Blue Night

by Simone Buchholz

  Pause.

  Cigarette.

  ‘But that’s not why I ended up in here,’ he says.

  I light another cigarette for myself too – feels like the seventeenth this afternoon – and look him in the eyes.

  Don’t cock up now.

  Don’t talk out of turn.

  ‘There are three little crooks. They’re just dogsbodies in the whole thing really – meant to pin a few people down, make a connection or two, get the Hamburg street business ready. But they want to do their own thing. And believe me, what they’re planning is way more fucked up than everything I already told you, and worse than anything you’ve seen yet. The drug these guys want to bring into Germany is sick. And just to make a fast million. They’ve got straw for brains.’

  I smoke evenly in and out so I don’t forget to breathe.

  ‘And it was those three boys,’ he says, holding up his left index finger, ‘that I underestimated.’

  He drags on his cigarette.

  ‘I’ll tell you their names. And then I’m saying nothing else.’

  The sun is about to vanish behind the hospital. I pull my coat more tightly around my body and turn up my collar. The Austrian still has exactly three rays of sunshine on his brow.

  He looks to the heavens. ‘Drob, Adlo and Ronny.’

  ‘Drob, Adlo and Ronny?’ I ask. ‘What kind of names are they?’

  ‘Fighting names,’ he says. ‘I don’t know anything else about them myself.’

  ‘You have to give me another lead,’ I say. ‘What drug is it? Who’s behind it? What exactly are these three – what are their names again? – planning?’

  ‘Drob. Adlo. Ronny.’

  ‘Yeah, them. What are they planning?’

  He gives one last drag on his cigarette and throws the butt away. ‘Message ends.’

  ‘Please. Joe.’

  ‘It’s cold. Take me back in.’

  ‘You have to keep talking to me.’

  ‘I don’t have to do anything except get out of the cold. And don’t even think about blackmailing me. Or I’ll never speak another word to you.’

  Shame. It was a good idea.

  ‘OK,’ I say. I can see there’s nothing more to come.

  ‘Forward march!’

  I push him back through the door. To the lift, up to the ward, into his room.

  When he’s lying in bed again, his face gradually recovering from the pain of the wheelchair-to-bed campaign, I say: ‘By the way, I heard you’re planning to pay for all this in cash.’

  He nods.

  ‘Where did you get that kind of money? You know how expensive this stuff is, don’t you?’

  He looks at me. Flickering in his eyes is a healthy dose of derision.

  He grins and now gives me a look like I’m a particularly dim work-experience student.

  First I feel my carotid artery throbbing, then my lid flipping.

  ‘WHO ARE YOU, JOE?’

  He looks out of the window and says: ‘Not so loud, if you please, ma’am.’

  I drop onto the chair beside his bed. ‘Just tell me how you stumbled into this business and then we can work out how to get you out again. And then it’ll be fine.’

  He laughs, shakes his head and says: ‘Cute.’

  I stand up again, walk around his bed and stand in front of the window, blocking his view.

  Drob, Adlo and Ronny are doing something involving drugs, I think. Great. Give the wheelchair back, old man.

  We stare at each other. First one to blink is dead.

  ‘Do you speak Esperanto?’ he asks.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Do you?’

  ‘A bit,’ he says, continuing to hold my gaze rock solid. He’s very good at it. As if he’s done a course in gaze-holding. ‘There’s a village in the French Pyrenees where they only speak Esperanto, and they have a word there for people who abuse the rules of the community. Who harm others through antisocial behaviour.’

  ‘What’s the word?’ I ask.

  ‘Krokodili.’

  ‘As in crocodile?’

  ‘As in crocodile.’

  ‘And?’ I ask.

  ‘Don’t be uptight now,’ he says.

  ‘I’m not uptight,’ I say. ‘I’ve just had enough of your puzzles. This is not a fairy tale. I’m not in the mood any more. Keep your shit to yourself.’

  He tries to sit up a bit, but without much success. Then he gestures towards the bedside cabinet with his head. ‘Look in the drawer there,’ he says.

