Kismet

Chapter 19

At ten in the morning on the dot I got into the car and drove off to the station district. The sun was shining, and it had turned warm again overnight. In the streets people were strolling about, talking, doing their Saturday shopping or having the first drink of the weekend outside cafes. I had wound the window down. Laughter, children’s shouts, and fresh air smelling of flowers wafted in. Frankfurt this morning felt like a mixture between a meadow by an open-air swimming pool and a busy village square.

But when I turned into Kaiserstrasse the atmosphere changed. At first it was simply quieter, although it was usually noisier in the red-light and gambling district than anywhere else in town. Especially on Saturdays, even in the morning. After all, the weekend customers from Little Whatsit and Lower Thingummy wanted value for their petrol money. They rose with the lark and were up and down the corridors of the brothels from nine in the morning onwards.

The closer I came to the Albanian’s headquarters, the New York, the emptier the pavements became, until there was almost no one around at all any more. Here and there a druggie who’d been kicked aside, or a few travellers with their bags on the way to or from the station. They too sensed the curious atmosphere and were looking around nervously. Only when you looked closely could you see all the heads crowding together behind the dark windows of bars and half-open striptease club doors, looking down the street. Suddenly a siren broke the silence, and next moment an ambulance raced past me. The siren faded into the distance, and it seemed even quieter than before. Then I saw at least twenty blue lights flashing outside the corner building of the side street where the New York stood. I drove slowly up, stopped at the police barrier, and lit a cigarette with trembling hands. Instead of the New York — a three-storey disco with a restaurant and billiards room, adorned outside with a profusion of neon tubing — I saw blue sky. The building opposite which had been the German boss’s residence lay in ruins too, and there wasn’t much left of two of its bars apart from the last wisps of smoke. But there were any number of charred bodies. They were being carried out of the ruins by firefighters and doctors with protective face masks, and laid in a row on the pavement. I couldn’t see the end of the row.

‘You out of your mind? Get away from there!’

One of the army of policemen standing about, all of them looking helpless and unable to take it in, had spotted me. Tapping his forehead, he came over.

‘What d’you think this is?’

‘All right.’ I waved him away and drove to the next corner. There I stopped and tried to get my breath under control. Now I knew what it was I’d forgotten to tell the Albanian. Outside the Ahrens office building in the evening: ‘Right, lads, see you Saturday. Work in the morning first, pleasure in the evening!’ — ‘Don’t worry, boss, the faggots will get what faggots always hope for — they’ll die in their sleep.’

What with thinking about Stasha Markovic, it had simply slipped my mind.

No one must ever know, I prayed, as someone opened the left back door of the car and I felt the muzzle of a pistol on the nape of my neck.

‘Get moving.’

I saw the Albanian’s bloodstained face in the rear-view mirror. He smelled of smoke.

I said nothing, and even if I’d wanted to say anything I probably couldn’t have uttered a sound. All my concentration was bent on driving fairly fast and not causing an accident.

‘Turn right up ahead there.’

I obeyed orders, and vaguely realised that we were driving out of town.

‘At least you were punctual.’

I cautiously nodded.

‘Keep going straight ahead. My God, what a frightful car!’

Quarter of an hour later we were standing beside the car surrounded by fields of potatoes and cabbages, the Albanian still had his pistol pointed at me and was demanding to know everything I knew about the Army of Reason. I told him almost all of it.

‘Croats?’ he exclaimed, and for a moment I was sure he was going to pull the trigger. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have found out who exactly was behind it in half an hour! And I have people down there, just a day and the Army would have been…!’ He flung his hand heavenward.

By now I could think reasonably clearly again. Clearly enough to realise why the racketeers extorting protection money had to look like a delegation of men from Mars. In addition, today’s attacks showed that the Army was not intended to be a temporary outfit, and after their day was over Ahrens and his partners did not plan to slip off with their pockets full. They were in the process of taking over the quarter much more brutally than their predecessors but after thinking it out better. Get people nervous first, wear them down, then strike hard and grab undisputed possession of the goldmine. And if they were really crafty, in the end they’d take off their make-up and wigs and make out they’d managed to rid the place not only of the old bosses, but also of the Army of Reason that had spread such fear and terror.

‘Where’s the meeting?’

And I understood one more thing: if I told him that, the last thing I saw in this world would be a potato field. All he wanted to do today was kill, and in a way I could understand him.

I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry about what happened this morning, but it’s not my fault. Either we go through with the thing together this evening, or Frankfurt will be no place for you.’

‘You want to threaten me now?’

The muzzle of the pistol was within a few centimetres of my nose.

‘No, I don’t want to threaten you, but I don’t want to hang around out here either. And you probably couldn’t drive my car. It has its own little ways.’

