More Beer (8 page)

“Naturally, I prefer another solution. It wouldn’t please me particularly to … Well. Four officers would testify that you attacked me with a knife, and off you’d go to prison for attempted grievous bodily harm. But”—he beamed ecstatically—“things could get much worse.” He patted my shoulder gently. “I could do things to your face, Kayankaya, that would make crashing through a windshield look like cosmetic surgery.”

“You’re really something, aren’t you? You sit there like a saint, relying on a bunch of uniformed hoodlums next door who are just waiting to have a little fun. Then you give me all this tough-guy shit.”

He smiled.

“Mr. Kayankaya, do you really believe that I would call in my officers?” He laughed. “My, my, the ideas you get.”

He giggled quietly as he walked back to the desk. He picked up the metal ruler, held it in both hands, and looked pensively at the floor.

“If you give me your word that you’ll leave this case alone, I’ll take those off’—he indicated the handcuffs, with his chin—” and you may leave. If you don’t …” He cleared his throat. “Well, then I’ll be compelled to give my words a little additional emphasis.”

For a moment he seemed to be lost in thought. Then he looked up and beamed at me. “You may rest assured that I am quite capable of taking care of things all by myself. To quite a satisfactory degree.”

I told him that I was ready to believe in his abilities, but that it would only be fair if he took the cuffs off me
first. After all, I said, I too had some talent for physical violence, and would be glad to show him a couple of tricks.

He giggled. “What a card you are.”

Then he moved in close and placed the cold ruler under my chin. “So?”

There were only two choices. I picked the wrong one. I bounded off my chair and rammed both fists into his stomach, but I didn’t hit him just right, and after he had reeled backward for a couple of meters, he was able to sidestep my second try, and I slammed into the desk. Before I could put my guard up, the ruler struck my ear like a red-hot iron bar, slid across my right cheek, and tore it. For several seconds, I became deaf. A fire raged in my head. Slowly the pain subsided. I looked up and saw him standing there, saying, “Tch, tch, tch …” Then he took aim and hit me again, striking my wounded arm. I felt the hot sting. The wound broke open and spurted blood like a firehose. I fainted. When I came to again, the nice little man slapped me in the face. I closed my eyes. He slapped me again. I tried to crawl under the desk, but he caught my ankles by stepping on them. He stood there looking down at me, smiling.

“Now then, Mr. Kayankaya, have I been able to convince you?”

I wanted to tell him “convince” wasn’t the right word, but only managed to spit blood. He took his heels off my ankles and sat down on the edge of the desk. “Get up. You’re making a mess of my floor.”

I pulled myself up. My cheek was throbbing. I dragged myself to the chair. The whole floor was smeared with blood. He came over and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Just a little foretaste. But,” he gave me a pat, “in two or three days you’ll be fit as a fiddle again.”

I closed my eyes. I heard a tap running. Then I received another slap in the face. “I’m sorry, but we aren’t here to enjoy ourselves.”

I held out my wrists. “Take these off and give me a cigarette.”

He grabbed my hair and brought my face close to his. His eyes were like rocks, and he smelled of mouthwash.

“Kayankaya, I’m warning you. If you try to pull anything on me, I’ll make you feel like this was a picnic!”

“Unlock these damn things!”

He let go of me. I fell back. Keys clinked, and he said, in a flutelike voice, “Get up.”

I wrenched myself off the chair and raised my arms. He grinned, and before I could duck, he slammed the bunch of keys into my face. I fell backward and banged into a bookshelf.

“You know what that’s called in court? Resisting state authorities.”

Then he unlocked the cuffs, and I felt a lit cigarette between my lips.

“And don’t forget: This will remain our little secret. I trust you with that.”

Then he sat down behind the desk and said quietly, but just loud enough for me to hear, “Kayankaya will no longer engage in any activities concerned with the Böllig case.”

He wrote that in a small black book, put the book into a desk drawer, and went to the door.

“Hansmann!”

Hansmann, a fat blond with sloping shoulders, shuffled in.

“Get a rag and wipe up the mess.”

He handed him the cuffs. “And rinse those off.”

