Jakob Arjouni: More Beer

“Hey, you! What are you doing there? This is factory property!”

A skinny fellow wearing a sea captain’s cap came running across the gravel and stopped in front of me, breathing hard.

“Just looking around. The site of that sabotage.”

“You can’t just walk in like that. Do you have a permit?”

“I’m investigating the matter for the public prosecutor’s office.”

He scratched his chin. “You are?”

“I am.”

“But you don’t look the type.”

“So?”

“The public prosecutor’s office, that’s an important office, to do with the law and all … But really, you look … I’m sorry. If you’re really working for them …”

He fussed with the sleeves of his uniform jacket. “Are you the night watchman?”

“Yes, that’s my job.”

“You were knocked out, a while ago?”

“Yes, I was.”

His knees were twitching, and he kept looking back at the factory buildings, as if he were afraid he could be seen from there.

“You saw the man?”

He was trying hard not to avoid my eyes. “I already told the police all about it.”

“So you saw the man?”

“Yes, I did.”

Once again his eyes turned toward the factory. “What did he look like?”

“He didn’t look like anything. He had something over his head, a stocking or a cap, I couldn’t tell. It was dark.”

“Let’s take it from the top. You were on your rounds, and he just came out of nowhere and hit you over the head?”

“No … you see, I was sitting in my cabin, over there …”

He pointed behind his back. As he went on talking, he looked more and more troubled.

“… I was reading, whatever … and suddenly the door slams open, and before I had time to turn around, I was hit over the head, and it was lights out for me. When I came to my senses, the police had arrived. And that was all there was to it.”

The wind had risen to blow the drizzling rain across the field. I lit a cigarette and let him squirm a little.

“It was dark, and you didn’t have time to turn around? That’s strange. This morning, someone told me there had been a lineup of suspects … Was he just putting me on?”

“No, there was a lineup, all right. But … Why don’t you ask the police? They have all the information.”

“And he was wearing a stocking over his head. Maybe you should have sent your wife to that lineup.”

“But see, the superintendent had arranged that lineup just as, like, a shot in the dark.”

He raised his hat and wiped his forehead.

“When you came to, the police were there? Immediately? You opened your eyes and saw green uniforms?”

“What? No. Mrs. Bollig arrived first. She woke me up, so to speak. They live right there, you see.”

“When Mrs. Bollig woke you up-had she already found her husband?”

“I don’t know … I think …”

“Don’t you think a woman would mention it if she had just found her husband riddled with bullets?”

“Everything happened so fast, and … but you’re right, I remember now. Yes, she was falling apart, she was hardly able to utter a sensible word …”

He smiled at me cautiously. Following classic cop procedure, I took out my cigarette pack and offered him one. He lit up and we smoked. As soon as he looked a little more relaxed, I resumed my questioning. “He must have hit you hard.”

“Yes, with a club. I can still feel it.”

“I see. May I take a look?”

His eyes opened wide.

“Come again?”

“I’d like to see where he clubbed you. Come on.”

He took off his cap in slow motion.

“But … after six months? Of course it’s healed over by now.”

“When you get hit like that, you keep the scars for life,” I said, and after I had checked his head and found no marks, “All right.”

I said no more as we strode across the wet gravel to the factory, passing barrels, pipes, and trucks, walking through a shed filled with huge stacks of numbered crates, turning a corner next to a forklift, and finally reemerging back into the rain through a large doorway. The Villa Bollig stood a hundred meters farther away on a hillside. It was a luxurious white bungalow with a roof garden and a tennis court to one side. Bushy little Christmas trees dotted the English lawn, which had a pile of scrap metal as its centerpiece. A silver Mercedes convertible was parked in front of the garage, next to a black compact.

I took my leave of the night watchman, assuring him that I would drop by again soon. I crossed the parking lot and reached the wrought-iron gate guarding the paved driveway that snaked across the lawn. A bell and an intercom were embedded in a marble gatepost. I pushed the brass button and waited for the German shepherd, but the only growl I heard emanated from the intercom speaker. “Who is it?”

“Kayankaya. From the public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt.”

“The prosecutor’s office?”

This was followed by a moment’s silence. Someone shouted. Then the voice returned.

“Come on in.”

The buzzer sounded, and I pushed the gate. The pile of scrap metal turned out to be a work of art; I thought I could discern some intertwined fish shapes, but couldn’t be sure. The layout, including the house, had the atmosphere of an abandoned first-class service area along the freeway. When I arrived at the front door, I used the antique door knocker and was immediately and unexpectedly admitted by an attractive blonde in her forties.

“How do you do? I’m Barbara Bollig. What can I do for you?”

Her voluptuous body was sheathed in a plain black wool dress that clung tightly around her hips. Her hair was tied back with a glittery red ribbon. Her green eyes scrutinized me.

“Kayankaya, from the public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt. I have to ask you a couple of questions.” It didn’t look as if she would grace me with the enchanting smile of which her mouth looked quite capable. She crossed her solarium-tanned arms over her chest and cocked her head.

“I don’t know that I have anything left to tell you.”

“Do you always let callers stay out in the rain?”

“When they call at an inconvenient time.”

She seemed disinclined to let me into the house. I looked at it. I looked at the garden.

“So, all of this is now yours?”

“So what?”

I pointed at the cars. “Those too?”

“The Mini belongs to a friend.”

“Who is standing by your side during these difficult months?”

“If you wish.”

“So you don’t feel that you’re lacking in support?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“People tend to be particularly solicitous of pretty widows who own factories. It’s the dream of all divisional managers, isn’t it? The boss croaks, and his lady looks for a successor. In every which way.”

Bang, the door fell shut. I hammered on it long enough for it to fly open again. A colossal guy emerged. Two meters tall and about as wide, weighing in at about two hundred pounds, he was wearing basketball shoes and a gray sweat-suit. His head was shaved.

“What’s the problem?”

As he spoke, his arms swung gently back and forth. One wrist was adorned by one of those gold chains with an engraved name tag. How did he manage to get into that Mini?

“I came here to speak to Mrs. Bollig.”

He protruded his lower lip and raised his eyebrows. “She’s feeling a little indisposed today. Why don’t you come back some other time?”

“She looked pretty healthy just a minute ago.”

Before he could say anything to that, the widow called out from inside the house, “Let him come in, Henry.”

Henry turned his head, shrugged, and let me in. I waded across the carpet, past a telephone table and a coat rack, and into the large living room. Its rear wall was glass and opened onto a view of a garden area that looked just like the one in front of the house-the only difference being that it ended, after about fifty meters, in the brick wall of the private clinic. The decor bespoke too much money and too little taste: furniture from every century, pale blue wallpaper, three layers of Iranian carpets, Indian lamp shades, and so on. The widow was reclining on a leather settee, sipping a yellow drink. Henry pushed me into an armchair, pulled up a chair, and seated himself behind me. I began to wonder whether this towering fellow was a lover or a bodyguard. Probably both. Ladies seem to enjoy bodybuilders in sweat-suits with little gold chains around their wrists. The widow set her glass down.