  I open it, and there’s a piece of paper. On the paper, in girlish handwriting, it says ‘Wieczorkowski’.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I got one of the nurses to write it for you,’ he says. ‘In case anything happens to me here.’

  ‘In case what, exactly, happens to you?’

  ‘Whatever,’ he says. ‘Ask the man about crocodiles. But don’t give him my regards.’

  ‘Where will I find this Wieczorkowski?’

  ‘At the State Criminal Police Office in Leipzig. He’s one of the best narcotics detectives in this country. If anyone can help you, it’s him.’

  I slip the note into my trouser pocket. ‘You’re an oddball,’ I say.

  ‘I’m a serious drinker,’ he says.

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘I don’t like boxing matches that are decided on points. If you mess with me, you have to assume it’ll be the last time you mess with anyone.’

  I don’t like jogging in the park after dark. I’m not scared by a dark park, but I need points of light around me to be able to think.

  And without daylight, the park is a dark-green swamp.

  So I run through the Speicherstadt, the port, the Hafencity, the city centre. There are lights everywhere. And runners. A distinct species that only uses these districts at night. To run in peace through the dead streets. In fact I’m hardly ever here by day. And I reckon the others aren’t either, from what I can see in their faces. The people who come in the daytime have respect in their eyes – for the old warehouses in the old warehouse district, for the swaying ships at the jetties, for the monstrous buildings in the new part of town, for the blaring shop windows in the shopping district. The people here at night just use the whole shebang as a stage for their thing. There’s something noble about that. It’s one of those rare moments when humanity towers above the city, when we do what we want with it, and not the other way round.

  I run for a good hour – around me the red brick, the glass façades, the concrete. Above me, the sky. And in my head just Drob, Adlo and Ronny.

  I’m still going slightly nuts over all these endless fighting names.

  After showering, I’m dog tired; my legs are as heavy as a crane base. I could just fall into bed. But something’s pulling me outside. I feel like beer and music and Klatsche. I slip into the absolute minimum of clothes, pull on my boots, snatch up my coat and let the door fall into the lock behind me before sleep catches up with me after all.

  Out on the street, I latch onto the crowd heading for the Reeperbahn. I find my place between two little groups – a couple of young men in front and three women behind; they’re all in step, matching tempo, a still-things-to-do-today beat. We’re on our way to the Kiez.

  A pleasure-seeking pack. A human wave.

  I just let myself be swept along with it, wait and see where it takes me.

  We turn right and then left and then keep straight on. Past phone shops, tattooists, porn cinemas and old dives, past the Salvation Army and a travel agent’s, past people laughing and people lying in doorways. Past rich and poor people, and past plenty who’ll even forget their own names tonight, leave them lying around wherever they dropped them – under a sticky table or just down the loo. On the Reeperbahn, my walking group swells rapidly; it’s like cell division, suddenly there’s an insane number and now you seriously have to watch out that you don’t dock in the wrong place. I cross the Reeperbahn, and there’s clinking and clanking and clanging and jeering; dirty litt
le Las Vegas, I think, what are you lot really looking for? And then I see a pale-blue Pontiac in front of the Silbersack.

  Well, look at that. Faller. In the Silbersack tonight. Let’s go and see.

  The door to what must be the cutest tacky pub in Hamburg is wide open; it always is, whether it’s warm or cold outside. The real barrier to events is a heavy black curtain, split down the middle. I once hid in the curtain with Klatsche back when I didn’t want to kiss him in public. Standing in the doorway, and on the bit of pavement between the curtain and the street, are a few guys in dark jackets who are mostly wearing woolly hats. Bottle of beer in one hand, cigarette in the other. Right next to the door, a couple are dancing on the street to music that presumably only they can hear.

  I squeeze past the men to the curtain and push it aside a little, but stay standing in the entrance. In the Silbersack, no one pays you any attention just because you push the curtain aside. You have to go to the bar if you want something.

