Hans Roth hurried across Stephanplatz and shot a last glance at his office building. Twenty years of his life was coming to an end; the dealing with other people's money, the taxes on his income by the state, the city, and the church, people asking him, if he were dating with a woman, the men with the scrawny blonde mustaches, the beer-drinking louts making fun of his thinness, and all thanks to the sacrament of theft.
Despite this ecstasy he was distressed that Willi's kidnapper had not phoned to congratulate him for the successful transfer to the designated account in the Cayman Islands. More importantly he had not heard from Willi, but as much as he loved the hustler he had no doubts what Cali would do should he get hold of him.
There were few places in the world he could hide from that man, but he had tricked them all into thinking his destination was Thailand. Brazil had no extradition treaty with any European country and its plastic surgeons were the best in the world. This afternoon he was boarding a flight from Hamburg to Frankfurt, then to Lisbon and off to Rio.
As he passed the World War I Memorial, Hans fantasized about small breasts the size of a fashion model. His hand touched his chest and squeezed the pectoral muscle under his gray suit. Few of the male passers-by took note of him, but once he was the opposite sex and they would pay dearly for their previous neglect. The first one being Willi. He could see his face the first moment he stepped out of the hospital in Brazil. Then Willi would want Greta.
Everyone would.
Hans searched for his Audi in the Centrum parking lot. It was not in his usual spot. There was no sign of broken glass and this lot had no history of stolen cars. He could not believe what was happening, until a man gruffly said, "Having a problem finding your car?"
Hans recognized the voice as belonging to Willi's kidnapper and he stuttered, "W-w-where is Willi?"
"We will go get him." The brawny blonde opened the passenger door of a BMW 725I.
"I sent the money like you asked."
"You were a good boy." SS Tommy said, as if he were speaking to a disobedient child. "Get in, Hans. Now. You have a flight to catch, yes?"
The man held up two airline tickets. He had been in his house. He knew everything.
"I know you are thinking about running. Running to the police. They will give you time off for good behavior, but you don't know how bad prison is. I do. I spoke with my compatriot. The police might be onto you and your house is already under surveillance. I have your bag. You can buy anything you need in Rio."
"Rio?" Hans was in too deep to back out now.
That this man worked for the black pimp dawned on Hans. The kidnapping had been a ruse to insure fulfillment of his end of the deal. Hans congratulated himself for solving who the kidnappers were, but he would not be earning any bonus points for this detective work. He just prayed that Willi was innocent of setting him up. Even if he was guilty, he could forgive him as long as they were together in his new life. "And what about Willi?"
"Oh, I see by the look on your face, you're worried about Willi. He is fine, maybe a little too high for the last few days. That is all. He is a very difficult boy. Willi is ready to go too. We will pick him up and go to the aeroport."
"And what....?"
"Don't ask me any questions. I am not the big mastermind, just a flunky. I take orders. That is all. You are the ones making the money. My boss is very happy with what you did. Once you get settled, he might have another job for you."
"No, once was enough for me." A million marks might last twenty years in Rio.
"I guess you are smarter that way." SS Tommy drove out of the parking lot and checked the mirror several times before heading north through the city. No one appeared to be tailing them.
"Where are we going?" asked the banker asked, as they left the city behind.
"Like I told you, to pick up Willi." SS Tommy was impatient to finish this Schwule.
"Do you mind, if I put in a tape?"
"Anything other than Abba," SS Tommy answered.
The banker's choice of Donna Summers was nearly as bad and the queer’s happiness listening to the disco music sickened the blonde pimp, but he decided to let the homo have his last wish. SS Tommy would deny any others.
"You do not like disco?"
"If you like it, good, but me, I like rock and roll." He refrained from insulting the passenger and the banker chattered about his projected trip to Brazil. As they crossed a small river, whose name SS Tommy had forgotten, the rain began to fall again.
He had killed once today and would do it again.
The only remaining problem was Lukas' wife. Two murders in the woods close to a third was too much of a coincidence. He would stick to the original plan and transport her in a private jet. That would be that last anyone ever saw of her. SS Tommy fantasized about her Guten Reisen party, as the banker prattled on and on.
The wipers swept back and forth at full speed and the visibility lessened off the main road.
The BMW bounced through the ruts and splashed up mud. As they entered the clearing, Hans spotted his Audi, then asked, "Where is he?"
"Willi?"
"Yes."
"A friend of mine is bringing him." SS Tommy turned the BMW, so it was facing out to the road. "Willi wants you to dress up for him."
"What?"
SS Tommy reached behind him and pulled out a small leather traveling bag from the back. "This is yours, yes?"
