The Bone Man (12 page)

“Did you see that house of Helene Jurasic’s? What do you think a bungalow like that costs in Red Heights?”

Löschenkohl junior pronounced it with an “a,” as in “bangalow.” There have always been two schools on this: the one says it with a “u” and the other with an “a,” and maybe that’s the reason the word’s fallen out of fashion.

It even seemed to Brenner now that he hadn’t heard it since his aunt in Puntigam had taken part in a bungalow contest. She’d only won a yellow plastic weeble, though, and she’d given it to Brenner. But memories like these can whip through your head at a speed that a Porsche can’t possibly match. And immediately Brenner answered, “Fifty thousand a month she’s shelling out.”

Then, Löschenkohl junior’s arrogant laughter again. A mixture of condescension and “Please don’t hit me.” A dangerous mixture, Brenner thought—although if that’s the way it is, then nearly every one of us must be dangerous.

And Löschenkohl junior was looking more pitiful than fearsome now. In a car, you see the other person pretty close up. So Brenner could see that his fat neck was so sweaty and covered in flaking skin that involuntarily he thought:
no hair—but dandruff in spite of it—that’s just cruel
.

“Jurasic, Helene, doesn’t pay a single schilling a month for her house,” Löschenkohl junior said.

“If you’ve got the right friends.”

“Helene Jurasic doesn’t have any friends anymore. But she has a twenty-million-schilling house in Red Heights. It belongs to her—I looked it up in the land register.”

“What sort of bank lends that kind of money?”

“No mortgage.”

I kind of think it bugged Brenner a little that Löschenkohl junior was playing detective all on his own—and not too clumsily, either. At any rate, he said somewhat sarcastically, “Really quite useful, a register like that, where you can just go and look everything up.”

“And to think that just a few weeks ago, she was still down here with us, climbing into any car for three hundred schillings.”

They were just passing Bad Gleichenberg. Then, it was over to St. Anna, and at ten to six, the Porsche was parked in front of the chicken joint in Klöch.

Brenner didn’t even have the opportunity to thank him for the ride, because within a moment of Brenner getting out
of the car, Löschenkohl junior was already speeding off. Just a Brenner delivery, but no interest in seeing his father.

That morning, Brenner had taken off for Vienna full of optimism. Out into the world. And now it had snapped him straight back to Klöch like a rubber band. One thing I’ll say: Brenner wasn’t the hysterical type, I know him at least that well. But now, at ten to six, this dump on the Slovenian border was nearly making him hysterical.

Now, when you’re close to hysteria, it’s best if you eat something. Brenner ordered himself a Cordon bleu, and then went up to his room.

Maybe you’re familiar with this: it’s too early to go to sleep, but you also don’t know what to do with the evening. That’s what old man Löschenkohl had put a small TV in Brenner’s room for. But TV wasn’t the right thing now, either. A VCR would’ve been good right about now, and not just any old VCR, but the kind where you can fast-forward your own life a full day ahead.

He must have fallen asleep in his clothes because at ten-thirty he was startled awake.

I’d prefer not to say what startled him, trust me on this. It had to do with you-know. Intimacy. And what it comes down to is—it’s nobody’s business but your own. And everybody should do as they please.

The waitress must have had a needlepoint sign hanging over her bed that said: “Work Before Play.” Because she worked a lot, Brenner could see that every day. A good waitress, you’ve got to admit, with strong arms for schlepping beer steins.

And about the play, what should I say. He could hear it again now, just like he did every night. But today it seemed
even louder to him, maybe only because he’d just been asleep. Brenner was just amazed that the waitress managed to find so many lovers. Because one thing’s got to be said in all honesty. A beauty she was not. Nice, yes, competent, yes, pretty, no. No need to discuss.

And when, punctually at eleven-thirty, he overheard her lusty cries, Brenner thought:
and now I’d like to know what kind of lover the waitress has taken up to her room tonight
.

Now, this is something you can only know if you’ve slept in the staff’s quarters at an inn before. That they often—unique to old country inns—only have thin wood partitions. It was once an attic, and now it’s the staff quarters. And so you see all over again how important it is for a detective to have a good pocket knife with a corkscrew. Because with a corkscrew you can drill a small hole into a wooden wall that thin, just like so.

