The Snowman Page 6

  “That’s really nice of you. What’s your name?”

  “I need a glass of champagne now.”

  She did not come back. He didn’t even know her name. The brunette: that would have to do. Hermes was right, some things were memorable, and as a rule they weren’t great fucks or the sound of Niagara Falls, but fleeting moments, twilights, dark eyes, the ball settling on number 17 after all.

  He went into the garden. By now real snow was falling again. The flakes hovered down to settle on the garlands and melted on the brightly coloured lights. The trees were black with crows. Party guests were strolling about underneath them. Many were unsteady on their legs, and some of them fell over. You’d have to be a masochist or pissed as a newt to get any fun out of dancing on the gravel drive, which was now full of cars, and on the slushy lawn under the scornful eyes of the punks and to their damnably simple music. The drunks danced in the dirt, the punks threw shards of broken champagne bottles and snowballs containing gravel at them, and the crows sat on the rooftops and in the trees waiting – tourists of darkness.

  Blum was going indoors again when two men barred his way. One was grey-haired and wore a white suit, the other was younger and clad in leather garments of some kind.

  “You the one with the nose candy?” asked the elder man.

  “You mean me?”

  “Of course he is. See that blazer?” said the younger man, who had moved rather close to Blum. “Bring it out, will you? We fancy some.”

  Not cops, then, private initiative. Blum shifted his weight to his other foot.

  “If you’re in funds, sure.”

  “Let’s have a look,” said the elder man, who did not seem quite to have made up his mind whether to join in.

  “Come on, bring it out.”

  “Well, I can show you . . .”

  Blum made as if to put his hand in his jacket pocket, and as the younger man watched his movement he kicked the toe of his boot into the man’s soft parts as hard as he could and grabbed the older man’s arm. The man tore himself away and kicked out at Blum, but made contact only with a plaster statue. It fell to the ground. Blum jumped off the steps and forced his way through the dancing guests and out into the street. The punks were bellowing. He looked around. The two men were following him. A woman in a fur coat was just unlocking the door of a sports car.

  “It’s the cops!” shouted Blum. “Take me with you!”

  She got into the car, and for a moment he thought she was going to drive away without him, but then she opened the passenger door and waved him in. As he closed the door she drove off. Blum did not look round. Perhaps it had all been just his imagination and they meant to be friendly. Some people don’t express themselves well, everyone knows that. At least he was sitting beside a woman again. In a sports car this time. The cocaine trade wasn’t getting off to a bad start.

  “Thanks very much,” said Blum. “Do you by any chance have a cigarette too?”

  She tapped the glove compartment casually. Blum took out an open Reyno packet and lit one. The woman had short black hair, a hooked nose, a brightly painted mouth and a long neck. She was wearing a man’s pinstripe suit. He guessed that she was in her mid-forties; the veins on the backs of her hands stood out. He had seen her before – beside the man with the passion for Wagner who had not been convinced by the aesthetics of the horror porn film.

  “I know who you are,” said the woman, looking at him with a smile.

  “Then perhaps you’d rather drop me off round the next corner.”

  “On the contrary – I’m taking you straight back to my place.”

  “You haven’t fallen desperately in love with me, have you?”

  “Love – that’s a dirty word! I was thinking of the cocaine you’re selling.”

  “But the cops are after me.”

  Now she was smiling as hyenas might smile on seeing a dying victim suddenly pick himself up.

  “That was only my husband and his gay friend. They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

  “I got the impression that was what they had in mind.”

  “They’re making heavy weather of it. Physical intensity and all that. They were really just supposed to bring you my way.”

  “They succeeded, then.”

  Things were getting rather too hot for Blum. He hadn’t imagined the cocaine trade quite like this. The sooner he got rid of the stuff the better.

  “Seeing you don’t want to seduce me I guess you want to abduct me. That was a red light, by the way.”

  “With a radar device fitted, yes. But I’m in a hurry. Are you frightened?”

  “I wouldn’t be dealing in coke if I was.”

  “I find fear so erotic. But I’m not abducting you either. I just want your coke.”

