A Slow Death (Max Drescher Book 1)

by James Craig

  He was dragged from his reverie by a tap on the shoulder. ‘Max.’ Michael pointed to the far side of the street.

  Exhaling, Max blew a stream of smoke in the direction of the fag packet. ‘Oh fuck,’ he coughed, ‘what’s he doing here?’

  ‘Dunno,’ Michael shrugged.

  ‘How did he know we were here?’ Max asked, more to himself than Michael.

  There was a pause before Michael admitted. ‘He could have followed me, I suppose. I saw him at Lübecker Straße as I was leaving. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Max sighed. ‘I can handle this little arschloch. You head back over there. I’ll catch you up in a minute. Tell Marin I’m on my way.’ Taking another drag on his smoke, he stepped off the kerb and slowly jogged across the road.

  Leaning against the side of a red Porsche, arms folded, Kriminalkommissar Bruno Eichel gave Max a sickly smile. ‘Is it all getting too much for you, Drescher?’

  Nice car, Max thought, even if it could do with a wash. ‘Were you looking for me?’

  Eichel gestured towards the passenger seat. ‘Get in.’

  Max made no effort to do as instructed. ‘I need to go back to Lübecker Straße.’ After taking a final puff of his cigarette, he flicked the cigarette stub at the car, grinning as it bounced off the bodywork and landed on the road, rolling in front of his left foot.

  ‘Show some respect,’ Eichel snapped. ‘This is a 911E, dating from 1970. One of the greatest driving machines ever created; an instant classic.’

  Having never owned a car in his life, Max failed to look in the least impressed. Reaching forward, he ground the stub into the tarmac with the toe of his shoe.

  ‘It has a mechanical fuel injection system,’ Eichel added, trying to prove his point.

  The Kriminalinspektor nodded mechanically. ‘Very good.’

  Standing up straight, Eichel lovingly ran his hand along the roof of the car. ‘And also the original black leather interior.’

  Max shot the superior officer a suspicious look. ‘A bit expensive, isn’t it? Even if you’re on a Kriminalkommissar’s salary.’

  ‘Not really,’ Eichel said airily. ‘I got a good deal.’

  I bet you did.

  The Kriminalkommissar’s eyes narrowed. ‘I wouldn’t try and insinuate anything, if I were you, Drescher.’

  ‘I’m not trying to insinuate anything at all,’ Max lied. ‘It’s just that it’s an expensive car, that’s all.’

  ‘Get in,’ Eichel grunted.

  Folding his arms, Max stood his ground. ‘Sorry, I’d love to go for a test drive but I’ve got work to do. It’s a hell of a mess up in that apartment. Apart from anything else, I need to make a statement.’ And speak to my union rep. Clara was bound to be delighted by his latest escapade.

  ‘You certainly have a lot of explaining to do.’ Eichel enunciated the words slowly and clearly, so that Max could fully appreciate the mix of vitriol and sarcasm in which each one had been coated. ‘Once again, you have demonstrated your unique abilities; the whole thing is another triumph of both execution and planning.’ He shook his head in amused dismay. ‘Really quite remarkable.’

  Fuck you. Max took half a step forward, towards his tormentor. Balling up his fists, he wondered whether Eichel would go down after the first punch or whether a second would be required.

  ‘And what an excellent result! I lost another good man and you almost got your face shot off.’ Sensing the Kriminalinspektor’s fury, Eichel carefully backed off. ‘Shame it wasn’t the other way round. Terium had a family, you know.’

  Max felt his shoulders sag. ‘I didn’t know that,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Two kids,’ said Eichel, ramming home the point. ‘Both under five.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Jesus is going to be of no use to anyone here,’ Eichel hissed. ‘You’ve made a right fucking mess this time. And what do you do? You waltz off to get drunk and leave everyone else to clean up your mistakes.’

  ‘I didn’t –’

  ‘Where were you going off to now? Crawl home and sleep it off?’

  Sounds good, Max thought. His body ached with tiredness; it was as if his bones were being eaten away from the inside. Head bowed, he pawed the ground listlessly. ‘I need to get back there and talk to Marin.’

