The lorry heads to the car park behind the café. It’s not much more than a built-up lay-by really. Spattered chunks.
We park within sight.
Wieczorkowski’s still on the phone. He gets out and says: ‘I’ll just stretch my legs.’
I look up at the sky through the car window. Dark clouds. The March day is slowly coming to an end, the light’s going soft.
I watch Wieczorkowski strolling nonchalantly with his phone to his ear. Keeping an eye on the lorry. The lorry stands there. Nothing happens.
After a minute or two, Wieczorkowski comes back. Gets back into his van.
‘He’s waiting for someone who isn’t coming.’
‘We found three dealers dead this morning,’ I say. ‘We think they tried to mess with the big boss’s deal. You know.’
‘And if this driver were waiting for those three…’ says Wieczorkowski.
‘…he’s probably in serious danger,’ I say.
‘We should get him out,’ says Tschauner.
‘We will get him out,’ says Brux, ‘but not until he’s delivered the container. I want to know who else is in on it.’
He looks at me.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘Do we step in now, or in ten minutes…? Let’s wait and see what happens.’
Brux nods in satisfaction.
‘The more we find out about the process, the better.’
I get out and join Wieczorkowski in the Transit. I feel better now that everyone’s in a pair.
‘Nice to see you,’ says Wieczorkowski as I climb onto the seat beside him.
‘I wasn’t expecting you to pay me a visit so soon.’
‘I just followed the Elbe,’ he says, twinkling at me.
I didn’t know people still did that. Twinkling, I mean.
But it’s like so many of those odd things – this Hannes Wieczorkowski can carry it off.
The lorry judders and creeps out from behind the truck stop. I catch a brief glimpse of the driver. A man in his mid thirties with a powerful forehead and a harassed look. Alexander Jepsen.
He drives on. We follow at a slight distance. Let two cars out before we rejoin the motorway. Behind us are Brux and Tschauner in the dark-blue Audi. Then a good way behind come Kringe and Bartels in the grey Golf. We all snake along towards the Eurogate Terminal.
If anything goes wrong, there’s back-up waiting round the corner – Brux was smart enough to think of that.
I’m not really the nabbing type.
It’s the long straight towards the terminal. Up ahead there’s the transfer point; I can already see the carriers: gantries on wheels, buzzing anxiously to and fro. Just the bones of machines driving around.
There’s nothing but lorries in front and behind us now. They’re tailgating. They’ve got no time to lose.
They’re dancing to a very precisely calculated choreography, and the choreography is timed to the second.
Jepsen turns off to the right and positions his lorry at the end of a long row of trucks waiting for transhipment. We stop maybe fifty metres away, outside the site. A mosaic of colourful metallic rectangles, occasionally studded by steel struts belonging to something mobile. There are barely any people in sight – it’s a world out of the belly of a factory.
I’m linked to Brux by phone; Tschauner’s on the line to Kringe and Bartels.
Jepsen climbs out. He’s tall and strong. Dark-blonde hair over a straight brow, three-day stubble, jumper, jeans, trucker clogs. He lights a cigarette. Wipes his hands on his trousers. Again and again. Smoke, wipe, repeat. He appears not to have noticed us yet, although I can’t actually believe that.
‘He’s so nervous it’s not true,’ says Wieczorkowski.
‘I would be if I were him,’ I say.
‘Watch out,’ says Brux down the line. ‘Someone’s coming.’
A man with a little gadget in his hand. Jepsen holds some papers out to him, the man scans something.
‘How long do we want to wait here,’ asks Wieczorkowski, as Kringe and Bartels draw up behind the dark-blue Audi in the grey Golf.
‘Now,’ says Brux.
We get out, Wieczorkowski, Brux, Tschauner and me; we stride over to Jepsen and his truck and the other man. They look confused when they see us. My colleagues pull out their IDs and hold them up; Brux shouts: ‘Hey! Police!’
Jepsen twitches; he’s clearly wondering whether to run when Kringe suddenly revs up.
