Sean's first week in Hamburg the Malchek was packed every night from 9pm till 2am with young people, artists, and transient models working the catalogues, businessmen, and their girlfriends, most of them celebrating Germany's triumphant march into the World Cup Finals. After 2am the crowd changed with the arrival of Cali's henchmen flaunting their wealth with silk shirts unbuttoned to display thick gold necklaces and the leather pants belted with 22K buckles. The pimps ordered cases of sekt, which they swilled like cowboys off the range. Their aggressive behavior drove away the normal patrons, so by 3am the club was filled with the hard-core deviants, drug dealers, and whores.
It was an ugly scene threatening to become uglier.
Kurt was out of town and Sean turned to Jonny Werth for advice.
"Ah die Zuhalterei. They are a big problem in the club, but getting them out of a club is an even bigger one." The crippled day manager tapped his bad leg to reiterate the danger of dealing with his ex-friends. "Wait for Kurt to return. He will get Cali to take care of it."
"What if he does nothing?"
"We will burn that bridge, when we get to it." Jonny drained his sekt and then asked, "Are there any other problems?"
"None that I can think of."
"Then enjoy life and don't worry about the pimps. It's summertime and the living is easy, nicht war?""
It was good advice.
Especially after New York.
He woke at noon, ate breakfast, walked to the Hotel-Intercontinental for the Herald-Tribune, read the newspaper on the Alstersee ferry to Jungfernsteig, after which he wandered around the shopping district.
Most owners and waiters treated him as an outsider or 'auslander'. Only the owner of a small English bookstore showed him kindness. She pointed out George Steiner's THE LAST JOURNAL OF A.H., Stanley Elkin's THE LIVING END and Maxie Laing's RUNNING. Each book took him a single day to read and he sought other diversions.
Once he visited the Kunsthalle and was struck by David Kaspar Friedrich's tableau of a ship wrecked in the frigid Arctic. THE SEA OF ICE brought home how alone he was in this city. Despite having a car, a penthouse, a job, and money, he still came up short on the company of a woman.
Petra shunned him and he told himself he was better off without her, but the women at the nightclub avoided him like he belonged to someone else. Sean came close to asking Cali to find her during their first English lesson at the Schlaterei restaurant near the city slaughterhouse, but was deterred by that fear that the pimp would enlist her into his employ. It was better she remained lost than join the ranks of the Huren.
Cali was more interested in slang words for cars, women's body parts, and racist epithets. He got a kick out of calling Sean 'Honky', then told Sean, "We are going to be good friends, you and I."
"Friends aren't so easy to come by here."
"Yes, Bertram is dating a junkie skinhead model. Kurt is never in town for more than three days.
The bouncers at the Malchek ignored you, because you stole a job from one of their friends, and you are too old to appeal to the young people at the bar."
"Old?"
"Thirty is old for anyone under twenty, so forget making friends at the bar, but why do Americans want to make friends with everyone?"
"We want to be liked, but my mother liked to say if you had one friend you were lucky. If you had two you were blessed." Cali displayed three fingers. "And anyone who says they have three is a liar."
"My only friend is Kurt, so maybe you'll be lucky #2."
And you my # 1."
Sean explained the other meanings for # 1 and #2 and Cali laughed loudly saying, "Germans like shit jokes."
"I can't think of any off my head."
"I can't either, but we must have heard hundreds."
"Yes, I'm completely blank."
"We are not so different, you and I."
"Not we're not."
After the lesson Kali went to the Reeperbahn. This close to the solstice most of the day was sunlight. The Malchek opened in eight hours. He got in his BMW and examined the map. The parrot's beak of West Germany vee-ed deep into DDR. He pointed the BMW east passing through the farming villages of Blekede, Katemin, and Dannenburg to Lauenburg. The dirt road skirted the Elbe. This was the border with East Germany. Watchtowers and barbed wire guarded the other bank. He parked the BMW under the trees and walked to the river.
The slow-moving water was an uninviting brown. Several British soldiers waded in the shallows. Other squaddies fished with handlines. Sean dipped his feet in the Elbe. An East German soldier watched him through binoculars. Another soldier aimed a rifle at him. This was the edge of the Free World and he went back to his car.
