Basic Law

by J Sydney Jones

  It’s a jog and dodge of puddles and spiky umbrellas for the two blocks to his flat. Earlier this afternoon after returning from Crete, he and Randall stopped there only long enough for a shower and a change of clothes. But it felt good to be home, to be among his things once again. Seductive, the idea of security. But now, reaching the third floor with Randall panting alongside him, he immediately realizes that security is an illusion.

  His door is open, lights on. He and Randall approach warily, and a door to his right flies open. Frau Bechmann stands backlit in the housecoat that she wears day in and day out, her hair covered in a babushka. They say she was once in the corps de ballet at the State Opera; she looks like a cleaning lady.

  “You had some very rude visitors, Herr Kramer.”

  He nods at her, inching along cautiously toward his door.

  “Did you hear me? They were so noisy that I had to come to the door and tell them to keep it down. Petruschka was playing on the first channel. I could barely hear. Regular barbarians.”

  She pulls the housecoat more tightly around her waist when neither Randall nor Kramer respond. They are too busy examining the damage from the doorway of the flat.

  “Were they builders?” she asks.

  There is not a surface or piece of furniture undisturbed. Papers litter the floors; clothing has been torn and scattered about like oversize confetti; chairs are broken and legs spread about like fat matchsticks. Kramer catches a glimpse of the kitchen floor covered with rice and pasta. The Tyrolean hope chest is ripped apart, its contents lying in a sodden heap next to the broken painted panels and empty liquor bottles. Directly in front of him, so close that he only examines it last, is the wooden Madonna from Hungary. They have driven nails into her eyes and breasts.

  “Jesus, Sam!”

  Kramer turns to Frau Bechmann. “You saw them?”

  She looks at Kramer with silent suspicion.

  “What did they look like?”

  “I didn’t get a good look at them,” she says, pulling the housecoat tight around her neck, the veins on the backs her old hands bulging. “Only their backs. But they were quite large. Like movers.”

  “What did they say to you?” Kramer is persistent, but knows he is not going to get much out of her. She doesn’t want to get involved; doesn’t want to become a witness.

  “They told me to mind my own business. I ask you, is that any way to talk to a lady?”

  Kramer turns back, shaking his head at the destruction. “When was this?”

  She purses her lips, looks upward in cogitation. “An hour ago, maybe less.”

  “We were at the café then, Sam,” Randall says. “What if we’d come home early?”

  Kramer ignores this. “Thanks, Frau Bechmann. Sorry about the noise.”

  “Well, I missed most of Petruschka, thanks to them.” She turns and slams the door behind her.

  “I guess we should clean it up,” Kramer says.

  “Aren’t you calling the police?”

  Kramer shakes his head. “What’s the use?”

  “The use is that the authorities are the ones to be handling this. Maybe somebody saw the guys come or go. Saw their car. How’d they get in, anyway, without a house key?”

  “Just kept ringing apartments until someone buzzed them in without asking who was there,” Kramer says. “Simple enough. And the police don’t want to know about this, I guarantee you. I’ll bet nothing’s been stolen. Just damaged.”

  He traces fingers over the delicate carving of the wooden Madonna, feels anger rising like a black cloud over the horizon.

  “No, this wasn’t some breaking-and-entering goon. It’s a calling card. A warning. We going to tell the police that? You think they’ll understand?”

  “Maybe we should take the warning, Sam.”

  Kramer looks at him hard. “You going to help me clean up?”

  Fifteen minutes later, there is a knocking at the door and both Randall and Kramer tense. Kramer goes to the door, looks through the peephole, then unlocks it. Rudi’s driver is standing there with a green Julius Meinl shopping bag in hand and gives it to Kramer. His eyes stray over Kramer’s shoulder to the wreckage in the flat, go wide momentarily, but he says nothing.

  Kramer thanks him and shuts and double locks the door, ignoring Randall’s look of curiosity. The bag is heavy in Kramer’s hand as he carries it inside to the kitchen, sets the pine table upright and then plops the bag on top with a dull metal clunk. He looks inside the bag. The guns are wrapped in tissue paper, along with several boxes of ammunition for each piece. A note accompanies this, and Kramer reaches in and pulls it out: Call if you need help. Don’t be too smart.

