by Jorg Fauser
The clerk at reception had never taken his eyes off Blum. Now he cleared his throat and asked, “Where did you say you’ve just come from?”
Blum had said nothing about it at all. Now he replied, without thinking, “Rio.”
“I thought as much,” said the clerk. “I recognize the symptoms.”
“What symptoms?”
“Jetlag, effects of the climate change. It makes people all overwrought. I recommend a warm bath, not too hot because of the metabolism. It’s still winter here, you know.”
Blum tried to smile, nodded, and lit a cigarette. Winter, porca Madonna. It had been snowing in Frankfurt, and when he spent twenty minutes standing in the spotlight in front of the security machine because his bag had been picked out for checking he felt like turning straight back. But not to return to Malta. The two hours he had to spend in the Luqa airport restaurant, because of course there were delays on Air Malta, were among those experiences he could happily have done without and would never forget. Sweating with terror, hands trembling, heart failure threatening every time someone looking even remotely Italian came into the restaurant . . . Blum had realized that almost all the Maltese could look Italian.
How much longer was the porter going to take? Blum fought down his stomach cramps. The clerk was still loafing about behind the reception desk, and now the telephonist was watching him too, so he withdrew to the back of the lobby and finally ended up in the bar. Two Arabs in made-to-measure suits were sitting in a corner seat, conversing in low tones. The hoarse-voiced woman had the bar to herself.
“I won,” she told the barkeeper triumphantly. “He came in.”
The barkeeper looked at Blum, shrugging his shoulders. “What’ll it be?”
“You mean me?”
The woman laughed. She was wearing a canary-yellow trouser suit which made her blonde hair look pale. She was perhaps no more than thirty-five, but the drink had already ravaged her face, and there was nothing make-up could do for it now. But her voice was so sexy that Blum felt a tug between his thighs.
“We had a bet,” she told him. “I saw you out in the lobby, and I told Tito here, I bet he’ll be here in the bar in three minutes’ time ordering a schnapps, am I right, Tito?”
“Don’t call me Tito,” said the Yugoslavian. Then he looked impatiently at Blum. “A beer, maybe?”
“A cognac,” said Blum.
“Okay, this round’s on Tito,” said the woman. She took a cigarette out of a case and leaned towards Blum for a light, holding his wrist. She wore expensive-looking jewellery. The varnish was flaking off her fingernails, and her perfume smelled a little stale too.
“So how did you know I’d come into the bar?”
“I know the symptoms, darling.”
Blum almost choked on his cognac. Maybe the Germans had gone out of their minds while he was away and now spent their time sitting in hotel lobbies, pinpointing other people’s symptoms.
“You really did need that cognac, see?”
“True,” said Blum. “I’m just back from the Amazon. I’ve had nothing to drink there for a year but liana wine.”
She liked that. She looked at Blum as if ready to fall into his arms any minute. Blum moved slightly away.
“So what were you doing there? Teaching the Indians how to speculate on the stock market? My last husband did that so well they’re letting him give courses on it in Stadelheim. You know what Stadelheim is?”
Blum nodded, and glanced at the time. He’d give the porter three more minutes.
“Yes, he was a good con man, my Fritzi, but he conned me best of all. Do they have con men in Amazonia?”
“Of course. The con trick rules the world.”
“You say that so – so casually. Well, how do you like Germany these days?”
“It’s overwhelming. In every way,” said Blum.
“Doing anything this evening?”
Her glance was so desperate that Blum felt fear. This really was one fear too many.
“Yes, I have to meet some business colleagues.”
“Here you are, sir,” said the porter at this moment, putting a carton down on the bar stool next to Blum. The carton had a red and white label on it saying “Old Spice Shaving Foam”.
“Oh, so that’s your line of business,” said the blonde, looking away, suddenly bored. Blum paid the porter, picked up the carton and carried it to the lift, his face red, and in the lift he wondered what line of business she meant – sales rep, pharmacist or simply a poor sap? His face in the lift mirror showed nothing but bafflement. Probably a combination of all three, he thought. A poor sap who works as sales rep for a pharmacist.
