The Snowman (13 page)

“How are you doing, Blum?”

“Fine,” he grunted.

“It always makes me feel so peaceful. I like it that you don't keep talking. Other people rabbit on for hours.”

“Not me,” said Blum, who would have liked nothing better.

“You don't look peaceful, though.”

“That's just appearances. I can see it all clear as day – the whole thing. The connections, understand?”

“What connections?”

“Oh God, it all hangs together. Everything.”

“You and me too?”

“Sure, you and me too. The way it all worked out – when I think of Malta—”

She stretched her arms out to him.

“Come on, show me the connection.”

From the chair, the coconut-fibre carpet and the bedside rug they moved to the bed, clinging together, drenched in sweat, Cora with her pubic hair damp, her eyelids smeared green, Blum gasping,
in extremis
.

“Now, now, now,” cried Cora, but he couldn't come. She kissed his penis, which was standing out from his body, hard and quivering, she stroked his thighs.

“I can't come,” he murmured.

“Yes, you can. You can.”

Overhead a radio was switched on, full volume, music for morning exercises. A woman's voice said: “And now we crouch down, we loosen up our hips, with a left two three, and a right two three.” Then someone hammered on the wall and the radio was turned down. Blum laughed. His throat was burning. He switched off the light and they lay side by side, sweating into the bedclothes.

“Do you think it's possible, Blum?”

“Of course. Sure. Everything's possible. I don't know. Why not?”

“I mean are
we
possible?”

He said nothing. What did she mean? He heard seagulls screaming. Gulls were possible. You lay on the beach exhausted, among the empty cans and crusts of bread, and suddenly they were over you. That was possible.

Cora sighed, rubbed his penis over her breasts, pressed one nipple to the slit, wound strands of her hair around the glans, licked them off, laughed, reached for the cocaine, tipped a trail of bluish snow on his penis and slid it into her. Something exploded in his head, the sky was rent apart, the gulls dived into the sea, Cora screamed, screamed, screamed, and Blum came.

When Blum woke up a few hours later Cora was still lying at the other end of the bed. She had a sketchpad on her knees and was chewing a pencil.

“Slept well, Blum?”

“Not too bad,” he said. “How about you? Haven't you had any sleep?”

She looked tired. The cold sunlight coming in through the window put ten years on her age.

“I had a dream, and it woke me up, and then I did some drawing. I like to draw, you see. To me it's like meditating or yoga. Or praying.”

“What did you dream?”

“I never remember my dreams.”

“I don't believe you. That's not the way you look.”

“How do I look, then?”

“Well, good.”

It sounded feeble. He felt feeble too. He patted her leg and crawled out of bed. The room looked wrecked, and the Roth-Händle smoke clung to the ceiling like smog. He glanced at the time. Ten-thirty. Time to visit Mr Haq. He made his way into the bathroom, drank a pint of tap-water and showered. After shaving he felt almost like a man of thirty-nine again. He got dressed.

“I have something to do, Cora. Will you stay here till I come back?”

She seemed to be entirely absorbed in her sketching, and it was only after a while that she said, without raising her head, “How much are you asking for the stuff?”

He was just buttoning up his navy-blue shirt. He hesitated for a moment, and then said, “I'll get 100,000 marks for it.” There was no reason not to tell her. Maybe he'd even take her away with him – for a while.

At that she raised her head and smiled incredulously. Or rather, she just thrust her lips out.

“For five pounds of this stuff?”

“Yes, not bad. A hundred thousand smackers.” It sounded good in the circumstances, in this bleak room. “In cash, too.”

“That's nothing like enough, Blum. You can make far more out of this stuff.”

“Yes, sure. I thought so too. But don't forget I'm in a hurry. I want to get away from here. I'm not keen to spend weeks on end trudging around Frankfurt with my sample case, selling the stuff off in little bags. I want to get out as fast as I can, and I'll be happy if I get 100 grand this evening. The day after tomorrow I could be in the Bahamas.”

