“What’s this about?”
I said the first thing I thought of. “Your uncle doesn’t feel well.”
“Is this a joke? Wait a second, let me get some pants on…”
The slapping bare feet retreated. I waited. Then a key turned in the lock, the door opened, and the kid stepped over the threshold.
“Not so fast,” I said, grabbing it by the shoulder. “Back in the room, if you please…”
The kid was obviously not fully awake yet and for that reason didn’t put up much of a fight. It willingly went back into the room and sat on the rumpled bed. I sat in the armchair across from it. The kid looked at me for a few seconds through its huge black glasses. Suddenly its plump pink lips began to tremble.
“Is it bad?” it asked in a whisper. “Don’t keep quiet, tell me something!”
It was no small surprise for me to discover that this wild creature apparently loved its uncle and was frightened that something might have happened to him. I took out a cigarette and lit it.
“Your uncle’s fine. We’ve got other things to talk about.”
“But you said…”
“I didn’t say anything, you were dreaming. So tell me quickly, don’t hesitate: when did you and Olaf go your separate ways? Come on, quick!”
“Olaf? What do you mean? What do you want from me?”
“When and where was the last time you saw Olaf?”
The kid shook its head.
“I don’t understand any of this. Why are you talking about Olaf? What happened to my uncle?”
“Your uncle’s sleeping. He’s alive and well. When was the last time you saw Olaf?”
“Why do you keep asking me about that?” the kid said, outraged. Gradually, it came to its senses. “And why did you burst in on me in the middle of the night?”
“I’m asking you…”
“Screw your questions! Shove off, or I’ll call my uncle! Damned cop!”
“You were dancing with Olaf, and then you left? Where did you go? Why?”
“What’s it to you? Jealous about your bride?”
“Quit the nonsense, you pathetic little waif!” I barked. “Olaf has been killed! I know that you were the last one to see him alive! When was it? Where? Quick! Well?”
I must have looked scary. The kid drew back and put its hands out, palms forward, as if to protect itself.
“No!” it whispered. “What are you saying? What…”
“Answer me,” I said quietly. “You left the dining room with him and went… where?”
“N-nowhere… We just went out into the corridor…”
“And then?”
The kid was quiet. I couldn’t see its eyes, which was unusual and unsettling.
“And then?” I repeated.
“Call my uncle,” the kid said firmly. “I want my uncle here.”
“Your uncle won’t be able to help you,” I said. “Only one thing can help you: the truth. Tell the truth.”
The kid didn’t say anything. It sat there, huddled up on the bed beneath a large handwritten sign that read “Let’s get violent!” and was quiet. Tears began flowing down its cheeks from under the sunglasses.
“Tears won’t help either,” I said coldly. “Tell the truth. If you lie and try to twist things around,” I put my hand in my pocket, “I’ll put you in handcuffs and send you to Mur. There you’ll be interrogated by complete strangers. We’re talking about murder here—do you understand?”
“I understand…” the kid whispered, so softly I could barely hear it. “I’ll tell you…”
“Good choice,” I said approvingly. “So, you and Olaf went into the hallway. Then what?”
“We went into the hallway…” the kid repeated mechanically. “And then… and then… I can’t really remember, I have a lousy memory… He said something, and I… He said something and left, and I… that…”
“This isn’t working,” I said, shaking my head. “Let’s try again.”
The kid sniffled, wiped its nose and put its hand under the pillow. It pulled out a handkerchief.
“Well?” I said.
“It’s all… it’s all so embarrassing,” the kid whispered. “And horrible. And Olaf is dead.”
“A cop’s like a doctor,” I said portentously, feeling very awkward. “Words like ‘embarrassing’ aren’t in our vocabulary.”
“Well, all right,” the kid said suddenly, defiantly raising its head. “Here’s what happened. At first it was a joke: bride and groom, girl or boy… Anyway, that’s about how you treated me… He probably felt the same way too, who knows what he took me for… And then, after we’d left, he started pawing at me. It was disgusting, I had to give him one… right in the face…”
“And then?” I asked, not looking at it.
“And then, he was offended, he cursed me out and left. Maybe it wasn’t fair of me, maybe I shouldn’t have hit him, but he was wrong too…”
“Where’d he go?”
“How should I know? He went down the hallway…” the kid waved its hand. “I don’t know where to.”
“What about you?”
“Me? What about me? The mood was ruined, gross, boring… Only one thing to do: go back to my room, lock myself in and get drunk as hell…”
“So you got drunk?” I asked, sniffing carefully and looking furtively around the room. The mess was awful, junk was scattered everywhere, things were piled up who knew how, and there were long strips of paper on the table—signs, so far as I could tell. To be hung on the cop’s door… I could actually smell the alcohol, and on the floor next to the head of the bed, I noticed a bottle.
“I told you.”
I bent down and picked up the bottle. It was almost empty.
“Someone needs to give you a good spanking, young man,” I said, putting the bottle on the table, right on top of the placard bearing the slogan “Down with generalizations! Meet the moment!”
“So you were sitting here the whole time?”
“Yes. What’s a… person supposed to do in that situation?” The kid was apparently still trying, as if by force of habit, to avoid giving itself away.
“When did you go to bed?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Okay, then, so be it,” I said. “Now, can you give me a detailed description of everything you did from the moment you left the table to the moment you and Olaf went out into the hallway.”
“Detailed?” the kid asked.
“Yes. As detailed as possible.”
“Okay,” the kid agreed, showing its small sharp teeth, which were so white they looked blue. “There I am finishing dessert, when a drunk police inspector sits down next to me and starts going on and on about how much he likes me and how he would like us to become engaged as soon as possible. At the same time, he keeps shoving my shoulder with one of his paws, saying, ‘Get out of here, get, I don’t want anything to do with you, I’m talking to your sister…’”
I swallowed this tirade without batting an eye. Hopefully, I managed to remain sufficiently stone-faced.
“Then, as luck would have it,” the kid continued, wallowing now. “Up swims a she-Moses to pounce on the inspector for a dance. They muck it up, with me watching, and the place starts to look like a harbor bar in Hamburg. Then he grabs the she-Moses somewhere under her back and drags her behind a curtain, and now it’s looking like a completely different type of Hamburg establishment. And there I am staring at the curtain feeling awfully sorry for the inspector, because all things considered he’s not a bad guy, he just can’t hold his liquor, and there’s old Moses also staring predatorily at the very same curtain. Then I get up and ask the she-Moses to dance, which makes the inspector about as happy as can be—apparently he sobered up behind the curtain…”
“Who was in the room at that point?” I asked dryly.
“Everyone. Olaf wasn’t there, Kaisa wasn’t there, Simone was playing pool, feeling sorry that the inspector had stood him up.”