The parking lot by the Aussenalster was full, so Kurt stuck the T-Bird across a nearby bicycle path. Several longhaired cyclists admonished the driver for his disregard of their space, until he advanced on them belligerently.
As they pedaled off, Kurt Oster shouted invectives, until he was out of breath. His heart beat fast and a tingling sensation gathered in the tips of his fingers. He really should have obeyed his doctors' orders, but they had no idea what his life was like, otherwise they would have wished him luck and plenty of it.
Several family groups sidestepped onto the grass to avoid being bumped by the man in the satin suit. A few of the women told him he should be more polite, but these days etiquette was low of his list of behavior.
The week had started badly with his near-death experience and Vanessa's disappearance, then rallied with Sean's delivery of the money and Murah's phone call from Chiang Mai in Thailand. $20,000 to the right prison official had effected the release of Herr Egard's son into the Yugoslav's custody. Murah had taken the banker's son to a small guesthouse in Bangkok and re-associated him with heroin, thereby exchanging one prison for a more inescapable cage. Everything was looking up, till receiving a call from Cali saying, "We have a problem."
Hearing those three words had blackened his mood to coal.
Kurt entered the lakeside restaurant and spotted the black man at a table with his back to the wall. While the pimp was dressed for a business meeting, his skin color and notoriety assured his being the other diners' main subject of conversation. Kurt wished they had met somewhere more private, but was glad that Cali was surrounded by empty tables.
Kurt sat down, asking, "What is wrong?"
Cali peered over his sunglasses and focused on Kurt. His friend was in bad shape and probably from drugs.
"Are you okay?"
"I wish everyone would stop asking me that," Kurt snapped, then noted the genuine concern on Cali's face. "I'm fine, really. Just had some trouble sleeping."
"Yes, I can see that." Cali had little patience for drug addicts, even Kurt.
"So?" Kurt sensed his friend's scrutiny and sat up straight, as if he had been caught for cheating in school.
Cali put his hand over his mouth and said, "Willi's gone missing."
"The banker's boyfriend?"
"Exactly."
"How long?"
Several nights ago he was seen running from the police after buying heroin in the Hauptbahnhof. His dealer told this story to one of my whores and she told me."
"And was he arrested?" Kurt shook his head. If it wasn't one thing, then it was another.
"No, he got away."
"Has the banker mentioned Willi's being gone?" Kurt immediately thought back to the policeman stopping Sean and speculated whether on a connection between the two events. In the best of worlds probably not, but this was hardly the best of worlds.
"Yes, but he said there was no problem. That Willi disappears all the time."
"So?"
"You saw the banker in that basement. He would have let us cut off his hands to stay with Willi, so his calmness about Willi's disappearance gives me a funny feeling and not funny 'ha-ha' feeling." Cali sat back and signaled for the waiter they were ready to order.
Kurt reflected on this new tidbit of information, as Cali ordered fresh Atlantic sole for both of them. Once the waiter disappeared, Cali asked without moving his lips, "So what do you think?"
"We have several possibilities. One, your boy, Willi, has found a new lover."
"Not a chance," Cali answered quickly for none of his Hasen had seen Willi at the usual hustling spots.
"He could have run away."
"The banker has been a good payday and promises to be better. Willi is dumb, not stupid."
"If I remember correctly, the boy liked his heroin. Maybe he OD'd."
"No hospitals has admitted anyone fitting his description." While Cali's organization had a tremendous reach into all sorts of places, his inquiry about a junkie Kalbfleisch had risked attracting attention, but with so much to gain, he had no choice.
"Maybe he went home."
"Ha." Cali answered, then said, "The only home Willi knows is the street."
"So if he is not runaway, not home, not with a trick, not dead, not hiding in a drug den, not taken by the police, that leaves one other possibility. Someone took him off the street."
"Proving that someone is on to us."
"Who?"
Cali had composed a list of people who could have betrayed them and said, "Only you, me, and the Schwule banker have any idea what this is all about, unless one of us talked about it."
"I haven't told anyone."
"What about your American?"
"No, he only picks up the money."
"And Petra?"
"She is only there to keep the American amused."
"Are you sure neither of them have put together the pieces."
"I am sure of it."
"Well, someone must have. What about your Vanessa?" Cali had been concerned from the beginning that Kurt had violated the main law of the Reeperbahn and fallen in love with a whore. Not that Vanessa was a whore, but all women are trouble, but never more when you fall in love with another man's wife.
