Basic Law

by J Sydney Jones

  “There must be some address for him in the States. If he’s still in art, maybe he belongs to an artists’ association.”

  Kramer stops, realizing that Randall never finished his initial statement. “No sign of Rick, but … ?”

  Randall nods. “Bingo with Helmut. He lives in Hamburg. On the Elbchaussee, no less. Profession listed is Kaufmann. Good old Helmut, a businessman.”

  “So?”

  “Hamburg?” Randall says.

  “Hamburg, it is.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  At Randall’s insistence, they rent a car in Bad Lunsburg; a fire-engine red Mercedes 380 SL. Childlike, Randall is infatuated with things mechanical and demands to do all the driving, which is okay with Kramer in principle: he hates things mechanical. Driving for him—unless it is in the American Southwest late at night under a full moon with the Beatles’ White Album in the tape deck—is one of life’s miseries to be borne only when absolutely necessary.

  After thirty miles with Randall at the wheel, however, Kramer begins to wonder if there are not worse things than having to drive. Like being severely dead, for instance.

  They have taken narrow country roads north and east, bypassing Cologne and its heavy traffic, heading straight for Dortmund. A countryside of rolling hills, glistening under the sun; of pruned-back rows of vines in every direction; farmers on tractors doing God knows what errands now that the harvest is in. Peaceful, bucolic. Randall, however, does not believe in slowing for other vehicles; does not seem to understand the elemental truths of driving, such as you don’t pass on blind curves or on the right. He likes to use the horn, as if this makes up for all sorts of practical and moral infringements.

  “Where did you get your license, Randall?” Kramer finally says after their second brush with eternity. Randall pulls them back into their lane just before a twelve-ton truck makes hash of them. “They selling them at Woolworth’s now?”

  Randall is whistling an aria from Verdi with great vigor. He stops the music, unpuckers his lips, and smiles quite insanely at Kramer. “I don’t have a license, my friend. This is on-the-job training.”

  He emits a gleeful laugh and floors the accelerator, sounding the tires as they take a sharp curve marked fifty kilometers.

  “Either slow down or I drive,” Kramer orders.

  Randall looks hurt, but slows down.

  By the time they hit the little town of Hückeswagen, they have made a truce. Randall is allowed pedal to the metal on the straight stretches if he takes it easy around curves. By Dortmund, they are on the E3 Autobahn and fairly flying over the placidly rolling landscape of Münster.

  “What’s the speed limit here, Sammy?” Randall yells at one point. His voice can hardly be heard over the rushing of wind against the car.

  “There isn’t one,” Kramer says without thinking.

  “What’re we ditzing around for, then? Time’s a-wasting.”

  Randall stomps on the accelerator, sending the tachometer into a dizzying spin.

  Kramer leans back, making sure his seat belt is fastened, and lets Randall have his fun. Leave it in the lap of the gods, he figures. Time was when he felt invincible; accidents do not happen to tourists.

  Randall’s driving has one plus: it leaves little time for Kramer to mull, to second-guess, to wonder what the hell he’s doing away from his Vienna desk chasing ghosts from the past.

  Exit signs to Osnabrück flash by. Randall is whistling his aria again. Clouds have gathered. The shimmering landscape is now dull brown and sodden. Forest to the right and hills like a rake turned on its back.

  Bremen is a flurry of industrial parks and high-rise buildings, and soon they are onto the Lüneburg moor to the south of Hamburg.

  “Car handles like a dream,” Randall says. Then, “Damn, I’m hungry. We didn’t stop the whole way. Maybe I’ve got a career, Sam. Truck driver. There’s power for you.”

  Kramer manages a smile, says nothing.

  The autobahn crosses the marsh before Hamburg, the roadway raised on stilts. Kramer tries to keep his attention on the scenery. Dockside industry begins to build up until they hit the first bridge across the Elbe. As they cross the river, Kramer looks down at all the paraphernalia of a busy port: piles of brightly colored containers fresh off ships; dock basins hectic with activity; quays, sheds, tall cranes like erector sets against the sky; ships bearing flags from around the world, one moving so slowly back out to sea that at first Kramer thinks it is docked and the land itself is shifting. To the right is the center of the city, a spire here and there; tall business complexes dwarfing these. To their left, a slope runs west over the far bank of the Elbe. Along its ridge is the street they are looking for: the Elbchaussee.