9
When he reached room 316 he put the carton down on the bed, took off his jacket, turned up the central heating, glanced out of the window and drew the curtain.
Shaving foam.
Old Spice shaving foam.
A carton full of Old Spice shaving foam in the leftluggage office of Munich Central. The receipt stuck inside the wig of an Italian allegedly called Rossi, last seen on 13 March in the Villa Aurora, St Paul’s Bay, Malta. Malta, an island state in the Mediterranean, halfway between Sicily and Africa, form of government “democratic republic”, faith Roman Catholic, right, Inspector? Population 320,000, exports early spring vegetables, Mediterranean fruits, immigrant workers, cleaning ladies. And no art treasures. A smuggler’s boat, Larry had said. To smuggle Old Spice shaving foam? Where to? Jeddah? Mr Faq might have considered even that good business. Sorry, Mr Haq. Hassan Abdul Haq. Madonna salvani. He opened the carton.
Old Spice shaving foam. Not a doubt about it. Twenty jumbo cans of Old Spice shaving foam, 10 fl oz net, from the firm of Shulton, New York – London – Paris. He read the printed wording: “CAUTION: Pressurized cans. Do not heat above 122°F (keep out of direct sunlight). After use do not force open or burn. Do not spray on naked flames or heated bodies.” That sounded ominous. What did they mean, heated bodies? His own body was feeling heated now, for instance. And it didn’t sound safe to move around with this stuff in the desert. No Old Spice for Jeddah, Mr Haq.
Why would an Italian, resident in Malta, hide a leftluggage receipt for twenty jumbo spray cans of shaving cream inside his wig? Because he stole it. The wop goes about looking like a total twat with his blow-dried ringlets, but they’re just acting as a hiding place. He stole it, of course, and now I’ve got it. You steal my porn mags, I’ll steal your left-luggage receipt. But what are twenty cans of shaving foam worth? Well, not $550, anyway. Unless . . .
Blum took off his shirt and then his boots too, his Spanish ankleboots. The sweat was running down him, in spite of the cold temperature of this small room with its man-made fibre carpet and plastic furniture, and the tarty pink lamp over the creaking single bed. He picked up a can, blew the wood-wool packing off it, and shook it. It weighed rather heavy in his hand, and something inside moved. Then he took off the white plastic cap and carefully pressed the dispenser. Hm. Not much pressure there. A little air, then a squiggle of white foam on his thumb. He smelled it. Again, no doubt: that was the “fresh, masculine fragrance of Old Spice” as promised on the can. Astringent whipped cream.
Blum went into the bathroom and sprayed another squiggle of shaving foam into the tub. Then the can uttered a sigh, and no more came out. Not a generous amount of foam for a 10-ounce can. Definitely a lot of wastage. But the can was still heavy. It must weigh half a pound, probably more. And all the others, he discovered, were equally heavy. Blum felt a tingling under his scalp. Keep out of this, my friend, a voice warned him, but it was not a particularly loud voice. It made little headway against the other voices he was hearing, and none at all against the tingling.
He sat down on the floor with the can and his pen-knife, and removed the plastic dispenser. Two cigarette lengths down in the can, he found a cellophane bag of white power and fished it out. Then he opened the cellophane bag, touched a damp finger to the powder, and tasted it.
10
&nbs
p; “For someone who’s spent a year in the Med you don’t look good,” said the man, who himself looked white as a sheet and did not move from his leather sofa.
“I haven’t had much sleep recently,” said Blum, stirring the sugar in his coffee cup. “And life everywhere is just as hectic as here.”
“Right again. No one really needs to set foot out of the door these days.”
Blum looked at the view. Old snow lay on the rooftops. The sky was like a dirty asphalt lid above them, and that was about all you could see from up in this penthouse. The northern parts of Munich were not a particularly attractive sight on a Sunday in March.
“Great view, right?”
“At least you’ve solved the suicide problem here, Hermes.”