I don’t know, was it just curiosity that had Brenner thinking,
and now I’d like to know who exactly this lover is?
Or, what with the Porsche snapping him back to his room so fast, was it the shock from reentry into Klöch? Either way, he had to do something to get himself thinking about other things.

Or was it a certain sexual, you know, after all. Like the little boys who like to peek over at the other side of the changing rooms at the swimming pool. You’ll laugh, but there are wunderkinds who can’t swim an inch, but who could take over the Chair of Gynecology in an instant.

But when Brenner saw Horvath on the other side, he grabbed his pistol and hopped on over to his neighbor’s room.

When Brenner woke up the next morning, at first he thought,
a dream
, of course. Because when human beings don’t want to know something, first they hope it’s a dream. But no, it was no dream that he had found Horvath in the waitress’s room.

Brenner remained very calm, though, and thought to himself,
I just won’t let on. First, I need a little more information about Horvath before I can take any action
.

He knew that both Marko and Palfinger had farmhouses in St. Martin, and before he’d even had breakfast, he was down at the stop waiting for the nine o’clock mail truck to St. Martin. He stood on the side of the road for an eternity before he finally saw the truck off in the distance. As the green mail truck slowly crept down through the green hills—a spectacle of nature, just wonderful, I’ve got to say. But Brenner, needless to say, somewhere else in his thoughts.

He didn’t get much out of the drive, either, he was so preoccupied with Horvath. It could have been a wonderful drive in the nearly empty nine o’clock mail truck. I certainly don’t want to come across as patriotic, or as the saying goes: no place like your own home. But I’ve gotten around a little in my life, too, last year, Egypt, convenient arrangements, and at the breakfast
buffet—you can take as much as you want! And the pyramids, of course, stunning sight, nothing like it.

But driving through Styria in an empty mail truck, as Brenner now was, remains some of the greatest beauty that you can experience in this world: the sun, the fields, the vineyards, and the one-story toy farmhouses, any one of which could have won a floral decorating contest. And don’t even bother about the suicide rate again, because suicide rates are everywhere, but floral decorating contests? Not everywhere.

Once in St. Martin, Brenner was on the lookout for the most beautiful farmhouse, and on the mailbox, needless to say: Marko. After the fourth ring, though, still nobody had answered. Now:
should I ring a fifth time, or should I knock, or should I shout, or should I give up?

Before Brenner could even decide, Palfinger came out of the neighboring farmhouse. Brenner almost didn’t recognize him. At first he thought,
it must be the sunlight that’s making this ravaged swine from the Borderline look civilized all of a sudden
. But it wasn’t the sunlight, no, it was as if the whole Palfinger package had been traded in. Polite and quiet, sure, but also not like he was trying to deny that he knew Brenner from the brothel. Because men are often strange about that kind of thing, and the next day they don’t want to know you anymore.

But Palfinger didn’t have any problem with that, he came right over to Brenner and said, “Marko’s disappeared.”

And Horvath’s turned back up
, Brenner thought. But, needless to say: best to keep it under wraps.

“Yesterday he invited me for dinner. Because Marko likes to cook,” Palfinger said.

“Did he make anything good?”

Now, Brenner was a little casual there. At the Borderline, he’d been stiff where everyone else had been casual, and now he’s casual all of a sudden. Brenner’s just a little peculiar sometimes.

“Didn’t make anything—because he wasn’t there,” Palfinger said. “He made a big show of saying that he’d make me blood sausage because they’d slaughtered a pig at Neuhold’s in Klöch, and Marko promised me he’d bring back the blood and make fresh blood sausage.”

“That was yesterday?”

“He came over around noon, quite hungover from the opening. And blood sausage is the best cure for a hangover. He took off right away for Neuhold’s. I worked hard all day and really worked up an appetite. Because blood sausage is only good when you’re hungry.”

“And when it’s hot,” Brenner said, because he thought,
what applies to frankfurters must be double for blood sausage
.

“But then, there I was, just standing there with my appetite, in front of Marko’s closed door. I called Neuhold’s, but Neuhold was also wondering why Marko hadn’t shown up. Because Marko’s car was still parked in Klöch, but no trace of him.”

