“Do you have to work with this guy?”
“Kurt,” Speckbauer said. “This isn’t TV. You can’t switch off the channel. These guys aren’t just moving bad paper, or Ex, or coke, or whatever. So we need to talk. Really. Understand?”
Kurt’s eyelid twitched.
“You know what I’m talking about,” said Speckbauer. “Come on, let’s get off the street here at least. Coffee, some buns and cheese whatever you want, around the corner. Here, I’ll get you a bag to put over your head.”
“That’s not funny.”
“What’s the matter? It’ll be quick — boom boom. You won’t even see it coming.”
“You are a sick bastard.”
“You’ve been talking to my ex? Come, Kurt. You’re awake now.
Be sensible.”
Kurt’s tone changed.
“Jesus, Speck,” he said, almost plaintively. “This is… This is really shitty.”
“I know, I know, Kurt. I’ll leave you alone after this.”
Kurt shook his head slowly and said something, and did a halfturn and shook his head again. For several moments he stood frozen, staring at the cobblestones by his feet while he massaged the back of his neck.
Speckbauer nodded and Felix looked toward the traffic. Felix heard him whisper to Kurt as he headed for the street. When he got to the street, he turned. Kurt was walking with Speckbauer toward him.
Speckbauer chose a spot he seemed to know already. There was an old man reading the local newspaper near the door. Speckbauer had to duck as he made his way into a booth at the back, where one of the arches came down to the wall above the wooden partitions.
Kurt’s hands were shaking, even with the coffee. He dabbed a bit of the bun into the cup and put it in his mouth like it was medicine.
“I just don’t,” he muttered to Speckbauer. “There’s the usual bunch coming and going. They have money. They have hip clothes, watches, mobiles. I don’t see them flashing car keys a lot.”
“Come on,” said Speckbauer, sucking foam off his moustache.
“The boys out here still do that, to get the girls keen: the Beemer key ring, but a VW parked outside?”
“Who knows? These guys though, they never get pushy. Always polite. And they’re not chasing girls, that I can see.”
“What? The illegals come to you because they think it’s a gay bar?”
“Shit, no. I’m just saying.”
“You’re a friendly guy, Kurt. What do they tell you?”
“Nothing,” Kurt said. He eyed Felix.
“You were in the other day,” he said. “It was early, wasn’t it?
Mr. My-Wife-Is-A-Bitch, and a crappy factory job here.”
“Quit your crying Kurt. You made him right away.”
“There were guys at the patio there, and I hear them talking, in their own language. And I says to myself, well they’re a new bunch of illegals. It won’t take long before Speck sends another one of his hounds in for a look.”
“Hounds? Really.”
“What else can I call them?”
“My colleague’s name is Felix. So try cats, okay? Latin: Felis, cat? Got that?”
“Who speaks Latin? I don’t.”
“What language were they speaking, that bunch?”
“Not German, that’s what. Not even farmer German from, Christ, up in the woods in… whatever.”
“St. Kristoff am Offenegg.”
“If you say so.”
“So tell me what’s different, Kurt.”
“About what?”
“You don’t usually run like a fucking greyhound when I pay a visit. Why now?”
Felix tried not to look over at Speckbauer. He wondered again how the man could hide his anger so well.
“It’s a feeling, that’s all I know.”
“A feeling? I’ll give you a feeling.”
“No. Like I was saying. There’s no party to those guys. They’re looking around, they’re not out for a good time. And I don’t see the likes of them banging hammers or sweeping floors like the illegals you hear about.”
“Do they hang around?”
“There’s another thing. They don’t. It’s like they’re sampling or something. But what the hell, I’m not running a psychotherapy place.”
“Only a pub, with ‘extras.’”
Kurt made a grimace of disdain.
“Don’t freak, Kurt. I’m not here to complain about idiots who want to put stuff in their noses, or roll it up and spend the next six hours giggling and falling over.”
“Really.”
“Really. But tell me: Ex?”
Kurt nodded.
“A lot? More than last time we talked?”
“No. But I swear nothing goes on inside the place. Never did.”
Speckbauer looked down into his cup, made a hnhh sound at the remains of the froth and coffee there and then shot a glance at Felix.
“You’re a sophisticate. You’ve tried Ecstasy, haven’t you?”
Felix shook his head.
“Well if you haven’t, here’s the man to put you in the way of it.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake.”
“Just shut up complaining, Kurt, will you? Tell me more about the new faces.”
“What faces would you like?”
“New ones. What you’re supposed to be noticing.”
Kurt looked off into the middle distance.
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing comes to mind.”
“Auslanders, Kurt. Tschuschen. Asylants. Call them what you want. But think.”
“Look, why don’t you bust some of the factories down there near the autobahn, down in Gleisdorf, huh? Come on, you know they have guys coming in off the books. Cleaners, night stuff, and that? I only see guys with enough money to come up here.”
“A better quality of gangster?”
“Who knows. You think everyone with an accent is a crook?”
Speckbauer sighed.
“A philosopher now. Really don’t need that. Come on now, your sixth sense tells you something. You’ve never tried to make a run for it on me before.”
“I get fed up with this. You put too much pressure on me. I could run myself into a lot of trouble if I tried every single thing you wanted. And you wouldn’t give a shit, would you? You’d use someone else, just move on to the next one and suck their blood.”
At this he exchanged a hurried look with Felix. Speckbauer shifted slightly in his chair.
“You’re worried, Kurt,” he said. “Moaning more than usual, a lot more. We need to review your situation. Maybe you’re trying to cover up stuff. Schleich problems?”
“The black market? I swear, now. There’s no black market to speak of in this town.”
“Something is different with your reaction. Hey, are you high?”
“Fuck off.”
“Coming down off something? Irritable?”
Kurt looked away.
“Something specific,” Speckabuer went on. “Come on. This ‘feeling.’ It’s not just paranoia, or dope, is it?”
“Give me a break.”
“I’ll give you a break all right. How about I get the KD to pay you a visit? My fine colleagues there on Strassgangerstrasse, in Graz. That’s what I’ll do. And a premises search. The lab will come up with something.”
“I don’t have anything!”
“Except fear, and a ‘feeling.’”
Felix was beginning to feel a faint nausea. Kurt’s bloodshot eyes, his sighs of exasperation that had a whiny edge to them now, and the stale body odour that had began to emanate from him, all mixed with Felix’s own feeling that he was being dirtied by just being here in part of Speckbauer’s dismal world.
“Ok, it’s nothing,” said Kurt then. “Maybe nothing. But Stephi, she’s on weekday evenings, Stephi and I were talking.
Stephi’s lazy, all right? But when I lay it on the line, she’s good. I just have to keep going at her.”
“Excuse me, but where is this going?”
“Wait,” said Kurt. “I’m coming to it. She was complaining about tips and conditions. As if she’s Mausi Lugner or somebody else on that stupid show. Anyway. She gets about, Stephi does. She’s in a restaurant the other day gossiping with one of the trolls she hangs out with. You know the type? The bottle blonde pushing forty, the one who never got over the eighties look? The hubby’s a fat bastard, the kids are brats…? Plenty of them in Weiz. But Stephi sees a guy talking to the manager there. ‘Heck, that guy was in the pub,’ she thinks. Apparently he’s quite a hunk.”