Basic Law

by J Sydney Jones

  “He’s not listed, remember?” Randall tries the front door; it’s unlocked and they enter the tiny vestibule with stairs leading directly upward.

  Low ceilings, narrow hallways, the sound of televisions coming through thin walls. Not the sort of place an artist would rent, Kramer thinks. He tries to remember Rick, his tastes, his dreams. But all he comes up with is the face from the picture he found at Reni’s. For having been such great friends, there is little remaining. Prague erased most of it.

  This is Randall’s show; Kramer lets him track the apartment down. It’s on the fifth floor at one end of the corridor. An engraved card lit up under plastic on the door holds the same initials as the paintings: RF. Randall rings the bell. Kramer looks around the dim hallway. No one about. Randall rings it again; there is a shuffling sound from inside finally.

  “Did the woman from the gallery say if he was up and about?” Kramer says. “I mean, we don’t want to be dragging him out of bed.”

  The fish-eye peephole is covered from the inside for a moment; someone is checking them out.

  “Hey, Rick …” Randall says. But he has no time to say more, for the door is suddenly kicked open against his head, knocking him back into Kramer. They stumble, but the corridor wall keeps them from falling. Getting his balance, Kramer looks into the double barrels of a shotgun pointed straight at his head.

  “What do you want?” The woman aiming the gun is tall and scary looking with nostrils flaring and blonde hair teased impossibly high. Short leather skirt and thigh-high boots. The finger gripping the trigger has a black-lacquered nail. She speaks German with a southern accent, almost Austrian.

  “We’re here to see Rick,” Randall says from in back of the door, and the shotgun tracks right to include him. He peeks his head around the door that has wedged him against the corridor wall. She jerks her head to the left for him to come out.

  Kramer sizes her up, checks the distance, her hyper state, his chances of making a play for the gun without having his insides sprayed all over the walls.

  She continues to glare at them both, and Kramer can sense she is losing it.

  “We’re friends,” he says quickly in German. “We’re not here to harm anybody. We have no weapons.” His mind races. Reassure her, he thinks. Tell her anything to make that right forefinger ease off the trigger incrementally.

  Her jaw muscles work furiously as she stands between them and the flat; her breath comes in rapid bursts.

  “You’re the cocksuckers did it to him, aren’t you?”

  “What’s she talking about, Sam?” Randall tries out his most winning smile on her, but she only squints her eyes at him, jabbing the barrels toward his stomach.

  “I should blow you both in half.”

  Kramer thinks he knows the lay of the land, now. “We’re friends of Rick. From long ago. Americans. We’re not here to hurt him. Is that what you’re afraid of?”

  His words reach her, but she doesn’t lower the gun.

  “Maybe you could just ask Rick,” Kramer says. “He’ll tell you.” If he’s here at all, Kramer thinks. Please be here, Rick. Please remember us.

  She looks at Randall, then back to Kramer. There is doubt in her eyes.

  Good. Kramer takes a long breath.

  “Look, goddammit,” Randall says, waving the gun away. “I don’t like having that thing pointed in my direction.”

  Maybe she does not understand the words, but Randall’s tone comes through loud and clear. She instantly flexes again. Kramer has an insane desire to strangle Randall, feeling like one who has talked a suicide back from the edge, only to have a bill collector come to the window and begin hectoring.

  “Honestly, miss,” Kramer hastily says, “we are not your enemy. My friend’s just nervous with that gun pointing at him. And we’re not thugs, despite these bruises and bandages.”

  Another tense moment and finally she jerks the shotgun toward the door, gesturing them to go in front of her. “Hands on your heads!”

  Kramer does as she says; Randall follows his lead. “She nuts, Sam?” he whispers.

  Kramer says nothing. The flat is in darkness, all shades drawn, only a faint glow from under the door of one room. Kramer bumps into the edge of a couch, loses his balance for a moment, and feels the twin metal circles of the shotgun barrel dig into his back.

