ALMOST A DEAD MAN - CHAPTER 3 - 1982

THREE

The summer solstice sun was falling through the trees. The nature-park north of Hamburg was dead still. The approaching evening heightened the darkness within the corridor of tall pines. A rutted dirt road led deep into the new forest. No sign on the rusting wrought-iron gate said to where. A crumbling stone wall surrounded the property. Electronic sensors, video cameras, attack dogs roaming the grounds, and armed guards had once guarded the Von Hausen state from the Baader-Meinhof Gang's reign of terror in the 1970s.

1982 was a different story. The revolutionaries were dead, serving prison sentences, or in exile in East Germany or Libya. A low profile had served Germany's uncrowned aristocracy as the best defense against the masses. A wild swath of brush, brambles, and thorn trees within the estate's walls acted a barrier between the road and the estate's gardens. Flickering torches led to a Nineteenth-Century mansion. Laughter echoed over the neglected rose gardens, where the partygoers drank champagne and ate foie gras with a grace passed through blood.

The men appeared powerful and the wives looked ten years younger than their real age. The facial and physical uniformity was the result of centuries of interbreeding. Teenagers in chic outfits danced to Dexy's COME ON, EILEEN around the crumbling fountain. Exquisite girls undulated sinuously, while the blasé boys shrugged from side to side. Behind the twin turntables Bertram Bellepas was dying to dance with several of the female guests, despite Kurt, the owner of Hamburg’s most popular nightclub, having warned against fraternization with the upper classes.

These people preferred for the help to stay in place and the older set viewed the nightclub parvenu with all the suspicion the rich hold for someone ascending from the lower class. Few could understand their host’s association with such the nightclub owner, to whom the aristocrat simply referred to as the 'entertainment'.

Hamburg was a small city for a population of 1,600,000, especially in the nightlife. The two men had met countless times at parties, concert, and clubs. The baron had maintained a healthy disdain for the parvenu. Some people are the help.

Last year Lukas Von Brucken’s had inherited his title to discover his late father had ravaged the fortune as revenge against his only son's youthful rebellion. His inheritance had withered to an antiquated steel mill completely indebted to the banks and enough money for a two year holiday in Gstaad and Mallorca. His destitution was no one's business, which was why he threw this party tonight. It was one thing to be bankrupt and quite another to look pleite or broke.

His young wife skated through the crowd a goddess on silver stiletto heels. A shimmering silk sheath molded to her tanned skin. Her silver-blonde hair cast an unearthly halo around her angelic face. THe marriage to a man over twenty years her senior and the antithesis to her ingenuous purity had mystified everyone.

Lukas' thinning hair and the mottled flesh were the penalty from drug abuse. His bright smile was a smirk of decaying teeth. Considering how hard the baron had lived throughout the Sixties and Seventies, his achieving forty-two years amazed no one more than himself.

Vanessa Von Hausen greeted Lucas with a kiss on the cheek. If he was capable of pity, then he might have felt pity for her marrying him, instead he kissed her cheek, consummately acting the role of a loving husband.

“Having a good time, darling?”

"Lots of fun. Come dance with me," his wife whispered in her ear, touching a red spot on his shirt.

His grimace confirmed another meeting with Petra Wessel, Hamburg’s premier dominatrix. A spot of blood stained his shirt and she withdrew her hand, as if his masochism was as contagious as the Plague, when priests led around flagellants to purge the pestilence from Europe.

For his part Lukas' savored Vanessa's naive revulsion.

”Dancing is best left for the young in body and heart. You’ll have more fun with Kurt.”

“I’d rather dance with you.” Vanessa still prayed for his salvation, but turned her turquoise blue eyes on Kurt Oster. His criminality lured her pure soul and she motioned to him to meet nightclub owner on the dance floor. Many of guests scrutinized their host to gauge his reaction and Lukas might have warned Vanessa to be more discreet, but their falling in love was all part of a grand plan to fend off financial ruin.

Vanessa swayed back and forth, her belly grazing Kurt's thigh. Silky strands rippled across her spine like a theater curtain closing on the stage and the lengthy gold necklace swung between her compact breasts. The melting scent of her perfume wafted in the night air. Feeling the hard nipples shift across his chest, Kurt almost kissed her, then stepped back from his partner.

Surveying the partygoers' faces, he recognized many from newspapers and magazines as the upper echelon of Northern Germany. Most were capable of reciting their lineage into the Middle Ages as opposed to Kurt’s obscure peasant roots. Their families controlled riches beyond imagination, while his wealth originated from any number of semi-legal schemes, but their fortune had not come through pious acts. Murder, theft, mistreatment of workers, pollution, and poisoning the food supply were just a few of their crimes. They were no better than him and he whispered to Vanessa, "One day soon I will take you away from all this."

"Do not talk like that." She looked around to see, if anyone might have overheard him.

“Why? I’m not worried about what these people think. They only have money, because they either were born rich, married someone rich, or stole it.”

As the stepson of a Hafenstrasse butcher his birth had excluded a 'silver spoon in the mouth' and Germany's complicated laws of inheritance protected any true redistribution through marriage. The only way to achieve his dream was by robbing from the rich to give to the poor and he held Vanessa tighter.

"You do not love Lukas and he does not love you"

“How can you say that?” Vanessa was flushed with excitement. Up to this moment their flirtations had been only a tease.

“You think I associate with these people to get ahead? They hate me and everyone like me. Your husband as well. I only serve a purpose.” His hand slipped down her back and then they danced in a dizzying circle. “You must know how I feel about you and I think you feel the same way too. I am working on something to change both our lives and then I will ask you to leave behind all this all. Somewhere in your heart you will find a way to say, "Yes."

Vanessa snapped back her head. She was married. Her life belonged to Lukas, though she demanded without any conviction, “Stop.”

"Why?" Kurt sidestepped around her, then pulled Vanessa tight like an Apache dancer. “You want it as much as me."

The song ended and they broke their embrace. Vanessa’s face turned a scarlet red, as Bertram segued into LE FREAK. The international disco hit by Chic launched the young dancers into a frenzy. On the terrace Lukas clapped his hands in feigned delight and waved for his wife to come over. Once she was next to him, he put his arm lovingly around her and asked, "What did Kurt say to you?"

