Jakob Arjouni - Kismet

When I’d showered, put clean sheets on the bed for Leila, shown her the bathroom, given her towels, and in reply to her question had told her, to her satisfaction, how many cable channels my TV set received, I ordered enough casserole, cheese and salad from a Turkish restaurant for a whole party of truck drivers. Then I poured myself a vodka, and while soft splashing and bubbling sounds came through the bathroom door I rang my caretaker-greengrocer friend.

‘Oh, Herr Kayaya!’ he greeted me cheerily down the phone. At first I thought I should take this as the sign of a night with a tart ahead, and because Leila was here I was almost about to ask him to turn the volume down a little today. But then I realised that we were speaking on the phone for the first time since our west-of-Thuringia-alliance pact, and that he was probably just keen on this form of communication because it could be relied on to exclude any eye contact. I was used to the innocently proffered curtailment of my name. It was among the last when-are-you-going-to-go-home tricks that he still allowed himself from time to time.

‘How can I help you?’

‘Well, listen, I don’t like this, but I have to tell you.’ I paused, and heard his breath halting slightly. ‘As you know, I’m a private detective, so now and then I have to deal with people who… well, people one would rather not have to deal with, know what I mean?’

He hesitated before a cautious, ‘Well, not really,’ came over the line, and definitely any other answer would have been a joke.

‘Then let me put it bluntly.’ I cleared my throat. ‘I’m talking about pimps, or to be precise a pimping gang. Tough guys, Russians, Mafia members. I’m sure you’ve heard of the Russian Mafia.’

‘Er…’ He swallowed.

‘For instance,’ I said, helping him out, ‘that massacre in the upmarket brothel a few years back, ten prostitutes dead and about a dozen of their clients, I don’t recollect the exact figures — that was the Russian Mafia. Or the men who arranged the call-girl orgy last autumn and then tried to leave without paying the bill and as a result… well, it was in all the papers. Why I’m calling you now is because, in connection with an ongoing investigation, I was speaking to one of the bosses today, and when I gave him my address so that he could send me something… well, he looked really grim. He finally said, and he didn’t sound good: there’s a swine lives in that building beat up my best little floozy…’ By now the other end of the line sounded as if I were phoning a tomb. ‘Well, that’s the kind of way he speaks. Anyway, then I asked him for a description of this… er, swine — I mean, it seemed just about certain he must be one of my neighbours, and naturally I wanted to warn whoever it was…’ I took a deep breath and then went on firmly, ‘I’m really sorry, and I’m sure there’s some mistake, but the description he gave me fitted you exactly…’ I stopped for a moment. ‘Hello?’

I heard a distant noise, human in physical origin but sounding more mechanical. Like the final breath escaping a corpse.

‘Are you still there?’

The corpse groaned. Then it said, almost in a whisper, ‘It can’t be true… please, believe me, I…’

‘That’s just how I reacted. My neighbour the greengrocer — it can’t be true! I mean, we both know that I know, and I entirely understand — we all do as nature demands, don’t we? — I understand that you have, let’s say, visitors now and then.’

‘Well… er…’

‘You don’t have to tell me anything, really you don’t. And you can rely on me not to tell anyone about it, so far as that’s in my power.’

‘Thank you, Herr Kayankaya, oh dear, this is all very unpleasant…’

Kayankaya! And uttered with perfect fluency. I thought of the discipline it must have cost him to get my name wrong in front of me all these years.

‘But it doesn’t have to be. I’m sure this will all turn out to be a misunderstanding. For now, however, I’m afraid I must advise you to keep a sharp eye open for anyone approaching this building. Especially at night. As I see it, these people will either try to throw a bomb into your flat or your shop, or send a bunch of thugs. They’re acting according to their lights: leave a bruise on my girl and I’ll put you in a wheelchair.’

‘But I didn’t leave any bruises!’ he burst out. ‘I didn’t even — I mean…’ He was gasping in panic. ‘Didn’t even do anything unusual. Understand? Perfectly normal, and always with a condom. And sometimes we just talked!’

Yes, of course: Heino belting it out and groaning fit to shake my bed, and the two of you were just talking!

‘Like I said, I’m sure it will all be cleared up. But I do insist that you must call me at once, even in the middle of the night, if any stranger tries getting into your shop or through the front door of this building. I’d say — well, my instinct tells me — the front door’s more likely.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better to call the police?’

‘You know what the police are like! By the time they arrive you’ll have been beaten to a pulp long since, and the thugs will be back in Uzbekistan or somewhere. Quite apart from the questions you’d have to answer then. And the police don’t do it discreetly, they bawl you out in the middle of the front hall, what filth were you up to with that poor Russian girl? I mean, think of it, maybe before supper time…’

That corpse-like noise again.

‘No, no. You just call me, and I’ll be down at once. I know how to deal with these people, don’t you worry.’

He stammered a bit more about how he couldn’t make all this out, I told him to make a large pot of strong coffee for the night ahead of him, then we rang off, and it looked as if Leila and I could sleep easy.

A little later the front door bell rang. Once I’d convinced myself by looking out of the window that I wouldn’t be letting in any thick-lipped Hessian or a killer with his face powdered white, I pressed the door opener. Soon after that I was taking delivery of a bag the size of a laundry basket, full of polystyrene boxes and aluminium foil containers. I laid the sofa table, found a bottle of mineral water for Leila, poured myself more vodka, and tried working out a plan for the next few days.

The Croatian economic delegation was arriving on Saturday, and if Zvonko had been telling me the truth the Croatian head of the Army of Reason was among them. By then I had to find out where the fillet-steak banquet cooked up by Zvonko’s uncle would take place. A nice cosy evening with all leading members of the Army — there could hardly be a better moment to embark on final hostilities, along with the Albanian and his chain-wearing followers. The question was, what was I going to do for my new client until Saturday? If I wasn’t to endanger the bosses’ meeting, I must go underground for the next few days. I wanted Ahrens to believe that the attack on my office had sent me running from the field of battle. Which incidentally also decreased the danger of my being blackmailed into a swap: detective exchanged for detective’s client’s mother. For the moment, then, there was only one thing I could do for Leila: find out on the quiet whether her mother really was with Ahrens. Either of her own free will because, as Frau Schmidtbauer said, she was ‘the worst of them all’ and a tart who’d seized her chance to get her hands on some of Ahrens’s takings, or alternatively under duress. Presumably she didn’t look too different from her daughter, and perhaps Ahrens was keeping her in some cellar as his safari partner.

I drank some vodka and lit a cigarette. The idea that Leila’s mother had been Ahrens’s sex slave since Sunday, for some reason, appealed to me even less than such very unappealing ideas normally do. Of course she could just have been picked up by the police while travelling on public transport without a ticket. An eager-beaver cop, and as a refugee she’d have landed in jail. But suppose Ahrens really was keeping her prisoner? Was I to leave that state of affairs alone until Saturday? Because of two guys who were now worm fodder?