It was after four in the morning when she came home, parked her Cadillac in the drive, and let herself into the apartment. Dave wasn’t with her. When she opened the door, they were inside waiting for her. They grabbed her from behind by the throat and mouth. She only saw stockinged faces and screamed into rubber gloves. They blindfolded her, put adhesive tape over her mouth, and tied her to a chair. She said they talked of raping her right at the start, but she made them understand that she had a heart condition, so they left her alone. Here’s an interesting thing: they knew she was wearing a diamond pendant under her turtleneck sweater. Can you beat that? They knew which was her car. They took time collecting everything in the place that was fenceable. I learned that word from Ellery Queen. They made themselves Nescafé and went through every pillow, mattress, upholstered chair in the place with their knives. They even cut up the backs of her pictures. The poor kid! Shirl could hear the birds and the sounds of starting cars next door when they left. She knew that it was getting light on 159th Street. Before they left, they poured acid from the swimming pool shed into the pool. Then they left in her car. They found the Caddy a few days later. The cops, I mean, but they won’t find the rest of her stuff. Even the cops told her not to hold her breath until that happened.
The rings! She had a seven-hundred-dollar Pucci and a diamond cut like – well, it was the only one of its kind. But the thing that got her was the swimming pool. Shirl couldn’t talk about it too much. It was Dave who told us about the acid in the pool. He said that Shirl was broken up into little pieces when he got home after her call to him in New York. “She was a wreck for about a month, weren’t you honey?” he said. “I nearly didn’t have the heart to tell her about the pool, but she kept bugging me about why I had it drained. Didn’t you, sweetheart? I tried lying to her, but that wasn’t no good, so I had to tell her. And that got her started all over again. But she’s all right now, huh? How’s my little girl?” She was sick about that. If she had tried to go swimming, her skin would have been eaten right off by the acid. It makes you sick just thinking about it. It’s funny, they didn’t break up the place any in a malicious way, except for what I told you already, but they did that to the pool. I don’t understand people doing a horrible thing like that.
The next day, I think it was, the three of us, Shirl, Manny, and I, went shopping. Dave was off on business of some kind. I wanted to get some postcards to let you get a taste of the balmy south to pin to your bulletin board. I knew you were looking after our plants and your brother says he likes to hear from us regularly. Not that either of you’d ever think to drop us a line. So we went into this arcade and were browsing around when suddenly Shirl looks at me, really scared, and says, “I’ve got to get out of here. I’ll see you later.” And off she goes into the crowd and out of the other end of the arcade. Well. You could have knocked me over with a lemonade. I looked at your father and he looked at me and for a minute we didn’t know what to do. Like, it took us a minute to realize that Shirl had left so fast.
Anyway, I bought about half a dozen cards, got some stamps from the machine, and was sitting writing out one to your brother when Manny gives me a nudge. When I looked up, he nods at two men standing about ten feet away. They were watching us. One is a dumpy guy in a sports jacket and the other is wearing a pale blue nylon windbreaker with a zipper. There was no mistake about it. They were watching us. As soon as they saw that we saw them, the tall one in the windbreaker comes over and asks where Shirl is. How do you like that? I tell him it’s none of his business.
“You don’t understand,” he says, “we’re friends of hers. Is Dave with her?” He tried to look friendly and the chubby guy was nodding and tried to look agreeable.
“Well, you just missed her,” I said, a little apprehensively. “She had some things to do.”
“Well, that’s too bad. At least we can give you a lift back to where you’re staying.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said. “Thank you very much.”
“We’re driving right past 159th Street,” the other one added.
“We’re just shopping,” Manny said, and added, “For the love of Mike!” to show that he was serious.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist,” said the first guy, trying to take my arm. He smelled of talcum powder like a baby. “Our car’s parked right outside.”
