More Beer

7

I had turned off the engine. I leaned back, enjoying my cigarette. It was a little past one o’clock in the morning. Lights were still on in The Dawn Restaurant across the street. Slibulsky sat next to me, quietly surveying the scene.

We sat there for a while, listening to the rain.

“Tell me: This job you’re on-who are you working for?”

“The attorney.”

“But he fired you! No, I meant generally. You’re a private investigator. What a load of crap that must be.”

He scratched his chin, ruminating. “The way you’re going about it, at least. It’s like-some kind of a cross between Robin Hood and a cop. That just can’t work out too well.”

“I have to eat. Ask a worker at the VW factory who he’s slapping bumpers onto those cars for.”

“But a VW worker would never risk his life to meet a delivery deadline. And he doesn’t give a shit if the engine blows up after a hundred kilometers. Those guys back there were ready to shoot us. If we hadn’t been lucky, we’d be lying there like a couple of dead rabbits in the grass. And who would give a fuck? Some little dealer from the railroad station, and a Turkish snooper. That doesn’t even rate a mention on the morning news. They’d just plow us under in a hurry. So you risk your life for something you believe is justice, and end up in the compost heap. What’s justice, anyway? It doesn’t exist, not today, not tomorrow. And you won’t bring it about, either. You’re doing the same scheiss-work as any cop. You catch the guys and bring them to court. You may be a little nicer, you may let one of them go, if you think he doesn’t deserve a life behind bars. But you won’t change a thing about the fact that it’s always the same guys who do something, who get caught-not a thing, because the rules are set up that way. So all right, so tonight you pulled a fast one on the cops and you got away with a file. So what?”

The wind was driving the rain against the windshield. I watched the drops stream across it, running like a herd of hunted animals across the pane.

“I’m starving.”

“There’s an all-night place just around the corner where you can get hamburgers and breaded schnitzels.”

“You want to go?”

“What about that fucking file?”

“Later.”

I pushed the file under the seat, and we got out. We walked the hundred meters to the Schnitzel Fritz. It looked like a waiting room with fluorescent lights, green plastic tables, and chairs. Behind the counter a fat guy stood flipping burgers. The place was busy. There were some Turks, a couple of ladies of the night, and a table with giggling high-school kids gorging themselves on french fries and Cokes. We ordered schnitzels, potato salad, beers, and shots of schnapps. I had two shots and a beer in rapid succession. The schnitzel was cold, the potato salad drowned in vinegar.

“I work at my job because I wasn’t able to go to law school. At first I thought that being a private investigator was a little bit like being a family doctor. Neither one can do anything about the great massacres and all the other shit that goes on all the time, but what he does do may be important to one individual or another. Once I had a killer explain to me that it was beneath his dignity to be caught by a dago, so he asked for a real cop to arrest him. Just before that I had offered him a shot of schnapps and told him that I would have preferred to send the other people involved to prison rather than him. Well, so. I’ve learned that it really doesn’t matter one bit whether I exist or not. I do my work the best I can. That’s all.”

We kept ordering shots of schnapps to get rid of the aftertaste of our schnitzels. It started to grow dim, and I realized I wasn’t all there anymore. The rounds kept coming, and I kept knocking them back. I didn’t notice that Slibulsky was pouring his shots on the floor under the table. We attracted the attention of two high-heeled girls at a neighboring table. Their working days and nights had carved traces under their eyes. One of them got up and slid next to me on my chair, letting her leather miniskirt slide up over her thigh.

“Hello there, fellows-still up and about this late? Lonely in the night? Still up for fun and games, eh?”

She smiled, but her eyes were contemptuous. She lit a cigarette, scrutinized me through the smoke, and said provocatively, “I can tell that you could use a little loving.” She ran her fingers through the hair on my neck. I closed my eyes.

“How about a visit to our little drawing room? It’s just around the corner. A whole house full of pretty girls with wild ideas.”

She shook my shoulder. “What do you say?”

I don’t recall what happened after that. At some point, I regained consciousness and found myself walking arm in arm with the woman who told me her name was Fanny. We stopped in front of a building with a lot of red lights that blended into one Red Sea. I noticed Slibulsky, who must have been trotting along behind us. He grabbed my sleeve and I almost fell down, but Fanny helped me regain my balance. Slibulsky started saying things to me, and while he was talking, he was rummaging in my pockets. He pulled out my car keys and wallet, then spoke to Fanny and handed her a bill. I didn’t understand any of it.

What did I care! Let him spend my money, let him toss the fucking file in a garbage can, let him drive my car into a wall! I was yelling at him. I said I hadn’t asked him for any favors, and I told him to leave me alone, to mind his own fucking business. And anyway, this shithole of a world could go to hell for all I cared, and he with it. I was about to attack him when Fanny managed to drag me into the building, Men slunk past us on the staircase; a half-naked woman sat on a landing reading a newspaper. At last Fanny unlocked one of the green pressboard doors and dragged me to a bed with a blue silk cover. She lit a cigarette for me and took my clothes off. Then she sat down next to me and helped me take her clothes off, down to the last little bits, which she removed herself. I felt her skin against mine, naked and warm. My hands groped along her legs. Later I felt her moving above me, but all I saw was her breasts before I lost consciousness.