She paused for a second, attempting to conjure a lie, only her upbringing demanded nothing, but the truth. "Kurt wants to take me away."

"Oh, don't they all, my dear? What else did he say?"

"That he had something big planned that could change everything for him."

"What? Like rob a bank?" There was nothing more pathetic or more vulnerable than a lower-class fool in love with their better like they believed in fairy tales. Vanessa lowered her head.

"He did not say."

"Of course he will not." Lukas kissed his wife on the cheek and cautioned like a concerned husband, "You should stay away from Kurt. He is trouble."

"Thank you for the warning." Vanessa was trapped playing the princess in a diabolical fairy tale, but knew her role well. She was studying fairy tales for a master’s program in literature at Hamburg University. Lukas' family owned the both editions of the 1812 Grimms’ Fairy Tales. They really weren’t meant for children or the naive. "If there is anything I have learned from you, it is that no man is harmless."

“And few women too.”

Lukas walked away, as tears formed in her eyes. Only one woman satisfied his libido and he should have married Petra, except his titled prejudices forbid such a luxury.

Lukas entered the library stood before the monumental 32-volume dictionary of the German language started by the Grimms Brothers and completed in 1961. So much effort for nothing. Only a few thousand copies had been sold, since few people were wealthy enough to afford a full set. His father had bought thousands of books and those never read crowded the library's shelves. Lukas had upheld the tradition by occasionally holding them, as if the sentences, paragraphs, and chapters could be absorbed through osmosis, though not a word passed through the covers to his hand.

Vanessa had come into his life with her research of how fairy tales role define good and evil in western culture. lost in these old books like a Cinderella trapped in a tower. Not only the Grimms brothers, but was easily enthralled by classics E. T. A. Hoffmann he Nutcracker and the Mouse King or Nussknacker, Das kalte Herz by Wilhelm Hauf und Mausekönig and Johann Gustav Gottlieb Büsching, Puddocky. He had become not so much smitten, but bewitched by her innocenct belief that these tales formed our morality. He had remained a gentleman and listened and laughed with her interpretations of humanity.

Lukas regarded books as dusty reminders of the past and his entire life had evolved into a series of remaking the movies he loved; DARLING, SUNSET BOULEVARD, INFANTS DE PARADIS, SALO, and most lately Jean Renoir's black-and-white version of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

Lukas slammed his fist against the wall. He had been tricked by an addendum to his father's will that the inheritance was null, unless he married. The old man had been mad enough to imagine that his sacramental union with a girl as pure as Vanessa might rescue his soul from damnation. He often fantasized about disinterring his father's corpse for the animals in the forest to scavenge, except his designs of destruction were meant only for the living.

Lukas envisioned himself reincarnated as a dissolute noble in Visconti's THE DAMNED, reveling in the cinematic daydream. The door to the library opened for his secret guest. Lukas motioned for SS Tommy to take a chair. Few of the partygoers knew Cali's right-hand man and Lukas shut the shades, while SS Tommy warily sat in a rich leather chair. The blonde pimp had met Lukas Von Hausen at several clandestine meetings for a neo-Nazi movement. He considered the Count a soft believer, since he was Oberklasse, a drug addict, a homosexual, and now a S&M slave to Petra Wessel, whose dead eye tracked SS Tommy whenever they were in the same room.

As much as he hated the aristocrat, the Party was in no position to exclude members, especially one whose family as well-connected as the Von Hausens, but come the revolution, Lukas was destined to be put up against the wall with the other race traitors, so the Fifth Reich avoided the same mistakes of the Third Reich.

"You didn't invite me here for a social chat, so what do you want?"

"Besides a united Germany, what is your fondest dream?"

"To be King of the Reeperbahn,"

"What if I could help that dream come true?" Lukas' original purpose in attending neo-Nazi meetings had been to incense his father, except the old bastard approved of their politics. Lukas continued associating with this motley organizations in case the connection might come in handy one day and today was that day.

"You? How can you help me?"

"Who stands in your way? Ein Schwartzer in such a position. Cali. It has come to my attention that Cali and Kurt Oster have something in the works. Something that might help both you and me, if we were to interfere."

"What?" SS Tommy smiled, for the mention of Kurt's name confirmed the rumors about the nightclub owner’s affair with Vanessa Von Hausen.

"That is still their secret, but I have a way of finding out."

Taking on SS Tommy as a partner was as risky as grabbing an egg from a snake hole, yes a partnership was a danger he was willing to risk, because while a snake bit any hand stuck in the hole, no one said Lukas had to be the one snatching the egg.

"Du verarscht mich. I'm no sucker." SS Tommy crossed the room and seized the baron by his lapels.

"No one said you were,” Lukas answered without struggling. The pimp had swallowed his bait. "I have a man following Kurt. Who is not important, but he is very good. When he tells me any new information, I will tell you. Are you in or not?"

"If I find out you have been lying to me in any way, I will kill you."

"I hope you find that unnecessary." Lukas flipped his arm against the pimp's wrists, freeing himself. His right arm slipped around the pimp's throat in a classic shime-waza or chokehold at the city’s premier Judo dojo. "You may think me a weak man, but if you want to better yourself, then stop playing the strong man with me."

Lukas tightened his pressure.. Another five seconds and the pimp dropped to the floor unconscious. He released SS Tommy, who sat in a chair coughing convulsively.The Count slapped him on the back.

"Breathe slowly and the pain will go away faster."

"I underestimated you."

The taller man had him in a death grip a few seconds ago

"Many people think I am my reputation. The don't know the real me and as I said we can help each other.

"When would this all happen?"

"Maybe a month. Maybe two."

"Will it cost me any money?"

"Only time and your special talents." Lukas adjusted his jacket, strangely aroused by the confrontation. SS Tommy’s thick finger pointed at the baron, trying to regain some bravado.

"Remember. If you fuck with me...."

"You will kill me." Worst things might happen than SS Tommy’s threats and Lukas calmly said, “So are we in agreement?”

The blonde pimp nodded and the two men shook hands.

Lukas opened the door. "You'll understand, if I ask you to leave by the back."

"No offense taken," SS Tommy fantasized about paying back this sleight and walked through the woods to his car parked on the nature park’s road. .

