The Bone Man (7 page)

When Brenner got on at Halbenrain, the bus was nearly full already. The driver looked a little confused, and so immediately Brenner felt like he’d been caught doing something. Because these days when you get on a crowded bus as a newcomer, you already have the feeling that the other people have just always been there. And if one of them looks at you oddly, well, it can seem like you’ve been caught doing something, if that’s your tendency.

And Brenner had good reason to feel this way. He was afraid Coach Ferdl might recognize him and guess that Brenner wanted to get him talking.

But no chance of Ferdl recognizing anyone. And when Brenner scanned the other people on the bus, he knew right away, of course, why the confused look. Because, except for Brenner, all the passengers—practically old folks’ home.

There was only one young woman there, in a bright-green suit and with dyed blond hair, but the sheer blondness of it made it look more like a straw wig.

“You must be Herr Brenner?” she said, because she was part of the bus, and Brenner didn’t even have time to nod before she bellowed into a microphone: “Join me in welcoming Herr Brenner from Klöch.”

Needless to say, very embarrassing, the old folks all applauding obediently. Brenner would’ve liked to turn right around and get off the bus, but not a chance.

“There are still three seats in the back,” the hostess bellowed into her damn microphone, even though Brenner was standing all of a foot and a half away from her. Needless to say, a problem.
What am I doing in the back of the bus
, Brenner
thought,
when I’d like to be having a chat with the driver
. So, real sly now, he says to the hostess:

“I don’t do so well on tour buses. Couldn’t I, maybe, here up front—”

You can stop right there. The seniors in the front seats, well—their pacemakers nearly leapt out of their chests when they heard that. Because they always feel terrible on buses, as a matter of fact, and now some young upstart comes along and wants to take their hard-fought seats up front away from them.

The hostess didn’t even condescend to answer and Brenner went bravely to the back without any further fuss. Because Brenner knew from his time on the force that there’s nothing more dangerous than old folks with canes. Cane or bayonet, once you have it stuck in your stomach, it’s often just a matter of interpretation. So he consoled himself:
I’ll still be able to draw Ferdl out when we stop in Maribor
.

They were barely over the border when the hostess began to spout off into her microphone. Because she had to warm up the crowd. And more importantly, pass out the gifts.

Brenner looked out the window at their surroundings, and needless to say: it looked exactly the same on this side of the border as it did on the other side of the border. Then, he noticed that on the seat-back in front of him another microphone had been mounted, and he could interrupt the hostess with it: “Thou shalt not work so hard for tips!”

His deep, godlike voice gave the seniors such a scare that several of them dropped dead on the spot. And the others weren’t any better off, either, because they got eaten alive by the crocodile-skin bags that the hostess had given them.

When Brenner woke up, they were already in Maribor’s Central Square.

They were given an hour’s time for sightseeing in the city, and then, at one o’clock, lunch followed by shopping. Optional, of course, but the lunch was a good value, so everybody went along, well-behaved, except for one woman—and, well, she’d gotten herself lost in Maribor.

Meanwhile, the hostess and the coach had built a small stage in the dining room, and needless to say, microphones weren’t in short supply. Over lunch, the seniors were getting curious about what kind of secrets awaited them.

And once the coffee was on the table, the hostess and coach set about peddling their wares—a miracle blanket that you cover yourself with and two weeks later, no more rheumatism. It cost six thousand schillings, so the five schillings that they’d already forked out for lunch—already recouped. Because the seniors who bought them, well, they all must’ve had terrible cases of rheumatism.

Or maybe it was just Ferdl’s charm. Because the hostess took over the more informative part, but Ferdl—his commentary made the old ladies blush.

“And one more time!” Ferdl called out after every six-thousand-schilling blanket—and the next grandma would already have her new faux-crocodile bag open and would be shelling out six thousand schillings. Because you don’t want to sit there looking stingy, either, like you were only taking advantage of the cheap trip, and the driver—real nice guy. Just two hours earlier they were ready to nail Brenner to the stake, but now the old folks were quick to show their magnanimous sides again.

“That last shirt didn’t have any pockets,” the old man sitting vis-à-vis Brenner said.

