“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 senora’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 Bollig 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 Bollig 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.
3
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 Bollig 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.
“What is it you want to ask my husband?”
“I want to know why he didn’t see a doctor after someone whacked him on the head.”
She looked at me through the smoke of her cigarette.
“You don’t work for the prosecutor’s office.”
“I don’t? Why not?”
“Because.” She smiled. “I like liars. They’re romantic.”
“I’m a private investigator.”
“Well, there you are.” She got up and took a bottle of vodka off a shelf. She got some ice from the kitchen.
“Would you like a drink?”
I nodded. She filled two hand-made crystal glasses and said, “Cheers.”
It tasted better than any vodka I had ever had. I told her so. She laughed.
“It’s genuine Russian. Contraband.”
On the wall there was a brown photograph of a small girl with long braids. She was dancing on a dining table for an audience of adults.
“You were raised in Russia?”
“Poland. Warsaw. But that’s a long time ago. When I’ve had a few more drinks, you can tell by my accent.”
I liked her matter-of-fact attitude toward drink.
“And what brought you to Doppenburg?”
“Men. What else?”