Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 135, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 823 & 824, March/April 2010

Monopoly by Judith Merchant

Translated from the German by Mary W. Tannert

Judith Merchant was born in Bonn, Germany, in 1976 and currently lives in Konigswinter. She studied German Literature and now works as a lecturer in adult education at the University of Bonn. She wrote her first short stories during a writing block she experienced while working on her doctoral dissertation. Her first story appeared in 2008. The second, “Monopoly,” won the 2009 Friedrich Glauser Prize for best short story. She told EQMM that she is at work on her first crime novel.

Everything in life has its price.

It’s not always clearly marked, or even fair, but you have to pay it sooner or later. Somewhere up there is the games master; he’s keeping track, making sure everything adds up right.

People get along best if they agree on the price for the things they give each other.

Let someone copy your homework and you’ll get an invitation to his birthday party. A red sports car for your wife buys you a guilt-free trip to Majorca with your mistress. You may be bored at the breakfast table till death do you part, but you’ll never have to watch TV alone.

Sometimes you have to pay even when you thought it was a gift.

And sometimes you give somebody a gift, and he tries to pay for it.

That can be deadly.

3:09 p.m.

I’m not thinking of murder and mayhem that Friday while I’m waiting for my turn at the cash register, I’m much too busy with my new coat: cherry red and nipped in tight at the waist, it reaches nearly all the way to my boots. I look dangerously good in that coat and I’m crazy about it; to be honest, it’s too expensive, but I’ve earned it: It’s my thirtieth birthday.

You ready? asks the saleswoman with the shiny eye makeup, and that’s when I notice it’s my turn.

I’ll wear it home, I say, and with my fingertips I hand her the strip of cherry-red wool with the metal security tag.

Ninety-nine euros, she mumbles, removes the price tag, takes my debit card, pulls it through the slot of her card reader, waits, wrinkles her brow, and tries it again. Something’s wrong, she says, handing me the card. Either your account’s empty or your card’s been blocked.

That’s impossible, I say, and the flush I feel climbing up into my face is rage, not embarrassment, but I know people can’t tell that just by looking, and it makes me mad. I’ve got enough money in my account, I know that for a fact.

She shrugs her shoulders, looks pointedly at the line of people waiting behind me, and purses her lips. Then you’ll just have to pay cash, she says.

I open my wallet even though I know there’s nothing in it; ever since I stopped getting a paycheck I only withdraw fifty euros at a time. The saleswoman’s impatience harangues me; I poke around in my change purse demonstratively and reach into my handbag, searching; my fingers find a wad of stiff pieces of paper, folded twice. The size is about right, but I still don’t believe it until I pull them out and stare in disbelief: three hundred-euro banknotes.

Y’see, you had it all the time, said the saleswoman, pulling one of the banknotes from my hand. She has to bend across the counter to get it; she’s shaking her head as she roots around in her cash drawer.

I walk slowly out of the store, the remaining two banknotes in my hand. The plastic bag holding my old things is cutting a crease into my wrist, it’s so heavy. How did that money get into my handbag, I’m thinking, it wasn’t there last night. I remember spending my last ten euros and besides, I never carry that much money, somebody must have slipped it in there.

I stop, suddenly.

Then I go back to the saleswoman, cut right into the line of people waiting, just push them out of the way.

Give me back that banknote.

At that moment I’m already thinking: People are going to die, somebody won’t survive this, that money shouldn’t have been in my handbag, but first I’ve got another problem to solve.

If you want your money back, you’ll have to take off the coat, she says bitchily.

But I’m not taking off the coat, no way, how could I, I’ve got nothing on underneath but bare skin and a couple of love bites.

Two hours earlier

If the telephone hadn’t rung, I might not even have woken up.

The room begins to spin just a little when I open my eyes, so I close them again.

The telephone rings even louder, it’s the kind of ringing that multiplies exponentially when you try to ignore it, so I roll out of bed and pick up the receiver.

Were you still asleep? my father asks.

Yes, I say.

At one in the afternoon? he asks.

I’m unemployed, I say. Surely you’ve noticed.