Hans unzipped his bag and found the blonde wig, the high heels, the lingerie, the stockings the make-up, the falsies, and silk dress. Hans held up the panties and smelled Willi on the fabric.
"Go on, put it on." SS Tommy told him, then added, "He will be here very soon."
Hans sneaked a glance at the driver in a fashion he had stolen from Hanna Schygulla in LILI MARLEEN. He loved the women in Fassbinder films and could easily imagine himself in one of the director's movies, although Fassbinder had died earlier this summer.
Seeing his passenger hesitate, SS Tommy said, "You can get dressed in the car. I have seen a naked man before, plus I am curious to see you as a woman."
"You are?" A single caress of SS Tommy's gloved hand excited Hans and he undid his tie.
"Oh, yes, I am." The banker disgusted SS Tommy and he stared ahead, saying, "Hurry up, if we have some time, maybe you and I can have some fun."
Earlier this morning the blonde pimp had decided to orchestrate this double killing to look like a murder-suicide brought on by the banker's extreme disgrace of being an embezzler as well as a transvestite. SS Tommy had written a suicide note on the typewriter in Cali's Eroscenter office, for he recalled Lukas' having hired a police detective to trail Kurt. The policeman had seen Cali and Kurt with Willi and his passenger. He would put the four together and the police would beeline straight to Nigger Cali. SS Tommy congratulated his plan and looked over to his passenger.
Hans had slipped into Greta's clothing He spent several minutes applying his make-up. Hans imagined the driver preferred a tart and applied more blush. Hand Roth slipped into the high heels and tugged on the expensive wig. Whoever he had been was as close to dead as you can get, for Greta Dietrich was ready to take the stage.
The rain stopped and the sun broke through the stormy clouds. A rainbow arced in the north over the treetops. The sunlight dazzled the clearing and SS Tommy said, "You are very beautiful, Hans."
"Call me, Greta." Hans adopted a smoky drawl borrowed from Marlene Dietrich.
"Greta, let's go to your car." SS Tommy glanced at his watch and said, "We have time."
"For what?"
"For whatever you want."
Hans exited from of the BMW and tottered across the grass in the high heels. The moisture soaked through the soles and wet his toes. His shoes would be ruined, but Hans shifted his hips from side to side as provocatively as possible. His tongue wet his lips, feeling the stick Chanel gloss. Red. He loved red. He opened the car door and began to turn around. Somewhere in the trees a bird chirped out two notes.
A lead pipe cracked his skull.
SS Tommy caught the slumping body and adeptly slung the unconscious man into the front seat. One of the high heels had fallen off, so SS Tommy put the shoe back on.
The banker moaned with blood seeping from his forehead. The blonde wig was a little askew, but his state of his coif was unimportant and would be for the rest of his life and beyond.
SS Tommy couldn't believe how lucky he had been to find a .22 five-shot revolver in the Schwule's apartment. He put the weapon in the banker's right hand and stuck the banker's finger in the trigger guard. SS Tommy positioned the muzzle underneath his victim's chin and pressed down. The gun jumped in his hand. Hans' head snapped back and blood poured from his mouth, while red blossomed at the top of the wig.
His ears ringing, SS Tommy stepped back.
The body in the car fell forward onto the steering wheel.
A twig snapped in the woods.
SS Tommy cocked his head.
No one was in the clearing. No one alive, but himself. Willi was already gift-wrapped in the trunk. He put the suicide note on the dead man's lap and chuckled, thinking how easy this had been. Most of his previous victims had been rivals and died hard. He glared down at the corpse, the blood pooling on his lap. Both dead men in the car had reaped what they deserved for being perverts.
A few raindrops spotted the ground and he ran over to his car, carelessly leaving prints on the ground, since he wore Cali's boots. They were too big, but would tell the right story to the Kripo investigators. The mobile phone rang inside his car and he picked it up. It
Stalin Dieter. SS Tommy started the car and asked sharply, "What is it?"
"It is Petra Wessel. She came down here, dressed up in leather and asked Klaus Maserati, if he wanted to have some fun. They went upstairs. She comes down a half-hour later, but not Klaus. I finally go up and he is handcuffed to the bed, face down, his underwear stuffed in his mouth, and his ass razored to shreds. I could see bone. I sent him to the hospital. He will live, but he won't be sitting for several weeks."
"Schiesse. Did the police come?"
"No, but all the girls found out that you and Klaus were the ones, who fucked up Petra."
"I do not care what those whores think."
"Well, you are next on her list."
"Fuck her. If she wants to be taught another lesson, I will teach her. Where is Cali?"
"No one has been able to contact him. What should I do?"
"Keep the girls busy. You have help?"