He looked me in the eye, his lips opened, his incisors together, and held the pistol without the faintest tremor.

‘How many men do you have left?’

His eyes widened, and briefly his glance was like a lunatic’s. Once again I thought, this is it. But then he took a deep breath, closed his mouth, stepped back and slowly lowered the pistol.

‘Any more shit and you won’t be the only one to get it, it’ll be your family too, all your friends, and whoever else is worth anything to you.’

I nodded. ‘I understand.’

‘I certainly hope so.’ He looked at the ground and sighed. ‘About ten men. But I have friends in Mannheim and Hanover. They can be here by this evening.’

‘Then let’s drive back into town. I’ll tell you where the Army’s banquet is taking place, and we’ll meet near it around six.’

‘Why would I meet you?’

‘Because I’m asking you for two things: first, to let me have a brief word with Ahrens, and second, that no harm will come to a woman who has nothing to do with any of this. She’s close to Ahrens at the moment because he’s been blackmailing her.’

‘Is she the reason for your interest in the Army?’

‘That’s how it’s turned out.’

‘Aha. So she would be the first to suffer for it if you’re planning anything clever.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Very well, come on…’ He gestured towards the car with his pistol, we got in and left the field behind. As we drove into Frankfurt and the familiar high-rise buildings slipped past us, I felt I was coming home from a long journey.

Late in the afternoon the first BMWs arrived. I was sitting with a pair of binoculars on the junk-dealer’s roof, where I had a good view of the yard of Ahrens’s office building and the conference hall on the first floor. The tables in the hall were arranged in a rectangle. White tablecloths, flowers, three different glasses for each table setting. A flag with horizontal stripes of red, white and blue hung on the wall. Looking down the open passage to the kitchen, I could see Zvonko’s uncle in a white apron busy with knives and pans. Two men wearing black and white waiter’s suits were sitting on a freezer near the passageway, drinking beer and watching Zvonko’s uncle at work. Now and then Ahrens came into the hall and seemed to be asking if everything was going all right. No sign of Leila’s mother yet.

Along with the BMWs, Ahrens’s hulking henchmen and the fat Hessian came into the yard. All three in blue trousers, red jackets, and some kind of silly garrison cap. They opened the car doors and escorted the guests to the conference hall. The waiters began going round with trays.

Twelve cars rolled up in all. As far as I could tell, there were no refugees among the guests. At least, none of them looked as if they would be happy in a visitors’ room with rubbishy old chairs screwed to the floor. One man seemed to be particularly important. A small, sturdy figure, and those standing around him always laughed heartily when he said something, but they almost always took half a step backwards too.

Just after six-thirty the Hessian drove the last car round behind the brick building. He came back, sat down on a bench near the entrance to the yard with the hulks, and all three lit cigarettes. As they were obviously the only guards, Ahrens must be feeling pretty sure of himself. And he had good reason, really: during the afternoon the TV and radio had kept reporting on the incident in the station district where buildings and clubs belonging to two of the most prominent businessmen in the area had been blown sky-high, and it could be assumed with great probability that both the businessmen themselves were among the many victims burnt beyond recognition. The third ‘important businessman’ of the locality, the Turk, had been found shot in his villa in Oberursel during the afternoon. And if the BMW with its real number plate hadn’t fallen into my hands and Slibulsky’s, I was sure no one would have been looking for the man behind these incidents in Dr Ahrens’s packet-soup factory today. Presumably the Hessian was responsible for changing the number plates. Perhaps he’d neglected to do it that evening. Perhaps he’d been in a hurry to get to the TV set.

And then I saw Leila’s mother. She was one of the few women in the conference hall, standing among a group of guests with her back to the window. Sometimes I thought I caught a brief glimpse of her profile, but most of the time she was facing whoever was talking to her and stood almost motionless. She had pinned up her hair, she was wearing a pale blouse and the pearl necklace I knew from the wedding video. While I turned the binoculars on the nape of her neck and hoped she’d turn round some time, the air began buzzing very quietly. As if a huge swarm of deep-voiced insects was approaching. I turned my binoculars to search the industrial yards, metal factory halls, containers, office buildings and the clear blue sky, but I couldn’t find anything to explain the noise. Only at second glance did I see the line of cars moving past the gap between a detergents company and a haulier’s firm as if in slow motion, bumper to bumper.

I cast another quick glance at the cigarette-smoking guards, who obviously hadn’t heard the buzzing sound, and then I climbed down from the roof and over the fence and went to the place where we’d arranged to meet.

Along the street outside a container depot about fifteen dark, high-class cars were parked, occupied by about fifty men. At the head, a small group stood round the Albanian, the rest were sitting there on the de luxe leather upholstery waiting, or stretching their legs with their feet in bright white trainers or gleaming black, hand-made Hungarian shoes. The car engines were turned off, and when no one said anything it was so quiet that you could hear the click of their Dunhill lighters.

