Two days they detained Brenner at the police station until they believed his story. Maybe a little revenge was at play, too. Why they didn’t let him go for so long. Because he was the one to solve the murder and not them. Practically, showed up his ex-colleagues a little.
And who knows how long the case would’ve dragged on without Junior’s silver bracelet? But thank god they investigated the bracelet so thoroughly. Because on the inner band the word LOVE had been engraved, and it must’ve got sprayed with a little blood when Junior cinched Bimbo’s gold chain around his neck in the 740 garage. Because in the engraved letters the police lab found a little dried Bimbo blood.
Saturday night and Brenner was back on the streets, a free man again.
He got on the U1 and rode it out to Danube Isle. Third day of the festival today, and in the newspapers he’d read that on the first two days alone there’d been over a million visitors to the island.
When he got off at the convention center, he only had to take a couple of steps before he was completely enveloped by the crowds. You’ve got to picture it for a second: usually you head to the isle because you’re in need of some open air to move around in. During Isle Fest, though, all ten of its kilometers, like sardines in oil.
The event tents were only fifty meters apart, but you needed an hour to get from one to the next. And on the way there, you inevitably stepped on a Käsekrainer five times or slipped in mustard, every ten meters somebody spilling beer on your head, and it actually starts to feel strange if nobody’s stepping on your toes.
Believe it or not, though, it suited Brenner just fine today. After two days in a cell at the police station, he actually had considerably more personal space there than he did here on the famous local isle, no comparison at all. Somehow, though, he just needed the proximity of people right now.
The biggest advantage was that he was unable to fall over. Because at the Danube Isle Fest, you’ve got people standing so close to you everywhere you turn that you automatically get propped up. On the other hand, it has its dangers, too. Because a drunk who’s lost consciousness actually needs to fall over, just the body’s natural defense mechanism, and that’s why there are always so many deaths at the festival, on account of the unconscious people not falling over when they need to.
Brenner wasn’t drunk, though. He was just tired from two sleepless days spent in an interrogation room. Not what you’re thinking, though, torture. Although needless to say, certain methods that the Vienna police are a little notorious for. The old water-bucket method, for example. The Vienna police enjoy studying the critical reports on torture coming out of Latin America these days, and then trying it out for themselves. They don’t mean anything bad by it—just some juvenile copycat mentality.
But with Brenner, you can rest assured, everything, by the book. Even a doctor for his broken rib. There was a completely different reason for why he didn’t sleep, practically self-flagellation. Because he couldn’t quit going back over the story, over and over again, from beginning to end.
How Junior had resorted to falsifying wills in order to stay number one in the EMS game. How he’d taken Lungauer out of commission when it got to be too much and Lungauer wanted out.
How Irmi had remained a problem for them, though. How Bimbo had instructed Stenzl, Junior’s puppet at the blood bank, to keep Irmi occupied there a full five minutes. And how he’d shot right through Stenzl, ice-cold.
How Bimbo then became so cocky that Junior decided to clean up the whole case himself by giving Bimbo’s chain a cinch. And how he’d tried to pit Brenner and Pro Med and the police all against each other so that none of them would come up with the idea of suspecting him.
I don’t know, maybe it was the shock that kept Brenner in this state of chronic rehashing. Because when a head goes zipping past your nose, it’s not exactly an everyday kind of thing. Or was it just some residual side effect of the carbon monoxide in the 590?
His hope had been that, penned in among a hundred thousand normal people, he’d start to feel like himself again here on Danube Isle. He trundled on, from one tent to the next. Concerts, skits, wherever he ended up, he’d watch, but he didn’t fully take in any of it. Except for the hundreds of Rapid Response and Pro Med vehicles parked all over the place—on standby to go plowing through the throngs with their lights flashing. He didn’t recognize any of his co-workers among the masses, though.
Around midnight, a Viennese rock singer went on, the closing act and headliner, and all the sudden Brenner realized who fat Nuttinger had reminded him of this whole time.
Brenner wasn’t listening very closely, though. He just let himself get shoved aimlessly through the festivities by the crowds. Although I have to say, his feelings must’ve betrayed him a little. I mean, how aimless could he really have been? Or did Brenner’s own will sway the throngs of people a little, too? Anyhow, suddenly he was standing right out in front of the Pro Med tent.
And then, he was standing eye to eye with Stenzl.
Stenzl stared at Brenner, and Brenner stared at Stenzl. From a distance of maybe two meters at most. But neither said a word. Not even a sign of recognition. And to this day I’m not sure if Stenzl saw Brenner or not. Because in a crowd like this, you could overlook your best friend standing two meters away from you.
And needless to say, Stenzl’s best friend was not Brenner. Even if Brenner had in fact cleared up his brother’s murder. Even if Stenzl had since learned that his suspicions about Brenner had been unfounded. But who likes being locked in his own basement for a whole day with three stooges from the cement works?
