“How’s it going?” I ask, pushing my last three units of coke in his direction.
“Oh, well,” he slowly replies. “Not that great.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Thor hasn’t shown up at the last parade.”
The music drones out his soft voice. “You need to speak up,” I tell him.
Tom leans over, until he almost touches my ear. “The filthy Arabs want to finish us up,” he hisses.
“Yeah, yeah, so I’ve heard.”
“Fucking fuckers.”
“And what’re you going to do about it?”
“Whaddaya think?”
“Get even?”
“Keep on dreaming. It’s twenty of them against one of us.”
“I know.”
“What do you think, we can do?” he accusingly adds. “We’re lucky if we don’t lose our street.”
“Yeah, I got it,” I try to calm him.
Canned applause ends the performance of the overweight dancer. She comes over to the bar and has the bartender pour her a plum brandy. I look at Tom, twirling my empty glass in my hand. I need to find out if he knows anything about the ace-of-clubs-crucifix murders. “You guys are not on a crusade, you know what I mean?” I ask, all the while carefully studying him from the corner of my eye.
Tom bristles. “Why do you say something like this?”
“Why do I say what?”
“The thing about the crusade.”
“No special reason,” I claim.
Tom bangs a tattoo on the bar with his storm lighter. “Must have something to do with the sun spots, that’s why everyone’s suddenly going nuts.”
When I smile at him, he doesn’t meet my eyes. He always avoids eye contact. Like we were animals and he was a subordinate male. “What, if the tables could be turned and the Arabs would be grabbed by the balls for a change?” I insist.
A pensive nod from Tom. “I wouldn’t mind.”
“These guys will finish them up, you think?”
“What guys?”
“You know who I’m talking about.”
“What do I know?”
“What they’re saying on the street.”
“About who? The roof-runner?”
I slam my hand down on the bar. “Then you do know what’s going on,” I blurt.
Tom points at the badges on his vest. “Being a Prospect doesn’t mean you’re blind,” he declares.
I bend closer to him. “Speak up! Who’s behind it? Who’re the Arabs scared of?”
Tom refills his whiskey glass. “It’s just talk.” A dismissive wave with his hand.
I put my arm around his shoulder, pulling his upper body closer to me. “Tell me,” I urge him.
“Abdul,” Tom starts, struggling to shake off my arm.
“So what?”
“Abdul who lives on Revaler, I sometimes have a chat with him. He’s told me something,” Tom explains.
“You’re chatting with an Arab?”
“Yes, why not? Not all of them are bastards.” Tom lowers his head until it almost touches the bar. “Abdul’s scared shitless,” he continues. “He’s told me he was just dragging his ass down Revaler early one morning, when he saw this… hell, I don’t know…”
“What did he see?” I don’t let go.
“A weird shadow.” Tom swallows. “What’s the right word? A dark figure, running across the rooftops.”
“Dark figure?” I wonder aloud, lifting my brows. “There’s plenty of those around here,” I add.
“No, no, not one of the usual motherfuckers,” Tom protests.
“Meaning what?”
“Okay… the way he moved… light on his feet. And the way he was dressed.”
I shake my head. “The way he was dressed? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Something seems to distract Tom, because he turns his head in the direction of the window as if having a kind of premonition. Next, the pane explodes. The staccato of at least two submachine guns. Projectiles ricochet around the room. The barman returns the fire straight away, blindly spraying the street with bullets. The two booze-heads take a dive behind the bar, followed by the pole dancer. Tom takes cover behind the pool table. Squashed cigarette butts at eye level, I remain on the floor in the middle of the cross-fire. I remember a drive-by shooting I witnessed while standing in the middle of a street. Fifteen years have since passed. I had better reflexes back then. And I had my Glock on me. Now, my guns are at home in the ticket booth. I can’t do anything but hurl pretzel sticks. Damn. Twenty or thirty seconds later the show’s over. I lift my head. Pieces of glass have gotten into my mouth and are stuck to my face. I pick myself up, spit them out and dust off my suit. Tom casts a nervous look at the bartender, who’s reloading his shotgun. Armed Members come thundering down from upstairs. I follow one of the heavily inked men outside. The guard at the entrance is down and covered in blood. The man has caught it in the chest two or three times. His breathing is labored. The old geezer is still on the stoop and grins as if everything was just fine and dandy. The woman Satanist is on the sidewalk, all bloodied up. She must have smacked her head against the pavers. I can’t see any gunshot wounds. I want to help her get up, but when she starts screaming like a banshee and tries to hit me, I leave her be. The attackers have vanished into thin air. They must have driven their car around the block and into the next side street. Tom and two other bikers carry their dying comrade into the clubhouse. “Who did that?” I ask him.
“T’wasn’t the roof-runner, right?” Tom replies, before the bullet-riddled door falls shut behind him.
I turn around. The street is quiet now. In the building across, there is someone at the window. When the woman realizes that I can see her behind the pane, she shrinks back. I look down Frankfurter Allee, where “Checkpoint Ring” is. The soldiers have retreated behind the wall of sandbags. They won’t move a finger to help. They don’t care what’s happening inside the Ghetto.
6
Gray and drab. Submerged into the dust of the city. The monk’s habit resembles a patchwork rug. A black wooden crucifix aimlessly dangles around the neck of the killer. He tiptoes across the rooftops, almost without causing a sound. Driven by revenge, even barbed wire can’t stop him. The man pulls back his hood, produces a pair of bolt cutters, and carefully severs one strand after the other, until the barrier of spiked wires is down. Twenty-four years are a long time—but the score has to be settled. The crime can’t go unpunished, no matter how long it takes. With his bare hands he pushes aside the barbed wire. The cuts in his skin only serve to remind him of the suffering of the murder victims. Drops of blood hit the ground, but he doesn’t care. He takes a leap onto the roof of the neighboring building, flexes his legs, and silently rolls over.
Gazing down on Strausberger Platz, the guard squashes his cigarette on the balustrade, not realizing that someone is approaching him from behind. The last thing he sees is the dried out basin of the waterspout fountain, before the garrote closes around his neck, cutting off his air-supply. The killer remains faceless up to his final moment and is nothing but a gust of hot breath, caressing his neck. Before the guard takes his last breath himself, he thinks of the prostitute he was planning to marry. The shadow releases the dead body from his strangling embrace and lets it sink to the ground. After he has relieved the guard of his silenced gun, he walks through the open access to the roof and climbs the stairs. The high-rise at Frankfurter Tor is made of glass, offering a 360°-view of the city. A man sits in front of the TV screen, only dressed in his underwear and stoned from three lines of coke. On his lap there is a bag of potato chips, which he stuffs into his mouth without tasting them. Slowly masticating but not enjoying the spicy flavor of paprika. The porn flick continues, and the chips make crunchy noises between his teeth. When he notices something from the corner of his eyes, he lifts his head. A dark figure is approaching at a hypnotically slow pace. Always moving and moving, as if drawn closer by an inner force.