I hear the Golf racing past us and Bartels yelling through the open window: ‘Get down! Down! Everyone down!’
Alexander Jepsen collapses and the dock worker falls too, and I feel Wieczorkowski’s big body slide to the floor past my shoulder. I slip down with him and lie protectively over him; we’re lying behind the Golf, which has stopped right in front of us. Brux and Tschauner are crouching behind the car with us. I look into their eyes. They’re OK. Wieczorkowski groans. Blood wells up from his shoulder under my hand.
Everyone who still can, breathes. Kringe and Bartels are lying in the car, Kringe yells that they’re OK. Brux and Tschauner have their guns at the ready and a glint in their eyes; I can smell the adrenaline.
‘We need an ambulance,’ I say.
‘You get the ambulance, I’ll get the back-up,’ says Brux.
We pull out our phones and call for help. Brux calls his colleagues and also orders a SWAT team and a helicopter.
‘I saw him,’ says Bartels, whacked, as if there were a tiger on his heels. ‘He was standing on the warehouse at the back there – a guy in black with a black hood and a black gun.’
I look up to the roof, scan it with my eyes. There’s nobody to be seen now.
In the container, hidden among the car parts, are a hundred kilos of uncut crystal meth. Market value in the west: about ten million euros. Headed for Stockholm. Brux has already spoken to his colleagues in Sweden.
Stuck with magnets to the bottom of the lorry are another three kilos of meth and the same amount of krok. That must be the stuff Drob, Adlo and Ronny died for.
‘On principle,’ says Kringe.
‘Because the big guys don’t let the little guys mess with their business,’ says Bartels.
‘Because krok is the end,’ says Brux. ‘That’s not building a clientele, it’s killing them off. You can’t stand for that if you want to make long-term money from drugs.’
‘Because it’s all a huge pile of shit,’ says Tschauner.
The ambulance has already raced off with Wieczorkowsi. The bullet passed straight through his shoulder; he’s lost a lot of blood but he’ll get back on his feet. The undertakers lift the lead coffins containing Jepsen and the docker into the mortuary van. Helicopters with bright searchlights keep circling the dark sky above the port. All around us there’s blue light. I can hear sirens near and far.
‘What is this?’ I ask. ‘Mexican gang warfare?’
Brux looks at me, then looks at Tschauner, who says again:
‘A huge pile of shit. A stinking kingdom of filth.’
1999, New Year’s Eve, just before midnight.
WIECZORKOWSKI, HANNES
I dreamt this once. Not all that long ago.
Then I thought: this is a film in my head. And suddenly things look just like that film or dream, or whatever it was.
I’ve followed the guy up onto the roof. I’ve had him in my sights for a while. And because I had no plans for tonight, and because New Year’s Eve is a good evening for stake-outs because nobody’s expecting you, I tailed him. The cocaine dealer.
He’s the kind of guy who punches holes in his own nose as if he has a spare in the drawer. Properly off his nut, that one. Carries more and more razor blades in his pockets. Pulled one on a colleague when he went to arrest him.
When I stepped through the door onto the roof, it wasn’t a razor but a gun in his hand. The gun’s pointed at a man. The man’s standing on the edge, his hands up.
Two steps back and he’ll be over. Blood is trickling down his cheek.
Ro
ckets shoot up on either side. Fireworks.
I pull out my gun, release the safety catch and say: Drop the weapon. Police.
The man on the edge spotted me before I said anything. Unless I’m misinterpreting his expression, he’s not exactly pleased to see me. He’s looking at me like my entrance has made everything worse, which I can’t quite understand.
I mean – he’s about to be shot.
Now he’s got a chance.
Drop the weapon, I say again.
Oh sod off, punk, says the junkie and he starts laughing.
He’s laughing at me. And then he starts swearing at me: Wanker, fucker, arsehole, bastard.
Does he have Tourette’s?
Lousy pig, pansy, bonehead, you stink.