SS Tommy drove his Ferrari out of the estate, rubbing his throat. King of the Reeperbahn appealed to him, not because of money. He had more than he needed as well as every woman in the Eroscenter. His base desire the power to strike back at everyone who had ever stood in his way. The list was topped by Cali, because 'King of the Reeperbahn’ even sounded better once SS Tommy ruled the street.

ALMOST A DEAD MAN - CHAPTER 2

Howling sirens drove the panicked East Villagers into the Astor Place Subway. Most failed to pierce the scrum at the head of the stairs to the station and they raised their eyes to the speck falling to Earth. A white flash vaporized New York into the ionosphere.

“DOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAA."

The subhuman scream ping-ponged up the canyon of East 10th Street tenements. Inside the third-floor railroad flat’s bedroom a man’s naked body twitched on the floor futon. An arm over his face failed to block out the madman's wail and the thirty year-old tossed off the damp sheet to jump out of the bed. The blood drained from his skull and he collapsed toward the window. The temperature was climbing into the 90s. All June had been hot since his return from Paris. Outside a middle-aged Polish woman fled down the sidewalk from a dope-sick junkie mauling a parked car with an iron pipe. Sparkling fragments flew in the sunlight. Sean’s motorcycle was a single car-length from this psycho-storm. Down below the madman arched his face to the broiling sun and emptied the ashes of his soul.

"DOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAA."

No woman answered his two-syllable aria. A cop car rounded the corner. The madman stood erect and waved to the officers. His good posture masked his mania Nothing short of an 'officer-down' call was extricating the policemen from their air-con cruiser. With the cruiser out of sight the junkie demolished another windshield.

His Yamaha 650XS was on deck for batting practice. Sean rushed to fill a trash bag with water from the brimming tub in his kitchen to save his motorcycle. Quickly aiming, he heaved the heavy plastic sack out the window. Liquid beads sprayed from its rupturing seams. Ten pounds of water accelerated from forty feet and the impact leveled his target to the sidewalk.

The torn plastic shroud flapped over the flattened man. Water dropped from that height could be fatal. Sean reached for the phone to call 911. As the phone rang, the madman staggered to his feet off in the directions of Tompkins Square Park. It was hard to kill junkies. There were no witnesses on the street. He hung up the phone.

Sean flopped on the living room couch. The floor fan pushed sullen air around the living room. Sweat ran down his body like he was a martyred saint’s miraculous weeping statue. The madman had only been a menace to property and his Yamaha XS 650 wasn’t worth a life. Every psychiatrist and girlfriend had blamed his violent streak on his childhood. His parents had provided him everything necessary to be normal and he tried to examine his past for the millionth time to discover what set him apart from everyone else. Dyslexia, bullying, and speech impediments were clue to a mystery not yet solved and now these dreams of nuclear destruction.

He lay on the battered sofa. Seconds swelled to minutes and the hours thickened until a tainted breeze from the distant Hudson stirred heat-swollen air. Sheet lightning crackled across the sky and the thunder echoed the rumbling of the nine-pin balls from Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Nobody read him anymore.

The WINS radio reported not a hint rain ahead to relieve the overheated city. He shut off the radio and slipped into the tub in the kitchen. It had been full for several days.The water wrapped around his body like a discharged placenta.

After the murder at the Continental in the winter of 1982 Sean had fled New York. Lisa had sworn to meet him in Paris. A week later heard from a friend that she had gone to LA to get into the movies. He didn’t blame her for not coming to France, but she was always on his mind. His fingers wrinkled after twenty minutes. They were ready to become thirty. The ringing of the telephone broke his trance. He leaped from the bath and grabbed the phone on the third ring.

It was an oversea call. Lisa wasn’t on the other end. A German was.

"This is Kurt Oster. You remember me?" A man's voice crackled over trans-Atlantic connection.

"Who can forget Paris?" The German possessed a jet set life of multiple-city dwellings, cars, and beautiful women. Sean had translated some documents for his teletype business in his second-story house on Rue Des Deux Pont. Kurt liked when asked if he needed anything Sean had requested champagne. He served him Moet. It was 10am. They had done drugs together more than a few times. The two of them were acquaintances more than friends.

“Sure, I remember you.”

A puddle of water spread beyond his bare feet. He wrapped a towel around his waist and sat on a kitchen chair. Outside in the alley the willow branches were still in the breathless heat.

"New York in the summer. Hell, no?"

"Pretty close to it. Only me, the poor, the depraved, and the dying."

"You speak a little German, yes."

His high school class had ridiculed Sean’s reading of Kafka's DAS URTEIL, until the warty Bavarian teacher had snubbed out his Pall Mall.

"Herr Coll's accent is better than the rest of you hairdressers."

Sean had a lisp and a stutter as a young man. He didn’t even speak English well. "Ein bissen."

"You are Irish, yes?" This was an interview.

"Irish and American." That nation had granted second-generation blood citizenship in both Ireland and the EEC.

"Good, because you need papers to work at my new club in Hamburg. Your friend, Bertram Bellepas, will be the DJ. You know him.”

“Yes.” They had worked together in Paris.He was almost a friend. As much a ny junkie can be a friend.

“The city is beautiful in the summer. The women more so. It’s the summer solstice and the days are long. I will pay you a thousand Deutschmarks a week, plus a one and a half percentage of the gross, which I figure about two-thousand marks a month. If you agree, a ticket will be waiting at Lufthansa. I will meet you at the Hamburg airport. It will be summertime and the living is sleazy.”

Sean had seen the city in Wim Wenders AMERICAN FRIEND, the film-noir 1977 adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s RIPLEY’S GAME. It looked dangerous, but the name also conjured up the Beatles at the Star Club, a vast harbor on the North Sea, and sex trade on the Reeperbahn. Working six months came to roughly fifty thousand marks or roughly $30,000.

"Ich musste uber es zu denken."

“What’s there to think about?”

Sean’s savings from working the winter at a Paris nightclub were down to a couple of hundred dollars. Rent was due on the first of July. There was only one reason to stay here and Lisa had been gone over six months, still Sean answered, "I'll tell you tomorrow."

"You'd be making a big mistake not to come. Here’s my number.”

Sean wrote it down. “Tschus.”

Sean said the same. It was more familiar than Auf Siedersehen. The line went dead.

