“Thanks,” said Felix. “I think it’s recess, isn’t it?”
“They know so much,” said the useless Teacher Man, safely behind his glasses and with a vacant look to him. “But they understood so little.”
Felix, who had badly wanted overpaid Teacher Man to wade in a half-dozen times so the big mouths could be shut up, nodded. He even offered a sympathetic shrug when Teacher Man droned on about the perils of unsupervised Internet access at home and the American video games that were so violent. And the movies and TV, Mein Gott!
But as he passed by the doorway, Felix heard the shouts from the schoolyard. Recess was definitely his best subject at that age. It was a breezy, sunny day now. Kids were on swings, playing soccer.
The winter was gone. This wasn’t the time or place for thoughts of two dead men in the woods. He and Giuliana would be making their escape tomorrow, and they’d head down to the beaches on the Adriatic side. Soon, there’d be time to bum around the Hofgasse to take a day at the hot springs in Waltersdorf.
He caught sight of the kid who’d been the pain in the ass in the senior class Mr. Rohypnol, he would call him calling out something that his friends laughed at. Felix didn’t see the victim of his wit, but Mr. Rohypnol caught his eye. Felix nodded. Mr. Rohypnol mimed smoking a joint to his friends.
Felix turned away and strolled down the hallway. He rehearsed a conversation with Gebhart, one he would never have, while he waited for recess to end:
Felix: Gebi, this is going to be hard on you. It’s about our work.
Prepare yourself.
Gebhart: You’re a Gendarme for five months and suddenly you’re a genius?
Felix: Listen, it came to me today, in school. I was actually conflicted.
Gebhart: Get married. That fixes all that psychological stuff.
Felix: Here it is: we’re actually inciting kids to do things that we warn them against. It’s the old forbidden fruit thing!
Gebhart: That’s you. I wish I could forbid you from talking.
Felix: Kids want to be trouble; they want to do the naughty stuff.
Gebhart: What a colossal idiot you are. Unbelievable.
Felix: It’s evolution, Gebi. There’s nothing we can do.
Gebhart: Absolute shit. That’s nihilism, and nothing but. And you learned that at the Uni? Sue them for your fees back. You were robbed, I say.
Felix: You’re in denial. That’s how I know I’m right, my friend.
Gebhart: I’m not your friend. I don’t make friends with bullshitters.
Felix: They want danger. They want to trespass. It’s arousing.
Gebhart: Are you on medication? Too much? Too little?
Felix: The uniform, the school, the rules and signs they cannot stamp out human nature. If we only took a look down through the levels of consciousness more, instead of lectures and rules Gebhart: I know it’s a democracy. But maybe it’s time for laws against blode talk like this. Especially from a cop.
Felix: Did you ever wonder if, maybe some cops are people without the courage to be criminal?
Gebhart: Really? Your dad would be delighted to hear you talk this way. I don’t think.
Felix: One must suffer sometimes for the truth, Gebi The door to the office opened. It was the secretary he had been introduced to first thing this morning. Her glasses hung almost on her nostrils.
“Gruss Gott, Inspektor can you take a telephone?”
“For me?”
Then he remembered: he had switched off the walkie-talkie.
Gebi had reminded him to do it.
He pulled his trolley back to the door of the office.
“Kimmel, Felix?” the secretary asked, eyeing him over the rim of her glasses.
“Yes.”
“Well, I went to school with your father,” she said. “God rest his soul. Felix.”
“He had many friends.”
“‘Ein bisschen Kummel,’” she said. “‘A little caraway goes with everything.’”
Felix did not tell her he had never heard that one before. He smiled and he followed her through to a small room with a table and a phone, and a small window that looked out over the schoolyard.
It was Gebhart.
“You’re just about finished your arduous duties there?”
“I am.”
“Okay. Me I’m going to lunch but I wanted to get in touch with you before I left. It’s so as you can prepare yourself. A two o’clock meeting, with you involved.”
“Just me? What for?”
“It’s the KD from Graz, some of the ones who came out to the site yesterday.”
“Himmelfarbs?”
“You remember them?”
“A weird-looking guy with shades, who said nothing. A big guy, moustache, Speckbauer?”
“Well, maybe you can be a real cop, with recall like that. They he, Speckbauer wants to talk to you. So the minute you get back, get your notes, get a printout and get ready. I say you should buy a sandwich and do your reading over lunch. You don’t want to look stupid, okay?”
Felix thought about the big mittagessen that Gebi favoured, his favourite soup and pork and potatoes in a small stube at the back of the butcher’s. It was always full of farmers and older men.
“What about you?”
“What about me? I told you, I’m hungry.”
“No. I meant the interview.”
“Oh, I talked to them already. No big deal. But they didn’t want to take you away from the school thing.”
“On my own, these two guys?”
“Was gibt? What’s the issue here? You think they’re going to beat you up, Mr. Prime Suspect?”
“But I didn’t do much, Gebi. Nor did you. And we talked to them yesterday up at Himmelfarbs’, didn’t we?”
“Well, burli, you may be a bit puzzled. So am I. They seem quite keen to talk to you. Don’t forget you and Hansi were together. This Speckbauer, he’s quite the character. I checked him out.
He’s no joker, this guy.”
“Okay. Thanks. Maybe.”
“Don’t let any of that smartass sarcastic stuff leak out of you, didn’t I tell you? That’s if you want to keep this job. ‘Felix the Second.’”
“What’s this about, this ‘Felix the Second’ crap?”
“It was Speckbauer said that: ‘Felix the Second.’ You’ve got to be double careful, I tell you. Bad enough he’s a big wheel from Zentrale, but he’s like the Holy Spirit or something. Knows everything. I’ve got to go I’ve got leberknodel suppe getting cold.”
Felix adjusted the volume on the mouthpiece of his walkietalkie and told Korschak he was back on the road. He put Helpless Hans, the whole two hours of his stupid but instructive antics, and the posters, in the car. Scheisse: the box of bookmarks was full he’d forgotten to hand them out.
TEN
“They want to meet over coffee,” Felix said to Gebhart.
“But somewhere else.”
“You’re not making sense,” said Gebhart. “Did they knock you around in there or something? What’s going on?”
Speckbauer came out of the klo. He had combed his hair.
“Can we borrow the kid here, Sepp?”
“A duty call, you want him for?”
“Naturlich. It’s a few details concerning the business yesterday.
You’re senior here at the moment?”
Gebhart hesitated. Korschak pretended to be studying court documents. Even he wasn’t that dumb that he wouldn’t have picked up the tone in Speckbauer’s question.
“No reason why not,” he said. “But not for too long.”
He looked at Felix.
“Give me a minute with him; see what he needs to hand off.”
“Absolutely,” said Speckbauer, and stepped aside. “Half an hour?”
Gebhart motioned Felix over to his desk.
“What have you done, kid?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. They’re yapping and then pitching in a weird question every now and then.”
“That guy with the shades, you know about him yet?”
Felix nodded.
“He went through the wars, I tell you. I phoned a guy I joined with, in Strassgangerstrasse. He knew this guy right away. Nearly got toasted. Wife left him; about a hundred operations. They called him the Mummy, I hear. Speckbauer is a bigwig of some kind. They give him offices, a budget, a bunch of gadgets. He has lines to important people, so off he goes and does his own thing. Has he…?”