Well, I looked at Manny and your father looked at me, and there didn’t seem to be anything we could do about it. They both wore smiles and seemed friendly enough. While the short one looked like a thug in the movies, I had to remind myself we weren’t in the movies. Things like that don’t happen to a couple having a holiday in Miami, for goodness sake. So we went with them to the car which was double-parked at the front of the arcade. There was a man at the wheel and the motor was running.
If I was worried at all, I felt better as soon as I saw that the driver was old Stone Eyes from the Red Cap. The guy I was telling you about? He did a real double-take when he saw me. But he didn’t smile or say anything. He just got out of the car and came around to open my door. Manny and I sat in the back with the one in the windbreaker and Stone Eyes and the heavyset one rode in front. For a while nobody said anything. Manny watched the streets run by the car windows and I kept my eyes on the backs of the necks in the front seat. What was I going to do? I’d never be able to remember where they were taking us. All the streets in Miami look alike to me. Or so I thought. After a while I could see these big gas drums, so I could roughly guess where we were. Stone Eyes ran into an empty parking lot and leaned back and said: “What do you say we all have a little drink?”
The waiter with the broom tried to say that the place was closed, but the men just walked right over him. The place looked different in the daylight. There were no shadowy places. Empty, it looked twice as big. Stone Eyes looked at Manny, but he said to me, “Look, why don’t you sit at the bar for a sec. I’ll join you after I have a word with my associates.” He and the other two sat in the booth and started in on what sounded like the middle of a conversation. After about five minutes, he ambles over and sits next to us at the bar. I was sipping a rye and water and so was Manny. The waiter brought him a drink without even asking.
“My friends and I are a little curious about your plans here in Miami. I mean are you down here on a vacation, a visit, or what? They’re a little concerned that maybe you’re not on a vacation at all, that maybe you’re planning to settle down here and I don’t mean in a retirement condominium. It’s a friendly argument we’re having. A little speculating, sure, but a few words from you can settle the whole thing. What do you say?” I could see the other two leaning this way from their booth, trying to hear as much as they could without getting up, but not making a big thing about not appearing to be listening at all. Manny looked pained, the way he gets when I use the garlic powder from the old house and we’ve run out of Gelusil. But as usual, it’s your mother who opens her big mouth.
“We’ve been down here for about two weeks. Planning to stay three. You’re not from the Department of Tourism or something. So, why the interest?” Of course I knew they weren’t tourist inspectors, but I just come out with things. You know me. Stone Eyes thought about this for a minute while he took a slow sip from his drink.
“So, you’re going back to Canada in a week, right?”
“That’s right.”
“And you’re not in business down here, right?”
“Of course not.”
“Good. Okay, that’s all I got to know. Be right back.” And over he goes to his pals again for another confab. Manny was looking at his fingernails. He gave me a weak grin. Stone Eyes came back to the bar. Your father just had time to say:
“It’s going to be all right. You’ll see.” Stone Eyes looked at both of us, then reached for his drink. He didn’t say anything until the glass was empty. He rubbed his mouth with a red bandanna he carried in his pocket.
“Okay, as soon as you’re ready, I’ll drive you home.” He
still didn’t smile, I don’t think I ever saw him do that. But this time his non-smile was as close to a smile as I ever saw him get. “One thing,” he said as I was getting off my stool, “my associates would appreciate it if you didn’t mix into Dave’s and Shirl’s business any more.” I started to protest, but Manny had me by the upper arm before I could utter a syllable. “You know how things are in business,” Stone Eyes continued, “people are superstitious about outsiders. You follow me? It’s like our friend Candide. He got his nose busted a few times putting it into the wrong places. I don’t mean this unfriendly. It’s just that my friends don’t understand people the way I do.” We were now going out of the door of the Red Cap, and Stone Eyes held the door for your father and me. He took me to one side in the parking lot: “Look, what you do is this,” he said, “you go back to Canada in a week, even sooner wouldn’t hurt things none, and you don’t say anything about what you’ve seen. That’s all.” He looked at me really hard with worry in those cold eyes, then he said, “Come one. I’ll drop you at the house.”
