Rit Flk Stem-bred Blues A Bvrin crime thriller 256 Pges Sweet Bun Blues Chpters 1 & 2 1 by Rit Flk (Originl title: Dmpfnudelblues, dtv: 2011) Rights Sold: Frnce, Turkey, Ltvi, Hungry ISBN 978-3-423-24850-1 Chpter 1 DIE YOU SOW! is pinted on the side of Höpfl s house. Annoying. And not only for Höpfl. Becuse if you hve to work when the goddmned telephone rings t God knows wht hour on Mondy morning, well, tht totlly sucks. Especilly before brekfst. And Höpfl s on the line. Höpfl lives here just outside the villge. He s the principl t the voctionl middle school, nd he wnts me to come over now. Right now. And becuse nturlly it s my responsibility, I m lredy bsiclly on my wy. So, sdly, two brekfst rolls with mrmlde nd bcon nd eggs tht Grndm fries up for me will hve to suffice. There isn t ny time for qurk with fruit. Wht bout the qurk? Grndm clls fter me s I m just bout out the door. Cremy, rich Bvrin qurk is not something I normlly pss up. But becuse Grndm hsn t been ble to her nything for yers now, I just point to the clock nd then to my gun, nd she gets it. I cn red the words even from the street s I drive up the smll rise to Höpfl s house in the ptrol cr. Someone hs pinted DIE YOU SOW! there in gint letters cross the roughcst wll of his house. Big nd red nd dripping like ters down cheek. Höpfl is lredy running out to meet me, pointing up t the messge s though I cn t mke it out myself. There! You see, Eberhofer? He s soked in swet nd gitted, nd ll of his blood is evidently bcked up inside his skull. He plsters n insnely long strnd of hir cross his high forehed, dhering it in plce with swet. Aprt from the swet, however, everything bout him is tip-top. Shirt tip-top, pnts tip-top, shoes tip-top. Of course the stupid swet ruins the entire picture, obviously. You cn turn up dressed in nothing but Lgerfeld, but if you swet like pig, you re done. He fumbles hndful of loose pills out of his pnts pocket nd throws them bck into the byss of his mouth. With n experienced jerk of the hed, he then swllows them ll t once no wter. Vlerin, he mumbles, groping for the little plstic bg he stores them in. He holds the perspirtion-pinted pills under my nose inviting me to sniff, but I shke my hed. I shudder t the thought. Wht do they wnt of me? he sks, fiddling hndkerchief out of nother pocket nd dbbing it on his fce. Who re they? Yeh, I don t know! All I know is, whoever they re, they wrote this. Mybe they didn t even men you? Now wit just second. It s on my wll. Whom could they men if not me? No ide. He s probbly right. Someone doesn t like you, pprently, I sy pensively, tking topnotch photo of the lettering. He sighs. Stnd in front of it for moment, Mr. Höpfl, I sy, nd he situtes himself right in front of the wll. Topnotch photo. And now with friendlier expression, if it s not too much trouble, I sy, nd he smiles. Wonderful. dtv Verlgsgesellschft mbh & Co.KG Tumblingerstrße 21
Do you hve ny suspects in mind? He shkes his hed. One of your students, mybe? Becuse, let s dmit, principl isn t necessrily the most populr job. Especilly mong students. Yeh, but s police officer I m sure you hve more thn just friends s well. Am I right? But it doesn t sy die you sow on the wll of my house. He nods. And wht re you going to do now? he sks. Yeh, nothing. Wht, nothing? Well, perhps I should initite mjor mnhunt for suspected grffiti rtist? I suggest, lughing. Mybe with SWAT support nd helicopter tem for bckup? I hed bck to the cr. I need to get going, in ny cse. After ll, you re not the only person who needs the police, eh? Of course, I m exggerting now just bit with regrd to police-relted ctivities. Becuse, let s be honest, ll hell is not exctly breking loose here in this glorified villge of Niederkltenkirchen in bckwrd, rurl Bvri. In plce like this, some grffiti ction on wll cn well be the high point of n entire workweek. Tht s not lwys the cse, nturlly. Once, we ctully hd seriously wesome qudruple murder. Topnotch cse. A whole fmily ws msscred. And over nothing but piece of lnd. The whole thing ws totlly shdy. But I solved the cse. Well... ll right. Not just me, lone. Rudi Birkenberg ws prt of it. Gret temwork, relly. But on the other hnd, you cn t expect constnt strem of qudruple homicides in villge of only thousnd people. Yeh, how long cn villge this size hold out? Do the mth figure four folks die ech time, with t lest one person lnding in jil. Which is why people should be content with lessthn-stellr performnce in wll-grffiti cses, eh? As