In his left hand he was holding a glass with three melting ice cubes in it. Either the guy was missing his car with a longing that really made you feel sorry for him, or else he had another problem. I was already inclined toward the latter analysis, even before seeing him like this. But if you watched the call girl you hired to brighten your mood die in agony, and then you decided you needed to spirit her body away without anyone noticing, and to do that you had to abuse the coolest fucking car in the world, only to have someone steal your rocket ship complete with the body in the trunk, then I’m thinking you’ve got a pretty good reason to feel melancholic. But then if on top of that you also needed to murder the car thief to keep even his dying words from publicly disclosing the corpse in the trunk, then from my perspective that would be reason enough to be staring into space with a drink in your hand. Eilig apparently thought so, too. He didn’t stir.
I reported my observations to Martin, and he was pleased Eilig was home. He was less interested in everything else.
I whooshed back to the living room window and stopped in horror. The chair was empty. After a moment’s terror I saw Eilig standing over by the bookcase. He was just hanging up the phone. He turned around, picked up an attaché case from next to the armchair, and walked out of the living room.
I raced back to Martin and updated him on my surveillance just as the red warning light started blinking at the entrance to the ramp leading down to the underground garage. A Jag with tinted windows exited. We couldn’t tell who the driver was, but we both automatically assumed Eilig was sitting in the car, and we followed him. In the trash can. Fortunately traffic was heavy, and we were hitting all red lights instead of green, so our little pedal car was actually able to keep up in the car “chase.”
Eilig wasn’t concentrating on his driving, which may have been due to any number of causes, not the least of which was indubitably a certain blood alcohol level, if you recall the glass with the ice cubes. As we followed him we enjoyed some excited speculation. Where was he driving to? And why? At first we thought he was driving to his local parliamentary office since he had an attaché case with him, but he wasn’t driving in the right direction for that. Then he started getting closer to the neighborhood where Semira had lived, but that didn’t make any sense. Ultimately he just kept heading eastward, toward Cologne’s medieval old town and the Rhine, which runs north-south through the middle of Cologne.
Martin was in high spirits like a kid on Christmas Eve. He was driving frenetically, blathering on about all kinds of nonsense without stopping to take a breath and sniffling about seventeen times. But he didn’t have a runny nose. Just nerves. It was driving me crazy. I hate it when people sniffle. I know, my manners weren’t always the best, either, but I always kept my nose clean—that is a minimum standard of civilization that I retained throughout my whole life. I asked Martin to stop. He said, “Yes, of course,” and then he sniffled again. He didn’t even notice. I suppressed my disgust and left him alone so I wouldn’t make him even more nervous. After all, he had to keep track of the Jag, keep an eye on the road, watch out for traffic, and stop at red lights, even if the Jag darted through a yellow. But we always caught up with him again at the next light; that’s the benefit I guess to a totally uncoordinated traffic light system.
Our drive took us across the Rhine, the cathedral receding downriver behind us to the left, and Martin got even more nervous as he considered the possibility that we might soon be running on empty, but it didn’t come to that. The Jaguar turned off the main road.
“Industrial wasteland” is a buzzword that describes a piece of land where some kind of industrial operation used to be located. First the operation brings in wads of cash while regrettably contaminating the soil and groundwater, then it’s closed, falls into disrepair if the site wasn’t in ruins already, and then the former owner or heirs no longer can or want to be found—thereby sticking the general public with the costs of decontaminating the poison pit. That’s the kind of site our stylin’ Jaguar was driving to.
Martin turned on his blinker to follow, but before he could execute this hair-raisingly idiotic idea, I talked him out of it with a carefully worded question.
“Are you batshit crazy?” I roared.
Martin hit the brakes as hard as he could. Pure reflex.
“We’re going to stick out like Santa Claus at Easter Sunday mass if we follow behind the Jag now,” I said, returning to normal intonation.
“Right, got it,” Martin moaned, sniffling.
“We’re going to have to keep a low profile and follow him on foot,” I said. “So park the car here, and let’s get going.”
Martin parked the trash can on the shoulder, awkwardly locked the doors, and started walking at a brisk pace.
To our benefit, all kinds of bushes and trees had already taken over the abandoned site as their habitat, so we didn’t need to walk around without any cover. I whooshed out in front as a scout, found the Jag not far from us, and even caught another glimpse of Dr. Eilig, who was walking up to a dilapidated building, attaché case in hand. I was torn between going back to Martin and staying with Eilig, but I ultimately decided on Eilig. Presumably that was my error because Martin wasn’t keeping an eye out behind him, either—only in front.
Dr. Eilig took up position on the front steps of the old building, its roof totally missing and its rear gable wall half caved-in, and then looked around. Obviously he couldn’t see me, and he couldn’t see Martin from his location, either. After looking all around again, Eilig stood there for a moment almost hesitantly, but finally he set the attaché case down in the entryway to the old building and walked at a rapid gait back to his Jaguar, climbed in, and drove off.
Martin had just enough time to dive behind a wall as the car raced past him. We couldn’t tell if Eilig saw him.
A few seconds later Martin had reached the attaché, which I hadn’t let out of my sight the whole time. “What’s inside?” he asked.
“How am I supposed to know?” I asked.
“Can’t you see inside it? Or seep into it, or something?” Martin demanded.
“And do you suppose there’s a little light bulb inside, like in the fridge?” I asked back.
“Well I don’t know,” Martin mumbled.
“Why don’t you just open it?” I suggested.
“And what if it’s a bomb?” Martin asked.
“Is it ticking?” I asked.
Martin listened and shook his head.
“So open it,” I said.
He lay the case down carefully, gently pressed on the locks, and the cover sprung open. No bomb. Money. Hundred-euro bills. More than I’d ever seen in one stack before. Sweet!
“Take the attaché and let’s get out of here,” I said. Martin stood there as though he were nailed to the spot.
“Martin!” I yelled, but he showed no reaction.
“He’s being blackmailed,” Martin mumbled thoughtfully. “Eilig is being blackmailed.”
“That’s how I see it, too,” I said. “And that means: we’ve got a problem. To be specific, the blackmailer is going to be showing up in a minute to pick up his cash. We need to clear out of here now.”