Upon returning to the village Sean suffered a panic attack about the total destruction of the world, yet people on the front-line went about their business unconcerned with the potential Armageddon. Sean decided to live like there was no tomorrow. He had nothing to lose, but his sadness. Back in Hamburg he stopped at the Hotel Intercontinental for the Herald-Tribune and was tempted to see if Petra was in the Spielhalle, but left to make telephone calls at the Malchek.
Despite being two hours before opening, the club was crowded with a birthday party for under-aged teenagers. The kids were chaperoned by several adults. The bartender served sekt. He entered the office without knocking. Jonny Werth grabbed the account book off the desk, then relaxed, saying,
"Oh, it is you."
"Who did you think it would be?" Sean sat at the desk. "The police?"
The day manager maintained his grip on the ledger.
"The police would only come here, if we asked them." Jonny intoned that the club had some arrangement with the local authority.
"So they no problem with fourteen year-old kids drinking?"
"This is Europe. Not America. How old were you when you had your first drink?"
Twelve and it was vermouth."
"Widerlich." Jonny made a face and locked the ledger in a drawer. "It's only good in Martinis and only a little of it."
"My first real drink was at a bar called the Sugarshack in Boston. James Brown was playing an afternoon show. The bartender had served me a gin-tonic. I was 13."
"So no worries about fourteen year-olds drinking sekt." Jonny stuck the key to the desk in his pocket.
"As long as I don't have to drink it, no."
"What are you doing here this early?"
"I thought I would call some friends in New York."
"Ah, homesick, yes? What about your new friends in Hamburg?"
"Friends are a little hard to come by here."
"Not so open, right? Everyone in Europe thinks Americans are, how you say, phony for being so friendly, but better phony friends than no friends." Jonny poured two gin-tonics.
"To our youth."
"Jugendzeit."
"So have you had sex with Petra yet?"
"Is nothing a secret in this town?"
"People in small towns talk about each other."
"So do you think I have a chance?" Sean stopped lying to himself about his desire for Petra.
"With Petra? Vierleich. She is a woman who likes to gamble. At a casino and with men. She likes anything with a risk attached, so don't play it safe."
This was the exact opposite of the advice Sean had given Kurt, but then there was a world of difference between Vanessa and Petra. The manager limped to the door and blew a kiss to the Persian busboy behind the bar, then turned to Sean and said, "Herr Tempo, there are some things you have to find out for yourself and the first one is whether you are interested in Petra, nicht war?"
The day manager hugged the young boy, leaving Sean sure of one thing and that was that nothing was simple in Hamburg. Neither was it in New York.
Sean dialed several numbers in the States. No one answered Lisa's number, but the phone was still in service. None of his friends or family picked up the phone.
"Immer allein."
Always alone and he opened the Herald-Tribune to the crossword puzzle. It was easy for a Thursday.
With fifteen minutes he jotted in the last entry and skimmed over Rob Hughes article on the upcoming Italy-Germany World Cup match, then read about Brezhnev's deathwatch. Maybe the Soviet Premier's long-awaited demise was the inspiration for his dreams, but that was too easy an answer.
Folding the paper, he left the office to get a glass of water. The party had broken up over and the busboys were setting up for the evening. Sean picked up a glass from behind the bar. The door clanged open for a breathless Bertram. The Frenchman dropped a cheap traveling bag on the floor, saying. "Merde. Merde. Merde."
"Girlfriend troubles?"
"Ouais, but Hanna is no girlfriend. I come back this afternoon and find her with two Nazis. One white and another black. Who ever heard of a black Nazi?"
"Not me," Sean answered, then recalled seeing a Blaxploitation film BLACK GESTAPO on 42nd Street.
"Hanna's a junkie. What do you expect? A saint?"
"They were smoking my 'heroin'. I tell them to leave, but they pretend they do not understand my German." Bertram fumbled with his cigarette. "I swear at them in French and my 'girlfriend', she throws out me."
"Nice." Junkie girlfriends' only predictability was their habit."
"Now I have nowhere to live." Bertram was more disturbed by the eviction from the rat-infested Hafenstrasse squat than the loss of his woman.
"You can sleep on my couch a few days." Sean could use the company.
