The Snowman

by Jorg Fauser

  “Well, that went quite smoothly, Mr Blum. What are you staring at me like that for?”

  Blum had to swallow again. He couldn’t utter a word.

  “Ah, you’re surprised to see this pharmacy. Yes, my doctor has put me on a regime of apple juice and chemicals.” He began taking his medicines.

  “One for the liver . . . one for blood pressure . . . one for diabetes . . . one for the circulation . . . one for my stomach . . . one for my gut . . . once you start mixing with quacks you never break free of them . . . one for my metabolism . . . and you, Mr Blum, have made a considerable contribution to my state of health . . . need anything yourself?”

  “No, thank you,” Blum managed to say. “If I remember correctly we were going to meet at the Roxy Bar.”

  “Yes. That way we got rid of the man Rossi.”

  Hackensack drank some more apple juice from the bottle, put it down as far from him as his arm would reach with a look of the utmost dislike, donned a pair of reading glasses and leafed through a file.

  “And now for you, Mr Blum. Blum, Siegfried, born 29 March 1940 in Butzback, Upper Hesse.” A faint smile flickered across his face, which seemed to have lost a few rolls of fat since Malta.

  “Isn’t the penitentiary somewhere near there? Well, never mind. From 1961 to 1963 you studied art history and economics in Berlin. Why did you break off your studies so abruptly?”

  “Do I have to answer that?”

  “No, you don’t. But I’m trying to build up a picture of you.”

  “They were lasting too long.”

  “There, you see? Then you went to Wiesbaden and opened a gallery there. Blum and Bloskowitch. But that lasted only three years. Was that too slow for you too?”

  “We went bust.”

  “What kind of art did you deal in?”

  “Old art, Mr Hackensack. What is all this? An interrogation?”

  “Oh, come, Mr Blum. Interrogations are conducted only by the police and other state authorities. I’m a businessman. Wasn’t this art mainly fake icons?”

  “Icons are icons.”

  “In 1969 we find you giving a brief guest performance in Istanbul. What were you doing in the meantime?”

  “Taking an active part in the political movement.”

  “You mean those porn magazines you produced in Copenhagen in 1968? But why are you standing all this time, Mr Blum? Larry, give him a comfortable chair. You two know each other, after all. And you should remember Brother Norman too . . .”

  Sure enough, there by the door sat Brother Norman in his black suit, with an encouraging smile on his face. There were three of them – Hackensack, Brother Norman, Larry. The sample case stood on the table beside Hackensack. Blum sat down and lit a cigarette. This didn’t look like ten years in the cooler. Or was it going to turn out to be something much worse?

  “The money we hoped to make from the porn magazines was all to go into the political movement, Mr Hackensack.”

  “Please, don’t make yourself ridiculous, Blum. You pulled a fast one on your partner, that man Söderbaum, and you went underground with the porn magazines. Only recently you were hawking the last of them around the whole Mediterranean area like beer past its sell-by date.”

  “Tastes have changed.”

  “Yes, indeed. Then came Istanbul, then the butter affair, then the antiques scam, faking antiques was the only thing you’d learned . . .”

  “Faking them? Oh, please! I don’t know the first thing about faking antiques. I simply bought the stuff in.”

  “And recently you’ve been rather going downhill, a little job here, another there, you’ve even waited tables, and in Tangiers and Tunis you sank so low as to let yourself be kept by women tourists.”

  “I’m not going to reply to such scurrilous accusations, Mr Hackensack.”

  “You don’t need to. Your story speaks for itself, Blum. A story with a predictable ending. Anyway, then you met up with this Rossi on Malta.”

  “Through your henchmen here.”

  “I always say the power of coincidence is the greatest power on earth.”

  Here Brother Norman opened his mouth. “I can’t remind you often enough, Harry, there is no such thing as coincidence. In God’s force-field we are the iron filings brought together by the magnet of Providence.”

  “Right on,” said Larry.