  Faller is at the bar, talking. Hands in his trouser pockets, shoulders back, belly out. His hat sits perkily on his head; his trench coat is pushed slightly back: all in all, he has a very jaunty air. On the bar in front of him are a packet of Roth-Händle and a lighter; a cigarette glows in the ashtray; next to the ashtray is a bottle of beer.

  I’d really like to hear what Faller’s saying, but the music’s too loud. A punk version of ‘Goodbye Johnny’ that’s not even that bad.

  I sidle a little closer to Faller and hide about two metres from him, behind a rather expansive old woman with a large white hat. She smells of cigarettes, schnapps and lily of the valley. I sit diagonally behind her on a bench; my view of Faller is blocked by a thin wooden panel, but that means he can’t see me either if he turns round. I can still only hear ‘Goodbye Johnny’, though – the jukebox is just too loud. And sometimes one punter or other bawls something equally punk that doesn’t have much to do with the lyrics.

  Then I get lucky. Apparently the jukebox wasn’t properly fed. Once the song’s over, nothing follows it. A girl with pretty, light-blue hair is the first to notice; she throws in a handful of change, taking care of music supplies, a bottle of beer in her hand. It’s not an easy task, takes a moment – she’s not very steady on her feet.

  And I, behind the fat, lily-of-the-valley woman, can hear Faller telling the people at the bar: ‘…and in the end it’s fair to say that the Albanian only owns a quarter of the Hafencity because he forced so many little girls’ hands onto hotplates, and bribed the right senators, city councillors and public prosecutors.’

  Dude.

  I think I’ve flipped.

  When he sees me outside by his Pontiac, he stops, takes his hands out of his trouser pockets and crosses them over his by now fairly considerable paunch. We look at each other across the street, and suddenly there are only the two of us in the pale light falling onto the cobbles from the single-storey Silbersack pub. Everything else has bowed out of the situation. Just vanished from my sight. I don’t take in the swaying, singing, drinking Saturday-evening crowd, or the colourful lamps flashing along with the music in the windows of the Silbersack.

  Faller’s muttering.

  Then he says: ‘And? I’ve got this under control.’

  ‘Like fuck you have.’

  2006, autumn.

  FALLER, GEORG

  He’s atomised me. Ripped me to shreds, shot me to dust, made me invisible. And if anyone does see me, they keep out of my way.

  That’s how it goes when nobody knows exactly what’s happened, but everybody knows that what did happen was hardcore.

  I meet the girl in the blood-soaked underwear every night in my dreams.

  RILEY, CHASTITY

  We went for a drink, Faller and I. And I mean a drink.

  Then I keeled over. Roofies, I think. Or something of that sort.

  When I woke up the next morning, on a bench next to the bar where we’d been drinking the night before, Faller wasn’t there.

  I found him on the first floor over the bar – the door was open; I knew I’d have to go up there.

  He was lying on a bed; next to him was a girl in blood-smeared underwear. Lying on the girl was a note:

  ‘Keep out, old man.’

  I didn’t know what to do, so I phoned Klatsche. He raced over, all blue lights and sirens. He took the girl away.

  I held Faller’s hand and called Calabretta to take Faller away.

  If we ever find out who the girl was and what happened to her, perhaps it’ll thaw out the ice that Faller’s wrapped himself in since that night.

  KLASSMAN, HENRI

  My neighbour rang me. She said it was an emergency. She didn’t know who else could help.

  I could never have imagined an emergency that bad. There was an old copper on a bed. A dead girl beside him. He couldn’t remember a thing.

  My neighbour said her colleague had been shafted and had nothing to do with the girl’s death.

  He looked at her, and then at me. Eyes dark.

  I believed them. They’re good people, my neighbour and her colleague.

  I phoned my granddad. He’s a gravedigger out in the sticks. He sorted it. The really sad thing about it is that there’s nobody to miss the girl, at least not here in Germany.

  CALABRETTA, VITO

  The chief was sitting on the edge of that bed.

  That hideous bed. Covered in muck and blood.