He’s standing with an eye on each of us. The man on the edge and me.
His gun’s pointed at the man who is yet to utter a word; mine’s trained on him. He carries on swearing at me, but I’m not listening any more. I hear my father, who called me similar names.
Bonehead was always one of them.
Perhaps that’s the word that triggers my own Tourette’s. Bullet-Tourette’s.
I fire off the whole clip. Until he’s finally quiet, the junkie.
The man on the edge watches, at total ease.
When my clip’s empty, he picks up the dead man’s gun and comes towards me.
JOE (BORN: HERMANNSMEIER, JOSEF)
He actually just slams a whole round into his belly. Just flips when he’s sworn at.
The cop.
And now the arsehole’s lying here on the floor, not even gasping. Suddenly he’s dead quiet.
Shooting the arse was meant to be my job. I had an appointment with him here, to shoot him.
He thought we were doing a drugs deal. It could have gone as smooth as silk.
But then I stuffed up. Let myself get so distracted by the razor that he managed to get my gun off me.
I knew about the razors, everyone knows, but it still confused the hell out of me.
OK, there was that razor thing in the past.
But it’s got nothing to do with it. It couldn’t have anything to do with it.
I lean over the arsehole, take the gun from his hand and stick it in my waistband behind my back.
That’s mine, I tell the cop, and he says: Oh, right.
We’ll get rid of him first, I say, and the cop says oh, right again.
We lug him down the stairs, the house is empty; tomorrow night all the dossers will be back; they’ll get rid of any prints, especially with all the mud out there just now. So just keep lugging.
Keep lugging, I tell the cop and he says: I am.
And in the morning, as the arsehole sinks into the water and we’re hours into the new millennium, we’re still sitting in the drizzle on that bench by the dyke, looking at the Elbe and drinking gin from the petrol station, and we’re not even that cold because we’re pretty satisfied.
Our agreement may not be elegant, but it works.
YOU DON’T HAPPEN TO KNOW WHERE HE’S GONE?
Faller and me on the Erholung Promenade in St Pauli. We’re smoking and drinking coffee from paper cups. The jetties are below us. A few ships, a few tourists, a lot of gulls. No sun in the sky.
‘Did the gentlemen from Catania ever turn up again?’ asks Faller.
I shake my head. ‘No news as yet,’ I say. ‘There’s an international warrant out. But you know how it goes with people like that.’
He nods. ‘I know.’
He watches a gull.
‘And why was there a sniper on the container terminal?’
‘We think Malaj’s behind it all,’ I say.
‘Well, well,’ says Faller, giving me a disconnected look.
‘And he’s not stupid. Wednesday night there was a drugs raid in a little club; the next morning, three dealers were dead. Anyone wanting to do his thing at the container port would have to reckon with us appearing to screw it up.’
‘You certainly screwed it up. And at least there were no people in the container, only drugs.’
He’s right there.
‘Unfortunately, everyone who could have talked is now dead,’ I say.
‘Which explains the sniper, of course,’ says Faller.
I watch the clouds as they split and join up and push into each other. As if they wanted to build a world of their own up there.
‘The guys turned the whole port upside down over night,’ I say. ‘No trace of him. As if he was never even there.’
Down on the water, the harbour police race by in one of their antiquated boats. With their Lego cutesiness and framed by the much-photographed jetties, they always look like they’ve just tumbled out of an early-evening TV series.
‘How’s our colleague from Leipzig?’ asks Faller.
‘Doing OK. But he lost a lot of blood.’
‘Is he responsive?’
‘Not really, not yet,’ I say. ‘Why?’
‘Just wondered.’
Faller sips at his coffee, sticks out his bottom lip and nods, tortoise-like.
‘The only person who can still be a danger to Malaj is Joe,’ I say, thinking that that’s not true, because Wieczorkowski knows about Joe’s bank box. And so do I. But there’s no way in hell I’m discussing that with Faller.