  She directs them toward this one strip of light from under the door. “Open it,” she hisses at Kramer. “Slowly. Keep your hands in plain view.”

  He feels the barrels at his back again, prodding. He does as he’s told, twisting the metal knob and quickly raising his hands over his head once again. The door opens inward, and they enter a room full of mirrors, which make it appear there is an entire symphony orchestra of men with hands on their heads and blond Valkyries toting shotguns.

  A circular bed is to the right, built partially into the wall. A figure lies there quietly. The light comes from a small bedside lamp that looks like a giant arachnid.

  “I found these scum outside,” the woman says. “They say they know you.”

  The form slowly sits up in bed, bandages on face and hands. Two eyes peer out of the bandages, deep brown and almond-shaped.

  “Rick?” Kramer says. “It’s me, Sam. Randall, too.”

  The eyes blink once, twice. Silence.

  The barrels dig into Kramer’s back.

  “Rick?”

  The figure slumps down again. Then a muffled voice speaks, “You silly sons of bitches. You almost got yourselves disemboweled.” Then to the woman, in German, “It’s okay, Margit. They’re friends. Relax.”

  The barrels are removed from his back and Kramer has to stop himself from turning on her and grabbing the gun out of her hands.

  “What the hell’s going on, Rick?” he asks.

  A bandaged hand waves them toward the bed. “Have a seat. There’s plenty of room on the bed.”

  But Margit gets there first, taking the front-row seat, laying the shotgun to her side on the black satin sheets and cradling his head in her strong arms. Kramer and Randall sit uneasily on the edge of the bed on the other side of Rick.

  “What happened to you?” Randall says.

  “He shouldn’t speak too much,” Margit says suddenly in passable English. Playing linguistic possum before, apparently, Kramer thinks. “He’s got stitches,” she adds, again in English.

  “It’s okay, babe,” Rick says. Then to Kramer and Randall, “You are looking at a statistic, gentlemen. Another incident of violence against foreigners.”

  He tries to laugh, but the bandages choke off his mirth.

  “They did this to you?” Kramer says. “Neo-Nazis?”

  “They thought I was Chinese.” Another muffled laugh. “Is that funny, Sam, or what? We all look alike to them. They can’t tell the difference between a Vietnamese and a Japanese.”

  “Not so much talk, Rick,” Margit says, now opting only for English. Then to Kramer, “He likes to paint in the red-light district. It’s where we met.”

  “Don’t believe a word she says, Sam,” Rick says, but his voice comes from a distance, like listening to someone on a bad international phone connection. “She’s the love of my life. Margit is a scholar, not a whore.”

  Margit raises her eyebrows at this, but it clearly pleases her. She strokes Rick’s bandaged head.

  “I was there the day it happened,” she says. “A bunch of rowdies and skins came into the district.”

  She looks at Randall’s shaved head, and Kramer now understands why she was so jumpy when she saw them through the peephole.

  “They were out to carve any foreigners they found there soiling lovely German maidens. Jesus, as if it’s not a job and as if I wouldn’t rather have an Asian between my thighs than one of those fucked-up little kids who cry for their mommies when they come.”

  “Didn’t I tel
l you, Sam?” Rick says. “A scholar.”

  She ignores this, and continues, “Well, they see Rick there painting and they go crazy. There were three of them who cut him. If not for the girls, they would have killed him.”

  “They love me there,” Rick offers. “I’ve painted them all.”

  “We saw,” Randall says. “It’s how we found you. The lady at the gallery gave me your address.”

  “You were looking for me? Why?”

  Kramer’s mind is functioning again. “When did this happen? How long ago?”

  Rick looks at Margit, shrugging. “Three, four weeks ago?” he asks.

  She nods.

  “How bad is it?” Kramer asks.

  Rick hesitates. “The witch doctors say I’ll be able to work again.”

  “They cut his hands badly,” Margit says. “One tendon was severed.”

  “I won’t be much to look at, I guess. Bandages come off in ten days.”

