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Udo had indeed been right about Lübeck. The whole town was full of history and interest, if you were interested in history. Jimmy wasn’t. Just now Jimmy was interested in what Charlie Bronski was up to and whether he was still the only one watching him.
After they left the Mexican bar, Long Otto had taken him to an apartment above an office in another part of the old town away from the tourist frontline, saw him settle in, then left. There was food in the fridge and beer. Jimmy had showered, eaten, and then sat and thought for a while, or rather, let his mind run down. Then he had gone to bed and slept.
Otto phoned at ten a.m. and arranged to come round. They spent the rest of the morning looking at the immediate neighbourhood. It was quiet and gently anonymous, with plenty of narrow picturesque streets between terraces of old houses that were red brick or painted like their bigger, more splendid cousins that overlooked the river. Picture-postcard stuff. Beyond the roofs Jimmy saw several spires. The district didn’t seem short of churches.
There was a place where some of the streets opened onto a cobbled square with an ancient-looking wooden structure in the middle, a roof held up by six dark, timber posts. Lying on the stone floor with his back up against one of the posts was a grey-bearded, scruffy derelict. The empty bottle of whatever he had been drinking that morning or the night before still stood at his side. Jimmy liked that, it reassured him. The place had charm and old-world appeal. But if it needed or wanted tourists, they wouldn’t have left a derelict who passed out in their square to sleep it off where you couldn’t miss him. Around the square were shops, a restaurant and two bars that all looked as if they were laid out strictly for the locals. No special show or fuss to attract visitors, just street frontages that had been there for a couple of hundred years.
Long Otto told him to stay in the immediate neighbourhood, not to stray. He was safe so long as he stayed close to home. Then he took him into one of the bars in the square and told him to use it if he went out on his own. He would be safe in that bar. Jimmy looked at the barman and one of the waiters. He agreed with Otto. He’d be safe in that bar so long as Bronski didn’t come at him with a grenade launcher, and if the barman got in the way he might still be safe. The one who was acting the waiter wasn’t as big but instead he had a small bulge at his waist under his calf-length white apron. The white shirt and tight black waistcoat ruled out a shoulder holster. Otto noticed Jimmy looking.
‘While you’re with us they’ll be on the staff here. Eat all your meals here, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Drink here when you feel like it. Everything is paid for. When you drink, do you get drunk?’
He asked like he was asking, do you prefer tea or coffee? ‘No, I drink but I don’t get drunk, not often.’
‘Good, drunks get stupid. Get drunk if you need to, but do it here and someone will see that you get back to the apartment OK. That’s your table.’
He nodded to an empty table which was out of a direct line of sight from either the big front windows or the door.
‘Nobody else will be using it and nobody will try to join you.’
‘Are your blokes on all day?’
‘No, two shifts, but don’t use the bar after ten. The other pair go off at ten. We all need a life, Jimmy. It can’t be all work can it?’ And he laughed. ‘So. Girls?’
‘Girls?’
‘Will you want a girl? If you do, tell them in the office below your apartment. They’ll see to it.’
‘No, thanks anyway, no girls.’
Otto sounded doubtful but he still asked. ‘Boys?’
‘Good God. Nobody. No girls, no boys, no anybody.’ Otto laughed again.
‘I thought not but I had to ask, you understand? We need you settled, not going looking for anything.’
‘I won’t go looking, I promise.’
‘Good. Everything will go well. I also promise.’
Jimmy liked Otto but he didn’t trust him. He had known men like him in London, big blokes who laughed a lot. Nat had been like that. And Nat had wanted a hundred grand off him or he would send him out of London in five directions at once. But nobody had given Nat any warning so the bomb in his car had turned the laughter off, prematurely and permanently. Laughter didn’t mean anything, laughter could go with violence just as easily as anything else. But he still liked Otto and believed he would keep to his side of the deal. Unless someone offered him more to hand Jimmy over or turn him into a permanent resident in one of their cemeteries. Otto was in business to make money, not to do favours for his big brother or make new friends.
‘What about a church?’
‘A church?’
‘Yes, a Catholic church.’
‘What would you want a church for?’
‘Mass. I go to Mass when I can.’
‘Maybe. I’ll think about it. But not confession, I can’t have a man in the confessional like I do here at the bar.’
Jimmy knew it was a joke so he smiled. ‘Mass will do, Otto.’
Otto sat thinking for a moment.
‘No, sorry, Jimmy, settle for being a sinner among sinners for a while. Let Udo do the praying for you. I can cover you here but not if you go wandering off into a church. I couldn’t cover you in a church.’
‘OK.’
They lunched together in the bar and drank beer. Then Otto left. Jimmy went back to the apartment and slept some more. He had time to kill so he killed it. He’d done it often enough before.
The next day Jimmy was on his own. He left the apartment and looked through the door of the ground floor office. Two girls and a middle-aged woman were doing something at desks with papers. They took no notice of him. Whatever it was, it didn’t look like any whorehouse he’d ever seen. He went out and looked around the streets again. Everything was the same except the derelict had gone, but his empty bottle still stood by the wooden pillar.