I wlk through the door t home t lunchtime: totlly topnotch nightmre. No odors of svory food in the entrywy, no hissing or sizzling in pns, no clttering of dishes. Nothing t ll. Insted, the crid stench of disinfectnt nd two people in full-body hzmt suits. Grndm nd Pp, both wering florl prons over their overlls with bndns tied round their necks to cover their mouths, rubber gloves pulled up to their elbows. For God s ske! Wht hppened? I sk s imges of meltdown t the nerby Isr I Nucler Power Plnt rce through my brin. Leopold s coming this weekend, Pp sys through cloud of Lysol. Yeh, nd? And he s bringing the girls! I should explin briefly, first, tht Leopold is my brother (of which I m relly not proud) nd, second, tht he s become fther. And when Pp tlks bout the girls (plurl), he s not wrong. Becuse Leopold s future wife she ll ctully be his third just recently becme of ge, though she still looks much younger. When he brought her over the first time, I sked him directly if she ws still in junior high. She s from Thilnd, incidentlly, nd is bsiclly souvenir from his lst vction. The second girl then is their dughter, who s just ten weeks old nd is constntly wrpped in bolts of cloth. Her nme is Uschi, fter her grndmother. But since tht s the nme of my decesed mother, I prefer to cll her Sushi. Sushi suits her perfectly becuse she s tiny Asin roll-up, too. So, just to review: Pp sys Leopold is bringing the girls. dtv Verlgsgesellschft mbh & Co.KG Tumblingerstrße 21
And tht s why you two re sterilizing everything? Yeh, of course! Don t you know how sensitive such young child is? Especilly hlf-breed? The immune system hs no ide wht it should respond to Asin or Europen germs, Pp helpfully continues. Highly dngerous, I m telling you. I step over to the rnge nd peek in the pots on top. Empty. Yeh, Frnz. There s nothing to et tody, Grndm sys, pulling one of her rubber gloves off with her teeth nd crmming it into her pron pocket. She fiddles five-euro bill out nd presses it into my hnd. Now, listen. Go over to Simmerl s nd buy yourself couple of nice Leberkäs sndwiches. We need to get bck to work now, she sys, becuse, well, such little bby is sensitive. Especilly when it s hlf-breed! Grndm evidently missed Pp mking the sme comment. Mybe we should get crcking on tht hering id for her. Ah, I sy stepping out into the yrd nd finding Ludwig there, who looks like he s bout to snuff it, ll high on pure Lysol. Seeing me, he wgs his til, nd we get on our wy. Give me couple wrm ones, I sy s I enter the butcher shop to order my Leberkäs sndwiches on bred rolls. The butcher is Simon, but he goes by Simmerl. Becuse in Bvri you lwys dd erl onto everyone s nme. I don t know why. And Simmerl knows exctly wht I wnt. Three or four? he sks, opening the hot cse. Two, I sy, tking hold round my middle of the winter hm tht hs ccumulted there in recent weeks. The scent of Leberkäs Bvrin metlof mde from very finely ground beef nd pork quickly finds its wy right into my nostrils. My mouth wters. Four, I relent. Mke it four, Simmerl! The butcher slices four thick, pink slices nd nestles ech between the hlved bred rolls. Mustrd on top Händlmier s sweet Bvrin mustrd, of course. Done. Sy, Simmerl. Do you know tht Höpfl guy? Your kid Mx goes to his school, right? I sk, precisely hlfwy between the first nd second sndwiches. Tht Höpfl sshole? Yeh, I know him. Pretty well, even, I d sy. We ve got sort of direct line to his office, Simmerl sys. Interesting. Direct line? Wht do you men? Yeh, becuse we re in constnt communiction, Höpfl nd me. You re tht close? Close is one wy to put it, Simmerl sys nd then he flls silent. You hve to pull every word out of him with forceps. Dmmit, don t mke me pull every word out of you with forceps, I sy. Lord, I could kneel before Simmerl s Leberkäs. He s just n incredible sshole, Höpfl is. Complins bout prcticlly everything relly everything tht Mx does. Or doesn t do. Mx is tht much devil? Yeh, the pple doesn t fll fr from the tree. Simmerl ws extremely populr mong the techers in his dy too. We both smirked. Yeh, so wht does Höpfl complin bout ll the time then? I sk, precisely hlfwy between the second nd third wrm ones. Yeh, crp. Just pure nonsense. Forgotten homework, for exmple. Pulling girl s hir. Pulling hir you see wht I men? dtv Verlgsgesellschft mbh & Co.KG Tumblingerstrße 21
