CUM COPS

by Kai Hensel

Altglienicke

Berlin/Hamburg—One of the biggest police scandals in recent years. Three mobile squads from Berlin have been expelled by the Hamburg police forces. The reason: lewd behavior!

The 14th, 15th, and 32nd riot police departments, a total of more 220 law enforcement officers, arrived last Sunday in Hamburg. Their mission was to support their colleagues at the upcoming G20 summit.

The Berlin police force was housed in units within a fenced enclosure. Security guards allegedly observed two police officers having sex in public. Other police officers are said to have urinated in a row by the fence after a rowdy party.

In a chat group between the police later on, other incidents were also mentioned, such as “dancing on containers, fucking, stripping with weapons, and pissing in line.” A spokesman for the Berlin police has said: “Our colleagues’ behavior is shameful!”

—Bild, June 22, 2017

 

1.

“How could you do a thing like that?”

Vera was standing at the kitchen window with her back to him, staring out at the lilac bushes, the birdhouse, and Timo’s bike, which was lying in the grass next to the path.

“We all—”

“You all?!” she screamed. “Since when has that been a reason? Doing the same as everyone else? Going along with something and not taking responsibility for your actions? Shame on you!”

Shame. Jens had never heard her that word coming from her mouth. The newspaper was lying on the dinner table.

“It’s not just the photo,” she said. “What about the eyewitness reports? The jokes they’re making on the radio about you all. About what you did.”

“Not everyone,” he said. “Not everyone did—”

“In a line! You did it in a line! What difference does it make whether one was naked and the others weren’t? Whether some just watched and the others . . .”

Her fingers clenched her coffee cup. She bent her head low so that her neck went crooked, like a crow’s, which was something she didn’t normally do. Jens thought it did make a difference that he hadn’t been naked. He hadn’t danced on the container. And he had definitely not—she had to believe him—

“You have to believe me,” he said.

“What?”

“That I didn’t . . . like Steffen.”

“Do I have to?”

She turned around. Her mouth was twisted into a smile that was meant to be mocking. But Vera was not the mocking type. She always said everything plain and outright, in the way that you knew she meant it. That’s why the smile didn’t suit her, the woman he’d have like to have kissed while asking for forgiveness with tears in his eyes. But he didn’t feel tears in his eyes. He felt, if he was honest, nothing at all.

“Then that ridiculous excuse . . .”

Yes, that had been a mistake. Saying that their early return from Hamburg had been due to there being more officers than necessary, that they were needed more urgently in Berlin. Jens had never lied to his wife. It had hurt, that lie. He had tossed and turned all night. In a few days he would have definitely told her the truth. But that morning, the photo was all over the newspapers and the lie had burst like an egg splattering all over the wall.

“And Timo . . . if I even think about how they teased him at school today . . . Dick Daddy, that’s what they said. Your Dick Daddy!”

“Children forget things like this.”

“The Internet doesn’t forget! This is going to hound him all through high school, all the way to university . . .”

It wasn’t yet clear whether Timo would study or not. Their son was eight, his personality not yet fully developed. But Vera had pictured him at university since he could walk, as a physics or chemistry student. She always planned everything way in advance.

She rinsed her cup and put it on the drip tray. “We need time.”

“Time? For what?”

“For everything. To think. About where things should go from here.”

“Well. Okay. Where should things go from here? I mean, I’m just asking.”

“Just give me some time.” She rested her hands on the counter and took a deep breath.

He stood up. He wanted to put his hand on her shoulders. But she bent her neck again, almost into a hunchback, and he dropped the idea.

“I’m off for a workout,” he said. “With Steffen.”

 

2.

“It’ll blow over in a couple of days,” Steffen said, increasing the speed of the treadmill. “I love my wife. She knows I love her. But she also knows . . . I’m a man, goddammit! Things were a little out of the ordinary. Alcohol, the tension in the air before we went in!” He took a sip from his water bottle. “It’s all about politics anyhow. Just politics. Hamburg has always been second best. They just wanted to take us down. And the G20 summit? They can shove it up their asses! Up their asses, I tell you! Did you know that Donald Trump has German ancestors? It was a put-up job, I tell you.”