  “Don’t worry, lover.” Margit hugs him. “You’ll be beautiful.” She looks up at Kramer with tears in her eyes.

  More silence, and then Rick’s muffled voice, “Why were you looking for me? You hear about this? I wanted it kept quiet. It wasn’t in the papers, was it? No names, no follow-up visits from the skinheads, I figure.”

  “No,” Kramer says. “It wasn’t in the papers.” He decides on the direct approach. “Reni’s dead. Did you know that?”

  Rick sits up suddenly. “Reni? No way.”

  “Yes,” Kramer says. “I’m afraid so.”

  “How? What happened?”

  “They say it was suicide,” Kramer says.

  Margit looks at him warily, a wolf bitch protecting her pup. It’s as if she knows they are bringing complications into Rick’s life. Kramer senses loyalty in her; a loyalty so strong it will destroy anyone she perceives as Rick’s enemy.

  “I didn’t hear,” Rick finally says, slumping back down in bed. “I haven’t got much news lately. Shit. Reni dead. She seemed so percolating last time I saw her.”

  Kramer exchanges glances with Randall. “You make it sound recent. Did you two stay in touch?”

  Rick nods his bandaged head. “Just lately. I mean it must have been twenty years since I saw her. But she caught my exhibition, just like you. Came up to the studio one day like no time had elapsed since sixty-eight. Like it was just yesterday we talked last.”

  “When?” Kramer says.

  “The first time? Maybe three months ago.” He does not look at Margit for confirmation this time, and Kramer can see jealousy playing on her face.

  “So you saw her quite a bit lately?” Kramer says.

  “Every time she came to her meetings. Maybe once a month.”

  “What meetings?”

  “Good old Reni. Up to her usual tricks. Scamming and being sehr engagiert. Told me she’d infiltrated some group of right-wingers. Became the trusted new Fascist in their midst, acting as if she’d given all the old leftist bullshit up for good. What a lark she was having! Last time, she was laughing out her ass about how she was gathering all this terrific information on the group. Sponsor lists, friends in high places in Bonn, all that kind of stuff. Even mention of connections in the skin trade.”

  Kramer sees Margit blush at this bit of information, but Rick does not notice, continuing with his story. “I thought Reni was going to pee her pants telling me about it. That’s how I’d like to remember her: laughing at the world. She sure didn’t seem suicidal at the time.”

  “She didn’t mention the name of the group, did she?” Kramer says.

  “God, I don’t know. They all sound like something out of a bad World War Two movie. Besides, I only half-believed her. Reni loved to fabricate. That was what made her fun to be around. She talked about memoirs, too. ‘Jesus,’ I said, ‘they’re for old farts.’ But she only smiled. Great smile she had. Wish I could have painted that some time. You know one side of her mouth was lower than the other? She cut it when she was a kid.”

  Kramer nods, remembering her lopsided smile. “Did you see her after you were attacked?”

  “No,” Margit says. “There were no visitors.”

  “So what’s the mystery, Sam?” Rick says. “Why all the questions? You don’t think her death had anything to do with me getting cut?”

  Margit looks at the bandage on Kramer’s forehead; examines the bruises on Randall’s face. She does not like what she sees.

  “You need to sleep, lover,” she says.

  “Sam?” Rick says. “You didn’t answer me.”

  “I don’t know, Rick. There just seems to be a lot of violence coming down lately.”

  “It’s a violent world.”

  “Yeah,” Kramer says. “I guess so.” Then, “Someone killed Reni. I’m pretty sure of that.”

  Rick does not reply; his eyes blink at them some more.

  “She always played it close to the edge,” Rick says finally. “It was only a matter of time before somebody finally gave her a shove.”

  The old hotel in Bad Lunsburg is beginning to look like home away from home. The potted palms cheer Kramer as he enters the lobby; the look of recognition from the desk clerk is reassuring.

  “Morning, Karl.”

  The clerk nods. “He is calling again. The one from Paris.”

