never been full throttle-actually in reverse most of the time, or hand brake, broken starter, distributor out, wet spark plugs, that kind of thing. An irony of fate: Brenner owed his broad shoulders-which, in the eyes of women, lent him an energetic aura-to the endless push-starting of the stalled jalopy that was his life.
“Why wouldn’t I watch TV?” the South Tyrolean replied. Because she might have come up with something better, too, but I always say, milk drinkers for the most part aren’t that primed to return a stupid remark from a man with an even stupider remark. No, to be perfectly objective, like a South Tyrolean mountain peak asking itself, why wouldn’t I peer down into the valley below? she asked why she wouldn’t watch TV.
“Then you must have seen something on TV about the kidnapping that happened right in front of your house.”
“ Ma Dai, you’re not too shwift, are you,” she sighed. “That was a joke! The newspapers have been calling nonshtop since yeshterday, the police have been here twice, I can’t take one shtep without someone asking whether I saw anything! Jusht because yeshterday I accidentally happened to walk to the right of the gas pump instead of the left like I normally do after I shop.”
“Obviously suspicious.”
“Exactly. You know, it’s because that big clunker was shtanding in my way when I went to throw my empty bottles away. And because of that I show up on the damn shurveillance video.”
“So?”
“I’m going to tell you a secret. Even if you end up needing a pshychiatrisht because of it. Do you want to hear it?”
“I think I’ll manage.”
“I don’t like cars. I didn’t even see your fancy sleigh ride, even though you parked it so wide it was blocking my way. It wasn’t till the video that I saw that heap of yours. Even though I practically had to walk a kilometer around it. Otherwise, I never would have gone up there.”
“Up? Up where?” Brenner asked. “Everything’s flat at a gas station.”
“Up on the video.”
Brenner was awfully glad that she didn’t get the joke either. “It’s not my car. I’m just the chauffeur.”
The South Tyrolean looked at him as if that was no excuse, but then she said, “Oh yeah, that’s what they said on TV. You should have kept a closer eye on the kid.”
“And you didn’t see anything? No one leaving with a child?”
“You know, you’re actually the firsht to ask me that queshtion.”
“Alright already,” Brenner said under his breath.
But that must have been exactly what she was looking for, because now that Brenner had given up, she said: “You’re the only one of the whole idiotic slew who I’d like to help. There’s shomething about you I like. With your shtrange eyes. And your shirt’s untucked.”
Brenner tucked in his shirt, and the two drunks grinned stupidly. Their eyes were glazed from staring, and their heads were craned so far from eavesdropping that their ears were practically brushing against the ad for motor oil that was hanging from the ceiling.
“But I’m more the kind of person who keeps to hershelf,” the woman said. “I even have to take pills for depresshion.”
“And do they do anything?”
“Of course. If they didn’t, do you think I’d be capable of crossing the shtreet? But you know what I think’s a sham? I wouldn’t expect regular shoppers to wind up on security cameras here. I’m not saying anything about them monitoring the drivers-in case one takes off without paying, you have his lischense plate. That I can undershtand. An ordinary shopper, though, who only buys milk, doesn’t need to be taped doing it.”
“It happens automatically,” Brenner said. “If they’re taping the drivers and a shopper runs into the frame, then they’re automatically on it.”
“So now it’s shupposed to be my fault,” the South Tyrolean protested. And then she smiled because Brenner looked so dejected. “Don’t worry so much, the little one will turn up again. I can feel it. You can trusht me completely on that, I have a feeling for this sort of thing. The girl’s fine. Besides, the contractor has plenty of dough. It can’t be true that the kidnappers haven’t made contact.”
“On the one hand, you have a feeling; on the other hand, you make a logical argument.”
“And you? Only drinking nonalcoholic beer?”
Then she left.
That was something! Just said it and left. As the automatic doors opened for her, something new occurred to Brenner.
“South Tyrolean!” he yelled. This time with a note of urgency. To no avail, though. She didn’t turn around, and when he yelled his cell phone number out after her, she was already through the door and outside before he got to the last digit. He watched through the glass how she walked left around the gas pump, good figure and everything, Brenner thought to himself, if I had met her in my day, and he kept gazing after her as she crossed the street, with the newspaper and milk in her left hand and the pack of Marl boo ros in her right, and disappeared into the house opposite the gas station.
CHAPTER 10
He didn’t get the cell phone unlocked at the gas station, and he didn’t find anything out from the South Tyrolean, either. But pay attention to what I’m telling you: nothing’s ever for nothing in life, most of the time you find something different than what you’re looking for. And Brenner now found someone returning a rental car to the gas station. A purple Ford Mondeo, and ten minutes later it was his Mondeo because he told them they didn’t need to wash it, and so you see, he drove the Mondeo to the Lilliput Cafe, and there they unlocked the cell phone for him right away.
PATRON OF LILLIPUT CAFE. Naturally, that’s how it was later portrayed in the newspaper, as if Brenner had been a regular there, those people really busted his chops on that one, don’t even ask. But my feelings vis-a-vis the Lilliput Cafe are very clear. Listen up: if after everything that’s happened, someone’s still pointing a finger at the Lilliput Cafe, then I honestly have to say, it’s roughly like telling a starving person to put the menu down just because, according to Chinese thought, the micronutrients aren’t in the fifth house right now.
Brenner knew the Lilliput Cafe because at least once a week he’d picked Kressdorf up from the construction site near there. Or better put, from the planned construction site, on account of the protests of course, and there being not much to see except construction fences and steam shovels and pits. Or he would bring Helena by so that Kressdorf could spend a few minutes with his daughter between appointments. They’d ride the Lilliput train through the wooded areas of the Prater Park and around the site slated for MegaLand, and so Brenner would sometimes wait for the two of them at the Lilliput Cafe.
Helena was a total fanatic for the Lilliput train rides, and Brenner was a little jealous of her father, because if just once he’d said to his daughter, you know what, today Herr Simon’s going to take you for a ride on the train, he would have done it on the spot, no discussion. But no, when the ride was over Helena would always bawl her head off, and do you think Kressdorf might have given in just once? He didn’t let his daughter wear him down, though. No, Herr Papa got even stricter and: “That’s enough now.”
Just so you understand why Brenner was so familiar with the Lilliput Cafe. Because he never went for the other things that were there, smuggled cigarettes or a fake wristwatch, and the Lilliput Cafe’s main business was with the parents, of course. Driven to despair by the screams of their Lilliput-train-addicted children, they could get their mothers’ little helpers at the Lilliput Cafe, more convenient than the pharmacy and qualitatively better, more effective and all, where you find yourself saying, it may not be entirely legal but at least I can make it another three days smiling at my child instead of tossing him headfirst over the fence so that the neighbors can smile at him.
They unlocked the cell phone for him in a matter of seconds. His nonalcoholic beer wasn’t even in front of him yet before he was holding the phone in his hand with a new PIN. You’re going to say, Brenner must have deliberated over the PIN for a long time, because what’s the best combination of numbers to choose? But quite the opposite, Brenner shot it out like a pistol: 1706, because that was Helena’s birthday. But then he reconsidered after all, because a gravestone suddenly floated in front of his eyes, where the date of birth always appears above the