I just wanted to wish you a happy thirtieth, he says. And many happy returns of the day. We won’t be able to come, but I’ve already wired you your present, it ought to be credited to your account by now. Buy yourself something nice.

I’ll do that, I say, and then I hang up and push the conversation mentally to one side. It wasn’t news, the money’s been in my account for a week now. He wrote BIRTHDAY on the memo line, he was always short on talk, my father.

Birthday. Obviously I’d already celebrated pretty hard, my head’s spinning, yesterday evening is a black hole in my memory, but slowly, very slowly, an image surfaces, first just a smoothly shaven male face, and then the absolutely divine body attached to it.

I go into the bathroom, pull off my dirty clothes, and throw them in a pile. I turn on the shower, step under the rush of water, and reach for the shower gel.

Under the foam, the red marks on my body start to bloom like a wonderful birthday bouquet of red roses. I run my hand over them, first lightly, then firmly, to see whether they hurt. The warm water brings back memories, I have to smile.

He’s not the kind of guy to send me flowers, I’m thinking. No bouquets, no perfume, but what I’ll get the next time I see him is better than any rose. I let my fingers dance up and down my arms and stand there happily as the water beats down on me.

So what do you do, I asked him. I didn’t really mean professionally, but I couldn’t think of any other question, he could have talked about his pets or his elementary school, I just wanted to sit next to him at the bar and listen to him, the guy in the much too expensive suit who happened to sit down next to me. He looked like someone who wasn’t in a hurry to get home, maybe newly single or something similar; like a guy you’d let buy you a drink because he takes things easy and doesn’t pressure you, later on. His suit was much nicer than my jeans, and his precise haircut contrasted badly with my shaggy mop. Strange that we even started talking to each other, or that I even happened to be at this pub. Romantic people would call it fate, but I put it down to Sonja’s canceling at the last minute and when she did I just didn’t feel like staying home alone on my birthday and smoking one cigarette after another until the place was blue with smoke.

Construction, he says.

And what do you do in construction, I asked, and he grinned and said, I build things, houses, hotels, whatever gets built. I thought of Monopoly and felt the way I used to when the others all had Boardwalk and Park Avenue and all the moolah and I just had debts, but then he said, I didn’t come here to talk about work, and I said, okay, then let’s go to my place, no, wait a minute, I didn’t say that until hours later, first we sat there at the bar for a long time, drinking, and I don’t really remember what happened afterward, but as I stand under the shower and look down at myself, a few things come back to me, good things.

I could tell from the very first kiss that he was a certain kind of guy, the kind that smelled untamed — of hard physical labor, motor oil, and soap, in spite of the expensive aftershave, the kind of guy who wears a suit and looks really good in it, and when you take it off you find the honest body of a young construction worker, all muscles and sunburn. When guys like that climb the career ladder, they don’t just screw girls they meet in pubs, they screw their secretaries, too, I knew that right away, but last night at the pub I didn’t care. I even said that to him. Stop thinking in clichés, he said, and he said it again when I remarked on his suit and his expensive mobile phone, and then he smelled my hair, smelled it for minutes, just like that, as if he’d never smelled anything so wonderful, and the whole time I was afraid to breathe.

I put on clean underwear, pull on yesterday’s jeans, and leave the apartment to go buy myself a birthday present, something great for tonight; I’m sure I’ll see him again, it’s my birthday, yippee!

I go into the Kaufhof department store and slalom through all the racks of stupid clothes until I see the coat.

It’s the perfect coat for me. Calf-length, cherry red, hugs me like it will never let go, a single gleaming zipper divides me into two symmetrical halves; I look fabulous — and it’s even on sale.

I feel different, somehow, more adult, a little more serious, but still sexy; I should have bought a coat like this a long time ago, who knows, maybe my life would have turned out differently, maybe the severe cut of the coat would have worked on the person inside it and made her more self-disciplined. Never mind: I’ve spent thirty years of my life without this coat, but starting today it’s part of my life, for nearly as long as the man from last night.

The man... It must be the last of the hormones from last night that make me go into a dressing room, tear off all my clothes, and slip naked into the coat, wrap my clothes in my old jacket.