  Turning, the clerk plucks a sheaf of notes out of Kramer’s pigeonhole. “Five times yesterday. Three times already this morning. Is he a relative, Herr Kramer?”

  “Worse,” Kramer says, taking the notes from Karl. “He’s my employer. Thinks he owns my soul.”

  “Employers are dreck,” Karl says, then feels he has overstepped himself. “If you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “My sentiments exactly.” Kramer looks at the notes briefly. Pretty much the same message in all of them: Get back to Vienna or else. One of them, however, is not from Marty. The rest Kramer tosses in a wastepaper basket on his side of the counter and then goes to the row of phone booths in a far corner of the lobby.

  Randall, meanwhile, has taken himself off to the breakfast room. Another rotten trip on the plane back from Munich this morning as far as Randall was concerned: rolls and coffee only. No real nutrition. Randall suddenly seems to need nutrition all the time. Like cheese; like meat. Funny thing about that, Kramer thinks, entering a vacant booth and placing the message in front of him on a tiny plastic tabletop. When he’s being bankrolled, Randall forgets about being a vegetarian.

  Kramer slides his Visa card through the magnetic strip reader and dials the number on the message. Three beeps later, Pahlus is on the line in Berlin.

  “You called?” Kramer said.

  “Aah, yes, Mr. Kramer.”

  His voice sounds up today, Kramer thinks.

  “I just wanted to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Well, for taking care of things as you did. Very honorable of you. We at Real Editions are most grateful.”

  “Hold on, friend,” Kramer says, watching the cost of the call tally on the red digital display in front of him. “I don’t think I follow at all.”

  “The advance,” Pahlus says, becoming impatient. “To thank you for returning the advance.”

  “You got your money back? The eighty thousand?”

  A pause from the other end. Then, “It was from the Müller estate. I thought that you must have …”

  “Hey, I’m only the literary executor. I don’t schlepp marks around.”

  “I see. Then I am sorry.”

  “Don’t be. When did you receive this little windfall?”

  “Yesterday. The cover letter says from the estate of Renata Müller, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “That’ll be her father, then. She must have left a stipulation in the will.”

  “That explains a lot, doesn’t it?” Pahlus says.

>   Again, Kramer feels one step behind. “Like what?”

  “Reni providing for us. Not leaving us in the lurch. I mean, if she was going to kill herself, the honorable thing would be to somehow cover her debts. I told you she was the most truthful person I ever met.”

  “Yeah. I’m very happy for you.”

  Talk to Eva Martok if you want to know about Reni’s honesty, Kramer thinks.

  “Mr. Kramer?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “Maybe it’s as the police there say. Maybe she really did commit suicide. Maybe there were no memoirs, after all. Why else would she make such a stipulation in her will?”

  Kramer thinks a moment. “I don’t know there was such a stipulation. Only a guess. And why appoint me literary executor for memoirs that never existed?” he counters. “You can’t have it both ways, Pahlus. Either she was honest about everything, or not.”

  Silence from Berlin for a time. “I suppose you’re right,” Pahlus finally says. “But this money could not have come at a better time for us.”

  “Answer me one thing, Pahlus. If I find the memoirs, you still interested in publication?”

  “Well …” His voice sounds pained, like the mention of memoirs gives him a stomachache. “I would have to confer with my colleagues.”

  “So it was the money,” Kramer says.

  “Look, without Reni to back them up, any allegations made in the memoirs would be meaningless, wouldn’t they?”

  “And you alone would be responsible for any libel charges,” Kramer says. “That’s what you really mean, isn’t it?”

  More silence. Then, “We’ve come a long way from our initial meeting, Mr. Kramer. I felt quite cordial toward you then. But suddenly, you are combative. Suddenly, you are only interested in finding fault. I tell you: find the memoirs and I’ll talk with the publisher.”

  “You have a contract,” Kramer says.

  “With a dead person, Mr. Kramer. Hardly valid. Has something gone wrong? You sound out of sorts. Unbalanced. Perhaps you’re too close to this matter to investigate it objectively.”