by John Brady
Designer stubble, yes, and white shirt, open two buttons. An earring too?
“Here we go,” said Speckbauer. “His pad.”
He turned down a lane with cars parked tight to the walls of the houses. After a dozen steps he slowed and looked up at a first floor window. The blinds were drawn.
“Come here,” he said to Felix and stepped into an alcove.
“Watch this.”
He took out his phone and began keying through a list.
Felix watched the traffic passing the mouth of the laneway while they waited for the call to go through.Then Speckbauer began speaking.
“Kurt? This is your friend from Graz. I need your expertise. I’m on the road now. Concerning that matter up in the hills recently?
I’ll be there in fifteen, okay?”
He closed the phone and leaned out to take a look up at the window again.
“Answering machine.”
“Kurt is actually the boss in that pub?”
“Kurt, yeah. Krutzitürken Kurt, I call him. ‘Mr. Smiley.’ He thinks if he smiles a lot, people will trust him. He spent a lot of money on those teeth. He had to I guess after, well – he’s proud of them.”
“He’s an informer?”
“‘An informer?’ I am not the Gestapo, for Christ’s sake. He is a ‘helper.’”
“He does it voluntarily?”
“No. Kurt’s a low-life. But he’d swear otherwise.Was he nice to you yesterday?”
“As a matter of fact he was.”
“Huh. He made you the minute you walked in there. He’s good at that. But he’s like the rest of his kind. No conscience.”
Speckbauer looked at his watch.
“Three minutes, if my brain is working today. Bet me, okay?”
“What is that?”
“Kurt doesn’t want trouble. Like any businessman he wants to be left alone with his interests. His housewives, and his salesmen and his coke and his operations.”
“He’s actually a criminal?”
“Well yes, a criminal. Log on when you get back to work, and slap in his name into an EKIS search.You could light up your house by what shows up on the screen.”
“And he runs a pub?”
“Why can’t he run a pub? This is a democracy.”
“And carries on with criminal operations?”
“Criminal – well, textbook, yes: I suppose.You think it’s just for a beer you go into his place? People get bored, you know.They want excitement. They want thrills.”
“He’s not arrested?”
“Why should I do that? Now what use oh shit. What did I tell you?”
Speckbauer pressed his back against the wooden door. The footsteps were hurried, almost skipping. He waited until the footsteps came closer.
Felix couldn’t help but smile. Kurt actually jumped when Speckbauer stepped out into the laneway.
“You stupid donkey,” said Speckbauer. “I think you’re not even awake.”
Kurt stopped rolling his eyes and swearing.
“Who is this one?”
“My colleague.”
“I knew it. I’ve seen him. Jesus!”
His chest was still heaving from the fright. His eyes kept darting around, to the traffic passing the mouth of the laneway from Speckbauer to Felix.
“Schweineri Kurt, but you’re hyper. What has you out here?
Jogging?”
“I have to go on a message.”
“No doubt. Heading down to Piran again, maybe? Pluck a few early birds, some German hippies maybe?”
Felix tried to place Piran on a map in his head. An old town on the Adriatic, he remembered. Old buildings, nice walks, lots of stone, and not far. It was maybe four hours’ drive, he guessed, and it was still in Slovenia.
“Hell no.”
“Kurt likes to offer his time to ladies visiting Piran and the like.
Bored women from Germany are his focus.Women of a certain age, and income, of course.”
“What’s the big deal, for Christ’s sake,” said Kurt. “We all have our thing. Have dummies in Brussels passed a law saying it’s illegal to have fun now?”
“Brussels? Is that where you’re heading now?”
“Are you crazy?”
“We need your advice, Kurt.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You treat your answering machine like a grenade with the pin pulled.”
“Christ man it’s early! I barely got to bed.Why are you hassling me?”
“I phone you. Next thing you’re out of your place like a shit off a shovel. And your eyes like saucers. Did you pee the bed too? Calm down.”
