Come, Sweet Death

by Wolf Haas

  He was in no hurry for Bimbo to come back now because, at least this way, he could enjoy their performance in peace.

  “What a dirty bitch,” he said aloud, over and over again, even though he wasn’t quite at the age where a person’s apt to soliloquize. Hansi Munz was just a drop over thirty, although people always thought he was older on account of his stodgy ways. And needless to say, his old-fashioned glasses and his thinning hair didn’t do much, either, to make him look any younger. And even the faintly pubescent down on his upper lip didn’t make him look youthful—no, just stunted.

  But today, might as well be spring for Hansi. “Irmi, you dirty bitch.” Suddenly he was on a first-name-basis with the nurse—and sitting not fifteen meters away in a vehicle with the doors closed and watching her through the windshield.

  He was panting as though Irmi was as close to him as the tall pale man in the dark-gray suit was to her. There, between Rosi’s stand and the music pavilion, the man was giving that nurse such a working-over that you’d have thought: That’s no kiss, it’s a tonsillectomy, and all the operating rooms in Ear, Nose & Throat must be booked full-up.

  Hansi Munz was getting so hot watching the nurse slide slowly down her lover’s chest, one centimeter at a time, that the windshield was getting fogged up now.

  “What’re you doing now?” Hansi Munz asked the dirty bitch from behind the windshield.

  Seconds later, he was out the car door—even faster than Bimbo. But not because he couldn’t stand the excitement anymore. Aw, I don’t want to make Hansi Munz out to be any worse than he already is. Okay, excitement maybe, sure, but not like that, no. Excitement insofar as a person’s apt to get excited when he sees what a medic like Munz saw right then and there.

  Because the nurse just kept sliding. And then, the man slid down after her, too. And the two of them kept on sliding down. Until they were lying on the strip of grass between Rosi’s stand and the music pavilion, completely motionless.

  That got Munz so excited that he practically tore the car door off its Mercedes hinges and stormed right over to the two of them.

  By then, though, all he could determine was that they were dead. Well, officially an EMT can’t do that. Because only doctors can do that. But to be out of luck the way this nurse was out of luck, you just have to see for yourself. The man in the dark gray suit had been shot so savagely that the bullet exited into the nurse.

  From the make-out king’s neck, the bullet didn’t have very far to go to get to his mouth. And needless to say, both their mouths, wide open, so the bullet just kept on traveling, just like that, right into the nurse’s brain.

  So you see, this is what I was trying to say before. The reason why Hansi Munz wouldn’t forget the date any time soon. Monday, May 23, 5:03 p.m.

  CHAPTER 2

  When you work for the EMS in this day and age, you’ve got yourself the kind of profession where you can say: People respect me for it. Not so much for a nightclub owner, where morally it’s not quite, you know, or a car dealer, where maybe people say: No amount of snake oil could keep that bucket from rusting. Saving lives, though, people say: a sweet business.

  And Brenner, he knew the flip side of that, too. Because, after all, he’d been on the police force for almost twenty years, and you’d like to think a police officer would deserve a certain amount of respect, too, for paying his dues to society and whatnot. But, no, society is often a little unfair to police officers. Society goes around giving cops nicknames that essentially can’t be used in the same sentence as the word “respect.” I don’t know where that comes from, maybe out of some fear that cops could just go around arresting all of society. As if saying a friendly word to a pig is going to somehow tip the balance, and voilà, police state. But that’s not the reason why, after nineteen years on the force, Brenner threw it all away. Just between us: I don’t think he himself knew why, exactly. Because he was forty-four at the time, and it goes without saying, that’s an age where a man’s prone to doing something a little impulsive.

  Then, he worked as a detective for a little while, and so, all that talk about respect, completely out the window, of course. In fact, it made him realize that his standing as a cop hadn’t been all that bad. Police, maybe not ideal, but detective, no way. And some days he didn’t dare say how he earned his money—dirty laundry, so to speak.

