in fact react to the name of Susi with enthusiastic howls and tail-wagging. I congratulated Leila, who was bursting with pride and excitement, and gave her a hug. Then we went to the office, settled the formalities, I bought a dog-leash, phoned Frau Beierle and told her we were on our way. Half an hour later we drove off: Leila as happy and exuberant as if she’d won the lottery, I full of respect and almost hangover-free by now, and Susi with her head out of the window greeting the entire Rhein-Main district with loud barking.
‘I’m going to introduce you as my niece from Bosnia.’
‘What for?’
‘Because otherwise explaining you will be too complicated for her. She likes things clear. And try to look sad. When I mention Bosnia you could cry a little, or cover your eyes with your hands.’
‘Like rip her off?’
‘Not really. She’d feel more ripped off if we don’t rip her off …’ I saw Leila’s baffled expression, and dismissed the whole thing. ‘Forget it. Just look like a sad Bosnian girl, and you’ll catch on to the rest. And if you could put your jewellery away while we’re there …’
Soon after that I parked the car, we got out, and Leila took Susi, who was now yowling euphorically and tugging at her leash, off the back seat. Frau Beierle lived in a villa with a small park of a garden and a drive up to it. I rang the bell at the wrought iron gate, the buzzer sounded, and while Susi took off and raced ahead Leila and I marched up the pale gravel path. We were halfway between gate and villa when Frau Beierle came out of her front door and flung her arms round Susi.
As a former politician once famously said, you can run a concentration camp on virtues such as doing your duty, loyalty and obedience – and on Frau Beierle’s hairstyle too, I was thinking. It was dark blonde, smooth, cut in a line precisely between her ears and her shoulders, and so strictly parted to the left of her forehead that a straight line of white skin ran across her scalp. To the right of the line a metal clasp held some of the hair back. The rest of it fell neatly, hair beside hair, as if it had been trained. Presumably hair that didn’t grow in exactly the right way had no future on her head. Her face was square and rather flat with a turned-up nose, quick little eyes and a small mouth that she was always twisting into a slightly ironic smile, as if she were observing everything said and done in the world from an extraordinarily high vantage-point and, from up there, saw human weaknesses and crazy connections which ordinary mortals didn’t even guess at. She was wearing a grey trouser suit, a white silk scarf round her neck and flat, sexless shoes polished to a high gloss. After she had shaken hands with us, expressed her thanks at length, and told us again how happy she and of course Susi were, she as
ked us into the house and offered biscuits and drinks. A little later we were sitting in her conservatory drinking cherry juice and eating wholemeal vanilla pastries. The little park beyond the windows had a fountain and what I assumed was an Egyptian statue in it. Susi was frolicking around there, celebrating her reunion with the trees and bushes by lifting her leg to baptise them with short, quick jets of urine. To the right you could see the freshly mended hole in the fence through which she had got out two weeks ago. Perhaps someone had taken her away, perhaps she had simply been too stupid to find her way home.
‘So you’re Herr Kayankaya’s niece.’ Frau Beierle gave Leila a friendly nod. ‘Do you live in Frankfurt too, if I may ask?’
Leila let the corners of her mouth turn down in what I thought was rather too theatrical a way, and looked at me as if she had been beaten.
‘Er … she’s only been here two months. My brother married a Bosnian woman, so you see …’
‘Bos-nian!’ repeated Frau Beierle slowly, and sketched the movement of clasping her hands over her head in distress. ‘Oh, the poor child!’
‘Yes … well, it hits some people one way, some another. I’m trying to get her into a private boarding school while she has to stay here. State schools don’t take pupils short-term just like that, and after all, the child can’t sit at home all day alone and … well, she prays a lot, but she must go back to learning something too.’
‘Quite right. At her age learning’s what matters most. Particularly learning how to learn.’ She emphasised this last sentence word by word, while her friendly glance conveyed her doubts of whether I knew what she meant.
‘You put that so well. Just what I think myself. And the way things look, I’m afraid, she won’t be able to go back to Bosnia in a hurry …’
Leila did something in between sniffing and swallowing and passed her hand over her face, leaving a heartrending pastry crumb there.
Kismet Page 18
