Jakob Arjouni - One Man, One Murder

I saw the sunlight glinting in her hair.

“When?”

“Tonight.”

She thought it over. A cup clinked against a saucer. “Between seven and eight?”

“That’s fine,” I said. She gave me an address in Sachsenhausen. Then we said ciao and hung up. It occurred to me that the telephone was as poor a setting for Elsa Sandmann as the rotting back seat of my car had been. Then again, none of us are too good on the phone, especially not when speaking to strangers: as often as not, the result is a chain of misunderstandings, inappropriate laughter, and pauses in which neither one knows whose turn it is to speak next.

I went back to the kitchen to study the street some more until the mailman arrived and handed me a large brown envelope. I ripped off the tape and pulled out a pink file folder, labeled in black magic marker: Rakdee, Sri Dao. Besides unimportant bits of paper including an Interpol printout that reported “no data,” the file contained the following entries:

“Mrs. Sri Dao Rakdee entered the Federal Republic of Germany on June twenty-second, nineteen hundred eighty-eight, on a tourist visa.… applied on September twenty-second for an extension of visa in order to marry Mr. Manfred Greiner.

“A further extension was granted on December twenty-second, nineteen hundred eighty-eight, after a delay encountered in efforts to obtain documents necessary for the marriage from Mrs. Rakdee’s birthplace, Chiang Mai.”

It was one of those old buildings freshly painted in candy colors that make one praise one’s lucky stars for having plain old gray facades across the street. Day-Glo turquoise stripes on a yellow background with pink window frames. As if that weren’t enough, every balcony was overflowing with potted palms and other plant life, helium balloons, children’s toys turning in the wind, and all kinds of other tchotchkes. A blend of “Dear Neighbor, Anarchy is Doable” and “Our Village, Ever More Beautiful.”

I walked to the front door, which was off to one side under a glass awning, and into the entrance hall. A gigantic chandelier hung from the ceiling. The staircase was carpeted in red. An advertising agency occupied the second floor, and on the third was a branch office of the Party That Has a Heart for Trees. That door was covered with stickers: North Sea, Nuclear power plants, Bicycles, Peace, Mandela, Palestinians, Nicaragua, Children, The Disabled, Gays, Gay Foreigners, Women, Pregnant Women, Single Women, Women in Houses of Prostitution … The door looked like a cross between a votive picture of the Virgin and a collection box for good causes, albeit one in which one needn’t put anything. A prolonged glance was enough to receive absolution for all of last week’s asocial actions and a moral advance against any that one might commit in weeks to come. To have these stickers on your door or car had to be the equivalent of a hundred Hail Marys.

I went on up to the fourth floor and rang the bell. There was no response. I rang again. When I heard someone approach on silent cat’s feet, I moved out of spy hole range. After a while I rang a third time and heard a quiet, whiny voice say: “Who is it?”

“Kayankaya. Let me in.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you.”

“We don’t have anything to discuss.”

“I beg to differ. And if you don’t let me in, I’ll tell you everything from right here.” I raised my voice. “It’s just that I’d be sharing it with the whole building, and I don’t know-”

The door opened and Weidenbusch stood there in pale blue pajamas made out of some kind of toweling fabric. He was blushing. “I must say, this is-”

I touched my forehead. “Good morning.”

Then I pushed past him into the apartment, crossed a shiny parquet floor, and stopped in a large, sunny room. Weidenbusch followed, yapping at my heels: “You’re trespassing! As a detective, you ought to know that!”

Then he stopped in the doorway and fussed with his hair. The room was decorated with the kind of art that looks as if someone had decided, one morning, to paint his breakfast tray white and hang it on the wall. In the middle stood a table with weird angles, surrounded by chairs shaped like stylized lightning bolts. And there were dozens of lamps. Each one of them resembled something that didn’t look the least bit like a light fixture, Otherwise the room seemed empty, until I took a quick tour of it and discovered a television set, discreetly hidden behind the door. The windows were open, and strains of Asiatic folk tunes could be heard from outside.

I turned: “Is it possible to sit on one of those?”

He didn’t get that right away. Then he responded, sounding a little annoyed: “But of course. They’re as stable as any common chair. My cousin designed those.” He added, looking blase: “Unfortunately, you can now see them in every other apartment.” But I could tell that he was putting a brave face aboard a ship the rats were abandoning in a hurry.

“Gosh, I must only visit the ones that don’t have them yet.”

I sat down on one of the lightning bolts, took out my cigarettes and matches and put them on the table.

“I haven’t asked you to stay.”

“Thanks, but I don’t need an invitation. Boy, you must be a real tight family. The furniture’s designed by a cousin, your mother makes decisions about your girlfriend …” I looked at him. “But that, of course, was a lie.”

He hurried over to the table. “I told you at the airport-you’re no longer working for me! And if you’re trying to get more money out of me …” He picked up my smoking paraphernalia and tossed them in my lap. “The check’s in the mail. And that’s all you’ll get from me.”

“Listen, brillo pad, how come you’re acting so superior all of a sudden? Have you been taking lessons? But you’re missing something here.”

I put cigarettes and matches back on the table.

“You still haven’t told me if you found Mrs. Rakdee yesterday.”

He opened his mouth, but I raised my hand and shook my head. His face was turning paler.

“Pretty clever, I must say. The artsy little fellow who gets cold feet on a foray into real life and then lets Mom whip him back into his customary existence in one of these nice old buildings. I really bought it. With the greatest of ease.”

He was still standing in front of me in the get-out-of-here mode, but now he was staring at the floor, and his terry-cloth-covered belly was heaving rapidly.

“How about offering me a cup of coffee?”

He looked up. “Coffee?” He looked absent-minded, then shook his head. “My espresso machine is broken.”

“I’m not that choosy. Just make some with a filter.”

“I have no filters.”

“You don’t? All right, tea or cocoa will do. And get your girlfriend. I’m sure she’d like to have some breakfast, and I’ll only be a minute.”

He stared at me. His face lost all color, and for a moment it looked as if he would attack me. His voice was trembling. “You’re hallucinating. Get out of my house!” Then he panicked, and he raised his arms. “I don’t want to see you anymore! Ever again! Just go! Get out of here!”

I got up and slapped him. He yelped and covered his face with his hands.

“Stop the hysterics. I’m here to wind up a case. And if you’d stop to think for a second, you would notice that I haven’t brought any cops or handcuffs. You and your girlfriend will be perfectly safe.”

He lowered his arms. Tears were running down his cheeks.

“Wh-what?”

“You heard me.” I sat down again and pointed at the second door in the room. “She’s listening to us, right behind that door, isn’t she? So, pull yourself together, for her sake if nothing else.”