  “You could have done it more easily. Like I was just telling your husband, so long as you’re in funds . . .”

  She turned into a side street, almost taking a pedestrian with her.

  “Oh, but a little drama’s all part of it, Mr Blum.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “Munich’s like a village. I’m Renée.”

  She held out her hand as if expecting a kiss. Blum stubbed out the Reyno. He’d never liked those menthol things. He’d had enough of the woman and enough of Munich. She withdrew her hand and parked the car in front of an entrance. This was a rather dark area, full of old-fashioned buildings.

  “Thanks for the lift, but this is where our ways part,” said Blum, reaching for the door handle. “So much drama is bad for my heart.”

  “No, no, my dear Herr Blum, you can’t go now. Everything’s ready.”

  Blum got out and slammed the car door. Two figures emerged from the shadows and stepped into the light of the street lamps. Of course, the husband and his friend. Perhaps they’d hitched a ride on a helicopter.

  “Well, boys, fancy a second round?”

  “This is not a very nice guy you’ve picked, Renée,” said her husband sadly.

  The woman took Blum’s arm.

  “Now, let’s all go upstairs without any fuss and make friends. And then . . .”

  “I think you’re all rather overestimating yourselves,” said Blum, breaking free and running for it. He was in luck – the road was gritted here. He had reached the corner when Renée shouted, “You’ll pay for this, Blum!” Her voice was like the voice of a brewer’s drayman who was going to be a jackal in his next life.

  But I won’t pay you, thought Blum, hailing a taxi. Sighing, he leaned back on the upholstery and mopped the sweat from his brow. It was still winter here, but you got to sweat more than in the south. The bar in the Metropol was still open, but although as he reached reception he could hear the voice of the drunk whose husband gave introductory seminars on stocks and shares to the inmates of Stadelheim, Blum went into it, taking his key. He urgently needed something as normal as beer.

  This time she was not alone at the bar, but she was still the only woman, and it didn’t seem to be doing her any good. She was clutching a man’s suit with her left hand and a brandy glass with her right and trying to play the vamp. Her trouser suit was stained. Ash had left grey streaks on its yellow fabric, and she had spilled red wine on it too. The red-faced men sitting around her on bar stools looked as if they were waiting for her to fall over and open her legs. Beer, sweat and Chanel No. 5. The Arabs were sitting in the corner again, staring at the drunks. They’ve made sure of a front seat for the gang rape, thought Blum, trying to order a beer as unobtrusively as possible. But the Yugoslav ignored him. Then the blonde spotted him.

  “There you are, you faithless man!” The men smirked. “But you’ve had something better than liana wine today, right? He drank nothing but liana wine for three whole years, you know, when he was with the Hottentots.”

  “Just what it looks like,” Blum heard someone say.

  The Yugoslav put a cognac down in front of him. Blum shook his head.

  “From the lady,” said the Yugoslav.


  “He can’t take it any more,” suggested one of the men. The blood rose to Blum’s head, but he said nothing. With five pounds of cocaine under your bed, you don’t start brawling with drunks.

  “I’ll have a beer,” he said, emptying the cognac at a single gulp. It was Mariacron. The Yugoslav must have conceived a healthy dislike of him. Blum smiled at the blonde over his empty glass. Yesterday he had almost got into bed with her; today he just felt sorry for her. One of the men already had his paw on her behind. The Arabs ordered more coffee. They did not seem to care about the hostile looks of the sales reps, for whom every rise in the price of fuel was a blow below the belt. Perhaps they actually owned the hotel.

  Blum got his beer, and as he drank it he felt the eyes of the blonde on him and tried not to hear what she was saying in her befuddled state, until suddenly he did hear it, indeed he heard it very clearly, because she was talking about him.

  “—and then the porter put down this carton full of shaving foam – shaving foam, I ask you! And he was talking so big about the Amazon.” She saw that he was listening and turned directly to him. “Am I right or am I right? Well, if you have all that shaving foam you could at least shave properly.”

  This set the reps roaring with laughter. Spluttering, whinnying laughter, with much thigh-slapping, and the man with the big paw was now openly kneading her bottom. Blum stayed calm. But the drunks were now moving in on him.