  “I really could do with a bourbon at this point,” sighed Hackensack. The Australian produced a silver hipflask from his windcheater and handed it to Hackensack, who took a long pull and licked his tender lips with relish. Then he offered the flask to Blum.

  “Is this the second phase of the interrogation?”

  “Oh, cut it out! All this stupid talk of interrogations, Blum! It just shows you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “How am I supposed to take the present conversation, then?”

  “I told you, I’m a company adviser. Naturally I don’t just advise companies active in commerce and industry. I still have plenty of contacts from the old days, after all, so now and then I advise outfits of a more political nature.”

  “I don’t quite see you as an adviser to terrorists, Mr Hackensack.”

  “Who said anything about terrorists? I’m talking about governments, Blum. Take the case we’re concerned with right now. I was recently able to do the Belgian government a big favour by helping to close a leak in their investigation into the narcotics trade. My price? Well, we’ll see how the evening develops. But don’t forget, when you go out through this door, the Belgians impose severe penalties on drug smuggling too.”

  “What are you getting at? I don’t have the stuff any more. You have it.”

  “Yes, and it was one hell of a grind getting hold of it. All the agitation I’ve had these last few days isn’t good for my heart. I’m not getting any younger.”

  “Prayer is the best medicine, Harry,” Brother Norman remarked. Hackensack looked at Blum.

  “Brother Norman means well. I don’t know what I’d have done without him in Vietnam.”

  “He was invaluable in Casablanca too,” said Larry, and went into a coughing fit that lasted at least three minutes. Maybe I’ve been in my cell for quite a while already, thought Blum, a cell in a building with the words Municipal Madhouse over the door. Hackensack’s sausage fingers were fidgeting alarmingly. Blum saw a ring that looked to him familiar on one of them. Of course – it was the black signet ring worn by the customer he had lost in the reptile house.

  “You have a new ring, Mr Hackensack.”

  “Yes, a customer gave it to me.”

  “My customer, wasn’t he?”

  “And what a customer too, Mr Blum. The man has eight previous convictions. From blackmail to embezzlement to cheque fraud, he’s done just about everything. He was planning to unload a nice packet of dud notes on you. Know your way around dud notes?”

  “I didn’t ask you for any information.”

  “Then why did you keep phoning me? No, Mr Blum, like I said to you only the other day in the Pegasus Bar, the really interesting thing is power. Money or narcotics alone, that’s not interesting unless you can convert it into political influence. You can’t survive in business these days without politics. Larry, I’ll have another little nip.”

  After his second deep draught, Hackensack’s earlobes began to glow. Blum declined the flask with thanks.

  “Perhaps you’d like to tell me where you got all this information about me, Mr Hackensack. And what the point of this meeting is.”

  “Oh, come on, Blum, what’s the matter with you? You called in at the firm’s offices in Frankfurt . . .”

  “What’s your secretary’s first name, by the way?”

  “. . . you kept phoning and begging us to help you protect your investments.”

  “Yes, Mr Hackensack – I wanted advice on how to lay it out, on protection. I didn’t want it stolen.”

  “Who said anything about stealing? We kept preventing people from stealing it. What do
you think those two charming characters would have done with you and your junkshop?”

  “I see. And what are you going to do with the cocaine?”

  “What you’d have done, Mr Blum. We’re going to invest it.”

  He drew the sample case towards him and opened it. His eyes seemed about to pop out of their sockets, his lips quivered. His nose went as red as if he had just drunk a whole bottle of bourbon straight down. He stared at Blum through his reading glasses.

  “What on earth’s this?”

  “You don’t know everything, I see, Mr Hackensack. Good things come in those cans.”

  42

  “And now I’ll tell you a little story. A cigar, Larry!”