"Yes, but the girls are acting funny."
"Funny how?"
"None of them are paying us any money for the rooms."
"Do what you have to. I'll sort it all out later." SS Tommy hung up, angry that the whore bitch had the nerve to threaten him. He should have killed Petra the first time, but that nigger had stopped him. He would take care of her his way this time.
No mercy.
None at all.
The BMW's rear wheel spat out mud and SS Tommy drove from the clearing without a backward glance.
Tomorrow headlines would announce the murders. The Abendblatt would feature a photo of the car in their evening edition and run the story of a blotched set-up once the police had connected the dots to Cali. The heat would be put on the Reeperbahn. The police would arrest the Strizzi to demonstrate to the public that the pimps were under control. Once Cali was imprisoned and the story fell off the front pages, things would return to normal and he would be King of the Reeperbahn, reaping the benefits of today's events.
He tore out the disco tape and put on the Scorpions to get in the mood for the next phase of the operation. The blonde pimp swerved onto the track leading to the mansion. SS Tommy bet Vanessa Von Hausen never imagined he would the man to rescue her from her husband's prison. It will probably come as a shock, though less than what he had planned for her.
SS Tommy parked the car under the porte-cochere. The sun appeared again and he took a pickax from the trunk of the BMW. If that could not get him through the door, then he had a stick of dynamite to blow the front door off its hinges. The more messy, the stronger the message to Lukas Von Hausen. He was doing him a favor getting rid of his wife. Explaining how or why to the police or her family was his partner's problem.
He swung the pickax into the doorframe. The steel tip splintered the wood, until the locks were visible. After his tenth swing, the door swung open he entered the house and told himself, "This is going to be fun."
Vanessa heard heavy footsteps stomping up the stairs.
The door to her bedroom trembled, as something smashed into like a ship plowing onto a reef. The second splintered the wood and with the third the gleaming blade of an ax poked through the rough fissure. Vanessa ran into the bathroom and locked the door.
Oddly she remembered having seen THE SHINING with Kurt about a crazy man attacking his wife with an ax in a snowed-in hotel. How the actress had saved herself was inconsequential, since Lukas had stripped the bathroom of anything dangerous, both to herself and anyone else.
When the outer door opened, Vanessa crossed herself and prayed to God for the strength to accept whatever happened and salvation should she not survive. She braced for the impact of the ax and shuddered with the attack on the final barrier.
Three whacks snapped the door off its hinges. The blonde man's grinning face was red from the exertion and sweat glistened on his brow. He bore no resemblance to Jack Nicholson, but then THE SHINING had only been a movie.
"Hello Hello." SS Tommy gazed down on the thin blonde girl in the light blue nightgown. Her hair was as white as her skin, and, if this had been night, she could have easily passed as a ghost. SS Tommy grabbed her arm. "Liebschen. I bet you could eat a horse, but that will have to wait, for you and I are going to have a little fun."
Vanessa pleaded, "Don't, please, don't."
"Don't tell me 'don't' again." SS Tommy warned and dragged her in the bedroom.
Vanessa fought him weakly, until he lifted the ax and buried its head in the floor an inch from her toes.
She screamed and his left hand clamped over her mouth to muffle her cries. He then ripped off her gown and bit her neck, forcing the thin blonde girl onto the bed. SS Tommy unbuckled his belt and swiftly bound her wrists. As SS Tommy pried her thighs apart, he told her, "You can scream all you want now."
Her crying was music to his ears, but not the man's voice at the doorway, which ordered him, "Get off her."
SS Tommy showed no surprise at Cali's appearance and pretended nothing was wrong between them, saying, "What? You want to fuck her first?"
Having had a jui-jui hunch from the beginning about Willi's disappearance, Cali had followed Hans from the bank. Seeing SS Tommy in the parking lot solved the mystery of the misdirected funds and his arrival at the mansion cast Lukas Von Hausen as the brains of the operation. Somewhere along the line, Kurt had talked too much and paid the price in Geneva. Cali lifted his 9mm and pointed the pistol at SS Tommy's head. "I said get off her."
SS Tommy stood up with his left arm looped around her neck, choking off her breath.
"Cali, what is your problem? This is just a woman. What's a woman between friends?"
"Nothing, if we were friends," Cali answered coldly, unable to get off a clear shot.
Vanessa gasped for air and SS Tommy edged toward the door.
Cali had seen SS Tommy in this state before and, if he did not ease up on the girl's throat, she was dead. As the only cure to seasickness is land, Cali could only stop SS Tommy from killing the girl one way.
He lowered the gun and shot at SS Tommy's foot. He missed by several inches and the blonde pimp threw the girl at Cali. She bumped into his hand and fell to the floor, giving SS Tommy the opening for which he had been waiting years.