‘We need a short fat man and two big toughs to replace the guards.’

The Albanian nodded to an older man beside him. The man turned, walked down the line of cars, and a little later brought us three men of the required stature.

‘Did you tell your men not to touch the black-haired woman?’

The Albanian nodded.

‘And that I must speak to Ahrens?’

‘How will we know him?’

‘You’ll know him when I buttonhole him. I only need a moment after that.’

‘Good.’ He gestured to the cars, and next moment half a hundred heavily armed men were there in the street. There were a few nervy, chain-wearing characters among them, but most looked as cool and reliable as a military special unit.

The Albanian said something in Albanian, five men stepped aside to stay with the cars, then the unit started moving. While the majority stopped at a part of the wall that couldn’t be seen from the brick building and put up a ladder, I, the small fat man and the two big toughs went quietly to the entrance. The three of them were really impressive. It took them less than two minutes to break the necks of the Hessian and his two companions, drag them into the street outside the half-closed front door, take the suits and caps off the bodies and put them on themselves, and then stroll back into the yard chatting as if nothing had happened.

I was probably simply inured to it after the events of the last week. At the latest since I’d seen all those burnt bodies outside the New York, killing Ahrens’s men had seemed to me inevitable, almost natural. But without thinking about it I distinguished between those who were biting the dust or about to bite the dust here and now, and the protection money racketeers from the Saudade. Whether it was because the racketeers had died at a time when I wasn’t yet used to the idea of all these warlike confrontations, or because I felt solely responsible for their deaths — well, anyway, in my mind they had faces, whereas even while they were alive the Hessian and the two hulks hadn’t been much more than a mass of grey armed with pistols.

As I reached the ladder the last men were just climbing over the wall. I hurried so as to get to the Albanian at their head. We went into the building and up the stairs without a sound. A vanguard of two men stabbed another guard who had been sitting by the door to the first floor playing with a Gameboy. Then we filed quietly into the corridor, and heard confusion of voices and the clink of glasses.

The Albanian gave a sign to stand still, took me by the shoulder and indicated the open door ten metres away. ‘The field’s yours. Get the woman and Ahrens and take them into the next room. You have a minute.’

I must have looked surprised, and if there’d been time I’d probably have thanked him.

‘Right, off you go!’

I set off, putting my pistol in my trouser pocket on the way, and entered the conference hall. For about twenty seconds no one really noticed me, and I had time to get over the shock of seeing that the black-haired woman with the pearl necklace had a fat nose and dark eyes.

Someone asked me something in Croatian, and at the same moment I spotted Ahrens. First he just looked surprised. Then he frowned, probably wondering how I’d got past the guards. Then his face muscles set, and he came towards me with slow, menacing strides, his head lowered.

‘Do you want to die?’ he asked quietly. Obviously he wasn’t keen on having any fuss during the party.

‘No, but you probably do. Or you wouldn’t have left such idiots on guard.’

His eyes automatically went to the door.

‘Don’t look that way. And keep your mouth shut. There are forty heavily armed men out there. Men whose mates were blown up this morning and…’

‘What?’

‘I said keep your mouth shut. The Albanian survived.’

‘Survived?’

‘Didn’t you hear what I said? Anyway, there’s about to be a bloodbath in here, and either you come with me and answer a few questions, and then maybe I can put in a good word for you, or you take a last look at this world. I’ll count to three and then I’m going. On the count of five you’ll be dead.’

All the hardness had gone from his face. Nothing was left but a pale splodge with a slack hole in the middle of it. I grabbed his arm and pulled him out into the corridor. As I drew my pistol and propelled him forward, I heard a hissing from the other end of it and thought I felt the building begin to vibrate.

We were at the door of the first office when I heard the Albanian’s voice and the sound of glasses breaking as they fell. Someone answered in a placatory, almost friendly tone. Obviously they knew each other.

I pushed Ahrens into the room, closed the door behind us, and while all hell broke loose in the conference hall next door I shouted in his ear that I wanted him to give me the names of the two dead racketeers and tell me where to find the mother of the girl I’d taken out of the refugee hostel three days ago.

‘What?’

‘Surely Gregor or the two clowns with the broken legs will have told you about it?’