Simmerl drmticlly shkes his hed, snide smile on his fce. Crp nobody s interested in. Bck in the dy, you d hve gotten thorough bwling-out or tken one to the bck of the hed, nd then off with you. Nowdys, eductors tke themselves so fucking seriously, nd I cn t believe how strong their drive is to communicte ll the time. Unbelievble, I sy, nodding. When Mx first strted, tht Höpfl sshole still shopped here. A pound of stek trtre usully. But once ll his whining strted, I strted lwys spitting in his met. He never noticed becuse I did it fresh ech time out bck in the slughterhouse. Now he only buys t Niederer s in town, in Lndshut. But Niederer nd I both studied to become mster butchers t the sme time, bck in the dy. So now he spits in Höpfl s trtre too. On behlf of me, so to spek. Yeh, we mster butchers hve to stick together. He wipes cloth over the counter nd looks me in the eye. Wht re you sking bout Höpfl for? Die you sow is pinted on the wll of Höpfl s house. Right on the roughcst. Simmerl smirks. Stisfied. Very stisfied, ctully. Someone s got blls. Respect! he sys. Chpter 2 A couple of dys lter, Leopold s little fmily rolls in s nnounced. Grndm s been cooking s though whole compny were returning fresh from the POW cmp in Russi. Pp s excited, nd he keeps lingering t the window so s not to miss the grnd rrivl. Then they ll come striding into our combined living room nd kitchen with pomp nd circumstnce. Leopold will push his tiny wife through the front door first; he ll follow with the brt in his rm. Chest out brimming with pride. If you keep in mind he s nothing more thn second-rte bookseller whose wives keep leving him, it s pretty ridiculous scene. But Leopold will resort to ny mens necessry when it comes to impressing Pp. A pnzer-wide tril of slime strts t Leopold nd will lwys led directly to Pp. Alwys hs. And now on top of it ll, he s come up with grndchild bull s-eye, I d sy. Logiclly, then, we ll ll hve to circle round nd mrvel t the young specimens of domestic bliss. Leopold expects this. Pp expects it too; he s t lest s proud, fter ll. This ll occurs in English so s not to exclude the young mother, who doesn t spek word of Germn let lone Bvrin. Well, ll right. Mybe ll of tht is little exggerted. Wery nice, Pp sys in English. It iss wery nice bby, I sy in English. The mother is plesed, nd Leopold is plesed in turn. Grndm nnounces dinner is redy, nd the young fther generously psses his bundle off to its mother. He s the first t the tble nd immeditely strts jmming food into his greedy mw. Goot, eh? Tstes goot, Pnid? he sys in English. Lookee there! Leopold is prcticlly bilingul. Pnid is his future wife s nme, incidentlly. She nods. Are you ctully divorced from Roxn lredy? I sk. Roxn is his incumbent wife. No, he sys, heping few more slices of rost beef onto his plte. So when do you two good-looking kids here pln on getting mrried? I sk. As soon s I m divorced. Mkes sense. The ctul kid strts bwling. She s hungry. Pnid puts down her fork nd unbuttons her blouse. She unpeels her youthful brest nd ttches the kid to it. She strts to et noisily, nd Pp mentlly gouges his dtv Verlgsgesellschft mbh & Co.KG Tumblingerstrße 21
eyes out. Me too, ctully but seeing how stupid Pp s fce looks, I pull myself together. Pull myself together nd concentrte with extrordinry focus on my plte. The sutéed kohlrbi is wonderful, I sy. Pp slowly turns his fce towrd me nd bsentmindedly nods. Pnid cn t et kohlrbi t ll, eh Pnid? Becuse she gets gs, you see. And then Uschi gets gs, too, Leopold sys, looking compssiontely t the two before slinging tremendous hep of vegetbles into the byss between his jws. Grndm stnds up to fetch pillow. She then plces it under the elbow of the nursing mother. Things re lot better tht wy. Grndm erns grteful looks. Even from Leopold. Pp still hs no ide where to keep his eyes. Lter over coffee, there s some of Grndm s topnotch strwberry torte nd, inevitbly, the Betles. Pp hs been polishing his old LPs nd dusting off the turntble ll fternoon. If you keep in mind tht he knows every single Betles song forwrd nd bck by hert, sying something like wery nice is ptheticlly indequte, of course. But whtever. Oh, it s so nice, Pp. Coffee, dessert nd the Betles! Leopold sys, the slimy bstrd, lening bck ll cozy. I hven t herd them in long time. Pp smiles blissfully. Leopold smiles blissfully. I m going to need to puke over here. Although I do hve to sy tht Pnid is good bker too, he continues, tking forkful of torte. He tlks with his mouth full, which is unppetizing. She s good cook, too. She s relly become gret housewife since she s been in Germny relly gret, honestly. Yeh, she