  ‘You need to talk to me first,’ Eichel said grimly, reaching down and opening the driver’s door, ‘so get in, before I have you breathalysed, arrested, thrown in the cells and then kicked off the fucking force without your ridiculously inflated pension.’

  How do you know about that? Max wondered. Keeping his own counsel, he walked around the front of the Porsche, only just managing to resist the temptation to put a boot into one of the car’s headlights.

  40

  Glancing in the wing mirror, Eichel turned the key in the ignition. ‘If you puke up on my seats,’ he advised over the rumble of the engine, ‘I will kill you.’

  ‘I’m not gonna puke.’

  ‘See that you don’t. And put your seatbelt on.’

  Only after Max had obliged, did the Kriminalkommissar release the handbrake, pulling hard on the steering wheel. The Porsche jumped away from the kerb, cutting off a white Ford Escort as they zoomed off down the road. Heading south in light traffic, Eichel reached for the radio, flicking through a series of talk radio stations, before plumping for the Eighties pop of Radio Eins. ‘Perfect.’

  Gritting his teeth, Max had to endure Eichel humming along to the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This” in such a tuneless fashion that it only served to increase the Kriminalinspektor’s existing levels of antipathy towards Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. After what seemed like an eternity, relief came in the unlikely form of Metallica. Mercifully, Eichel showed no prior knowledge of the lyrics of “The Shortest Straw”.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘You’ll see when we get there. It’s not far.’

  Fuck it, Max thought, I’m not going to play twenty questions with you, if you want to play silly games that’s up to you. Sitting back, he settled in for the ride. If nothing else, Eichel’s little detour offered him a handy excuse when, inevitably, Marin started complaining about him going AWOL. By the time he finally got back to Lübecker Straße, the smell of booze on his breath might have dissipated enough for Marin not to realise that Max had been drinking.

  Staring aimlessly at the oncoming traffic, Max wondered about the relationship between the two superior officers. Would Marin have told Eichel about the reasons for Max’s imminent retirement? That would be the obvious inference from the latter’s quip about Max’s pension. It was perfectly possible; Marin was not the kind of manager who gave a flying fuck about the HR handbook. On the other hand, however, it was hard to see how he would gain from sharing such a titbit.

  The radio was playing Prince by the time they reached Turmstraße. Passing the criminal court, Max made a show of checking his watch. ‘How much longer is this going to take? Marin is gonna go crazy if I don’t turn up soon.’

  ‘We’re here.’ Conspicuously failing to give a signal, Eichel took a sharp left, ignoring the protesting horn of an oncoming furniture van as he turned into an empty parking lot in front of a small strip of shops and fast food outlets.

  A McDonald’s stood on the end of the row. ‘Good idea,’ Max smiled, releasing his seatbelt, ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘That shit is bad for you.’ Letting the car glide through the lot, Eichel scattered a group of pigeons who had been pecking happily at the remains of a Big Mac that had been discarded on the tarmac.

  ‘I don’t think this is the way to the drive-thru.’

  ‘Shut up.’ Eichel steered them down a narrow service alley lined with oversized waste bins.

  Shifting in his seat, Max felt the reassuring presence of the Beretta pressing into the small of his back. ‘Why are we here?’

  Ignoring his passenger, Eichel steered the Porsche past a delivery van and came to a halt in front of a shuttered service bay. ‘G
et out.’

  ‘If you insist,’ Max sighed. Releasing his seatbelt, he struggled out of the car, his nostrils flaring as they were assailed by a noxious combination of smells: fried food, used cooking oil, rotting food waste and stale piss. Taking a step forward, he almost lost his footing, stumbling into a puddle created by an unidentifiable liquid that had collected along the gutter running through the middle of the alley. ‘Shit.’ He had barely recovered his composure when, less than a metre in front of him, there was a rustling from one of the black rubbish sacks that had been stuffed into the top of an overflowing bin. Max almost jumped out of this skin as a feral-looking cat sprang out and landed at his feet.

  Eichel, standing by the driver’s door, laughed at his discomfort. ‘Not able to handle being on the street anymore, eh, Drescher?’

