A Slow Death (Max Drescher Book 1)

by James Craig

  By the time the Kriminalinspektor reached the next landing, he was out of breath once again. Standing outside Volkan Cin’s bolthole, flat 8, he put his hands on his hips and gulped down some air. Just as well you won’t have to pass any more medicals, he mused, while wondering just how it was that he’d managed to get so out of shape in recent years.

  Downstairs, the music showed no sign of abating. ‘Goddamnit, Michael,’ Max hissed. ‘Get those bastards to shut up.’ Stepping forward, he banged the door with the base of his clenched fist. ‘Rolf.’ He gave the door a second thump. Despite the music, there was an audible click as the lock slipped off the latch. The door swung open a couple of centimetres.

  ‘Rolf?’ Taking a step to the side, Max removed his Beretta from the waistband of his jeans and flicked off the safety. ‘Are you in there?’ Raising both arms, he eased his forefinger around the trigger, settling into a squat position before pushing the door further open with the toe of his shoe.

  The door opened on to a narrow hallway, maybe three metres long. A coat rack had been attached to one wall, a set of half a dozen metal pegs on a piece of varnished wood, with coloured plastic balls about the size of marbles on the end of each. There were no coats on the rack; no shoes lined up underneath. Half way down on the opposite side was a closed door. A second door, at the far end of the hall, had been pushed back on its hinges, giving Max a perfect view of the irregular pattern that had been sprayed on the end wall.

  ‘Fuck.’ Max stepped across the threshold and edged down the corridor, keeping his gun trained on the open door. As he got closer, he caught a glimpse of something on the floor, to his right. Pausing again, he blinked several times, but the image would not go away. There was no mistaking the foot, encased in an orange sneaker. ‘Aw, shit.’ Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the room. The crumpled body lay on its front. Terium’s head was cocked to one side, as if he was listening for the sound of someone arriving. Downstairs, Pink Floyd had started up on “Wish You Were Here”. Looking round the room, Max tried to remember if the apartment had a telephone. There was no sign of a phone but the Batman comic was still on the carpet where they had left it. Next to it was Volkan Cin’s Adidas holdall. The bag was open and Max could see stacks of dollar bills peeking out.

  ‘Where’s the rest of the money?’

  ‘Huh?’ Max looked up to see a young is guy walking towards him, right arm outstretched pointing a Glock at Max’s head. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Who the fuck do you think?’ Standing in the doorway, Floris Kooy flicked his eyes towards the money. ‘Put your gun over there. Nice and slow. I will have absolutely no problem shooting you if I have to.’

  And even if you don’t, Max reflected. He tossed the Beretta underarm towards the bag, missing by a good five centimetres.

  ‘Nervous?’ Kooy grinned.

  ‘Shitting myself,’ Max admitted.

  ‘Very sensible. Now, unless you want to end up like your pal there, tell me, where is the rest of the cash?’

  What the hell are you talking about? Feeling the sweat coalescing on his brow, Max listened to his brain scrambling to come up with some kind of answer that might keep him alive for longer than the next ten seconds. He was thinking so hard that it was several moments before he realised that the noise downstairs had finally stopped, to be replaced by the sound of his heart jackhammering out of his chest.

  Sensing his captive’s confusion Kooy gestured at the corpse with the barrel of the Glock. ‘Stefan … or, rather, Rolf, he said that you had the other half of the money.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Max’s mouth was so dry he could hardly get the words out. As part of his overall physiological meltdown, his bladder was bursting and he had to concentrate on trying to breathe. ‘The other half.’ Catching a flicker of movement in the hallway, he focused all his willpower on maintaining eye contact with the gunman. ‘Well –’

  A single gunshot exploded around the room, abruptly ending the Kriminalinspektor’s feeble attempts at improvisation. Floris Kooy did a sideways shuffle and keeled over, hitting the floor with a gentle thud.

  Covered in a bloody mist, Max gagged, frantically wiping brain matter from his face, closing his eyes as he sank to his knees.

  ‘Max?’

  Michael’s voice sounded distant, like a MW radio station turned down low.

  ‘Max? Are you alright?’