Hansmann grinned as if to indicate that his boss was the greatest, and disappeared. The boss approached me, holding out his hand, and said, “Well, Mr. Kayankaya, we have reached an agreement, haven’t we?” In a sharper tone of voice: “I do hope you won’t disappoint me.”

He shook my hand, escorted me to the door as if I were his brother-in-law, and wished me a good day. I dragged myself through the hallway to the exit. On my way I passed Hansmann, who was carrying a bucket of water. Shaking her head, the girl at the switchboard watched us go our separate ways.

I was working on my third slice of ham on toast in the Hotel Intercontinental’s breakfast room when Max Schwartz came marching in. He is a reliable fellow, and the boyfriend of one of the most beautiful women I know. Unfortunately, she is an alcoholic, and Max is also hitting the bottle, to drown his sorrows. He is a professional electrician and knows how to debug a room. He planted himself in a facing chair, squinted at me with interest, and said, “What on earth did they do to you?”

I gave him a brief report, adding that my doctor had brusquely shown me the door an hour ago after I had refused to take to my bed. Max looked around the large, impeccable room until he located the small group of waiters standing by the buffet and waiting for a soft clapping of hands. Max signaled to them and ordered coffee and Scotch. I abandoned my good intentions and did likewise. Around us, bankers took their seats. Young, tanned professionals, all of the same model, trim and fit. They ordered lox and champagne and appeared to be in excellent spirits.

I pondered what
I
would look like behind a desk in a bank. “So what’s up?” asked Max.

I lit a cigarette.

“Yesterday afternoon I started looking into the Böllig case. Last night the cops came to get me and beat me up until I promised to leave well enough alone. I need to know who tipped them off—or if and how they managed to find out, all by themselves.”

“You want to know if they bugged your office?”

“Not mine. The attorney’s.” A little later, when the gentlemen next to us had elevated their mood with bubbly to the point of expounding and exchanging useful advice on the gliding capabilities of secretaries and prop planes, we paid and left.

A small señora in a brown smock, holding a bucket and a mop, came to the door. With many expressive gestures, she explained that she was Dr. Anastas’s Spanish cleaning woman, and that he had not told her anything about our visit. After I too waved my arms a lot, to reassure her that I had recently joined Dr. Anastas’s team, she allowed us to
enter, albeit with some hesitation. Max started putting his equipment together in the entrance hall while I went in search of potables and found a refrigerator in the library. I returned with a bottle of champagne and three glasses. I had just poured them and persuaded the Spanish lady to have one when the phone rang. It was Anastas. I explained to him why I was there. He confirmed that my nice little man was a Detective Superintendent Kessler, and stated that he did not want any trouble with the police.

“You don’t want any trouble with the cops, you don’t want any trouble with your clients. You want me to spend my time playing ping-pong?”

He begged me to keep the lowest possible profile. “That’s just great,” I said, and hung up.

Max growled, “What kind of a guy is he, this attorney?”

“I really don’t know. Some kind of a cross between Gandhi and a guy with a chateau in France. For presents, he gives his friends either bottles of wine or the works of Wallraff. I suspect that he is in favor of free elections in South Africa.”

I lit a cigarette, drank champagne.

“How come he’s defending those four?”

“So he can sleep at night.”

“And why are you looking for the fifth man?”

“Probably for the same reason.”

Next door, the señora’s chamois squeaked against the windowpanes. Max sipped his champagne. “What happens if I find a bug?”

“Good question.”

“Or if I don’t?”

“If you don’t, one of the people I met yesterday must have told the cops that I’ve entered the Böllig game. Someone known to Kessler. An informer.”

Half an hour later, we were done. We were back in the car, and Max cranked the engine. Dense and heavy raindrops were falling from the sky and rattling on the roof. The window wiper on my side was out of commission. I couldn’t see anything. Entering the traffic with caution, Max recapitulated. “So, as I told you, unless they’ve come up with something completely new, there are no bugs in that office. Maybe your attorney talked about it with someone in court, and the prosecutor’s office passed it on to the cops? They’re hand in glove, aren’t they?”

“Maybe.”

We stopped at a light. I looked at the window displays.

“Tell me, Max, do you know a joint called Lina’s Cellar?”