  “You’re standing on my foot, mate.”

  “Oh, am I?” The man had a face like runny Camembert sprinkled with paprika, and his eyes were focusing with difficulty. “Didn’t you hear? You want to shave properly!”

  Blum slowly withdrew his foot from under the other man’s. If the Camembert toppled over now there would be a brawl. He put several coins on the bar and tried to get away.

  “Talks big but can’t hold his beer any more,” said the man with the paw that was now slipping up the blonde’s back. Suddenly she rose from her swivel stool – the back of it promptly knocked the beer glass out of her suitor’s hand – and let herself fall past him and to the floor, burying the glass under her. The men went on talking as if nothing had happened, except for her suitor, who was complaining about his beer. Blum helped the woman up again. Tears were running down her face, dissolving her makeup. The smell of cognac and perfume was overpowering.

  “Terribly sorry,” she stammered, “only looking for my husband. Where can the man be?”

  “Here’s some men for you,” boomed someone.

  “I wish I knew why anyone would want so much shaving foam,” wondered the man with the Camembert face.

  “Ask him then, Otto.”

  “Hey, you, what do you want with a whole carton full of shaving foam?”

  He bellowed so loud that you could hear him all over the lobby. The Arabs looked expectantly at Blum.

  “I’m sure he’ll be here soon,” Blum told the blonde, propping her against the bar. Her smeared, swollen face smiled happily at him.

  “He sells the foam to those Hottentots!” bellowed the man with the big paw.

  “And we pay the subsidy!”

  This gleaned general approval. The Hottentots really needed that foam.

  “You’re so cute,” said the blonde, fluttering her clogged lashes. “Come on, let’s have another.”

  But Blum disengaged himself and left, yet again – for the third time in three days – with a woman shouting after him. It was beginning to get him down. Then he heard her fall full length once more. This time she stayed down, shrieking like a stuck pig. When he reached the lift he saw the night porters hurrying into the bar.

  “Disgusting,” said a blue-rinsed American woman just coming in from seeing the night life of Munich.

  “It’s only a movie,” said Blum, putting his sunglasses on. The American got straight out of the lift again.

  When he was back in room 316 Blum took a deep breath. This is getting tougher than you expected, he thought. It’s all the extra fuss makes the thing so tricky. He stared at a notice on the wall: for your safety. It told him what to do in case of a fire in the hotel. The last sentence ran: “Keep calm – do not panic – thank you!” Right, thought Blum. I hope I can bear that in mind.

  It was a long time before he could get to sleep. He leafed through the Bahamas handbook. One Mr Bernard Butler, a resident there for ten years, said of Freetown, the new city on Grand Bahama, “Everything is just the way we like it here,” and perhaps you didn’t need to work for the Mafia to get a piece of the cake there, raisins and all – but wasn’t Blum already working for the Mafia? It was part of the game, and you couldn’t count on chance. He switched off the light and looked out at the tower. A red eye blinked on top of it, registering everything. No one’s going to give you a chance, thought Blum. Maybe that’s just what will bring you through. I’m an amateur in the cocaine trade, but I’ve had forty years’ experience of survival. He fiddled with his transistor radio and picked up a woman’s voice on short wave, broadcasting coded news to people who were experts in their field, and at last the endless columns of numbers of her code, as well as that dream of the white beaches, began to make him drowsy . . .

  “14811 – 34210 – 42734 – 38307 – 15759 – 61003 – 21536 – 89342” – palms, a gentle breeze, a sunrise sky – “99188 – 50777 – 53338 – 73512 – 39834 – 93631 – 47345” – “this stuff is more powerful than any of the people who sell it” – “51120 – 43943 – 37518 – 65343” – “I could use a man like you,” said a hyena, snapping at his throat. He woke up bathed in sweat. Dawn was slowly crawling over the rooftops and the red eye went out. But he knew the controllers were everywhere, checking up on him.

  13

  Monday, mid-day, bright sun, little Bavarian clouds, a blue and white sky. Blum bought a used sample case from a Turk, artificial leather, black, 21 × 14 inches, DM 85.