  Max watched the cat saunter away, tail in the air, equally unimpressed by the new arrival in his neighbourhood. ‘What are we doing here?’

  His question was answered by the sound of a metal door slamming open somewhere behind him. It was followed by the dull clump of boots on tarmac. Looking round, Max saw three large guys coming towards the Porsche. One was carrying a baseball bat over his shoulder. As they came closer, Max recognised the slugger, a veteran sergeant from Gesundbrunnen by the name of Liebherr. The other two were unfamiliar; younger, they had identical shaven heads and dull, lifeless eyes. Their battered leather aviator jackets were open, the better to reveal the semi-automatic that each man casually carried on his hip. They could be cops; they could be criminals. Either way, Max knew that they were not here for a friendly chat. His hunger was replaced by a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He turned to Eichel, who had a sickly smile plastered across his face. ‘What is this?’

  ‘This,’ said the Kriminalkommissar flatly, ‘is payback for you getting Rolf Terium killed. A serious beating is the least you deserve, you useless bastard.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Max muttered, reaching for his gun.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that, if I were you, Drescher.’ Leaning across the roof of the Porsche, the Kriminalkommissar had drawn his own service weapon; it was pointing directly at Max’s head. ‘Tempting as it is just to shoot you, I have to show some restraint. Apart from anything else, your death would generate too much paperwork. And I have got soo much on at the moment already. Know what it’s like in this job. Sometimes it’s just off-the-scale crazy.’

  Not unlike yourself, Max mused. Slowly, he gestured towards Eichel’s gun with his chin. The hammer wasn’t cocked and the safety was on. ‘You haven’t got the balls to shoot me,’ he snorted.

  Adjusting his feet, Eichel wrapped his index finger around the trigger. ‘And you’re willing to test that theory, are you?’

  In the distance, an S-Bahn train rumbled past. Eichel’s associates came to a halt behind the Porsche. Lifting the baseball bat from his shoulder, Liebherr began slapping it against the palm of his free hand, like a hoodlum in a bad B movie. No one seemed in a hurry to make the first move. Max tightened his grip on the Beretta.

  ‘Well?’

  Reluctantly, the Kriminalinspektor fought the urge to just to draw the Beretta and shoot Eichel in the face. Max knew that he could easily drop the desk jockey before he could get off a round. The other three however, were a different matter entirely. Slowly, he took the Beretta from the back of his jeans and raised both hands in the air. Stepping forward, he carefully placed gun on the roof of the car.

  ‘Good.’ Eichel gestured towards the middle of the alley. ‘Now step well away from the Porsche and let’s get this over with.’

  41

  ‘What the hell happened to you?’ Martin Marin barely managed to suppress a smile as he surveyed the multi-coloured mess of his underling’s face. ‘Did the remnants of the 36Boys finally manage to catch up with you outside the Sugar Lounge last night?’

  ‘Hardly,’ Max muttered. ‘The Sugar Lounge isn’t my kind of place these days, boss. I’m too old to be hanging out in nightclubs.’

  ‘You can say that again.’ This time the Kriminalkommissar did allow himself a quiet chuckle. ‘So what happened?’

  ‘I tripped over some bricks and fell into a pothole.’ Max made no effort to make his story in any way convincing.

  For his part, Marin showed no interest in interrogating the obvious lie. ‘Were you drunk?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure? I heard that you ran off to Draxler’s to drown your sorrows and mourn your ex-colleague.’ Noting Max’s surprised reaction, Marin’s grin grew wider. ‘You’re not the only one with eyes and ears on the street, you know.’ The Kriminalkommissar pointed towards the grime-encrusted window that looked out on to Stresemannstraße. The wooden frame had decayed to the point where only the accumulated filth still kept the glass in place. ‘I know what’s going on out there as well as you do.’

  You didn’t know what was going on behind that fucking McDonalds, Max thought morosely.

  ‘You look like you went ten rounds with Mike Tyson.’