  From downstairs, the sound of Pink Floyd once again filled the room. Opening his eyes, Max stared at the two corpses beside him.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  Struggling to his feet, Max ignored his sergeant as he bolted for the bathroom.

  38

  ‘What the fuck did you shoot him for?’

  Looking up, Michael Rahn scowled at his boss. ‘What did you want me to do, you ungrateful bastard? Ask him nicely to put down his gun and wait and see if he complied? Let him shoot you first?’

  His bloodstream flooded with adrenalin, Max hopped from foot to foot, saying nothing.

  ‘You can thank me later.’ Michael pointed at the body next to Terium. ‘So who is he?’

  ‘That is Floris Kooy, Kappel’s Dutch hitman.’

  ‘He gave you his name?’

  ‘Who else would it be? We didn’t get round to making formal introductions.’

  ‘That was never your style,’ Michael chuckled, his grin easing the tension in the room.

  ‘No,’ Max agreed. ‘Never one of my strong points.’

  Friendship restored, the two men stood in silence, considering the implications of the carnage in front of them.

  ‘I suppose,’ Michael said finally, ‘this is the end. It’s over.’

  Max frowned. ‘Over?’

  ‘This Kooy – assuming it’s him – he’s the guy who killed the bookshop owner, Beerfeldt, and his kids, isn’t he? We got him. You’ve solved your final case.’

  ‘It’s not over.’ Max spat out the words; apart from anything else, he didn’t want to be reminded of his imminent retirement. ‘We still have to find the top dog, Arnold Kappel.’ He gestured towards their fallen colleague. ‘If nothing else, we owe it to Terium.’

  Michael scratched his head. ‘That’s a bit sentimental, isn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Max sighed, ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am getting a bit sentimental as the final curtain looms. But that’s my prerogative, surely.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Michael nodded. ‘You’re the boss.’

  ‘For the moment, at least.’

  ‘So we keep going?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And how are we going to find Kappel?’

  Max walked over and retrieved his Beretta from the floor. Clicking the safety back on, he stuffed the weapon into the back of his jeans. ‘We still have his money. He’s not the kind of guy who will just walk away. He’ll keep going too.’

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘Enough with the questions,’ Max growled. Looking down at his hands, the Kriminalinspektor realised that they were shaking quite badly. He needed a stiff drink. Several stiff drinks. Turning away from Michael, he headed for the door. ‘Go and call this in. I’m sure it’ll be enough to drag Marin away from his dinner party.’

  ‘And what about you?’

  ‘I’ll be in Draxler’s.’

  ‘Draxler’s? Are you sure? You don’t want to leave the crime scene,’ Michael counselled. ‘Marin is gonna have a coronary as it is. And Eichel –’

  ‘Ha.’ Max countered. ‘What are they gonna do? Sack me?’

  39

  You went to Draxler’s Bar to drink in peace. A long, narrow space taking up the ground floor of a tenement building a block and half west of Lübecker Straße, it was one of those places that never seemed to close. It was an establishment that never changed its décor either; inside its warm embrace it was permanently circa 1973. Max liked that just fine. He particularly liked that the management was disinclined to waste money on light bulbs. At least two-thirds of the fittings hanging from the ceiling offered up no ill
umination, which left the place in a permanent twilight, whatever the state of affairs in the world outside.

  The bar ran almost the full length of the room. Perched on stools, solitary men – and a solitary, hard-faced woman – sat, heads bowed, steadily imbibing their chosen poison in silence. The woman held a paperback novel in one hand and a smoking cigarette in the other. The men just stared into space. High on the back wall, a colour TV was showing a re-run of the 70s sci-fi comedy show Star Maidens. No one appeared remotely interested in watching the antics of the intergalactic sex kittens. Mercifully, the volume had been muted.

  Taking a couple of moments for his eyes to fully adjust to the gloom, Michael stood in the doorway, searching for his wayward boss. He finally spied Max hunkered down at the far end of the bar, sitting underneath a poster for a Scorpions concert from more than a decade earlier. Staring into his drink, he looked lost in thought. Slowly, the sergeant headed towards the back of the room. Looking up from his newspaper, the barman eyed the new arrival suspiciously, tracking his progress before eventually going back to the mental stimulation of his crossword puzzle.

