I wasn’t expecting Brux to want me in on anything. But it seems he does, and so here I am sitting in the car with Kringe and Bartels, driving in pursuit of Ronny. Eventually, after we’d spent hours hanging around outside his flat in Altona, he came out. A nervous, skinny little man in a dark-blue bomber jacket, which is both too baggy and too short. His blonde hair is pretty thin, but he hasn’t even noticed, let alone accepted it. Apart from that: grey cowboy boots and jeans with white writing on the bum. Now he’s sitting in an old copper-coloured Golf, heading south on the A7.
With us behind him.
‘Where’s he off to now?’ Kringe moans into his blonde three-day stubble.
Bartels mutters.
Kringe drives.
‘Container port,’ I say as Ronny’s Golf turns off the motorway at Waltershof.
This time Kringe mutters and Bartels says: ‘It’s high tide. That’s when the big tubs come in. And the big things come on the big tubs. Maybe he’s got something to pick up.’
‘Or something to check out,’ says Kringe.
‘You won’t even get close to them,’ I say.
‘Close to what?’
‘The big tubs. The terminals are sealed off.’
‘Not if you know someone who’ll wave you through,’ says Bartels.
Now it’s my turn to mutter, because at that precise moment I think: all these lanes are confusing as hell – you could take the wrong one in nothing flat and then you’d be right out of it.
And as I think that, Kringe says: ‘Bloody hell!’
And Bartels shouts: ‘I don’t believe it!’
Kringe slams his foot down hard, for all the good that’ll do – we’re just in time to wave to the left rear mudguard on Ronny’s Golf before he vanishes: he’s nipped very smartly and very suddenly over into the filter lane and dived into a tunnel in the maze of streets on our right.
We sail serenely on.
Like absolute bloody beginners.
It doesn’t matter a damn whether he noticed us, if we just cocked up or both. The fish has slipped the hook.
We trawl around the port a bit and keep an eye out for that stupid copper-coloured Golf; our attempts are not, naturally, crowned with success. We drink sour coffee at a snack bar and smoke a few bitter cigarettes, and we all show an astonishing ability to put up with each other’s bad moods.
Behind us and in front of us and to the sides of us, cranes nod in the wind.
I think they’re laughing at us.
Around one in the morning, my phone rings. I was about to go to bed.
I don’t know the number.
‘Hello?’
‘Brux here.’
‘Mr Brux, what’s up?’
‘Listen, we’ve had a tip-off: there’s about to be a raid on Lincolnstrasse – Graciosa Bar. Tschauner says you live nearby. We’d like to have you there. Shall we pick you up?’
‘I don’t know. It’s not even my department.’
‘It is now.’
‘Who says so?’
‘Dr Kolb. The new attorney general.’
‘I’ve heard of her,’ I say.
‘There, you see. And she’s heard of you.’
‘I don’t quite understand.’
‘Kolb wants you to take over.’
‘OK,’ I say, and my heart would leap if it dared. ‘I’ll be outside my door in seven minutes.’
‘All right, we’ll be downstairs.’
Mad.
I scramble back into my clothes so fast it would make even the fire brigade dizzy.
As I hurry down the stairs five minutes later, my colleagues are already in the middle of the road, engine running.
I might not know exactly what game I’m in – but I’m back in.
There’s tinsel lametta hanging from the ceiling. Wonky faces are glued to the bar. The rest are dancing on the tables, legs and arms in the air, electronic music in their ears and in their bellies. There aren’t many tables, it’s a small place. Like the door off the staircase. We had to squeeze through it. But that makes it easy to secure. Brux has stationed four officers in front of it. That should be plenty.
My colleagues wave their IDs in the air and it all goes pretty fast after that. Lights on, music off, party over.
Stored in a cellar behind the bar are three kilos of uncut crystal meth, packed in ten-gram portions.
Official spoils: a Hamburg market value of a good three hundred thousand euros.
One: the biggest haul that’s ever turned up here.
Two: now they’ve clocked that we’ve clocked them.
Three: there were no crocodiles there.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the night.
DROSTE, PAUL
Ronny reckons the fuzz were on his tail today. He says they followed him, maybe even from his house. But he didn’t notice till they got to the port. Then he got out of there. Shook them off. The fuzz. So he says.
That’s always the thing with Ronny. What he says. And what’s true.
Let’s hope he did shake them off.
And then there’s all the fuss with the boss.
We’ve parked the gear for now and we’re going underground.
Shit, huh?
ADELMANN, NICO
Hello? We’re all tense. But Drob’s really making waves, and it’s really pissing me off.
Doesn’t trust Ronny any more. Or me, I don’t think.
Wants us to hide. Wants to go into hiding himself until all the deliveries are done.
I mean: hey, if it all works out, the deliveries will last YEARS. You have to relax a bit at some time, don’t you?
I told my girl yesterday, C’mon baby, pick out something nice for yourself. Start with some pretty dresses and stop with a little place in the country.
Course, she keeps asking where I’m going to earn so much money.
I say nothing. I lay her in bed and work my magic on her. It makes her forget all her questions.
NIEHUS, ROBERT
Wimps. Both of them.