“Leftist sort of place, with a touch of
bella Italia
. I’ve been there. Terrible wine, and the waitress wasn’t so hot either.”

“A buxom blonde?”

“That’s right.”

“Anything else you know about it?”

“They used to deal hash there. Now it’s more the kind of place where male professors take their female students.”

We stopped by my office, made a date to shoot some pool, and said goodbye.

“And how is Anna?”

He made a face.

“She’s going into detox the day after tomorrow. So she’s been really hitting the bottle for a week.”

He turned and drove off. I entered the building and checked my mailbox. The Bilka store wished me a “good morning” and provided me with a lot of wonderful ideas to get shit-faced. Corn schnapps for seven marks, gin for twice that, and if nothing else worked, there was always the liter bottle of methylated spirits to really fry your liver. My office was on the third floor. It was cold and smelled of stale smoke. I turned up the heat and sat down at the desk. There was a dentist’s office on the floor below me. For a while I listened to the faint hum of his drill. Then I picked up the phone book and found the number of
Rundblick
magazine. After three rings someone answered, and I asked to speak to Carla Reedermann.

“Reedermann speaking.”

“Kayankaya. Could you please tell me exactly what you did yesterday?”

“Why—?”

“This morning the cops worked me over. Because of the Böllig case. I would like to know how they found out about me so quickly. Someone must have tipped them off.”

“Are you implying that—?”

“I’m just wondering. First you show up at Anastas’s, then you drive to Doppenburg, then there’s all that talk about the female and cultural perspective … Not too convincing. But look at it this way: You suggest to Anastas that I might provide a lead for the cops, and then you could keep tabs on me. Then, of course, the cops want to know what I have to do with the case.”

Her breathing sounded labored. Typewriters were clattering in the background.

“So what now? You won’t believe anything I tell you.”

“Doesn’t matter anyway. I promised Kessler to drop the case. In return, he told me who tipped him off.”

“Wha-at?”

While she damned both me and the detective superintendent to the lowest pit of hell, and shouted that this was the worst swindle she’d ever been involved in, I retrieved my half-empty bottle of Chivas from a drawer, jammed the receiver between ear and shoulder, rinsed a coffee cup, and poured myself a drink. When she turned down the volume and her imprecations became more sporadic, I growled, “All right. Calm down. Kessler didn’t tell me anything.” Peace and quiet reigned for about a second, followed by a hoarse “What?” and another tirade. Screaming women give me a headache, unless they’re screaming in Italian, and I hung up.

I took a pencil and a sheet of paper and made a plan. Half an hour later I had a list of names and many question marks. I decided to visit the night watchman again. He had been the least talented liar of all.

The small half-timbered house was the most run-down in the street. The plaster was crumbling, the woodwork had not been painted for ages, and the flowerpots below the windows were empty. The curtains were closed. I rang the bell. Above me, someone coughed quietly. A window opened.

“Who is it?”

A head with short, tousled blond hair looked down at me. She was in her early sixties. Her green eyes were alert.

“Is this the Scheigel residence?”

“What do you want?”

Her voice was gravelly from alcohol and cigarettes.

“I’m working for the public prosecutor’s office on the Böllig case. Yesterday I talked to Mr. Scheigel, and I’ve come up with a couple more questions I’d like to ask him.”

“Just a moment.”

She closed the window. A moment later the front door opened.

“Please come in.”

She wore a faded pink robe that must have been very expensive when it was new, a pair of slippers with heels, and a lot of rings and bracelets. I couldn’t tell if the latter were genuine or not. Deep, dark lines underscored her eyes, and her cheeks were pale and puffy. A used-up face that still betrayed its former beauty.

She led me through a dark hallway to a kind of salon and told me to have a seat. The room was furnished with delicate pieces from another era. A heavy chandelier hung from the ceiling, and the place smelled of stale cologne. Here too the curtains were closed, and the faint daylight coming through them created a murky chiaroscuro. I sat down on the couch and watched her light a candle. Then she reached into a pocket of her robe and pulled out a pack of Russian cigarettes with paper mouthpieces. She took
one, creased the mouthpiece, and stuck it into a gold cigarette holder. I lit it for her, and she sat down in an armchair.