In the Evil Day (12 page)
Kael:
…Can you grasp that? If this prick’s got the papers and the film,
whatever the fucking film is…How did Lourens die?
Serrano:
In a fire. Chemical fire. Not even teeth left.
Kael:
Well, that’s something. Shawn?
Serrano:
Shot by blacks. So it appears. The business is strange. Werner, the
question is what do we do now?
Kael:
You ask me, you idiot? We’ll have to tell the Jews.
They’ll blame us.
Serrano:
You’re the one who went to the Jews. You’re the one who did what
they said. I thought we weren’t going near them again? I thought you took a holy
vow?
Silence. Sounds, bumping sounds, the ferry hitting the chop as it passed another vessel.
Kael:
You should wear a hat in Provence in summer.
Silence. A noise. Anselm thought it was Serrano clearing his throat.
Serrano:
Well, fuck you. Maybe you need a smarter person. Have you got
one?
Silence, the bumping sounds, a cough.
Kael:
Don’t be so sensitive. Hollis? What does the cunt say?
Serrano:
He’s shitting himself. He thought he was doing the right thing.
Kael:
He should. He should shit himself. I’m going to kill him personally. Tell
Richler.
Serrano:
What?
Kael:
What do you fucking think? Just tell him. They’re up to their balls in
this. If the Ashken stuff is in the papers, well…
The ferry was docking, they could hear the sounds of movement, the voices of passengers.
Kael:
I walk from here. Thomas will take you.
‘Good bug,’ said Anselm. Tilders nodded.
Kael’s Mercedes, dark blue, was waiting about fifty metres from the landing, the driver standing at the rear passenger door. He was a big man in a dark suit, feet wide apart, hands at the buttons of his jacket. Tilders got him on the monitor. The shutter release was silent.
Serrano and Kael were the first passengers off the ferry. Anselm looked at the monitor. The two men were on it, Tilders was looking at the screen and taking pictures.
Silence until the men were at the car. Anselm saw Kael give Serrano something. Serrano:
What’s this?
Kael:
Ring the number and leave a time, five minutes before the ferry I’ve
marked leaves.
Serrano:
Extreme, this is extreme.
Serrano got into the Mercedes and was driven away. Kael walked off in the direction of his house. The last passenger off the ferry was a fat man in a suit carrying a briefcase. Anselm watched him come in their direction. When he was near you could see that he was a dispirited man, in him no satisfaction at the end of the working day, no expectation of ease to come. He walked past them with his head down.
‘Otto will go to Hofweg,’ said Tilders. ‘I don’t know if all this is worth it.’
‘They pay for a full record,’ said Anselm. ‘We don’t have to ask whether it’s worth it.’
ON THE OUTER fringe of Barmbek, once a working-class suburb, O’Malley was waiting for him, beer on the counter.
Anselm looked at the brown walls, brown carpet, brown curtains, the dead-faced barman.
‘Impressive venue,’ he said.
‘Well, you’re not Bavarian,’ said O’Malley. ‘This is a Bavarian hangout. Beer fresh from the cask. Stick around, you’ll be singing old Bavarian songs.’
‘Songs wildly popular in the 1930s, no doubt,’ said Anselm. He was rubbing his dead fingers, bending them, turning his hand. He wanted to be outside.
The barman brought another beer without being asked.
O’Malley paid.
‘I thought the Marriott was more your speed,’ Anselm said, casual voice, he could do that, he got better at it every day. ‘Full of rich and dubious people. Still, I can see they know you here.’
O’Malley drank, ran an index finger along his lower lip. ‘I’m the customer,’ he said, ‘with all the rich meaning the word holds. And I like the beer. Also I’m staying nearby. How’d it go?’
‘Well.’
‘Listen?’
‘Part of the service.’
‘So?’
‘Serrano told Kael about someone that’s gone wrong. They talked about people now dead. Kael told him to tell a person called Richler. He could be an Israeli. Serrano’s coming back tomorrow.’
