I contemplated my shoes. “Why are you so afraid of Kessler?”
He picked up his briefcase, and we left the office.
“Well, he has a lot of influence, and …” He locked the door, turned, looked at the floor. “It is well known that he and the Mayor are very close.”
7
Slibulsky was trying really hard to be nice. We drove through the dark streets, raindrops dancing in the headlight beams. Small bolts of lightning flashed above the rooftops.
Slibulsky said, “Make a wish, I’ll make it happen.”
I thought for a minute while we were driving around a building site.
“I’d like Whitney Houston to sing for me. With just the two of us in the room.”
I really meant it.
“Who is that?”
I put out my cigarette, leaned back, and said, “Oh, never mind.”
When we stopped at the next streetlight, Slibulsky asked, “Where the hell are we going?”
“I dunno. Let’s just drive around a little longer.”
For a long while, neither one of us said anything. The engine hummed reassuringly. I pulled the bottle of Russian vodka from under the seat.
“Can you send things like this to someone in jail?”
Slibulsky looked doubtful. I pushed the bottle back and looked out the window.
“You know, I know this little bar, it’s really a nice joint, soft music and so on …”
I shook my head. “No, what I need now is loud music, well-rounded girls, and my head so full of beer that you can hear it sloshing around. Let’s go to Sachsenhausen.”
Slibulsky turned around, and we drove to Sachsenhausen.
Just as we entered the tavern, which, like all Hessian taverns, had an incomprehensible name, all the lights went out. We pushed through a chaos of lighters, candles, and howling patrons, and found seats at a table occupied by young men in their twenties. They were telling each other manly little jokes and downing quantities of hard cider. One of them had packed it in. He was resting his head on the tabletop and snoring intermittently.
After we had waited long enough, I got up and collared a waiter. He screwed up his eyes.
“Twelve beers? Just for you?”
“There’s two of us.”
“I see,” he said, and I went back to Slibulsky. A little later the waiter wound his way through the rows of tables with a huge tray, unloaded it in front of us, and wished us good luck.
Behind me, some guy was slapping the table and shouting, “Hey, you guys, just think what it would be like to have a woman made out of beer. Just imagine! She’d be something! Just imagine!”
He sighed, and slumped against his neighbor’s shoulder.
Slibulsky and I limited our exchanges to remarks like “Not bad, this beer,” “Right, not bad at all.”
The youngsters next to us were now busy scanning the hall for something to, as they put it, “slide over.” A thin guy with bad teeth and short sweaty hair slapped my shoulder. “Look at that, buddy, that one over there! What a piece! Look at her boobs!”
The one right next to me roared, “Hey, Charlie, that’s a Turk you’re talking to! Turks only like women with huge asses. No head, no legs, just an ass, you know? This big …”
I told the thin guy to take his paws off me, and asked the other one to step outside. He was a sturdy type with a square jaw and blond curly hair. His gaudy shirt was unbuttoned down to his crotch. The other boys looked at him expectantly. He got up slowly, and when two others wanted to follow his example, he waved them off. “I’ll take care of this.”
I asked Slibulsky to take care of the check. We wouldn’t be coming back.
Once we were outside the door, the blond wasn’t quite sure what was supposed to happen next. I took advantage of that, and quickly punched him on that square jaw, hard enough to take care of things. He staggered, fell down, and didn’t get up. Slibulsky appeared soon after, and we marched to the car. I was tired. We drove off, and I started to snore after the first hundred meters.
A police siren woke me up as we were passing the main railroad station, and I asked Slibulsky to stop. I managed to get out of the car, reeled into the Traveler’s Shop, bought a bottle of Chivas, and reeled back. Slibulsky eyed the whisky morosely and opined, “You don’t give up easily, do you?”
I shook my head and went back to sleep.
Finally we stood in front of my building. Slibulsky leaned forward in the driver’s seat. His voice was low and hoarse. “You’re a pretty good guy, Kayankaya.”
“Un-hunh,” I agreed, and got out. He drove off. I tottered through the rain toward the front door, holding the Chivas with both hands. Suddenly a shadow detached itself from the wall.
“I’ve been looking for you all day. Two hours ago, Detective Superintendent Kessler himself called the editorial office to let us know that the four suspects are more or less innocent. The fifth man, someone named Kollek, had just been using the four to trick the police. Can you imagine?”
Carla Reedermann waved her hands excitedly, then looked at me with compassion. “I’m so sorry for you. You tried so hard. And the idea about the informer wasn’t so bad, but … Anyway, I came to tell you this so you wouldn’t have to read it in the papers. And Anastas wants to apologize. He admits that he was a little … grumpy yesterday.” She smiled winsomely.
First I grinned, then I laughed out loud, laughed like an idiot, unable to stop.
“I don’t understand …”
“Never mind, sweetie. You understand lots of other things.”
She looked confused, took a turn on the pavement, then said quietly, “The only thing I can’t figure out is, who attacked Anastas?”
I tried to light a cigarette, but the rain kept extinguishing it, so I stopped trying.
“Well, Kollek, for instance, maybe together with Kessler, or with the Mayor, or with me … or was it our Father in Heaven?”
Her hair and her overcoat were soaking wet. It was a pleasant sight, even when she got furious. “What is it you want? First you act as if you didn’t give a shit, then you act like a wild man who won’t give up on the case, and now you don’t give a shit again.”
I raised my arms.
“What do I want? I want some beer. More beer! Much more beer!”
Then I pushed past her and staggered down the sidewalk. Halfway to the door she caught up with me, said, “I’m sorry,” and asked me if she could come up to my place.
I thought it over for a moment.
“There’s a dead guy up there. Not a pretty sight. Maybe some other time … Not now, I don’t think.”
I left her standing in the rain.
Then I was in my apartment. I wrapped Schmidi in two old bedsheets and dragged him out onto the landing. I poured myself a glass of Chivas and leaned against the window. A cat screeched, and down in the street someone shouted, “Red Front!”
I stood there for a while and stared at the rain.
JANUARY 1987
REAGAN CALLS FOR FINAL SOLUTION OF PALESTINIAN QUESTION
Gaddhafi wore jeans!
Theo Sontag’s political commentary: Was this a trick?
LEAK IN BIBLIS NUCLEAR REACTOR
The Minister of the Interior says, “Radiation negligible, no cause for concern among local population” and warns against “unfounded panic mongering.”
U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY ADDRESSES NATO
“We want a second-strike capability that renders a third strike impossible.”
“BUT OUR WOMEN ARE MORE HONEST”
The Federal Chancellor in Bangkok at the end of his Asian tour.