PASSPORT TO CRIME: WORLD SAVINGS DAY IN HAMMINKELN by Jurgen Ehlers
Jurgen Ehlers was born and currently lives in Hamburg, Germany. In his “day job” he serves as a geologist whose area of expertise is the Ice Age and coastal research. His fiction output consists of more than forty stories published in Germany, England, Bulgaria and the U.S. Mitgegangen, his first novel (2005), was nominated in the Friedrich Glauser prize's Best Debut Novel of the Year category, and in 2006 he won the Glauser prize for Best Short German Crime Fiction with the following story.
Translated from the German by Mary Tannert.
"There is a slight trend towards more personal initiative,” it said in Manager magazine on the subject of Hartz IV, our new social-welfare program for the long-term unemployed. More personal initiative—now, I'm not sure I understand what that is, but to be honest, the first thing I noticed about myself with Hartz IV was a trend toward more personal frustration. I'm a civil engineer, fifty-five years old, and in Germany's current economic situation I could stand on my head and still nobody would hire me, a guy as old as me—with Hartz IV or without it. But then I read that part about personal initiative again, and said to myself: Yeah, I'll do something for myself. I'll rob a bank.
Bank robbery?—Now I know what you're going to say. Much too risky. At my age! And without any relevant professional experience. I mean, I've never done it before, and the first time you try something, a lot of things can go wrong. But you have to get past small-minded considerations like that. Otherwise we'll never get the economy going again, not here in the Lower Rhine.
So I went to this bar in Wesel and got some advice. (No, I'm not going to tell you the name of the place, not here in print; the publisher didn't want me to say. But if you call me up I'll give you the address.) Egon Patzek, they said. He'll do it. If you're from Wesel, you might even know him. He's always in the papers.
To be honest, at the beginning I wasn't convinced at all that this Egon was the right partner for me. He looked a little dumb. I mean, appearances can be deceiving and everything, but when I looked at Egon I had the feeling that in this case, they were a pretty good indicator. So I went back up to the manager of the bar and said I was a little worried about the qualifications of my prospective partner. But he just looked at me sideways and said, “We haven't got any Al Capones here. You've got to go to Chicago for that. Or at least Dortmund. Egon's the best guy you can find here on the Lower Rhine. He's got more prior convictions than everybody else put together."
This didn't completely eliminate my doubts. And I hadn't reckoned so much on an older guy with a beer belly. I'm imagining someone a little like John Dillinger way back when. You remember him? The ‘thirties. Broke out of jail three times. Young, dynamic, jumped over the counters and stuff.
The manager just laughs when I tell him that. “Jump over the counters? What planet are you from? You try that in a bank here, you'll land smack up against the bulletproof glass! Nah, it doesn't work like that anymore!"
That's when I realize I need an expert, and I go and sit down at Egon's table. “Bank robbery?” he says. “That'll be five thousand."
"Shhhh!” I say, and tell him that actually I'm hoping we'll net at least fifty thousand from the robbery. Or even more.
Then he explains that he's not talking about the take from the heist, he's talking about the start-up capital. And that he needs it right away. “Cash."
That's how our bank robbery begins, with me taking out a loan. From the Hamminkelner Volksbank. But this way at least I get a look at the layout of the place beforehand.
We meet at my house to plan. I cleaned up everything ahead of time. I even ran the vacuum. It's been a bachelor pad since Elke left two years ago. You'd probably be able to tell from the way it usually looks. But Egon, he doesn't notice the trouble I went to. He just sprawls in a lounger, puts his dirty boots on the coffee table, and says, “First I need a beer."
So I get the beer from the fridge and bring it in with two glasses. “I only need one,” says Egon. But then he doesn't even touch it, he just puts the bottle to his mouth and when he sets it down it's empty. “Have ya got any more?"
I bring another bottle. He wrenches the top off and says I'm going to be getting up a lot if I keep bringing them one at a time. But finally we get around to business. I explain to him that for me this bank robbery is pretty much like a normal business transaction. “We're partners in this plan, and as business partners we should treat each other with respect."