It was half-past four when I woke up and looked at my watch. My throat felt like a tanned piece of leather. It was still dark outside. Fanny lay beside me, asleep. I could see her face in the light cast by a street lamp. She had taken off her makeup. I could remember only half of the night, and would have preferred to forget even that part. I got up quietly, gathered my things, and put my clothes back on. I went to the window. The streets were still empty. Then I remembered the business with my keys and wallet. I cursed alcohol and Slibulsky and the whole world. If that file was gone … I was an idiot. In a corner I found a carafe with water for my poor head. Fanny sighed in her sleep. I took her lipstick, wrote Thanks for Everything on the mirror, and mentally apologized for my quiet departure. I tiptoed down the stairs and through the plastic swinging doors out into the street. My watery knees took me in the direction of the Opel. A ragged creature on the curb was singing “Without you I can’t go to sleep tonight,” and tossing empty beer bottles into the street.

“Shut your face!” someone roared from the opposite building.

The old fellow pulled himself up with the aid of a parking meter, shook his fist, and yelled, “Come on down … if you wanna knuckle sandwich, you ass-asshole!”

Then he slumped back and burst into sobs.

“What a shitty country … an’ shitty people … an’ nothin’ to drink … Shit, it’s all sh-shit!” He lay down on his side and began to snore.

My Opel was still there, with a note on the windshield: “It’s open.” I opened the door and reached under the seat. The file was gone.

Dazed, I leaned against the car and stared at my surroundings. The rain had stopped. Then I saw that the light was on in the Chinese restaurant. This struck me as strange, and I walked over and tried the door. It was open. At the table closest to the door sat Slibulsky, bent over a stack of papers, a steaming cup of tea next to him. He growled, “There’s coffee too, behind the counter. I bet it’s still hot.”

I helped myself to some and sat down at his table.

“Amazing what the cops manage to write about just a single case. This file is a gold mine. But what you’re looking for isn’t here.” He pointed to the seat. “There’s your wallet, and your keys. The shape you were in, you might’ve treated the whole bordello to champagne. I gave Fanny a hundred marks. That’s less than the nightly rate; I don’t know why, but she took you along for a hundred.” He grinned. “Maybe she felt sorry for you.”

“That’s enough.”

I forced myself to have some of the coffee. It tasted terrible.

“Who made this?”

Slibulsky clicked his tongue and pointed proudly to himself. “Original Viennese recipe. With a pinch of salt and a dash of genuine cocoa.”

“I see.” Then I lit a cigarette and examined the reports. The twenty-second of April was the date of the sabotage. I remembered Kessler’s pocket calendar. I took it out, looked at it: Fourteen hundred hours, dentist; sixteen hundred hours, conference at G; sabotage at B. Chem.

On the twenty-sixth of April, when the four had been arrested, there was an entry that read: zero hours, operation Herbert K. In the back, where addresses were listed, I found an H. Kollek, Post Office Box 3278, Doppenburg. I grabbed Slibulsky’s arm.

“I’ve got it!”

He cast a suspicious glance at the calendar, and after checking the entries, he murmured, “I’ve been sitting here since two o’clock, and … Well, I’m not a family doctor.” He grinned again.

I pocketed the calendar and got up.

“I have to go to Doppenburg right away.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Why?”

“You still owe me three hundred marks. I better stay with you, so you won’t tell me later you spent it all boozing with some Herbert Kollek.”

I picked up the file, and we left.

“Drive to the end of the street, then turn right, go once around the block. I’ll be back down in ten minutes. If I’m not, you just take off.”

“You really believe they’ve been waiting for you since two o’clock?”

“I don’t know. Everything looks quiet. See you in a minute.”

I got out of the car and walked the hundred meters back to my apartment. Listening by the door, I couldn’t hear anything. I turned the key in the lock and stepped inside. Still nothing. By this time, Kessler and his boys would have pounced. I took off my coat, hung it on the rack, and switched on the light. Something smelled bad. I walked into the living room, switched the light on, and saw what it was.

Schmidi, unwashed, wearing yesterday’s T-shirt, was reclining comfortably in a corner of my couch. Only the small dark hole in his forehead spoiled the idyll. I hurried to turn off the light and looked for my Beretta in the half-dark. It lay under the couch. Schmidi had been shot and killed with my gun. He had nothing on him, only his I.D. I took the I.D. and the Beretta, touched nothing else, and left the apartment.

Slibulsky drove up at a walking pace. I didn’t waste a moment getting in. “There’s a stiff with a hole in his forehead on my couch. Reiner Schmidi. The guy who beat me up yesterday.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing to be done there anymore.”

We headed toward the freeway. By the railroad station, I asked him to stop. I dug out the address Nina Scheigel had given me.