  Needless to say, he told his former colleague Fadinger, who he ran into six months ago at the train station here in Vienna. And Fadinger was the one who’d told Brenner about how he’d made the switch ten years ago from being a cop to working blood-donor services. Because, a cushy job, and the overtime’s better than with the police. And when Fadinger mentioned that they were looking for a driver just then over at Vienna Rapid Response, Brenner was interested right away. He didn’t have anything against moving to Vienna, either. Because since he’d quit the police, he didn’t really know anymore where home was anyway.

  For as long as he was on the force, he’d had his civil service apartment, cheap rent and all. But when, two and a half years ago, he went off the force, well, apartment gone, too, of course. And he’d been gypsying around ever since—a little murder here, lodging thrown in gratis, a little embezzlement there, a room at the company hotel.

  I don’t mean to say that he was particularly bothered by the situation. Quite the opposite, it even had its advantages. Of course, his position with the EMS had its advantages, too—namely, a seventy-square-meter apartment.

  In that sense, the Vienna Rapid Response was wonderfully designed. A spacious inner courtyard that thirty garage bays opened out onto, plus a vehicle-repair workshop and a crew room. And in the middle of the courtyard, a magnificent glass pavilion, which was the dispatch center. And above the garages, living quarters for the EMTs. So that in your free time you could look down at the courtyard and watch your colleagues having to work.

  I suspect the main reason why Brenner even took the job was the apartment. And not the prestige. Because these days, when you’re forty-seven years old and lacking considerable standing, then, as we say in German: You don’t give a damn about the years you’ve got left, either.

  Although Brenner was still a kid back when people used to say that. Don’t just think about retirement—not just mortgage and life insurance—but the meaningful stuff, too, a little. Yeah, today you laugh about it, but back then, it was the latest thing. You’ve got to picture it like this: like how today we’ve got roller skates, or better yet, a mountain bike. Well, people used to have their things, too.

  And maybe the fact that Brenner himself got rescued by the EMS just last year played some small part, too. That was when his pinky finger got hacked off—it was even big in the newspapers. Got sewed back on, thank god—nearly bled to death, though. Hopped out of the gravedigger’s shovel right at the last second.

  Just so you understand why all the sudden Brenner’s sitting in an EMT uniform in the crew room. He was leafing through an issue of Bunte, because it was one of those god-awful days where absolutely nothing was going on. In all of Vienna, apparently, no heart attack, no accident, no suicide, no nothing. And the teenage suicide season wasn’t officially underway yet, either, because it’d be another five weeks before any diplomas got handed out.

  And the Danube Island Festival wouldn’t be for a few weeks yet, either. Where you end up having to admit half of Vienna—that’s almost a million people with alcohol poisoning. The Office of Cultural Affairs thought about just draining the whole Danube for the sake of the festival and filling it with free beer, so they could spare themselves having to set up all those booths, and just drive people to the river banks instead, but unfortunately, the technology’s not there yet.

  Today, though, no trace of any of that kind of fun. And a day like this at Vienna Rapid Response was cause for despair: ten, twenty grown men sitting around the crew room, bored to death.

  “Well, that’s a coincidence,” EMT Marksteiner muttered, pointing at the page in Bunte that Brenner was reading
just now. Brenner acted like he didn’t notice that Marksteiner was talking to him, but for Marksteiner, that was just a reason to double his volume: “Look at the clock, Brenner!”

  “You don’t know what time it is?” As Brenner said this, though, he was already looking up at the clock on the wall, a white kitchen clock with black hands, that had definitely been put through its thirty years. Somebody must’ve gone to some effort to hang the old kitchen clock, whose hands were now pointing right at the twelve, here in the new, supermodern Rapid Response Center.

  “High noon!” Marksteiner said triumphantly.

  “So?”

  “So, you’re reading an article about Stephanie of Monaco.”

  “So?”

  “And her mom was in the old western High Noon!”

  Because when you’re sitting around the crew room like this and waiting for an emergency, it’s only a matter of time before a coincidence is good enough for staving off the boredom a little.

  “Female lead,” Lil’ Berti said, butting into the conversation now. He was six foot three and thin as a pencil, but his whole life long, nickname, Lil’ Berti.