While I’m standing in line waiting my turn at the cash register, I’m imagining what tonight will be like, hesitating just a little as I wonder whether we even made a date. And then I think: Is he even the kind of guy you go to meet wearing nothing under your coat?

You ready? asks the saleswoman with the shiny eye makeup, and that’s when I notice it’s my turn.

I’ll wear it home, I say.

3:26 p.m.

The saleswoman’s cash drawer closes with a final click and she turns to the next customer.

The two remaining banknotes are burning in my hand and I want to get rid of them but first I have to take off the coat, so I run to the dressing room and pull it off, so fast that it nearly catches on the buckle of one of my boots. Careful, I think to myself, if I damage it I can’t return it and then I won’t get the banknote back and then I can’t return that, and that’s unthinkable, I’d have to return a different banknote, one from the cash machine or one I’d borrow — Sonja would lend me money, she does that a lot — but no, it’s got to be the same banknote, it’s really important for it to be exactly the same one; if it were a different one his gray eyes would see right away that I had used the money just like he used me. Vivian, his eyes would say, even if you return the money, you used it in the meantime, so we’re even, it was the interest rate for one day, that’s how little you cost, Viv, was three hundred too much for last night, for all the dirty stuff?

I wouldn’t be free if it weren’t the same banknote. Can you ever be free again when you’ve been a whore without knowing it, or does something like that enslave a person forever?

Calm down, take a deep breath. I’ll get that banknote back. By force, if I have to. I can make that bitch give it back to me, maybe I’ll just strike her dead.

Take another deep breath. Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding. I should call him right away. Luckily, I have his business card in my wallet, and when I pull it out, I can even remember how I got it: When he went to pee, I searched his jacket pockets, I wanted to see whether anything in them would give him away, a hot tip that this dream man was already taken or an asshole, or maybe both. I don’t know what I thought I’d find, I felt like I was in a movie, so I behaved like I was; I wouldn’t have been surprised to find a gun or secret documents, but all I found was a stack of business cards that confirmed everything he’d said, with a logo of a tiny house on it, I put one in my wallet and then he came back and we went on cuddling and drinking.

4:22 p.m.

I got my old clothes out of the bag and put them on again.

By the time I get home, I’m exhausted. I got the banknote back. And after I returned the coat, I went back in the shop and just took it. The alarm applauded me as I ran out of there, my hair flying. I’ll never ever take it off, it’s pretty much priceless, it cost a third of last night.

It’s weird calling him at work. I’m nervous and start to stutter when the cool voice on the other end of the line asks who I want to talk to.

I’m sorry, says the voice, he’s in a meeting.

Tell him it’s important, I say, it’s Vivian from last night. I hear her walking in high heels, why doesn’t she put me on hold so I can listen to rinky-dink Mozart or whatever elevator music they’ve got, does she want me to hear her high heels? Click clack, click clack, I can imagine the rest, she’ll be the secretary I had in my mind when I was thinking about the kind of men who screw their secretaries, a Hitchcock blond; in the twenty-first century, women like that wear glasses with pink or turquoise frames, glasses that say: Guess what, I’m the secretary here, I’ve got a good job, not like you. I hate her through the telephone, hate her with a passion that makes me forget I’m on the phone until I hear Hello? Hello? and realize she’s talking to me. He says to look in your handbag, she says, what you find there ought to take care of everything.

That was it, then.

I hang up and go into the bathroom, turn on the water, and sink down onto the rim of the bathtub. My legs are trembling.

My underwear from yesterday is lying crumpled in the corner, damp and with a faint aroma of love nights and alcohol; words float up out of the pile and echo in my ear, the words that came out effortlessly last night, as if someone else were speaking, the memory makes heat flare up in me and I think of the three banknotes I have to get rid of, for the words if for nothing else, under no circumstances should those words have been paid for, words like that should only be spoken freely, they have to be a gift, just like the kisses, otherwise they make a whore of you.

I go into the kitchen, take the Wasabi knife out of the drawer, and stick it in the pocket of my coat. There’s a horrible noise as the sharp blade slices through the wool from the sheer weight of the metal. I wrap a kitchen towel around the knife.