Hermes smiled and lit his Gauloise with a gold lighter. He was a thin man of about average height and uncertain age, and always wore black. The penthouse was sparsely furnished, but the sparse furnishings themselves were top quality, and they were drinking Jamaican coffee. A large pot stood on a hotplate. The girl on the double bed was top quality too, Eurasian and aged seventeen at the most. She was reading Camus, L’Homme révolté. Blum took an HB out of its crumpled packet and lit it with his disposable lighter.
“But you didn’t crawl out of bed or some stand-up bar this fine day, and take a plane to Munich, just to discuss my suicide problems, am I right?”
Hermes’s voice gave no clue to his origins. With his black hair combed back and his aquiline nose, he could have been Levantine, but Blum happened to know that he had come to Berlin in 1965 from a small town in Lower Saxony, and since then had been in the drugs trade without ever having trouble with the police. Maybe he had a couple of irons in the fire at this very moment. The Eurasian girl turned a page and chewed her thumbnail. Hermes gave an Oriental kind of smile.
“No,” said Blum at last.
“Good,” said Hermes, with that smile. “So what’s it all about?”
“Cocaine,” said Blum.
The Eurasian girl cast him a fleeting glance – the first since he had entered the penthouse – and ran her hand through the silky hair that fell to her knees. Hermes frowned.
“You want some cocaine from me?”
“No, I have some.”
“Well, Blum, I must say you surprise me.”
Hermes cautiously placed his feet in their black slippers on the carpet, as if to test the load-bearing properties of the floor, then stood up, threw his cigarette end into an alabaster container with a rubber plant reaching to the ceiling, and poured himself another cup of coffee.
Blum knew that Hermes was waiting for further explanations, but he had no intention of offering any. Finally Hermes smiled and went to the telephone, which stood on an Empire bureau. He dialled a number that he knew by heart, said a couple of words so quietly that Blum couldn’t make them out, and hung up again. Then he bent down, chose a disc from the piles lying about on the carpet, and put it on the player without turning it on. The Eurasian girl turned another page. Either she had taken a course in speed reading or she knew the book by heart already, and was just picking out the best bits here and there. Or perhaps she was only pretending to read, and was recording the conversation with a wireless microphone fitted under her thumbnail . . .
“We’ll discuss it later,” said Hermes, when he was lying on the sofa again. “I’m no expert in that field, as you know.”
“I know,” said Blum, smiling back.
“And how was your trip, Blum? Did they treat you right? Was the food tolerable? Have you had new and fascinating experiences?”
“Can’t complain,” said Blum. “I never stayed anywhere for long.”
“Ah, no, you’re a pro. I’ve retired really, you know. I’m devoting myself to bringing up my daughter.”
Blum saw the look Hermes gave the Eurasian girl.
“That’s her?”
“What did you think, you old lecher? Thought I was taking children to bed?”
“It’s a problem we all have some time or other,” said Blum.
“Get yourself a daughter of your own and it’ll soon pass off. But in a way you’re right, of course. I wish I could say I can finally boast of a little perception and a touch of purification, but of course it’s no such thing. You’re around forty too, right?”
“Yes. I know what you mean.”
“Indeed. I think we could do with a whisky at this point.”
This time he stood up quickly, moving with agility, found a decanter and two glasses and poured the whisky. He drank standing up, looking at the girl who was allegedly his daughter.
She suddenly smiled at him, a smile that almost took Blum’s breath away. Then she rolled over on her other side, turning her back to the men and burying herself in her book. Blum wouldn’t have thought it possible for a jeans-clad bottom to be so seductive.
The doorbell rang. Hermes pressed the buzzer. A small, stout man with horn-rimmed glasses and an attaché case appeared and peeled off a rabbit-fur coat.
“My scientific assistant,” said Hermes. “Henri, this is Blum. A traveller by trade. Well, Blum, now let’s see what you’ve brought with you.”
Blum took a small tube intended to hold tablets out of his trouser pocket and gave it to Henri, who put it on the tea-table and opened his portable chemistry laboratory.