Kurt took in deep breaths. He seemed momentarily lost for words.
“I can’t help you,” he said then. “I don’t know anything.”
“What’s your mother’s birthday then? Do you know that?”
“Look. I don’t want to talk.”
“You want to run.”
“Look, I’ve got to go.”
“Kurt. Don’t be an arschloch. I don’t want to do all the paperwork.”
“Go ahead. I don’t care.”
Felix eyed Speckbauer for any sign of what he’d do next.
“Calm down, Kurt. How can we protect you if you get like this?”
“Protect me?” said Kurt. He turned wide-eyed to Felix.
“Do you have to work with this guy?”
“Kurt,” Speckbauer said. “This isn’t TV. You can’t switch off the channel. These guys aren’t just moving bad paper, or Ex, or coke, or whatever. So we need to talk. Really. Understand?”
Kurt’s eyelid twitched.
“You know what I’m talking about,” said Speckbauer. “Come on, let’s get off the street here at least. Coffee, some buns and cheese whatever you want, around the corner. Here, I’ll get you a bag to put over your head.”
“That’s not funny.”
“What’s the matter? It’ll be quick — boom boom. You won’t even see it coming.”
“You are a sick bastard.”
“You’ve been talking to my ex? Come, Kurt.You’re awake now.
Be sensible.”
Kurt’s tone changed.
“Jesus, Speck,” he said, almost plaintively. “This is . . . This is really shitty.”
“I know, I know, Kurt. I’ll leave you alone after this.”
Kurt shook his head slowly and said something, and did a halfturn and shook his head again. For several moments he stood frozen, staring at the cobblestones by his feet while he massaged the back of his neck.
Speckbauer nodded and Felix looked toward the traffic. Felix heard him whisper to Kurt as he headed for the street. When he got to the street, he turned. Kurt was walking with Speckbauer toward him.
Speckbauer chose a spot he seemed to know already.There was an old man reading the local newspaper near the door. Speckbauer had to duck as he made his way into a booth at the back, where one of the arches came down to the wall above the wooden partitions.
Kurt’s hands were shaking, even with the coffee. He dabbed a bit of the bun into the cup and put it in his mouth like it was medicine.
“I just don’t,” he muttered to Speckbauer. “There’s the usual bunch coming and going. They have money. They have hip clothes, watches, mobiles. I don’t see them flashing car keys a lot.”
“Come on,” said Speckbauer, sucking foam off his moustache.
“The boys out here still do that, to get the girls keen: the Beemer key ring, but a VW parked outside?”
“Who knows? These guys though, they never get pushy. Always polite. And they’re not chasing girls, that I can see.”
“What? The illegals come to you because they think it’s a gay bar?”
“Shit, no. I’m just saying.”
“You’re a friendly guy, Kurt. What do they tell you?”
“Nothing,” Kurt said. He eyed Felix.
“You were in the other day,” he said. “It was
early, wasn’t it?
Mr. My-Wife-Is-A-Bitch, and a crappy factory job here.”
“Quit your crying Kurt.You made him right away.”
“There were guys at the patio there, and I hear them talking, in their own language. And I says to myself, well they’re a new bunch of illegals. It won’t take long before Speck sends another one of his hounds in for a look.”
“Hounds? Really.”
“What else can I call them?”
“My colleague’s name is Felix. So try cats, okay? Latin: Felis, cat? Got that?”
“Who speaks Latin? I don’t.”
“What language were they speaking, that bunch?”
“Not German, that’s what. Not even farmer German from, Christ, up in the woods in . . . whatever.”
“St. Kristoff am Offenegg.”
“If you say so.”
“So tell me what’s different, Kurt.”
“About what?”
“You don’t usually run like a fucking greyhound when I pay a visit. Why now?”
Felix tried not to look over at Speckbauer. He wondered again how the man could hide his anger so well.
“It’s a feeling, that’s all I know.”
“A feeling? I’ll give you a feeling.”
