‘Ah,’ he says, beaming at me, ‘the prosecution! It’s about time justice put in an appearance round here.’
Carla is standing behind the bar now, moving glasses and plates from one place to another and back again.
‘He feels unfairly treated,’ she says, unleashing a meaningful glance.
‘I don’t feel unfairly treated,’ says Rocco, ‘I am unfairly treated. I have to spend every hour of the day standing in this kitchen. And when I’m finally allowed out and start looking forward to being with my wife, she’s, and I quote, “too tired for everything”. Every time.’
I sit down at the bar. Carla sees the dangerously low coffee level in my glass, points at it and asks: ‘One for the road, right?’
I nod and turn to Rocco: ‘Whose idea was the restaurant again?’
‘Some guy,’ he says. ‘I’ve forgotten his name.’
‘You see,’ I say, ‘we have too. Wait for the name to come back to you, and then complain to him. Can I have some scrambled eggs, please?’
He sighs and reaches for the heavens. ‘What did I do to deserve this?’
‘With mozzarella,’ I say.
Rocco shakes his head, looks at me and says: ‘You’re nuts, Calamity Jane.’
‘Riley,’ I say. ‘Chastity Riley.’
‘Love you too,’ he says, starting to make my scrambled eggs and cheese. Then he mumbles something about taxes, which he doesn’t pay, but if he did, then he really bloody would.
Carla takes two cups of espresso to the table left of the window. She walks like a conquering hero.
Love is war, once you let yourself get sucked into it. Which is precisely why Klatsche and I won’t be doing that. Well, I won’t be.
‘Well, my girl?’
Faller.
Suddenly standing next to me.
‘I rang you a couple of minutes ago,’ I say.
‘Oh. I haven’t got my phone on me.’
‘Faller, you always have your phone on you. You’re a cop.’
‘I was a cop,’ he says. ‘Now I’m a man of private means. And on course to loosen up a bit.’
Loosen up? This old stickler?
‘I don’t think it’ll suit you,’ I say.
‘Just you wait and see how relaxed I can get,’ he says. ‘You’ll be in for a surprise.’
He lets Carla stroke his shoulder and give him a coffee. Americano, black, no sugar. He puts his hat and coat down on the stool next to him but keeps his scarf on.
I’ll be in for a surprise? And then I remember what Calabretta was talking about yesterday evening – there was something wrong with my dear old colleague Faller. He was up to something. Something difficult. I still don’t know exactly what it was about and, given how tentatively my system is recovering from the excesses of last night, I imagine there’s not that much extra information lurking in my aching head.
‘What are you up to, Faller?’ I ask.
Faller blows on then sips at his hot coffee.
‘Nothing. Why?’ He looks indignantly at me. He really is up to something then.
‘You just said I’ll be in for a surprise, so I’m wondering what it’ll be.’
‘Me?’ he says. ‘Relaxed as hell and resplendent in all my glory.’
‘Faller?’
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t believe a word of it.’
‘I’m devastated,’ he says. ‘We should have breakfast together to console me. We haven’t done that for ages. What will you have?’
‘Scrambled eggs,’ I say. ‘It’s on its way.’
‘If I order croissants and jam for both of us, can I have some of your eggs?’ He lays his hand on my forearm and gives me one of those whatever-happens-I’m-on-your-side looks.
‘Sure,’ I say and postpone my investigation till later. That dad trick gets me every time.
We sit side by side, drinking coffee and eating scrambled eggs with jam croissants. Outside a few confused snowflakes tumble out of a properly bright sky. They’re probably just as surprised as I am by this sudden light. Although you can’t actually see the sun. It’s probably just a shimmer left behind over the city from when it appeared for a moment. Some northern cities can do that. Put a little bit of sunshine aside so they can get it out later if they need it. It’s an idea I could do with in my life. I glance sideways at Faller. He notices and grins, but doesn’t look at me. I stop thinking about the mistrust I felt earlier. I’m just grateful that he’s here.