  “Next exit,” Kramer says.

  Disappointment showing in his face, Randall puts on the turn signal. It clicks the end of his joy ride, like a second hand running down.

  Kramer looks at the address Randall has copied from the phone directory: Nienstedten. Turning onto Elbchaussee, Randall is finally forced to reduce speed. It’s a broad, busy avenue with the villas and parks of the fashionable and wealthy to their right. Classical architecture full of columns and architraves. They’ve been living on this street for a century and a half, those with money and power. To the left is the Elbe with its shipping traffic, fish restaurants, bathing strands. By the time they reach the little suburb of Nienstedten, it has begun to sprinkle. Randall turns on the wipers; their slap-slap punctuates the rest of the ride. Kramer cranes his head to see the house numbers, does a double take, rechecking the address on the notepaper from the hotel in Bad Lunsburg, then lets out a low whistle.

  “Find it?” Randall says.

  “That’s it.” Kramer points out his window.

  “Where? All I see is a park.”

  “That’s it. The house is way up the drive.”

  “Helmut’s house? Business must be good.”

  Randall finds a parking space, cutting over two lanes in front of an Audi whose female driver honks furiously at them, and rubs tires against the curb as he pulls to a stop.

  “He’s not going to be there,” Kramer says. “Probably still at the office.”

  Randall cuts the ignition, puts the keys in his pocket, and hits the automatic switch to pop open the door locks.

  “I checked that,” he says, smiling to himself. “Didn’t tell you in Bad Lunsburg, but I found his business number first. They told me Helmut would be home in the afternoon. Something about a birthday party.”

  Kramer surveys the well-maintained grounds surrounding the villa. “He’s going to love us crashing his party.” Then he looks at Randall. “What business, and why the hell are you smiling like a drain pipe?”

  “It’s interesting,” Randall says. “Not indicative, only interesting.” He looks at Kramer out the corner of his eye.

  “Out with it,” Kramer says.

  “The German-Czech Trade Alliance. That’s the name of Helmut’s business. Cute, huh?”

  Kramer thinks about this for a moment. It’s surprising enough that Helmut is a successful capitalist; stranger still he’s doing business with the Czech Republic.

  “I bet the boys in Prague never heard of Helmut’s trip there in 1968,” Randall says.

  Kramer shakes his head, feels a shiver of realization pass over him. “And I don’t suppose he wants them to know, either.”

  Randall nods in agreement.

  Kramer finally says the unspoken, “Another person with motive?”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  They sit in the car another moment watching the rain fall steadily, coursing down the windshield in rivulets.

  “Shall we?” Kramer finally says, and he and Randall get out, lock the doors, and go to the iron gate at the head of the drive. There is a bell and speaking grill built into the concrete post on one side of the
gate. Kramer rings it once, and a voice comes on immediately.

  “Yes?” Expectant.

  “We’re here to see Herr Pringl.”

  “Finally.” The male voice sounds relieved; it also sounds familiar: low and precise with harsh gutturals.

  “We’ve been expecting you,” the voice continues. “Come up to the main house.”

  The gate is rung open, and the intercom buzzes off before Kramer can identify himself. He gives Randall a look and gets a shrug in return.

  “Word gets around, I guess,” Randall says.

  It’s far enough to use the car, especially with the rain falling as it is, so they return to the Mercedes, get in, and pull into the gravel driveway, staring amazed at the bushes clipped into shapes of zoo animals on both sides of the lane.

  “Think there’ll be gnomes on the lawn?” Randall says.

  There aren’t, but there is an elephant’s foot umbrella stand in the entryway when they are admitted by a maid who looks like she belongs along the Mediterranean. She tells them to wait, that Herr Pringl will be right with them. From a room deeper in the cavernous house, they hear the sounds of children’s laughter. Steps echo toward them, reverberating in the high-ceilinged entryway. The main stairs face them, leading up to a bank of stained-glass windows twelve feet high on the first landing. Blue and golden light is cast down the stairs through glass irises and dahlias.

