corridor with a bare lightbulb and rusty coat hooks on the wall. Two gray blankets hung over the entrance to the storeroom. Behind them, a radio was playing. I grabbed Charlie’s collar and stuck the automatic in his ear. “Not a peep.”
He trembled. We approached the entrance slowly. Now we could hear voices over the radio music. When we got to the blankets, I gave Charlie a shove that made him fly inside, head first, jumped after him and crashed into a shelf full of headlights. Axel and Slibulsky were sitting at a table with two bottles of beer and a pile of jewelry in front of them. They looked thunderstruck. Then Axel pulled a.221 Remington Fire Ball, a weapon suitable for hunting elephants or shooting down small aircraft; one could also use it as a weight to hold down the roof in a hurricane-but for fast shooting, it’s about as useful as an eggbeater.
My first bullet struck his shoulder, the second his forearm. As he slid off his chair, roaring, I crawled over the stack of headlights, grabbed his black monster gun, and jumped to one side, both my guns at the ready.
“Next guy makes a move I don’t like, I’ll drill a hole in his skull!”
No one was even contemplating such a move. No one, that is, who knew what a gun is. I heard his paws hit the floor, then a throaty sound and panting. I whipped around and fired twice without looking. It was incredible. Even though the Remington had torn off half of his side, Rambo kept coming. Dragging his bloodstained ass across the floor, showing no sign of pain, he charged me on three legs. I pulled the trigger again, and I had to pull it four more times before the animal, deformed into a red blob, finally lay there motionless. I took a deep breath. Then I turned. Charlie lay whimpering between two oil cans, Axel had curled up in pain under the table, and Slibulsky looked paralytic. He surveyed the battlefield with an absentminded stare, seemingly trying to figure out what was going on. When that stare got around to me, it skipped.
“Slibulsky.”
“Mm-hmm …?”
I got up and went to the table.
“You have a gun?”
He raised his left arm slowly, raised his right arm, still in its plaster cast, and shook his head. Our eyes met for a moment. His were empty, expressionless as buttons. I indicated that he could put his hands down again.
“Turn off the radio and take care of Fatso.” I turned. “Charlie! Join the company.”
While Slibulsky heaved Axel onto the chair and Charlie came stumbling over, holding a handkerchief to his mouth, I looked around the room. Tall metal shelves filled with spark plugs, fan belts, and other parts stood in tight rows stretching to the end of the room. No windows, no ventilation. Dirty yellow light was provided by a row of caged light bulbs strung diagonally across the ceiling.
“Any more of those monsters here?”
No response. Chin on chest, holding his shoulder, Axel leaned over the table and breathed heavily. Now and again he opened his mouth, but all that came out was saliva. I stuck his Remington behind my belt.
“All right. You first, Charlie.”
He removed the handkerchief, let the hand holding it rest on his lap. Still pretending innocence, he said: “Me? But why me?”
I had had enough condescension from a pimp. Before Charlie could raise his arms, I slapped him, hard enough for the sound to echo across the room. He covered his face with his hands.
“Shut up and listen to what I have to say.” I lit a cigarette and started pacing. I was furious. “Since you like to think that everybody else is an idiot, you had to check me out yesterday morning, in person. Slibulsky could have taken care of that quite unobtrusively, and I wouldn’t have suspected from the very beginning that you either knew who kidnapped Mrs. Rakdee or were involved in it yourself. In the meantime, I had some other ideas, but when Slibulsky panicked and tried to send me on a wild goose chase-if not before-I decided to pay attention to you again. And, of course, to Slibulsky.”
I took a drag on my cigarette. Slibulsky didn’t move. He had been motionless for the last five minutes, resting his good arm on the cast and staring holes into the floor.
“The anonymous note was a gigantic mistake. Not only because of the shaky handwriting-it looked exactly like something written by a right-handed person who has to use his left-but also because I was bound to realize, at the After Hours if not before, that the note was meant to distract me-from Gellersheim, since I hadn’t planned on going anywhere else. And only
“Then I did drive to Gellersheim, and so forth.”
I ground out the cigarette butt with my heel and kicked it under a shelf. Then I turned back to Charlie.
“At some point, Eberhard Schmitz told you about my visit, and you gave Axel orders to go to the villa. To take me to the bunker was the second big mistake. If Axel had just locked me up somewhere else for a day, the refugees could have been deported in all directions of the compass, and everything would have been hunky dory. Axel may be a big guy, but he’s not all that smart. And that gets us back to you. As soon as I showed up at your place tonight, you realized that I had to be eliminated. Schmitz had given you the use of the villa, and if anything happened there, you were responsible. So you decided to pretend that it was all your brother’s doing, A pretty dumb idea, especially considering that it was I who suggested it. I don’t know what your plan was-maybe you were going to tell these two to liquidate me by tomorrow morning. All I know is that if I had come through this door first, I wouldn’t have stood much of a chance of informing the press.”
The only sound in the room came from the humming lights. Slibulsky was chewing on a matchstick, Axel had closed his eyes, Charlie was patting his nose with the handkerchief. They looked like three guys who had gone in on a Porsche and then totaled it immediately. While the wrecker was picking up the pieces, everyone realized how much he disliked the other two.
I lit a new one and took a couple of drags. “Now as for you, Slibulsky-I had been hoping all along that I was mistaken. I didn’t think you were the kind of guy who robs every last dime from people and then sends them off to their deaths. You’re working for Charlie, so if he tells you to keep an eye on me-that’s all right. And since you couldn’t just go back to him and tell him that I was on my way to Gellersheim, you had to write that note. But now I see you here, divvying up the spoils, and that goes beyond your duties as an employee. What’s your share? Twenty, thirty thousand? And a kilo of earrings? You’re just another one of those cheapskates who will crawl into any sewer if there’s money in it.”
Slibulsky kept chewing his match and staring holes into the floor. Only his left hand had now moved into his pocket for warmth.
Charlie cleared his throat, discreetly.
“I hope you realize that you’re just making up a bunch of shit.”
I went to the table, picked up a handful of jewelry and flung it into his face.
“And what about that? Is that just a bunch of shit?”
He started jabbing his index finger into the air and screeched hysterically: “You’re out of your mind, snooper, you’re completely out of your mind!” Then, to Slibulsky: “Tell your buddy that he’s out of his mind-tell him to take the money and leave us alone!”
“Are you guys crazy?” Axel emerged from his stupor. His face, as far as it was visible in all that hair, was pale and contorted by hate. Beads of sweat were dripping off his eyelashes. “You’re scared of this asshole-
He turned, spraying a trail of blood on the floor.
“What do you think would happen if I told the cops that you wanted to liberate that bunch of illegals-eh? Those guys don’t give a shit about noble ideals, any more than we give a shit about your talk about friends! Listen, Ali, we’re not in the Balkans here-and Slibulsky is no Sir Galahad! None of us gives a shit if your dago brothers are sent home!”
“They’re not being sent home. They-”
“I know, they get offed. Let me tell you, Ali, I wipe my ass with your bleeding heart!”
There was a pounding in my temples. I pulled the Remington out, slowly, and aimed the revolver at his left eye, the automatic at the right. “Where is the money?”
The holes in his arm must have deprived him of all common sense. His eyes open wide, he hissed: “You wouldn’t dare,” and his shadow advanced toward me. “We’ve been putting up with your shit long enough. Check your knees, they’re shaking. You’re just a bad April Fool’s joke. So why don’t you just say ‘April Fool,’ and give my
