“Sure, go ahead. I’ll stay here and maybe catch an hour or two of sleep.”
I sat in the nurses’ room and heard the others’ laughter along the corridor. Then the elevator doors closed, swallowing their laughter, and there was silence except for the soft hum of the central heating. We had decided to tell Samarin as late as possible the time and place of the exchange so he would have just enough time to tell his people where to go. For now he was only to instruct them to bring the children to Mannheim.
“I’ve got to pee,” he said when I returned to his room.
“I can’t untie you.”
Though he was wearing the straitjacket and was strapped to the bed, he looked strong and dangerous. I went to the nurses’ room and found a urine bottle. He turned his head away as I unbuttoned his pants, pulled down his underwear, took out his penis, and held it as best I could into the opening of the bottle.
“Go ahead,” I said.
When I had zipped him up again he looked at me. “Thanks.” After a while he asked me, “Who am I supposed to have murdered?”
“Oh, come on now. First Welker’s wife, and then… Not that I can prove it, but I am certain that someone frightened Schuler to death. Whether it was you or your mafiosi hardly matters.”
“I had known Stephanie since I was a little boy. Schuler taught me reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography. All about the Celtic Ring Wall on Heiligenberg, the Roman Bridge over the Neckar River, the Heilig-Geist Church that was torched by Mélac.”
“That doesn’t make the murders any better.”
He waited for a while and then asked: “And what kind of connection am I supposed to have with the Mafia?”
“Stop playing games! It’s hardly a secret that you’ve been laundering money for the Russian Mafia!”
“And that’s supposed to make me and my people mafiosi?” He scoffed. “You really have no idea what’s going on. Do you think Welker would still be alive if we were the Russian Mafia? Or you, for that matter? Or the bunch of clowns who’ve tied me up here? I was raised under the thumb of Weller and Welker and will never again allow myself to be under anyone’s thumb. Yes, I launder money. And yes, I don’t care who I do it for-just like any other banker. Yes, my men are Russians and professional. As for me”-he scoffed again-“I am my own boss.”
He closed his eyes. Just as I thought he wouldn’t say anything more he said: “I didn’t like the families, neither the Wellers nor the Welkers. Bertram’s grandfather and Stephanie’s mother had heart. But as for Bertram’s father… and Bertram himself… I ought to have killed the two of them.”
“Didn’t Bertram’s father raise you?”
He laughed. “ Siberia would have been better.”
“What about Welker’s kids?”
“What about them? No one’s touched a hair on their heads. They think my men are their bodyguards and show off with them. The girl even flirts with them.”
“Are you going to call your men? So they’ll bring the kids here?”
He nodded slowly. “I’ll have them set out right away. The exchange can take place tonight; I don’t want to stay here like this any longer.”
I found his cell phone, dialed the number he told me, and held the phone to his ear. “Speak to them in German!”
He gave them a few brief instructions. Then he asked me: “Where is the exchange to take place?”
“We’ll tell you once your men are in Mannheim. By when can they make it?”
“In five hours.”
“Good. We’ll talk again in five hours.”
I asked him if I should leave the lights on or off. He wanted to lie in the dark.
6 I guess that’s that
My fever returned, and I had the night nurse give me two aspirin. “You don’t look too good,” she told me. “Why don’t you go home and lie down?”
I shook my head. “Is there somewhere here I can sleep for a few hours?”
“We’ve got a second storeroom at the end of the corridor. I can have a bed set up.”
As I lay there, my thoughts went to Samarin. Was the air in his room as stuffy as it was in here? Did he too feel claustrophobic? Did he hear the humming of the central heating? The room had no window, and it was pitch-dark. I held my hands in front of my face but couldn’t see them.
Sometimes I think something is over and done with when in fact things are just beginning. That’s what had happened to me in the morning, when Welker and Samarin had walked me to my car. Sometimes I also think I’m in the middle of something, but in fact it’s already over. Was what we had wanted to bring to an end that night, in effect, already over? Of course it hadn’t happened yet. But were the roles already doled out in such a way and the conditions such that whatever happened, whatever we chose to do, would still have the same result?
It was only a feeling. A fear. The fear of being too slow again, of not being fast enough to see what was actually taking place. So I weighed everything that Welker wanted, what Samarin wanted, at best what both of them would get, at worst what both would lose, what they might surprise each other with, and what they might surprise us with.
Immersed in these reflections, I fell asleep. At midnight the nurse woke me up. “The others are back.”
Philipp, Nägelsbach, and Welker were sitting in the nurses’ room, discussing where the exchange was to take place. Welker wanted a hidden, secret place, preferably somewhere on the outskirts of the city.
Nägelsbach preferred an open, brightly lit area, or a street somewhere downtown. “I want to be able to see these people!”
“Everybody started to chip in. So we can make sure they don’t try to trick us? We’ll tell them where and when we’ll meet. We’ll inform them of the time of our meeting so they won’t be able to trick us.”
“But a place that is well-lit and open…”
“During the exchange, one or two of us should be standing by-someone who can see everything, but won’t be seen. Someone who can step in if need be.”
We decided on the Luisenpark. There were trees and shrubs behind which one could hide, but there was also a wide lawn. Samarin’s men were to drive up the Werderstrasse, while we would come up the Lessingstrasse with Samarin. The exchange would take place in the middle of the park.
“Shall we do the exchange, Philipp, while the two of you stand in reserve?” I suggested. The others nodded, and Nägelsbach agreed to wear his police jacket and cap again. “Perhaps it’s good if we can act as if the police are on our side.”
All we could do now was wait. The big old alarm clock in the nurses’ room chopped the time into little pieces. Nägelsbach had found some boxes of matches and was building a little tower, two matches one way and two the other, all the heads facing outward. Welker kept his eyes shut. His face was tense, as if he were concentrating on a difficult mathematical equation. Philipp was excitedly looking forward to the exchange as an adventure.
I went to the storeroom, turned on the light, and had Samarin talk to his men. “They’ve already been at the Augusta-anlage for ten minutes.”
“Tell them to wait there until they get further instructions.”
Then I released his straps and helped him off the bed.
“What about this?” he asked, nodding down to the strait-jacket that tied his arms across his chest.
I hung his coat over his shoulders. “Your men can take that off for you.”
Even in the straitjacket he looked dangerous, as if he could crush me against the wall with his massive, powerful body. I kept my distance until we got to the car. He didn’t say a word, not when he saw the others, among them Nägelsbach in uniform, not when Nägelsbach and I had him sit between us on the backseat, not during the drive.
We parked in the Lessingstrasse, and Welker and Nägelsbach got out and walked off. I explained to Samarin where his men were to take the children into the park, and he informed his men.