Brenner didn’t quite know what he should say to that, because what do you say to an old man who makes an announcement like that. Doesn’t matter anyway—the old man wasn’t expecting an answer. He was the one who talked himself into buying that last shirt, and he was already making his way over to Ferdl now.

And at that moment the woman who’d gotten lost in Maribor burst into the dining room and right up onto the stage. You couldn’t have looked fast enough—already had her rheumatism blanket.

“And one more time!” Ferdl called out.

Once all the blankets—and then an entire stack of gewgaws—were gone, the seniors were permitted another half an hour of walking around, and then it was back on the bus—and don’t be late.

That’s just Ferdl’s charm—
like old man Löschenkohl was talking about
, Brenner thought.
And if I’m not quick now, then I’ll be sitting in the back of the bus again, while Ferdl silently spins his steering wheel up front, and I still won’t know why Löschenkohl junior bribed Ortovic
.

That’s why Brenner simply stayed in his seat there in the dining room. The seniors were out strolling, and Ferdl and the hostess were up front, taking down their altar.

At first the hostess masked a dirty look. And then Ferdl did the same, but just for a few seconds. And then a blatantly dirty look from Ferdl, but just a few seconds again. And then Ferdl: “Journalist, right?”

“Why a journalist?”

“I can smell a journalist ten kilometers upwind.”

“And here I didn’t even feel a breeze.”

Needless to say, the look. They can’t kill, though—that’s been proven. That’s why Brenner was still alive.

Ferdl had had just about enough of these tabloid journalists. There was nothing the club needed less right now than that old bribery scandal with Ortovic getting dragged back up again.

And I’ve really got to congratulate Brenner on that. Because he was about to win Ferdl over with a single word.

“Oberwart,” Brenner said. “Was that just the crowning point of your life, or what?”

And you should’ve seen it, what a difference it made to Ferdl, the topic of their victory in the Cup. You’ve got to picture it like this, like when the sun comes out on a cloudy day—yes, that is the best comparison. How Ferdl’s expression, all of a sudden—it just really brightened up.

Because the “Portrait of the Week” series in the sports section—it had always been his boyhood dream to make it into there. And people could talk all they wanted about the senior citizens’ tours, fraud or no fraud. Ferdl put all of that money into the club anyway. He would’ve given a thousand Miracle Blankets just to make it into the “Portrait of the Week.” And now the “Portrait of the Week” was standing right in front of him in the flesh, and he’d almost been unfriendly.

“You’ll have to excuse me. Nothing personal. It’s just that—it’s chaotic with the club right now.”

Brenner just nodded.

“But you know what,” Ferdl said, “let’s chat about the Cup victory on the bus. Because I still have to pack up all this stuff right now.”

“That’ll be tough.”

“Yeah, not easy. All this stuff in half an hour. We have to be back at six, though. The old folks’ homes are very strict.”

“For us to have a conversation on the bus, I mean, it’ll be tough.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you’re the driver.”

“Yeah, of course, I’m the driver.”

“So, it’ll be tough for you during the ride to come to the back of the bus, where my seat is.”

All of a sudden, Ferdl got serious—the last time he’d been this serious, he was taking Ortovic’s head out of the ball sack. Brenner was afraid he suspected trickery. And these days when you’re a detective and you want to get something out of somebody, that’s rule number one: you can’t ever give him the feeling that you’re tricking him. You have to trick him, of course, but you just can’t give him the feeling that you’re doing it. That’s the art of it.

No chance of Ferdl feeling tricked, though. Because he was saying, dead-serious now: “Then, we’ll find a solution.”

And then, a marvelous solution. The hostess would give up her co-driver’s seat to Brenner. She’d be standing practically the entire trip anyway and making empty chitchat with the people. Because she had to get them fired up for the next trip. Jealous, nevertheless, of course, Brenner getting to sit up front like that.

Brenner had a magnificent view of the countryside from right behind the panoramic windshield, and it’s been said that a magnificent view is liberating for the soul. And maybe there’s something to that, why it was all just tripping off his tongue now.

He was talking so snappily with Ferdl that surely you would have taken him for a sports journalist, too. And this in spite of Brenner not knowing the first thing about soccer.