But later, once Faller’s gone again and I’m on the phone to Calabretta, I get a shock because he tells me again what he told me yesterday evening – the thing that slipped through the cracks: the old man’s worrying again, picking at the same sore spot.
My new office in the public prosecution department is only half as big as my old one. It’s more of a storeroom than an office really. The idea was probably to come up with a special cell, just for me, one where only I – and they – know it’s a cell. Every time I look out of the narrow window I’m amazed that it isn’t barred.
Officially, I have a secretary, but because there’s no anteroom to my office, only a corridor, the secretary sits in the outer office belonging to my colleagues in drugs. So obviously she’s mainly their secretary and not mine. It doesn’t really bother me, if I’m honest. It’s just another excuse to crawl out of my cubbyhole. And obviously you don’t need a secretary for most things. I’m perfectly capable of phoning the archive myself, for example.
‘Morning.’
‘Riley here, hello.’
‘Yep.’
‘I’d like everything relating to Gjergj Malaj, as soon as possible, please.’
‘Everything?’
‘Everything.’
‘From the early nineties to now?’
‘Anywhere the name appears.’
‘It’ll take a while; that’s almost a hundred and fifty files.’
‘I know,’ I say, hanging up.
I open the arrow slit in the wall and light a cigarette.
I hope to smell a faint hint of spring or hear a bird twittering in a tree. But the only thing I notice is the disaster galloping down on us.
‘Calabretta thinks Faller wants to shaft the Albanian. All by himself.’
I’m standing at the bar at Klatsche’s place, a beer in front of me and the boss in person behind the bar.
‘Calabretta thinks what?’ Klatsche’s clattering around, filling the fridge with bottles.
‘That Faller’s hatched a plan,’ I say. ‘And that he’s about to put his plan into action. He seems to have decided that it’s bang out of order to have the Albanian still running around free, especially now he’s putting on society airs.’
‘It is out of order,’ says Klatsche. ‘I’m with Faller on that one. That guy’s the biggest skunk in town. He ought to be banged up, not going to receptions at the Hotel Atlantic.’
He’s stopped putting the bottles away. He’s opened a beer and lit a cigarette. There’s not much light in the Blue Night; the friendly shimmer in the room mainly comes from the candles on the tables and in golden holders on the red walls. And there’s a warm yellow tinge to the blue neon sign above the liquor shelf. It makes no sense. Klatsche insists it’s tinged with red, but that’s not true. It’s yellow. Yet it doesn’t turn the blue green. It’s nuts.
‘Of course he ought to be banged up,’ I say.
I’d like to add something clever starting with ‘but’ to explain why he hasn’t been. I can’t think of anything. I’ve been chewing on it for years; we’ve all been chewing on it for years – decades, it feels like. And Faller won’t get the Albanian banged up now. He’ll just get himself into trouble. Gjergj Malaj sent him a vicious warning years ago. Faller’s suffered for it ever since. Malaj won’t warn him off again.
Klatsche knows all this. I don’t need to explain it to him. He just watches us as we throw ourselves at windmills and run into brick walls. He’s the one who scrapes us out of the corners each time and patches us up with a
palette of strong drinks and kind words.
I sigh; we clink bottles.
‘You’re worried about Faller,’ he says.
‘He’s starting to crack up,’ I say. ‘He feels too strong. It’s not good to feel too strong. You forget to take cover. I mean, we’ve been through all that…’
‘Has he done anything that could be dangerous yet?’
‘No idea,’ I say. ‘According to Calabretta, he hinted that he’s planning something soon.’
‘Faller was boasting? Doesn’t sound like him.’
‘He wasn’t. Calabretta reckons he’s going to need him, and that’s why he let him in on it.’
I light a cigarette; Klatsche pushes over an ashtray.