"Huh?” says Egon.
I explain that I want us to be more formal, like people are in business, and that we shouldn't put our dirty shoes on each other's coffee tables. I can tell he has some trouble with the idea of not treating me like a beer buddy, but he does take his shoes off the table when I spread the five thousand euros out on it.
"I've got everything figured out right down to the last detail,” I say. “Here's an exact plan of the bank and its surroundings."
"We don't need that,” says Egon. “I know how to do this, I'll take care of it."
* * * *
A week later, we meet again. I had expected that Egon would have gotten hold of a couple of guns, but instead he lays a kind of short, thin pipe on the table.
"What's that supposed to be?” I ask. “This isn't a relay race, it's a bank robbery."
Egon grins. “And that's no relay baton. It's a single-action incendiary launcher. DM 34."
"Thirty-four Deutschmark! That's seventeen euros!” I say. “That's coming out of your share!"
"No, that's its name. It's called a DM 34. I swiped it during the last reserves training weekend."
"Oh, great! And what are we supposed to do with it?"
"Scare people,” says Egon. “In the bank. So they hop to it and hand the money over fast."
I don't know what to say. I look at the thing. It doesn't look very threatening to me. It's an olive-green, insignificant piece of plastic pipe, maybe about fifteen inches long.
"Never seen one?” asks Egon.
No, I'd never seen one.
"The tank destroyer troops,” says Egon, obviously trying to help me out.
That doesn't mean anything to me either.
"It's like this: When the enemy's tank stalls, and that happens a lot, you know..."
I explain to him that I've never had that happen to me.
"Don't you ever go to the movies?"
"Not much,” I say. “The last movie I saw was Love Story. There weren't any tanks in it."
"Sometimes they cut stuff out,” says Egon. “Just when it starts to get exciting...” And then he tells me how it works: “So there's this enemy tank, just sitting there, and now the tank destroyer troops sneak up. That's you and me. You come up on one side with your Panzerfaust, you know, your bazooka, and I come up on the other, and I shoot this incendiary launcher right onto the front. There's white phosphorus in it. And magnesium. There's a big flash, and the guys in the tank, they all think: Damn! That's an incendiary launcher.... I mean, in Russian, of course...."
It's becoming obvious to me that Egon's military service was a while ago.
"...And then you come up on the other side and get them with the Panzerfaust."
"Great!” I say. “Why don't I just do that right from the start?"
Egon responds that I obviously don't have the faintest idea of modern warfare. And I remind him that our goal isn't actually to destroy the bank, it's just to get the money.
"Yeah, I know,” he says. But the whole thing makes me uneasy, and I have the funny feeling that what interests him more than anything else is the prospect of that big flash.
* * * *
When we meet in front of the bank as planned, Egon is beaming. “Did you see? Today's World Savings Day!” No, I hadn't seen. But I can smell it. Egon's saving on showers. He's probably the first bank robber in history who'll be identified in a lineup by his smell.
"I used to love that,” he says. “World Savings Day! You could always get somet
hing. I'd pay in my five Deutschemark and get a piggy bank or a ruler or something. And then I'd go back the next day and take the money out again. The stuff we got—the rulers—they were in a class by themselves. They had a little knob on the top, and when you put ‘em on the table upside down and turned ‘em fast enough, they'd spin in a circle. For ages. We used to do that all the time at school...."
"Yes,” I say. It figures. Egon is exactly the kind of person who'd have spent nine or ten years in school making a ruler spin in a circle.
"D'you think they still have stuff like that?"
I reminded him that this was about money, not rulers.
"Yeah,” he says. “I understand."
* * * *
Egon gets the motorcycle helmets out of the car. We need them so that none of the stuff in the incendiary launcher drips on our heads when Egon fires the warning shot.
"We'd better put something in the parking meter,” I say.
"World Savings Day!” he says. “Nobody's paying."
We're the only customers in the bank. Naturally everybody stares at us when we come in with the helmets on.