  Randall comes in the kitchen as Kramer sits at the table, unwrapping the guns, hefting them for balance, and checking the trigger mechanisms.

  “I don’t like this,” Randall says over Kramer’s shoulder. “Is this what you went out for this afternoon?”

  Kramer says nothing, pulling the empty clip out of the pistol butt of one of the weapons, smelling the gun oil.

  “You hear me, Sam? This is getting way out of control. It’s not something we can play around with anymore.”

  Kramer looks up from the gun. “What do you suggest?”

  “At least contact Kommissar Boehm in Bad Lunsburg. Let him know about Gerhard.”

  Kramer starts inserting bullets into the empty clip. “I did this afternoon.”

  “And what’d he say?”

  “What you’re saying.”

  “So what’s all this about?” He jabs a finger at the guns.

  “He also said he’s getting stonewalled by the Berlin police. That people in Bonn are making noises about his investigating a case that should be closed.”

  “But with Gerhard’s death …”

  “Look,” Kramer says, losing his temper, slamming the clip onto the table. “You want me to spell it out for you? Nobody wants to touch this. The Greeks are calling it accidental manslaughter. A hunting accident. The Germans don’t want waves. So this is dead in the water unless we keep pursuing it.”

  “And we might end up dead in the water, as well,” Randall says, looking around at the mess in the kitchen. Olive oil has been smeared into the rice and pasta on the floor.

  Kramer says nothing for a time, trying to control his anger. Then, “Maybe you’re right, Randall. Maybe this isn’t something you want to be involved in anymore. I mean, Reni was close to me, and the whole thing with the memoirs seemed an incredible mystery. Like getting hold of a loose thread and unraveling the last twenty years of life. But you’re right. It’s not a game any longer. It’s deadly serious. And I’m in it. Deep in it and there’s no going back for me. I poked at the sleeping dog. I brought those killers down to Crete. They would never have found Gerhard if I hadn’t led them straight to him.”

  “Give it a rest, Sam. We still don’t know if those guys were after us or Gerhard.”

  “I’m sure.” Kramer snicks the full clip into the pistol butt, jamming it home with the ball of his hand.

  “So what do you plan to do? Go blazing into Vogel’s offices and wreak vengeance? Get real, Sam.”

  “I’m not even saying it was Vogel. I just want to be able to fight back next time.”

  “You’re crazy, you know that? I think you’ve been reading too much. This is real life, Sam. Not some detective novel. Whoever shot Gerhard means business. He, she, they are covering tracks from all sorts of potential crimes. If they put out a hit on you, you’ll know about it after it’s over. Period.”

  Kramer says nothing, which infuriates Randall.

  “So what do you think?” Randall says. “It was Maria? She was paying Reni back?”

  “She could be a player. And we know that someone else had access to that car besides Gerhard. Somebody else could have planted the bomb. Reni or …”

&n
bsp; “Stop, Sam. This is no longer interesting to me, you know that?”

  “Scared?”

  “Yes. Aren’t you?”

  Kramer nods. “But angry, too. More angry than scared.”

  “Sam, you’re a journalist, not a gun-toting cowboy.”

  “And what are you, Randall?”

  Randall thinks a moment, shaking his head. “I’m not a violent man, Sam. Nothing’s solved by it, only perpetuated.”

  “I’m not asking what you aren’t.”

  Randall clamps his jaw. “I’m a global village idiot, Sam. That’s my job. I come to spread the word of irresponsibility­. To cheer and connect. I know my area of competency, Sam.” He leans over and picks up one of the guns. “And this is not it.”

  Kramer takes the gun out of his hand, setting it gently back on the tissue paper.

  “I’ll see you around, Randall.”

  Kramer doesn’t look up; begins filling the second clip from the part-empty ammunition box.

  “Sam.” Randall touches his shoulder lightly, but Kramer remains silent.