s still young. They re much esier to brek in, I sy in Germn. Pp rises nd eyebrow nd glres t me. Wrning! No, Leopold sys, moving clump of strwberries from one cheek into the other. Not t ll. But you cn t imgine how nice it s been with Pnid. Thi women... Thi women re just relly totlly different. Much more ffectionte nd such. And more modest. Not like emncipted women. A drem. He rests his rm round his drem womn nd blthers out some scrps of English for her. I ctully don t know much bout Thi women, I sy. The only thing I hve ny recollection of is tht couple of yers go Thi womn bit off her husbnd s cock in the middle of the night. Without ny wrning. Or ws tht Vietnmese women...? I need to get tht off my chest. Even if it mkes Leopold cough nd shoot out bits of his strwberry clumps bck onto his plte. Frnz! Pp yells. He skips the eyebrow thing this time becuse it doesn t get him nywhere. I stnd up. Wonderful, I tell Grndm. I bend down nd give her peck on the cheek. Your food ws wonderful, Grndm. She s delighted. Then I hed out to my pigsty nd get Ludwig. There re two things in my life I wouldn t give up for ny price. First, my converted pigsty my refuge, my kingdom, my osis of pece nd hot sex orgies. OK, fine. Mybe no orgies. But, dmmit, now nd gin the mil still gets sent, if you know wht I men! But the pigsty ws ton of work, you won t believe. See, I strted the conversion fter Pp gve up pig frming for ge-relted resons, nd fter I moved bck here from Munich for disciplinry resons. I converted the old pigsty into dtv Verlgsgesellschft mbh & Co.KG Tumblingerstrße 21
residentil structure. I m still not quite finished. But you cn live in it gret lredy. And it spres from me hving to be in the constnt presence of my fmily. And the Betles. And tht lone is worth it. The second essentil thing in my pthetic existence is Ludwig. My best friend. My fithful compnion. And my fitness triner. An hour-long wlk every dy. Keeps you fit. No two wys bout it. So I grb Ludwig nd we get going. We need n hour eighteen minutes for our regulr circuit, which is bsolutely verge. Our personl best time is n hour sixteen, lthough tht hppened just once. When I come home, Leopold is lredy gone long with his Asin perl. But the kid is still here. Pp hs weird expression on his fce from wht pprently just hppened, but I still hve to sk, Hey, did they forget the kid? Um, those two hd to go out. And Uschi is stying with us for little while tody, eh Ushi? Pp sys. For how long exctly? I inquire. Wht do you cre? She s with me over here. Not out there with you. Yeh, she d be slightly out of plce, I sy. Then I go to the bssinet where the little bundle is lying, nd I look in. Her Asin eyes ren t s Asin-y nymore s when she ws born. More lmond-shped. It s nice. Her hir is wvy nd more like coffee nd crem, unlike her mother s, which is stright nd drk s pumpernickel bred. Wery nice. But the nose! The nose, it hs to be sid, hs nothing smll bout it. It s more the typicl Eberhofer schnoz. Mybe not s bd s Leopold s or mine, but still. She s beutiful, our Ushi, eh? Pp sys, now much more concilitory. Actully, yes, I sy. Yes, good. Just the nose. A rel Eberhofer schnoz, or? he sys, grinning with pride. You rep wht you sow. Leopold would hve to know tht. And when re those two coming bck, you sy? It won t be too lte. Uschi needs the brest fter ll, Pp sys, looking down nd cooding t his grnddughter. Are you gld she got Mm s nme? I sk. Yeh. Leopold couldn t hve given me greter joy, Pp sys softly. Yeh, tht ws cler. Then there s knock t the door nd Liesl Mosshmmer storms in. She greets Pp in Bvrin, sying Servus, Eberhofer, pushes him side, nd then rces through the room. She throws me Servus, Frnz too nd then sinks her whole upper body into the bssinet. Is this the new Eberhofer? she wnts to know. Eberhofette, if nything, Pp sys. A girl? Not too bd. Min thing is the child s helthy, I lwys sy, Liesl sings. Then she reports she rn into Leopold nd Pnid in the villge nd thus lerned bout their little htchling bck up here. And of course she hd to come nd see right wy. Becuse s fr s curiosity goes, Liesl is bsiclly the unrivled chmpion of the villge busybodies. And, wht else is new? I sk Liesl s I inconspicuously sweep sock under the couch with my foot. Wht else is new? Hmm, nothing. Except Höpfl hs die you sow pinted on the wll of his house. Did you see tht lredy, Frnz? Hey, tht s n officil investigtion. I definitely cn t mention word bout it to you, I sy, pretending I need to hurry off. I need to get going. I m in rush. Officil investigtion? Yeh, wht re you investigting there, then? she dds, but I m lredy t the front door. Door closes, nd I m off. Outside I find Leopold nd wife returning to pick up the kid, thnk God. Everything gets stowed in their cr, dtv Verlgsgesellschft mbh & Co.KG Tumblingerstrße 21