  ‘Max?’

  Looking up, the Kriminalinspektor gave his colleague a grunt of welcome. Gunning the last of his drink, he began waving his shot glass in front of his face as he tried to get the barman’s attention. ‘Another one please, Jerome, if you don’t mind.’ He turned to face his sergeant. ‘Want one?’

  ‘Not right now.’ Lifting himself onto a bar stool, Michael made a face. ‘I’m still on duty.’

  ‘So am I.’ Max placed the shot glass down carefully, next to an almost empty packet of cigarettes. A battered tin ashtray nearby, filled with butts, stood on top of a comic book.

  Michael tapped the corner with an index finger. ‘Is that Volkan’s Batman?

  ‘Nah.’ With some effort, Max slowly shook his head. ‘This one’s the Silver Surfer. I took it off Floris Kooy.’

  Michael made a face. ‘I was never really into those American superheroes. Don’t really see the attraction.’

  ‘It’s funny,’ Max observed, ‘all of these guys, gangsters, running around Berlin with guns, causing mayhem. And how do they relax after a hard day shooting people? They read comic books. Can you believe it? When I was a kid, comics were for, well, kids. If you were a grown man, you wouldn’t be seen dead reading a comic. What in God’s name is the world coming to? People just don’t want to grow up anymore. It’s a major character defect.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ Michael said tartly, ‘what are you drinking?’

  ‘Glen Els,’ Max replied, not getting the barb or, at least, not responding to it. ‘Germany’s number one premium whisky.’

  Michael made a face. ‘Now there’s a novelty. I thought only the Scots made whisky.’

  ‘And the Americans,’ Max pointed out. ‘And the Irish … the Japanese. Hell, for all I know, they make it in Iceland. And why not? There’s no reason why it should only be made in one country.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  ‘This one’s from Saxony, I think. It’s Kerem Cin’s favourite tipple. He’s the one who put me on to it. Anyway, you shouldn’t be prejudiced, it’s not too shabby.’ Max stared appreciatively at his empty glass. ‘Not too shabby at all.’

  Jerome appeared with the bottle, unscrewing the top and expertly filling Max’s glass to the rim in one practised movement. Towering over both cops, the bartender was a large bloke, easily more than one metre eighty centimetres, with the overdeveloped physique of a bodybuilder. Tipping the neck of the bottle towards Michael, he raised an enquiring eyebrow.

  The sergeant shook his head. ‘Nah. I’m fine thanks. Maybe next time.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ With a shrug, Jerome replaced the cap on the bottle and retreated back down the bar.

  Max lifted the glass with exaggerated care and slowly sucked a couple of millimetres from the top of his drink. ‘Interesting guy, Jerome,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘He spent time in Duisburg-Hamborn not so long ago. For vigilantism; he was done for beating up a guy in the street. He caught the guy robbing a cyclist who had been run over by a van on Hohenzollerndamm. The mugger, a little scumbag well deserving of a beating, had a string of priors as long as your arm and he still got off with a suspended sentence. Jerome got three-and-a-half years; ended up spending two inside.’

  ‘The vagaries of the justice system,’ Michael reflected, not really interested.

  ‘Anyway, you’ve got to give Jerome some credit. Rather than crying and moaning and hiring some ambulance-chasing, lentil-sucking human rights shyster lawyer, he rolled his sleeves up and got on with it.’

  ‘Good for him.’

  ‘He did a psychology and social studies degree while he was inside.’

  As well as pumping a hell of a lot of iron, Michael mused.

  ‘Distance learning, I think they call it. The bastards wouldn’t even let him out on day release.’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘What a ridiculous waste of our taxes. Anyway … what was I talking about?’

  ‘Distance learning.’

  ‘Ah yes, like a correspondence course or something. Anyway, he finished the course inside the two years. Not bad going.’ Max pointed at a certificate pinned to the wall, above to the Scorpions poster. ‘Got his degree the week before they let him out.’

  ‘Impressive.’

  ‘I think so,’ Max raised his glass to the bartender before taking another sip. Hunched over his crossword, Jerome didn’t respond.

  ‘And you found all this out while you’ve been sitting here?’

  ‘I’ve been here a few times,’ Max admitted. ‘I like the atmosphere.’