"No, no, no, I will stay in a hotel near the Reeperbahn. Only 30 Marks a night."
"Are you sure it isn't 30 Marks an hour." Most of the hotel around the Eros Center specialized in short-time stays.
"No, a bed and a window on the action. All I really need." Bertram shrugged, then carried his bag to the DJ booth and cued up Marvin Gaye's SEXUAL HEALING. The front door opened and the giant Bavarian bouncer entered the club. Rolf eyed the bar and waved to Sean.
With a half-hour the Malchek was ready for business.
Jonny had to have been the best pimp in Hamburg, gay or not, if this was how he ran a club. Sean returned to the office to dial his parents.
Nothing.
He leaned back his head to douse his eyeballs with pharmaceutical eyedroppers in preparation for the burning sensation from the club's heavy smoke. As the liquid soothed his eyes, Bertram entered the office.
"What is it now?"
"On a une petite problem?" The Frenchman stuck a cigarette in his mouth and mumbled, "A problem at the door."
"Rolf can handle it." The huge Bavarian's vicious countenance usually deterred any troublemakers.
"No, it is a 'special' problem."
The word 'special' disturbed Sean and he left the office, warning Bertram, "This better be good."
Three teenage blondes were dancing to Captain Sensible's SAY WHAT and he continued to the ice-blue entrance, where the Bavarian bouncer was braced against the door. Sean stopped at the hallway and asked Bertram, "It's the Nazis, right?"
"Yes, but why are they here? I am gone from 'her' house."
"I don't know." Whatever Bertram had told him earlier probably was only half true. The other half was on the other side of the door. He walked up to Rolf.
"They want to beat him up." Rolf pointed at Bertram.
"Maybe it is time to call the police." Bertram suggested, a scared sweat breaking out on his pale face. Rolf frowned with disapproval. "The police only make bigger problem."
"So no police." Sean peered through the door's spyhole.
Out on the sidewalk Anthony Burgess' CLOCKWORK ORANGE's predictions for the future had materialized in the form of skinheads dressed in the ubiquitous uniform of green nylon jackets, braces, high-water jeans, and Doc Martin boots.
A young black boy with a closely cropped hair dictated orders to his three cronies. With most of the Third Reich Nazis pushing sixty-plus, this gang had to be the replacements.
The leader screamed at his underlings. Two skinheads grabbed their comrade and smashed him against the door. The three aggressors jumped on top of him, kicking and punching, then lifted him to his feet. Blood ran from the battering ram's nose, as he sang a song off-key. Sean made out the words 'Auschwitz-luge', which was the term for 'denial of Auschwitz'. Most neo-
Nazis didn't believe that the SS had killed 6 million Jews. They didn't count gypsies either.
"Don't let them in." Bertram had no interest in meeting these skinheads.
"They can't break down the door. Bertram, go to the DJ booth. I'll take care of this." The Frenchman left and Sean asked the muscled Bavarian, "What should we do?"
"Keep the door shut."
"I intend on doing that." The door was steel.
A few seconds later the door vibrated with a resonating thump, then a second and third. Each thud was enjoined by a pained moan. Sean re-opened the spyhole. The two larger skinheads had resumed smashing their friend into the door. His skull would give way long before the door.
"Shit."
"Was?"
"Take a look." Sean told Rolf to look out the spyhole.
"Schiesse, yes." The bouncer shrugged with disinterest. "Nicht unser Problem."
One of the primary rules of nightclub security was only to be involved in whatever was your problem and nothing else. Sean listened to the muffled shouts from the skinheads' fuhrer, then their charge, and a louder scream from their comrade.
"This is fucked." Sean peeked out the spyhole. The skinheads were shoving their bleeding comrade back and forth. Their black leader glowered at the door, his face a practiced mask of hatred. At this rate no one would come in the club tonight.
"I want you to shut off the music, clear off all the glasses and take Bertram and everyone else up to the roof, then call Cali at the Eroscenter."
"This is a bad idea."
"Just do it."
Several minutes later Rolf returned to the hallway. "Cali says he'll be here in a half-hour."
"I'm not waiting that long." Sean put his hand on the deadbolt and Rolf stopped him, saying, "Going outside is a very bad idea."
