“Please, Mr. Chatem …” Her tone reminded me of the kind of whole-wheat pedagogue who is able to smile a student into the ground and out of school. The voice was gentle and understanding, and she moved her arms as if she wanted to embrace me. Everything about her pretended to be soft and warm, but her eyes shone hard and cold as steeclass="underline" “… if you could just be patient for a moment.”
Although it wasn’t a question, she seemed to be waiting for a reply. I bowed my head: “Sorry, Mrs. Commissar, I’m a little nervous … What are my twenty-seven wives going to say after they haven’t heard from me for such a long time? And my grandfathers, and my mother, oh Allah, my mother! She’ll put me back in the sheep pen, the way she did when I let my brother Hassan play with that hand grenade-”
“Mr. Chatem!”
She slapped the desk with her palm and looked stem. Then she strode past me and hunkered down in front of a cabinet. The ribbed contours of her underwear showed through the fabric of her pants. I turned my head and drawled: “She’s got some hot little panties, doesn’t she, your boss?”
Before one of the brothers could react, she turned, still sitting back on her heels. She hissed at me. “What did you say?”
“I said I’m sure you’re hot to trot, and why don’t we have a little foursome? We’ve got a few minutes, don’t we?”
Her stare lasered into my forehead. She got up slowly and walked toward me. Her left hand played with the necklace.
“What did you say I was?”
“I said you were hot to trot. To fuck. Fuck, or screw …” With a silly grin on my face, I turned to my guards and shouted: “Screw, screw, screw!” Then back to her: “And let me tell you, I’m hung. Back home, the folks call me Ali the Flagpole.”
Her pupils had contracted. I winked at her: “And when I say beam, sweetie, I mean pole.”
She slapped me so fast and so hard that I fell off my chair. While I was still on the floor, the door opened. I raised my head and froze. The tall gray-haired man with the angular face stopped in the doorway and took in the scene. His voice sounded a little hoarse when he asked: “What is going on here?”
“Mr. Chatem has insulted me.”
“Chatem?”
I grabbed the edge of the desk, pulled myself up, brushed off my sleeves. “The sister is referring to me.”
Hottges closed the door, thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked slowly up to me. Once again his cold gray eyes held mine. Without turning away, he said: “Mrs. Henkel, leave the room, please.”
“But, Commissioner, what does that-”
“And take the officers with you.”
By the door, she turned back. “Should I make a reservation for him on the next flight?”
“Just leave!”
After the three had left us alone in the office, I leaned against the edge of the desk and lit a cigarette. Hottges followed my actions with his eyes. Otherwise he was motionless.
“So, what do you know, I did hit the right office yesterday morning, didn’t I? Do you know the reason that Larsson, or Manne, or whatever his name was, gave for transporting the refugees from the villa to the bunker? He claimed that a neighbor had called the police. The same neighbor Klaase wasn’t allowed to tell me about in your office-because you knew it was a hot tip. Even if the rationale for the move was an invention-because the real reason for it was I-Larsson could have found out about the neighbor only from you!”
He had remained stone-faced, but the skin around his nose had paled visibly. Now he looked down, and the muscles around his jaw twitched. I couldn’t tell whether he was about to fold or whether he would try to shut me up. I knocked the ash off my cigarette.
“And that explains why the gang was so well informed about people who had been issued deportation orders. They had it from the horse’s mouth-from you, the man who issues those orders. Inspector Hagebrecht’s key to the bunker was the final clue. I’m sure he is not in on the scheme, but he’s not the kind of guy who would wonder where his superior officer had obtained such a key. What I can’t understand is why your partners didn’t let you know about me? It was really stupid to lock me up in the bunker.”
He was still staring at the floor. Then he turned his back to me and started pacing. “You’re in no position to harm me,” he said. His voice was firm but strained.
“That’s correct. A few refugees hide in a bunker, are discovered by the police, get deported. They are illegal aliens, and from a purely legal point of view, they get what they deserve.” I dropped the butt, stepped on it, lit another one. “Or that would be all there was to it-if I hadn’t found a corpse in Gellersheim.”
He stopped. “A corpse?” Then, haltingly, he resumed his pacing. His face reflected a blend of fright and the confirmation of his worst fears. I nodded. “And even though it’s unlikely that you committed that murder, and even though nothing else can be traced back to you, I can still get you some publicity that won’t smell too sweet. It might even lead to things like suspension, dismissal, loss of pension.”
He had stopped by the window and was looking at the police parking lot and the entrance to the arrival hall. A family returning from vacation in colorful hats, sandals, and socks made their way through the sliding doors. The son was wearing a pair of diving goggles.
Hottges cleared his throat. “How much?”
“Not how much. I want the file.”
“What file?”
“The one you made disappear yesterday morning. The Rakdee file.”
A pause. He looked out the window again. “Is that all?”
“No. Give orders to the effect that none of those people will be deported for the time being; that they get a chance to speak to their attorneys; and that they get some real food brought to their cells.”
He nodded. His expression almost made me feel sorry for him. I gave him a skeptical look. “No need to be so down in the mouth. Until now you’ve always acted the sergeant major. It’s your job to hunt people. But to rob them of their money and jewelry, in cahoots with mobsters-if someone happens to tread on your toes after that, you might as well hang on to the old stiff upper lip.”
When he raised his head again, he had aged years. His eyes were murky, and the angular chin was just a brittle and trembling bone. Then he shouted: “What do you know about it! In cahoots with mobsters! Once in my life, I made a mistake!”
I put out my cigarette. “Should I hazard a guess? Koberle found out about that mistake, and you’ve been on his list of collaborators ever since.”
I pushed off from the desk, went to the door, and put my hand on the doorknob. By the window stood a broken man staring at an empty parking lot.
“Anybody can get involved with crooks, and then get blackmailed by them. But as an immigration officer I find you simply disgusting. That file will be in my mailbox by tomorrow morning. And don’t even think about warning Koberle. If he calls, just tell him I’m on my way to Istanbul. Good day.”
13
Ten minutes later I stood in the phone booth by the Pan Am desk and called every newspaper and organization I could think of to tell them about the pending mass deportation. The last call I made was to Benjamin Weiss, director of an advice center for refugees, occasional bass player with the legendary club combo The Wicherts from Next Door, and decent skat player. We knew each other from our university days. He had started out majoring in philosophy, I in law, and we had both dropped out after a year. He, because he began to suffer from insomnia and thought this was caused by his ability to master half the material during lectures; I, because I couldn’t stand the surrounding adolescents constantly snapping their legal briefcases open and shut. Now Weiss lived with his wife, two sons, and fifty shelf feet of jazz records in Gallus, and when he wasn’t working, he was either sick or flying kites with the kids. At the office, there was no reply, and it was too dark to be flying kites. At his home number the phone rang four times until a weak voice replied. “Ye-es?”