He had not expected fate to provide a salvation in Hamburg. At worst Bruder Karl had to be smiling in heaven at the prospect of his worst student working in Germany. Hopefully his classmates were destined for hell. They all had been Tyrannen or bullies, except for the one black student in the class. For some reason they left him alone, which was inexplicable in a Boston suburb. The long summer's day surrendered to night without any temperature drop. It was the solstice and the was setting at the western terminus of 10th Street.Sean got on the Yahama and drove up 1st Avenue to East 77th Street. He parked the bike on the corner and walked halfway down the block. The windows of the third-floor apartment across the street were dark. Lisa's name remained on the mailbox and last week the building super had said her rent had been paid in full for three months. She had to show up some time. A bottle whistled by his head.

"Bastard. Man. Bastard."

A wizened woman in shredded plastic bags searched the garbage for another missile.

"I'm the only crazy on this block. You're not crazy. You're only in love with a woman who left you for another man and she’s never coming back. You don't think I see you, because I'm nobody, but I've seen you and your whore. You didn’t lose your girlfriend. Just your turn. She was fucking that Russian and everyone else. All you bastards want is for us to be whores, and when we’re not your mothers, then you throw us out on the street.”

He had seen the old woman many times. He sometimes gave her a dollar. Her name was Estelle. She never told her story and never had a kind word for anyone. He expected no less. The old woman tore apart her plastic sheath. Her skin was caked with rivulets of sweat. He returned to his motorcycle. The kickstart ignited the 650cc engine with a flaming backfire. Dogs barking joined the howl of car alarms. He revved the motor and raced up the block to 2nd Avenue.

Only one thing was capable of erasing the old woman’s accusations. He burned the next red light. A newspaper truck missed him by inches. It was just a question of time, until an impact with steel car exorcised his obsession with Lisa.

At 23rd Street he broke free of the traffic flow and shifted into fifth gear. At this speed any crash was fatal. At 14th a redhead the same height as Lisa was getting into a taxi. Sean braked and swerved to a halt. A man in a suit ran up and lifted the young redhead’s skirt. She laughed, while he forced her into a taxi.

The yellow Checker pulled away from the curb. Sean blasted through the red light in pursuit. A siren whooped behind him. The redhead turned and Lisa's mirage dissolved into another woman’s face. No cop in the New York would believe his having seen his ex-girlfriend’s double, but running from the police was always a bad idea, unless he had a few day’s head start.

Sean veered to a stop at the curb and pulled off his helmet. Two car doors slammed and cop shoes flapped against the pavement. A flashlight beam blinded his vision. A gruff voice ordered, "Get off the bike."

"What's the problem, officers?” Sean balanced his bike on the kickstand and lifted his hands.

"You see what I see, Kev?"

"I can't friggin' believe my eyes. Sean Coll in the flesh."

"I told you that was his bike, but you said, "Naw, Seano's out of town.” Guess you were wrong," the tobacco-harsh voice commented with the pleasure of being right.

The flashlight shut off and Sean blinked away the sunbursts. The two NYPD officers grinned like drunken hunters discovering a snared animal. Kevin Driscoll was thinner than his partner, but still had forty pounds and a few inches on Sean. Neither cop was shy about tossing around their weight.

They were the pride of the 9th Precinct. The setting for the TV show KOJAK. Nothing on that show snitched out these two cops’ crimes.

"Welcome back, Seano." deRocco took off his perforated summer-weight cap and scratched his balding head. “We heard you were in Paris. You shoulda stayed out of town."

"I'm leaving as soon as I can." Sean had not counted on deRocco and Driscoll. They were as lucky as he was unhappy that they were still in uniform.

"You believe that, Kev?" deRocco was the brains of the pair.

"Nah, it's bullshit." Kevin Driscoll waved on the gawking drivers and deRocco stepped closer. The whiskey heavy on his breath never a good sign in hot weather. "Drop yer fuckin' hands. This ain't no arrest. We just wanna talk with you."

"I haven't talked to no one about the night Johnny Fats was killed."

"Why should we believe you?" Driscoll slapped the flashlight into his palm.

One thin dime changed this balance of power.

"If I had ratted you out, would I be here now?”

“No, you would be in a grave.”

“A cop in jail isn't a pretty sight."

"You threatenin’ us?" Driscoll dropped his hand to his .38. The citations above his badge attested to multiple cold-blooded shootings in line of duty to the NYPD.

"Not at all.”

Seven months ago on a snowy evening Sean had discovered the precinct's bagman in the Caddy parked behind their after-hour club on East 14th Street. A single bullet hole perforated Johnny Fat’s left temple. A gun in his left hand. Johnny Fats was right-handed. Somehow a Grand Jury ruled it 'death by misadventure'. The ensuing IAU investigation suspended fifteen cops from the Twentieth Precinct. Two were in upstate prisons serving long term for various crimes. None of them murder. No one had all the answers to the whys and whos. Sean possessed more than most.

“Just I saw you leave with Johnny Fats.”

"We weren’t involved with his death." Driscoll protested, not knowing what if anything the bagman had said to Sean.

"Shut up, Kev." deRocco's eyes were blank of emotion. “We came back before he was offed."

"Sgt. Ferguson thinks that piece of timing is a little off." The IAU sergeant had plenty of theories, mostly of them unprovable hunches on the money.

"That cocksucker." deRocco spat out the words.

Sean smirked, having heard the precinct cops gossip about deRocco's sexual leaning. They had once been staking out of dope drop on East 4th Street. Te gang member made them and approached the unmarked car. They discovered two men engaged in a sexual act. Queer had saved both their lives.

"What you smilin' about?"

"Nothing." Cops had a hard job in New York City, however these two were well past redemption. AS lucky as they had been, bad luck was waiting for the, but not tonight. “Today I got a phone call today from Germany. They offered a job at a nightclub there. Maybe I should go?” “And stay away for a while too.” deRocco lit a cigarette. "You're a lucky fuckin' Mick, Seano."

"You want to contribute to my bon-voyage fund?"

Driscoll feigned a punch and Sean ducked to his right.

“Don’t push it, Seano. Consider yourself another asshole from Boston who lived in New York too long. Just get the fuck out of town. You have three days.”