‘Yes, sure, but…’

And then a whole lot happened almost at once. First, Ahrens suddenly began to laugh. Hysterically, in view of the situation, but also with entirely inappropriate and malicious glee. Piqued for a moment, I heard, too late, that at least part of the fight had moved into the corridor. The door burst open, and Zvonko’s uncle, streaming with blood, made for me with a long kitchen knife in his hand. Of course his main idea was to get away from someone, but that didn’t make much difference where I was concerned. Without hesitating, I fired a few more bullets into his belly, and the man literally burst apart. Behind him, eyes wide open and frenzied, face covered with dark splashes, came one of the chain-wearers. By now Ahrens had reached the window and was pulling at the catch. In this situation, it was unlikely that I could have got many of those here today, wanting revenge, to be quick to grasp the fact that the windows wouldn’t open fully, but with a jittery chain-wearer I wasn’t even going to try. I lowered my pistol and watched almost indifferently as he emptied his entire magazine into Ahrens. While he was firing away, and Ahrens, lying on the ground, was looking more and more like a suit stuffed with sausage-meat, I couldn’t shake off the picture of his gleeful smile. I turned my eyes away from the horrors and looked out of the window. The setting sun was reflected in the junk-dealer’s shop sign. Something about that bothered me.

Soon afterwards the operation was over, and a torrent of footsteps clattered down the corridor to the stairwell. The chain-wearer had taken his leave a few minutes ago, giving the thumbs-up sign, and when the Albanian came into the office I was sitting at the desk alone, smoking. He was holding the black-haired woman’s thin arm. Her blouse was torn, tears and saliva gleamed on her pale face with its broken veins, her mouth was trembling, and her eyes were moving like pinballs shooting around at speed.

The Albanian cast a glance at what was left of Ahrens and then nodded to his side. ‘Didn’t you forget something?’

Perhaps he’d have let her go, but I wasn’t sure of it. And since she could hardly have played a greater part in the whole business than that of Ahrens’s latest safari partner, I said as convincingly as I could just now, ‘I didn’t have time.’

‘Didn’t have time. So you preferred to take him?’ He pointed to the floor, looking at me with a touch of contempt.

‘Oh, leave me alone. It’s the wrong woman, OK? But she’s only some tart, she won’t have anything to do with all this.’

‘Right.’ He let go of the woman, took a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and wiped his hands. ‘All things considered,’ he said, putting the handkerchief away again and nodding to me, ‘thank you.’ Then he turned and went out.

I looked at the open door and listened to his footsteps. At some point a shadow flitted by, but only when I rose and moved slowly to the corridor did it strike me in passing that it must have been the woman.

‘… What did you mean when you said your mother had been gone since last Sunday? Sunday as in Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or the last time it was a sunny day?’

‘Last time it was sunny day.’

‘OK…’ I kept perfectly calm. It was only my eyesight that was changing. I was beginning to see only the things I was thinking of at any given moment, and I was thinking of nothing but things. The phone receiver, the cradle. Everything around them blurred, went grey or simply disappeared. ‘I’ll call you back.’

‘What about my mother?’

‘I didn’t find her. It’s all rather complicated. I must go. See you later.’

‘See you later.’

Telephone receiver, cradle, car. I crossed the street. Key, ignition, gear change. It was just before eight. I filtered into the Saturday night traffic, people out to enjoy themselves. Lights, car in front of me, green light, accelerator, indicator, bend. When I left Frankfurt behind, all I saw was the grey ribbon of tarmac moving faster and faster towards the Taunus. Then the forest began. Headlights, woodland paths… the woodland path. I turned off the road and parked the car. Tree, root, earth compacted after the rain of the last few days — hands, claws, shovelling. It was dark in the forest. Cigarette lighter, stains on plastic bin liner, a few more clods of earth, a head. I didn’t hesitate for a second, to do that I’d have had to think about more than things, there was only one thing in my mind, and next moment I had the wig in my hand. Long black hair fell over the face disfigured by a week of lying in the earth of the forest floor. Unstrapping the bulletproof vest was purely mechanical after that. A bra.

I can’t remember how I got home and exactly what I did then. The vague outline of the greengrocer came to meet me in the hall of our building, and I think I told him he could sleep easy, there was no threat from the Mafia any more. Only later in the evening, with a bottle in my hand, did I realise that I must speak to Leila as soon as possible. I couldn’t let her sit around hoping any longer. I looked at the time. Ten-thirty. I rang Slibulsky and asked him to stick around. I was going to drop in and see Leila. Half an hour later we were sitting at the kitchen table, and I told her that after her meeting with the Zagreb industrialist, her mother was in a car accident on the way back to Frankfurt and had been fatally injured. That seemed to me the least painful explanation for Leila. After I had held her in my arms for a while she said she wanted to be alone, and disappeared into the living-room. Slibulsky promised to look after Leila, and tried to persuade me to stay the night, but I wanted to go home.

He went to the door with me. ‘It was her?’

‘I think so.’

‘And it was an accident?’

‘At least it wasn’t done on purpose.’

July 1998