I know how it is in the big time. They have no idea. Two, three deliveries I’ll do with them. Then they’re out. Then I’ll take over the big league.
They’re driving me crazy. One’s all pathetic panic and the other’s all over-the-top relaxed.
I’ve already got a new partner. From Sarajevo.
Badass guy. Just my type.
We’ll really set up shop and wipe the floor with the rest of them. Even the old guys will have to get that it’s over. You just have to look at them: they’re full.
I won’t hide. I’m hungry.
MALAJ, GJERGJ
Give Gaetano credit for one thing: his boys could be done for speeding.
Little joke.
JOE
You don’t need much to make contact with the outside. You just need a good carrier pigeon.
FALLER, GEORG
This is how I see it: if I talk about the one thing, I must be able to talk about the others too.
Mustn’t I?
AS IF SOMEONE HAD PLANTED A BOMB AMONG US
Klatsche calls while I’m on my way to the office, just as I’m tramping through the park. I’m tired from last night, there are a couple of gulls shrieking above my head and a gaggle of geese cackle in the meadow to my left, probably discussing their next formation flight.
‘Hey,’ I say.
‘Hey.’ He sounds strained and I can already hear a heap of trouble in his voice.
‘What’s happened?’
‘I need your help.’ It’s the first time since we met that Klatsche’s needed my help. Usually, I need his.
‘Can you come to the Blue Night?’
‘What’s up?’
‘There are three dead men lying in my cellar.’
‘Oh.’
Three dead men. Obviously, it’s a message.
‘I don’t know what to do, Chas, I…’
‘Have you touched anything?’
‘No, fuck’s sake, shit … Please just
come.’
I turn on my heel, flag down a taxi on Millerntorplatz and say: ‘Hang in there. I’ll be with you in five minutes.’
It’s only a short ride, just down the Reeperbahn. At Hans-Albers-Platz I press five euros into the driver’s hand and jump out.
There’s no wind and a deep, damp sky is hanging over the city.
There’s hardly anyone about on the Sinful Mile. Just a few stragglers from last night, young people totally off their heads.
There are mountains of rubbish and broken bottles lying on the square. It stinks of beer and God knows what. Some of the neon signs are on, a grubby light here, a faint blinking there. The squinting, blurry lights of the Kiez in the morning. As if the houses are still half asleep. Of course nobody can see properly with bleary panda eyes like that.
Klatsche’s standing outside his bar. He looks as though he’s been smoking non-stop for at least half an hour. There are little beads of sweat on his upper lip, his hands are trembling; this beanpole looks thinner than ever. His hair’s stopped standing on end. Klatsche’s had a shock.
‘Hey,’ I say.
He stands facing me, his left arm pointing downwards, tensed at his side, and his right hand gripping it; every few seconds, the hand frees itself and gives the mouth a drag on the cigarette they’re sharing, then everything clamps back together again. He’s swaying ever so slightly to and fro.
I’d like to take him in my arms, but his posture is screaming ‘Please Don’t Touch’.
‘OK,’ I say quietly. ‘You just stand here and wait for me. I’ll go down and have a look.’
The hand with the cigarette goes to the mouth again and I think he nods.
The door to the Blue Night is ajar; I go in. That silence when nobody’s there, but it’s crystal clear that something is, and it’s nothing good. I know that silence. Its presence means that something murderous has paid a visit. The very first time I experienced that silence was when I found my dad with his head on the desk, and actually that was once too many. This silence is like a shock edging through the room, freezing everything it touches.
Every step is an effort. Like in those dreams where you’re trying to get somewhere, but your feet seem to have been welded to the floor.
Eventually, I’m standing behind the bar.
The hatch to the cellar, to our cellar, is open. I climb carefully down the steps, trying not to touch anything, even though that’s nonsense. There are traces of me everywhere down here, I had sex against the wall a couple of nights ago.
I can’t find the damn light switch. Phone out, torch mode on.
Lying right in front of me are three corpses.
I almost stumble over them.
They’re all lying face down, hands secured behind their backs with white cable ties and, as far as I can tell, each of these gentleman has a massive hole in his head; it’s a hell of a mess at any rate. The guy in the middle is wearing a dark-blue bomber jacket, grey cowboy boots and jeans with white writing on the bum.
I guess that’s Ronny, who slipped through our fingers yesterday at the port and, presumably, whose meth we pinched last night.
OK. In that case, I can figure out who the other two are.
I climb carefully back up again, leave the cellar hatch as it is and light a cigarette for myself outside with Klatsche.
‘How did Drob, Adlo and Ronny land up in your cellar?’
He inhales smoke, and exhales again, and says: ‘I let them in. Because apparently I’m a complete idiot.’
I raise my eyebrows and look at him. I’m aiming for stern, but I don’t know whether I’ve pulled it off, or whether it’s appropriate.
‘They came round a couple of days ago,’ he says. ‘Asked if they could park something here.’
‘Park what exactly?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask, and I said no right away. It was too hot for me.’
‘And then you asked Rocco if they could park it with him.’
‘How do you know that?’ He gives me a distraught look.
‘Never mind.’ I wave it away.