Faller raises his eyebrows and says: ‘Hmm. Unfortunately, Joe’s disappeared.’
‘And you don’t happen to know where he’s gone?’ I ask.
Faller tilts his head to the left, then to the right. ‘Nope.’
‘Come on, Faller.’
‘He’s not stupid either, my girl. He knows that if the worst comes to the worst, he’s next on the list. If a deal’s gone wrong for someone like Malaj and he has to tidy up, then he really tidies up. And if Joe’s as smart as I think he is, he’s long gone, back to the Carinthian Alps to enjoy the spring sunshine.’
‘In plaster, or what?’
I wonder whether Faller knows about the bank box. He scratches his chin, drinks a gulp of coffee and says nothing more.
The sun pops out from behind the clouds, casts its rays over the Elbphilharmonie; the clouds gather again, and the big box of a building, whose job it is – or at least is meant to be – to beam light right across this town, just eats up the sunshine.
Among foes and among friends.
MALAJ GJERGJ
Oh they were as happy as Larry.
They’re happy as Larry about every penny they can take off me. And of course, for people like that, ten million’s a lot of money.
For me: bummer.
The business with the containers was low risk.
It would have been good.
For my cousin in Stockholm it’s a real bummer.
Now he’s empty-handed. He’ll have to think of something else.
I’m out. Next week I’m buying that hotel complex in Bulgaria.
Nice.
Black Sea.
Five Stars.
Deluxe.
There are two lorries already heading that way from the Czech Republic. My cousin from Sofia is coming specially to settle everything. Then he’ll invest the money right back into the hotel.
Up and running.
Who gives a shit about the Hamburgers and their measly container port?
FALLER, GEORG
So I said to my wife, what do you think? Shall we head to the mountains again this summer?
HERMANNSMEIER, JOSEF
Bit dark down here in the cellar. But the sky outside is getting brighter every day. And the bed is good.
My bones are healing.
I bet the woman can’t stand me. She’s given me a cat mug.
FLOODLIGHT
(Four weeks later)
Yesterday, spring arrived. All of a sudden it’s seventeen degrees, and I swear tomorrow every tree will be in blossom.
Faller and I are sitting outside a café on the pavement in the sun with our backs to the tentatively warmed wind. Right in front of us, a surfer i
s liberating his greying Fiat Ducato from the moss that’s grown on the car over the winter.
I order a latte in a glass, Faller orders an espresso. And a lemonade.
‘With lemon, please.’
He blinks towards the sky and says: ‘I just read in the paper what happened in the Santa Fu. Jeeze. Those poor kids.’
‘I know,’ I say.
There was a delivery of krok for Hamburg that did arrive. It must have belonged with the crystal in the Graciosa Bar. Now we know who the krok was aimed at. Or – to put it another way – where the target group is.
In prison.
It seems like the whole load ended up in the Fuhlsbüttel Young Offenders Institution. And they swallowed it whole.
Now they’re all detoxing and suffering and downing morphine together; the local paper ran a big front-page story about the ‘RUSSIAN JAIL DRUG’ today.
The waitress brings our drinks, Faller smiles rather too suavely for my taste. He’s sold the Pontiac. I don’t know if that’ll do him any good.
He sniffs his espresso, closes his eyes, takes a hot sip, sniffs again and says: ‘Aah.’
Once he’s drunk the coffee, he turns his attention to the lemonade. Starts by taking out the slice of lemon and eating it.
‘Aah,’ again.
Then he drinks the yellow liquid a sip at a time and it seems to make him disproportionately happy.
‘Are you starting a new drinks fetish?’ I ask.
‘No,’ he says. ‘I’m just fasting.’
‘You’re fasting?’
Faller’s never gone four hours without eating as long as I’ve known him. Two hours, really. And even then, not without the occasional currywurst.
‘I need an internal cleansing, my girl.’
He waves to the waitress. ‘Could I have a glass of water with lemon too, please?’
Internal cleansing?
Something bothers me about that.
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