mean, that’s unusual where you come from, isn’t it? Do you see what I mean?”
I stared down the wet street and considered dropping the case.
“I don’t have the faintest idea.”
She looked lost. I walked slowly to my car.
“My job is to get four people out of jail. If the murderer is still at large, I’ll find him. Maybe I’ll ask you to brew me a cup of coffee one of these days. Maybe not. I’ll just do my job. I’ll see you at eight, at Anastas’s place.”
I slid across the passenger seat, started the engine, and steered the car slowly past the Renault. I stopped briefly next to Carla Reedermann and leaned out of the window.
“Besides, it isn’t the mayor who holds those shares. It’s his wife.” I drove off. I could still see her in the rearview mirror. Her dark hair shimmered under the streetlights.
Riebl gazed sadly at the dent.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Riebl. It was slick. Someone skidded into me.”
I gave him Anastas’s address, telling him to collect there.
“Anytime you lend anything to anybody …”
He ran his fingers gently over the dent. I walked over to my Opel. Once again, Riebl had managed to fix it. Two blocks down the street I parked and went into a restaurant. It was ten minutes to eight. Three large guys sat in a comer, playing skat.
The proprietor brought me a plate of ribs with sauerkraut. One of the skat players went to the jukebox and played “Ninety-nine Balloons.” I have never been able to figure out the words. The proprietor coughed and hummed along.
A short while later I got up and paid.
“Say, Fritz, since when do you serve guys like him?”
One of the drunken cardplayers gave me a challenging stare.
“No politics,” growled the proprietor.
I turned and went out. Maybe I should have tossed his glass of schnapps in his face.
6
Anastas’s office was in a stylishly renovated old building. I walked up the red-carpeted stairs to the second floor. Anastas stood in the doorway, smiled, shook my hand.
“I was afraid you weren’t coming.”
“Why?”
“Miss Reedermann told me about your encounter.”
“Encounter is funny.”
He led the way to his office through a mirrored entrance hall. Several stacks of files covered his desk, in front of which stood four worn leather armchairs. Except for one cheap lithograph, the walls were bare and white. Carla Reedermann stood leaning against a radiator, perusing the daily papers. She looked up briefly and gave me a nod. Anastas asked, “Coffee, beer, wine-what would you like?”
“I’ll take a beer.”
While he went to get it, I stared out the window.
“That Rabbit I was driving belongs to the owner of my auto repair shop. I gave him Anastas’s address. Is that OK?”
“Uh-huh.”
The little lawyer returned, handed me a glass and a bottle of beer, and sat down on the edge of his desk, his legs dangling.
“Now, Mr. Kayankaya, I have to apologize, and then I have to explain a few things to you.”
He folded his hands solemnly. I sipped my beer and listened to things I already knew. Then he cleared his throat and looked at me expectantly. Carla Reedermann was also watching me, her eyelids lowered.
“Have you found the camping enthusiast and his friend?”
A brief pause.
“Oh, I see, ha, ha …” His laugh sounded silly. “Mr. Kayankaya, I’m so glad you’ve decided to stay with the case.”
He jumped down off the desk and shook my hand again. After he had calmed down and seated himself behind the desk, even Carla Reedermann granted me a smile. I asked myself if anyone except for me was at all interested in who had shot Bollig, and whether Anastas’s clients didn’t deserve their time behind bars. I lit a cigarette.
“Well, is he coming here or isn’t he?”
“He said he’d be here at nine o’clock.”
“Good. Let me take a look at those files until then.”
I went up to the desk, and Anastas explained the contents of the files. First I looked at the autopsy report. Four nine-millimeter bullets. Two in the stomach, one through a lung, one grazing the top of his head. Fired from a distance of circa ten meters. The assassin must have been a beginner, or else drunk out of his mind. Time of death, between midnight and half past. I copied the doctor’s address, and went on to study the defendants’ dossiers. All four of them were in their mid-twenties and had made an early start working for one cause or another in various groups, without attracting particular attention. One of them came from Doppenburg, the other three from Frankfurt. I copied their addresses. According to their statements, they had grown tired of handing out leaflets in vacant pedestrian malls, knowing that no one read them anyway. Then came the idea of a big bang to wake up the people, and they obtained explosives from a chemistry student. They refused to answer questions about the fifth man. When, on the morning after their act of sabotage, they heard about Bollig’s murder, all of them wanted to leave the country and go to Greece. After prolonged discussion, they discarded that idea and waited for further developments. Three days later, the police arrived. They didn’t look like killers to me.
“Another beer?”
“Yes, please. None of them gave a more detailed description of how they got the idea to blow up that pipe?”
“No.”
“One of them must have thought of it first.”
“They claim they developed the idea collectively.”
“Developed the idea! Bullshit. I have to talk to them.”
“They don’t want to do that under any circumstances.”
“Then think of something. You’re the attorney. Put pressure on them. How am I supposed to get on with my job?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Kayankaya, but I don’t want to put any strain on my relationship with my clients. You must understand that.”
“They’re facing fifteen years in prison, and you’re talking about relationships? Once they’re convicted of murder, you’ll have to find another outlet for your interpersonal horseshit … How did the cops find out so quickly? Someone must have squealed. As soon as they realize that, they’ll denounce that someone. If they don’t, they’re idiots. But if they aren’t, and they still won’t talk, I can stop playacting the clever detective. Because if that’s the case, they
Anastas paced about with a furrowed brow.
“You may be right. Let me get you that beer.”
I looked at Carla Reedermann.
“And what do
She smiled. It was a pretty smile.
The doorbell rang. A moment later, Anastas returned with a young man wearing jeans and a sports jacket, followed by a knock-kneed blonde with no ass. Both of them looked as if this was their first time away from home after nine in the evening. We shook hands, and Anastas made introductory remarks. Alf Duli and Anita Weiss had been engaged for a year and planned a wedding for next summer. Alf Duli was finishing his apprenticeship as a
