The Snowman (6 page)

Hermes cautiously placed his feet in their black slippers on the carpet, as if to test the load-bearing properties of the floor, then stood up, threw his cigarette end into an alabaster container with a rubber plant reaching to the ceiling, and poured himself another cup of coffee.

Blum knew that Hermes was waiting for further explanations, but he had no intention of offering any. Finally Hermes smiled and went to the telephone, which stood on an Empire bureau. He dialled a number that he knew by heart, said a couple of words so
quietly that Blum couldn't make them out, and hung up again. Then he bent down, chose a disc from the piles lying about on the carpet, and put it on the player without turning it on. The Eurasian girl turned another page. Either she had taken a course in speed reading or she knew the book by heart already, and was just picking out the best bits here and there. Or perhaps she was only pretending to read, and was recording the conversation with a wireless microphone fitted under her thumbnail . . .

“We'll discuss it later,” said Hermes, when he was lying on the sofa again. “I'm no expert in that field, as you know.”

“I know,” said Blum, smiling back.

“And how was your trip, Blum? Did they treat you right? Was the food tolerable? Have you had new and fascinating experiences?”

“Can't complain,” said Blum. “I never stayed anywhere for long.”

“Ah, no, you're a pro. I've retired really, you know. I'm devoting myself to bringing up my daughter.”

Blum saw the look Hermes gave the Eurasian girl.

“That's her?”

“What did you think, you old lecher? Thought I was taking children to bed?”

“It's a problem we all have some time or other,” said Blum.

“Get yourself a daughter of your own and it'll soon pass off. But in a way you're right, of course. I wish I could say I can finally boast of a little perception and a touch of purification, but of course it's no such thing. You're around forty too, right?”

“Yes. I know what you mean.”

“Indeed. I think we could do with a whisky at this point.”

This time he stood up quickly, moving with agility, found a decanter and two glasses and poured the whisky. He drank standing up, looking at the girl who was allegedly his daughter.

She suddenly smiled at him, a smile that almost took Blum's breath away. Then she rolled over on her other side, turning her back to the men and burying herself in her book. Blum wouldn't have thought it possible for a jeans-clad bottom to be so seductive.

The doorbell rang. Hermes pressed the buzzer. A small, stout man with horn-rimmed glasses and an attaché case appeared and peeled off a rabbit-fur coat.

“My scientific assistant,” said Hermes. “Henri, this is Blum. A traveller by trade. Well, Blum, now let's see what you've brought with you.”

Blum took a small tube intended to hold tablets out of his trouser pocket and gave it to Henri, who put it on the tea-table and opened his portable chemistry laboratory.

“Come on, have another Scotch while he takes a look at your stuff,” said Hermes, filling their glasses. Blum would rather have watched what Henri was doing, but that probably wouldn't have been etiquette. He took his glass and sipped. Sleet was falling outside now, and the city looked like its own cemetery. Flocks of crows fluttered over the Olympic stadium.

“I've settled down since my daughter joined me,” said Hermes, “otherwise I wouldn't be here now. Her mother's entered politics, so I had to do something.”

“Politics?”

“Yes, everything's gone haywire over there in Asia. That's another reason I'm retiring. We're going to Switzerland next week to find her a boarding school. In Switzerland she'll make friends with the sons of the people her mother's fighting. Maybe I'll find myself a
retirement home at the same time. Zurich wouldn't be a bad idea. Or maybe Lucerne?”

“So it's just coincidence I found you here?”

“My dear Blum, in this business one should never count on coincidence.”

Henri cleared his laboratory away and handed Hermes the tube. Blum sipped his whisky again. His throat was dry. He saw that the Eurasian girl had disappeared.

“Peruvian flake,” said Henri, “direct from the producer. Hasn't been cut yet. Ninety-eight per cent. The real McCoy.”

“Flake? What does that mean?”