  So Larry was in charge of the Havanas too. Hackensack lit one, made himself comfortable and told the story, or at least as much of it as Blum was supposed to know. They were all sitting around the table smoking now, and Blum was playing with his flick-knife. A good feeling, but that was all. How a former CIA agent, a Flemish missionary and a member of a special Australian commando unit had met up in the last autumn of the Vietnam War, as prisoners of the Vietcong in a war-torn jungle village 250 miles north of Saigon, remained a mystery, unless you fell back on the power of coincidence. The fate they could expect was no mystery. While Hackensack told the tale in his broad accent, the Australian sat back in his armchair staring at the tall double windows with the rain beating against them. Brother Norman had closed his eyes and seemed to be meditating. Blum saw a fly circling above the standard lamp. It had a rather high-pitched buzz, almost like a mosquito. Certain people took their own mosquitoes around with them. Hackensack saw that Blum was not attending very closely, and cut his story short. They had survived back then because each of the three prisoners had a talent that came in useful in such a situation – one had power, one had cunning, the third had faith.

  “An everyday story, you see, Mr Blum, everyday for those who were there at the time. But each of the three of us was marked by the experience in a special way – the commando lost a lung, the missionary lost his ability to function in ordinary life, and I – well, I lost principally my reserve funds. So we decided to work together in future, and we did. We brought off a number of little coups. I say little, but some were triumphs that one man alone would never have pulled off. You see, Norman had been with the mission for twenty-five years—”

  “Would that by any chance be the Brothers of the Last Days Mission?”

  “I see you sometimes do keep your eyes open. Personally, I worked for the government a long time before I branched out into the free economy. Between us we have a good deal of experience. And since Larry’s been involved in investigating the drugs trade we’ve caught some really big fish. Oh yes, my dear Blum, we’re on a lucky streak.”

  He lovingly patted one of the jumbo cans.

  “What would you have done if I’d sold the stuff – in Munich or Frankfurt or Amsterdam?”

  “Oh, we’d have thought of something. You wouldn’t have kept the money in your hands for long.”

  “But when I was in Munich you still had no idea about it.”

  “Larry has been after Rossi for quite some time. When you suddenly got mixed up in it, well, of course that upset our plans a little. But then you called us of your own accord. Lucky for you, Blum.”

  “Lucky for me? You’re telling me you’d have got the money away from me, and now you say I was lucky?”

  “We’re not interested in the money, Blum,” Larry put in.

  “I can imagine. You all have pretty well-paid jobs, as far as I can tell.”

  “You really make a useless drugs dealer,” said Hackensack equably. “Hopefully that’ll dawn on you some time. It really is best to leave the narcotics business to pros and the government these days. So now let me tell you something else. Like Larry just said, we’re not so interested in the money. We want to retire, preferably to a country where we can hold the reins ourselves. Everyone dreams of his own little island kingdom where he’s the boss, am I right? Well, we’ve found ours. Ever heard of Abaco?”

  Blum stared wordlessly at Hackensack.

  “No, that’ll have been before your time. I dare say you were still freshening up icons with gold leaf and so on around then. Anyway, Abaco is an island in the Bahamas, and a few years back there was this idealistic millionaire who’d always fancied running his little own state and playing Lord Bountiful there. So he recruited one of our top people to liberate the island from the Bahamas. The plan almost worked, too, only the agent came to grief over Watergate. So the Great Revolution of Abaco never took place. Having your own republic is not just fun, you know – it’s very good, lucrative business too. From the stamps to the free port to the casinos. See what I’m getting at?”

  Blum lit an HB. His last but one. Time was getting on.

  “The only thing that interests me, Mr Hackensack, is why do you need my cocaine?”

  “In the place we’ve picked for ourselves, five pounds of cocaine gives a lot of prestige, Mr Blum. Here you’d just get money for it, out there it’ll provide a basis for our coup.”

  “Really? Then buy the cocaine, Mr Hackensack. You’re welcome. I’ll give you a good discount too. After all, we’ve known each other since Malta. Let’s say fifty grand. Dollars, of course. Or I’ll take any other currency, Mr Hackensack, only it must be in cash. And freshly laundered, if you don’t mind.”

