Basic Law

by J Sydney Jones

  “I thought they never did,” Kramer says.

  “That’s from detective books. Take it from me, most murderers look like murderers. Especially with something like this. We’re not talking the heat of the moment. If Müller was killed, we’re talking about a well-planned operation. Somebody sat up nights working it out.”

  “So, how about it?” Kramer says.

  “The trace? If he’s the big winner with Müller’s estate, her lawyers should know where he is.”

  “Something tells me they’re not going to be cooperative.”

  Boehm smiles. “Rattling their cage, were we? Not smart. The only thing those two have to hide is their love.”

  “Schnelling and Walther?” They seem so cold and lifeless to Kramer that he is surprised they have any sex life, homo or hetero.

  It might explain things, though, he thinks. Like the other day when I burst into their office. Was it the housing project they were trying to hide, or the fact that they were making out in the middle of the afternoon?

  He smiles to himself. It actually makes them more human. He’s no homophobe. For Kramer, the only sin is having no one to love.

  “Something funny about that?” Boehm says, misunderstanding Kramer’s smile.

  “No, nothing. Maybe I was pissing on the wrong fire with them. Like I say, they’re not likely to be very helpful.”

  Boehm gets up suddenly, hitching at his waist band with his elbows. “I’ll see what I can do about Gerhard Schwarz. This is a trade, right? You keep out of Vogel’s way for the time being. I don’t want him running for cover just yet.”

  After Boehm leaves, Kramer goes to the post office and faxes his messages. It has grown cold suddenly and the rain has stopped. To the east are herringboned clouds scudding high and fast. Snow, he tells himself. He can smell it in the air.

  Back at the hotel, Randall is finally up and finishing off an English breakfast in the solarium, the local paper open to the entertainment section on the table in front of him.

  Randall looks up as Kramer enters. “Sam, old boy. You eaten?”

  “Hours ago.” He sits across from Randall. “You look the shits. What’s up?”

  “Not my pecker, thank you.” He finishes his coffee, closes the paper, and rolls it into a baton, which he sticks into his jacket pocket. “What’s on the agenda for today?”

  His good humor is forced, Kramer knows, but lets it go.

  “We’re put on hold,” he says, then tells of Boehm’s visit.

  Randall nods as Kramer finishes. “Just as well. I have a feeling about this, that the past holds more secrets than the present. Cherchez les temps perdu, not the frigging Nazis. This Vogel cat’s a geek, a sideshow. I think it all comes back to Prague, like Helmut says.”

  “What about the car, then?” Kramer counters. “The late visit the very night Reni died?”

  “There are lots of purple cars, Sam. And we don’t know exactly when Reni died or even if the occupants of that car were visiting her or some other fruitcake in town. And maybe, just maybe, the car really was stolen from Vogel.”

  Kramer says, “Mmm.”

  Kramer spends the next hours not thinking at all, just walking, walking. He follows a graveled road out of town into the vineyards. The vines have been cut back: small white circles against the aged brown wood mark the amputations. The sky is lowering and the smell of snow grows heavier. He climbs to a rise over the Rhine and watches cargo barges glide along the river, their decks spanned with washing hung out to dry. He wishes he were aboard one of those, just floating along through life. The water, thick and sluggish, looks a better medium than the hard pan of conflicting stories he’s plowing his way through.

  A red-nosed farmer drives past him on a spanking new tractor, waves a friendly hand, tops the crest of the hill, and is gone.

  Kramer wanders idly on, forcing his mind off thoughts of Reni, memoirs, Rick, or neo-Nazis. He wants a clearing cut in the vegetation to allow some light in. He follows the track down and up through the vineyards, liking the pull of muscles in the back of his legs, the thumping of his heart in his chest, and the pound of it in his ears. His city shoes hurt and he wishes he had his old hiking boots. They’re sitting in the hallway wardrobe back in Vienna. Suddenly, he’s almost nostalgic for his flat, for the routines of the life he’s built in Vienna.