  Looking round the room, Michael made a show of giving the décor careful consideration. ‘Very nice.’ He gestured back down the bar. ‘But if he’s so well qualified, with a degree, why’s he working behind a bar?’

  ‘It makes sense if you think about it. All barmen need to be shrinks in order to deal with the clientele.’

  Losing interest in his boss’s ramblings, Michael slowly got up off the stool. ‘Marin is looking for you.’

  ‘Gonna give me a medal, is he?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Michael said quietly.

  ‘Well, let him come over here if he wants to give me a bollocking,’ Max muttered, ‘I’m not hiding.’

  ‘There are two bodies back there in that apartment,’ Michael reminded him, lowering his voice, ‘and one of them is a cop.’

  ‘I’m aware of that.’

  ‘Well we’ve got work to do. You can’t just sit here and get smashed.’

  ‘I’m not getting smashed,’ Max insisted.

  ‘It’s perfectly understandable,’ Michael said evenly, ‘given that you were staring death in the face.’

  Max took another sip of the Glen Els, trying to focus on the warm buzz in his stomach, rather than the unhappy memory of Kooy’s Glock in front of his face.

  ‘What I don’t understand is why was Kooy still there? Why did he hang around after shooting Terium? Do you think he didn’t have time to get out of there before we arrived?’

  ‘He was waiting for us to turn up. He thought only half the cash was in the bag. Terium told him I was supposed to be bringing the rest. Playing for time, I guess.’

  ‘Didn’t work.’

  ‘Not for him; did for me.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘I can understand why Kooy would hesitate; he wouldn’t want to turn up short in front of his boss.’

  Michael frowned. ‘If he thought he didn’t have all the cash, why didn’t he just count it, then?’

  ‘Maybe he wasn’t very good at maths at school,’ Max mused. ‘He’s the kind of bloke who still reads comics remember? Even if he could count, it would take forever. Much easier just to shoot us when we turned up and grab the remaining cash.’

  ‘But there was no extra cash, ‘Michael pointed out. ‘He had it all already.’

  ‘I know,’ Max grinned, ‘the poor guy made a bad call.’ Do
wning the rest of his drink, he rummaged around in his jacket pocket, eventually coming up with some notes. ‘A very bad call.’ Slapping them down on the bar, he slid from his stool before recovering his cigarettes from the bar, along with the Silver Surfer comic.

  ‘You’re taking that?’ Michael asked.

  ‘It’s a good read,’ Max responded, shoving the comic into the back pocket of his jeans. ‘I’m quite enjoying it.’

  ‘I thought you just said that comics were just for kids.’

  ‘Kids of all ages.’ Taking a couple of deep breaths, Max started towards the door. ‘I’ll lend it to you when I’m finished with it.’

  ‘You’re too kind.’

  ‘I know. C’mon then, let’s go and explain to Marin what happened at the O.K. Corral.’

  ‘The full version?’

  ‘The comic book version.’

  Outside Draxler’s Max paused on the sidewalk to clear his head and light his last HB. Crumpling the empty cigarette packet in his fist, he tossed it into the gutter, watching in dismay as it bounced off the grate of a drain cover and ended up in the road. Litter lout. For the first time in God knows how long, he thought of his mother. A prim woman, with a permanently disappointed expression, she was very hard on littering. As a young boy growing up in the socialist paradise that was the GDR, Max didn’t remember having a lot to litter with, but he could still remember receiving at least one fierce clout round the ear for dropping a sweet wrapper outside the sugar factory on Berliner Straße. He could still feel the sense of shame as his eyes welled up with tears and his mother made him step into the street and retrieve the offending scrap of paper.

  ‘We don’t do that,’ she scolded him, gearing up to strike a further blow at the first sign of any resistance. ‘It is a sign of bad breeding.’

  ‘Bad breeding,’ Max mumbled to himself. It’s funny what you remember. How old must he have been? Six? Seven? Disappointed in himself, he took a drag on his smoke and inhaled deeply. ‘Aah.’ Before he could consider retrieving his rubbish, the front wheel of a passing Yugo ran over the cigarette packet, sending it towards the middle of the road. ‘Sorry ma.’