"If I knock on the door three times, open up."
"Three times," The big man indicated he would do what he had been ordered, then said, "Gluck."
"Thanks, I could use some luck." Sean yanked the door open and stepped outside.
The two larger skinheads were huffing an inhalant from a paper bag. Their faces registered a stupefied amazement, as Sean started to speak in halting German. Any chance to complete his sentence ended with a barking command from the black boy. Sean bobbed and weaved through the first punches. He kicked one punk's feet from beneath him and elbowed another in the face. Several hands seized his arms and propelled his body into the wall, knocking the wind from his lungs.
"Wo ist der DJ?"
"He's not here."
"He is here. I can smell the garlic on the shitty Frenchman here."
"He's not here and, if you do not believe me, you can search the place yourself."
The leader explained the offer to his comrades. Their grip on Sean's biceps and wrists eased, though without allowing him to break away. Sean knocked on the door three times. No one answered, so he kicked the door hard three times. The spyhole slid open and Rolf's eye filled the space.
"Alles ist klar," Sean said and the squidlike eye blinked with doubt. Sean smacked the door again and Rolf slid back the deadbolts. The door swung inward, as if blown by a winter wind. Rolf stood aside, allowing the skinheads frog-marched Sean into the club. He was on his own.
The music was off and no one was in the bar.
Sean turned the leader of the skinheads and said, "See, he's not here." The smell of smoke betrayed the recent presence of people and the leader snapped his fingers. Two of his comrades searched the club. They confirmed the club was empty. The leader walked over to the bar and picked up a single glass from the counter and examined the rim. His finger wiped at a lipstick stain.
"She's gone." Sean indicated the back door. It was locked. Only Jonny Werth had the key.
"I can see that." The leader leaned on the bar. "We will have one drink for the road."
The skinheads conferred quickly, then the leader snapped, "Whiskey-Coke for everyone. You too."
"Coming right up." Sean lifted a bottle of Dewars. This offering met with their approval, though at the same time he slipped the eyedropper vial into his left hand and squirted the pharmaceutical liquid into each glass before mixing the drinks. He put them on the bar and the skinheads seized them with a triumphant cheer to toast their victory over America. The glasses clinked together and were downed in one go. The leader struck the counter with his open palm and demanded for another round.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I want one and my friends want one." He was about to say something, but burped loudly inside.
"Da wasst etwas in der Trinken."
"Something in the drink?" Sean gathered the glasses.
The bloodied skinhead announced that he was feeling ill. The two larger thugs turned threateningly to Sean, but it was too late. The first one rushed to the bathroom, while the other bent over with a groan. Sean shouted for Rolf to throw out the ill skinheads. They offered no resistance and raced down the sidewalk for someplace to relieve their bowels.
Cali's Mercedes braked in front of the club in time to witness the skinheads' exodus.
"What did you do to them?"
"Nothing much. I just gave them a drink. Something that didn't agree with them."
"You poisoned them?"
"Yeah, three years ago a gang from Staten Island had come into an uptown club at which I worked the door with a fifty year-old Harlem gangster. Jack Flood had been a heavyweight and recognized their winning a fight against twenty or more Italian kids was not a sure thing. He invited them all to bar and muttered to Sean, "When you outnumbered, you offers them a 'drink', puttin' some eyedrops in the 'drink'. Only two, cuz sure as shit they be shittin' in their pants before they finish their drinks and they goin' to stink. So you gotta act fast, once they goin' to go."
"Ach, our first shit joke. Let’s drink champagne."
"Not sekt."
"Champagne."
The club-goers came down from the roof and applauded Sean.
No one was more grateful than Bertram. The DJ played Sean's favorite song Human League's DON'T YOU WANT ME, BABY and promised to spin the seventeen-minute version of David Porter's HANG ON, SLOOPY later. Sean loved the mournful rap ballad.
The club filled fast and the clientele bought drinks a record pace. Everyone was in the mood for tomorrow's big game. Germany versus Italy for the World Cup. Kurt arrived with rich people from Frankfurt. Upon hearing the story, he saluted his manager by buying sekt for the entire club. When Sean picked up cash from the bar register, he noticed SS Tommy, Cali's right-hand man, hitting on a teenage girl. The redheaded nymphet was definitely under eighteen. She should have been with boys her age, instead of a killer like SS Tommy.
