She summed the main points up again: “So we’re looking for someone who has an unusual car, hires a call girl, has unprotected sex with her, isn’t into any kinky games, and who gave her hazelnut cookies that she died from.”
“Correct.”
We let her have some time to mull that over; Martin drank his coffee and ordered two more.
“I can remember comments about two clients that might be worth considering,” Yvonne said with the fresh cup of coffee in front of her.
Martin leaned forward eagerly.
“The one guy she used to call ‘Dr. Strangelove’…”
“She gave her clients nicknames?” Martin asked, amazed.
I snickered. What nickname would Martin have gotten?
“Well, sure,” Yvonne said. “I wanted to know as much as possible about what her clients wanted, but she didn’t want to name names. So we had to find a way to easily but discreetly talk about the men.”
Martin nodded.
“So, to continue, Dr. Strangelove is an entrepreneur, something to do with steel, I think. He has at least four fancy cars, including a Porsche and a Jaguar. He’s a widower, and harbors an abysmally deep mistrust of women—he thinks they are all only interested in his money.”
“That’s probably true, too,” I interjected, but Martin didn’t acknowledge me.
“He has two grown daughters who keep trying to set him up with women, but for them he plays the monk. He satisfies his urges with call girls, and over the last two years exclusively with Semira.” She thought for a moment. “At least he said he was exclusive with her.”
“Yes,” Martin said thoughtfully. “That might well be something to take with a grain of salt. Does he live in Cologne?”
“I think so, yes.”
Meanwhile Martin had taken out a pen and a piece of paper from the pocket of his jacket, jotting down the most important information.
“The other guy she used to call ‘Il Papa.’”
Martin wrote down “Il Papa.”
“He’s married, but he told Semira his wife is frigid and unapproachable. He doesn’t actually live in Cologne, but he comes to town a lot on business, so he rents a small apartment here.”
“What does he do?” Martin asked.
Yvonne shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“What did he want from Semira?” Martin asked.
Stupid question, I thought. Sex, of course.
“Warmth?” Yvonne said.
Female mumbo jumbo, I thought.
“Sex of course, too,” she said.
All right!
“But he only wanted a little sex, and otherwise just lots of cuddling. Warmth that he wasn’t getting from his wife anymore.”
Why would the man tell Semira such bullshit, I wondered. Normal men have to tell women baloney like that so they’ll jump into bed with them. But a call girl will jump anyway, so why all the claptrap?
“How did she come up with the nicknames?” Martin asked. “Why was one called Dr. Strangelove and the other Il Papa?”
Yvonne shrugged. “No idea. I asked her that too, but she said only that the nicknames suited them. She didn’t want to give any explanation for them so no one could guess the men’s identities.”
“Too bad,” I said. “After all, that’s exactly what we want.”
Meanwhile the supply of coffee had gone dry again, and Yvonne gave such a big yawn that she almost fell out of her chair. They exchanged phone numbers, Martin paid, Yvonne decided to take a taxi home, and we cruised homeward in the sardine can. Martin crashed into bed and slept nine and half hours straight. I watched TV until I couldn’t stand what was on anymore, and then I moved to the kitchen—after all, I didn’t have any eyelids that I might mercifully have closed, and I couldn’t turn off the tube, either. A few days ago I was desperate because I couldn’t switch the thing on, and now it was the opposite. Life sure is strange, especially when you’re dead.
After a proper tea, a little bowl of sugar-free muesli, and a shower, the next morning Martin was feeling fit enough to continue the investigation. I felt beat and was grumpy because I had no idea how to proceed. Dr. Strangelove and Il Papa were phantoms (actually I had wanted to say they were as hard to detect as cum stains on a shower curtain, but I’ve been making serious strides toward improving my language here) who turned up in stories, or who killed people but left no evidence you could trace back to them, but Martin was of an entirely different view.
“We have one clue as to where we have to go to search for the two of them,” Martin said.
“Where?” I replied in a huff.
“Where you stole the car,” he said with satisfaction.
“Great,” I said. “Then let’s stroll down to the Cologne Congress Centre that thousands of people go in and out of every day and ask whether Dr. Strangelove or Il Papa may have heard one of the numerous presentations or attended any seminars on that illustrious day.”
Martin could not be dissuaded by my bad mood.
“We’re going to find out what events were being held that day, and then we’ll decide what direction to go next.”
“And what direction would that be?” I asked.
“If there was a presentation for entrepreneurs, say, that might give us a clue about Dr. Strangelove,” Martin said. “We might even be able to find an employee who remembers an attendee with that unusual car.”
The idea wasn’t totally stupid, I had to admit. And the likelihood was not exactly remote that a pimply trainee banquet server would have found out about a rocket ship like our SLR being parked out in the lot. People always go and take a look at nice rides, and some pompous guy who works there will always know who it belongs to…Hmm, maybe we really were going to be able to find out the owner’s identity this way. The owner who presumably murdered me! I got hot and cold at the idea.
We ran back through all the details of the information we had about the two men in question: Dr. Strangelove had to be strange in some way, although we didn’t know if his name referred to how he looked or something else. He was an entrepreneur involved somehow in steel. He had several cars. He lived in Cologne, was a widower, and had two grown daughters, so he had to be at least forty, maybe even fifty or older.
Il Papa was married, stayed in Cologne only in a second apartment because he had business here. Maybe his nickname had to do with getting on in years. Maybe Semira christened him that just because he called her “my child” or something; we just didn’t know. Maybe he was Italian and an old fart and he called her “my child.” No idea. We’d have to keep our eyes and ears open. Vámonos.
On the way we were still thinking about what reason to give for asking about the events that had been held on the illustrious day, but after batting around a few ideas and not being able to agree on anything remotely believable, Martin ended the conversation with a wave of his hand.
“We’ll just act like it’s the most normal thing in the world to ask about past events, and we won’t give any reason.”
No sooner said than done—but it didn’t work.
“May I ask why you need this information?” the pretty receptionist asked in her pretty short-skirt suit with her pretty smile on her pretty face. Martin blinked stupidly at her.
“It has to do with an inquiry into a death,” he said after a brief moment. He whipped out his business card, held it out for the pretty little mouse to read, but pulled it away again when she reached for it.
“Shouldn’t the police be handling the investigation?” she asked cautiously.
“No problem,” Martin said with a friendly smile, looking only the tiniest bit pinched. “If you’d like to have the police come out, I can arrange that with a single phone call. We—that is, the investigative team I’m part of and I—were thinking it would be somewhat more discreet for you if I just popped in here quickly for the information. It was easy for me to stop by because you’re on my way to my next appointment, you see.”