He got dressed and opened the door, found outside a covered plate of food and, next to it, a cassette tape. Putting the plate of food on the table, he removed the lid. Pancakes, sodden now with syrup, with eggs floating grimly to one side. There was no silverware. He ate with his fingers until he felt sick, then went to the bathroom and threw up and then came back and ate a little more, just enough to keep something in his stomach.
The tape he put into the tape recorder, turned it on.
"One: State your name and your relation to the deceased," he heard himself asking.
"Two: Where were you on the night Aline was murdered?
"Three: Do you know of anyone who might want Aline dead for any reason?
"Four: Did you see the body? If so, please describe in detail what you saw.
"Five: Are you absolutely certain Aline's death wasn't a suicide?
"Six: Did you kill Aline?"
What followed was a blank unrolling of tape, a dim static that lasted five or six minutes, and then the tape clicked loudly and a man's voice began to talk.
"Helming," the voice said. "We were. . associates." There was a pause, the tape microphone clicked off but the tape ran on.
"I was in my room. I heard a noise and had Michael carry me out into the hall and-"
The tape fell suddenly silent, part of it erased.
"I don't know why anyone would [blank space] question I suppose of having insufficient faith."
"No, I didn't see the [blank]. ."
"Yes."
"No. I-"
The tape cut abruptly off, and there was silence and then it resumed with another voice, another individual, the same enigmatic, half-erased style, nothing really stated of substance. Why were there gaps? A third voice was the same, and it was only then that Kline realized that the answers being given were vague enough that they could be read as responses to almost any questions. On that night I was in my room. I heard a noise and went into the hall and- could be answering his question Where were you on the night Aline was killed? but he could imagine other questions that might have been posed that would elicit the same response. Where were you on the night the hallway was graffitied? Where were you on the night Marker came in drunk? None of the three recorded voices mentioned the word "murdered" or the word "Aline" or the word "death." Or if they did it was in the portion of the tape that had been erased.
He rewound the tape and listened again, turning up the volume as high as it would go, listening to the blank spots of erased tape, hoping to hear hints of whatever had been there before the erasure. He heard nothing but a low half-muttering which, he realized, wasn't a human voice at all but the magnified sound of the tape recorder's mechanism itself. He turned off the tape and sat, thinking, wondering what to do next.
When Ramse arrived with dinner balanced on his arms in the early evening, Kline demanded to see Borchert.
"I'll put in a request," said Ramse.
"I need to see him right away," said Kline. "I need to see him now."
"Right now what you need to do is eat some supper," said Ramse. "And try to get over your hangover. You were a hell of a mess last night."
"I need to see Borchert," said Kline. "It's urgent."
"Fine," said Ramse. "Go ahead and eat. I'll walk over and see what I can do."
At the door he stopped and looked back, a look of reproach on his face. "You didn't even ask about Gous," he said.
"What about him?"
"About how he's doing."
"How is he doing?"
"Good," said Ramse. "He's doing just fine."
"Wonderful," said Kline. "Now, goddammit, go get Borchert."
Once Ramse was gone Kline uncovered the tray and ate: boiled potatoes, a thin and curling piece of grayish meat, a pile of overcooked carrots. He ate slowly, moving from potatoes to meat to carrots and back again until it was all gone, then sat playing the tape over. It seemed obvious that there was no real interest in solving the crime. Why even bring me out at all?
When Ramse returned, he turned the tape off.
"It's all arranged," said Ramse. "Borchert will see you."
"Good," said Kline, standing up. "Let's go."
Ramse looked a little surprised. "Oh, not today, Mr. Kline," he said. "He can't do it today."
"I need to see him today."
"He can see you in three days," said Ramse. "That was the best he could do."
Kline pushed past Ramse and went out the door, out of the house. He could hear Ramse calling after him, loudly. He walked briskly across the gravel-ridden lot in front of the house, turned down the road, cut at the right moment down the path to dip down through the trees. He wondered if Ramse was following him. He broke into a jog.
He came up over the top, the tree-lined path, the house looming up, the gate before it, a guard darting out again from behind a pillar of the house, standing at the far side of the gate regarding him with one eye. He couldn't tell if it was the same guard as before.
"What is wanted?" asked the guard.
"I'm here to see Borchert," said Kline, moving forward until he was nearly touching the gate.
"Borchert isn't seeing anyone today," said the guard.
"He'll see me."
The guard swiveled his head a little, fixed his remaining eye hard on Kline. "No," he said. "He won't."
Kline reached across the top of the gate and punched him. He was prepared to feel his hand strike the guard's temple but the sensation of his stump striking it was an odd one. It ached. The guard fell to the ground without a word, and as he struggled to get up Kline clambered over the gate. He kicked him a few times until he was sure the guard had stopped moving.
By the time he was knocking on the door of the house, he could see Ramse nearing the gate. The gatekeeper was still down but on his knees now, struggling his way up. He knocked again and the inner guard cracked the door open and said "What is wanted?" and Kline, without awaiting a response, kicked the door hard so that the edge of it split open the man's forehead and he stumbled back, spattering blood. Kline struck him open-palmed on the chest, knocking him down, and rushed by, down the hall and into the stairwell.
But before he had made the third floor he was struck hard on the back of the head. A stair tread rose up and struck his face. By the time he got up, there were one-eyed men all around him, and his own blood was getting into his eyes. Then they were hitting him so hard and so often that he could no longer hear, or rather what sound there was came in waves, and it seemed that he was falling down more stairs than there were stairs to fall down, and then, after that, he had a hard time even remembering that he was human.
When his eyes focused again, there was Borchert, above him. He realized he was lying on the floor of Borchert's room, blood coming in phlegm-streaked ribbons from his nose. He pulled himself up to sitting, wiped his arm across his face.
"Well, Mr. Kline," said Borchert. "It seems you wanted to see me quite badly."
Kline said nothing.
"What is this all about?"
He tried to speak but before he could get anything out had to swallow back blood.
"Was it worth it, Mr. Kline?" asked Borchert. "It was once such a lovely face, too. Are you willing to trade your face for a little face-to-face conversation?"
"I need to see them," said Kline.
"Them?" asked Borchert. "My dear Kline, who?"
"The people on the tape."
"Mr. Kline," said Borchert. "You're a one. You can hardly expect someone in the double digits-"
"I need to see them," said Kline.
"But Mr. Kline-"
"Something's wrong with the tape," said Kline. "With the questions. It doesn't all mesh."