The ride back to Shirl’s was much more relaxed. The short one was telling what his ten-year-old son told him about oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico. All three of them said something about the destruction caused by oil spills. Stone Eyes blamed it on lax shipping registry laws and referred to the Law of the Sea Conference that was going on someplace, and then the blue windbreaker got onto acid rain as we came to a stop in front of Shirl’s. The other guy said that he was very impressed with the interest young people have in ecology. “Kids are really great the way they want to protect and preserve stuff.”That was the end of it. We got out and said goodbye.
So, we let ourselves into the apartment. We didn’t notice anything wrong, but when Shirl got back an hour later and when we told her what happened, she really went into orbit. I mean first of all she gets the shakes when she sees that Dave’s stuff is gone from the closet. She checks the dressers and starts to cry. She asks us to describe the men we met and in less than no time we are packing ourselves into a limousine and on our way to the airport. Can you beat that? One minute I’m sitting in the sun with a tall, cool drink on the patio, the next I’m packing and Shirl’s trying to smile and not fooling anybody. Shirl went with us to the airline terminal and gave us both a big hug as we got into the limo. The last we saw of her she was wiping tears from those huge blue eyes and slamming the door of her Caddy.
Now isn’t that the darndest thing you ever heard? Of course I figured it all out on the flight to Sarasota. Shirl knew that Dave was in on the robbery because he knew about the acid in the swimming pool. How can you tell there’s acid in a pool unless you told somebody to put it there? He pulled the robbery to put Lou off the scent. He must have been creaming the top off his numbers money. A lot of them try that. People get greedy, that’s all. So Lou hired those thugs to shake things up to see if any change rolled out of our pockets that didn’t belong to us. It all started looking like something in a paperback mystery novel. Isn’t there a private eye down here who lives on a houseboat? John D. something. The whole two weeks sounds like a case he might have got involved in.
Anyway, your father and I are both well. You can pick us up at the airport on Tuesday, Flight 604 from Sarasota. And, Benny, don’t forget to water my plants.
Love,
Mother
Night Over Unna
Bernhard Jaumann
The words had only come together with some difficulty. Again and again Priest Nicolai had had to murmur them under his breath before they sounded right and before they could drown the terrors of the day. The rasping gasps of the dying, the toll of the church bells, the clatter of the oxcarts taking the bodies to the meadow. Even his stammers of solace had stayed unheard under the desperate cries of widow Schwartz, who had lost her fourth child to the epidemic.
But now, long after midnight, all was quiet in the streets outside, and Nicolai felt peace returning to him again through the words he had found with God’s help. He skimmed across the lines in the glow of the tallow candle, dunked the goose feather quill into the ink pot once more and wrote Unna, in the year 1597 of our Lord under the last verse of the chorale.
The flame flickered in the draught of the movement of his arm and Nicolai smiled. He was sure that the light of the Lord would never perish, despite all the suffering and hardship, illness and death. Even he didn’t know why God allowed the citizens of Unna to die like flies, but he was sure of one consolation: their souls would find salvation after this earthly vale of tears. Nicolai got up and blew out the candle. Darkness surrounded him, but he was not afraid of death. He carefully felt his way to the door, stepped into the lane and made his way towards the church square. A cool breeze had arisen. It had driven the stink of the plague from the streets and had wiped the clouds from the sky. The great and glorious starry firmament twinkled down on Nicolai.
Nicolai’s newly finished song awoke inside him and demanded its right to be heard. At first he hummed it softly to himself, but then, one by one, the words urged themselves into the tune, they battled against the silent dying in the dark huts and houses, they conquered death, and when Nicolai looked to the east and saw a star brighter than all the others glimmering over the rooftops, he sang for all he was worth: “How beautiful the morning star shines/full of the mercy and truth of Our Lord . . .”
“And?” Chief Inspector Henze asked.
He motioned upwards into the night sky.