“No. Like I was saying. There’s no party to those guys. They’re looking around, they’re not out for a good time. And I don’t see the likes of them banging hammers or sweeping floors like the illegals you hear about.”
“Do they hang around?”
“There’s another thing. They don’t. It’s like they’re sampling or something. But what the hell, I’m not running a psychotherapy place.”
“Only a pub, with ‘extras.’”
Kurt made a grimace of disdain.
“Don’t freak, Kurt. I’m not here to complain about idiots who want to put stuff in their noses, or roll it up and spend the next six hours giggling and falling over.”
“Really.”
“Really. But tell me: Ex?”
Kurt nodded.
“A lot? More than last time we talked?”
“No. But I swear nothing goes on inside the place. Never did.”
Speckbauer looked down into his cup, made a hnhh sound at the remains of the froth and coffee there and then shot a glance at Felix.
“You’re a sophisticate. You’ve tried Ecstasy, haven’t you?”
Felix shook his head.
“Well if you haven’t, here’s the man to put you in the way of it.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake.”
“Just shut up complaining, Kurt, will you? Tell me more about the new faces.”
“What faces would you like?”
“New ones. What you’re supposed to be noticing.”
Kurt looked off into the middle distance.
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing comes to mind.”
“Ausländers, Kurt. Tschuschen. Asylants. Call them what you want. But think.”
“Look, why don’t you bust some of the factories down there near the autobahn, down in Gleisdorf, huh? Come on, you know they have guys coming in off the books. Cleaners, night stuff, and that? I only see guys with enough money to come up here.”
“A better quality of gangster?”
“Who knows.You think everyone with an accent is a crook?”
Speckbauer sighed.
“A philosopher now. Really don’t need that. Come on now, your sixth sense tells you something. You’ve never tried to make a run for it on me before.”
“I get fed up with this. You put too much pressure on me. I could run myself into a lot of trouble if I tried every single thing you wanted. And you wouldn’t give a shit, would you? You’d use someone else, just move on to the next one and suck their blood.”
At this he exchanged a hurried look with Felix. Speckbauer shifted slightly in his chair.
“You’re worried, Kurt,” he said. “Moaning more than usual, a lot more. We need to review your situation. Maybe you’re trying to cover up stuff. Schleich problems?”
“The black market? I swear, now. There’s no black market to speak of in this town.”
“Something is different with your reaction. Hey, are you high?”
“Fuck off.”
“Coming down off something? Irritable?”
Kurt looked away.
“Something specific,” Speckabuer went on. “Come on. This ‘feeling.’ It’s not just paranoia, or dope, is it?”
“Give me a break.”
“I’ll give you a break all right. How about I get the KD to pay you a visit? My fine colleagues there on Strassgangerstrasse, in Graz. That’s what I’ll do. And a premises search. The lab will come up with something.”
“I don’t have anything!”
“Except fear, and a ‘feeling.’”
Felix was beginning to feel a faint nausea. Kurt’s bloodshot eyes, his sighs of exasperation that had a whiny edge to them now, and the stale body odour that had began to emanate from him, all mixed with Felix’s own feeling that he was being dirtied by just being here in part of Speckbauer’s dismal world.
“Ok, it’s nothing,” said Kurt then. “Maybe nothing. But Stephi, she’s on weekday evenings, Stephi and I were talking.
Stephi’s lazy, all right? But when I lay it on the line, she’s good. I just have to keep going at her.”
“Excuse me, but where is this going?”
“Wait,” said Kurt. “I’m coming to it. She was complaining about tips and conditions. As if she’s Mausi Lugner or somebody else on that stupid show. Anyway. She gets about, Stephi does. She’s in a restaurant the other day gossiping with one of the trolls she hangs out with. You know the type? The bottle blonde pushing forty, the one who never got over the eighties look? The hubby’s a fat bastard, the kids are brats . . . ? Plenty of them in Weiz. But Stephi sees a guy talking to the manager there. ‘Heck, that guy was in the pub,’ she thinks. Apparently he’s quite a hunk.”