"Sure, I'll send you a postcard. Ich liebe dich.” The two officers returned to their blue-and-white cruiser, and then u-turned across 14th Street into the Ninth Precinct. Sean had to face the truth that he had come back to the scenes of the crimes, because of his love for Lisa. Thousands of other women lived in this city. Falling in love with one seemed cursed by his obsession with Lisa. She was not coming back any time soon. Of this he was sure.

Sean obeying all the lights back to his apartment.

By the time he reached East 10th Street, he thanked deRocco and Driscoll for forcing him to accept Kurt's offer. Maybe a life a few thousand miles away from New York might free his soul. Something had to someday.

Photo (th Precinct Investigation Unit 1979

GOOD AS IT GETS FOR GERMANS by Peter Nolan Smith

Back in 2007 I had a friend in Pattaya. Fabo had heart of gold and the young Belgian oil explorer was happiest with a Heineken in his hand and his eye on Gai, the Rubenesque beauty of the Buffalo Bar. He had loved her forever. She loved him too in her own way, whenever she could do so. Love him long time.

Gai was a popular girl.

I liked drinking with Fabo, because he didn't talk the usual farang bullshit, ie how bargirls were bad or Thai were lazy or how Pattaya sucked. The Charleroi native was happy with his life and with good reason. Fabo worked on seismic ships trawling the ocean bottom for pockets of oil. His tours ran one month off-shore and then one month in Pattaya.

His haunts were the same as mine; Welkom on Soi 3 in the daytime and Buffalo Bar nights.

Two years ago I found him in Welkom Inn's garden. Six empty Heinekens were on the table. The Belgian did not look happy.

Most farangs flee sad faces, because most sad faces are caused by either bad love stories or no money. The first they have heard too many times and listening to the latter means that sooner or later they would be asked for a loan.

Fabo had a good job and I was broke, so there was no danger of my having to shed money for his company.

I sat down and asked, "Why the long face?"

"Poo's been arrested for Ja Bah." Poo was his wife. They had met at the Welkom Inn. Possession for Yah Bah was a gold mine for the Tam-Luat or Thai police. If they said you were guilty, you were guilty, unless the right amount of baht passed hands. "The police came to the house, because of a family disturbance."

"You were fighting with her?" Fabo forgave Poo everything.

"Not me. A German friend."

"German friend?"

The Belgian oil worker and I drank most afternoons at the Belgian Embassy on Sai 3. I had never met any German friends.

"Yes, he is an old friend on Poo. He left his Doberman with us, because pets aren't allowed in his apartment. He shows up every few days to make sure the dog was okay."

It was a strange arrangement. Pattaya had thousands of them.

"He say something to Poo. She get angry. They fight and the police come. They know the German. The police had tested her urine. It came up purple for ja-bah. They took her straight to the monkey house." He was hiding something, but not all the truth.

"What's this German look like?"

"Like a Reeperbahn pimp."

"He's from Hamburg?" I had worked at a nightclub for the ErosCenter Zuhalterei in 1982. "Does he have a lot of knife scars on his left forearm?"

"Yes."

The telephone rang and he lifted his finger.

"I have to go. My German cousin is helping get her out of jail."

I said nothing, as Fabo got on a motorcycle to meet the German.

Better him than me, because Lucien had another name in St. Pauli.

SS Tommy.

The marrow in my spine froze.

Later that night I met Fabo at the Buffalo, which he calls 'le campange' or the country. It had once been surrounded by coconut trees instead of the townhouses of today.

He was in a better mood. Gai was at his side. She was free tonight. So was Fabo.

"Now I can tell you story." Fabo ordered us beers. "You know Lucien leaves dog with Poo. He comes every day. Friends of Poo are no good. They do jah bah. One day they start fight with Lucien. He beats them up. They decide that if they kill the dog, Lucien won't come see Poo."

"That's some stupid thinking."

"I did not say they were smart." Fabo shrugged pleasantly, as if he acknowledged he was glad not to have seen this scene. "Lucien discovers his dog is dead and beats up the boys again. The police come. They are friends with Lucien. They arrest the boys, who say that Poo is taking jah bah."

The story was sordid and it was heading toward more sordid.

"I pay the police 20,000 baht. She has to be clean one year. If not, back to the monkey house. Lucien helps me with the judge. He knows everyone."

"Good." I could have told him the truth ie that Poo won't be able to say off the gear for a year.

No sense in that. He knows the future already, but I was surprised at how good Lucien had been through the entire affair.

"But tonight she stays in monkey house, so I stay here with Gai." Fabo hugged Gai's ample hips.

He was a a lucky man.

Several days later Fabo bailed out his wife and called me to celebrate her release. My wife wasn't into drunken parties and I motorcycled over to Fabo's villa behind the Sukhumvit Hills. All the French and Belges from the Embassy were there, but they weren't in their usual good mood. Something was off and I immediately spotted why.

SS Tommy sat in the best chair in the house.

He was my height, but his muscle had been pumped by a gym.

No steroids.

Gym only.

The German was no fake tough guy. His body looked like he had been dropped through a meat grinder. His left arm bore the scars of many knife fights. His crooked nose followed the route of an alpine pass. His eyes stared at me with the promise of murder. I greeted him in German.

"Why do you speak German?" His voice reeked of suspicion.

"I lived in Hamburg in 1982 and worked at a nightclub for a pimp. BSirs."

"For Cali?"

I didn't say the name often.

Cali was the head pimp for the GmBH, Hamburg's biggest gang. He had been shot too many times to die from anything other than a peaceful death.

"Yes, he worked for Thomas Bond." The old pimp led an empire of sin from the ErosCenter.

"Thomas Bond was my teacher." Lucien's eyes narrowed to razor blades.

"I met him once." I had done him a favor. I never mentioned it to anyone. I never had a problem with the pimps, but one. SS Tommy. I stood to get a beer.

"You stay here. You not go away. Are you police?" He didn't recognize me. It had been over ten years. His fingers dug into my thigh like icepicks.

"No, like I said I was the Tursteher at a nightclub on Eppendorfer Weg. BSirs." I had earned my living as a doorman in New York, Paris, London, and Germany. I was no criminal.

Nearing Christmas a pimp, SS Tommy, had presented a bill for 20,000 Marks.

For sleeping with a girl.