nd mss wving begins. Bye-bye! everyone clls, nd Pp wlks long beside the cr for few strides. He s limping little. He s been one-leggedly three-toed since his incisive lterction with scythe lst summer. Tht rised quite clmor, I cn t even tell you. He sws off two of his toes, nd then I m supposed to go looking in the grss for them so they cn be sewed bck on. But it didn t tke, unfortuntely. And since then, nturlly I hve been to blme for his stupid self-mutiltion. I m still getting his fmous see- how-i-limp-now glres. So he wddles few strides fter the cr in his well-worn jens nd wves. Bye-bye! he yells in English. Bye-bye, we ll cll you! Leopold yells bck. Don t cll us; we ll cll you, I yell bck in English, lso wving. Then they re gone, nd finlly the quiet returns. At lest for few minutes. Then my disptch phone rings. A neighbor dispute close by. Despite the lte hour nd my incredible thirst, I pull myself together nd drive over. Business is business. Even on Sundy, if need be. The scene is duplex, nd the person who just clled is pprently stnding on the second-floor blcony in his tighty-whities, fliling both rms round. Then I lern tht thermometer is the crux of the whole rumpus. Unbelievble. The ground-floor tennt mounted the foresid thermometer t the entrywy to the building over the doorbell so s to keep current on the ltest wrming nd cooling trends. Which compelled the second-floor tennt to tke glnce now nd gin t sid thermometer. Also to keep current on wrming nd cooling trends. This glncing cn in turn be clerly seen by the owner of the thermometer from his bthroom window. And tht bothers him. Becuse he bought the instrument with his own hrd-erned money, nd for the life of him he will not ccept someone else enjoying the benefit of it, too. He should go nd buy his own thermometer! This hs pprently been going on for weeks now. And tody... tody the tighty-whitey guy just shmelessly strted string t it gin. For pretty long time, in fct. Provoctively long, sys the groundfloor tennt. And he s hd enough, he sys. And if tht sshole reds the temperture off tht instrument, which he does not own, even one more time, he s going to slit his throt. Those were his words. Whereupon his dversry picked up the phone, thereby messing up my holy Sundy. And now we re stnding here. In front of the min entrnce to the duplex. The three of us. Including the ground-floor tennt s wife, who shows up wnting to dd her mustrd, s we sy in Bvri. But her husbnd won t let her. He curses t her to be quiet. He pprently hs her well under control. Wht exctly do you wnt from me now? I then hve to sk. Yeh, for him not to look t my thermometer nymore. A cler position. Would you plese refrin from looking t his thermometer? I sk the third-prty gwker. No, he sys. Ah. I offered to py him for hlf of it, but he won t hve tht. Fifty eurocents! Tht s the kicker! the other strts yelling t me. The thing cost piddly one euro. But to him it s not bout the mteril vlue. It s much more bout the principle. But the moron doesn t even get tht! I think tht s fir, I sy, urgently hoping they ll come to their senses. If ech pys for hlf, then either cn look t it. dtv Verlgsgesellschft mbh & Co.KG Tumblingerstrße 21
But no. No understnding. No coming to senses. Nd. Two pigheded know-it-lls with their rms crossed. And on Sundy fter dinner! I drw my wepon nd relese the thermometer from its obligtions. Dust wfts out of the bullet hole. Neither dres to sy nything now. I get bck into the ptrol cr nd drive bck to my well-deserved night off. Actully I shouldn t go round trumpeting things like tht. The shooting, I men. All hell will brek loose otherwise. My superiors think I m little trigger-hppy lredy. Hence my trnsfer bck home. Becuse, they thought, if I styed much longer in Munich Bvri s lovely cpitl I might ccidentlly mow someone down. And probbly the wrong person. So, no, tht s not good. And, so, bck to Niederkltenkirchen with you, eh? Yeh. No, ctully wht I wnted to sy is, there re some things you cn solve only with gun. Like just now. Wht would the lterntive hve been? A self-help group for thermometer-peeping Toms? dtv Verlgsgesellschft mbh & Co.KG Tumblingerstrße 21