Jens was running beside him, slower but on a 5 percent incline. He wasn’t sure what Donald Trump’s ancestors had to do with the G20 summit, or the G20 summit with the rave between the housing units. What was certain, however, was that Steffen was well and truly screwed. Melanie might have forgiven him if he had just stripped down. But getting his rocks off with Biggi afterward? And that someone would take photos, even make a video, not for just a few seconds, but a full four minutes—well, that was obvious. He hadn’t been that drunk and should have seen it coming. And that the video would be circulated among their colleagues and their wives, finally ending up on Melanie’s phone . . .

“What does your old lady say? You’re off the hook. Doing a prissy little piss in a line . . . Every mother-in-law’s dream . . .” Steffen guffawed, shaking his head, so that a few drops of sweat sprayed in Jens’s direction. “But tell me something: how come you were standing nearer the fence than all the others?”

“Why?”

“It’s obvious in the photo . . . You’re, like, a foot closer . . . like you were afraid you wouldn’t hit the fence . . . like you couldn’t spray far enough . . .”

“Nonsense.”

“Take a look at the photo! Not very in focus, and if I didn’t know it was you . . . But the others noticed too.”

“Who?”

“Matthes, Gerd . . . How come that guy is standing so close to the fence?” The treadmill slowed for the cooldown phase. Steffen started walking, drinking from his bottle, wiping a towel over his face and neck. “I’m not saying that I’m proud of that video. Sure, you can see that Biggi’s having a good time. And you can see that I . . . Still, if I catch the motherfucker who filmed it . . . and sent it to my babe’s cell phone . . .”

“Probably not the same guy.”

“You don’t do stuff like that!” The treadmill slowed and stopped. “Have to make it up to Melanie. Weekend in Usedom, that kind of thing. On the other hand, the bottom line is that you were all hot for Biggi, and Melanie’s tears will dry fast . . . The fuck was worth it.”

 

3.

Tears were streaming down Melanie’s cheeks. “I never want to see him again!”

“Don’t do anything rash,” said Vera.

“I’m seeing a lawyer tomorrow,” said Melanie, swigging back her third glass of Vera’s mother’s homemade ginger liqueur. “He’s going to pay, I swear. He won’t see a cent of the house. And I’m not going to work before Jasmina starts school . . . I’m going to bleed him dry!”

She pushed her glass toward the bottle, an invitation for a refill. And why not, thought Vera, on a day like today? She had watched the video. Not the whole thing, but the first three or three and a half minutes. She had searched for Jens among the jeering, beer-drinking, cheering spectators—but he wasn’t there.

“Am I that ugly?” Melanie sobbed.

“Nonsense.”

“Three kids . . . a cesarean section with Fabian . . . Of course I don’t have the figure I used to . . .”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“Then what does it have to do with? What?” She glared at Vera over the edge of her glass, looking hostile for a moment. “You can hardly make out Jens in the photo. Looking so shy, just standing there in line, peeing away.”

“Melanie.”

“Sorry, I take it back.” She sipped her drink. “I don’t understand the peeing thing anyway. I mean, how do thirty adult men hit on the idea of pissing against a fence in public . . . ?”

“It wasn’t in public, you know that. It was in an enclosure of housing units almost in the woods. And if the security guards hadn’t taken that stupid photo . . .”

“Are you defending your husband on top of everything else?”

“I’m just saying there’s a lot about this that’s hard to understand.”

“Damn true!” Melanie slammed her glass on the table. “Anyway, we don’t know the half of it. We only know the tip of the iceberg. The tip of the tip. You really believe that your husband only had a piss? Do I really believe that my husband only fucked that one whore? How do we know? Do you think our husbands are telling the truth?”

Vera closed her eyes, feeling sick for a moment. Jens had lied to her after they returned, that couldn’t be denied. Had he perhaps not told her the whole truth yet? Maybe he wasn’t in Steffen’s video simply because he was off somewhere with some other woman . . .

“I’ve watched my figure for eight whole years . . .” Melanie moaned. “Zumba five times a week, Callanetics—does he think it’s fun? That horny bastard! Taking care of the house, the pediatrician three times a week because of Anton’s asthma . . .” She jumped up, her body taut, and tossed back her long, bleach-blond hair. Then she stretched her upper body and picked up her fringed leather jacket that was hanging over the chair.