Astrid's never saying she had worked for him didn't matter to SS Tommy. He wanted his money. I gave him the keys to my VW and said I would have the rest tomorrow. I caught the midnight train to Paris that evening.

"I can't recall meeting you."

"I don't believe you. You are maybe police." He stared at me with his head tilted. "You can't look me in the eyes."

"I never lie." I could only see one eye. "Telling the truth is easier."

The leader of a Thai motorcycle gang showed up. Lucien stood up to wai his comrade. I decided this was time to leave.

Fabo later said Lucien missed me.

I missed him too like anyone misses someone wanting to kill them, for he was a man to avoid and be seen avoiding, And they say there are no good Germans.

Even the bad ones are good sometimes, especially if they make Fabo happy.

ONE DEGREE OF SEPARATION By Peter Nolan Smith

John Guare in his play SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION contended that everyone in the world was connected to everyone in the world by six people.

Sometimes even less.

My sister-in-law had worked at the CIA for George Bush, whose father met Hitler, so I'm connected to Der Fuhrer by four degrees of separation.

The distance to Osama Bin Laden is even less, since in 1983 I met from a beautiful girl in London, who married OBL's brother.

From me to Carrie Carey to Ahmed Bin Laden to Osama Bin Laden, which means seven degrees of separation from OBL to GW Bush.

Somehow I think that span might be closer than Americans would like to know, but in some cases more than six degrees of separation are desirable, especially if at the end of the line is a sadistic blonde pimp named SS Tommy.

In 1982 I was working at a nightclub in Hamburg. The delightful harbor city of summer was transformed to a dark dangerous industrial wasteland by the cold wet winter. BSIR's was fronted by Jurgen, a playboy. The actual owner was the black German/American leader of the GMbH, a ruthless gang of pimps.

Black Cali's right-hand claw was SS Tommy and this zuhalter resembled a pit bull on steroids. This enforcer was rumored to have buried several men alive for non-payment of debts. A bitter rival was bathed in acid. SS Tommy had his own table in BSIRs. I smiled every night, as he ordered bottles of sekt. He never paid the bill.

"We'll get the money one way or another." Jurgen was a native to Hamburg. He knew how things were done.

"As you like." My percentage of the profits was 5%. SS Tommy's rechtung was over 20,000 DMs. I figured that he owed me 1000 DMs and joked about it with the girl I took home twice a week. Astrid was a beautiful lingerie model. She laughed at the idea of SS Tommy in my debt.

"But never say this to him." Her body was paradise. She did everything.

"Never." I knew my place in the feeding chain and managed to keep my distance from the monster. It seemed the best thing to do.

A week before Christmas SS Tommy slapped a bill on the bar.

"What's this?" It was written in German and the sum of 20,000 Deutschmarks was about $13,000, which was $11,000 more than was in my bank account.

"For having sex with Astrid." Tommy smiled, as if he had told the punchline of a long joke.

"Astrid?" The ephemerally stunning blonde was supposedly studying German literature at university while not posing her divinely sculpted body for catalogue photographers. "She works for you?"

"This is Hamburg. Everyone works for someone." SS Tommy ran over two hundred girls on his string.

"She never said anything about paying." Astrid had been coming over my Mittelweg apartment for over four months. I thought that she liked me.

"I guess she needs a little extra money for Christmas gifts." SS Tommy smiled at his sense of humor. "20,000 isn't so little." The list was itemized by sex act. "I didn't know 69 cost 200 DMs."

"And that is cheap." SS Tommy pointed out several more costly sexual feats. "I discounted the rechtung by 20% since you work for Nigger Cali.

"Thanks." 20% extra was a bargain, if you had the money for the full amount.

"And the bill is not negotiable." SS Tommy stood closer. The heat off his body exuded a sheen of violence. He was a bad man.

"Sure, I can understand that." I had 1000 DMs in my pocket and the keys to my orange VW Beetle. It wasn't worth much after a late-night collision with a tree on Eppendorfer Weg. I handed the keys. It would buy me time.

"You will get me the rest tomorrow."

"Of course." Trains left the Hauptbahnhof for Paris throughout the night. I planned on being on one.

"Or else." He didn't have to spell out the 'else' of that threat.

"Naturlich." I shut the club early that evening and took a taxi to my apartment. I told the driver to wait. I packed my things in less than five minutes. One bag wasn't much to show for six months, but tonight was a night for traveling light. I caught the 3:15 to Paris and ran to the train like I was on the run from the Gestapo.

I sat breathless in my compartment and wiped the sweat from my face, as the train pulled from the station. By afternoon I was in a hotel in the Marais. No one German came to the Jewish quartier. They were not welcome there. I started working at the Bains-Douches. The security were ex-Marines and I hired a big black teenager for back-up. I needed it on several occasion.

I had almost forgotten about Hamburg, then one evening in April Cali showed up at the door.

"Don't worry, this has nothing to do with SS Tommy." Cali lowered his signature aviator sunglasses off his nose. "He wasn't very happy with your car. I don?t think he will buy a used car again, but you should have spoken with me. SS Tommy was angry your joking about his owing you money."

"So, it was a joke?"

"No, you owing SS Tommy wasn't a joke, at least not to him. If I had know about your affair with Astrid, I would have warned you that she worked for SS Tommy, but he never leaves Germany, so his problem is not mine."

"But you're his boss?" Cali got a taste of all business from street whores working the Fischmarkt to prostitutes in the Eros Center.

"Yes, and he paid me my share of that 20,000. He wasn't happy about that, but I thought it was funny. Let's have some champagne." Cali led me inside Les Bains. The bouncers looked for my okay.

"You'll have to pay for it."

"Of course, this is Paris. We pay for everything here."

We had a good night and the next evening he brought Astrid.

"My gift to you."

"I can't afford her."

"This is Paris. Not Hamburg." He lifted a finger to his lips. "I will say nothing."

Astrid and I continued on our relationship through the 80s in Paris, New York and London. SS Tommy's bill never entered into our conversations and I refrained from mentioning my debt to the English barrister who later became her husband. I haven't seen her in years.

To be safe I googled SS Tommy's name every couple of months.

The search comes up blank.

I figured that he was either KIA or MIA.

I was completely wrong as usual.