  “Yeah,” Randall finally says, removing his hand. “I’ll see you around.”

  Randall manages to recover some of his things from the general mess and stuff them into his leather pack.

  He is at the door when Kramer speaks next. “You’re going to have to make a stand sometime in life, Randall. You know? It’s just not worth it otherwise.”

  Randall starts to reply, thinks better of it, and smiles.

  “Say hi to Maria for me,” he says as he goes out the door.

  Kramer sits in the flat for another two hours feeling the anger build to a palpable force, then gets his Barbour jacket, stuffs the guns into the pockets next to his passport and savings book, checks the hallway for visitors, and goes into the night.

  The taxi drops him off in the Fourth District just behind the Karlskirche. He looks up at the apartment building on the corner, to the turret on the fourth floor with the huge rubber plant in it. Lights are on. Kate’s still up.

  He rings the outside buzzer and after a few moments Kate’s intercom crackles to life.

  “It’s me,” he says.

  A pause from her, then, “Kramer? What the hell are you doing here?”

  He doesn’t much like talking on the street. A car draws slowly by the doorway to Kate’s apartment. It’s windows are tinted so he cannot see inside. A sudden panic grips him.

  “Just let me in. I’ll explain later.”

  “You drunk?”

  “Come on, Kate.”

  She buzzes and the front door unlocks momentarily. He pushes and goes through, then closes it securely behind him. He’s sweating, large drops trickling down his back and into the waist of his pants.

  The red timer button for corridor lights is next to the door, but he doesn’t push it. There are windows on the top half of the house door. I’d be a perfect silhouette for a shooter, he thinks.

  He feels his way up the first flight of stairs, then hits the red button on the next landing, and the timed lights come on, dimly illuminating the tiled stairs, a pattern of irises in blossom along the bottom of the wall, purple against faded yellow.

  He knocks on Kate’s door twice before she opens it, wearing a terry cloth bathrobe the color of crushed raspberries and carrying a book. It’s an old Harvard Classic edition in navy binding, and she clutches it to her bosom. He reads the title, Anna Karenina, but she mistakes the look and blushes, pulling the robe closer around her throat.

  “Sorry to be bothering you so late,” he says. “Thought I’d better check on the bureau.”

  “You’ll see tomorrow,” Kate says, not inviting him any further than the door jamb.

  “Maybe not,” Kramer says. “I’m only in town overnight.”

  She squints at him in the dimness of the hall, then reaches out and pulls him by the arm into her entryway.

  “What happened to you?”

  He follows her gaze to his forehead, feels the bandage. “That?” He shakes it off. “Happened last week. No big deal.”

  “You in trouble, Kramer?”

  “Yeah. Sort of.”

  She looks at him with the eyes of a schoolmistress examining a truant.

  “Marty’s pissed,” she says. “I might be next in line for bureau chief.”

  “That’d be great for you.”

  “You better come in.” She looks out the door, up and down the hall.

  Kramer has been at her flat once before, to pick up some copy on a day she was too sick to come into the office. He shows himself into the sitting room; all nineteenth century with heavy oak furniture, a carpet-covered sofa straight out of Freud’s consulting rooms, dark oils in massive gilded frames on the walls, dusty green aspidistras and rubber plants wherever light is available. A secret side to Kate or just too lazy to change the decor of a rented apartment?

  She nods toward a leather armchair. “Sit down. Drink?”

  He sags into the seat with a sigh. “I’d love one.”

  “White wine okay?”

  He nods. “Great.”

  A minute later, she is back with two glasses and no book for protection. She hands him his and sits on the sofa, curling her legs under her like a cat.

  “So what’s the deal, Kramer? You look like prey rather than predator.”

  “Like I say”—he takes a sip of wine; it is cool and tart and fresh tasting—“I wanted to check on things at the bureau. See if there were any problems.”

  “Umm.” She says it like a contradiction. “Everything’s okay, I guess. Marty’s fuming, but there’s no pink slip in the mail, if that’s what’s worrying you. We’re starting a new series on the UN peacekeeping force—Blue Helmet Blues. Not bad, huh?”