“A young woman with an infant,” Inspector Silvia Frieling said.
“An environmentalist fanatic?”
“A what?” asked Frieling.
“Who but some nutter from Greenpeace would get the idea of chaining themselves to the top of a chimney?”
“We don’t know if she has tied herself up there.”
“Why hasn’t anyone organized some floodlights yet?” Henze asked.
He yawned. Because he was tired. And because sometimes his job got on his nerves.
“We’ve done that,” said Frieling. “But we had to turn them off again immediately.”
“Because they would have interfered with the art or what?”
He gazed at the blue neon numbers with contempt. Light artist Mario Merz had decorated the old chimney of the Linden Brewery with them: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 up to the number 987.
“Because the woman threatened to throw down her child,” said Frieling.
“Her own child?”
Henze looked up. In the glare of the neon lights he could see the figure of a woman. She sat on the rim of the chimney and seemed to rock her body back and forth. The bundle on her lap could be a baby. Maybe.
“The chimney is fifty-two metres high,” said Frieling, “and the base is partly surrounded by buildings. The boiler house and whatever else. It’s completely impossible to secure it with rescue nets.”
“What does she want?” asked Henze.
Frieling hesitated. Then she said, “She wants to get the night back.”
“Well,” said Henze.
He would also like the night back. His night in his bed, his sleep with his own bog standard nightmares, in which he had to flee from some nameless danger without being able to move from the spot. He kicked and turned, until he awoke, disoriented, panicked. For some reason he only calmed down when he read the glowing digits of his alarm clock. As if it weren’t totally irrelevant whether they showed him that it was 3.12 am or 4.31 am.
“She demands that all lights in Unna be turned off,” said Frieling. “And in all the suburbs as well, in Massen and Königsborn, in Hemmerde, Lünern and Kessebüren, everywhere. She doesn’t want to see any street-lamps, no lit adverts, no illumination on the church nor on the ramparts, no light in private homes, not even the flicker of the telly and no headlights on the motorways. She wants absolute darkness. And she has given us three hours.” Frieling looked on her watch. “Which means we’ve still got two hours and thirty-five minutes exactly.”
“Total blackout like in an air raid. Is that a
ll?” asked Henze. “And then she’ll come down again?”
“At least she’ll let the child live then.”
Flashing blue lights could be seen rotating on the police cars on Massener Street. The Schalander was being vacated. Most of the people who had been in the pub joined the crowd of curious onlookers who had gathered behind the barriers despite the late hour. An old man protested as two uniformed officers took away his torch with which he had tried to make out the madwoman. Henze stared at the neon numbers on the facade of the chimney. He didn’t like the fact that same numbers didn’t have the same shape. As if some giant had scrawled them on the funnel in an awkward hand. Probably art. Henze preferred the world for which his digital alarm clock stood. A world, in which at 5.55 am three absolutely identical digits reassured him that he had only had a bad dream and that he was himself once more.
“I want to know who she is,” he said. “I want a name, a face and a history.”
“She’s got to be from here,” said Frieling. “Otherwise she couldn’t have rattled off the names of Unna’s suburbs like that.”
“And her child can’t have dropped out of the blue either.” He realized how inappropriate his last remark was in light of the situation, so he added, “I want a list of all births in the last twelve months. Doesn’t Müller’s wife work at the registry office? He can take on that job.”
Frieling passed on the orders. One of the officers whispered back that the directional microphone was now ready.
“Let’s see what we can hear then,” said Henze.
He made sure the record-button was pressed and put on the headphones. Her voice was surprisingly low. She didn’t speak, she sang quietly: “. . . ring-a-ring o’roses, a pocket full of posies. A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down.”
Henze handed the headphones over to Frieling and told the technician to make a dozen copies of the recording as quickly as possible.
“In half an hour at the latest, everyone in Unna has to have heard this voice. My men will help you there.”
The Mammoth Book Best International Crime Page 56