“Why the Bahamas?”

“Why not? Here, look at this book, there's any number of opportunities. You could invest – it's still classic boom time in Freeport, I could get a foothold there . . .”

She looked at him in dismay and put down the sketchpad.

“You're crazy,” she said.

The phone rang. Blum picked it up. It was the tall man. If voices could sound pinched, then his was.

“We've changed our minds,” he said. “We don't want the deal.”

“But listen . . .”

“Read today's paper. Then you'll know why we're not interested any longer.”

Click. Blum's heart lurched. Downwards.

“What is it?” asked Cora. “Good heavens, what's the matter?”

He stared at her, the receiver still in his hand.

“The bastard's called the deal off,” he said after a while.

“You really scared me just then, Blum. The way you were looking at me.”

He replaced the receiver. Hackensack, he thought. Maybe I'll go and see him after all.

“Well, what do you expect?” he said, lighting a cigarette. “Suppose 100 grand had just slipped through
your
fingers?”

“How do you mean? You still have the stuff. And 100,000 wasn't nearly enough. Listen, I'll keep my ears open. Perhaps something will come up.”

Blum counted the last of his money. Just under DM 1,100, and the hotel bill would certainly come to more than 250. And he'd given Mr Haq 500 to no purpose. Mr Haq had made the most profit so far. He stubbed out his cigarette. His hand was trembling slightly.

“I must go out, Cora. You can keep your ears open if you like, but do be careful.”

“Are we staying together, then?”

He shrugged. She got to her feet and went over to him.

“Open your mouth, Blum.”

When he did, she pressed her lips to it. That full mouth. Those eyes. That long, ash-blonde hair. That warm, well-rounded body.

They agreed to meet that evening.

All Frankfurt seemed to be under the influence of cocaine. Everything was tense, all movements were jerky, awkward. Go, man, go. Finish him off. Even the layabouts were just bankers down on their luck, and the managers raced off to lunch on roller skates. Blum decided
not to call Hackensack first. Phone calls only meant delay. He would just go to the man's office and tackle him. Five pounds of coke, that was chemicals if you like.

On the way he went into a Tchibo coffee shop and looked through the newspapers. The dollar had recovered, excellent. So what could the tall man have meant? There it was, among the miscellaneous news items: “COFFEE AND COCAINE”. On the receipt of reliable information, officers of the Special Commission of the Bavarian CID had checked up on a 28-year-old Italian in a hotel at Munich Central station and found 1.6 kilos of cocaine in his baggage, hidden in cans of coffee. It was the largest quantity ever seized in Bavaria of the South American narcotic, which had recently attained notoriety as the fashionable drug of choice. The Italian claimed to have known nothing about the cocaine in his baggage. The police suspected, said the paper, that he was a member of an international narcotics ring which intended to get a foothold in Germany.

Blum put the paper down. A hotel at Munich Central station. 1.6 kilos. The bastard. It was hard to grasp, but this time he had actually struck lucky. Cocaine in cans. 2.4 kilos of it in jumbo cans of shaving foam, 1.6 kilos in cans of Maxwell House instant coffee. Smart, but not smart enough. The cops had 1.6 kilos; Blum had the other 2.4 kilos. International narcotics ring. How does it feel, Herr Blum, to be part of an international narcotics ring? Well, gentlemen, much as you might expect in the circumstances. As always in life, it's best to remember that good things come in small cans and keep it that way. Then you'll get over the withdrawal symptoms more easily if you're left to carry the can. Stay happy on a small scale, gentlemen, because happiness is the most expensive drug of all.