‘We’ve got a top mole on the team then,’ he says. ‘And I’ll keep my ears open in case anyone’s noticed any, er, disturbances in the Force, or whatever.’ He waves his beer bottle and makes lightsaber noises. ‘But he didn’t say anything to you?’
I shake my head. ‘I met him this morning, and he was just brewing up mysterious stories,’ I say. ‘Nothing specific. I thought he was feeling good, that’s all. Not as crumpled as usual. More like he was having a second spring, if you see what I mean.’
‘That all fits,’ says Klatsche. ‘And if we assume that Faller’s not in love, it must be his second spring as a cop.’ He draws on his cigarette. ‘Fair enough … But the idea of Faller as a lone avenger against organised crime … He’s scaring me.’
‘Faller or the Albanian?’ I ask.
‘The combination, sweetheart.’ He raises his beer bottle and drinks. ‘What’s the story with your car, by the way?’ he asks.
‘Why mention that now?’
He shrugs. ‘Talk of fear, maybe.’
‘Bollocks, Klatsche. I’m not scared of driving.’ I swig my beer. ‘The car broke down,’ I say. ‘I left it in Mecklenburg.’
‘And?’
‘Garage,’ I say, because I don’t dare tell him I just left it where it was.
‘Garage, uh-huh.’ He looks at me.
He knows perfectly well that that’s not true.
He says nothing. We drink up our beer. Outside we can hear a police siren on the Reeperbahn.
Then the door opens and a bunch of customers come in. Three women, five men, early thirties, dressed like hipsters. Klatsche’s bar is transforming slowly but surely from a red-light dive to a trendy hangout. I bet next year people will come in the mornings and ask if this is a sober rave.
I nip behind the bar, give Klatsche a kiss on the cheek and say, ‘Slip me a couple of beers, I’ve got to go.’
I get the bus to the central station – getting a bus is a bit like going for a stroll. Then I walk down the Lange Reihe; the lights are on now and everyone’s out, and I let myself be swept along by all the life around me. This must be what Spiderman feels like when he swings from building to building.
As I walk past the hospital door, the porter greets me almost too cheerfully and I wave back. It’s amazing how quickly it happens, how quickly you start to feel like you know each other. The door to room 5 is shut; a policewoman is sitting on the chair, flicking through a magazine. She looks at my pass, we nod to each other, I knock. No reply; I go in anyway.
The man in the bed glares at me. ‘You again,’ he says hoarsely; I bet it’s all he’s said all day.
‘Yes. Me again. Don’t worry, I only came to bring you something.’
Something in his face changes, as if he were entitled to presents in general and he’s relieved to see that I’ve finally grasped that.
I try not to grin and plonk two Astras down on the bedside table.
‘Nightcap,’ I say.
And I’m gone.
It’s rammed in the Blue Night now – there are the hipsters from earlier and a couple of dozen friendly types aged between twenty and fifty, and even a few of the old guard – Ali’s regulars, who’ve never stopped treating the bar like their living room just because Ali’s moved from St Pauli to the Turkish Riviera. Klatsche didn’t just take on the furniture and the greasy bar, there was also the entire human stock. He didn’t polish or otherwise renovate the noisy ladies and hard-drinking gentlemen though. Their faces have real patina and they’ve stayed nicely jagged; sometimes you can snag yourself on an awkward corner.
I sit at the far end of the bar, on the last free seat. Actually, it’s not even a seat, it’s just the draughty corner by the window, which is why no one else is sitting here. I like this corner though. It’s close to the alcohol and to Klatsche, and has a good view of the whole pub. And if you really stare, and have a beer or two inside you, you can make out what the Herbertstrasse ladies are saying as they negotiate their fees behind the smeary red glass.
1993, winter.
FALLER, GEORG
He came to Hamburg from Tirana a year or two back. Started small, with gambling. They say he won so much money he was able to buy his first shop outright.
By now, though, he doesn’t have to pay much if he wants a shop. Doesn’t pay at all, some people say. One of his cousins just has to mention his name. You’d rather give up your shop than your wife’s hands or your kids’ eyes.
