John Brady - Poachers Road

“It’ll be a nice surprise,” he said, and slammed his door hard.

“For Mr. Smiley.”

Felix fell into step beside him. The streets were already busy.

Small groups of kids were making their way along by the shops toward school. A pasty-faced assistant was sluicing the leftovers of a bucket of disinfectant along the sidewalk by the door to the butcher’s. The smell from a bakery began to overcome the faint dieselly tang as they walked along. A man brushing in the doorway greeted them.

“He’s not a fool,” Speckbauer said. “But if I think he’s spinning me one… ”

Felix tried to remember what ‘Mr. Smiley’ looked like.

Designer stubble, yes, and white shirt, open two buttons. An earring too?

“Here we go,” said Speckbauer. “His pad.”

He turned down a lane with cars parked tight to the walls of the houses. After a dozen steps he slowed and looked up at a first floor window. The blinds were drawn.

“Come here,” he said to Felix and stepped into an alcove.

“Watch this.”

He took out his phone and began keying through a list.

Felix watched the traffic passing the mouth of the laneway while they waited for the call to go through. Then Speckbauer began speaking.

“Kurt? This is your friend from Graz. I need your expertise. I’m on the road now. Concerning that matter up in the hills recently?

I’ll be there in fifteen, okay?”

He closed the phone and leaned out to take a look up at the window again.

“Answering machine.”

“Kurt is actually the boss in that pub?”

“Kurt, yeah. Krutziturken Kurt, I call him. ‘Mr. Smiley.’ He thinks if he smiles a lot, people will trust him. He spent a lot of money on those teeth. He had to I guess after, well — he’s proud of them.”

“He’s an informer?”

“‘An informer?’ I am not the Gestapo, for Christ’s sake. He is a ‘helper.’”

“He does it voluntarily?”

“No. Kurt’s a low-life. But he’d swear otherwise. Was he nice to you yesterday?”

“As a matter of fact he was.”

“Huh. He made you the minute you walked in there. He’s good at that. But he’s like the rest of his kind. No conscience.”

Speckbauer looked at his watch.

“Three minutes, if my brain is working today. Bet me, okay?”

“What is that?”

“Kurt doesn’t want trouble. Like any businessman he wants to be left alone with his interests. His housewives, and his salesmen and his coke and his operations.”

“He’s actually a criminal?”

“Well yes, a criminal. Log on when you get back to work, and slap in his name into an EKIS search. You could light up your house by what shows up on the screen.”

“And he runs a pub?”

“Why can’t he run a pub? This is a democracy.”

“And carries on with criminal operations?”

“Criminal — well, textbook, yes: I suppose. You think it’s just for a beer you go into his place? People get bored, you know. They want excitement. They want thrills.”

“He’s not arrested?”

“Why should I do that? Now what use oh shit. What did I tell you?”

Speckbauer pressed his back against the wooden door. The footsteps were hurried, almost skipping. He waited until the footsteps came closer.

Felix couldn’t help but smile. Kurt actually jumped when Speckbauer stepped out into the laneway.

“You stupid donkey,” said Speckbauer. “I think you’re not even awake.”

Kurt stopped rolling his eyes and swearing.

“Who is this one?”

“My colleague.”

“I knew it. I’ve seen him. Jesus!”

His chest was still heaving from the fright. His eyes kept darting around, to the traffic passing the mouth of the laneway from Speckbauer to Felix.

“Schweineri Kurt, but you’re hyper. What has you out here?

Jogging?”

“I have to go on a message.”

“No doubt. Heading down to Piran again, maybe? Pluck a few early birds, some German hippies maybe?”

Felix tried to place Piran on a map in his head. An old town on the Adriatic, he remembered. Old buildings, nice walks, lots of stone, and not far. It was maybe four hours’ drive, he guessed, and it was still in Slovenia.

“Hell no.”

“Kurt likes to offer his time to ladies visiting Piran and the like.

Bored women from Germany are his focus. Women of a certain age, and income, of course.”

“What’s the big deal, for Christ’s sake,” said Kurt. “We all have our thing. Have dummies in Brussels passed a law saying it’s illegal to have fun now?”

“Brussels? Is that where you’re heading now?”

“Are you crazy?”

“We need your advice, Kurt.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know? You treat your answering machine like a grenade with the pin pulled.”

“Christ man it’s early! I barely got to bed. Why are you hassling me?”

“I phone you. Next thing you’re out of your place like a shit off a shovel. And your eyes like saucers. Did you pee the bed too? Calm down.”

Kurt took in deep breaths. He seemed momentarily lost for words.

“I can’t help you,” he said then. “I don’t know anything.”

“What’s your mother’s birthday then? Do you know that?”

“Look. I don’t want to talk.”

“You want to run.”

“Look, I’ve got to go.”

“Kurt. Don’t be an arschloch. I don’t want to do all the paperwork.”

“Go ahead. I don’t care.”

Felix eyed Speckbauer for any sign of what he’d do next.

“Calm down, Kurt. How can we protect you if you get like this?”

“Protect me?” said Kurt. He turned wide-eyed to Felix.

“Do you have to work with this guy?”

“Kurt,” Speckbauer said. “This isn’t TV. You can’t switch off the channel. These guys aren’t just moving bad paper, or Ex, or coke, or whatever. So we need to talk. Really. Understand?”

Kurt’s eyelid twitched.

“You know what I’m talking about,” said Speckbauer. “Come on, let’s get off the street here at least. Coffee, some buns and cheese whatever you want, around the corner. Here, I’ll get you a bag to put over your head.”

“That’s not funny.”

“What’s the matter? It’ll be quick — boom boom. You won’t even see it coming.”

“You are a sick bastard.”

“You’ve been talking to my ex? Come, Kurt. You’re awake now.

Be sensible.”

Kurt’s tone changed.

“Jesus, Speck,” he said, almost plaintively. “This is… This is really shitty.”

“I know, I know, Kurt. I’ll leave you alone after this.”

Kurt shook his head slowly and said something, and did a halfturn and shook his head again. For several moments he stood frozen, staring at the cobblestones by his feet while he massaged the back of his neck.

Speckbauer nodded and Felix looked toward the traffic. Felix heard him whisper to Kurt as he headed for the street. When he got to the street, he turned. Kurt was walking with Speckbauer toward him.

Speckbauer chose a spot he seemed to know already. There was an old man reading the local newspaper near the door. Speckbauer had to duck as he made his way into a booth at the back, where one of the arches came down to the wall above the wooden partitions.

Kurt’s hands were shaking, even with the coffee. He dabbed a bit of the bun into the cup and put it in his mouth like it was medicine.

“I just don’t,” he muttered to Speckbauer. “There’s the usual bunch coming and going. They have money. They have hip clothes, watches, mobiles. I don’t see them flashing car keys a lot.”

“Come on,” said Speckbauer, sucking foam off his moustache.

“The boys out here still do that, to get the girls keen: the Beemer key ring, but a VW parked outside?”