  “Like she would’ve played the male lead, c’mon!” Marksteiner said, and with that, the conversation ended just as fast as he’d instigated it. Because Lil’ Berti was just an 8K. Thanks to the government’s Volunteers in Service to Austria Act, i.e. Public Law 8000. And a career medic can’t very well let some 8K interrupt him.

  VISTAA was also the reason why Lil’ Berti sometimes got on Brenner’s nerves a little. Even though he was definitely one of the nicer ones. Somebody who even got in the vehicle sometimes, get this—with no sunglasses on. But he was unhappy in his job and ever since he’d heard that Brenner used to be a detective, he’d fallen in love with the idea of opening up a detective agency with Brenner.

  And today was exactly the kind of day when there was a real danger of him starting in on it again. Because time just wasn’t passing. At a quarter after twelve, still no emergency. And at twelve-thirty, still no emergency.

  For the third time already today, Bimbo took his gold chain from around his red, gym-rat’s neck and poked the dirt out from between the individual links with his fingernails. “Crazy how fast these twist links get dirty!” Bimbo yelled, and about as irritably as if he had to teach one of the volunteers how to wash the ambulances.

  But it was just his gold chain that he was cursing at. They did away with most of the volunteers two years ago. Since then, any advantage they’d had over Pro Med Vienna had been eroded. Nevertheless, Bimbo was glad that he didn’t have to see any more of those wimps.

  “I wonder where all this grime comes from!” Bimbo said, cursing his gold chain. “Can you imagine, all this dirt’s just in the air! And we’re breathing this dirt in all the time!”

  “Maybe it’s not in the air at all,” Lil’ Berti said, this time butting into the conversation between Bimbo and his gold chain.

  When the government canceled all the volunteer programs, a few 8Ks got kept on staff. It goes without saying, though, the 8Ks would always remain interns more or less. And so, once again, Lil’ Berti’s nickname was an advantage, because the other five didn’t have names at all, just the collective name “8K.”

  The redness of Bimbo’s neck was rising to his head now, as if Berti had called him god knows what. Because one thing you can’t forget. Bimbo had been sitting in the crew room for an hour and a half already. One and a half hours of no red lights. Not even a shitty assignment like a Scheisshäusltour. And so, certain aggressions start stockpiling.

  “What did you say, you little twerp?” Bimbo yelled, even though he was, at most, five years older than Lil’ Berti. “Where else would it come from, then? You think the gold in the chain causes it?”

  “Or maybe your neck does.”

  Here we go. The damn thing was that everybody else laughed. And Bimbo knew for a fact: fighting on duty, strictly verboten. So, he slowly places the gold chain back around his neck. And then he says: “I wouldn’t even lay a finger on an Eight-K like you.”

  It was quiet for the next five minutes, so Brenner was able to study the sex scandals in the British royal family in peace and quiet. But then, Marksteiner again: “I’ve always said, it’s all the horseback riding they do—those blue-bloods getting off on it.”

  Marksteiner had this impossible habit. He never would’ve picked a magazine up off the pile himself, even if he had to sit all day long in the crew room. But no sooner would another person start reading an article than he’d be adding his dose of mustard to it.

  At quarter to one, Brenner put his issue of Bunte back on the pile, and when he looked up at the kitchen clock ten minutes later, it was still quarter to one. But don’t go thinking the kitchen clock had stopped. Because the cleaning lady set it every morning, so that wasn’t it. Just Brenner’s inner clock that was on the fritz due to boredom.

  And finally, at one, still no emergency. “That’s the crazy thing about our job,” Bimbo said, breaking his own silence. “Because we’re always outside in the filthy air, always out in the middle of traffic. I can see it on my gold chain. But you know what, I’ll tell you. My new one that I had on yesterday doesn’t get dirty at all. It doesn’t soak up the dirt!”

  Because just last week Bimbo had bought himself a new gold chain that was three times as expensive as his most expensive old one. The thinnest and yet the most expensive! And today was the first day where, just to switch things up, he was wearing one of the old ones. To compensate, though, he had to at least talk about the new one: “Because it’s only the Figaro chains that get filthy! But my new one ain’t a Figaro! It’s hand-riveted! You can hang a five-hundred-kilo weight from it, and it won’t break! And dirt don’t stick to it, either!”