Back in 2001 I had an affair with a Thai hooker. That kind of relationship was hard to avoid in Pattaya. Tut was a short vixen into ja-bah or mad medicine. The rumor on the street that she had worked as a prostitute in a German brothel. I was no saint and didn't ask questions, especially since I was paying for her company.

Once she heard me speak German and asked, "Where you learn German?"

"In Hamburg."

"I had a boyfriend in Hamburg."

Boyfriends who let their girlfriends work in a whorehouse are called Zuhalterei in Germany.

"What was his name?"

"Tommy."

A chill slithered down my spine like a snake let out of a freezer.

"Was he a body builder with blonde hair? I should have said pimp, although the word in Thai is mangdah.

"Yes."

"Did he have any black friends?"

"One called Kelley or Charlie."

Schwartze Cali was one of kind. "Did any of his friends call him SS?"

"Ja. What it mean?"

"Schiesse." Like ILSA SHE-WOLF OF THE SS.

"You know him." Tut seemed as scared as me.

"I did but don't anymore."

Tut ran out that night to meet a boyfriend in Phuket.

A week later she called for airfare back.

I said that I'd send it ASAP and blocked her number from my cellphone.

SS Tommy disappeared from my life once more and I hope he stays twenty separations away instead of one, because even though he must be 60. Someone like SS Tommy never forgets his debtors, for pitbulls on steroids have a long memory and the world is too small a place for a life as long as mine.

THE BOUQUET OF RUINS by Peter Nolan Smith

Dec 1982

Some cities are best defined by songs such as APRIL IN PARIS or AUTUMN IN NEW YORK, but Hamburg defied music, especially as winter weather skimmed off the North Sea to besiege the harbor city with endless rain, cold, and darkness. Every day the night conquered a few more minutes of light and our once-popular club on Epperdoffer Weg was deserted by the attractive youth, the esoteric intelligentsia, and the wicked rich, who sought the warm comfort of their homes rather than B-Sirs.

The sleek nightclub had been designed to resemble CLOCKWORK ORANGE's milk bar.

The fashion people of Hamburg had loved the place throughout the summer, but with autumn the clientele had been replaced by pimps and off-duty prostitutes from the Reeperbahn. Neither liked to pay for their drinks and my share of the profits shrank to nothing.

Henri, the DJ from Paris, and I counted the days until we called it quits, only I wasn't telling management about my departure in case I wanted to come back after the holidays.

Only one person deserved an 'auf wiedersehen'.

I had been seeing Astrid since early October. The blonde twenty year-old studied fashion at the University. Her dramatic overbite and an aquiline nose stole any chance of her being called beautiful, but the slender Astrid was very accommodating in bed and took the time to improve my German.

"I may be leaving," I told her after a lengthy session nearing dawn.

"Are you going for good?" she asked with an imaginative lisp.

"Maybe. Maybe not. You can always visit me."

"Where?" She dressed conservatively for school and stuffed her night clothes in a stylish leather bag. The blonde had morning classes.

"Paris."

"And not New York."

"No."

New York was off-bounds for reasons unexplainable to anyone in Europe.

"And you are not coming back?"

"To Hamburg?"

"Ja."

"Vielleicht." The cold dark wet murk of the North Sea port worsened after Christmas.

"When will you leave?"

"Before Christmas."

"Then we will have more than one occasion to say 'auf wiedersehen'."

"Das ist rechtig."

Astrid kissed me on the lips and left my Milchstrasse apartment.

I returned to sleep.

That evening SS Tommy showed up at the bar early. The few customers in the club avoided the six-foot enforcer for the GMbH. Astrid stood at the door dressed in a fur with very little else underneath. She normally never showed until after midnight. Something about this combination didn't add up to two. SS Tommy handed me a piece of paper.

"What's this." The total came to almost 10,000 DMs or $6500 US.

"A bill." His scarred finger jabbed the top of the 'rechtung'.

"Oh." My high school German coupled with Astrid's lessons allowed my to translate the long list consisted of charges for sex. "What's this?"

"This is what you owe for the nights with Astrid."

"Astrid? I didn't know she worked for you."

She smiled at me with a crooked grin.

"Not all our girls work the Eros Center." His gang ran a string of more than two hundred women on the Reeperbahn. Each had sex five times a night. 200 DMs times five times two-hundred women came to $100,000 a night. SS Tommy owed three Ferraris. He worked for Cali, who owned B-Sirs. "Everything is there."

I checked the bill again. Each act was itemized by date.

"She never said anything about working for you," I said in rough German.

"Everyone in Hamburg works for someone." The Zuhalters were infamously violent and SS Tommy was no exception. I had to offer him a gesture.

"Here are the keys to my car."

SS Tommy took the car keys for the VW, which I had paid 7000 six months ago.

"Where's it parked?"

"At the mechanic shop."

Two days earlier I had driven the orange VW into a tree. The mechanic had said last rites over the chassis. It was a total write-off,

"Warum?" asked SS Tommy.

"Just getting a turn-up." It was an easy lie to tell.

"Das ist gut, du musst gibt morgen 5000 Marks mehr." SS Tommy grabbed my arm in a claw grip to insure that I understood his demands.

"Kein problem." My shoulder muscles had gone dead, as his fingers dug into my flesh. Pain radiated through my body. He wanted money not a car.

"I'll give you a free night with Astrid." SS Tommy clicked his fingers. "Stay with him. I don't want him running out on me."

"Jawohl." She was good at taking orders as are all Germans.

I told the manager that I was going home early and left the club with the blonde. Everyone avoided me, as if I had the plague. No one had friends, when SS Tommy was your enemy.

Back at my apartment Astrid apologized for telling SS Tommy about my departure.

"Kein problem, but why had you made up a list?"

"For me to remember you." Astrid caressed my shoulder. >p>For a few seconds I almost believed her.

We had sex, as if nothing had changed between us and I suppose that it hadn't.

Afterwards I got up from bed.

"Are you leaving now?"

"A little later. There's a late train to Paris," I said nothing about the 5000 DMs under my bed.

SS Tommy wasn't getting a pfennig of it.

Neither was Astrid.

After a glass of sekt she went to take a shower, promising me a night to remember.

"Maybe I do 1000 Marks worth."

"That would be nice." I smiled sipping my glass of pesudo-champagne.

