‘Ah.’ He opened his mouth in the grimace of a teenage lout and jutted his chin in my direction. ‘So why don’t I have it? It’s my car! It was stolen from the yard out there. What do I have to do with this Army of whatever it was?’
‘Reason. Perfectly simple, just Reason.’
‘Interesting name.’
‘Oh, not all that interesting.’
‘Why not?’ he asked, and for a moment he looked genuinely curious. My God, like something out of the psychology supplement to a magazine. And good heavens, how quickly I’d got where I wanted. Or so I thought, anyway.
‘You know, what I don’t understand.’ I leaned forward. ‘It was all so elaborately done. The disguise, the powder, the mute trick, the name — how could you be stupid enough not to change the car number plates?’
He was in the act of getting out of his chair to do who knew what — probably come round from behind his desk and squash me flat between two fingers. But suddenly he stopped, his shoulders dropped back into place, and his face assumed an expression as if a very attractive idea had just dawned on him.
‘Suppose there’s something in the nonsense you’re babbling,’ he said, and there was almost a smile on his lips, ‘then why don’t you go to the cops with it? Why come to me? What do you really want?’ And when I didn’t answer right away he thrust his head towards me, and a really hearty smile came over it. ‘You surely weren’t thinking of blackmailing me? Oh, wow, you have no idea at all!’ He smiled a little more, then leaned back in his chair and inspected me with satisfaction.
‘I want to know who the two men driving the car the night before last were.’
‘What?’
‘The two extortionists after that protection money. Where they came from, how they lived, what they were planning to do.’
The satisfaction left his face. ‘ Were planning to do?’
‘Were.’
For the first time I realised how quiet it was in his desert kingdom. The engines of the HGVs and forklift trucks in the yards outside must be making a lot of noise. But there was nothing to be heard except quiet clicking as Ahrens undid the metal strap of his watch and did it up again.
Finally he said, ‘Piss off.’
It was clear he wasn’t going to say it again, and I’d be lucky if I got away unscathed. I rose and set off for the door. Before I pressed the handle down I turned once more. ‘I mean it. I want to know who those two were. Perhaps that’ll be enough for me and then I’ll leave you alone. But not without knowing that.’ I tapped my forehead. ‘See you soon. And don’t think any of this set-up made any lasting impression on me.’
I slowly closed the door behind me, and then I moved fast. I raced past the lift door and went down the stairs as quietly as I could. No one came to meet me, and I heard no voices or other sounds on any of the office floors. I went the last few steps to the ground floor on tiptoe, peered around the corner, and saw to my relief that there was no one waiting for me outside the lift. Perhaps Ahrens was telling himself a little bastard like me couldn’t harm him. Or perhaps he simply had no one available just now to wait for me there.
I went down the corridor to the telephone switchboard and leaned against the narrow counter. Miss Chewing-Gum looked up from a swimwear magazine.
‘Your boss is really weird. Ever been on safari with him?’
She raised her eyebrows, not as if she were surprised, looked searchingly at me, and finally shook her head. ‘Wouldn’t be much of a safari. Nothing to be seen but a fat pig.’
I couldn’t help grinning, and for a brief, careless moment I enjoyed the sight of her thin, perky face with a layer of freshly applied, impossible turquoise lipstick echoing her fingernails. Too late, I saw the alarm in her eyes. When I followed the direction of her gaze and turned, a small, fat man was standing very close to me.
‘So how you doing, mate?’ he asked, pulling his thick lips into something that was probably supposed to be a smile. ‘I hear you found the boss’s car, right? I want the keys, so let’s have ’em, OK?’ he said, and I was just thinking, I know that voice, and wondering why he was holding his hand behind his back in such an odd way, when he made a movement that was remarkably fast for someone of his girth, and my face exploded.*
Someone was tugging at my shirt. At the same moment the pain in my head started up a rockers’ party with everyone dancing and stamping, beer bottles clashing, brain cells scrapping with each other. Something wet and sticky splashed over my face, I flinched back and opened my eyes. Through a red haze, I saw Miss Chewing-Gum bending over me with a bottle of Fanta.
‘Come on, get up!’ she whispered. ‘You have to get out of here!’
I held out my hand, and she pulled at it until I was more or less sitting up and could see all the blood around me.
‘Go on, hurry! He’s only gone to get someone to take you down to the cellar.’
To the cellar. I managed to concentrate for a moment and imagine what the fat man would do to me in some dark hole if he was prepared to hit me so hard in broad daylight and in the presence of a witness that I felt I was now minus practically everything you can see on a passport photo. With all the strength I could muster, and Miss Chewing-Gum’s assistance, I managed to get to my feet. My face was dripping like lettuce that’s just been washed.
‘Hit me!’
‘What?’
‘I’m supposed to be watching to make sure you don’t get away, and I can do without trouble, so go on, hit me!’
I tried to raise my arm, but the rockers instantly opened up a new dance floor in my shoulder, and it dropped back to my side.
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ she hissed, took my hand, raised it in the air, making me cry out again, and smashed it down on her turquoise mouth. No idea if it was my blood or hers, but anyway she stayed behind, smeared with red, as I staggered out of the door into the yard. The rain beat in my face, it was cold and windy, the twenty metres to the street seemed endless, and my head felt like one huge open wound. I felt like flinging myself down on the tarmac and howling. The last thing I saw when I reached the street and turned once more was Dr Ahrens smiling as he promised Pleasure On My Plate, and in return I promised him all the tortures in the world.
Chapter 8
‘Oh no!’
Romario jumped up from the armchair, took my arm and helped me to lie down on the sofa.
‘What… what happened?’
‘Found the Army of Reason.’ My voice sounded as if I were talking underwater. ‘Get me a bottle of vodka and call the emergency doctor.’
When the doctor closed his bag about an hour later, he said, ‘That needs to be X-rayed. You’d better go straight to the hospital. I can call you a cab if you like.’
‘Anything broken?’
He shrugged. ‘Can’t tell because of the swelling. How did you come by that?’
‘Sheer stupidity.’
‘Looks as though someone hit you in the face by mistake with his garden hoe or something.’
‘With a knuckleduster, and not by mistake.’
‘Ah.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Well, if you want to rest for a while before you go to the hospital, put some ice on it.’
The doctor left, and I sent Romario to the supermarket round the corner for supplies of alcohol and an Ahrens packet soup. Then I went to sleep. When I woke up two hours later, Romario was sitting beside me holding a tea-towel full of ice to my cheek.
‘How’s it feel?’ he asked.
I was going to say something, but I couldn’t get anything out, and made a so-so gesture with my hand.
‘Soon as you feel strong enough to stand up I’ll call a taxi and we’ll go to the hospital. By the way, they didn’t have your soup. But maybe you shouldn’t eat anything just now anyway. Wait and see what the X-ray shows. In case they have to operate, I mean.’
I watched him trying, with an expression of concern, to hold the tea towel full of ice so that it cooled my face but didn’t press against it. After a while I fell asleep again.