“A hunk?”
“Come on,” said Kurt and made a dismissive wave. “She plays the field, Stephi. She has an eye for the well-dressed guy.”
“Well what about him?”
“The guy spoke with an accent but good German. Well put together, not factory floor. More the office type, says Stephi, ‘professional, dressed nice, polite.’ He’d had a beer the night before.
He’s the guy with the pictures, she said to herself.”
“Pictures?”
“I’m getting to that. Turns out the guy showed Stephi a photo of someone, asked her if she’d seen him. She knew he wasn’t a copper but he had the look of one. He’s doing the same routine the next day in the konditorei. Like, ‘Have you seen this guy?’”
“What guy?”
“How would I know?”
“This guy, tell me more. Well dressed? Speaks German well, with an accent?”
“That’s it.Talk to her oh Christ, wait. She went up to Munich to see her stepfather or something. The bitch.”
Speckbauer rolled his eyes.
“Got a number for her? Her mobile?”
“She doesn’t use one, she says. I doubt that, though. Her ‘stepfather’ probably looks different than what I’d guess an old geezer looks like. If you know what I mean.”
“Nudge nudge, wink wink,” Speckbauer muttered and drew out a small notepad.
“Surname?”
“Giesl. Stephi Giesl. She has a place behind the Billa there, the supermarket.”
“Married, family?”
“Are you kidding? She had a steady. She has ‘visitors,’ I believe.”
“And she’s in Munich?”
“On her way, anyway.”
“When did she decide that?”
“Well guess what, and thanks for asking. That’s why I am so pissed here.Yesterday afternoon she tells me. I’m coming in for the evening shift. Huh. I should have just fired her, you know? Zip. And she thinks I am an idiot, that’s what gets to me. First she mentions this guy, then bumping into him ag
ain, and then suddenly she has to go visit her ‘ailing stepfather’ in Munich.”
“She doesn’t have an ailing stepfather?”
“Christ, how do I know? The rules these days, you can’t ask or say a damned thing.You know that, right?”
Speckbauer looked down at the small notepad. Felix returned Kurt’s guileless look.
“Stephi’s from where?” Speckbauer asked.
“She’s from Weiz, born and bred.”
“Her family here?”
“Uh-uh. It busted up years ago. She has as sister, over in Carinthia, I think.”
“She knows the area, though.”
“I suppose.”
“Friends, people she’s in touch with?”
Kurt shrugged.
Speckbauer gave him a glare.
“Wait here will you,” he said to Felix. “So Kurt doesn’t go for another jog. I want to make a call.”
He looked down at the display on his mobile and scowled.
Then he slid out of the booth and went out the door to the street.
There was a laneway to the side of the restaurant, Felix remembered.
Kurt was rubbing his bottom lip slowly with his thumbnail.
Speckbauer’s departure seemed to have calmed him a little. He kept staring across the table at Felix.
“Will you quit that?”
“Am I being rude? Sorry. I just waited to see what a fool looked like.”
“Are you trying to be an idiot with me?”
“How long are you a copper?”
“Long enough. Shut up, why don’t you.”
“Well that’s a change. The other wants me to talk, but you say shut up.”
Felix watched a mother with a pram wait for a traffic light.
“He’ll toss you on the pile eventually,” said Kurt. “You know?”
When Felix made no reply, he went on.
“You’ll graduate. But you’ll be okay. I mean, what’s he got on you, except your own I better be careful, I suppose your own youth.”
“And you?” Felix murmured, watching the cars slowing now.
“You go back to jail or something nice like that?”
“Who knows? No doubt he’ll make a few phone calls.That’s his specialty. Have you met his ghost?”
A van braked hard in the street outside. The woman pushing the pram hesitated. She gave the driver a hard look, and then continued pushing the pram across.
“The spook. He freaks me out. Fritz, what’s his name, Hans?”
