Fredrick Lazars beckoned Torsen to follow him, saying he was just eating his dinner. Torsen was motioned to sit on a rickety chair, covered in dog hairs, as Lazars sat the chimp in a high baby chair. He brought a big tin bowl and a large spoon. He tipped what looked like porridge into the bowl, and then took out of the oven a plate piled with sausages, onions, and mashed potatoes. He offered to share his dinner with Torsen. It looked as if the man had already started dinner; the sausages were half eaten. Torsen refused politely, saying that he had just dined, and then added, "at the Grand Hotel!" He did not mention that it was just a small salad, and as Lazars didn't seem impressed, he dropped the subject. Lazars opened two bottles of beer and handed one to Torsen as the chimp flicked its spoon, splattering Torsen's uniform with porridge.
The chimp, only two years old, was called Boris, but was really a female — all this was divulged in a bellow from a food-filled mouth.
"Did Tommy Kellerman come to see you?"
The big hands broke up large hunks of bread, dipping them into his fried onions. "He did... the night he died."
Torsen took out his notebook, asked for a pencil, and Lazars bellowed at Boris, who climbed down and went to an untidy desk. The chimp threw papers around. "Pencil... PENCIL BORIS!" Torsen was half out of his seat, ready to help Boris, when a pencil was shoved at him, but Boris wouldn't let go of it and a tug of war ensued. Finally Lazars whacked Boris over the head and told her to finish her dinner. Boris proceeded to spoon in large mouthfuls of the porridge substance, dribbling it over the table, herself, and the floor.
"Kellerman came to see me about six, maybe nearer seven."
"Why have you not come forward with this evidence?"
"He came, he ate half my dinner and departed, what's there to tell in that?"
Torsen scribbled in his book. "So what time did he leave?"
Lazars sniffed, gulped at his beer. "He stayed about three quarters of an hour, said he had some business he was taking care of, important business."
"What did you do after he left? Or did you accompany him?"
"No, he left on his own, I stayed here."
"Do you have any witnesses to substantiate this?"
"Yep, about two hundred, we were giving a display, just a few kids trying out, but I started at eight-thirty, maybe finished around ten or later, then we had an open discussion... finished after twelve, we went on to O'Bar, about six of us, then we stayed there..."
Torsen held up his hand: "No, no more... if you could just give me some names who can verify all this."
Lazars reeled off the names as Boris banged her plate, splashing Torsen with more of her food. She started screeching for more, and when she got it she gave Lazars a big kiss as a thank-you.
"I love this little lady... mother died about a year ago. Well, she's moved in with me until I find someone to buy her."
Torsen asked Lazars what he knew of Kellerman's background, and the massive man screwed up his face, his resemblance to Boris becoming even more staggering.
"He was an unpleasant little bastard, nobody had a good word to say about him, always borrowing, you know the kind, he'd touch a blind beggar for money, but, well, he'd had a tough life... you forgive a lot."
"Did he ever work here?"
"Yeah, long time ago, I mean a really long time ago, early fifties I think. He turned up one day, sort of learned a few tricks, just tumbling and knockabout stuff, but he never had the heart... got to have a warm heart to be a clown, you know? Kellerman, he was different, he was never... I dunno, why speak ill of the dead, huh?"
"It may help me find his killer. Somebody hated him enough to give him a terrible beating."
Lazars lifted Boris up and carried her to the dish-piled sink. He took a cloth and ran it under the water, rinsed it, and wiped Boris's face.
"Look, Kellerman was a bit crazy, you know? Mixed up. He hated his body, his life, his very existence. Kellerman was somebody that should have been suffocated when he was born. He couldn't pass a mirror without hating himself. And yet when he was younger — it was tragic — he looked like a cherub. Like a kid. See, when he first came here he must have been in his twenties."
Torsen nodded, finishing the dregs of his beer. Boris, her face cleaned, now wanted her hands washed.
"I'm trying to train her to do the washing up!" roared Lazars, laughing at his own joke. "But she's too lazy!! Like me!"
Lazars sat Boris down, and cut a hunk of cheese for himself. "The women went for him, always had straight women — you know, normal size."
Torsen hesitated. "I met his ex-wife..."
Lazars cocked his head to one side. "She's a big star now, doesn't mix with any of us, but then who's to blame her, she's been worldwide with the Grimaldi act. He's a nice enough bloke, part Russian, part Italian — hell of a temper, nice man, but I'm not sure about Ruda... but then who's sure about anybody?"
Torsen flicked through his notebook.
"Did you know them when they were married?"
"No, not really. I don't to tell you the truth even know where she came from, I think she used to work the clubs, but don't quote me. Kellerman just used to turn up, we never knew how he did it. I think he was into some racket with forged documents, he seemed to be able to cross back and forth with no problems. We had a bit of a falling out about it, you know he'd come over here, check over the acts — next minute they'd upped and left. I think he made his money that way, you know — paid for fixing documents and passports. He always had money, not rich, but never short of cash either in those early days, so I just put two and two together. He had a place over in the Kreuzberg district, so he must have had contacts. Not circus people, he was only attached to circuses because of his deformity — when he couldn't make cash on rackets, he joined up with a circus."
Torsen rubbed his head. "Did he have money when you last saw him?"
Lazars shook his head. "No, he was broke, told me he had been in jail but I knew that anyway. All he said was he had some business deal going down. Maybe he'd got in with the bad guys again, who knows? I do know he let a lot of people down..."
"How do you mean?"
"Promises, you know, he'd get them over the border, promise to get them work. They'd pay up front, end up over there, and no Kellerman — he'd pissed off. Any place he turned up you could guarantee there would be someone waiting to give him a hiding.
"Or kill him?"
Lazars had Boris on his knee; the chimp was sucking at her thumb like a tiny baby, her round eyes drooping with tiredness. Torsen reached for his raincoat; it was covered with animal hairs. "There is just one more thing, then I'll get out of your way."
Lazars stood up, resting Boris on his hip. She was fast asleep.
Torsen almost whispered, afraid to wake Boris.
"Do you recall a tattoo on his left arm?"
Lazars nodded, and the bellowing voice was a low rumble. "I remember it, they are the ones you never forget."
Torsen waited, and Lazars sighed. "Maybe that was why we all put up with his shit. Tommy Kellerman was in Auschwitz, the tattoo was his number."
For once the rain had ceased and Torsen could take a bus to Kellerman's hotel. He sat hunched in his seat, making notes in his book. He wrote a memo for Rieckert and himself to visit Ruda Kellerman and question her again. He underlined it twice. She had lied about Kellerman's tattoo, she must have known what it was. He closed his eyes, picturing Ruda Kellerman as she touched the dead man's hair at the morgue that afternoon.
He spent the rest of the journey mulling over why she would have lied, but came to no conclusion. He stared from the grimy window of the bus at a group of punks kicking empty cans of beer along the street. They had flamboyantly blue and red hair; they wore torn black leather jackets, and black boots that clanked and banged the cans along the street. He felt old, tired out; bogged down, trying to find the killer of a man nobody seemed to care about. Was it all a pointless waste of time? The men at the station had inferred that it was; nobody else there would put in any overtime to help him.