Jakob Arjouni - Kismet

It took him a little more swallowing, marking time on the spot and looking at the ground, but finally, head bowed, he talked. He turned out to be a bright, inquisitive lad, and half an hour later he’d answered a great many more questions than I had meant to ask.

The Adria Grill functioned as a meeting place for Croatian nationalists who liked to have a drink together, and also for German Nazi and Ustasha fans who were seeking salvation as mercenaries in the Bosnian war. True, the war was officially over, but there were still paramilitary bands of all political colours as fond as ever of murdering each other in the name of a Greater Croatia, Greater Bosnia or Greater Serbia — for a good fat fee. Checking up on the mercenaries and dispatching them was organised by a tall, thin man who was always very smartly dressed, but whose name was never mentioned. He turned up in a Mercedes three times a week and held audience for one or two hours in the back room of the Adria Grill. He hadn’t turned up this evening, and Zvonko — that was the boy’s name — had seen his uncle go to the phone several times after I was flung out to call this man, but without success.

‘Was he there last Thursday?’

‘Thursday… yes, of course, that was the evening when the palefaces didn’t turn up. That’s what I call them to myself. Their faces are powdered and they wear blond wigs. They first turned up two weeks ago, and at the start I thought they were cranks of some kind, a cult or something. How would I know? Suppose Jesus is blond and loves Croatia. You wouldn’t believe what weird characters come into that place. Sometimes I think Yugoslavia and the war was like winning the lottery for all the weirdoes who have some kind of obsession going that won’t get them anywhere here. I heard one of the interviews. The man kept saying how he couldn’t stand his wife any more, that was all he talked about. And he went off there, and the first thing he did was probably to shoot ten Bosnian women between thirty and forty. And then he said Croatia was a wonderful country because of its literature and music. I mean, sometimes it’s quite funny.’

‘What happened next with the palefaces?’

‘After that they turned up almost every evening. Like the tall man. A week ago I saw them giving him money for the first time. After that I looked out for them, and they always bring something. If the tall man isn’t there they give it to my uncle. But only for safe keeping. He’s not a big wheel. He makes himself out important, but…’

I let him whinge on about his uncle for a bit, and then I asked if he knew where the money came from. He did, and that wasn’t all. Most of the ‘palefaces’ were Bosnian refugees blackmailed into working for the gang. If they objected, they were threatened with the deaths of friends or relations who had stayed behind in Bosnia. The job would be done, as Zvonko put it, by ‘German lovers of Croatian literature’. He’d once overheard the tall man explaining to a tearful paleface that after his wilful behaviour they’d be obliged to do something about it.

‘… My Croatian isn’t perfect, but that’s roughly what he said. And suppose it was only your brother but you still have a wife and children there? I expect you’d be a hundred per cent in favour of working for them then.’

I thought of the brutality with which the racketeers went to work, and realised that if someone like Romario didn’t pay up, the gang would be more or less literally holding a gun to their families’ heads.

‘And what specially amuses the tall man and the others when they’re sitting over a schnapps later is that of course the palefaces are from all the so-called ethnic groups: Serbs, Muslims, Croatians, gypsies. One of their favourite sayings is, “We’re sending all Yugoslavia out on the streets for us.” ’

‘How can they know for certain which refugee has family where?’

‘They have lists, no idea where they get them. Anyway, you can bet the tall man is only quite small fry in the organisation. The bosses will be in Croatia, and then there’s a kind of German who talks big. He came twice, acting the way my Granny said German tourists used to.’

‘A man with uncomfortable blue eyes?’

‘That’s right. Always looks as if he didn’t know whether he wants to screw someone or kill them. The day before yesterday he came in and bawled out the tall man in front of everyone as if he was the last one hiring out the deckchairs. I don’t know exactly what it was about, I was in the kitchen. But I think there’s going to be some kind of important meeting in the next few days.’

‘Of the bosses?’

He shrugged. ‘My uncle ordered about a ton of fillet steak for the weekend. That won’t be for the few regulars who drink at his place.’

I thought of the Albanian. It was only in my fury with Ahrens’s Hessian who broke my nose that I’d dragged him into this too hastily. I couldn’t possibly hand him people who’d been blackmailed into being gangsters and would probably be very glad to stop at once. But I had to give him something. I couldn’t offer the Albanian a deal and then say a couple of days later: sorry, I made a mistake. At least, not if I wanted to go on earning money as a private detective in the same town in the future. A meeting of Croatian bosses would be just the thing. If it took place. And if I could find out when.

‘Do you know why they powder their faces and wear wigs and never say a word when they’re extorting money?’

‘Orders from the top. But I can’t see why either. I only once heard one of them who’d taken off his wig because of the heat being bawled out in the back room. That get-up must matter a lot to the bosses.’

Finally I asked him about the two palefaces who hadn’t turned up last Thursday, but he couldn’t tell me any more except that no one had mentioned them since. Then we’d both obviously had enough for one night. I offered him a cigarette, and we sat smoking, exhausted.

After a while he asked, ‘I don’t have to worry about you landing me in trouble, do I?’

‘Not in the least. But all the same, you’d do better to look for a different job. It could get pretty hot there soon.’

‘You must be joking. How many jobs do you think there are around here for me?’

I took a pen and a scrap of paper out of my pocket and wrote down Slibulsky’s name and business phone number for him. ‘Ice-cream vendor. As far as I know it pays very well. Call this number first thing tomorrow and say you were sent by me, Kayankaya.’

I gave him the note. He glanced at it, and hesitantly put it in his pocket. ‘Thanks.’

‘It’s for me to thank you. And if your uncle or his friends make trouble for you, call me. The faster you get out of there the better.’ I shook hands with him. ‘See you at Slibulsky’s.’

He nodded, and then he suddenly seemed to have to pull himself together so as not to laugh out loud. He was probably only now beginning to believe that this man with the bashed-up face and the pistol in his jacket pocket really wasn’t going to do anything more to him tonight.

Ten minutes later I was racing away from Marilyn Monroe’s sister at full speed, and if my shoulders hadn’t been in such a bad way I might have stuck two fingers out of the side window by way of goodbye.

I left the car in the no-parking zone and dragged myself into the Mister Happy. It was just after three, and generally only the video recorder was working at that time. While the inmates dozed on plushy pink sofas, or sat over coffee and crossword puzzles hoping for a last customer, the troops were slogging it out on a large screen, naked, against scenery like a furniture warehouse. Soft, continuous moaning mingled with equally soft piano music.

I crossed the room, greeting girls to left and right, and found Deborah in the kitchen, as I’d expected. She was eating ham sandwiches and leafing through mail-order catalogues with a colleague.