J. Jones - The Third Place

‘And so you have turned to …’

Bachman raised his hands in a monumental shrug. ‘What’s a man to do? At university I used to make a bit of cash on the side with friendly card games, even a bit of magic. So, once I lost my license, I went back to what I knew. Couldn’t stay in Graz, of course.’

‘Of course,’ Werthen agreed.

‘And yes, I was only too familiar with Herr Karl, damn his eyes. I even went to his funeral, hoping to get a chance to urinate on his grave, but the people lingered and it was getting cold.’

Werthen marveled at the man’s candor. ‘So you admit you had a grievance with the Herr Ober?’

‘Grievance? Call it what it is, man. He cheated me. Should have been drummed out of his Waiters’ Association as I was from the Lawyers’ Chamber.’

Werthen shook his head. ‘I don’t understand what you’re getting at.’

‘What I am getting at …’

Bachman’s attention was diverted for a moment by a street urchin who came up to the booth hoping for free entertainment.

‘Hop it out of here, you,’ Bachman growled at the youth, who wisely moved off, but thumbed his nose once he was a safe distance away.

Bachman noticed the gesture. ‘Makes a man happy he never married, never fathered such a brat.’ Then, turning back to Werthen, he said, ‘Anyway, as I was saying, Herr Karl swindled me out of a full month’s payment. One of the customer’s complained to him that I was cheating. Well, of course I was cheating. How do you think I make a living? That’s what I paid the jumped-up waiter for. A bit of protection.’

‘You mean you were paying Herr Karl to play cards at his cafe?’

‘You always were a bright one, Advokat Werthen. Yes. Five crowns a month so that if a customer complained he would say no, no, no, Herr Bachman is a most trusted client. And so forth. But this customer was a bit more important than the others. I should have figured that out, the way the fool tossed his money around. He threatened to go to the Waiters’ Association, and so Herr Karl suddenly found his ethics and banished me. Got the whole Association to do so. Bastard.’

This turn of events left Werthen speechless for a moment.

Bachman suddenly smiled broadly. ‘Now, hold on. If you’ve come to me with questions about Herr Karl, I doubt very much it has to do with my card playing. So I ask myself, what would a criminal lawyer be doing making noises about the accidental death of a crooked head waiter? And I tell myself, Bachman, Advokat Werthen would not waste his valuable time unless, yes, unless Herr Karl’s death was not so accidental after all. Hah! Wonderful. You mean some hero saved me the trouble and killed the little sneak?’

‘That is about the size of it,’ Werthen allowed. ‘It would appear to be murder.’

Bachman pressed hands together as if in prayer, looking heavenward in thanks. Then to Werthen: ‘And you suspect me?’

Werthen nodded, beginning to feel something of a fool. Attempting to salvage some bit of dignity out of this meeting, he said, ‘But by the way you are so broadly smiling, I assume that you have some proof that you were not involved.’

‘That’s the Advokat Werthen I remember. Too true. I seem to remember from the newspaper accounts that the fellow slipped on icy paths last Monday night. Is that so?’

‘Yes. His body was not discovered until the next day.’

‘Monday night.’ Bachman’s face squinched up in a mock display of attempting to remember something. ‘I seem to recall that Monday. That would be the tenth of March, right?’

Werthen nodded again. ‘Out with it, Bachman. Enough with the silly games.’

‘As you wish, though games seem to be all I have left. At any rate, I have the lawyer’s dream come true – an ironclad alibi. After closing up my booth that day – miserable weather it was with frozen walkways. The cold plays havoc with the fingers, you know. Slows down the shuffle something awful-’

‘Bachman!’

‘All right. I closed up early and stopped off at my favorite tavern just down the row here.’ He gestured to his left. ‘Well, it seems I imbibed a bit too much on an empty stomach. A fellow customer made a disparaging comment about my ability at card tricks – I am not a violent man by nature, you understand, but this remark just caught me at the wrong moment. So I smashed my mug of wine over his head. Next thing I knew, one of Vienna’s finest constabulary had me by the collar and I spent the night in jail. Happy days, though. The other fellow did not press charges.’ He tapped his nose, a secret to share. ‘Couldn’t really, as he’s got his own strange business in “imported” linens he wouldn’t want the police to become curious about.’

‘When did this occur?’

‘Well, as I said, I started at the wine earlier than usual. I believe I had found my way to my cell by nine o’clock. Check with the local station on Taborstrasse – I’m sure they’ll remember me. Managed to take a few coins off the duty sergeant in a friendly game before they released me the next day.’ Bachman smiled at him, displaying browning teeth. ‘Sorry I couldn’t be more obliging. Now, if you’ll forgive me, I have a dishonest living to make.’

Falk was at his position at the Cafe Burg when Werthen arrived. Today, however, he was dressed in the cutaway of a Herr Ober. He directed Werthen to a table in the far corner.

‘That was fast,’ Werthen said, nodding to the man’s new attire.

‘Temporary only, sir,’ Falk replied as he pulled out a chair for Werthen. Their nearest fellow customers were several tables away. ‘It is rumored they will hire from outside.’

Werthen sat, raising his eyebrows at this comment. ‘Not the usual practice, is it?’

Falk shook his head, clearly disappointed.

‘And why do you think that would be, Falk?’

‘I couldn’t tell, sir. One would have to inquire of Herr Regierungsrat Mintz. After all, he is the owner.’

Werthen made no reply to this.

After a moment, Falk inquired: ‘What would sir like today?’

‘Some honesty, for starters. You haven’t really been straight with me, have you, Falk?’

‘I don’t understand.’ He looked around as if fearful someone might be eavesdropping.

‘About Herr Karl and his little improper payments, shall we call them. Were you a part of it?’

‘Only in so far that I had to pay into his phony retirement fund.’

‘Slowly, Falk. What fund is that?’

‘Like I say, a non-existent one. It was a monthly contribution. All the staff had to pay into a retirement fund, supposedly with the Waiters’ Association. In reality, it was Herr Karl’s retirement fund. We paid and the account never seemed to grow. Bad investments, he would tell us. A shortfall at the Borse. What do any of us know about stock exchanges? But I did a little investigating. It’s been fine days at the stock market these past years.’

‘Did you know that certain customers were paying him? A card shark, for one.’

Falk shook his head. ‘I didn’t know, but that’s not a surprise. Herr Karl was an inventive one. Every supplier to the cafe, from toilet paper to coffee beans, had to pay Herr Karl a little gratuity, a percentage off the top of the bill or risk losing his account.’

‘And no one thought to tell the owner?’

‘And then what? Herr Mintz would have simply replaced Herr Karl with someone who would only do the same, maybe even worse. It comes with the job, you know. Nobody becomes a Herr Ober because of the honor attached to the position.’

Werthen marveled at his own naivete: that was exactly what he had thought. But reflecting on it now, it made perfect sense. A Herr Ober held power at a cafe, and power meant nothing if it was not used.