Jakob Arjouni: Kismet

‘Not that way!’ He waved a hand. ‘There’s a disco there, a hundred metres further on they do regular breathalyser checks at night.’

We were on our way to the Taunus to bury the bodies somewhere in the forest. The mere thought of coming up against a police road block and being asked for our papers brought me out in a sweat. Even if the Frankfurt police had awarded me their big Friendship Prize, even if the name ‘Kayankaya’ had been proverbial as the shorthand for an honest man who could always be believed, I’d have had all kinds of difficulties in explaining where the car came from, the contents of its boot, and the two spades from Slibulsky’s garage on the back seat.

‘Turn right up ahead there,’ Slibulsky told me. ‘And don’t crawl along like that.’

‘I’m driving at fifty. That’s the speed limit.’

‘Nobody sticks to the speed limit in a car that can do two hundred, not at two in the morning.’

I didn’t reply to that, but I went on at the same speed. I’d rather end up in jail through stupidity than arrogance.

‘And you could shake off any flashing blue light in this car.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Slibulsky!’

‘Well, what is it?’

Yes, I was impressed by the way he was helping me, and the fact that he was doing it at all. But for him I’d never have got through the night intact, let alone been able to fix things so that Romario had half a chance of getting off safe and sound — but I wished I was on my own just now. Over the years Slibulsky had become kind of like family to me. Sometimes a big brother who could give me advice and make me see reason, who backed me up or shielded me, depending on circumstances, and I had no secrets from him. But now and then he was a little brother driving me crazy with his quarrelsome obstinacy, getting in my way, and I wouldn’t even want to give him the time of day for fear it might offer him a chance to poke his nose into my business.

‘Let’s bury these characters, clear up the bar and take Romario to the airport, OK? If we’re in luck we may even get a bit of sleep afterwards. We can discuss everything else in the morning, right? Like how to drive a car.’

Slibulsky looked askance at me, and I could sense the retorts passing through his head. But then he just growled something to himself, put another sweet in his mouth and leaned over to the music system. When he pressed the on button it began shining and winking in umpteen different colours like a little fairground. He pushed the only CD lying around into it. Some kind of techno gabba delivered in a poofter sing-song tone. Slibulsky let it play. At full volume. I couldn’t make him out.

‘Switch that crap off, Slibulsky!’

Head nodding forward and back, he shouted through the din, ‘Wait a moment! Listen to this! It’s not so bad!’

But I wasn’t waiting. And since I was under fire from four bass loudspeakers, and what with images of exploding faces in the back of my mind and two bodies in the boot, and the flashing lights of the music system in front of me, I felt for a moment that I was racing straight to hell, I didn’t press the off button but took my foot off the accelerator and kicked the fairground to pieces.

‘… Are you crazy?’

‘You’re the one who’s crazy! “Listen to this!” I think I’m going nuts!’

For a while there was no sound but the quiet purring of the engine.

Finally Slibulsky cleared his throat and said coolly, ‘It wasn’t my idea to shoot a couple of guys down and bury their bodies. But that’s what’s happened, we have it all there in our heads, and it won’t go away just because we stick to the Highway Code. You don’t want to talk about technical questions, like for instance how no cop with his VW banger could ever overtake us in this car, and you don’t want a little music, however horrible, to give you something else to think about — but maybe I do. So for all I care you’re a super-killer who shoots a man and then settles down for a nice little nap — speaking for myself, after all that death I’d like something a little livelier!’

I didn’t react. I stared straight ahead, gritting my teeth, and meticulously stuck to my fifty kph as if I could prove something that way. It was a fact that driving at such a slow speed on an empty, straight, well-surfaced road was a real strain on the nerves. I carefully stepped on the gas. When we were driving at eighty I’d reached the point where I could mutter, ‘Sorry.’

Slibulsky shook his head. ‘Oh, what the hell!’ And after a pause, ‘You know what would be a good idea now?’

‘No, what?’

‘A good screw.’

‘What…?’

‘To take your mind off things,’ said Slibulsky. ‘As I always say. What you need is a steady girlfriend. And don’t go saying, “Oh, Slibulsky,” again. I bet if you had someone waiting for you at home you wouldn’t be so… so edgy.’

‘Edgy? When we have a shoot-out behind us and two dead bodies in the boot!’

‘Like I said, you need something to take your mind off it. And there’s going to be more evenings when you need that too.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘I mean it, seriously.’

‘Slibulsky! If you ask me, we’ve got plenty of other things to think about tonight, we can leave my private life out of it.’

Slibulsky looked at me and scratched his ear. ‘You always do.’

‘I always do what?’

‘Leave your private life out of it.’

I briefly turned my head and caught his challenging look.

I wondered what Gina thought of being described as a good screw to take his mind off things in the evening. If Slibulsky said things like that in front of her. And if she was listening. Gina didn’t often listen when Slibulsky was talking. There had to be some reason why two people with such different routines had stuck together for over ten years, and still seemed relatively happy. Gina was an archaeologist, and paid almost no attention to anything that wasn’t to do with ancient potsherds. Whether Slibulsky was in jail or making millions with his ice-cream carts, she was always flying off to assorted desert countries, digging in the sand and discussing the results at congresses all over the world. She sat over her microscopes and dust samples at home, and when Slibulsky had visits from thugs whose bosses claimed there were old drug-dealing accounts still outstanding, Gina shut her door. Perhaps she actually didn’t mind just being something to take his mind off things. Perhaps she saw Slibulsky in the same light. Perhaps Romeo and Juliet would have come to some such arrangement if they’d survived.

‘In case you’re really interested, I still have Deborah.’

‘Deborah? Don’t you mean Helga?’

‘She calls herself Deborah, so I call her Deborah too.’

‘But she’s a tart!’

‘So what?’

‘I meant something else.’

‘You said “a screw”.’

‘All the same, there’s a difference.’

‘Between a tart and a good screw to make up for things? Not much of one, if you ask me.’

‘Don’t start going on about true love.’

‘I wasn’t going to.’

‘Good.’

A little later we reached the spruce wood where we were planning to dispose of the bodies. I looked in the rear-view mirror to make sure there was no car behind us and no one could see us, turned off the road onto an unmade path, and drove on the sidelights. The path came to an end after about a hundred metres and branches slapped against the windscreen. When we got out we were surrounded by the smell of resin and earth. The ground was covered with a thick layer of spruce needles. No sign of forestry workers or people going for walks.

While Slibulsky took the spades off the back seat, he asked, ‘What are you going to do with the car?’