'Tell him to come and visit me sometime,' she said. 'He can storm free with me any time he wants. Or just a nice massage. Yes, that's it. Tell him to come here for a nice rub. I give it to him myself.' She laughed loudly at the idea and lit a cigarette.
'I'll tell him,' I said, wondering if I would, and wondering if she really cared one way or the other.
'And you, Emil. Maybe you would like a little company? Maybe you would both like a rub yourselves, eh?'
I was about to broach the real purpose of our visit, but found that Becker was already clapping his hands and chuckling some more.
'That's it,' he said, 'let's relax a little. Be nice and friendly.' He glanced at me meaningfully. 'We're not in a hurry are we, sir?'
I shrugged and shook my head.
'Just as long as we don't forget why we came,' I said, trying not to sound like a prig.
Evona Wylezynska stood up and pressed a bell on the wall behind a curtain. She made a tutting noise, and said: 'Why not just forget everything? That's why most of my gentlemen come here, to forget about their cares.'
While her back was turned Becker frowned and shook his head at me. I wasn't sure exactly what he meant.
Evona took the nape of my neck in the palm of her hand and began to knead the flesh there with fingers that were as strong as blacksmith's pincers.
'There's a lot of tension here, Bernhard,' she informed me seductively.
'I don't doubt it. You should see the cart they've got me pulling down at the Alex. Not to mention the number of passengers I've been asked to take.' It was my turn to glance meaningfully at Becker. Then I took Evona's fingers away from my neck and kissed them amicably. They smelt of iodine soap, and there are better olfactory aphrodisiacs than that.
Evona's girls walked slowly into the room like a troupe of circus horses. Some were wearing just slips and stockings, but mostly they were naked. They took up positions around Becker and myself, and started to smoke or to help themselves to drinks, almost as if we hadn't been there at all. It was more female flesh than I had seen in a long time, and I have to admit that my eyes would have branded the bodies of any ordinary women. But these girls were used to being eyed, and remained coolly undisturbed by our prurient stares. One picked up a dining chair and, setting it down in front of me, sat astride it so that I had as perfect a view of her genitals as I could have been expected to have wished for. She started flexing her bare buttocks against the seat of the chair for good measure.
Almost immediately Becker was on his feet and rubbing his hands together like the keenest of street- traders.
'Well, this is very nice, isn't it?' Becker put his arms around a couple of the girls, his face growing redder with excitement. He glanced around the room and, not finding the face he was looking for, said: 'Tell me, Evona, where is that lovely little child-bearing machine of a Jewess who used to work for you?'
'You mean Esther. I'm afraid she had to go away.' We waited, but there was no sign of anything other than smoke coming from Evona's mouth to expand upon what she had said.
'That's too bad,' said Becker. 'I was telling my friend here just how nice she was.' He shrugged. 'Never mind. Plenty more where she came from, eh?' Ignoring the look on my face, and still supported like a drunk by the two snappers, he turned and walked down the creaking corridor and into one of the bedrooms, leaving me alone with the rest of them.
'And what is your preference, Bernhard?' Evona snapped her fingers and waved one of her girls forward. 'This one and Esther are very much alike,' she said, taking hold of the girl's bare backside and turning it towards my face, smoothing it with the palm of her hand. 'She has two vertebrae too many, so that her behind is a long way from her waist. Very beautiful, do you not think?'
'Very beautiful,' I said, and patted the girl's marble-cool bottom politely.
'But to be honest, I'm the old-fashioned type. I like a girl to have all her mind on me and not my wallet.'
Evona smiled. 'No, I did not think you were the type.' She smacked the girl's behind like a favourite dog. 'Go on, off you go. All of you.'
I watched them troop silently out of the room and felt something close to disappointment that I wasn't more like Becker. She seemed to sense this ambivalence.
'You are not like Emil. He is attracted to any girl who will show him her fingernails. I think that one would fuck a cat with a broken back. How's your drink?'
I swirled it demonstratively. 'Just fine,' I said.
'Well, is there anything else that I can get you?'
I felt her bosom press against my arm and smiled down at what was hanging in the gallery. I lit a cigarette and looked her in the eye.
'Don't pretend to be disappointed if I say that all I'm after is some information.'
She smiled, checking her advance, and reached for her drink. 'What kind of information?'
'I'm looking for a man, and before you rip a hole for the joke, the man I'm after is a killer, with four goals on the score-sheet.'
'How can I help you? I run a whorehouse, not a private detective agency.'
'It's not uncommon for a man to use one of your girls roughly.'
'There's none of them wears velvet gloves, Bernhard, I'll tell you that much.
Quite a lot of them figure that just because they've paid for the privilege, it gives them a licence to tear a girl's underwear.'
'Someone who went beyond what is considered to be a normal hazard of the profession, then. Maybe one of your girls has had such a client. Or heard of someone who has.'
'Tell me more about your killer.'
'I don't know much,' I sighed. 'I don't know his name, where he lives, where he came from or what he looks like. What I do know is that he likes tying up schoolgirls.'
'Lots of men like tying girls up,' Evona said. 'Don't ask me what they get out of it. There are even some who like to whip girls, although I don't permit that sort of thing. That kind of pig should be locked away.'
'Look, anything might help. Right now there's not a great deal to go on.'
Evona shrugged, and stubbed out her cigarette. 'What the hell,' she said. 'I was a schoolgirl myself once. You said four girls.'
'It may even be five. All aged about fifteen or sixteen. Nice families, and bright futures until this maniac kidnaps them, rapes them, cuts their throats and then dumps their naked bodies.'
Evona looked thoughtful. 'There was something,' she said carefully. 'Of course you realize that it's unlikely that the sort of man who comes to my place or any place like it is not the sort of man who preys on young girls. I mean, the point of a place like this is to take care of a man's needs.'
I nodded, but I was thinking of Knrten, and of how his case contradicted her. I decided not to press the point.
'Like I said, it's a long shot.'
Evona stood up and excused herself for a moment. When she returned she was accompanied by the girl whose elongated backside I had been obliged to admire.
This time she was wearing a gown, and seemed more nervous clothed than she had been while naked.
'This is Helene,' Evona said, sitting down again. 'Helene, sit down and tell the Kommissar about the man who tried to kill you.
The girl sat down on the chair where Becker had been sitting. She was pretty in a tired sort of way, as if she didn't sleep enough, or was using some sort of drug. Hardly daring to look me in the eye she chewed her lip and tugged at a length of her long red hair.
'Well, go on,' Evona urged. 'He won't eat you. He had that chance earlier on.'
'The man we're looking for likes to tie girls up,' I told her, leaning forward encouragingly. 'Then he strangles them, or cuts their throats.'
'I'm sorry,' she said after a minute. 'This is hard for me. I wanted to forget all about it, but Evona says that some schoolgirls have been murdered. I want to help, really I do, but it's hard.'
I lit a cigarette and offered her the packet. She shook her head. 'Take your time, Helene,' I said. 'Is this a