“He’ll turn up again,” Brenner said, because it was getting to be a little too much for him right about now, how fast people were disappearing down here.

“Sure he will. Do come in, though. I was just cooking.”

“Just now?”

“Cooking’s what I do.”

“Cooking and painting?”

“Painting, less so. But cooking.”

“What’s cooking today?”

Brenner was amazed by how clean and tidy Palfinger’s kitchen was.

“Today I’m making Klachl soup. Do you care for it?”

“I’m not fussy.”

“You can’t be fussy when it comes to Klachl soup,” the painter laughed and took two big bones out of a pot.

“So, those bones are for the soup?”

“Pig bones. Not from a human. Human bones aren’t good for anything.”

“Not for soup.”

“Not for soup and not for anything else, either. I know someone who’s broken twenty-three bones.”

“Car accident?”

“Just little things. Fell out of bed, down a rib. Took a wrong step, the ankle. Slipped in the bathtub—”

“Bathtub’s dangerous.”

“Yes—fractured the base of his skull.”

“It just defeats the purpose. Freshly showered, blood running out of his ears.”

Now, you should have seen Palfinger. The blood was running out of him, too. Not out of his ears, though, out of his face, which was white as a wall.

An artist like this is a difficult person
, Brenner thought.
On the one hand, a real roughneck, then again, extremely sensitive
. And only a moment later did Brenner understand why Palfinger had reacted so sensitively all of a sudden. Because he himself was the man with the broken bones. The man who had fractured the base of his skull. And to be frank, no surprise at all, given how overweight he was.

“Something like that can only occur to an artist who talks about himself in the third person.”

Palfinger didn’t say anything to that. He didn’t say anything at all for a spell, just busied himself purposefully with his Klachl soup until a little of his color returned.

“You probably don’t have enough calcium in your bones,” Brenner said.

“You think that’s why a person falls over in the bathtub?”

“A skull fracture, though?”

“Skull fracture’s not the worst.”

“So what’s the worst?”

Palfinger didn’t answer, but instead said, “I had the bloodied bathtub torn out, and I put it in an exhibit.”

“And what did you call your work?”

“ ‘Smashed Skull.’ ”

“So you exaggerated.”

“I always exaggerate everything. I rode a bike so fast that I did a somersault.”

“And did you put the bike in an exhibit?”

“Don’t bullshit about what you don’t understand,” the painter said, suddenly as touchy again as he’d been that whole night at the Borderline. Because he never would have put the bike in an exhibit, but try explaining that to Brenner—why the bathtub got turned into art but the bike got repaired.

But the painter wanted to explain something else altogether to Brenner now.

“I can’t move properly. I limp once with my left leg, and once with my right. Because I don’t have any rhythm. Every day I bump my head at least once. Do you understand?”

“What’s there to understand?”

“That’s why I like to cook. Because when I’m cooking, I’m at peace. I never burn myself cooking. I never drop anything. And not once have I hit my head while cooking.”

“Even though you’ve got everything hanging over the stove.”

“My body gets very warm when I cook. My thoughts get quiet. And sometimes I’m so at one with cooking that I wish I could cook myself.”

“Now you’re exaggerating again.”

It seemed to Brenner like Palfinger wasn’t listening anymore. And as a matter of fact, he didn’t say a word for the next fifteen minutes, just acted as if Brenner wasn’t even there. This was a contrast—a few days ago, totally berserk at the Borderline, and now so quiet and even-tempered while cooking that Brenner wouldn’t have been surprised if the halo that the spotlight at the Borderline cast on Palfinger should suddenly reappear. Even though “halo” is a bit of an exaggeration because I don’t think there’s much cooking being done up there—they’d have to borrow some fire from their rivals down below.

Brenner was starting to brood a little because he couldn’t imagine why Marko would disappear—and now, of all times, when he’d just found Horvath. He wasn’t getting anywhere, and it was raising a doubt in his mind again about whether this was the right profession for him.

So, he was glad when Palfinger finally ladled up the Klachl soup. Because a bowl of hot soup is always the best cure for a depressive mood, it should really be covered by insurance everywhere today. It warms the soul—it’s not for nothing that that’s how the expression goes. And after a few spoonfuls, Brenner was feeling like himself again, and right away, a concrete question like you’d expect from a detective nowadays.