  “Your series?”

  She nods.

  “Good for you.”

  She almost smiles, then puts her glass down on a book-cluttered end table. “You really don’t give a shit about this, do you, Kramer? You are in trouble.”

  “Could be.”

  “Is it that woman in Germany? The one who died?”

  “I don’t want to involve you.”

  She laughs. “Why come here, then?”

  Why indeed? He thinks about this for a moment, about Randall’s departure, about how he forced Randall to leave, actually. Is that what you were after? he asks himself. To get Randall out of it, for his own sake?

  “I need a place to stay for the night, okay?”

  She opens her mouth in protest.

  “I don’t mean that way,” he quickly adds. “The sofa would be great. Just someplace no one knows about.” He checked on the way here in the taxi. No one was following. The cruising car at the entrance was just coincidence. Had to be.

  “What do you say?” he asks after she is silent for a time.

  “Sure. Give the neighbors something to gossip about over coffee.” She smiles. “You sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

  “You’ve got the biggest rubber plant in Vienna,” he says, rising and going to the turret window. He looks to the street below. No one is in sight.

  “I get the message,” she says. “How about a sleeping bag? Or do you want sheets?”

  He turns, looking back to her. “The bag would be fine.”

  She gets up, all business and ready to get him organized.

  “Kate.”

  She stops and looks at him.

  “Thanks. I owe you one.”

  “One? Bullshit. Five or more if I have to cover for you at the office much longer.”

  He falls asleep to the musty smell of the old rug beneath the sofa, to the warm aroma of Kate from her sleeping bag. It’s just before dawn when he awakens; gray light is coming through the turret window. A sudden urgency compels him to get on the road, to get to Prague. Maybe h
e should have gone last night? He scratches a quick note to Kate and leaves it on the end table; rolls up the sleeping bag; and departs the flat as quietly as possible. Near Karlsplatz, he finds a taxi rank. The dawn is turning pink on the horizon; there’s a heavy smell of rain in the air. It’s six thirty by the time Kramer gets to his Citroën garaged on Lenaugasse.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  One hour later, Kramer is still stuck in rush-hour traffic on the Gürtel, Vienna’s outer ring road. The little Citroën Deux Cheveaux doesn’t like stop-and-go; its temperature gauge is hugging the red zone even in the cold morning air. He’s thinking maybe the airport was a better idea. Still not too late to turn around, but with guns in the carry-on, it’s impossible. Then traffic starts moving a little faster, and he takes the Danube exit, crossing the river at the Praterbrücke.

  Traffic is thinning out here; the commuters are coming into the center, not going to the suburbs. He hits the S3 above the Donau-Auen, heading northwest toward Stockerau and the agricultural plains above the city and the river. He’s flying now, as much as his small car can approximate graceful motion; wide open, a four-lane autobahn, which he leaves in a half hour, taking the E84 north toward the Czech border. It’s raining steadily, and the passenger-side wiper does not work; the one in front of him has only one speed—slow. The heater died long ago in the car, and the defrost is an open window.

  The next hour through the gently rolling farm country of Lower Austria is a cold one. Rain splatters in the barely open window; his hands turn white on the steering wheel. In Hollabrunn, he makes a quick stop for a cup of tea and rum to thaw out. The inn is smoke-filled at nine in the morning. Local farmers in gray woolen Trachten with green piping trim look at him suspiciously as he stands at the bar and swills his tea. They have glasses of red wine in front of them; nicotine stains on their index and middle fingers. Not much happening in Hollabrunn in the late fall. No fields to plow or grapes to harvest. It’ll be a long winter, Kramer figures, looking at the farmers’ red cheeks and road-map eyes.

  He’s forgotten to fill the Deux Cheveaux up in Vienna so, after leaving twenty schillings on the bar, he goes to his car and hunts out the nearest petrol stop. There’s the green-and-yellow sign of BP on the northern edge of town. He has a young, pimply kid fill it up at eleven schillings per liter, thanks very much, and is off again, realizing five clicks from town that he’s famished.