“Your man in the goal, he’s a real miracle worker.”

“You can say that again.”

“Did you discover him?”

“Milo had quit playing altogether.”

Brenner didn’t ask any follow-up questions. Because it had been his experience that you learn a lot more from people when you don’t follow up. As soon as you do, they get wary. But if you wait patiently and aren’t too interested, they’ll tell you everything. But you’ve got to wait with feeling, and attention, sure, interest, too, even a key word here or there, but don’t ever pose a question. There’s a golden rule for you to take note of.

But it was Ferdl now, of all people, who didn’t continue, so Brenner had no choice but to ask: “And how did he end up coming to Klöch then?”

“Milo played Division One back in Yugoslavia. So I’d always seen him on TV. Because we get the Yugo-channels down here. Can’t understand a word of it, but the soccer’s superb. And I was often struck by Milovanovic—he was a top goalkeeper. World class. Of course, never in his dreams did he think he might play for us. But then, five, six years ago, a Belgrade Partisans’ striker smashed his skull. Usually a striker hangs back. But this one charged full-on. Jaw broken, nose broken, cheekbones broken, and, and, and—don’t even ask. Intensive care and, and, and. How do you think he looked after that?”

“In a coma, too?”

“Yeah, of course, coma, and, and, and. Until they put him back together again.”

“Silver plate, too?”

“Silver plate, the works. You can build a whole business off a player like Milo.”

“How much did you buy Milo for?”

“Ah, okay, I see where you’re going. That’s good. All right, listen up. After the accident, nobody heard a word out of Milo.”

“Left the building.”

“Yeah, but really left. The building. Didn’t hear a thing for years. I completely forgot about him. Because that’s how it goes in soccer. If you’re famous today, everybody celebrates you. But once you’re gone, you’re really gone.”

“But you didn’t forget about him, did you?”

“When our goalkeeper got sold off to another team last year—Kaup, he’s a third-string goalie now for the Graz Sturm—that’s when Milovanovic crossed my mind again. I thought to myself,
he might be healthy by now. Or at least healthy enough for Klöch
. And because I drive down there every weekend, needless to say, I’ve got my connections. It wasn’t long before I’d found him, Milo.”

“And where was he?”

“Where else would he have been? At the construction site, of course. He’d started building a house back when he was earning good money playing professional ball. Now, he’s left to finish it himself.”

“And it was easy to convince him?”

“Not easy, exactly. But needless to say—” the chauffeur rubbed his thumb and index finger together with relish. “He couldn’t say no.”

If you could’ve seen Ferdl like this, you would’ve thought they were shelling out a hundred thousand a month to Milo.

“You couldn’t be paying him that much to play for Klöch,”
Brenner said, even though Milo himself had told him for a fact: two thousand schillings a month, base salary.

“Oh, he gets paid well. For a Yugo. Foreign currency exchange—he can put it all into his house.”

“But he’s still got to work at Löschenkohl’s on the side.”

“Yeah, exactly. He earns even more foreign money over at Löschenkohl’s.”

“So it seems. He earns a little something from the club. And then he earns a little more at Löschenkohl’s. And at Löschenkohl’s he’s not paid too badly, either.”

Löschenkohl. Löschenkohl. Löschenkohl. One thing you’ve got to hand to Brenner. He might be a little longer-winded than the next guy, but he’d just brought Ferdl, nice and slowly, right to where he wanted him. And now he says, “Löschenkohl junior’s got his toe in the team, too.”

“Had.”

Pause.

“Had!” the driver says again. “Because he doesn’t have a say in the team anymore.”

“On account of him bribing Ortovic?”

Ferdl didn’t say anything for a while now. He was only being silent, though, because that’s what you do with a sad topic. And then he said, “Löschenkohl junior caused a lot of damage to our team. Nevertheless, I’m not angry at him. Because he hurt me.”

“How did he hurt you?”

“Don’t you know him?”

“I’ve only seen him.”

“He’s a poor bastard. Our club’s president bribing Feldbach’s striker. You could only dream up something like that.
It’d never happened before in the minor leagues. Not in our whole history.”