He seized the ax and swung it into in the black man's ribs. The blade deflected off the bones, but dug deeply into Cali's left side and knocked the wind from his lungs. SS Tommy slapped the pistol out of his hand and into the corner.
SS Tommy yanked out the ax and Cali crashed to his knees. Blood gushed from the wound beneath the black man's tracksuit. Wrapping his arms around himself to holding in all the pain only made it worse. Lukas' wife attempted to get to her feet, but SS Tommy threatened, "Stay put or you will get the same. We have some unfinished business to take care of."
SS Tommy redid his trousers and turned to the man at his feet. He thought about telling Cali about Lukas and their stealing the money transfer, but he could work out all the details in hell. "So Nigger Cali, it has come to this. All these years you have been ordering us around, thinking you were a German. Well, I can tell you to your face. You are a Schwartzer, a nigger bastard. That is all you are and Germany will be better without you, Nigger. What do you say to that, Nigger?"
The a words SS Tommy spoke came as no shock.
He had heard them before and from tougher men than SS Tommy.
If he could get up off his knees, he would tear the ears off the blonde pimp's thick skull and stuff them down his throat. He tried to catch his breath, but remained in the puddle of blood spreading on the floor.
"What do you say now, Nigger? Who is King of Reeperbahn now?" SS Tommy crowed. "I will kill you and then fuck this aristocratic bitch on your dead body."
He threw the naked girl against the wall and SS Tommy shouted venomously, "Nigger. I called you Nigger. What do you have to say about that now?"
Cali focused all his strength on his legs, but they would not work. He raised his eyes to SS Tommy. This was what he had been living with all his life. Maybe it was different somewhere else, but those places were all slipping out of reach and SS Tommy taunted him again, "Nigger."
"Don't call me Nigger, Whitey." Cali repeated Sly Stone's line in English. The words meant nothing to SS Tommy and he said, "Say your prayers, Nigger."
This was the end. No Africa or America. No basketball in Harlem or football in the Cameroon. No dancing with sisters or rolling bones with brothers. No gospel in a church or a Zulu chant across the veldt. No eating cassava in Senegal or BBQ ribs in Kansas City. As SS Tommy raised the ax and aimed for Cali's neck, he prayed to God to forgive his sins.
A boom filled the room.
SS Tommy pirouetted up onto his toes. The ax swung wildly over Cali's head and blood spurted from the bodybuilder's chest. He staggered to the wall and stuck his finger in the neat bullet hole in his jacket to stop the bleeding, though not the gushing from 9mm exit wound in his back. He wheeled around to face the blonde girl in the corner. She seemed so innocent. Naked, except for the smoking pistol in her hands.
He took his finger out of his wound and pointed a dripping digit at her accusingly.
"You. You ruined everything. The little beauty kills me. SS Tommy. What a joke."
The blonde pimp tottered and fell face first to the floor. Cali rose to his feet with a groan and walked over to the crying girl. He took the gun out of her hand and stuck it behind his back. "We have to go."
"But I killed him." Vanessa stared at the man on the floor. She would soon be going into shock soon. Almost everyone does the first time.
"And I thank you for that." Cali breathed lightly, since the ax had broken two ribs as well as gashed his side. He took off his shirt and tore the bed sheet into strips to wind them around his body.
"Are you dying?" Vanessa stared at the black man's museum of scars, as she helped dress his wound. She had a soft touch.
"No, I will live," Cali rasped, but he would not be laughing for a while.
"Where is Kurt?" Her voice was faint, having abandoned hope days ago.
"He is in Geneva. He has been asking about you all the time. He thought you had gone back to Lukas. He loves you very much." Now was hardly the time to tell her about Kurt's death. He changed the subject by asking, "Where's Lukas?"
"He left yesterday. I have no idea when he is coming back either. He left me here with no food and I think he wanted me to die of starvation. I prayed and prayed for Kurt to come, but only this man came."
"Kurt tried. believe me. He tried." This was not time for the truth. She stared at the dead man on the floor. "I saw him kill a young boy this morning. What do we do about him?"
I will take care of him later."
"What about him?" Vanessa pointed to the dead man.
"I have ways of making him disappear." His body belonged in an eddy of the Elbe unpatrolled by the Wasserschupo. Cali tied off the bandages and put on his shirt. He covered the blonde woman with the shreds of her dress and wiped away her tears, saying, "We have to go."
Vanessa would have plenty of time for crying later and a better reason too.
So would he, though no amount of tears would bring Kurt back from the dead, for the dead were the only people who stayed where they were supposed to be.
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