He has huge power. And a very secretive family. There might be sixty of them, or a hundred. We don’t know.
We only know that he’s declared war on the Kiez.
And on us.
There’s an Albanian saying that goes: A wolf licks his own flesh but eats a stranger’s.
Sometimes he sends the Italians to do the eating.
They fly in from Palermo or Bari.
Just last week they shot five bullets into the chest of some little adventurer.
He insulted someone. A friend of the Albanian’s who’s married to a young woman from one of the poshest families in Hamburg.
The Italians got fifty thousand marks for their bloodbath. Plus expenses.
After the murder, they painted the town red.
Or so people say.
MALAJ, GJERGJ
He insulted someone who belongs to me. Someone important. A wise man who married well.
His wife does a lot for me.
I had him slaughtered.
CALABRETTA, VITO
I’ve got exams.
I’ve got civilian service to do.
And I’ve got a German passport now too.
My parents didn’t understand.
That I don’t want to be an Italian any more.
But I am an Italian anyway. I’ll be one forever.
The pizza chef.
Spaghetti.
Parking the bus on the football field.
But I’m a German too. This is my country; I live here. So say hi to English football for me.
I don’t know what I’ll do after my civilian service. Wait and see what the other Germans do. Uni’s not for me, I reckon. Dad would love it if I went. But Dad’s hardly ever at home. So I don’t need to go to uni for him.
RILEY, CHASTITY
My Dad is dead.
Bullet in the head.
Head on the desk.
I found him.
Since then I’ve withdrawn from myself.
Or into myself.
Or: a bit of me died with him.
VELOSA, CARLA
I’m pretty. So damn pretty!
Half the harbour’s at my feet.
It can be a bit embarrassing sometimes, but basically I’m happy as Larry because everyone’s in love with me.
MALUTKI, ROCCO
It was when we were down at the jetties unloading a lorry. You know, ‘unloading’. At night.
She cycled past. She was so pretty; I’ve never seen such a pretty girl. And her scarf blew in the wind as if she had a cloud of butterflies around her neck.
KLASSMAN, HENRI
School.
Kiss my arse.
JOE
There was this woman.
That evening in this hotel bar.
She said I looked lonely.
At that
moment I didn’t know if I’d rather love her or shoot her. Because her first shot was a bull’s-eye.
I ordered her a drink and disappeared up to my room.
The next evening she was there again. She wasn’t afraid of me.
I didn’t shoot her that time either; I loved her.
I can’t let that happen to me again.
WITH THE TIDES IN HIS FEET OR AFTER TWO VODKAS THE WORLD FITS A WHOLE LOT BETTER AGAIN
I feel sick; I’ve eaten too many files. But it was the content, not the number of files, that did it. Not that I didn’t know, but swallowing down a hard ball of it all in one go sheds an extra-nasty light on the whole business. And shines a merciless spotlight on our authorities. It’s not the fault of the police that the Albanian’s had free rein in this city for as long as he wanted, and that he’s now sitting pretty in his villa in a classy suburb with a spotlessly clean slate. They did their job to the best of their ability. But in some funny way, it never quite worked out. Search warrants came too late, or not at all. Proceedings were protracted or dropped altogether; witnesses suddenly vanished, or better still, turned up dead.
Of course, I was there – saw all the spanners that were thrown into our works in recent years; but when you’re in the middle of it, you can’t see the method as clearly as when you look at it from outside, from a little distance. The effect was as if someone had built a protective bubble – invisible to investigators – around the Albanian. As if someone was secretly making sure that nothing could be proved against him that would stand up in court. It can’t just have been Chief Prosecutor Schubert, who had more or less drifted into the case. Someone more powerful must have had a hand in it; someone who was much more able to direct the play being staged in our town. People with money and influence and a huge fear of losing both. After a certain point, rich people are no longer driven by their money, but by their fear.
Blue Night Page 4