When Blum was outside the building named on Hackensack's card as his office address he regretted not calling first. It was an old town house in the Westend area with a chestnut tree in the front garden, five storeys, a stucco façade, and Blum wonder how it could possibly accommodate all the firms, some two dozen of them, which according to the panel of doorbells had their office premises here. None of them was a Harry W. Hackensack, Consultant. He looked at the visiting card again. The address was right. Two dozen firms in the building, all sounding equally dubious. Which of them might conceal Hackensack, and why in the world should he hide his name anyway?
I've always fallen on my feet
. Company adviser nothing. All these outfits sounded like cover organizations for international drug-running and speculation rings. On the ground floor: Dr H. Mäusing, Tax Adviser, by appointment only. Dymco International. Nord–Süd Aviation. Polska Film Co. On the first floor: General Shares Fund. Letzyg Taxation Offices. Smycholsky Telecommunications. Reality Holding. Dr Immelmann, Dr Gelb, Dr von Jakubowsky, Specialists in International Law. On the second floor: Symposion. Small Businesses Institute. Taunus & Terra Films. Wurzelmayer Detective Agency. On the third floor: well, here there were six “firms”, three of them under the mere abbreviations TWNF, ASE, ICA.
If I were to advise you some day you'd get a discount
. One of these must be Hackensack. Blum
rang a bell. On the door hung a notice framed in brass to catch the eye and reading “no beggars or hawkers”. Blum did not yet feel he was a beggar, but he wasn't so sure about hawking. The door opened.

The doors on the third floor left belonged to the Trans-World Nature Fund, the Evangelical Mission to Asia and South America (Brothers of the Last Days), and the International Consulting Agency. Oh well. Blum pressed one of the three doorbells. A buzzer sounded. He opened the door and entered a musty corridor dimly lit by a 40-watt bulb. The coats on the coat-stand belonged to elderly ladies who did not care about looking chic. Some of the elderly ladies were in a large office. Blum glanced into it. They were seated tapping away at old-fashioned office typewriters, or standing in front of stacks of printed papers putting them into envelopes. There was a smell of carbon paper and dust. One of the ladies raised her head and saw Blum. Her face was as expressionless as the back of an unlicked stamp.

“What do you want?”

“I'm looking for Herr Hackensack,” said Blum. “Herr Hackensack the company adviser . . .”

“Third door on the right,” she said. “This is the Brothers of the Last Days Mission.”

“Yes,” said Blum, retreating, “so I see. Thank you very much.”

The linoleum squealed. There was a small notice tacked to the third door on the right, with the information “ICA – Frankfurt” typed on it. Not very promising, thought Blum, but he knocked. He heard wooden flooring creak, and then the door was cautiously opened.

“Yes?”

A lady with a grey pageboy bob and a brown tweed
suit. Hooked nose, narrow, colourless lips, probing eyes behind glasses on a chain that hung around her neck.

“Are you the driver? You can give me the packages.”

Blum assumed his professional smile.

“My name is Blum,” he said. “I'm a business partner of Mr Hackensack . . . this
is
Mr Hackensack's office, isn't it?”

“This is the branch office of the International Consulting Agency,” said the lady, in not unfriendly tones. Under her cool gaze, Blum began to feel less sure of himself. “Mr Hackensack isn't here at the moment.”

“But can I reach him here? Maybe I could leave a message?”

The lady looked hard at Blum, at the same time inspecting his trousers. The creases in them could be made out only if you looked closely. All the same, Blum seemed to have passed muster, for she told him to come in.

The ICA office was as modest as the firm's name was grand – a scratched desk with sliding locks, a filing cabinet, an old SEL telex machine, a coat-stand with an outmoded hat and a telescopic umbrella hanging on it, hard-backed chairs, a visitor's armchair that must have come from the flea market, and on the wall, the only splash of colour, one of those tear-off calendars that pharmacists and drugstores hand out to their regular customers at Christmas. The picture for the month of March showed a bright yellow crocus. There was a door labelled “private” in the back wall. Just enough light fell through a little window to enable you to make out, with a fair degree of certainty, whether you were reaching for the telephone receiver or the coat-stand. The window was barred. Blum wondered what there could be to steal here. Time seemed to have
stood still in the ICA ever since the jazz cellar had opened and Blum had finally discovered that everything in life has its price. The tweed-clad lady sat down at the desk, but did not offer Blum a chair.