  The resounding footsteps draw closer, and Helmut comes into view from the rooms to the left. He is dressed in white flannels, a pearl-gray sweater, and burgundy leather slip-ons whose tassels bounce as he walks. His hair is slicked back like a Hollywood smoothie of the 1930s, and he wears round mock tortoise-shell glasses. He stops dead in his tracks, does a double take on Kramer and Randall, glances over his shoulder back to the sound of the voices, now more petulant sounding than before, and then looks back to the two of them.

  “My Christ!” he says in his stiff school English. It always sounded funny coming out of his very German throat. “What are you two doing here?”

  “We’re happy to see you, too, Helmut,” Kramer says.

  “I am sorry,” Helmut says, suddenly remembering manners. “It is such a surprise.” Another guilty glance over his shoulder. “We were expecting someone else, to tell you the truth.”

  “I had that feeling,” Kramer says.

  “So how’s it going, Helmut?” Randall goes up to him and gives him a hug that is returned with a stiff upper body by Helmut and quickly broken.

  “Haven’t seen you in more than twenty years,” Randall continues effusively. “And it looks like you’re doing all right for yourself.”

  “It really is terrific to see you fellows again,” Helmut says flatly.

  Another glance over the shoulder and this time there is the clicking of high heels coming toward them. A blonde woman, perhaps mid-twenties, with a beauty mark painted on her upper lip and breasts that could keep her afloat in case their yacht capsized, does the same double take Helmut did earlier.

  “But this isn’t the clown,” she says.

  Kramer gets the feeling they should have used the trade entrance.

  “No, dear,” Helmut says. “These are some old friends of mine.”

  She looks Randall up and down and raises her penciled-in eyebrows.

  “How nice.” Then, turning to Helmut, “And what about the clown? Herr Pavel’s child is getting impatient.”

  “Look, I’m sorry we came at a bad time, Helmut,” Kramer says. “How about we get together after the party?”

  “Well, naturally …”

  “It will be a very long party, Mr… . ?” the woman interrupts.

  “Kramer,” he says, extending his hand to the lady. She takes it limply; hers is cold as a dead fish. “You’re Helmut’s wife?”

  She nods and Helmut gives her a hug, which she tolerates just as Helmut earlier allowed Randall’s embrace.

  “Katia Felsen-Pringl.” He beams at her like the owner of a fancy car. “We’ve been married just a year.”

  “Great,” Randall says, looking straight at her breasts under the mohair sweater she’s wearing.

  “And this is Randall,” Helmut says to his wife. “We knew each other in Vienna.”

  Kramer senses Helmut almost warming to them. Then the maid returns.

  “Herr Pringl, the party agency just called. The clown is sick. They fear it’s pneumonia.”

  “Oh, lovely,” Frau Pringl says. “Now what do we do? The children are expecting him.”

  She looks like a child herself, Kramer notices, in spite of all the silly attempt at vamping. Like a child who got into her mother’s makeup kit. Her lips pout; her eyes water.

  “Well, we’ll get out of your way,” Kramer begins.

  “Have no fear,” Randall says, pulling three umbrellas out of the elephant’s foot, throwing one aloft and then balancing it head to toe on the other two like Chinese sticks. “One clown, at your service.” The suspended umbrella falls to the floor with a clatter.

  “I do better with oranges.” He smiles engagingly. “Just get me some lipstick for my nose, and we’re in business.”

  “I couldn’t presume on old friendships,” Helmut says, but his wife is more pragmatic.

  “Can you really juggle?”

  “Madam, I have been juggling all my adult life. It is the one thing I can do.” Randall’s eyes never leave her breasts.

  “Here, then.” She has an evening bag handy in the wardrobe by the door, fetches out a lipstick from it, and hands it to Randall. She doesn’t hide the fact that she’s doing this under duress, almost as if she is doing Randall the favor. “Hurry!”