“Where are you going?” Vera asked.

“I’m not going to sit around here waiting for my husband like a cow for the milkman. Where am I going?” Melanie shrieked. “To live it up a little!”

 

4.

Jens switched off the engine. He looked up at his house, the garden, the blue tit in the birdhouse pecking at the bird feed. There was no need for bird feed now, not in summer. Timo had bought it with his allowance and put it in the birdhouse. At school, he was learning about taking responsibility for living creatures. How nice it was here. How quiet. The houses weren’t too big or too small. The front gardens were neat but not conservative. No garden gnomes, no German flags. Children’s toys lay scattered on lawns here and there. They had been lucky with this house in Altglienicke on the outskirts of Berlin; they had bought it when interest rates were still low and real estate was affordable. “We moved in for the kill,” Vera had said at their housewarming party, which had made Jens wince inwardly. Moving in for the kill wasn’t a phrase that suited either of them.

There was a bouquet of roses on the passenger seat, although Vera’s favorite flowers were marguerite daisies. But there was much too yellow in them, and yellow was not an option, not on this occasion. Hence the red roses. Vera would understand, even though she didn’t like roses. She would surely recognize it as a gesture of his goodwill. And that he was really sorry about all of this.

Just as he was getting out of the car, the front door opened and Melanie came out. She was walking fast, determinedly, her face flushed. At the gate she noticed him and stopped, her hand on the latch.

“Good evening, Melanie.”

“Huh.”

“Everything okay?”

“What do you think?”

“I’m just asking because—”

“You think about it.”

She pushed open the gate and walked past him. Her breath smelled of ginger liqueur. She crossed the street, stopped at her Fiat Punto, and rummaged in her pants pocket.

“Are you leaving?”

She pulled out her keychain, pressed the car key angrily—three, four times—then the knob popped up.

“Do you think you should drive? In your state?”

“State? Did you say state?”

Then she noticed the bouquet of flowers in his hand and snorted. “Little Manneken Pis! Seriously? Roses?”

“You’ve been drinking. You shouldn’t drive.”

“Screw you, officer.”

She got into her car, slammed the door shut, and started up the engine. Backward, forward, tires squealing . . . Her taillights were already disappearing into the distance, the rumbling of the engine fading.

The fragrance of roses wafted from the cellophane paper. He couldn’t call one of his colleagues. The headline “Wife of Party Cop Caught Drunk at the Wheel!” wouldn’t go down well right now. But “Wife of Party Cop Drunk at the Wheel—Fatal Accident!” would be even worse. He hid the roses under the gorse bush behind the gate and quickly walked back to his car. He’d better take care of Melanie. He owed her that—owed Steffen that. Despite everything.

 

5.

He saw the taillights of the Punto on the expressway heading toward the city center. She was driving fast but keeping to the limit; signaling, changing lanes, overtaking. She wasn’t that drunk. Perhaps he needn’t keep an eye on her after all. It’d be better if he turned back. But something in her face—rage, determination—had alarmed him.

In the distance, the TV Tower gleamed in the evening sun like the stinger of a wasp. But maybe that was just his overwrought imagination. Or because he never really liked the drive into Berlin, especially not in the evening, when he had a night shift or had to step in for sick colleagues. People thought it was exciting being a police officer on call, always going to demonstrations, football matches, and rock concerts. But in truth, he usually assisted in the local offices—Kreuzberg, Neukölln, Hellersdorf, wherever they were undermanned. And they were nearly always undermanned, everywhere, all the time; they had been hopelessly short of staff for years. Berlin, the capital of crime. Burglaries were reported less frequently or not at all. But murder, sexual offenses, and assaults were all on the rise. And the crime rate was worse than in any other German city. What disturbed him the most, though, and sometimes even made him afraid of his job and afraid for the city’s future, was something intangible, a feeling. Fear was on the rise. In the subway, on the streets, even in people’s own homes. The police were called because someone thought “something was moving out there.” Teens stabbed each other because “someone was looking at me funny.” A police officer was an enforcer of the law, an idea he had always loved. But what kind of law was he enforcing? What kind of law would he have enforced at the G20 summit in Hamburg? The newspaper with the photo was lying on the passenger seat. Jens couldn’t be recognized because all the faces were blurred or had been pixeled out. But he was closer to the fence than the others, that was true. Perhaps not two feet away. But at least a foot. What had gotten into him? What had he been trying to prove to his colleagues? Or himself?

