Kismet

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 mother’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.