Jakob Arjouni: One Man, One Murder

“But if you’d rather talk standing up …”

He nodded gratefully: “You know, often it is easier to talk in a standing position.”

“Good, then. So, let’s have it. I have a manicure appointment in half an hour.”

He took that without batting an eyelid.

“I’m sorry. You see, this is …” His eyes expanded to the size of plums. “It’s a case of kidnapping.”

“Of whom, or what?”

“My girlfriend.”

“When?”

“Today.”

I looked at my watch.

“Today?”

He nodded.

“I’m sure it has occurred to you that she might have a breakfast date, or an appointment with her hairdresser?”

“No, this is different-I mean, I know where she is.”

“I see. You know where she is.” I leaned back. Somehow, we seemed to have trouble getting started. “That’s pretty unusual in kidnapping cases.”

He shook his head.

“You don’t understand. I knew what she was planning, and … you see, she is …”

Once again, he adjusted his glasses. He did it all the time, or whenever he wasn’t fussing with his necktie or running his fingers through his hair.

“… my girlfriend is from Thailand.”

He looked down. I arranged the wrinkles on my forehead to simulate thought. To liven things up a little, I asked him:

“And you forgot to pay the last installment? Or was she just a sample?” The question startled the human spheroid into a surprisingly lively spasm.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Never mind. Tell me more.”

He hesitated for a moment. Then he started pacing, giving me looks intended to make me feel like I had said something about his mother. The corners of his mouth twitched.

“Yes, she came from Thailand. But not the way you think.”

“I really don’t think at all,” I mumbled, more to myself than to him. He nodded his assent. I almost began to like him.

“We met in quite normal fashion, at a disco. Or that’s the way it was, at first. She said she was on her way to visit relatives. Our first days together were like a dream.”

He went on to rhapsodize about the international language of love. Thai or German, feelings speak more than a thousand words, and so on. Then he seemed to reach an impasse; he sighed and fell silent. I stuck a cigarette between my lips and joined him. When it seemed to me that I had waited long enough, I asked: “And?”

He looked up with an expression compounded of worry and longing. He raised his arms in a pleading gesture.

“Don’t you see that I’m trying to tell you how important she is to me? You think I’m just one of those guys with a taste for Thai girls, but I’m not like that at all. I … You know, we just sat down together, just like that. She asked me a question with her eyes, and I answered by touching her …”

I slapped the desk with my palm.

“And just as you wanted to explain to her where the ladies’ room was, she jumped out the window! For God’s sakes, man, wake up! I can see that you’re in love. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here, suffering the pains of the damned because my office isn’t furnished with little bistro tables … And I don’t give a damn if she’s from Thailand. That’s your problem. But she has been kidnapped, and maybe I can help you find her again. Maybe-if you’ll tell me what happened, instead of giving me all this bullshit about love’s Esperanto.”

He opened and closed his mouth. His chin began to tremble. Then he closed his eyes, rubbed his eyelids with thumb and index finger, dislodging the pink glasses, and turned away from me. His shoulders shook. I sighed. At that moment, a burst of sunshine came through the window, and I felt like walking out into the street, into town, to have a beer. Instead, I scrambled out of my chair, went over to the multi-colored sphere, and grabbed a shoulder.

“Stop driving yourself nuts. We’ll find her.” His plum eyes looked up with a moist sheen. I grinned. “And you’ll regret that, soon enough. Both of you. At least when you’ve learned to speak the same language. Then there’ll be no more touchy-feely jive-then you’ll be discussing the soup, the shampoo, the weather report. No more palpitations and candlelight. Take out the garbage, and no more World of Sport for you.”

I couldn’t tell if he was laughing but sensed a hint of that. I slapped him on the back and went back to my chair behind the desk. He sniffled a little more, and then, slowly, masticating his words as if they were a day-old bun, he continued his tale of woe. “A week later I found out that she worked in one of those clubs. You know what I mean. I was very upset at first, but then I decided to do everything in my power to get her out of there. I visited her three times-at her workplace. It was terrible, truly terrible.” He shook himself. “You can’t imagine what that’s like.”

“Right. Well …”

I wagged my head noncommittally. “A savior of whores,” I thought. “A candy-colored, pink-bespectacled savior of whores. And I’m supposed to help him because he’s afraid he might catch something in one of those dumps.” But I thought wrong, and this, in a concise form, was what he told me in the course of the next half-hour while padding back and forth in my office: He, Weidenbusch, had paid five thousand marks for Sri Dao, his girlfriend, a sum she allegedly owed the club for air fare, accommodations, and meals. Then she had moved in with him. After their days of wine and roses they began to consider the next move. Sri Dao’s visa was due to expire in three weeks, and she had neither the means nor the desire to return to Thailand. An asylum appeal might prolong things a little, but it was one hundred percent certain that it would be rejected. According to Weidenbusch, neither one of them wanted to get married. Unable to arrive at a decision, they let time pass, and her visa had already expired some days ago when they ran into a passport check. The police officer took Sri Dao’s personal data and threatened her with deportation if she did not leave the country within the next three days. If Weidenbusch hadn’t been with her, she would have been arrested on the spot. The following morning, as Sri Dao was packing her bags, the phone rang. A man who introduced himself as Larsson offered them forged papers for a price of three thousand marks. He told them they had half an hour to make up their minds. He would call back. Weidenbusch and Sri Dao decided to go for it and made the following arrangements with the caller: At seven o’clock next morning, Sri Dao would be waiting, with the money and a passport photograph at a taxicab stand by the east entrance of the main railway station. Alone. A gray VW van would pick her up and take her to a secret destination where the papers were manufactured. Twenty-four hours later she would be returned to the Weidenbusch residence.

The pair did as they were told, except for one thing: Sri Dao did not arrive alone. The gray VW van drove up, a guy sporting a mustache and sunglasses jumped out, opened the sliding side door and shouted “schnell, schnell” to Sri Dao. At that moment, Weidenbusch stepped between her and the guy and demanded to be told where she would be taken. The mustachioed fellow shoved him aside and pushed Sri Dao, who was shouting “No, no” and “This is my man” in English, into the bus, slammed the door shut and got into the driver’s seat. Weidenbusch almost tore the passenger door off its hinges but got a pistol stuck in his face before he could utter a sound. It took only seconds for the van to disappear, and Weidenbusch found himself sitting on the sidewalk in a state of shock. At some point during the next hour it occurred to him to consult a private investigator, and here he was. Trembling and waving his arms he stood in front of me and said, over and over again: “With a gun, a real gun-here,” and he pointed at the right side of his face, “one false move, and …” He covered his face with his hands and shook his head.