“It all depends on the refinement process,” explained Henri. “As you may know, cocaine is made of coca paste, which in its own turn is made from the original substance, coca leaves. Normally the refinement process gives you cocaine powder, which is about 80–86 per cent pure cocaine. But if you refine the coca paste so that it dries into separate crystals you get what we call flakes. And they can be around 96 per cent pure. Pharmaceutical cocaine, for instance, is always 99 per cent strength and always comes in flakes. Take a look.”

He tipped a flake on a small mirror and handed Blum his magnifying glass. Sure enough, Blum saw crystals glittering in the powder, like ice cubes in snow.

“But how do you know it comes from Peru?”

Henri shrugged and put his magnifying glass away. “Well, in time you get to know these things. There are only three possibilities – Colombia, Bolivia, Peru. Some of my colleagues claim that Bolivian cocaine is the strongest, but of course that's nonsense. It always depends on the refinement process. You have to learn about it, see? Learning on the spot is best, of course.”

“Then let's see if we like it,” said Hermes. For the first time he seemed to be the man Blum remembered. He took a small ivory case from the desk, pushed two straight lines of the cocaine into place on the mirror with a razor blade, and inhaled the cocaine through a rolled-up dollar bill. Then he breathed in deeply and passed the equipment over to Blum.

“These days they often cut it with the most extraordinary things – Italian baby laxative is about the most harmless. What's it called, Henri?”

“Mannite. Looks the same as coke under the magnifying glass, tastes the same, dissolves the same. They've taken to using yoghurt cultures too recently.”

“Good heavens.” Hermes lit a cigarette and drew on it deeply and with enjoyment. “Ah, really good stuff, Blum. Congratulations.”

Congratulations for what, Blum would have liked to ask. Instead he handed the mirror on to Henri, who looked at him inquiringly. Blum shook his head.

“I don't feel like it.”

“Have you ever done a line?” asked Hermes.

“Last year in Paris,” said Blum. “It makes me too nervous.”

“
Chacun à son goût
, that's all I can say.”

Henri sniffed and then poured himself a whisky. His hands shook slightly.

“Did you bring this stuff into the country?” he asked Blum.

“Like I told you, Blum's a traveller by trade,” said Hermes. “You pick up the oddest things abroad. Sometimes you even find something memorable. I think I want some music now.” He lay back on the sofa, glass within reach, picked up something that looked like a TV remote control and pressed a button. The record player switched on. Henri sat down and leafed through
a magazine. The only one of them not relaxing was Blum, who clutched his glass and stared at the bed.

“Charlie Parker,” said Hermes, closing his eyes. “Charlie Parker All Star Sextet. Charlie Parker, alto; Miles Davis, trumpet; J. J. Johnson, trombone; Max Roach, drums; Duke Jordan, piano; Tommy Potter, bass.”

But the music did not soothe Blum. Far from it – as usual with the music of Parker every note, however lightly, almost fleetingly played, seemed to set off a dark, painful echo. How people could listen to this for pleasure was a mystery to him. It was music with more shadows than Blum wanted to see just now, asking questions more difficult than he wanted to hear. Charlie Parker with “Out of Nowhere” on an afternoon in the north, with the sleet like a grey wall between the penthouse and the nearby motorway access road and supermarket centres, like a wall with Miles Davis blowing holes in it, but there was another wall behind it, said Charlie Parker, and yet another wall behind that. Don't let them get you down, thought Blum. This is your biggest chance in years, and you are damn well going to exploit it, and neither Charlie Parker nor the sleet nor Hermes with his drop-out blues is going to muck it up for you. What does drop-out blues mean anyway? That man never dropped out of anything. He'll just keep dropping in all the way to his funeral. You mustn't take your eye off the ball for a split second.

“Amazing,” said Hermes, when the disc came to an end. “He has a shadow for every light and a question for every answer. Right, what sort of questions do we have now, Blum?”

“Do you know any buyers, Hermes?”

Hermes was standing at the window with his whisky.

