"Shit, Charley had not told me, that his dubious business partner also wanted to come!" With an arrogant smile Michael Herold overplayed his surprise and looked at the silent strangers. But yes, of course: the expressionless faces, accurate hairstyles, and loosely cut weather jackets; the picture were now so clear, that Michael relaxed. With an excessively slowly movement, he held his right hand up in the air and nodded encouragingly.
"There’s no reason, to be nervous, gentlemen, I pull just the press card from the jacket!"
"No jokes! Come over here!" The rumbling voice has a frighteningly familiar tone and Michael opted not to answer. Still smiling, he pushed past the policeman and walked through the half-dark room. At its end, stood a white painted wooden counter and behind him turned a big man his back to Michael. He had his hands stuffed into the pockets of his hip-length leather jacket and looked bored on the three pictures above the bottle rack. "Poor guy, you may think, the nostalgia has led him back to St. Pauli."
The broad man taps with his right index finger against the frameless glass slide. "Everybody remembered the old UFA film and the white doves, and then the reality is so horrible banal. The blond movie star was just in town and took advantage of the break for a promotional photo.”
"Please, Kowalski! I’m in no mood, to talk over Hans Albers. "Herold ignored the black and white photo of the Hamburg jetties and looked around searching. "So what is it this time? Let me guess, your colleagues from the customs office have Charley caught with illegal duty-free goods?”
"Once again, come simply over here!"
"Whatever you say, this is your show." Herold ignored the reproachful look of the pale gray eyes and walked to the bar counter. Externally totally unconcerned, he circled the with a rescue ring decorated piece of furniture, and then hit him the truth with the intensity of an unexpected electric shock.
"Crap!" Michael looked motionless on the white mark on the ground. Without any doubt it represented the outline of a lying body and in the height of the head smeared a red spot the worn planks.
"Charley?"
"Yes. Your old pal Poland-Charley." With a pensive expression chief commissioner Hans Jürgen Kowalski looked down on the white chalk line. "It happened very quickly. The old man has not felt the fatal blow. Crash, boom, bang, and past it was with the handling of stolen goods!"
"Very vividly expressed, Kowalski. This could almost be a headline from me."
"Oh come on, your readers loves completely different dirt!"
Herold ignored the obvious provocation and tried not to show his concern. He stepped out from behind the counter, and immediately Kowalski growled irritably. "The violent death of your old buddy is no surprise for you."
"My God, you know as well as I, that it eventually had to end this way. That was just a matter of time."
"Oh yes?"
"Please Kowalski! I must not tell you, that I begged Charley more then once, finally stop his thoughtless bragging. After a few glasses of vodka he shamed himself and his best friends, and for the correct sum, he was capable of almost any mess."
"Yeah, and the thirty pieces of silver were just paid out of petty cash." Kowalski's broad face twisted into a grimace of contempt and he pointed with a vague gesture into the room. “It`s about time, that we talk seriously!"
"No problem." Michael Herold turned around and looked briefly in the room: On both sides of the center aisle, were five rows of tables that were screwed just like the benches on the ground. Michael walked to the nearest bank, sat down and dug a Zippo from the jacket. Infuriatingly calm, he let the flame lick over the head of a menthol cigarette, and shut the Zippo with a loud click. "Well, what do you want to hear?"
"First, calm down!" Commissioner Kowalski sat down on the other side of the table and pulled thoughtfully a plastic calendar from his leather jacket. With pursed lips he leafed through it until the last third and then shows it Herald with a provocative smile. "Please look at the entry in the second line."
Herold leaned over and looked at the strange abbreviations next to Kowalski's thumb: "3.10.-23.00 clock, MH !!! 1000 S!" The terrible scrawl was without a doubt the handwriting of the old man.
"Twenty-three clock tonight! Yes, of course, that was Charley’s deadline!"
"Well, well, then at least, that’s finished! Otherwise, my congratulations, thousand whatever, that's quite an impressive sum for a lousy information."
"If you accept Austrian shillings, I will put you on my list."
"Save your strange humor for the next scribbling." Kowalski gave Herold the caricature of a warm-acting grin, that has been intimidated so many tough guys. "The ominous meeting! Have you any idea what Charley wanted to sell?"
"Not definitely. He called me last night and promised me once again the moon and the stars. Very flowery and pathetic, without anything really palpable..."
"You waste your precious time for the senseless ramblings of an old man?"
"Even hollow phrases often contain a grain of truth." Michael Herold leaned back and stared through the glass window next to his shoulder into the night. On the other shore shone the yellowish light points of two windows like distant fixed stars and above them moves restlessly Kowalski mirror image. The Commissioner clarified loudly his throat, and Michael turned around again.
"I research in the moment for a serial about transit-smuggling. It's work that would not been possible, without Charley's quite profound insider knowledge." Herold smiled challenging. "I guess, my revelations about the city cleaning are not gone completely unnoticed by you."
"Ah yes, the tiresome BSR affair. The front pages were not to be overlooked."
"The report gave the teams of three garbage trucks a significant fine and the entire executive-floor stands pretty in the rain!" Michael Herold laughed softly. "From today's point of view, I can only admire the audacity of the garbage men. The guys were members of a special squad, which once a month drove to the landfill in East Germany. They welded on their trucks unobtrusive metal boxes and disguised them as an additional dumpster. Then they went to the landfill as usual, took over from middleman duty-free American cigarettes, and smuggled them on the return trip through the checkpoint. The trick would probably never come out, if the gentlemen have not contacted a Polish receiver of stolen goods. The guy informed Charley and already I typed my first report."
"Good old Charley." Hans-Jürgen Kowalski grabbed once again the calendar and looked at the last entry on the side. "What`s about this night? Expected you actually similarly highly explosive material from your chatty friend?"
"Please Kowalski! Charley was basically nothing more than a tireless storyteller. In his very mysterious manner, he called me on yesterday, and named me the damn boat as meeting place. Of course, without the slightest hint about the upcoming topic; exact details I will learn tonight, that was his speech!"
"Too bad, that you missed this interview..."
"Be not so damn cynical! Maybe Charley needed only a little chat with a friend over a bottle of vodka.”
"How sad!" Irritated, Kowalski ran a hand through his thinning reddish hair. "Before I say something, that both of us do not like, we'd better come back to the topic. So, Charley noted: 23:00 clock; that was exactly two hours after his meeting with the Spree-Heinz."
"I know nothing about that. Charley has not mentioned to me another meeting."
"The Spree-Heinz is the honorable bartender of this ailing boat and a pretty smart fellow. According to his own testimony, he planned a cost-covering deal with Charley. Unfortunately, a rendezvous delayed the noble intentions, and the good Heinz left his lady not before 21:15 clock. But at this time, the mess was finished, and he could only stumble across Charley's corpse."
With an indefinable spark in