‘There’s no harm in asking,’ he says. ‘And I felt like I owed them something, you know? I’m doing so well, I’m out of that shit. So sometimes when I’m around old colleagues who’re still involved, I get a kind of … oh, I don’t know … kind of … I want to mother them.’
‘You grab on to any responsibility you come across,’ I say.
‘Only with people who’re stuck in the shit!’ he says, wagging his left index finger in the air.
So obviously that makes me ask why I always get the feeling that he’d like to take on more responsibility when it comes to us. Are we in the shit?
Or is it just me?
‘Yesterday evening, the lads came to my place again,’ he says, ‘and suddenly they wanted to park themselves. They wanted to hide, were scared stiff of something – no idea what. Course, I thought: better keep out, there’ll be some nasty reason why they need to keep out of the firing line for a few hours. But I couldn’t leave them out in the rain either.’ He drags on his cigarette. ‘I told them they could hide in my cellar if they absolutely had to. But to bugger off again by morning. The door from the cellar to the yard is only bolted on the inside so they could have got out any time.’
‘But clearly they couldn’t,’ I say. ‘How did the others get into your cellar then?’
‘They must have picked the lock on my steel door,’ he says, pointing to the entrance. ‘There’s not really anything to see. It’s done as neatly as if they had a key. I couldn’t have done it, and I can do a bit with doors, as you know.’
He looks at me and, yeah, I reckon he’s about to cry.
‘Oh shit, Chas, I’ve fucked up. And it didn’t even do the boys any good.’
‘I don’t think you could have saved them,’ I say. ‘They were in such deep trouble they’d have been killed anyway. We just need to be careful that nothing else goes wrong here.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Cards on the table. We call Calabretta.’
He lights another cigarette; down on the Reeperbahn, a groaning group of males staggers past – a wretched bridegroom and his mates, I reckon.
Klatsche draws deeply on his cigarette and eyes up the drunken lads for a few seconds.
‘Perhaps I don’t even know how the three of them got into my cellar?’
‘Not a good idea,’ I say. ‘If even one person saw you talking to them here, you’d be in all kinds of shit.’
‘But perhaps Calabretta could…?’
‘Klatsche?’
‘Yes?’
‘He can’t and he won’t.’
He lets his shoulders sag along with his head and the cigarette.
I lay my hand on his cheek. ‘Don’t worry. You didn’t do anything, apart from open up your cellar for a few old friends. You don’t have anything to do with those guys any more, do you?’
He shakes his head, but it looks a bit as though he doesn’t even really know himself.
‘I’ll call him now, OK?’
He nods and says: ‘Well, I’ll smoke a few more cigarettes then.’
It’s nuts watching Calabretta take down Klatsche’s personal details. Although I’m standing between the two of them, it’s really more like I’m standing next to Klatsche. I think it’s more comfortable for all of us that way.
Klatsche gives an amazingly clear explanation of what happened. I get the impression he’s pulling himself together again. And as he tells the story and I listen, I realise that basically everything’s fine. It’s quite obvious that the boy’s above suspicion.
‘So,’ says Calabretta once he’s taken the statement, ‘we ought to go to the records department to get your fingerprints done.’ He tacks on: ‘Just to compare them with any prints left by the culprits.’
‘No need,’ says Klatsche.
Calabretta looks puzzled. Then light dawns. ‘True. We’ve got them already.’
‘Yeah,’ says Klatsche. ‘You
ought to still have them from before.’
It’s not easy for him to say that. He’s always so proud of having made it out of that scene.
‘What about me?’ I ask. I feel the need for a clear declaration of solidarity. ‘I’ve had my fingers all over the place too.’
Both men look at me and I know: one sees it one way, and the other another.
‘Shall we go round the corner to the Davidwache station?’
‘We can do,’ says Calabretta and nods, and then Brückner and Schulle drive up and get out of their patrol car and look important, and I’m still caught in no-man’s land, and I definitely feel like I’m in the wrong film.
If it was all a bit funnier, I’d be laughing.
Klatsche’s gone down to his pub. That sounds a bit like: gone down with his ship. It’s not quite like that, but his face looked pretty sick, like he’d really come through something. I reckon he thinks that’s it for a proper life. He thinks that after that stunt the only options open to him are the wrong ones. So in a way something did go down with the ship. Fucked up. Even though Calabretta told him not to worry as he said goodbye. And Schulle and Brückner stood beside him and kept slapping him on the shoulders and smoking cigarettes with him and saying they wouldn’t leave till their forensics colleagues had gone too.
Then I was allowed to hug him.
All the same, everything gives him the creeps now.
Now I’m sitting with Calabretta in a room right at the back of the Davidwache that is actually sort of like an interview room. There’s a table and four chairs and a little window with bars outside it.
Left my fingerprints and my DNA behind.
I’m feeling kind of itchy – not massively, but a bit.
‘That’s perfectly normal,’ he says.
We both know that nothing’s normal this morning yet everything’s the same as ever.
‘In the broadest terms, that was Gjergj Malaj,’ I say, trying to wipe the black ink off my fingertips with a damp paper towel.
Blue Night Page 14