Kurt wracked his mind whether he might have let something slip, then recalled his telling Vanessa he would be taking her away soon. Even if she had told Lukas that, he could not see how her husband could have deduced anything about their money wire theft from that comment. "No, she is totally in the dark, besides it is over between us."
"It is? Did you get tired of her?"
"No, but I haven't seen her for days."
Cali shook his head. The bad news and they were piling up too fast for it to be any good.
"So now we have a second person missing. Has anyone seen Lukas?"
"No."
I think we have suspect number one. Lukas has the motive. Money. And the connection. You to Vanessa to him. Are you sure you said nothing to her?" Cali had also discovered that Lukas had sold a five-carat diamond ring, which had last been seen on Vanessa's finger. There was nothing to gain by telling Kurt this news.
"No." Kurt admitted with an ache in his heart.
Cali rubbed his temples, as he reflected on everything involved with this project.
If someone had grabbed Willi, then they might have their hooks into the banker, which jeopardized the entire scheme. While he had already heard from Hans AKA Greta that the transfer into the account in Switzerland would take place on Friday afternoon, that did not rule out that the banker might have an alternate arrangement.
He had to assume that the transvestite banker had gone over to the other side and was working for two bosses. Cali could have strong-armed Hans into telling him who had snatched Willi, except his abduction might all be in his head and a show of force might blow the entire deal, besides there was another course of action he could take, but only if he kept it to himself. At this point he could trust no one and that meant Kurt as well.
"What are you thinking?" Kurt asked.
Cali signaled him to be quiet, as the waiter brought them their lunches.
When they were alone again, the black man said, "I was wondering whether we should call this off. We have all the money from the transfers."
"Not the expenses for the Thai prison guards, Murah, the flights to Thailand, the hotel rooms in Geneva, the flights back and forth as well as payments to Sean."
"And your debts."
"Yes, and my debts. Everything is in place. We risk nothing by going through with this."
"Your American will pick up the money."
"What's to prevent him from robbing us?"
"He is not going to disappear with our money, is he?
"I will be waiting outside the bank. He is going nowhere without me."
"And the Swiss banker will only give the money to him and no one else."
"Murah is with his son in Thailand. One phone call from Herr Egard's boy will assure his compliance otherwise Murah will take care of him."
"And Murah will do the right thing?"
"You know how the Yugoslavs are about betrayal."
"Yes, I do." He suspected a Yugoslav gang was behind the shooting earlier this summer.
"At worst we know who is taking the money."
"Lukas."
"Yes."
"We have to be very careful. When I had said in the beginning that no one would get hurt, I was only talking about us." Cali lowered his head, so his friend saw the seriousness in his eyes.
"Everyone else doesn't matter, nicht war?"
"I agree." Kurt was angrier than before he entered the restaurant. Lukas had used his wife to fuck with them. Vanessa’s name repeated in his mind. She had told her husband about his stupid dream to save her and he had been a fool to think someone like her would love him. Kurt might have been a fool, but he was far from a fool anymore and asked, "So what now?"
"One, I hunt for Willi. If we find him, then no problem. Second, anyone stick their noses in our business, I will kill them."
If it had been anyone else, then Cali would have walked away from this deal, but he owed Kurt one chance and this was going to be it. If their plans went wrong, the two men had a short list of people who would have to pay for its failure and pay the hard way. Cali only hoped one of them was not Kurt and said, "Three, you stay off the drugs for the next days. I need you straight. It is us against everyone.
"Okay, okay," Cali was too good a friend to lie to and Kurt vowed to stay straight for the next few days, though after leaving the restaurant Kurt hurried to his car, thinking about the packet of cocaine under the seat. He cursed upon seeing the green sticker pasted on his car's front window. It was a soft terrorist act from the Green Party, who believed all cars should be banned from the cities. If he got his hands on a hippie, he would have cut off all their hair with a tire iron. None were in sight, so Kurt could only be angry at himself. He ripped off the sticker and slid into the T-Bird.
Kurt reached down for his stash and spooned two piles of cocaine on the back of his wrist, then thought about what he had promised Cali. He owed his friend this small favor and blew away the cocaine. For once he felt good about not doing the coke and would feel even better once the money was in his hands all his troubles would be solved. If he kept telling himself that, he might believe it one day, because Friday was only a few more days away.
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