“Is that Gerhard?”
No reaction. Now he was completely motionless. He stared straight ahead and seemed determined to keep his mouth shut.
“Listen, kiddo, tell me where your boss is, or I’ll glue you to the ceiling.”
A quick tremor ran through his body, but that was all. He hung his head as if resigned to be glued to the ceiling for Gerhard’s sake. I let him go, went to the door marked “Private”. A cast-iron spiral staircase took me to the hallway of the second floor. Another set of three doors. I picked the one behind which I could hear quiet radio music. I pushed it and was surprised by sunlight. The near-darkness in the barroom and hall had made me forget it was still day. It was a fully furnished office with a computer, fax machine, an array of telephones, lamps, screens. The third surprise was Gerhard himself, or rather, the click of the safety catch on his gun.
“Hands up, sweetheart.”
I raised my arms and turned slowly. He was tall, wide, and well fed. Perhaps a little too tall, wide, and well fed. Steely blue eyes stared at me out of a salon-tanned face framed by a marcelled, peroxide-blond mane. A bit like Kalli Feldkamp in leather. His feet were encased in athletic shoes adorned with American flags.
“My, my,” he rolled his eyes, “a genuine sheik.”
I responded with a tired grin. “Can I put my arms down now?”
“But why? You look good that way.”
Holding the gun, he minced around me. Facing me again, he smacked his lips loudly. I stared at the ceiling.
“Cute, really cute … Your beer belly needs a little work, and that haircut needs modernizing. In some nice threads-well, you wouldn’t be a Don Johnson exactly, but chubby fellows have their own kind of charm. Right?”
“My arms are falling asleep.”
“Just keep them up there, sweetheart. As long as it’s just your arms.…” He winked, sat down behind the desk and put his feet up on it. “You just have to
“And what would that be? A cross between Gerd Muller and Ghaddafi?”
He groaned with delight. “Ghaddawi! My idol!” His eyelids drooped. “With him, I could do a thousand and one nights-at least.” He tilted his head to the side. “But in your shoes, I’d go for the more rustic look. Navy blue, sleeves rolled up, heavy boots-you’re the sailor type.”
“I’ll keep it in mind. But right now I’m looking for a woman by the name of Sri Dao Rakdee. I’ve been told she’s staying here.”
He gave a start. “A woman …?” He made a face as if the devil had just run past. Then he brightened and flashed his capped teeth at me.
“Oh, you must mean Dolores, our transy? But she isn’t here today.”
“No, I don’t mean Dolores. I mean-fuck you.”
I let my arms drop and pulled out my cigarettes. Dumbfounded, he watched as I lit one, shook the match out and tossed it into his pencil holder.
“So? You going to shoot me just because I entered your office without knocking? I’m here because I’m looking for that woman-and she can’t help being born a woman, can she? Now tell me if there’s someone of her gender in this joint.”
Very slowly, he took his feet off the desk, sat up straight, and held the gun with both hands aiming it at my forehead. His eyes, glittering a moment ago, were dry and cold. His voice had an edge to it.
“You’re not a cop, are you?”
“Do I look like one?”
“You look like a boozy little rat.”
The sky had darkened, and there was a distant sound of thunder. My quota of half-assed loudmouths was filled for the day.
I pointed at his nose. “Booger.”
He didn’t get it right away. Then, in a reflex motion, his hand rose to his face, and he glanced down. My first blow made him drop the gun, the second did some damage to his tanned jaw, and the third made him gasp for air.
I picked up the gun and sat down on the edge of the desk. “All right, let’s take it from the top. Is that woman here?”
Bent over in his chair, holding his jaw with one hand and his stomach with the other, he looked at me in disbelief. Then he shook his head, cautiously, and groaned: “You’re out of your mind.”
“Yes or no will do just fine. Are you a dealer in forged papers?”
“Forged papers?” He let go of his jaw and waved at the high tech scenery. “I make half a million a year just on the stock exchange. Why would I deal in shit like that?”
“But you seemed pretty concerned when it occurred to you that I might be a cop.”
“So? I just don’t like you guys. Can’t help it. Besides, you have no right whatsoever to barge in here. That business was three years ago. This is a completely clean shop. We don’t even show dubious videos.”
“What business?”
“Oh, stop pretending. The one about the kid who wasn’t sixteen yet, whatever-the fucking little liar …”
His face brightened in mid-sentence. While I was still wondering what had cheered him up so suddenly, I was struck by a lightning bolt, straight down the spine to the tips of my toes. With a glaring light in my head and the feeling of falling into the void I heard his voice from far away: “Come here, angel, let me give you a kiss for that.”
I was rushing down an endless steep slope at an infernal pace. No one and nothing could have stopped me, not even I myself. Everything was white. No sky, no sun, no trees. Just white. The skis carried me across the snow at such speed that I had no time to breathe. I had no poles. I went down, ever farther down, my heart slid into my head. But suddenly nothing was white anymore, everything turned black, and a huge abyss yawned at the end. I was unable to stop, my body was bereft of all sensation, and a deafening noise spread out over everything, the roar of a thousand firestorms.
I opened my eyes. About a foot away, a vacuum cleaner was moving back and forth. Behind it, working the vac with one hand and holding a gun in the other, was the runt. He looked at me with sad big eyes. I tried to move my head. It felt as if someone had stuck a knife into my neck. I sat up, gingerly. They had swept me into a corner of the barroom. The dirty glasses were gone, the chairs were back on the floor, and the place smelled of violets. The vacuum curved around my feet. I closed my eyes tight.
“Isn’t it neat enough now? Or are you expecting a visit from your Mom?”
He kept pushing the monster around the floor. Then he hissed at me: “Fuck off. I’m doing my job.”
He waved the gun in the direction of the door. I managed a painful nod.
“All right, all right.”
I was sure that I wasn’t the first to poke fun at him; nor would I be the last. I could imagine heavy-duty leather guys like Gerhard stomping on him every day. One day he would probably kill one of them, and he would certainly get caught. In the joint, people would start stomping on him again, and so on and so forth, all the way to the coffin. “You won’t have me to stomp on anymore” is what they should engrave on his headstone. If he’d get a headstone.
Five minutes later I was up on my feet. I touched the matted spot on the back of my head.
“You’ve got some real strength in those arms, kiddo.”
“Fuck off.”
I sighed, tapped my forehead, and staggered to the bar. My head, my stomach, all my franchised parts clamored for a drink. Without asking for permission I grabbed a bottle of scotch and raised it to my lips. Some time later, when I set it down, the knife in my neck had turned to a rubber arrow. The fat guy in lingerie was sitting at the other end of the counter. He stared dimly in my direction, then raised his hand and waved furtively: “Care to join me in a drink?”
I twinkled back. “Sorry, but I’ve got the curse.” I staggered out into the rain.
“Gina?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Kayankaya.”
She laughed, and we exchanged a few pleasantries about a mutual female friend with whom they had spent