  And she is gone, strutting back on her clicking heels over the parquet, her tiny ass firm and high.

  Helmut sighs and then smiles at them. “Really, this is awfully good of you.”

  “Think nothing of it, Trotsky,” Randall says, lapsing into their old nickname for him.

  Helmut blushes and swallows hard. “I would appreciate it if we could forget the past for the time being. You see, I have some very important guests here. Important to my business, I mean. Fellows from Prague who have absolutely no sense of humor. In fact, it is the birthday of the child of one of these men whom we are celebrating.”

  “Don’t worry, Trots … I mean, Helmut, old chump.” Randall pats him on the back as he applies the lipstick to lips and nose. “Mum’s the word.” He looks in the hallway mirror, leaning against a mahogany letter table, puckers his lips, adds another touch of red to the tip of his nose, then shrugs.

  “Showtime,” he says.

  Helmut is all nerves as they approach the room where the kids are. Kramer is impressed not only by the size of the villa, but also by the quiet taste with which it is decorated. Either the Pringls had the good sense to hire a fine interior decorator, or Helmut’s wife is not as ditzy as she appears. Either way, it proves they are not complete nouveaux.

  “Look, I’ll just sort of hang back here,” Kramer says as the kids’ voices grow louder and more insistent. “No introductions necessary, okay? We leave when Randall’s done his shtick. But I do need to talk to you. Soon.”

  Helmut looks into Kramer’s eyes, and for an instant the old Helmut is there behind the glasses: the old intensity and empathy. Then his wife grabs his arm, dragging Helmut into the room.

  “Tell them the clown is here,” she hisses in his ear.

  Helmut talks directly to the portly man seated in the largest armchair in the room: Herr Pavel, Kramer figures, peeking through the open door.

  “Sorry about the delay,” he says. “But here he is, the man we’ve been waiting for, Randall the Magnificent!”

  Randall chuckles to himself and makes a stumbling entrance into the party room, coming within an inch of sticking his bright red nose into the ornate birthday cake. Instant laughter.

&
nbsp; For the next ten minutes, he juggles everything in sight: oranges and apples, cake plates and cut-crystal juice glasses, even eyeglasses, which he gathers from the adults, including Herr Pavel, who laughs in spite of himself. Kramer loves it, watching Randall do what he does best: making people laugh.

  Randall finishes with a flourish, juggling the poker, shovel, and brush from the fireplace, and the kids are on their feet clapping for an encore. But Randall takes his leave like all good theater folk; making them want more.

  In the hall again, Randall uses a towel supplied by the maid to wipe off the lipstick. He’s beaming, hyper, ready for more.

  “Maybe I won’t be a truck driver, after all, Sam.”

  Kramer shakes his head. “You could be a Zen truck driver. Look, no hands at all.”

  Randall makes his lips turn upward; it cannot be classified as a smile.

  “Do me a favor, Sam. You’re the straight man, okay. Jokes are my territory.”

  Helmut stops them at the door. “That was marvelous, Randall. Herr Pavel loved it.”

  “How about the kids?”

  “Oh, they did, too.” Then catching himself again. “Okay, so I’ve changed.”

  “We all have, Helmut,” Kramer says. “Nobody’s making judgments.”

  “You’ve come about Reni, haven’t you?”

  Kramer nods. “But you get back to your guests now. We’ll talk later.”

  “What is it?” Helmut says. “Collecting for some sort of remembrance?”

  “No,” Kramer says.

  “Well?”

  “You got a minute?”

  Helmut looks back toward the party room. “They’re opening presents now. Come into my study.” He leads them in the opposite direction from the party, through further groups of high-ceilinged rooms rich in Oriental carpeting, fine oils, and museum-quality furniture. There is a smell of wood polish to it all: the smell of wealth.

  Helmut’s study would serve as the library for a small liberal arts college in the States, Kramer figures. Several thousand leather-bound volumes fill the floor to ceiling built-in bookcases. Red and green leather club chairs in front of a river-rock fireplace; Kasimir prints of Vienna on the free wall space.