Even though it didn’t do the Pro Med chief any harm; quite the contrary. It was looking like a sure thing that he’d finally be number one in emergency medical services now. With the triumphant air of an admiral, he stood amid a sea of drunks and stared at Brenner.
Brenner thought about what he could say to him.
A good thing you had me beat up by those Watzek workers, I could say, he thought.
Brenner still wasn’t sure if the Pro Meddler even saw him.
If your men hadn’t carried me back to the Response Center, then Junior wouldn’t have put me on his three-week retribution plan, I could say. Then I wouldn’t have met Klara. She was my high school girlfriend back in Puntigam who once made me a mix tape.
I’d rather not tell him that part, though, Brenner said to himself. He still wasn’t sure if Stenzl saw him.
A good thing your guys beat me up because, otherwise, Lil’ Berti wouldn’t have ventured to find out who beat me up, I could say, Brenner thought. Then I wouldn’t have gone looking for Berti at the Golden Heart. Then Angelika wouldn’t have told me about Lungauer. And then we still wouldn’t know to this day that it was Junior who was responsible for the deaths of your brother and Irmi and Bimbo.
That’s how I’ll start, Brenner decided.
But, at just that moment, Stenzl went off howling like a lunatic.
That was meant for a drunk who’d just puked on a Pro Med bumper, though. And then, Brenner was carried farther along by the throngs again, and he heard a little more of the musical stylings of fat Nuttinger.
After the concert, the crowds gradually dissipated, and Brenner lay down in the grass beside a litter of Coke bottles and beer cups and paper plates and dog shit and drunks.
He didn’t wake up until early the next morning when the cleaning crews came through to clear all the crap off the island. He watched as the workers collected the trash and threw it into the orange garbage trucks. And he was surprised by how easily the street-sweepers scrubbed the asphalt pathways clean.
Inches from Brenner’s nose, a trash collector pierced a Sunday Kronenzeitung with a metal nabber and stuffed it into a black trash bag. It was yesterday’s edition; Brenner had already read it. The front page announced Rapid Response’s new director, a retired city councilman and the former volunteer chief of the Vorarlberg chapter of the Rapid Response, so, basically a new beginning. And a polite person, too, who even visited Brenner while he was in custody.
Brenner stayed there in the grass for another half an hour, just watching the garbage trucks and the garbage men clean the island. They moved through the grassy fields, rousing the occasional drunks and sending them slowly on their ways, a moving sight somehow, almost like flamingos in an animal paradise.
The new Rapid Response chief proposed a mutually agreeable solution to Brenner’s contract of employment, and Brenner signed on the spot. Three months’ wages without having to work, not bad. And in three months’ time, surely something would present itself. Besides, summer. If you’re going to be unemployed, ideal timing really.
The new chief’s only request was that he not return to his apartment at the station. Because, crucial to morale among the EMTs that the grass grow as quickly as possible over the whole matter. The new chief promised that he’d arrange for the few personal effects of Brenner’s to be moved and stored, all on Rapid Response’s dime. And he even booked a room for him at the Hotel Adlon in the second district.
It was nine-thirty when Brenner checked in. Walked the whole way, a good ten kilometers. And along the way, a beer on Mexicoplatz. The hotel porter gave him an envelope containing 50,000 schillings. And sincere thanks from Lanz and Angelika.
You can’t forget that while Lanz was in jail, he’d been rid of his entire gambling debt. Junior couldn’t exactly demand the money back that he’d used to pay off Lanz’s debt. So, Brenner pocketed the 50,000 schillings with a good conscience now.
He lay down on the hotel bed, but needless to say, huge disappointment. Because a musty hotel room, no comparison to the dewy grass back on Danube Isle. What he would’ve liked to do most was get right back up and take the train back out to the island. But he was just too tired, and besides, you can’t make a nice experience happen twice anyway.
You can’t make anything happen twice, Brenner said to himself. And I won’t call Klara, not today, he said to himself. And not tomorrow, either. You shouldn’t brood.
As he closed his eyes, he pictured the fleet of shiny orange garbage trucks and orange garbage men that had made all the festival detritus disappear as if by magic.
And this morning’s experience of detritus and Friday’s experience of music seemed to blend together into one and the same experience as he drifted off to sleep. And it occurred to him that perhaps it’s only upon dying that a person has such a sublime experience of music. But he doubted that Junior, as his head flew smack into the rear door of the 590, had as sublime an experience as he did.
It’s upon surviving that one has these sublime experiences, not upon dying, Brenner said to himself upon falling asleep. A good thought, he thought. Upon surviving, not dying. I mustn’t forget this. When he woke up later that evening, though, he was just glad that he still knew his own name.