“Do they hang around?”
“There’s another thing. They don’t. It’s like they’re sampling or something. But what the hell, I’m not running a psychotherapy place.”
“Only a pub, with ‘extras.’”
Kurt made a grimace of disdain.
“Don’t freak, Kurt. I’m not here to complain about idiots who want to put stuff in their noses, or roll it up and spend the next six hours giggling and falling over.”
“Really.”
“Really. But tell me: Ex?”
Kurt nodded.
“A lot? More than last time we talked?”
“No. But I swear nothing goes on inside the place. Never did.”
Speckbauer looked down into his cup, made a hnhh sound at the remains of the froth and coffee there and then shot a glance at Felix.
“You’re a sophisticate. You’ve tried Ecstasy, haven’t you?”
Felix shook his head.
“Well if you haven’t, here’s the man to put you in the way of it.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake.”
“Just shut up complaining, Kurt, will you? Tell me more about the new faces.”
“What faces would you like?”
“New ones. What you’re supposed to be noticing.”
Kurt looked off into the middle distance.
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing comes to mind.”
“Auslanders, Kurt. Tschuschen. Asylants. Call them what you want. But think.”
“Look, why don’t you bust some of the factories down there near the autobahn, down in Gleisdorf, huh? Come on, you know they have guys coming in off the books. Cleaners, night stuff, and that? I only see guys with enough money to come up here.”
“A better quality of gangster?”
“Who knows. You think everyone with an accent is a crook?”
Speckbauer sighed.
“A philosopher now. Really don’t need that. Come on now, your sixth sense tells you something. You’ve never tried to make a run for it on me before.”
“I get fed up with this. You put too much pressure on me. I could run myself into a lot of trouble if I tried every single thing you wanted. And you wouldn’t give a shit, would you? You’d use someone else, just move on to the next one and suck their blood.”
At this he exchanged a hurried look with Felix. Speckbauer shifted slightly in his chair.
“You’re worried, Kurt,” he said. “Moaning more than usual, a lot more. We need to review your situation. Maybe you’re trying to cover up stuff. Schleich problems?”
“The black market? I swear, now. There’s no black market to speak of in this town.”
“Something is different with your reaction. Hey, are you high?”
“Fuck off.”
“Coming down off something? Irritable?”
Kurt looked away.
“Something specific,” Speckabuer went on. “Come on. This ‘feeling.’ It’s not just paranoia, or dope, is it?”
“Give me a break.”
“I’ll give you a break all right. How about I get the KD to pay you a visit? My fine colleagues there on Strassgangerstrasse, in Graz. That’s what I’ll do. And a premises search. The lab will come up with something.”
“I don’t have anything!”
“Except fear, and a ‘feeling.’”
Felix was beginning to feel a faint nausea. Kurt’s bloodshot eyes, his sighs of exasperation that had a whiny edge to them now, and the stale body odour that had began to emanate from him, all mixed with Felix’s own feeling that he was being dirtied by just being here in part of Speckbauer’s dismal world.
“Ok, it’s nothing,” said Kurt then. “Maybe nothing. But Stephi, she’s on weekday evenings, Stephi and I were talking.
Stephi’s lazy, all right? But when I lay it on the line, she’s good. I just have to keep going at her.”
“Excuse me, but where is this going?”
“Wait,” said Kurt. “I’m coming to it. She was complaining about tips and conditions. As if she’s Mausi Lugner or somebody else on that stupid show. Anyway. She gets about, Stephi does. She’s in a restaurant the other day gossiping with one of the trolls she hangs out with. You know the type? The bottle blonde pushing forty, the one who never got over the eighties look? The hubby’s a fat bastard, the kids are brats…? Plenty of them in Weiz. But Stephi sees a guy talking to the manager there. ‘Heck, that guy was in the pub,’ she thinks. Apparently he’s quite a hunk.”
“A hunk?”
“Come on,” said Kurt and made a dismissive wave. “She plays the field, Stephi. She has an eye for the well- dressed guy.”
“Well what about him?”
“The guy spoke with an accent but good German. Well put together, not factory floor. More the office type, says Stephi, ‘professional, dressed nice, polite.’ He’d had a beer the night before.
He’s the guy with the pictures, she said to herself.”
“Pictures?”
“I’m getting to that. Turns out the guy showed Stephi a photo of someone, asked her if she’d seen him. She knew he wasn’t a copper but he had the look of one. He’s doing the same routine the next day in the konditorei. Like, ‘Have you seen this guy?’”
“What guy?”
“How would I know?”
“This guy, tell me more. Well dressed? Speaks German well, with an accent?”
“That’s it. Talk to her oh Christ, wait. She went up to Munich to see her stepfather or something. The bitch.”
Speckbauer rolled his eyes.
“Got a number for her? Her mobile?”
“She doesn’t use one, she says. I doubt that, though. Her ‘stepfather’ probably looks different than what I’d guess an old geezer looks like. If you know what I mean.”
“Nudge nudge, wink wink,” Speckbauer muttered and drew out a small notepad.
“Surname?”
“Giesl. Stephi Giesl. She has a place behind the Billa there, the supermarket.”
“Married, family?”
“Are you kidding? She had a steady. She has ‘visitors,’ I believe.”
“And she’s in Munich?”
“On her way, anyway.”
“When did she decide that?”
“Well guess what, and thanks for asking. That’s why I am so pissed here. Yesterday afternoon she tells me. I’m coming in for the evening shift. Huh. I should have just fired her, you know? Zip. And she thinks I am an idiot, that’s what gets to me. First she mentions this guy, then bumping into him again, and then suddenly she has to go visit her ‘ailing stepfather’ in Munich.”
“She doesn’t have an ailing stepfather?”
“Christ, how do I know? The rules these days, you can’t ask or say a damned thing. You know that, right?”
