I picked up the file, and we left.
“Drive to the end of the street, then turn right, go once around the block. I’ll be back down in ten minutes. If I’m not, you just take off.”
“You really believe they’ve been waiting for you since two o’clock?”
“I don’t know. Everything looks quiet. See you in a minute.”
I got out of the car and walked the hundred meters back to my apartment. Listening by the door, I couldn’t hear anything. I turned the key in the lock and stepped inside. Still nothing. By this time, Kessler and his boys would have pounced. I took off my coat, hung it on the rack, and switched on the light. Something smelled bad. I walked into the living room, switched the light on, and saw what it was.
Schmidi, unwashed, wearing yesterday’s T-shirt, was reclining comfortably in a corner of my couch. Only the small dark hole in his forehead spoiled the idyll. I hurried to turn off the light and looked for my Beretta in the half-dark. It lay under the couch. Schmidi had been shot and killed with my gun. He had nothing on him, only his I.D. I took the I.D. and the Beretta, touched nothing else, and left the apartment.
Slibulsky drove up at a walking pace. I didn’t waste a moment getting in. “There’s a stiff with a hole in his forehead on my couch. Reiner Schmidi. The guy who beat me up yesterday.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing to be done there anymore.”
We headed toward the freeway. By the railroad station, I asked him to stop. I dug out the address Nina Scheigel had given me.
“There’s a Russian who lives around here who deals in contraband vodka. I owe someone a bottle.”
Slibulsky stepped on the brake and complained. “You have nothing better to do, this godforsaken morning, than to cultivate your alcohol addiction?”
I told him there were always more important things to do, or else never, and a while later we rang the doorbell of Nikolai Herzel, Munchner Strasse sixty-three, third floor. It was a little before six. Wide awake and fully dressed, he came to the door. A small man in a black suit and brown fur slippers. I introduced myself and Slibulsky. I had hardly finished when he ushered us into the apartment. With a twinkle in his eye, he said in his raspy voice, “I know. Nina was just here. You missed her by minutes.” He had to be past fifty, but there wasn’t a single wrinkle in his face. He had a full head of very shiny hair. He seemed to be enjoying the best of health, and yet something didn’t seem quite right. In the shabby living room furnished with decrepit armchairs and three television sets he asked us to have a seat. A teapot steamed on the kerosene stove. He crossed his arms and smiled at us.
“Well, gentlemen, to make a long story short, my current delivery is overdue, and my supplies are running low.”
He paused deliberately, folded his hands, and continued:
“Such a situation is, naturally, reflected in the price.”
He looked deep into my eyes.
“How much?”
He smiled and started pacing.
“Since it is Nina who sent you-let’s say, a hundred and fifty for the half liter.”
I glanced at Slibulsky who looked dumbfounded, then indicated that in his opinion, this little Russian no longer had both oars in the water.
“Let’s get serious, comrade. We’re just a pair of poor devils who want to give an old lady a present.”
He demurred. “I know, I know, but what can I do? Times are hard.”
“Eighty, and it’s a deal.”
His eyes narrowed.
“A hundred and forty. That should be satisfactory to all parties concerned.”
Slibulsky rose and stood right in front of the little Russian.
“My friend and I don’t see it that way. Only one of the fucking parties would be satisfied with a hundred and forty, and it ain’t us. My friend is willing to offer ninety, and I’ll go for a hundred, but that’s it!”
He looked down.
“And when I say that’s it, I mean it too. A couple of blocks from here, there’s a guy who got his brain ventilated. And do you know why? Over the little matter of a case of cognac. So exercise your tiny brain now! All right, amigo?”
The little Russian looked scared. Cautiously he made his way past Slibulsky and out of the room. Slibulsky waved his hand as if to say, “Well, then.”
We got our bottle for ninety and took off. Back in the car, Slibulsky said, “And I thought I was making money selling coke.”
“Did you see the guy’s skin? Smooth as a pool ball. And his hair.”
Slibulsky cranked the engine. “Arsenic.”
“Come again?”
We were on our way.
“Arsenic, in small doses, is like a shot of whiskey before breakfast. If you manage to hold it down, you feel just great. If you take the stuff daily, your skin becomes smooth as a baby’s ass, and your hair gets that buttery sheen.”
“My goodness.”
If it hadn’t been raining again, we would have been driving into the sunrise. As things were, it only got a little lighter. We stopped for coffee at the first service area.
“When the cops find that dead comrade in your apartment, it’s curtains for you.”
I wagged my head.
“I think they already know he’s there. But in the meantime, they also know that we got away with Kessler’s files, and they’re no longer so sure that it was such a great idea to add the stiff to my living room furniture. That was why they weren’t there. They may be busy carting him off again.”
I thought of all sorts of things. I took another look at Kessler’s calendar and noticed certain entries that began last May and were repeated with weekly regularity. “Confer with M.!” According to the calendar, the last meeting had taken place last night.
“When do registration offices open?”
“No idea. Not in my field of competence. Maybe sometime between eight and nine?”
At eight o’clock, I went to the pay phone. Information gave me the number and I dialed it.
“Doppenburg registration office. Good morning.”
“Moller, from the public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt. I’m working on the Bollig case. I need to know if a Herbert Kollek is registered in Doppenburg.”
He sounded reluctant, but after I assured him that I would send him a written copy of my request, he went to check the record.
“Mr. Moller? I’m sorry, but you’re too late. Herbert Kollek moved away from Doppenburg in nineteen sixty-nine.”
“Where did he move?”
“To Frankfurt.”
“I see. One more thing. That same year, sixty-nine, was the year Friedrich and Barbara Bollig’s son was born. Unfortunately I can’t remember his first name, but I’m told that he was institutionalized soon after his birth. Could you find the name of the institution?”
That took him ten minutes. A trucker was waiting for the pay phone, looking none too happy about it.
“The son’s name is Oliver. He was born on November seventeenth, and is in the care of Dr. Gerhart Kliensmann, at the Ruhenbrunn Private Clinic.”
“Thank you.”
I hung up. Slibulsky sat at a table, grouchily perusing illustrated magazines. Without looking up, he said, “OK, you’re the boss, you have the overview. But I sure would like to know what you think you’re doing, calling registration offices.”
I told him. We paid and drove on to Doppenburg.
DAY THREE
1
I pointed at Nina Scheigel’s house.
“There it is, number seven. I assume he’s asleep, he works all night. But just get him out of bed. If his wife is there, lock her up, tie her up, whatever. Act like a wild man, break something, but don’t make so much noise you’ll alert the neighbors. Tell him you know everything and want to be paid off, or else you’ll call the cops. And as soon as he agrees to pay, make him tell the truth.”
Slibulsky squinted at me. “What truth?”
“He knows something, but he hasn’t been willing or able to talk about it. Who knows if it’s the whole truth? But it may be a part.”