“It’s the first time I’ve seen a police officer sleeping in cell number three when he’s not drunk.”
“Sometimes some people don’t have anywhere to go to get enough sleep,” Mock said as he ran his hand over the rough stubble on his cheeks. “I’ve one more favour to ask of you, Buhrack … Is there a razor around here anywhere …”
BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 4TH, 1919
SIX O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING
As yet there were very few customers in the Hungarian King. Only one alcove had been occupied, and its heavy curtain was drawn. A few ladies, judging by the high pitch of their voices, could not make themselves comfortable. The curtain rippled and the rail separating the alcove from the rest of the restaurant kept ringing as if someone were striking it with a rod.
“They can’t find anywhere to put their umbrellas,” whispered Adolf Manzke, the young waiter who had helped Mock transport an unconscious Ruhtgard to the car the previous night. Manzke was far from pleased that Mock had not ordered any alcohol that evening, but the first twenty-mark note with which this regular customer paid for his Wiener Schnitzel without asking for any change dispersed any concerns he may have had about his tip.
“What is your name, young man?” Mock asked, and on hearing his answer continued: “Explain something to me, Manzke. I asked for a fiacre yesterday and you called for the automobile which usually ferries drunken clients home. Isn’t that so?”
“It is,” Manzke said, and when he saw Mock fold another enormous twenty-mark note in four, he leaned in even closer.
“The fiacre’s horses soil the pavement outside your establishment, isn’t that what you said?”
“It is,” — the waiter’s neck was getting stiff — “Mr … Mr … I don’t know your name — what should I call you?”
“Call me Periplectomenus,” Mock said, remembering the sybarite from Plautus’ comedy Miles Gloriosus. “So how would you explain the behaviour of your colleague when he was attending to the demands of one of the ladies? She called for a carter and he promised to fulfil her wish immediately. Explain that to me, Manzke.”
“Maybe he needed to fetch the carter from far away and the lady was appropriately generous.” The waiter kept glancing at the folded note Mock was weaving between his fingers. “Anyway, you should ask him …”
“Indeed, Manzke, you’re right.” Mock slipped the note into the waiter’s waistcoat pocket. “But I don’t know which waiter it was … Will you help me find him?”
Manzke nodded stiffly and moved away between the tables. The musicians bowed to the audience and blew on their trumpets. Several dance-hostesses — including a dark-haired woman who smiled broadly at Mock — began to sway to the music without leaving their tables. Three elderly men who, like Mock, had in the meantime taken their seats on the second tier overlooking the dance floor eyed the girls through coils of smoke. Eventually one of them made up his mind and approached the dark-haired hostess. She stood up slowly, and did not spare Mock a look of disappointment.
The Criminal Assistant settled down to his goose-liver pate. He was interrupted in his consumption of this delicate cold meat by Manzke the waiter, who placed a napkin on the table and quickly disappeared. Beneath the napkin lay a clean strip of cash register ribbon on which was written: “Kiss my arse.” Mock rubbed his eyes and lit a cigarette. He looked at the scrap of paper once more and heard a ringing in his ears. He stubbed out the cigarette, stood up and made his way through the tables. He entered the bar and, guided by his instinct for alcohol, soon found the serving counter. There stood Manzke, collecting slim, frothing glasses of beer from the barman. When he saw Mock he made towards the flapping kitchen door, but Mock was faster. The waiter did not manage to open the door of his own accord, but did so involuntarily when the weight of Mock’s body shoved against his. He tumbled into the kitchen, but there, instead of running from the enraged man, he stood behind a table at which a bald waiter sat in his shirtsleeves counting his tips. Manzke glanced meaningfully at his colleague, who was surprised by the commotion, and apologized to Mock for not bringing him his bottle of gin in good time. Nobody said a word. The Criminal Assistant left the kitchen lobby and made towards the toilets. In the cubicle he tore off a scrap of toilet paper and wrote: “The bald, fat waiter.” He went out, paid his bill and discreetly gave Manzke a considerable tip. He also handed him the piece of toilet paper and with his eyes indicated Smolorz, who was sitting in the bar. Manzke drifted over to Smolorz, and Mock towards the exit. “That Manzke ought to be employed by the police,” he thought. “As an informer, for the time being; I liked the way he pointed out that waiter to me.”
BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 4TH, 1919
EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING
Waiter Helmut Kohlisch finished work at eight o’clock that day. He was tired and angry. Crossing the kitchen, he climbed the narrow inner staircase which led to the stores and pantries. His mood was not improved either by the beer stain on his shirt or by the thought of what awaited him in his dank, one-room lodgings on Buttnerstrasse, squeezed between a delicatessen and a printers: Lisbeth, his heavily pregnant eighteen-year-old daughter, her unemployed husband Josef, a communist agitator who aroused the suspicions of every policeman, and his own consumptive wife, Luise, ladling soup into their bowls. The meal would have been nutritious had it consisted of something more than water, a few pieces of potato and some pitiful strips of cabbage. All would sit there slurping the soup as their eyes bored into his pockets for the tips.
Kohlisch entered the staff room and undressed down to his vest and long johns. He carefully folded his uniform tailcoat and hung up his trousers only once the creases had been perfectly pressed together. He crumpled up the shirt stained by the copper and stuffed it into his bag. He opened the wardrobe, and inside it saw one of the customers he had served that day. Before he had time to be surprised, he had received his first blow. His assailant hit him on the jaw and he flew through the air towards some empty crates, trying to tense his muscles to soften the impact on his back. But this proved unnecessary. Someone grabbed him hard beneath his arms and wrapped him in a double Nelson. He felt the muscles in his neck weaken, the pressure making him bend his neck towards the floor. The red-headed customer clambered out of the wardrobe, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his freckled and flushed face. Kohlisch thrashed this way and that, trying to tear himself away from his assailant. This only made the latter increase the pressure, forcing Kohlisch to contemplate his own darned socks. At that moment, Kohlisch remembered that there was a way of slipping out of a double Nelson, by raising your arms and falling to your knees. This he did, and it worked. For a moment he knelt on the floor. Then he received a second blow, this time from behind. A crate smashed on his head and he felt trickles of blood run down his bald skull. Only then did he feel pain. For a few moments, darkness enveloped him. The man behind him planted the crate, now without its base, on his head and pushed it down over his arms. Kohlisch was immobilized. He knelt in front of the red-headed customer, the crate pinning his arms at his waist. He tried to turn around, but his second attacker grabbed him by the ears and turned his face towards the man with the red hair.
“Listen, Kohlisch,” he heard from behind. “We’re not going to do anything to you if you answer politely.”
Kohlisch screamed and immediately regretted it. The red-headed man’s heel hit him in the mouth, shattering a lower tooth. Saliva mixed with blood stained the floor. Kohlisch rocked a while in the stocks formed by the old crate, and then collapsed. He heard a humming all around. Someone tied his shirt, which reeked strongly of beer, around his head.