“Come on, have another Scotch while he takes a look at your stuff,” said Hermes, filling their glasses. Blum would rather have watched what Henri was doing, but that probably wouldn’t have been etiquette. He took his glass and sipped. Sleet was falling outside now, and the city looked like its own cemetery. Flocks of crows fluttered over the Olympic stadium.
“I’ve settled down since my daughter joined me,” said Hermes, “otherwise I wouldn’t be here now. Her mother’s entered politics, so I had to do something.”
“Politics?”
“Yes, everything’s gone haywire over there in Asia. That’s another reason I’m retiring. We’re going to Switzerland next week to find her a boarding school. In Switzerland she’ll make friends with the sons of the people her mother’s fighting. Maybe I’ll find myself a retirement home at the same time. Zurich wouldn’t be a bad idea. Or maybe Lucerne?”
“So it’s just coincidence I found you here?”
“My dear Blum, in this business one should never count on coincidence.”
Henri cleared his laboratory away and handed Hermes the tube. Blum sipped his whisky again. His throat was dry. He saw that the Eurasian girl had disappeared.
“Peruvian flake,” said Henri, “direct from the producer. Hasn’t been cut yet. Ninety-eight per cent. The real McCoy.”
“Flake? What does that mean?”
“It all depends on the refinement process,” explained Henri. “As you may know, cocaine is made of coca paste, which in its own turn is made from the original substance, coca leaves. Normally the refinement process gives you cocaine powder, which is about 80–86 per cent pure cocaine. But if you refine the coca paste so that it dries into separate crystals you get what we call flakes. And they can be around 96 per cent pure. Pharmaceutical cocaine, for instance, is always 99 per cent strength and always comes in flakes. Take a look.”
He tipped a flake on a small mirror and handed Blum his magnifying glass. Sure enough, Blum saw crystals glittering in the powder, like ice cubes in snow.
“But how do you know it comes from Peru?”
Henri shrugged and put his magnifying glass away. “Well, in time you get to know these things. There are only three possibilities – Colombia, Bolivia, Peru. Some of my colleagues claim that Bolivian cocaine is the strongest, but of course that’s nonsense. It always depends on the refinement process. You have to learn about it, see? Learning on the spot is best, of course.”
“Then let’s see if we like it,” said Hermes. For the first time he seemed to be the man Blum remembered. He took a small ivory case from the desk, pushed two straight lines of the cocaine into place on the mirror with a razor blade, and inhale
d the cocaine through a rolled-up dollar bill. Then he breathed in deeply and passed the equipment over to Blum.
“These days they often cut it with the most extraordinary things – Italian baby laxative is about the most harmless. What’s it called, Henri?”
“Mannite. Looks the same as coke under the magnifying glass, tastes the same, dissolves the same. They’ve taken to using yoghurt cultures too recently.”
“Good heavens.” Hermes lit a cigarette and drew on it deeply and with enjoyment. “Ah, really good stuff, Blum. Congratulations.”
Congratulations for what, Blum would have liked to ask. Instead he handed the mirror on to Henri, who looked at him inquiringly. Blum shook his head.
“I don’t feel like it.”
“Have you ever done a line?” asked Hermes.
“Last year in Paris,” said Blum. “It makes me too nervous.”
“Chacun à son goût, that’s all I can say.”
Henri sniffed and then poured himself a whisky. His hands shook slightly.
“Did you bring this stuff into the country?” he asked Blum.
“Like I told you, Blum’s a traveller by trade,” said Hermes. “You pick up the oddest things abroad. Sometimes you even find something memorable. I think I want some music now.” He lay back on the sofa, glass within reach, picked up something that looked like a TV remote control and pressed a button. The record player switched on. Henri sat down and leafed through a magazine. The only one of them not relaxing was Blum, who clutched his glass and stared at the bed.
“Charlie Parker,” said Hermes, closing his eyes. “Charlie Parker All Star Sextet. Charlie Parker, alto; Miles Davis, trumpet; J. J. Johnson, trombone; Max Roach, drums; Duke Jordan, piano; Tommy Potter, bass.”