“There’s a Russian who lives around here who deals in contraband vodka. I owe someone a bottle.”

Slibulsky stepped on the brake and complained. “You have nothing better to do, this godforsaken morning, than to cultivate your alcohol addiction?”

I told him there were always more important things to do, or else never, and a while later we rang the doorbell of Nikolai Herzel, Munchner Strasse sixty-three, third floor. It was a little before six. Wide awake and fully dressed, he came to the door. A small man in a black suit and brown fur slippers. I introduced myself and Slibulsky. I had hardly finished when he ushered us into the apartment. With a twinkle in his eye, he said in his raspy voice, “I know. Nina was just here. You missed her by minutes.” He had to be past fifty, but there wasn’t a single wrinkle in his face. He had a full head of very shiny hair. He seemed to be enjoying the best of health, and yet something didn’t seem quite right. In the shabby living room furnished with decrepit armchairs and three television sets he asked us to have a seat. A teapot steamed on the kerosene stove. He crossed his arms and smiled at us.

“Well, gentlemen, to make a long story short, my current delivery is overdue, and my supplies are running low.”

He paused deliberately, folded his hands, and continued:

“Such a situation is, naturally, reflected in the price.”

He looked deep into my eyes.

“How much?”

He smiled and started pacing.

“Since it is Nina who sent you-let’s say, a hundred and fifty for the half liter.”

I glanced at Slibulsky who looked dumbfounded, then indicated that in his opinion, this little Russian no longer had both oars in the water.

“Let’s get serious, comrade. We’re just a pair of poor devils who want to give an old lady a present.”

He demurred. “I know, I know, but what can I do? Times are hard.”

“Eighty, and it’s a deal.”

His eyes narrowed.

“A hundred and forty. That should be satisfactory to all parties concerned.”

Slibulsky rose and stood right in front of the little Russian.

“My friend and I don’t see it that way. Only one of the fucking parties would be satisfied with a hundred and forty, and it ain’t us. My friend is willing to offer ninety, and I’ll go for a hundred, but that’s it!”

He looked down.

“And when I say that’s it, I mean it too. A couple of blocks from here, there’s a guy who got his brain ventilated. And do you know why? Over the little matter of a case of cognac. So exercise your tiny brain now! All right, amigo?”

The little Russian looked scared. Cautiously he made his way past Slibulsky and out of the room. Slibulsky waved his hand as if to say, “Well, then.”

We got our bottle for ninety and took off. Back in the car, Slibulsky said, “And I thought I was making money selling coke.”

“Did you see the guy’s skin? Smooth as a pool ball. And his hair.”

Slibulsky cranked the engine. “Arsenic.”

“Come again?”

We were on our way.

“Arsenic, in small doses, is like a shot of whiskey before breakfast. If you manage to hold it down, you feel just great. If you take the stuff daily, your skin becomes smooth as a baby’s ass, and your hair gets that buttery sheen.”

“My goodness.”

If it hadn’t been raining again, we would have been driving into the sunrise. As things were, it only got a little lighter. We stopped for coffee at the first service area.

“When the cops find that dead comrade in your apartment, it’s curtains for you.”

I wagged my head.

“I think they already know he’s there. But in the meantime, they also know that we got away with Kessler’s files, and they’re no longer so sure that it was such a great idea to add the stiff to my living room furniture. That was why they weren’t there. They may be busy carting him off again.”

I thought of all sorts of things. I took another look at Kessler’s calendar and noticed certain entries that began last May and were repeated with weekly regularity. “Confer with M.!” According to the calendar, the last meeting had taken place last night.

“When do registration offices open?”

“No idea. Not in my field of competence. Maybe sometime between eight and nine?”

At eight o’clock, I went to the pay phone. Information gave me the number and I dialed it.

“Doppenburg registration office. Good morning.”

“Moller, from the public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt. I’m working on the Bollig case. I need to know if a Herbert Kollek is registered in Doppenburg.”

He sounded reluctant, but after I assured him that I would send him a written copy of my request, he went to check the record.

“Mr. Moller? I’m sorry, but you’re too late. Herbert Kollek moved away from Doppenburg in nineteen sixty-nine.”

“Where did he move?”

“To Frankfurt.”

“I see. One more thing. That same year, sixty-nine, was the year Friedrich and Barbara Bollig’s son was born. Unfortunately I can’t remember his first name, but I’m told that he was institutionalized soon after his birth. Could you find the name of the institution?”

That took him ten minutes. A trucker was waiting for the pay phone, looking none too happy about it.

“The son’s name is Oliver. He was born on November seventeenth, and is in the care of Dr. Gerhart Kliensmann, at the Ruhenbrunn Private Clinic.”

“Thank you.”

I hung up. Slibulsky sat at a table, grouchily perusing illustrated magazines. Without looking up, he said, “OK, you’re the boss, you have the overview. But I sure would like to know what you think you’re doing, calling registration offices.”

I told him. We paid and drove on to Doppenburg.