Too many, Zimmerman had to admit. Truly, too many. The world was full of bureaucrats. Half the passengers on any scheduled bus spent half their lives dealing with official stamps, permits needing signatures, paperwork. The other half consisted of people who would have been only too happy to hang them from the first available tree.
It did not take Zimmerman long to work out how much he was worth in the grand scheme of things. It’s easy to replace a bureaucrat, even one as scrupulous as he was.
And so he immediately came up with a name. The question had hardly been uttered when there it was. Zimmerman even wrote it down on a sheet of letter-headed paper, in block capitals to be sure it was legible.
Lorenz Gasser.
The man who had paid Marlene’s expenses in advance. The Vixen’s accomplice. A name that did not mean anything to the Trusted Man.
This is going to take time, he thought as he inserted the tokens into the payphone, one by one.
There were other files in his doctor’s bag – the results of the last few days’ research and of Carbone’s tips – that needed careful study. They were bound to yield something. Or else he would find another way.
That was how it always was.
There were three messages on the voicemail. All of them were from Herr Wegener, begging him to annul the contract or suspend the operation until after his son was born.
The last message was just a long, exhausting sigh that ended with a sob cut off by the sound of the line being disconnected.
The Trusted Man cleaned the receiver with his silk handkerchief, hung up and left the telephone box.
The air was heavy with damp. It was probably going to start snowing again.
Lorenz Gasser, he thought.