"Get going!” I call out. “Out with the money! Pack it up!"
But evidently you can't hear too much through a motorcycle helmet. The young man in the cashier's booth just says, “Can I help you?"
So I write it down for him. The cashier looks at the note, and then at the two of us standing there with our motorcycle helmets and our little green pipe. And then he says, “Gentlemen, I believe you've forgotten your pistols!"
Egon lets off a warning shot, diagonally into the ceiling. At first, it doesn't seem like much of an effect. Since then I've learned there's a minimum distance you have to shoot for the incendiary launcher to really work, and that distance is at least further than the height of the cashier's booth at the Hamminkelner Volksbank. But it isn't as if nothing at all happens when you shoot it under the minimum distance. There's a loud bang, a piece of soundproof paneling in front of me breaks into bits, and a couple of seconds later, white phosphorus starts to drip from the ceiling directly into the cashier's booth. The cashier screams and runs for safety, but then the bank notes on the counter inside the booth catch fire and start to burn.
Egon yells something inside his helmet. It might have been something like, “Quick, quick! Rescue the money!” He runs down the counter to the spot where the investment adviser is sitting, throws himself over, runs back up, and tries to get into the cashier's booth from the back, but the door's shut behind the cashier and can't be opened without the key.
Meanwhile, I'm waving the incendiary launcher around. I'm lucky I've got that helmet on; that way, you can't see that I'm panicking. I'm hoping the thing doesn't go off by mistake. Then Egon gives up trying to get into the cashier's booth. He tears off his helmet, grabs the investment adviser's ruler, and yells, “Let's get out of here!"
And we lurch out.
The first thing I see is that our car's gone. It's probably been towed because we didn't put any money in the meter. “That doesn't matter,” gasps Egon. “We'll just go take it. They park ‘em all next to the cemetery. I've been there before...."
But we don't get that far, because naturally someone in the bank has long since set off the alarm and the cops are already coming. A squad car with its lights and siren on. We take off and run as hard as we can. Egon's faster than me; he turns around and sees I'm losing ground. He yells, “Step on it, you fat ass!"
I give him a reproachful look, and he pulls himself together. “Mr. Wohlers, could you please hand me your incendiary launcher?"
He's right, I still have the stupid thing in my hand. And then it turns into a kind of relay race after all; he slows down just a little, and I hand him the baton. The squad car's getting closer. Suddenly, Egon stops and aims with the incendiary launcher. I throw myself to the ground, and—boom!—the thing goes off with a loud whoosh. This time, the distance is perfect, and the squad car disappears in a bright magnesium flash. “Super, just like James Bond!” says Egon excitedly. But that's all he says: my partner's standing there, his face all lit up with a stupid grin, the discharged pipe in his hand, and meanwhile the cops have long since jumped out of their car, pulled out their guns, and got him by the collar.
At first, they don't even see me. And I might have gotten away if I hadn't twisted my ankle diving to avoid the shot. I can barely stand. By the time I've gotten up on my feet again and can try limping away, they've got me too. They take us both away. Egon's crying. His ruler got broken in the scuffle.
So now I'm sitting here where it's warm and dry, and I've gotten around Hartz IV after all. At least for now. Because my lawyer says he's not sure I'll even have to do any time. The papers wrote “armed robbery,” but that's wrong. A DM 34 isn't a weapon, it's just a non-lethal diversionary device, and it has to be classified differently, sort of like July 4th fireworks. At least, my lawyer thinks so. He wants to get all kinds of expert witnesses and specialists involved. And that will take awhile. But if I'm lucky, he says, we'll be out by the middle of October. Right in time for the next World Savings Day.
Copyright © 2007 Jurgen Ehlers
Published as “Weltspartag in Hamminkeln” in the anthology Mordsfeste.
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"It's a little unorthodox for an interrogation room, but it makes them sing like canaries."