“Listen, Blum, I'm not delivering a seminar, but here's a few essentials. The cocaine trade is something of a closed shop, and it's better for all concerned if it stays that way. We all know our own contacts, and that's it. So far there've only been people with clear heads in our line, and the customers show their appreciation with good money. Cocaine isn't a dirty affair like heroin. Perhaps it will be if it really becomes big business – in ten years, snorting coke probably
will
be big business, but for now we're still an exclusive circle. The advantage of that is that the cops can concentrate on their beloved heroin and the poor little pushers in the nearest U-Bahn toilets. That way it's easier for them to meet their quota of arrests too. Of course I know buyers, Blum – here comes the answer to your question – but I'm keeping them to myself until I'm right out of the trade. However, you'll have no difficulty getting rid of the few flakes you've got there; I'll buy them from you. Even I don't get my hands on such good snow so often. How much of it do you have?”

Blum was prepared for this question. Not for nothing had he lain awake all night, watching the factory chimneys and garbage incinerators emerging from the morning twilight. He mustn't tell anyone just how much he had.

“Here.”

He put the small cellophane bag he had filled with cocaine that morning on the tea-table. About one-tenth of the contents of a can. Henri weighed the bag on a light metal precision scale with mother-of-pearl ornamentation.

“Exactly 11.35 grams.”

“Excellent,” said Hermes. “I can survive Switzerland better with that. You're sure you don't have any more?”

He gave his Oriental smile. Blum smiled back.

“I wouldn't sell even this if I wasn't nearly broke.”

“Right, I'll give you a cheque.”

“Maybe we should agree the price first,” said Blum

“Just as you like. What's the price per gram at the moment, Henri?”

“Two hundred marks for the usual stuff, cut. For flakes, uncut, you could ask around 300.”

“You wouldn't get it, though. But that's not the way I operate, and Blum needs the money. So let's say for 11.35 – given the usual discount between friends – well, I'll give you a cheque for 2,400 marks.”

“I'm only accepting cash, Hermes.”

This seemed to displease Hermes.

“Cash?” He uttered that delightful word as if it were the punchline of a joke in poor taste told in a bar. “Oh, come on, Blum, cash on a Sunday? I never keep money in the house, understand? I only ever pay by credit card. Do you have any cash, Henri?”

“Cash?” Henri made it sound like a slightly dirtier version of the joke. He searched his pockets, a derisive smile on his lips. “A tenner – but I need that myself to fill up the car.”

“I thought everyone dealt in cash in your line,” said Blum.

“Usually, Blum. Not always. And when they do it's shifted at once, laundered, stashed away in investments.”

Blum took back the bag.

“Then it's no deal,” he said, making as if to go.

“Oh, come along,” said Hermes, “hold on a minute. Sit down in this nice chair and have another nice whisky and enjoy the nice view and give me an hour or so, and then you can have it in cash.”

Hermes left. Blum lit an HB, his last. He really needed that cash. Numbers clicked through his head
like the coloured figures in the fruit machines: 10 ×12 = 120 . . . 120 × 20 = 2,400 . . . 2,400 × 200 = 480,000 . . . Bingo. Henri leafed through his magazine, and when he had finished it he picked up another. He didn't deign to address another word to Blum. Perhaps someone with a mere 11.35 grams was beneath Henri's notice, even if it was Peruvian flake, 96 per cent. Blum fed the number 300 into his calculations instead of 200. That would make 720,000. Better stick with 200, he told himself. Let's not go mad. He stared out at the sleet. In the dim light, the coloured figures shot up and down in his head.

It was over two hours before Hermes was back with the DM 2,400. He took the bag of coke and gave Blum the money.

“That right?”

Blum held his gaze. “That's okay, Hermes.”

Then Hermes took a pinch of the bluish snow, and his daughter came into the room. She was now wearing a long, peach-coloured silk housecoat, and she set out tea things. The look she gave Blum, however, had nothing inviting about it.