  He was sitting there. Collapsed. As if he’d met the devil himself.

  I helped him up, led him out through the storm raging that morning, sat him in my car and drove him home. He didn’t want to get out.

  Two hours we sat in that car, him staring at his front door. As if the thing that had happened would only come true if he moved. If he opened his front door and let it into his life.

  I don’t know exactly what happened. I don’t ask either.

  It’s like the boss is deep-frozen.

  VELOSA, CARLA

  When I asked old Faller if he wanted a beer, he looked at me like I’d offered him a couple of teenage whores on toast.

  I’m not drinking again, he said. Never again.

  I wonder what happened.

  Nobody tells me anything.

  MALUTKI, ROCCO

  I was home in Hamburg for a while. A difficult place right now. There’s nothing for me there but trouble.

  Had a few beers with Klatsche.

  He’s got worries too. Didn’t want to talk about it though.

  I’m going on to Buenos Aires.

  JOE

  That was a nasty thing he did.

  You don’t do that stuff.

  MALAJ, GJERGJ

  People always find it so hard to kill women.

  No women, no kids, blahblahblah.

  But they’re the easiest. And you can do such interesting things with them.

  Maybe the lot of them will simmer down now.

  BECAUSE IT’S SUNDAY

  We’re sitting by the Elbe. To my left is Calabretta, to my right is Klatsche; they’re both tired in their own way. We’re sitting on wooden chairs, wrapped in blankets, noses in the sun, feet in the sand. The water makes little waves on the shore; now and then, a ship passes by. In front of us are three half-full bottles of beer and three empty plates, which, half an hour ago, still held three portions of soused herrings and fried potatoes.

  It’s Sunday.

  And we’re three people off on a day out.

  Earlier, on the ferry, I told Calabretta about last night. About my encounter with Faller. He looked mildly impressed and nodded presidentially now and again, but that was his only reaction.

  We all swig our beer; the men go: ‘Aah!’

  I look over at Klatsche. He’s got his eyes closed, he’s smiling. A gull is hopping around his feet, squawking quietly to itself.

  ‘Do the names Drob, Adlo and Ronny mean anything to you?’ I ask him.

  He keeps his eyes shut. ‘Ex-colleagues from the old days. Why?’

&nbs
p; ‘Ex-colleagues? What does that mean?’

  ‘We cracked a few phone shops together,’ he says, eyes still shut. As if that were nothing. That time we cracked a few phone shops. ‘But then, well, you know, it all went a bit wrong for me. And when I got out of jail, the boys had gone into drugs. And I didn’t want to go there. And anyway…’ He pauses briefly and blinks at me. His eyes glitter bright green. ‘…I turned respectable not long after.’

  He drinks more beer. ‘What do you want from them then?’

  ‘I would very much like to know their real names,’ I say. ‘Because I need to ask those gentlemen a question.’

  ‘Not a clue,’ he says, raising his face to the sun again.

  That’s a lie. Klatsche knows everything about guys he’s done jobs with.

  ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘It’s about the man in the hospital. I’m not getting anywhere. Those three are all I’ve got.’

  ‘What have those boys got to do with it?’ he asks, and I think I can hear a hint of something lurking in his voice.

  ‘That’s what I’d like to know.’

  That’s all I say. Anything he can do, I could do years ago.

  ‘I’ll listen out,’ he says.

  Like hell he will. I’ll have to chew on granite a bit longer. But I’m good at chewing on granite. Klatsche knows that, which is why he turns up the collar of his leather jacket. To protect himself from my chewing apparatus.

  I glance left at Calabretta because I’m starting to wonder why he’s not contributing anything.

  Ah. He’s fallen asleep.

  And the gull that was busy around Klatsche just now has settled on his shoulder.

  I drink up my beer, lay my hand on Klatsche’s forearm and say: ‘Well, see you three later.’

  ‘Where’re you going?’

  ‘To see the next man who won’t talk to me,’ I say, and I don’t mean the Austrian, but Faller.