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POOL PLAYERS ARE NICE PEOPLE by William Bankier
In his quiet way, William Bankier sometimes portrays some pretty hardboiled characters, including hit men and mobsters. A Canadian by birth, Mr. Bankier has been a resident of Los Angeles for many years. But his favorite fictional setting seems to be the idealized Canadian small town he calls Batown; for several decades he's placed all manner of interesting characters there.
Jason Kirby was on the telephone to Oscar Macrobie at the head office of the Macro Hotel chain in Montreal. “Have you found a place to live?” the boss enquired.
"I'm renting a room in a very nice cottage belonging to a Miss Delacourt. It's walking distance from the new hotel site. In Baytown, everything is walking distance."
"What's your distance from Miss Delacourt?"
"Chief, she's the local librarian."
"Even better,” Macrobie said, and both men indulged in some dirty laughter. Then it was back to business. “Any further noise from irate citizens?"
Kirby was on a pay phone in the Paragon Cafe up the street from the excavation. He could see a dozen or so people holding signs and walking in a slow procession. He described this to his boss. Then he said, “They really loved their Coronet Hotel."
"It was a dump. Ready to fall down. In a year and a half they'll be drinking and dining at the new Macro Tower. They'll forget there ever was a Coronet."
Kirby went over a hang-up in the delivery of construction materials and how he was taking care of it. Macrobie asked him if he expected any trouble in the hiring of staff. “Not really. The locals need jobs. Baytown is no different from any other place."
The Montreal visitor walked out of the cafe with a feeling of relief. Oscar was an okay boss but it was stressful talking to him. One of the better things about the Baytown assignment was it took him out of the head office. No chance here that Macrobie would suddenly appear in Kirby's office doorway wearing his million-dollar suit and flashing his sinister grin. The old man made no attempt to hide his underworld connections. The story was that in the early days he buried a competitor in the foundation of his first hotel. Today he was a jovial glad-hander but the menace was always there.
The picketers saw Kirby approaching and they met him with a volley of boos and whistles. He responded with his usual over-the-head victory sign. The crew were working. Thankfully, the last remnants of the old building had been trucked away.
"Where is your peerless leader?” he asked one of the demonstrators.
"Sammy is buying the dynamite. As soon as your Macaroni Hotel sticks its head above the
ground we intend to blow it to hell."
These Baytown people were something different in Kirby's experience. They embodied a combination of humor and ferocity. He found it appealing. “I'll tell Mr. Macaroni next time I speak to him."
Kirby knew that Sammy was Sam Luftspring, a former bellboy who had been promoted to desk clerk, and by the time the Coronet was demolished he was manager. Today he seemed to be the organizing force behind the anti-Macro rebellion. The men had met a couple of times and had achieved a relationship of mutual respect.
"It's Friday,” Kirby addressed the gathering. “Why don't you nice people take the weekend off?"
"It's pleasant down by the Bay. Why don't you drop in?"
* * * *
Late in the afternoon Kirby wandered up to the public library and went inside. Isobel Delacourt was behind the front desk. She looked like a schoolgirl with her blond head lowered to the paper she was writing on and there was an appealing determination in the way she gripped the pen. As Kirby approached, she looked up and observed him as if she had never seen him before. He said, “It's Friday. My third weekend in your fair city. Why don't you and I go somewhere?"
"Nice of you to ask, but I think not."
"Any particular reason?"
"Yes. If people saw us together they'd brand me a traitor."
"You're renting me a room in your house."
"I know. I wasn't concentrating."
"You realize you're driving me to solitary drinking."
"If that's your way."
"You won't reconsider?"
"I have work to do. I'll be here for hours."
"I could pick you up."
"Mr. Kirby, you seem a nice man. You're quiet around the house. And neat. But you're involved in a very unpopular enterprise. I was born here. My parents took me once a week to the Coronet dining room. Don't you see? I can't go out with you."
* * * *
Jason Kirby ended up that evening at Hagerty's Poolroom. It was in the same block as Carlo's Canteen, where he dined alone on spaghetti Bolognese washed down with three large mugs of beer.
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