  “Anything else, sir?”

  “Do you have a good knife?”

  The man smiled broadly and showed his collection. Blum chose one with a mother-of-pearl handle, 9 inches long, made in Solingen, sharp as a razor blade. The man oiled the flick mechanism.

  “That way you’re one tenth of a second faster, friend.”

  In his hotel room, Blum packed the cans into the case. It neatly took twenty, and indeed would have taken twenty-one, but he wasn’t greedy. He stowed one tablet tube full of the powder and the can it came from in his trouser pockets. You had to have something at the ready. At the reception desk he asked about the blonde. The clerk acted as if he knew nothing about her. A busload of Swedish women surged through the revolving doors into the hotel. Blondes, drunk; they came cheaper by the dozen. They were not to Blum’s taste. He left no tip.

  Another light beer in the rail station buffet, the sample case on a chair beside him. Around here Munich was still the capital of junk-shops and cattle dealers, North Africans and Hopfperle beer. Bullnecked men from the Allgäu, looking over the top of the Memminger Boten newspaper, watched the Macedonian pickpockets miming intimate relations with the big-bosomed waitresses, and itinerant quack doctors from Bohemia were recruiting assistants from among the unemployed sons of the Anatolian garbage men. The finishing touch was put to Blum’s mid-day contentment by the appearance of the Salvation Army. Six plump-cheeked girls sang, “Hallelujah, God be with you”, and a martial gentleman who must hold the rank of field marshal at least distributed a tract from which Blum learned that Bob Dylan the protest singer had been born again. It seemed a suitable conclusion to the 1970s, just as the cocaine in Blum’s sample case promised a good beginning to the 1980s. Blum rewarded the Salvation Army with a five-mark piece and went to catch his Intercity 624, departing 13.16 hours (Würzburg – Frankfurt am Main – Cologne – Wuppertal – Dortmund).

  Of course they could be anywhere, he thought, looking at the man in the blue maxi-coat standing by the sausage stall and immersed in the Corriere della Sera – Rossi, or the people he had pinched the stuff from or meant to pinch it from, or friend He
rmes, Madame Renée, and of course the police, the Federal German CID, the Federal Intelligence Agency, Interpol, the CIA, how’s things, Mr Hackensack – and that’s just what they’ll assume, they’ll assume you’re going to crack up, give in, surrender, take the coke back to counter 1 at the left-luggage office for safekeeping and send the receipt to the Phoenicia. Paranoia, that’s the word. Persecution mania. Those pangs at the heart, this ache in the kidneys, the tingling up your backbone, the itch under your scalp, all just persecution mania. Keep cool. You’ve made up your mind to see this thing through, so do that, go to the dining car with the depressed look of a traveller in thermal underwear, no business deal done all last week, these chemicals will finish us off, the wife’s got the curse, Hertha Football Club has lost again, and a long week in Wuppertal is staring you in your beer-fuddled face.

  “A Pils, waiter, nice and cold.”

  That was the right kind of tone. Now just a little more distaste in the voice.

  “And a Pichelsteiner stew, that’s about all that’s worth eating in this dump.”

  “Just what I always say,” commented a man, sitting down with Blum, although there were several empty tables. Blum pressed his legs against the sample case under the seat and looked at his travelling companion. Roundish face, neat parting, steel-rimmed glasses, grey suit, tie and waistcoat. Could be about thirty-five, but one of those faces that never age, they just die some time or other. He placed a large book in a brown paper cover beside his cutlery and put a Lord Extra in his mouth.

  “Do you travel by train often?” asked Blum.

  The man nodded deliberately. Perhaps a little too much the stolid citizen to be a possible member of Rossi’s syndicate. Looked more like a cop. Which meant he probably was in the syndicate after all. Blum felt himself breaking out in a sweat. And the train had only reached the suburb of Pasing.

  “Far too often,” said the man, “but it’s all in the day’s work, so you have to accept it.”

  The steward brought Blum an ice-cold Pils. At least he’d hit the right note with the man. His neighbour at table ordered an Apollinaris and a Mozart Toast, a fillet steak dish.