Melanie’s Punto was signaling in front of him. She continued on her way into the city center.

 

6.

“Is my wife with you?”

“She left half an hour ago.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

“Home, I guess.”

“But she’s not here.” There was an edge of worry, almost anxiety, to Steffen’s voice. “The kids’ food is in the fridge. Anton needs his medication. I have no idea how—”

“You can manage alone for one evening, Steffen.”

“A whole evening?” He gave a forced laugh, as if trying to make a joke. “You’re right. An evening on their own with their dad. The kids’ll love it.”

Vera could hear a child crying in the background. “I think she wanted to go to Callanetics.”

“Now?”

“The late class.”

“Did you talk?”

“Yeah, a bit. Women’s stuff.”

“Women’s stuff, hmm. Nothing to do with us men, eh? Well, if you speak to her . . .”

“She’s bound to be home soon.”

Vera hung up. There was no reason for her to get mixed up in other people’s marital crises. She didn’t believe in divorce, if only because of the children. On the other hand, what if Melanie had been thinking about separating for a while? Perhaps this was just a convenient occasion to get rid of Steffen for good. She looked at the clock: it would soon be ten. Jens should have been home long ago. But was she going to call him? Pretend she was worried? Like hell she was.

She heard the sound of bare feet on the stairs. Timo was standing by the door in his pajamas. In his hand, he held the tablet which his grandmother had given him for Christmas, against Vera’s wishes.

“Mom,” he said, “what are Cum Cops?”

 

7.

The district of Wedding. Arabic music, women in veils, the smell of hookah pipes and barbecued meat. Jens was sitting in the car by the side of the road, his window wound down halfway. He was watching Melanie standing at a Turkish takeaway across the street, eating a doner kebab. No, she was wolfing it down. Her teeth tore off thick pieces of Turkish bread, while grease and sauce dripped down her chin. Well, good for her. Melanie was a highly disciplined woman. She worked out five times a week and went from one diet to the next. Not that she wasn’t successful. You couldn’t tell she’d had three children. In fact, she looked totally hot in her tight bleached jeans and leather boots. She was just letting her hair down tonight. Out to party, and Jens didn’t intend to stop her. But why in Wedding?

He didn’t like coming here to settle fights between youth gangs and Chechen clans; or to enforce laws no one wanted and no one understood.

“You can’t beat up your wife/daughter/cousin.”

“What’s it to you, you unbeliever/Nazi/faggot?”

A colleague had had a bottle of absinthe thrown at his head. For the past two weeks he’d been in the hospital with a concussion, and was lucky it hadn’t been a skull fracture.

Jens’s stomach felt empty. Before his workout he had eaten a banana, and nothing since then. He could just get out of his car and go and stand next to Melanie in the kebab shop. Just pretend it was a coincidence. No, bad idea, she would see right through it. She wasn’t stupid. She opened a can of Coke and clinked it with a black guy in mechanic overalls. She guzzled her drink down. Coke: everything was back on the straight-and-narrow. It was only just after ten o’clock, so Jens did not have to look after her. He was about to start the car when his telephone rang.

“It’s me.” Steffen’s voice sounded forcibly cheery. “Have you made up yet?”

“What do you mean?”

“You and Vera. The photo. Has she forgiven you?”

“She’s getting there.”

“Mine too, I think. Women remember a lot, but they also forget fast. In one ear, out the other. You already home?”

“On my way.”

“Do you think our wives might be in cahoots? Are they plotting against us?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Melanie’s disappeared.” Steffen’s voice trembled. “Your wife says she’s at Callanetics. But she’s not, because her sports bag is here. It’s a fucking lie!”

“Have you called her?”

“She’s not picking up.”

For a moment, Jens considered telling him the truth: that his wife was chomping down her second kebab. That she was tipping a bottle of vodka into her Coke can and clinking glasses with the mechanic again. “Maybe her battery’s dead.”

