The wind was driving the rain against the windshield. I watched the drops stream across it, running like a herd of hunted animals across the pane.
“I’m starving.”
“There’s an all-night place just around the corner where you can get hamburgers and breaded schnitzels.”
“You want to go?”
“What about that fucking file?”
“Later.”
I pushed the file under the seat, and we got out. We walked the hundred meters to the Schnitzel Fritz. It looked like a waiting room with fluorescent lights, green plastic tables, and chairs. Behind the counter a fat guy stood flipping burgers. The place was busy. There were some Turks, a couple of ladies of the night, and a table with giggling high-school kids gorging themselves on french fries and Cokes. We ordered schnitzels, potato salad, beers, and shots of schnapps. I had two shots and a beer in rapid succession. The schnitzel was cold, the potato salad drowned in vinegar.
“I work at my job because I wasn’t able to go to law school. At first I thought that being a private investigator was a little bit like being a family doctor. Neither one can do anything about the great massacres and all the other shit that goes on all the time, but what he does do may be important to one individual or another. Once I had a killer explain to me that it was beneath his dignity to be caught by a dago, so he asked for a real cop to arrest him. Just before that I had offered him a shot of schnapps and told him that I would have preferred to send the other people involved to prison rather than him. Well, so. I’ve learned that it really doesn’t matter one bit whether I exist or not. I do my work the best I can. That’s all.”
We kept ordering shots of schnapps to get rid of the aftertaste of our schnitzels. It started to grow dim, and I realized I wasn’t all there anymore. The rounds kept coming, and I kept knocking them back. I didn’t notice that Slibulsky was pouring his shots on the floor under the table. We attracted the attention of two high-heeled girls at a neighboring table. Their working days and nights had carved traces under their eyes. One of them got up and slid next to me on my chair, letting her leather miniskirt slide up over her thigh.
“Hello there, fellows-still up and about this late? Lonely in the night? Still up for fun and games, eh?”
She smiled, but her eyes were contemptuous. She lit a cigarette, scrutinized me through the smoke, and said provocatively, “I can tell that you could use a little loving.” She ran her fingers through the hair on my neck. I closed my eyes.
“How about a visit to our little drawing room? It’s just around the corner. A whole house full of pretty girls with wild ideas.”
She shook my shoulder. “What do you say?”
I don’t recall what happened after that. At some point, I regained consciousness and found myself walking arm in arm with the woman who told me her name was Fanny. We stopped in front of a building with a lot of red lights that blended into one Red Sea. I noticed Slibulsky, who must have been trotting along behind us. He grabbed my sleeve and I almost fell down, but Fanny helped me regain my balance. Slibulsky started saying things to me, and while he was talking, he was rummaging in my pockets. He pulled out my car keys and wallet, then spoke to Fanny and handed her a bill. I didn’t understand any of it.
What did I care! Let him spend my money, let him toss the fucking file in a garbage can, let him drive my car into a wall! I was yelling at him. I said I hadn’t asked him for any favors, and I told him to leave me alone, to mind his own fucking business. And anyway, this shithole of a world could go to hell for all I cared, and he with it. I was about to attack him when Fanny managed to drag me into the building, Men slunk past us on the staircase; a half-naked woman sat on a landing reading a newspaper. At last Fanny unlocked one of the green pressboard doors and dragged me to a bed with a blue silk cover. She lit a cigarette for me and took my clothes off. Then she sat down next to me and helped me take her clothes off, down to the last little bits, which she removed herself. I felt her skin against mine, naked and warm. My hands groped along her legs. Later I felt her moving above me, but all I saw was her breasts before I lost consciousness.
It was half-past four when I woke up and looked at my watch. My throat felt like a tanned piece of leather. It was still dark outside. Fanny lay beside me, asleep. I could see her face in the light cast by a street lamp. She had taken off her makeup. I could remember only half of the night, and would have preferred to forget even that part. I got up quietly, gathered my things, and put my clothes back on. I went to the window. The streets were still empty. Then I remembered the business with my keys and wallet. I cursed alcohol and Slibulsky and the whole world. If that file was gone … I was an idiot. In a corner I found a carafe with water for my poor head. Fanny sighed in her sleep. I took her lipstick, wrote Thanks for Everything on the mirror, and mentally apologized for my quiet departure. I tiptoed down the stairs and through the plastic swinging doors out into the street. My watery knees took me in the direction of the Opel. A ragged creature on the curb was singing “Without you I can’t go to sleep tonight,” and tossing empty beer bottles into the street.
“Shut your face!” someone roared from the opposite building.
The old fellow pulled himself up with the aid of a parking meter, shook his fist, and yelled, “Come on down … if you wanna knuckle sandwich, you ass-asshole!”
Then he slumped back and burst into sobs.
“What a shitty country … an’ shitty people … an’ nothin’ to drink … Shit, it’s all sh-shit!” He lay down on his side and began to snore.
My Opel was still there, with a note on the windshield: “It’s open.” I opened the door and reached under the seat. The file was gone.
Dazed, I leaned against the car and stared at my surroundings. The rain had stopped. Then I saw that the light was on in the Chinese restaurant. This struck me as strange, and I walked over and tried the door. It was open. At the table closest to the door sat Slibulsky, bent over a stack of papers, a steaming cup of tea next to him. He growled, “There’s coffee too, behind the counter. I bet it’s still hot.”
I helped myself to some and sat down at his table.
“Amazing what the cops manage to write about just a single case. This file is a gold mine. But what you’re looking for isn’t here.” He pointed to the seat. “There’s your wallet, and your keys. The shape you were in, you might’ve treated the whole bordello to champagne. I gave Fanny a hundred marks. That’s less than the nightly rate; I don’t know why, but she took you along for a hundred.” He grinned. “Maybe she felt sorry for you.”
“That’s enough.”
I forced myself to have some of the coffee. It tasted terrible.
“Who made this?”
Slibulsky clicked his tongue and pointed proudly to himself. “Original Viennese recipe. With a pinch of salt and a dash of genuine cocoa.”
“I see.” Then I lit a cigarette and examined the reports. The twenty-second of April was the date of the sabotage. I remembered Kessler’s pocket calendar. I took it out, looked at it: Fourteen hundred hours, dentist; sixteen hundred hours, conference at G; sabotage at B. Chem.
On the twenty-sixth of April, when the four had been arrested, there was an entry that read: zero hours, operation Herbert K. In the back, where addresses were listed, I found an H. Kollek, Post Office Box 3278, Doppenburg. I grabbed Slibulsky’s arm.
“I’ve got it!”
He cast a suspicious glance at the calendar, and after checking the entries, he murmured, “I’ve been sitting here since two o’clock, and … Well, I’m not a family doctor.” He grinned again.
I pocketed the calendar and got up.
“I have to go to Doppenburg right away.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Why?”
“You still owe me three hundred marks. I better stay with you, so you won’t tell me later you spent it all boozing with some Herbert Kollek.”