  Hackensack knocked the ash off his cigar. The leather armchair groaned under his weight. “But Blum, we don’t need to buy your cocaine now. We already have it.”

  “Maybe you ought to tell him about the job, Harry,” said the Australian.

  “Okay. Your performance as a drugs dealer was nothing brilliant, Blum, but of course I realize that these last two weeks do give you a certain right to compensation. And Larry, who knows you better than I do, thinks we could use you in our coup. You look good, you know languages, and I guess something’s left over from your activities as an art dealer and a pusher of porn mags. So if you like you can join us.”

  “As a brother too,” said Norman, “don’t forget that, Harry, he’d be welcome as a brother too.”

  Blum stubbed out his cigarette. “Now you listen to me, Mr Hackensack. And you too, brothers. I don’t need any job from you, and the hell with your island. You can go to any island, any tiny reef in the world, and it’ll be the same old shit. Governments, missions, war. And don’t forget plain old robbery with violence. But you don’t do it with me. I don’t want your power, Hackensack. I don’t need a job either, I already have one. I work for Blum and Co. I’m my own firm, my own one-man firm . . .”

  “That’s not the message your file broadcasts.”

  “Well, see, that shows what you get unloaded on you these days in the self-service stores. And as for the snow, Hackensack, I don’t want compensation for it. It belongs to me. Either I go out of this door with it or you can use it to clean your teeth. Sekt or seltzer water, Hackensack, it’s one or the other for me.”

  “What do you have against me?”

  “You want to take my stuff and you ask what I have against you?”

  “I’m offering you the chance of your life, man!”

  “Really? Where? As what? As breakfast manager on your island of Abaco?”

  Hackensack looked at Larry. “I told you, Larry, we really can’t use the man.”

  “You’re dead right there,” said Blum, standing up. “You can’t use me, not for your purposes.”

  “I’m beginning to see why you never managed to get rid of the stuff anywhere, Blum. The way you carry on . . . look, don’t make yourself ridiculous. There’s no getting around the facts. You had your little chance – it was a tiny one, sure, but it was there – and you didn’t know what to do with it. So you just carry on with your porn magazines, your antiques, your butter. You’ll see how far that gets you. But the cocaine stays here. I tell you something, regard it as my fee.”

  “Fee?”

  “You wanted me to
advise you, and so I have, Mr Blum. The sum of my advice is: close down your firm and go to hell!”

  At the door, Blum looked round again. The red cans shone in the light. They’d worn well. But that was as much as he could say about them now.

  43

  The rain was slackening off. The tide broke on the beach and sprayed foam over the buoys, the pebbles, the sand with the dirt and rubbish on it. The sky was a misty grey with pale patches in it, no stars. Far away the lights of a fishing boat danced on the sea. So here he was on the beach, with the gulls perching on the rooftops of the hotels where the lights were going out. Blum switched on the torch the sales rep had given him and flashed the beam over the rolling waves. But what message could he send? Nothing had happened to him. Or what had happened to him was what happened to everyone, every day. SOS, that was the message from every minute spent on land. He threw the torch into the sea. All gone, nothing left of what he had had. He lit his last cigarette. Maybe I ought to light it with my last banknote, he thought, but you’re never quite that free. You’re still what you always were, you were in luck there, you were what everyone wanted to be, a small-time winner on the long trek between Sekt and seltzer water. A gull began screeching overhead, others followed it, and they raced over the dark waves that were coming closer and closer to Blum as they broke. The sirens of the ferries howled in dock. He heard no footsteps, only the cough slowly approaching. Larry stood by him for some time. The light from the street lamps spread far over the beach, but they themselves remained in the shadows. Flecks of foam swirled over the sand. Finally the Australian threw his cigarette butt away. The wind swept it over to the promenade.

  “You could still come,” called Larry. “I have the tickets.”

  “I can buy my own tickets.”

  “Hackensack’s a good man!”