“Not if her phone rings.”

“Maybe she just went to the sauna and borrowed a towel from the gym. She’ll be home before midnight.”

“You think so?”

“I’m sure so.”

Jens hung up. Before midnight. Now he had made Steffen a promise. Melanie gargled her Coke, choked, and the mechanic patted her on the back. Jens had to take care of her. He couldn’t leave now.

 

8.

“There are good guys and bad guys,” Vera was saying. “The good guys get rewarded and evil guys get punished. “

“By Daddy?” Timo asked.

“Exactly.”

“And who rewards the good guys?”

“Daddy is one of the good guys. His reward is money. For doing his job.”

“A lot of money?”

“Not a lot. Not heaps of money.”

“But more than the bad guys?”

“Yes. No. Sometimes the bad guys make a lot more money.”

Timo frowned, which looked cute, then leaned back into the large folds of the pillow. “If the good guys get rewarded and the bad guys get punished . . . but then the bad guys get more money . . .”

“The world isn’t fair.”

“Why isn’t Daddy a bad guy instead?”

“He’s not the type.”

“So Daddy isn’t a Cum Cop?”

“Go to sleep now, will you? It’s late.”

“I can’t.”

“We’re all tired.”

She kissed Timo on the forehead, turned off the light, and closed the door. She leaned against the wall. They didn’t earn anywhere near enough. If the interest rate on the house went up, if Jens’s promotion didn’t work out because of that damned photo . . . Now Timo wanted to join the karate club . . . could they even afford it? Berlin—poor, but sexy. How she hated that phrase. The others were sexy. A police officer was a sewer rat. On the outside, it looked great, but on the inside, it was an uphill battle through shit. And she had to put up with all the stupid things people said to her when she was out shopping or at parent evenings. Someone stole my son’s/daughter’s bike again; my dog/cat has been missing for days; teenagers are smoking pot/swapping porn in front of the school gates—and what is Jens doing about it? You live off our taxes, after all! Vera stared at the wall and had a vision: The G20 summit in Hamburg. Violent offenders running riot through every part of the city. Storming hotels, taking politicians hostage. Because no one was there to protect them. Because her husband, whom she loved more than anyone else in the world, was sitting twiddling his thumbs in Berlin. Because of a harmless photo of him peeing!

She looked at the clock. Half past ten. It was really muggy in and outside the house. Why hadn’t Jens come home yet? She didn’t get him; she didn’t get the world. She wanted a thunderstorm to break out. She wanted something to happen that night.

 

9.

He was watching her standing by the slot machine. Lights were flashing, she was pressing buttons, then more lights flashed, a whole row. She hesitated, held her hand in the air, leaned forward as if she wanted to swat a gnat—then the lights went out. She slammed her fist against the machine, threw in more money, and took a sip from her beer bottle.

Jens was sitting to the side at the bar in semidarkness. On the jukebox—one that played real records, which he didn’t know still existed—“White Rose of Athens” was playing. He rarely went to bars like these when he was on duty, ones with names like Zum Biermichel or Babsi and Bernd’s, behind whose brown- or green-tinted windows overweight old men and women hung about for hours on barstools. There were occasional fights between drunken pensioners, or perhaps a coked-up streetworker might chuck a glass against the paneled wall—but rarely, even in those cases, did someone call the police.

“Another Futschi, please.”

Coke with brandy, two euros a glass. It tasted both disgusting and not so bad at the same time. It was his second today. And his last. After all, he had to get Melanie home; she was no longer fit to drive. He still wasn’t sure how to approach her. Chance encounter? In this bar? She would never buy that.

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Steffen. Bad timing. He sent him to voice mail. Because what was he supposed to say? That his wife was being hit on by a young man in a silver-gray suit with slick black hair? The young guy, who was good-looking in a sleazy kind of way, playfully pressed a few buttons on the slot machine: lights flashed and flickered, a tune played. The man smiled and pressed the button next to the coin slot: the coins fell in a never-ending ching-ching-ching. Melanie clapped her hands to her cheeks like one of those candidates who wins on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? even though they have only guessed half of the answers.