"Tommy." Sean called to the blonde pimp. Neither had really spoken to the other before, so he approached with caution. "Was ist los?"
"This girl."
"What about her."
"She is a little young. Why don't you get one a little older?"
The pimp misunderstood what Sean's words, until he repeated it a second time. SS Tommy's bony face froze with the comprehension. Sean could have easily mistaken the blankness on blonde pimp's face as a mark of stupidity, except his pinball blue eyes reflected an intelligence extremely gifted at deciding when he could get away with murder.
"First the Nazis and now me. What are you, an asshole hero?"
"No, I just think she's a little young for you." Sean should have walked away, except the tone in
SS Tommy's voice set him on edge.
"If you want to fuck her, then just tell me," SS Tommy shouted for everyone to hear over the music.
"But it will cost you one thousand marks. One time. Oh, I forget, you are with Petra. She is a good fuck too."
SS Tommy turned to pour the young girl another glass of champagne.
"She's under age." Sean took away her glass.
"Arseloch."
Something snapped inside Sean and he laced SS Tommy's face with two quick punches.
"Sehr gut, Schiessekopf." The pimp flexed his muscles to demonstrate that he was unhurt. The crowd cleared out a space, as SS Tommy's hamboned fist moved in slow motion to impact on his American's temple.
Sean heard an egg crack and collapsed into a universe of stars. He was in deep trouble, but Kurt and Cali held back SS Tommy. The pimp told his side of the story and Kurt snapped his fingers to order a bottle of French champagne for SS Tommy. He grabbed the bottle and the redhead.
"Next time, Ami." Kurt Oster came over to Sean, who was daubing a hand towel on the cut above his eye.
"It's only a scratch."
"Fighting SS Tommy was a very stupid. He could have killed you."
"He wants to make her a whore," Sean studied the abstract blood splotch on his shirt.
"This is not America. If a woman wants to be a whore, it is up to her. Not you.""
"Maybe, but the pimps are driving away the other business." Sean quickly glanced around the club, the peoples' faces were fading out of focus. Kurt lifted his finger to silence Sean, then motioned for him to come outside.
"The math makes this decision very easy. Is Cali a problem?"
"No, Cali's cool." Sean touched the weeping blood. His head was light to his touch, almost as if it were dematerializing.
"Then I will talk to Cali. He does not care for the other pimps being here either." Kurt put the paper in his pocket and asked, "Is that all?"
"I understand, if you have friends, who deal cocaine, and it helps people drink more, but no heroin. That drug is in direct competition with the bar." Sean had been catching dealers in the bathroom and wanted them out too.
"I'll go along with whatever you think best." Kurt examined Sean's cut and said, "It looks worse than it is."
Sean sucked on his gums. One of his teeth was loose and he winced with pain and said, "I think my tooth is fucked up. You're right. That was a stupid."
"Do you want to go to the hospital?"
"No." Having worked at a terminal ward during university, Sean had an aversion to doctors and believed you should first try curing yourself before visiting them.
"Listen, go home tonight. I'll close the club. Petra will give you a ride home. Tomorrow you have off, because the police will be coming for you."
"Why would they?" "Poisoning someone is a felony anywhere in the world. I do not want you being thrown in jail." "Is that a possibility?"
"Maybe, maybe not, why take the chance?" Kurt arched his eyebrows to accent his point.
"Wait here. Petra will be right out."
"I'm not going anywhere." Sean's feet were nailed to the pavement.
Several minutes later the brunette exited from the club in a manner suggesting she was ready to leave with anyone who had the price. Perched on high heels, the brunette wore a leather vest with a laced front and hip-hugging pants, her belly scars revealed for all to see. She smiled at him wistfully, then said, "You'll have to be careful these next days. SS Tommy is no teddy bear."
"I just found that out."
"I will get my car."
"I know the next line."
"What is it?"
"Don't go anywhere." A spin of dizziness pinned him to the wall and he hoped Petra returned soon. Sean wavered against the wall, then noticed a bearded blonde man down the sidewalk. He had been the driver of the Opel.