Jimmy had his meals in the bar like Otto had told him and had a few beers, more than a few, to help the day pass. He found he was tired, tired of running, tired of looking over his shoulder, tired of trying to be the kind of man Bernie would think of as a good man. He had never been a good man. He had tried to change, he had tried hard. First in London, then in Rome, but he had failed both times, just as he had been failing in Denmark and was now failing in Lübeck. His were small talents: a talent for causing pain and a talent for working things out. Small things but they were all he had. He had no talent for big things: for goodness, for sacrifice. Maybe you had to be born with those. He was what he was, and he always would be.
George had been right when they had met at the Liffey Lad last time he was in London, about a hundred years ago. George had told him, ‘If people change, Jimmy, it’s just their underwear they change. You’re the same.’ And George was right. It was right then and it was right now. He hadn’t changed and if, from some Heaven, Bernie was watching him, he would be causing her the same pain now as he had in their life together. Except there wasn’t supposed to be any pain or sadness in Heaven, so either she was dead and gone and Heaven was just a fairy story or she didn’t watch him or think about him. Either way he was alone, and would be for ever and ever. Amen.
Jimmy sat at his table. The day was over, it was just after ten and he was having a final beer before going back to the apartment. Otto came in and sat down. The waiter on the afternoon shift with the same bulge under his apron came over and stood by Otto.
‘Beer.’
The waiter nodded and left.
‘Come to say goodnight, Otto?’
‘Come to ask you a question, Jimmy.’
‘Ask away.’
‘How long?’
It was a question Jimmy had been asking himself on and off all day. How long would he stay and where would he go next?
The waiter came and put the beer on the table and Otto took a drink.
‘I don’t know. Maybe it all depends on Bronski. You still not worried about Bronski?’
Otto shook his head.
‘If I worry, I worry about you. Sitting around with nothing to do but wait and think isn’t good for you. It isn’t good for anyone. You can’t stay here indefinitely. You should make plans.’
‘What? Escape plans? Dig a tunnel maybe?’ Otto didn’t laugh this time.
‘Seriously, you should decide what needs to be done. Udo said you wanted to disappear. I should look after you until it could be arranged. Do you want papers, a passport, a new identity? If you can pay you can have them, good ones, almost the real thing. Just say the word and you’ll have them in a couple of days. Then you can get on your way, a new man, a man no one will be looking for.’
As Jimmy listened, he could feel his anger rising. Why? Why get angry? Otto was making sense. What had he bloody well come for if not to get away and start a new life with a new identity?
‘And go where?’
‘Anywhere. Forget Bronski. Just slip away, he’ll never find you.’
The anger kept coming. Jimmy couldn’t stop it.
‘I’ve had enough of running. I’ve been running one way or another for too many years and I’m fucking tired of it. I’m tired of trying, I’m tired of people, I’m tired of pretending to be something I’m not. You know what I’d really like to do, what would really cheer me up right now?’
Otto slowly shook his head. He could see that Jimmy was getting angry. But who was he getting angry with? If he was getting angry at himself it might mean trouble.
‘What would cheer you up, Jimmy?’
‘What I’d really like to do is beat the living shit out of somebody, preferably Charlie fucking Bronski, but at the moment it could be anybody, anybody who comes to hand.’
‘Me?’
‘If that’s an offer? Because if it is, don’t be sure I won’t take you up on it even with Godzilla and Billy the Kid to look after you.’
Otto reached out and put a hand on Jimmy’s arm. Jimmy looked down at it and noticed his own hands on the table. His fists were clenched and his knuckles were white.
Then he relaxed. The anger was suddenly gone. Otto saw it, took away his hand and sat back. Jimmy sat in silence for a moment. Otto was right, he couldn’t sit about doing nothing waiting for something to happen, so he made a decision.
‘OK, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Find out where Bronski is and I’ll kill him. I don’t need you to do it. I want to do it. I want to see his eyes when he closes them for the last time. I want him to see it was me putting the bullet into the bastard.’
‘Are you sure? Is that what you really want?’
Jimmy nodded.
‘OK. We know where Bronski is.’
‘Where?’
‘In a hotel. I can take you there.’
‘Right, get that gun, tell me which hotel he’s in and then stand back and let me finish this my way.’
‘Sure. I’m glad you’ve come to a decision. Just one thing, I said half up front and half when you leave. I’ll want the second half tomorrow. I’m glad you made a decision but I don’t want to bet what you owe us on the outcome of your hotel visit. Not if you insist on going on your own.’
‘I’ll have your money for you by lunchtime tomorrow. Just see you have the gun.’ He tried to get laughter into his voice. ‘A German gun, no foreign rubbish.’
Otto smiled, but it was a sad sort of smile.
‘No rubbish, good ex-Stasi issue. Soft-nosed bullets?’
‘Just as they come, Otto, just as they come.’
Otto called the waiter over and ordered two more beers. They would sit for a while like two old friends, a drink and a talk at the end of another day. And tomorrow Jimmy would kill Charlie Bronski.