  But his thoughts are cut short by the whine of a car engine behind him. He’s meandered down into a gully where the lane narrows to the width of a single car and threads between high hedgerows. The thick branches of the hedgerows allow no passage through them. Only a few feet from a blind corner, Kramer decides it’s a good idea to put some space between him and the approaching vehicle. Suddenly, the pitch of the engine whine grows louder, higher.

  The car is speeding, and Kramer walks more quickly at first. Then, as the sound of the car gets closer and closer, he begins to run along the dirt track. He stumbles over a clump of grass in the middle and, as he is picking himself up, sees the car turn the tight corner into the gully. It’s purple, and that’s all it takes for him to push himself to his feet and race forward blindly, searching the shrubbery to both sides for a way through. He feels like a trapped animal forced down a chute. One way out, and that is straight ahead with the car gaining on him every second.

  Breath catches in his throat; his heart is pounding wildly. The track climbs out of the gully, and he sees a break in the hedgerows ahead, but the car is gaining on him. It shifts into a lower gear as it too begins to climb the incline. The break in the hedgerow is getting closer and closer, but Kramer knows he will not make it; feels the car on his heels. No place to hide.

  Suddenly, the car stops in back of him; a voice calls out, “I didn’t know you were a jogger, Herr Kramer.”

  Kramer stops in his tracks, sweat pouring down his face. He knows the voice. Turning, he sees Walther grinning at him, his head sticking out the driver’s side of his Porsche.

  Kramer breathes deeply, his entire body feeling relief.

  “This is private property, you know,” Walther says. “It’s posted.”

  “Then what are you doing here?” Kramer asks, keeping his distance from the car.

  “Examining my property,” Walther says. “Real estate is such a fine investment, don’t you think?” Walther revs his engine once again, like a threat. “You really should be careful where you go running, Herr Kramer. All these narrow lanes and blind curves. One could have an accident so easily.”

  “I’ll remember that.” Kramer edges against the prickly branches of the hedgerow as Walther puts the car into gear once again, slips past Kramer, and gives him a wave in his rearview mirror.

  Back at the hotel a note from Boehm is waiting: No sign of Gerhard in Germany. A Swiss bank is managing the inheritance for him; no trace on that end, either. But Boehm has been busy on the computer and has come up with recent credit-card purchases. One stands out for Kramer: a one-way ticket to Athens purchased two months ago.

  It’s the lead he’s been searching for.

  Three hours later, he and Randall board an Olympic flight to Athens.

  Seated at the back of the plane are two men with newspapers open, covering their faces. One is a large man with a neck so short and thick that his head appears connected directly to his shoulders. He is massive in width, taking up arm space well into the second man’s area. This second one is smaller, and his lips move as he reads the sports section of Bild. The larger one is not reading. He moves his newspaper slightly aside as Kramer and Randall stow their carry-on bags into the overhead compartment. Watching them, he smiles to himself, then adjusts the paper once again to conceal his face.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  After an overnight in Athens, they catch the early morning flight for Crete, arriving in Iráklion. The day is clear and the orange groves surrounding the city are in blossom. It is all lush and golden under a high s
un; they have left Europe behind.

  Iráklion is only a stopover; the bus for the south coast leaves in half an hour, long enough for Randall to seek out a souvlaki stand and gorge himself on greasy mutton, washed down with a Fix beer.

  Their bus is new and flat-nosed with wide panoramic windows, a million light-years away from the old rattletrap buses that once crisscrossed the island. But boarding with the other twelve passengers, Kramer is pleased to see that the driver has not been overwhelmed by luxury. The dash and front window are still the miniature shrine they have always been for Greek bus drivers, festooned with worry beads and sacred cartoons, decked out in plastic flowers and pictures of smiling kids. Kramer is reminded momentarily of the computers in the Real Editions office in Berlin.

  The driver jumps aboard and starts the engine, glancing at the passengers briefly and frowning because there are so few: such a paltry audience for his performance. He is still young enough to be in love with speed, letting them all know what they’re in for before reaching the outskirts of Iráklion: honking through intersections with the door open to be able to gesticulate at drivers to his right; screeching rubber around corners and speed clutching down instead of braking; jacking up the volume on his miniature boom box and filling the bus with bouzouki music and a wailing male voice that symbolizes the eastern Mediterranean for Kramer.