"Du."
The man disappeared into a thickening fog and Sean tried to pull on his leather jacket without success. The Porsche pulled over to the curb and he staggered over to the convertible to and collapse into the front seat. As Petra drove away, she said, "That was a stupid trick with SS Tommy."
"That's what everyone is telling me."
"That girl comes from Hannover."
"So?"
"So she was after SS Tommy."
"How do you figure that?" His head lolled back and he spotted Orion in the night sky, then the constellation dropped into a black hole.
"She has come here to be a whore."
"She's so young."
"She knows what she is doing. Believe I know."
"I thought I was helping." Sean sank back into the seat. The wind baffled in his ears like a thousand half-words demanding to be heard at the same time.
"You Americans think you can save the world. That girl thank you for saving her?" Petra coldly stared at the road ahead, disappointed that SS Tommy had not been beaten.
"No."
"Are you okay?"
"It only hurts a little."
"He could have killed you and now you have an enemy and one who bears a grudge."
"What he was doing wrong."
"Who are you to say what is wrong or right? Do you want to ban prostitution? Control what we women do with our bodies? That girl wants to make money in exchange for sex. Why, because men want to prove how much they are worth without being challenged. There is no love in sex. Not on the Reeperbahn."
Petra's words jumbled up into an indecipherable maze. The adrenalin was fading from his blood. Nobody had elected him town marshal. From now on he would mind his own business.
"Was ist los?" Petra had tired of speaking English.
"Nichts." The passing cars' headlights seared into his eyes. When they pulled up before his building, Sean thanked Petra for the ride without hearing the words.
Once out of the car he stumbled across the sidewalk to smack face-first into a store's plate glass window, then bounced back and fell on his side out cold. Once Sean surfaced from the rabbit hutch, in which he'd been resting, he was surprised to have been magically transported from the street into his apartment. Somehow Petra had carried him upstairs. She was now on the telephone and he heard the word 'doktor'. He reached over and cut off the connection.
"No doctor."
"Ich denke, dass du brauchst einen Doktor."
"Kein Doktor. Sleep. All I need is sleep."
"Wie du willst." Petra put down the phone.
"Why are you smiling?"
"Because you used the 'du'." Sean turned his head on the pillow.
Across the street the moon was setting between the twin spires of St. Johannis. For once he had arrived home before dawn.
"Dummkopf."
"Maybe, but I'll always be 'du' to you and me to you."
Germans used 'du' with foreigners and children, since both had less trouble understanding that informal pronoun for 'you'. Still he was in no condition to be left alone. When she asked, if she could stay, Sean whimsically told her, "Yes."
She patted his forehead and told him to go to sleep.
"And dreams."
He closed his eyes and Petra kicked off her shoes, relieved to be out of the high heels. She sat on the couch and rubbed her feet, then looked at the sleeping man in the bed.
Few men in Hamburg would have stood up to SS Tommy. The Church might condemn the pimps and the police attempt to prosecute them, but condemnations and investigations had not put them out of business. The Eroscenter was as much a civil institution as the State Opera and had a greater attendance record than the concert hall on Gorch-Fock-Wall.
Her hand wiped at the table, then rubbed the dust from her fingers. Clothes were draped haphazardly over the furniture. She was not tired yet, and decided the best way to kill time was cleaning up the apartment. She started searching for a mop and broom, then heard the squeal of women next door.
After placing her ear close to wall, Petra was fairly certain what was going on in the neighboring apartment. Many office buildings in Hamburg had been set up as private bordellos by the pimps. While the state is meant to protect the prostitutes, it is the pimps who rule their lives and their meddling in her life had taken its toll. She had wanted the women to hire their own security guards and rent their own apartments, so the money they earned with their bodies went to them, instead of the pimps. Her attempt to unionize the women of the Reeperbahn had led to a near-deadly beating and no one had told her who had ordered the beating by three masked men.
One day she would find out who.
For tonight she would watch over this man. He was not a devil. Of that she was sure, but he was a man and having confidence in any of them had always been a losing proposition, for she had been on the wrong end of the stick enough for one lifetime.
No comments:
Post a Comment