‘Dead people?’
‘Shawn. Lourens. Something like that.’
A card game in the corner detonated, exclamations of disbelief.
Anselm went rigid, every muscle, tendon.
Four players. War babies, in their fifties, leather-faced men in leather jackets. Brown leather jackets.
Anselm drank. The beer had the feral-yeast taste. That and the men in playing cards brought a hotel on the Ammersee into his mind. Had he forgotten it? He hadn’t remembered it for a long time. The woman’s name was Paula, an artist, he’d lived with her in Amsterdam for a while. They’d gone on holiday, had an argument that night about another woman. Seated in the hotel’s dining area, the locals looking on, she’d punched him in the mouth, a full swing across a table. Her little walnut fist drew his blood but a bone broke in it. Worth it, she said to him later, in pain, unrepentant.
‘We may have to go on,’ O’Malley said.
Anselm found a cigarette, put it on the table, let it lie. Any delay in lighting up was good. Some tension left him. ‘I would warn of expense. If that’s of consequence.’
O’Malley raised his hands, not high, big and pale strangler’s hands. ‘Discount for repeat business?’
‘Second time’s much harder.’
‘Yes, women have said that to me,’ said O’Malley. His eyes went to the door.
Anselm looked, tight muscles in the stomach, shoulders, thighs.
Two young men came in from the street, one tall, one average, short haircuts, soft and expensive leather jackets, not brown. They were not at their ease, eyes going around, over O’Malley and him.
The barman didn’t care for them, just a small and telling shift of hips and shoulders.
O’Malley drank his final centimetres, leaned closer. His expression was amused. ‘Well, got to go, a dinner date,’ he said. ‘These boyos…’ Anselm didn’t look at the two men. ‘Is there an anxiety you haven’t told me about?’ He held O’Malley’s eyes, smoked, sipped beer.
‘You never know,’ said O’Malley. ‘Serrano’s a dangerous man. Give me something else.’
Anselm felt in the inside pocket of his jacket. Condoms, a packet of condoms, old, some forgotten optimism in the purchase. ‘I’m going to give you something worth much more than any tape,’ he said.
O’Malley nodded, smiling, teeth showing, the O’Malley smile that meant nothing, not pleasure, not fear. ‘I’m parked about twenty metres down, left.’
‘Cowbarn beer, Bavarian nostalgics, now it’s intrigue. Anything else?’
‘Give it to me, mate.’
Anselm slid his hand out of his coat, put it palm down on the table.
O’Malley smiled, covered his hand, gave him a pat, a gesture of friendship from a large hand, scar tissue on all the knuckles.
‘
Compadre
,’ said O’Malley.
Anselm removed his hand and O’Malley pocketed the condom packet.
‘I liked Manila,’ said Anselm. ‘Can we go back?’
O’Malley shook his head. ‘
Ein ruheloser Marsch war unser Leben.
All the fun people are gone, Ferdie’s gone, Imelda’s gone, Bong-Bong’s gone.’ He paused. ‘Angel’s gone too. So am I. Anyway, you can’t go back, anywhere.’
Anselm saw Angelica for a moment, the tiny tip of pink tongue, the swing of dark-red hair half curtaining an eye. ‘That theory,’ he said, ‘has it been properly tested? Scientifically, I mean.’
O’Malley shook his head in wonder, got up, left. The inner door closed loudly on its spring. Anselm put the glass to his lips and looked around. The two newcomers were in mid-glance at each other. The taller one shrugged, looked at the barman, raised a hand to get attention.
‘
Zwei Biere, bitte
,’ he said in an irritated tone, not a Bavarian accent.
‘
Ist das tatsächlich möglich
?’
Anselm got up. At the door, he turned his head. The two men had no interest in him. He went outside, into a cold early winter evening perfumed with vehicle fumes and cooking smells, walked to where O’Malley stood beside an Audi.
‘My condoms for this tape.’
‘I don’t know,’ said O’Malley, ‘I could use these frangers. The night is young.’