As soon as the bathroom door shut, I grabbed my cash and wrapped a wire hangar around the doorknob, trapping Astrid inside.

Within minutes I was ready to leave. I didn't have much to show for six months in Hamburg, but I didn't need much in Paris.

I heard thumping on the bathroom door.

Shouts followed.

"Chus," I shouted, leaving a note on the kitchen table to SS Tommy that the bed, chairs, table, and everything else were his.

I liked this deal better than paying my debt.

I bent over to pick up Astrid's underwear off the floor. I liked her smell. I stuffed them in my bag.

A minute later I caught a taxi on Mittelweg.

"Bahnhof."

Ten minutes later I was in the station. The night was cold. I bought a ticket for the 12:34am train to Paris.

After that I hid on the platform like a spy fleeing Nazi Germany.

The southbound train pulled out of the station on time. My compartment was empty. The train stopped at every station. The towns sounded like battlefields. I didn't sleep until we passed through Dutch customs.

Dawn brightened the gray skies on a landscape of ruined steel factories of the Low Countries. These industries had been destroyed by Japanese competition. The decay stretched from border to border into Belgium. The wet of the winter carried the corruption of rust and concrete. It smelled of death and I pulled out Astrid's panties. They were French silk.

The conductor announced our ETA in Paris was 9:23am.

After arriving at Gare Du Nord I took the Metro to St. Germain, where I booked a room at the Hotel Louisiane and then breakfasted at the Cafe de Flore

Cafe du lait, croissant, and a Calvados said Paris and I sang APRIL IN PARIS to myself.

SS Tommy would never find me here.

Astrid's panties were still in my pocket. I stole a whiff and inhaled the fading fragrance of cinnamon and sweat with a tang of herring. We had had a good thing for a few months and I smiled thinking that I would never see her crooked smile again.

And that was a good thing for this winter, especially since I couldn't see that far into summer.

For that was Hamburg's season to shine.

THE BOUQUET OF RUINS by Peter Nolan Smith

Bsirs was in decline. The nightclub on Epperdorfer Weg was on the outs. Hamburg’s long white nights of the summer solstice had given way to the fiercely short days of winter. Rain, darkness, and cold ruled the days and nights. High school students stayed home on the weeknights. The northern city’s intelligentsia avoided the sleek nightclub on Eppendorfer Weg. Painters gave way to pimps and the catalogue models were replaced by off-duty prostitutes from the Reeperbahn. Neither liked to pay for their drinks and my share of the profits shrank to nothing. It was time to head south for the season.

Paris.

Spain.

Thailand.

I informed Astrid about my impending departure. I had been seeing the curvy blonde since October. The twenty year-old had a dramatic overbite and a aquiline nose. Astrid did it all. Bidding her 'auf wiedersehen' was the right thing to do.

The next night SS Tommy presented a bill. The 6-foot bulldog was the primary enforcer for the GMbH. These pimps ran the Eroscenter. They had 200 women. Each woman was required to have sex five times a night. The price was 200 DMs. 200 times 5 equaled 1000 times 200 came to $100,000 a night in earnings.

SS Tommy owned three Ferraris.

“What’s this?” I looked at the bill. It was 10,000 DMs for sexual services with each act itemized by date.

“Sex with Astrid.” SS Tommy's scarred finger jabbed the top of the ‘rechtung’.

“She never said anything about working for you,” I said in German with a Boston accent.

I had studied the language in high school and college. Bruder Karl had never mentioned ‘lick arsh’ in his classes, but I could read most of the fees. 200 DMs for Schwanzlutschen seemed steep.

“Everyone in Hamburg works for someone.” SS Tommy wasn’t a man built for haggling. Zuhalters had quick tempers and SS Tommy was renown for his short fuse.

I had to offer him a gesture.

“Here are the keys to my car.”

SS Tommy took the car keys for 5000 DMs. I had paid 7000 six months ago.

“Where’s it parked?” SS Tommy was suspicious. I was giving him what he wanted without a fight.

“At the mechanic shop on Mittelweg.”

Two days earlier I had driven the BMW into a tree. The chassis was bent. The orange 2002 was still in the forest waiting a tow. In my mind the car was a write-off.

“Morgen 5000 mehr.” SS Tommy grabbed my arm.

“Of course.” My shoulder went dead. His fingers dug into my flesh. The pain radiated through my body. He wanted money not a car.

"Tomorrow, sure." I rubbed life back into my arm, as he left the club. Everyone avoided me, as if I had the plague. No one had friends, when SS Tommy was your enemy.

I had 5000 DMs were under the bed of my apartment in Milchstrasse. SS Tommy wasn’t getting a pfennig.

That evening Astrid came to my apartment. We had sex for an hour. I wondered what was the lingerie model's take on the 10000 DMs of sin. Betrayal and revenge are a heady aphrodisiac. I never mentioned SS Tommy to Astrid. This was pleasure for me and business for her.

At midnight she kissed me good night like a girlfriend.

I asked for her panties.

She was happy to give them and I said that I would see her tomorrow.

A minute after her taxi disappeared down Mittelweg, I packed my bags and left a note on the kitchen table to SS Tommy.

The bed, chairs, table, and everything else were his.

I was taking the first train to anywhere.

I caught a taxi to the Bahnhof. Luck was on my side. There was a 2:34am night train to Paris. I hid on the platform like a spy fleeing Nazi Germany. The southbound train pulled out of the station on time. My compartment was empty. I didn’t sleep until we passed through Dutch customs. The train stopped at every station. The towns and cities sounded like battlefields.

Dawn brightened the gray skies on a landscape of ruined steel factories. The industries destroyed by Japanese competition. The decay stretched from border to border into Belgium. The wet of the winter carried the corruption of rust and concrete. Northern Europe bore the scars of capitalism's collapse like a fighter down on his knees.

Charleroi was not the Europe of tourists.

Bad times were the future.

I pulled out Astrid's panties. They were silk and made French. My ETA in Paris was 9:23am. I dreamed about a cafe du lait, croisssant, and a Calvados at the Deux-Magots. I would take a room at the Hotel Lousiana. SS Tommy would never find me there. I inhaled Astrid's fading fragrance; cinnamon and sweat with a tang of herring.

We had a good thing for a few months.

I would never think of her body as ruins.

Not when I held her panties in my hand.