The waitress set his glass in front of him and drew a line on his beer coaster. It wasn’t true that all police officers were alcoholics. They weren’t all corrupt or violent either. Most of them had slipped into the profession out of naivety, idealism, or stupidity (Jens did not exempt himself), and then tried to survive with a sense of decency. A wife, a house, children: small dreams in a big city. They hadn’t planned for Timo to be an only child. But what in life was ever planned? If interest rates rose, if he was suspended—not likely but not out of the question either—what would be left of his plan? Or of his marriage?

The guy in the silver suit looked over as if he sensed competition. Not that there was any. But he would see what happened if he dared leave the bar with Melanie. Jens would intervene, that was for sure. Because his job was to protect things that did not belong to him.

“Gypsy boy, gypsy boy, he played guitar by the fire” was blaring from the jukebox.

Take the gay Mormon who was robbed by Romani boys in the Fugger neighborhood. If there was a benevolent God, Jens had asked, why did he let the Fugger hood exist? That had convinced the Mormon. He had said goodbye to Jens and his colleagues and gratefully left them his brochures. At moments like those, Jens was happy being a cop, as it gave him the feeling he was doing something for the city and its people. But those moments were scarce. And becoming scarcer. He took a long sip from his drink. People believed that the life of a police officer was exciting; but in fact, they always had to sacrifice their lives for others. They were the whores of the republic, that’s what they were! And whores wanted to party too sometimes, right? To have a bit of fun now and then!

“Another Futschi!”

A third made no difference. Because a realization was dawning on him, a dim feeling he could hardly put into words. When they had been standing there at the fence like schoolboys, peeing and laughing, was it simply life they had felt coursing through their veins for a few precious moments? Their own lives? And the sense of freedom, of being law enforcers doing something forbidden, something outside of the law, standing on the other side of the fence, as it were—wasn’t that just their human side, goddammit? Part of their dignity?

He looked around. Where was Melanie? She had disappeared. Likewise the stud in the silver suit. Jens stood up, holding onto the bar for a moment. His heart was pounding. She couldn’t have left the bar: he was sitting next to the exit and would have noticed. But she wasn’t at the slot machine. And not at the bar either. She wasn’t on the small dance floor next to the jukebox. There was another exit, a doorway with a beaded curtain. Not that it was any of his business. But on the other hand, it was his business! It was Melanie’s life. And Steffen was his friend!

“Just a gigolo, everywhere I go . . .”

He crossed the dance floor and pushed back the curtain. He entered a dark corridor with two doors. On one, there was a brass plaque depicting a squatting girl with pigtails. On the other plaque was a boy standing and holding his wiener. Jens quietly opened the door with the squatting girl. There was a sink, a paper towel rack, and two cubicles. He listened—nothing. He kneeled on the floor and looked under the doors—empty. He went back and opened the other door. Snuck past the sink to the urinal. Pretended he needed to pee. Actually, he really did need to pee. But then he heard a smacking sound and a moan from one of the two cubicles. The one on the right. No, on the left. He quietly opened the right-hand door—the cubicle was empty. He locked it without making a noise.

“Oh . . . yes . . . yes . . .”

He recognized the voice. It was Melanie’s life and he had no right to interfere. But as a paying guest, he also had a right to use the bathroom. There was a small hole in the partition, and he leaned down to peer through it. It was blocked with something on the other side, probably chewing gum.

“Great job . . .” he heard the stud say.

Jens flipped down the toilet lid and sat down. If he was right about the sounds, they weren’t properly at it yet, but just on the verge. He could use his car key to push the gum out of the hole. But how would that help?

His phone vibrated in his pocket: a WhatsApp message from Steffen.

Why aren’t you picking up?

I’m already in bed.

She isn’t back yet!

A moaning, smacking, and gagging sound came from the other side of the partition. She had the stud’s cock in her mouth. No doubt about it, she had him in her mouth. A cell phone rang, there was embarrassed laughter, and then the ringing stopped abruptly.

She’s blocking my calls.

Maybe she has no coverage.

It rang! Then it went dead!

I’ll see you tomorrow.

Can’t stand this!

From the other side of the partition he heard the stud’s voice. Quiet but demanding. Telling her to kneel on the toilet lid. That it was time to get down to it. Because he wanted to. And because he wanted to, Melanie wanted to as well.

