Jakob Arjouni: One Man, One Murder

“More decent, eh? The last time they put me away for a decent year in jail.”

I kicked a crumpled handkerchief down the stairs. “What happened to that inheritance?”

Slibulsky looked at me reluctantly. “Come again?”

“You told me about it last winter. Some grandma in Berlin was going to leave you a bunch of money.”

“Oh, yeah … That was a bust.”

“You don’t say.”

“No inheritance. Nothing but debts.”

He looked out the window. Somewhere below us a door slammed.

Slibulsky turned toward the next flight of stairs and said: “Let’s go. Charlie’s waiting.”

We didn’t say anything during our final ascent.

A bar, a black leather couch and chairs, red lightbulbs, a metal-frame table with a glass top, a bed covered in blue silk, framed heavy metal posters on the walls. A video/stereo/CD entertainment center in one corner, a fluffy white rug on the floor. A thousand or so square feet of space with all the charm of a porno movie set. The window provided a view of the rooftops of the railway station district. To the left, the BFG building, to the right, the main station, a game arcade and a homeless shelter across the street. A ventilation unit hummed quietly. The air smelled of cleansing fluid. Ibiza Charlie sat on the couch in his red kimono, checked his Rolex, and yawned. His face was swollen and spotted. Red welts made his eyes look tiny. His neck was as thick as a sewer pipe. Charlie’s head reminded me, to a regrettable degree, of a double helping of pork knuckles topped with a permed thatch of sauerkraut. He leaned back, eyes half closed, and ran his fingers through that hair as if it was time to impress the ladies. His kimono fell open, exposing a plump white belly.

I went to the window and lit a cigarette. Behind the bar, Slibulsky rummaged through cabinets and empty bottles on his quest for an eighty-proof liquid breakfast.

After Weidenbusch had left, I had made several calls and discovered that Sri Dao was not the only person who had disappeared. An Iranian and two Lebanese had been reported missing for two days from the asylum seekers’ center in Hausen. All three of them had deportation orders out on them. They could have gone underground even without forged papers; to tell the truth, I didn’t really believe the forgery story. Then I had called Slibulsky and had asked him to arrange a meeting with Charlie.

With a sigh, Slibulsky came out from behind the bar, brushed dust off his pants, and stated: “The Asbach’s all gone, and there’s only a drop of Bacardi left. The beer is warm. So, Cola straight up, or eggnog?”

Charlie’s lips curled in disgust. “That slut!” He turned to me, man to man: “Here I’ve been buying her goddamn underwear for weeks, taken her out to eat in the best beaneries, showed her a good time, spent money like I was seducing the Empress of China-and that fucking peasant cunt from Odenwald can’t manage to keep a couple of beers in the icebox.”

He got up and stabbed the air wildly with his index finger. “But that’s all over now! Tomorrow she’ll go to work. And that other one, the brown beauty, she gets fired tomorrow. I can’t stand her whining anymore.” Waving his arms, he started striding around the room, his face set in a fixed stare. “Is it my fault that her brats don’t have anything to eat? Am I Jesus? What kind of mother is she, anyway, leaving her kids behind in the desert? I gave her a little lecture on Third World affairs, a while ago. I explained to her ‘no fucky-fucky, no baby, enough chappies in desert already’-it’s as simple as that. So …” He stopped for a moment, mulled things over. “Well, she smiles at me the way she always does and says ‘No problem, Mister, no problem.’ I say, ‘Very big problem. You not make enough money, I kick you out in street.’ And she just goes ‘No problem, Mister.’ So, what can I do? I’m responsible for making sure that this fucking business runs the way it’s supposed to-and as long as I have any say in the matter, it will!”

He turned, grinned, and rumbled: “Right, Ernst?”

Plaster cast, arm, and head propped up on the bar counter, Slibulsky looked bored. He nodded. For a moment, Charlie didn’t react, but then his grin turned dangerous, and he slouched slowly toward Slibulsky.

“Listen, asshole, when I ask you something, I want to hear an answer. Understand? I want to hear it. Anything. ‘Yes, Charlie,’ or ‘Right, Charlie’-I don’t give a shit. But I want some sound waves in my ear. And even if that requires a great big effort, I want you to open your goddamn mouth. Because I’m the boss here, capish ?”

Slibulsky made a cotton candy face and said “Capish,” and, after a pause which could be interpreted a zillion ways, “Boss.”

Charlie nodded, satisfied. “That’s it, little buddy.”

He patted Slibulsky’s shoulder. “No offense, now.”

He strutted back to the couch and sank back into it, his legs wide apart. He raised his eyebrows.

“People of character tend to be a little brusque in the morning; Sometimes in the evening, too. But especially in the morning.” He shrugged. “Can’t be helped.”

I cleared my throat. “How about talking about my stuff for a change?”

He stared contemplatively at my shoes. Then he picked a small cigar from the table and flicked a golden lighter.

“Our little buddy has told me about it.”

The cigar crackled. Slowly, he turned his head toward me. “Do I look like I need to cheat some poor girl out of her last pennies?”

“I don’t know what you need. But it’s not a question of pennies, it’s about a woman who can make six or seven thousand marks a month in a brothel-not to mention the three thousand she had with her.”

Charlie took the cigar out of his mouth.

“I thought it was a matter of forged papers.”

“First of all, somebody knew when Sri Dao Rakdee’s visa expired. And up to a couple of weeks ago, she was working here. For you.”

“Right.” He leaned forward. “But I have enough girls here. I don’t need to use dirty tricks. You have any idea how many of them show up daily, begging me to let them work here?”

“If you say so. And how many are being specially imported from Thailand? Before she could leave here, Mrs. Rakdee had to pay you five thousand marks for her travel expenses.”

Thin-lipped now, he stared fiercely at me. “And that’s because I have such a big heart. Let me tell you, Snoopy, before she came here she worked for a guy who didn’t even give her enough to eat. And I lent her that money so she could buy her freedom.”

“What’s his name?”

“What do you think I am? Some kind of information office?”

The hand holding the cigar sliced the air and slammed down on the glass tabletop. The cigar broke and bits of it scattered across the rug.

Charlie froze. “Shit! My brand-new rug!”

He got down on hands and knees and frantically picked ashes and bits of tobacco out of the white fluff. I cast a “check-this-out” glance at Slibulsky. Poker-faced, Slibulsky just stood behind the bar, drinking warm beer and looking as if he’d spent his entire life watching people picking tobacco crumbs out of fluffy rugs.

Still on all fours, half under the table, Charlie ranted: “Jesus, Slibulsky, where do you find these guys, huh? I’m supposed to blow the whistle on people? What is this?”

Then he reared up, his face apoplectic. “Or is it that you’re a snoop, too? Some kind of dirty undercover cop? Planted here to find out if I do anything illegal? Come on, let’s hear it!”

“But, Charlie …” Slibulsky tapped his forehead with his left index finger. “No one would dare do such a thing to you. Everyone knows you can smell an undercover rat from a hundred yards.”