‘Unlike you and the condoms. Will she wear her wig? It excites me, the thought.’
O’Malley smiled. ‘Really, John, that’s pathetic. You need more exoticism in your life. I like women in full surgical gear, green smock, rubber boots, the cap, the face mask.’
‘You’re sick.’
‘The exact point, my good man.’
ANSELM TOOK the car back to the office. He was looking at the logbooks when the phone rang.
‘We go on,’ said O’Malley.
‘So be it.’
He finished his reading, signed, changed and set off for home, running in the cold dark, hearing the city humming like a single organism. There was no wind. The lake was still and the lights of the far shore all came to him in silver lines, followed him as he moved: he was the focus, the point of intersection.
As he ran, he thought about coming back to the house that day, after Beirut. It had been spring, late evening, the house empty and shuttered, almost everyone who had lived there dead. He was mostly dead too, and he had begun to cry when he opened the gate, saw the roses in bloom. He was half drunk, and he wept, sitting on the steps, his head in his hands, tears pooling in his palms. He knew that he was home, as close to home as he would ever be.
Inside the house, the power was off, the heating had not been on for years, the air smelled of dust and ancient lavender furniture polish and, somehow, faintly, of cigar smoke, of the Cuban cigars smoked by his grandfather—his great-grandfather, for all he knew. He had walked through the ground-floor rooms, opened the curtains, heavy as wet canvas, pulled the shrouds off the furniture.
That day he took the whisky out of his bag, chose a glass from dozens in the pantry, rinsed it in one of the porcelain sinks in the scullery, the water running dark for a good while. He sat on a huge, deep embossed-velvet sofa looking out at the terrace, the overgrown darkening garden, took the tablets and drank himself to sleep. At some point, he drew up his legs, becoming as small as he could.
The next day, he was woken by the pounding of the knocker on the front door. His brother, Lucas, fresh, pink-cheeked. They embraced, awkwardly, they had no easy way to touch each other, there was no fit of body, arm or hand. Anselm had felt his stubble scrape the smooth cheek of Lucas, pulled back. They drew apart.
‘This is stupid,’ said Lucas. ‘For God’s sake, we were worried, this is not a good idea, John, you’re coming to stay with us, you can’t stay here. Lucy’s adamant, I’m adamant, for God’s sake…’ ‘Just for a while,’ Anselm heard himself say. ‘Get myself sorted out.’
They went inside. Anselm followed Lucas, his older brother grown small, as he walked around inspecting things. Lucas owned the house. It had been left to him.
In the kitchen, Lucas said, ‘Are you sure? About staying here?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll say it again, you’re more than welcome in London. There’s also the cottage in…’ ‘No. Thank you. Thank Lucy. I want to be here.’
The relief in Lucas showed in his eyes, in a movement of his mouth. He took out his telephone. ‘We’ll need some German efficiency. Yes. Get things liveable here. I’ll talk to a man I have dealings with. Deutsche Bank.’
By late afternoon, lunch had been delivered, the power was on, the phone connected, a new refrigerator was cooling in the pantry, a plumber had been, a new water-heater installed, six people had cleaned the house, cartons of food and drink delivered by a small van had been stored.
At the gate, the taxi’s diesel engine thumping, Lucas said, ‘Listen, I’d like to stay but I’ve got to be in New York tomorrow, we’re in a shitfight with Murdoch’s people.’
Anselm said, ‘Thanks, I appreciate…all this.’
‘I’ll have your stuff from San Francisco sent. It’s in storage, I did that, I thought…well, need anything, just call the number. It’s on the pad. Next to the phone? I wrote it down. They’ll get me. Any time, it doesn’t matter.’
Anselm nodded.
‘The time doesn’t matter. Okay?’
His brother put out his right hand and touched Anselm’s cheek, found himself doing it, crumpled his hand, tapped Anselm’s face with a loose fist.
‘You will,’ he said. ‘John, you’ll call me, won’t you?’