What if she’s fucking someone else?

She’s not.

How do you know?

Jens urgently needed to pee. He heard thrusts and moans. Then he got an erection.

What a fucking life!

She’ll be back soon.

You said she’d be here by midnight!

Jens put his phone away. He was hot, he was shaking. He didn’t have to put up with this. Not from his best friend, not from anyone! Let them go ahead and ruin their marriage, what was it to him?

He stood up, quietly opened the door, and tiptoed over to the urinal. He opened his fly and tried to pee. His cock was as hard as a rock. It twitched in the cold light of the energy-saving bulb on the ceiling. He couldn’t jack off here. What if someone came in? Party Cop Caught Masturbating in Toilet!

“Yes!” yelled Melanie. “Yes!”

That was his life right now. Not able to pee and not able to jack off. And tomorrow, suspension. Then foreclosure on the house, and Vera moving out to her mother’s with Timo. That was the law that he enforced. A law that mocked him. A law where he was nothing but dirt in the cracks.

Melanie panted, “Do whatever you want to me!”

Jens stowed his cock in his pants and pulled up his zipper. He took a running leap and kicked open the cubicle door: “Hands up! Police!”

Melanie shrieked, the young man spun around, reached into his jacket, and a gun flashed in his hand—

 

10.

Cold light. Whitewashed walls. Smell of flowers and disinfectants. Pain in his chest, dizziness in his head. A cannula stuck in his hand. A monitor that he couldn’t see beeping next to him.

“He’s opening his eyes,” he heard a child’s voice say.

He turned his head. Vera and Timo were sitting on two chairs next to his bed. Vera was holding the hand without the cannula and had tears in her eyes.

“How are you?”

“I dunno . . . fine . . .”

“I’m so proud of you,” she said, smiling through her tears.

“Look, Dad! That’s you!” Timo showed him the front page of several newspapers on his tablet: “Party Cop Shoots Germany’s Most-Wanted Gangster!” “Mafia Boss’s Life Ends in a Toilet!”

Jens turned his head and closed his eyes. He couldn’t remember anything. Wait, he’d been at the bar. The slot machine. “White Rose of Athens.” Melanie and the stud with the slicked hair . . .

“You hero.” Steffen’s voice, coming from the doorway. Next to him, Melanie, smiling, tired, her eyes fixed on Jens with a touch of panic.

“You’re all over the Internet. You have your own fan page.”

“I don’t remember . . .” says Jens.

“The painkillers. The bullet just missed your lung. You were really lucky, buddy. Damn lucky!”

“And the other guy?”

“The investigation is just a formality. Not surprising after you blew his brains all over the tiles.”

Through the fog of the painkillers, he could smell the blood again, hear the splintering of cranial bones.

“They didn’t catch the tramp who was with him. But who cares! Drugan Mirković! You took out Drugan Mirković!”

Drugan Mirković . . . The Black Angel . . . Drug boss and sex trafficker. Villas in Switzerland and the Black Sea, private jet, dozens of fake passports. The guy Europol had been after for years.

“At some point he’ll tell us everything, the whole story. Won’t you, darling?”

“Definitely,” Melanie said, and again Jens saw panic in her eyes.

Everything felt numb in his head. Drugan Mirković. Who covered his tracks like no other. Who was allegedly dead, lived in South America, or in a Tibetan monastery. Why in Wedding? Why in a bar for the jobless, taxi drivers, and aging whores? A man who could afford champagne and the most expensive women? In a bathroom in Wedding with a mother of three . . . Had Drugan felt life coursing through his veins too? Real life? Perhaps he hadn’t found it in his villas or fancy brothels. Perhaps life was never where you happened to be. They were all looking for it: Melanie, Drugan, Jens. And his expression, as Jens had kicked down the door, knocked the gun out of his hand, and grabbed his head . . .

“Is Dad a Cum Cop now?” Timo asked.

The faraway laughter, as if from another world, made his head ache. Vera buried her face in the pillow next to him and whispered into his ear, “I love you . . . I love you . . .”

Sometimes, he thought, we do things that don’t suit us. And perhaps then, and only then, are we really the good guys.