  Randall lifts an eyebrow at Kramer and promptly drifts off to sleep. But Kramer watches it all: the passage through small villages surrounding the capital, through lush groves of orange trees and into the more arid hill country, climbing, climbing; the country beginning to look more and more like the American Southwest; the meager farms, houses freshly whitewashed houses under a sparkling sun. Still climbing, they pass wooden trellises laden with grapes, drying into raisins, on both sides of the road. Off to the right now, he sees the snowcapped tip of Mount Ida. The driver uses his horn around tight curves; the music blares, unchanging, as if it is one continuous song. Kramer nods off for a time despite his best intentions, and when he is jolted awake by a sharp application of the brakes and a rocking, swerving motion, he looks out the window to see a wide-eyed farmer in a small HiAce pickup that the bus leaves behind as if stationary.

  They are descending now, out of the highlands and into another verdant agricultural plain, the Messara, around the market town of Timbaki, their destination.

  Behind them, following at a discrete two hundred yards, is a blue, late model, four-wheel-drive Suzuki; its front seats are occupied by two men, obviously from northern Europe. The inside of the vehicle smells of leather and gun oil. In the backseat, protected by cowhide slipcovers, are two bolt-action Mannlichers the men bought at a certain hunting shop in Iráklion. Next to the leather cases are five packages of cartridges. They will score the lead themselves, so that the bullets will spread more easily upon impact. To purchase hollow points would be to call attention to themselves. These two men are cautious; they are pros.

  Dr. Alexandros Kariakis is just finishing his afternoon surgery when Kramer and Randall arrive at his office. The doctor still has no secretary; patients simply take a seat in the waiting room until he calls them.

  Kariakis pokes his bearded satyrlike head out into the room and calls out automatically in Greek, “Next.” Then he squints more closely, smiles, and bounds into the waiting room, arms outstretched.

  “Kramer! Is it really you?”

  Kramer rises and meets the bearish-looking doctor; they embrace, and he feels the man’s ample stomach against his. They’ve both put on weight over the years. Kariakis digs his fingers into Kramer’s shoulders, holding him at arm’s length.

  “Where have you been all these years, barbarian?”

  Kramer smiles, shrugs. “Around.”

  Kariakis begins to laugh; it is deep and rattling, and ends in a coughing fit. He is a friend from Kramer’s days in Crete; he tended to Reni once when she had a bout of food poisoning and became much more than a doctor to them.

  “Come in, come in,” Kariakis says, leading the way into his office and lighting a cigarette to stifle his cough before sitting behind a scarred old desk.

  Nothing has changed here: the same eye charts on the wall, the same ancient examining table, perhaps even the same sheet covering it. A medical degree on the wall from the University of Delaware. Ash tumbles down the front of Kariakis’s white coat as he looks expectantly from Kramer to Randall. Kramer makes introductions and the doctor indicates two chairs.

  “Sit, sit. You must be tired from being around so long. You never wrote, barbarian.”

  Kramer sighs, “I sort of put all this out of my mind.”

  “Is it in the air, then?”

  Kramer smiles incomprehension at him.

  “Reunions. Everybody returning to the omphalos.”

  Good, Kramer thinks. I was right. “Who else has been back lately?” he says.

  Kariakis suddenly looks at the cigarette with disgust, as if only now realizing he is smoking, then stabs it out in a glass ashtray on the corner of his desk. It is filled with other such shredded butts.

  “Your friend,” he says. “The Chameleon.”

  Bingo.

  The hills shimmer and ripple in the heat; the fragrance of mountain thyme is heavy in the air. Sweat drips into Kramer’s eyes as he proceeds up the hill, the unfamiliar boots on his feet pinching with every step. Randall is in back, whistling what sounds like an aria from a Puccini opera. Kramer does not know which one. Gazing up at the snowcapped peak ahead of him momentarily, he stumbles over a rock in the path, kicks up dust, and then looks down at the trail like it was the rock’s fault.

  The whistling stops. “How much farther, Sam?”

  “Why? You gotta pee? Stick it out anywhere.”

