You take a deep breath. The air is warm and clean, the air-conditioning system is working without a sound. Oskar had the arched basement dug out four years ago. Walls and ceiling are new and covered with terra-cotta tiles. They don’t just reflect the light; every breath is clearly audible and echoes in the silence like the panting of dogs. Your hands tingle. You want to hit something, a bag of sand or just the wall. Something.
How could she?
You rub your eyes before you look again. You still don’t believe it. Leo shifts uneasily from one leg to the other; he knows there’s going to be trouble soon. A whole lot of trouble.
“I don’t believe it,” you say.
“Maybe—”
You raise your hand, Leo falls silent, you turn to David.
“What do you think how much is it?”
“Thirty, maybe forty kilos, it’s hard to say.”
Footsteps can be heard from the floor above, none of you is looking up, you are standing motionlessly around the pool. On the surface of the water you can see your elongated reflections quiver slightly. Maybe there’s an underground line nearby, or else one of those massive great trucks is dragging itself along a side street and sending its vibrations far underground. Your faces look like the faces of ghosts that have seen everything and are tired of being ghosts. Tired is exactly the right word, you think, because you’re seriously tired of all this bullshit. You felt something dark coming your way, you should have been prepared, but who expects something like this?
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” says David.
“And you should never have seen anything like this,” you reply and hear Tanner coming downstairs. He stops some distance behind you. Tanner is your right hand; without him you’d only be worth half of what you are. He turns sixty next year and wants to retire slowly. You have no idea what you’ll do without him. He taught you everything you know, and it’s only when he’s no longer there that you’ll find out whether you can cope on your own. One of your customers once said that Tanner scared him because he didn’t emit anything at all. Tanner’s a transmitter who only transmits when he feels like it. Now, for example. He says, “Nothing. It’s gone. She’s taken all of it.”
You don’t react; what should you say to that? “Thanks” would be inappropriate. The quivering on the surface of the water vanishes. You look up from the pool. Your fury and frustration need an outlet. So far you’ve ignored Oskar. You didn’t want to talk to him, you couldn’t even look at him because the mere sight of him would have made you explode. This is all his fault. Correction. His and yours, if you’re honest. You should never have done business together.
Never.
Take a look at him, how peacefully he is sleeping there on that stupid leather armchair as if he hadn’t a care in the world. It’s eight o’clock in the morning, and you wouldn’t be surprised if he was drunk.
“Wake him up.”
Leo bends over Oskar and shakes him. No reaction. Leo slaps him in the face with the palm of his hand. Once, twice, then he steps back. It doesn’t suit him. When Leo takes a step back, it means there’s a problem. You react immediately. Your bodily functions are shutting down. The breathing, the heartbeat. Your blood is flowing slower, your thoughts move like molasses. Reptile, I’m turning into a fucking reptile, you think, when Leo confirms what you were thinking: “He’s gone.”
A few steps and you’re beside Oskar, crouching down in front of him. His skin is pale and shiny in places. It reminds you of dried sushi.
“What’s up with his skin?”
“That’s ice.”
Leo holds his hand out to you; his fingertips are damp.
“He must have frozen to death.”
You want to laugh. It’s over twenty degrees down here, and out there it’s early summer. No one just freezes in the summer, you want to say, but not a word comes out. David comes and stands next to you. You’d rather he kept his distance. It’s your own fault. David is anxious for your acknowledgment, and you aren’t making it easy for him.
“May I?”
You nod, David crouches beside you and taps Oskar’s forehead, there’s a dull tok. David looks for a pulse and then shakes his head.
“Leo’s right. Oskar’s gone.”
You feel Tanner’s and Leo’s eyes on your back, and David is looking at you too. There’s nothing to say, your mind is blank. Oskar deep-frozen on a chair, the vanished merchandise, and then this fucked-up swimming pool. When you can speak again, you say, “I want her to suffer.”
“I’ll see to it,” David replies.
The answer comes too quickly. David wasn’t thinking, even though an order like that doesn’t call for much thinking. He reacted automatically. You hate that. Your men should think and not react.
Both of you get up at the same time; you’re close to one another, so that you can smell his breath.
“David, what did I just say?”
“That she—that she should suffer?”
You grab him between the legs. He tries to move away, thinks better of it and stands still. Only his torso bends slightly forward, that’s all that happens. You press hard.
“What is that, David?”
Sweat appears on his forehead; his answer is a gasp.
“Suffering?”
“No. This isn’t suffering, David. Suffering is when I pull your balls off and let you dive after them in the pool, that would be suffering. Now do you understand what I meant when I said she should suffer?”
“I understand.”
You let go of him. His nostrils are flared, a tear runs down his cheek, his chin is trembling. David is twenty-four, you’re nineteen years older. You understand each other.
“Bring me the boy.”
“But where are we supposed to—”
“Ask Darian,” you interrupt. “He’ll know where you can find him. And David, this is serious. Leave no stone unturned and don’t even think about coming back here without the boy.”
You turn to Tanner.
“Go with him. Leo and I will wait here. You’ve got an hour.”
Tanner nods and leaves with David. You tell Leo to get two chairs. Leo disappears too. At last you’re alone with Oskar, and the tension leaves you and is replaced with a heavy weariness. It should never have come to this, you think, and although you are weary you still want to yell at Oskar and behave like an idiot. He’s gone. Leo couldn’t have put it more appropriately. Once you’re gone, it’s final. It has no beginning, it just has an end. You put your hand on Oskar’s head for a moment. His hair feels greasy; through his scalp you can feel the cold emanating from his body.
What on earth happened to you?
You lift one eyelid as if his gaze might tell you what’s happened here. Come on, talk to me. Nothing. The gaze of a dead man is the gaze of a dead man. It isn’t the first time you’ve seen it. When you let go of the lid again, it closes very slowly.
Leo comes down with the chairs and says, “Christ,