  With three Mike Tysons, more like. Max gingerly touched the plaster above his right eye. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks. Nothing’s broken.’ That, at least, was true. Eichel’s goons were practised in the art of short-term pain without causing long-term damage. After receiving a comprehensive beating, he had still been able to walk out of the alley and hail a cab to take him to the Emergency Room at Charité. After flashing his police ID at everyone in a white coat, he had only had to wait two hours to get seen. A series of tests and X-rays had concluded that his injuries had been limited to concussion, a couple of cracked ribs, a dislocated thumb and a dead leg. Sent home with an industrial tub of Diclofenac, he washed down a handful of pills with a large glass of cognac and crashed out. Ten hours later, he awoke, feeling sore, but remarkably chipper under the circumstances. After more pills and some black coffee, he made his way into police HQ at Stresemannstraße.

  Bored by the conversation, Marin looked around helplessly for a cigar. ‘Am I going to be reading about this in the Morgenpost?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  ‘It was just an accident.’ Max felt a stab of irritation at his boss’s complete lack of concern. On the other hand, Marin’s amusement at this predicament had at least saved him a bollocking over his disappearance from the Terium-Kooy crime scene. He’s written me off already, Max realised. As far as Marin’s concerned, I’m no longer here. I’ve already retired.

  ‘So you got drunk, fell down a hole and went to hospital?’

  ‘That’s about it,’ Max agreed.

  Marin pulled open a succession of desk drawers, rooting around in each in turn as he looked in vain for a smoke. ‘And where was this pothole?’

  Faking a cough, Max bought himself a second. ‘Around the corner from Draxler’s,’ he spluttered.

  Marin grunted. ‘Make sure you let the Highways Department know. I’m sure they’ll want to fill it in.’ Finally giving up on his search for a cigar, he angrily slammed the drawers shut. ‘I hope you’re not going to sue the city.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘For leaving a pothole for you to fall into.’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Good. You’re taking us for more than enough money already.’ Deprived of his nicotine fix, Marin appeared to be going into some kind of mini-convulsion. Either that or he was suffering from a bad case of wind. ‘What about the doctors?’ he groaned. ‘They said you were basically okay, and patched you up?’

  ‘Basically, yeah.’

  ‘Did you tell them?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About your –’ unable to find the word, Marin waved a hand in the air, ‘about your condition.’

  Max realised he’d forgotten all about that. ‘They had my records,’ he muttered.

  ‘How do you feel, by the way?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Marin nodded.

  ‘Absolutely fine.’

  ‘Is that normal? I mean,
given what you’ve got?’

  ‘How the fuck should I know?’

  Marin’s expression grew even more pained. ‘It’s just that –’

  ‘No one knows what’s supposed to happen,’ Max snapped. ‘That’s the whole point.’ Irritated beyond belief by his boss’s cluelessness, he went on to the attack. ‘By the way, did you tell Eichel about me?’

  ‘No.’ Marin looked genuinely surprised by the question. ‘Why?’

  ‘He made a joke about my pension. It sounded like he knew I was on the way out.’

  Marin’s eyes narrowed. ‘When were you talking to Eichel?’

  ‘He spoke to me about Terium. He’s not happy about losing another officer.’

  ‘No, well, you wouldn’t be, would you?’ Marin scratched his neck. ‘But Eichel shouldn’t be talking to my officers without my knowledge and my permission.’

  ‘You’re sure you didn’t tell him?’ Max persisted.

  Marin waved a finger in the air. ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘This is a very serious matter. I hope that you can understand why I need to have my rights protected.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Marin gestured towards the world outside his door. ‘Look, I would never breathe a word about this, but there was a process that had to be adhered to. And you know what police stations are like. People gossip like fish wives.’

  Fish wives? Max stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘Maybe I need to have another word with my lawyer.’

  The Kriminalkommissar’s expression instantly turned into a full-on scowl. ‘That hard-nosed bitch? I never want to see her again, if I can help it.’

  Max mustered grinned. He would give Clara a call later on; she would doubtless be delighted to know that she had made such an impression on his boss.

  ‘Do you know how much she’s taken the city for on your behalf?’ Marin stormed, warming to his theme.

  ‘I do.’ Max smiled.

  ‘I wish I could get a sweet deal like that,’ Marin muttered. ‘I’d retire to a little place in the country. Spend my days fishing and playing golf.’