Then I put it in my pocket and leave.

6:13 p.m.

He’s sitting at a big glass desk, the telephone in his hand. Behind his back, all the lights in the city are illuminating the dark, and as if the wall of windows wasn’t ostentatious enough, he’s got a big vase with white calla lilies next to his computer screen, probably the work of that very committed secretary of his. When I see you I’m going to kiss you, he says into the receiver of the phone, and then laughs. Then he sees me and stands up, and surprise spreads across his face like the blood across the grey stone of the floor, one minute later.

This is great, he says, and tries to hug me, but I turn my face away, although — a quickie here in the office, why not? Here, in front of this huge window, everyone would be able to see us, the whole city could watch, but do even you have the money for that, big guy, a tycoon like you? Do you have that kind of money? Because it’ll cost you 300 euros per voyeur, and that’s at least 300,000 people, oh, nobody’ll want to miss it, I say, let’s go for thirty million.

I pull my arm way back and take a practice swing, knocking the vase off the desk; water and shards of glass spray all over us.

His eyes open wide in surprise and he shouts my name, his hands shoot out and clamp down hard on my upper arms, so I pull my head way back and then head-butt him in the face as hard as I can, the pain takes my breath away for a minute, but I can still hear the crack as the bridge of his nose breaks. It sounds good.

Before he can say anything or I can change my mind, I pull the Wasabi knife from my coat pocket and cut his throat. Normally I use that knife for fish, I got it from an ex-boyfriend, I used to make sushi with him, I would have made sushi for you, too, if you’d wanted me to, but now I’m making sushi of you, ha ha ha. No, for sushi you’re not good enough, you probably taste disgusting, let me think, how did you taste last night? I don’t know anymore; it must not have been that great.

I sit down on the floor, catch the body as it drops downward, and pull it onto my lap, I stroke his face and watch as he dies.

The gray eyes roll back in his head and his mouth opens to say something, but the only noise is a gurgling sound like a stopped-up drain and a little blood sprays at me.

When the broad, blood-soaked shirtfront stops rising and falling, the eyes are still turned toward me. There’s a mute question in them, a question that makes me wild with fury, why does he look so confused, he didn’t understand anything, he has no idea what the three hundred euros mean to me. Those last words he couldn’t say, what were they, was he trying to say that he never meant to treat me like a whore, or was he about to offer me more, maybe the sales tax?

I pull his clothes off. It’s harder than I thought it would be, I have to push the little buttons of his shirt through their tiny buttonholes and my hands are trembling so much, we’re both covered in blood, but finally he’s lying naked and exposed on the stone floor, the three banknotes between his slack lips.

What would I have paid for a night with this body, I ask myself as I walk slowly around him; he was better-looking in my memory.

I’m still standing there looking at him when the police arrive, that’s what you get with a glass-fronted office: Every peeping tom can see what you’re up to.

It’d be great if the games master up there, you know, the one who keeps track and makes sure everything adds up right, if he’d give me some good advice. Maybe: Go to jail.

Go directly to jail.

Do not pass “Go.”

Do not collect 4,000 euros.

Above all, do not go home and listen to your answering machine.

Because what if you find two messages on it:

Sonja. Hi Viv, Happy Birthday! Hey, I wished you a happy birthday last night, in case you remember, as drunk as you were. You’re probably already on the road with that new guy of yours. I hope your weekend’s a lot of fun. And you don’t need to pay me back until the end of next month. See you! Oh, and the next time you want to borrow money from me, do me a favor and don’t wake me up in the middle of the night, okay?

His voice. Hi, I couldn’t wake you up this morning, you were still dead to the world. My assistant said you called. I put my cell phone number in your purse, didn’t you find it? (rustle, pause) Anyway, I’m done here now, so I hope you turn up soon, just like we planned (ringing noise in the background and the beep of an intercom). Bye. When I see you I’m going to kiss you.

And supposing I reach into my handbag and find a slip of paper: Hi Vivian. Here’s my cell phone number, the private one. I’ve got meetings all day, but every time I take a break I’ll look for a text message from you.

That would really be bad.