  “What do you still wear the old junk for, then?” That was old Lanz intervening just now—you know, Lanz, who’d beat him to Rosi’s two weeks ago.

  And Bimbo, red like a stop light all over again: “What’re you calling old junk? You think I’m going to go and throw all the others away now? Just because they’re Figaros. No, I’m always changing ’em up. Just like with the ladies.”

  Old Lanz immediately fell silent. Because needless to say, Bimbo and Lanz’s daughter. That’d been the talk of the station for a few days now.

  “Yeah, yeah. Not every day’s Sunday,” Hansi Munz chimed in, but more half asleep. “One day there’s so much going on that you can barely keep up with the work, and before you can clean up all the suicide brains off the vacuum mattress, you’re already packing up for a heart attack.”

  “When do you clean the vacuum mattress, then?”

  “And then”—Hansi Munz wasn’t going to let himself get interrupted by Bimbo—“even the Scheisshäusltouren get going.”

  Now, to explain: The exciting calls are always in the minority. It’s the Scheisshäusltouren that usually make up your day: delivering a granny to dialysis and picking her back up again two hours later. Delivering a patient from Wilhelminen Hospital to the Brothers of Mercy, and then, while you’re there, picking up another patient from the Brothers of Mercy and delivering that one to Vienna General. Or a cooler of donated blood from the blood donation center to the trauma center. Or Parkinson’s therapy. Or eldercise. Because there are people whose health coverage includes all sorts of things, and with them, you’ve just got to be thankful that you’re not driving them to the coffee shop.

  The bell went off much less often than the chime that the dispatch center used to signal the routine calls. Routine calls, thank you. I don’t always want to be saying Scheisshäusltouren, it’s not a very nice word. And it’s only with emergencies that the dispatch center sounds that shrill buzz of a bell—and if Junior catches you and you’re not up and out the door, there’s a hailstorm, don’t even ask.

  Junior took the business over from his father five years ago, and even though he himself wasn’t exactly the youngest anymore, everybody still called him Junior. But if he caught you loafing, then,
make no mistake, you knew who the boss was around here.

  A hailstorm from Junior still would’ve been preferable to all this miserable waiting around for some sweaty manager’s heart to stop ticking somewhere in some part of the city. But nothing doing. Today, neither bell nor chime. Today, just Stephanie of Monaco and Buckingham Palace. Brenner was already on his third issue of Bunte, and this whole time, the chime and the bell didn’t go off once.

  But the intercom did: “Herr Brenner, please report to the dispatch center.”

  Officially, they had to be quite formal, especially over the radio, because international radio rules and all. And intercom, needless to say, a little bit like radio.

  Generally, you weren’t too happy to get summoned to the dispatch center. Because your colleagues in the dispatch center are a little, how should I put it: more militant than the military.

  But today, Brenner was just glad for the change of pace. When that fat Nuttinger saw him on the surveillance screen, he met him right at the door, and then Brenner was already getting an earful: “Brenner! Change in drivers! Junior needs Herr Big to drive.”

  Because, officially, Bimbo was still called Big, and today, Brenner was supposed to drive with Bimbo—every day a different duo, according to the principle of rotation. And switching up drivers, that was a reform that Junior had introduced. Junior sure doted on Bimbo, though. And the sparrows were already chirping from the rooftops that Bimbo was next in line for a promotion.

  “You’re to leave immediately. Take the seven-seventy. Schimpl’s driving,” fat Nuttinger commanded, and then all of the sudden in a very different tone of voice: “Vienna Rapid Response Center?”

  Because that was meant for the orange emergency phone. And a second later, fat Nuttinger was pressing the bell. And a second after that, he was barking in Brenner’s face from half a centimeter away: “Hop to it, Brenner! On the double!”

  And Brenner was only just now grasping that, because of the change in drivers, he’d just slipped up the rotation wheel from the seventh slot all the way up to the first slot, and that meant he had to take this emergency call with his new partner.