  “You get funnier the longer I’m around. What’re you going to do for straight men after I’m gone?”

  “I don’t know,” Kramer says, answering the previous question. “I’ve never made this climb before.”

  He stops, adjusting the weight on the old backpack he borrowed from Kariakis. The back of his shirt is drenched with sweat. A thick line runs down the middle of the front as well, dark against the khaki. He unfastens the canteen at his web belt, unscrews the cap, and takes a long swallow. It’s warm and tastes of aluminum. He passes it to Randall.

  He squints again at the top of the mountain. The snow there looks golden under the high sun. Bees are busy in the thyme bushes to both sides of the goat trail they’re following; black desiccated goat pellets are underfoot. From a distance, he hears the clanging of a bell around a buck’s neck. High overhead, a hawk circles in an updraft; a sudden breeze cools Kramer as it breathes on the wetness of his shirt.

  Despite the heat, the pinching boots—which he purchased in Timbaki this morning before departing—the canteen—which has no canvas sheath to keep wet for insulation—and Randall’s off-tune whistling, Kramer is loving this. His mind is clear, his body throbbing with exertion, his feet itching to get under way again. Give him a path to the horizon and walking boots on his feet and he’s a happy man.

  “I don’t get the thrill of it all,” Randall suddenly says. “This is work, not recreation. Recreation means having fun, means having other people do the work for you.”

  Kramer looks back at Randall who is gazing over the groves of huge-boled olive trees on the Messara Plain below, a red handkerchief tied over his shaved head.

  “It’s something we always planned to do,” Kramer says. “Follow the old Minoan routes across the island, up Mount Ida.” He looks again at the snowy saddle ahead. “The birthplace of Zeus, home of rebels and brigands. It’s where the resistance held out during the German occupation.”

  But Randall is still unconvinced. He grunts once, takes a swig of water, and spits it out.

  “It’s tepid. Stout is the only drink that should be served tepid.”

  Kramer takes the canteen back
, caps it, and says nothing. He clips it to his belt, takes a deep breath, hitches up the pack, and starts out again.

  They’ve been on the path for four hours already, leaving their rented car at the tiny village of Lourakia at the base of the mountain. According to Kariakis, Gerhard has been walking the ancient paths for the past two months, wherever they still exist, wherever they have not been paved over by highways. Kramer came up with the notion more than twenty years ago, after discovering a map of the routes as well as descriptions of their lengths in a book by the archaeologist Pendlebury. On a later visit to Vienna’s National Library, he had searched out the only topographic maps available to the island in sufficient scale for hiking—1:50,000—drawn by the Wehrmacht in 1940. Thirty sheets of them copied and folded neatly in a waxed cotton sleeve and left behind with other detritus of the Cretan chapter of his life after the island had become too much for him to bear; after Reni’s defection had ruined it for him. Kariakis had magpied the maps and given them to Gerhard when he returned to the island earlier in the fall.

  Kramer thinks of Kariakis’s nickname for Gerhard: Chameleon. It is apposite. He slaps at an insect on his neck, smiling at the name.

  Gary Black.

  “You ever ask him why he changed his name?” Kramer suddenly calls back to Randall.

  “You mean Gerhard?”

  “Right.”

  The squeak of leather straps and the glugging jostle of the canteen flapping against Kramer’s hip punctuate their conversation.

  “No. Never mentioned it. Too weird to mention.”

  Kramer laughs. Exactly. Everyone was changing their names in the ’60s and ’70s: Tipi and Sunset and Rainbow. But Gerhard for Gary? Schwarz for Black? Give me a break, Kramer thinks. Yet nobody ever questioned it. It was too weird to deal with. The Yank gone native in Kraut land.

  Kramer has no idea what to expect when he catches up with Gerhard; is not exactly sure why he has come all this way to find him. According to Kariakis, Gerhard has been hiking the country for the past two months, not back in Germany dosing Reni with barbiturates so as to inherit her small fortune. But who’s to know? Kramer wonders. Who’s to say where Gerhard’s been? Traveling alone; no set itinerary. He could have taken a break for a spot of homicide. Using the walking tour as his alibi.