The logs were finished and they had made lists of potentially interesting names. It was time for lunch, and they set things in order, ready to go down to a café overlooking Port Ambonne, the Heliopolis marina. Helen and Doris slipped on tee-shirts, and the men donned shorts.
The phone rang, and Helen answered again.
“Helen,” said a familiar voice, “It´s Johannes.”
“Johannes! How wonderful! Where are you? How are you?”
“I´m fine, and I´m outside your damned gate, and I need to see you right now on official business.”
“Wuff! That´s incredible. Well, I won´t waste your time. I´m on my way.” Helen hung up and turned to the others, “It´s an old friend of mine from Geneva. You go ahead to lunch; go to that Italian café at the end of the Collines, Sandy, near the marina.” She turned to Doris and Rummy. “I´ll meet Johannes – Sandy will explain who he is – and I´ll either bring him to lunch or… or something.” She hurried off down the hall to the stairs, her tee-shirt barely covering her bottom.
At the reception center, Johannes stood waiting in a summer-weight business suit, looking very handsome and fit. Helen entered and threw her arms around him, hugging him without restraint. He returned the hug but confined himself to an air kiss beside her cheek.
When they separated, Helen, rather flustered, smoothed her tee-shirt over her hips and said, “God, it´s good to see you. Come with me, and tell me what this is all about.” She led the way inside the compound, walking toward the Port and both settling on a bench at the side of the marina.
“Tell me what´s going on,” she said, “because I´m meeting with some friends – colleagues, really – and I´d like you to meet them if that´s okay.”
Johannes reached into his jacket and pulled out an identity folder. “You probably never knew it, Helen, but I´m an officer in the Swiss Police, seconded to InterPol from the Cantonal Police in Geneva. I´m here to talk to you about the death of your husband, Theo Brechstein. Your lawyer in Stuttgart, Herr Lieber, gave some material to the Landeskriminalpolizei in Stuttgart, and they contacted me.”
Helen looked cursorily at the document he offered, then back at him. “No, I never knew you were… Well, it doesn´t really matter, I´m so glad to see you. Can the business wait until after lunch? I´d love to have you meet my friends and then we can talk about whatever you want.”
Johannes agreed, and they found the others at the café not far away. Johannes removed his jacket as they sat in the sun, and the others made him welcome. He seemed totally unfazed by the naked passers-by and the unclad diners around them.
“Have you been here before, Johannes?” Doris asked, “you seem very comfortable with the… uh… scenery.”
“No,” Johannes replied with a smile, “but I´ve known Helen for quite a while and known that she lives here as well. I´m not much into naturism these days, but it´s a life-style I´ve always liked. Unfortunately, I´m here on business.”
Helen interposed, “I used to date Johannes in Geneva, but I never knew what he did.” She took a breath, looked at Johannes, and went on, “Johannes, all these people know about the material Herr Lieber in Stuttgart sent you. We´re also involved in something else that may be related. I think we all need to have lunch and go back to my place and get into the details.” She turned to the others, speaking quietly. “Johannes is with Interpol. We´ll discuss it later.”
They all began conversation meant to seem trivial, Doris explaining her and Rummy´s relation to Helen, Sandy chatting about his storage business – each quietly filling Johannes in on their backgrounds. He said little about himself, other than to allude to his frequent meetings with Helen in Geneva.
When they were back in Helen´s apartment, the orange cat demanded the right to inspect the new arrival. Johannes knelt down and spoke directly to the animal, introducing himself. The orange cat bumped his nose with his head and pronounced him acceptable.
Johannes stood up and said to the humans in the room, “Thank you for taking the trouble to tell me about yourselves. It will save some time. Now, can you tell me what you meant about a related matter?”
They moved onto the balcony, sitting in the sun. Doris pulled her shirt off to bask in the sunshine, though Helen, conscious of Johannes and their continued, confusing relationship, kept hers on. Johannes took a chair and the orange cat settled himself underneath it.
Rummy picked up the conversation. “Johannes, Helen and I are working on a construction project in Freiburg im Breisgau for a guy in Geneva named Schellen. You know him?”
“Yes,” Johannes replied. “I do. Compagnie Schellen. Investments and construction.” Johannes pulled out a policeman-like notebook and began scribbling.
“Right. Well, when we were pitching our project to Schellen, this guy who works for Schellen, Paul Dumont, came up to me and asked if Theo Brechstein would be working on our project as ‘labor consultant´. I´d never heard of him, and I said so.”
“I´d never told Rummy my husband´s name,” Helen explained.
Rummy continued, “Well, surprise! Dumont was assigned as project manager for Schellen. When we met him at the site, he urged us to use a ‘labor consultant´ to help – well, he said it would reduce costs.
“And then, after we´d begun excavation, one of our contractors told me that Dumont had offered to supply low-cost laborers and semi-skilled workers. I passed this information on to Helen.”
Helen took up the thread, “At about that time, Johannes, Rummy and I were on a site visit. I noticed a trench being dug where there should not have been one. When we went over to see what was going on, the operators of the excavators attacked us with the shovels and – I´m sure of it – tried to kill, or at least severely injure us. We managed to escape without injury, but it was close. We reported this to the Freiburg criminal police.
“But to get back to Theo, we told the contractor – Werner Siegmann, he´s with Hoch und Tiefbau, – to have Dumont give him numbers and prices. We haven´t gotten that yet; it was only a couple of days ago. But about the same time, Schellen called us to Geneva for a meeting. The meeting was, I think, partly to mislead us about Raul Sauter. Do you know who he is?”
Johannes nodded and gestured for her to continue.
“Sauter had shown up at the Freiburg site about a week before the visit when we were attacked. Rummy was there. He called me about it and I had the general contractor tell Sauter to leave the site because he had no business there. At the Geneva meeting with Schellen the day after we were attacked, Schellen wanted to know why we had thrown Sauter out. Sauter´s his brother-in-law. I told Schellen that I don´t allow anyone on site but our contractors and suppliers without my permission.
“Then, Schellen told us he had a proposal to provide laborers and semi-skilled workers at attractive prices.
“I kind of smelled a rat, and I had told Schellen before that I don´t consider contractors who are in court, and he trotted out some bullshit about the people he was talking about not being in court – at the moment. Do you know about Sauter?” Johannes said he did not, and Helen explained about Sauter´s legal problems and the new criminal charge. “Well, so we had to ask him for a proposal, just to see what came of it. But, he said some things that I consider threatening, indicating that the proposed arrangement would reduce the risk of… What was it, Rummy? … disputes and misunderstandings, I think.”
“Right,” Rummy affirmed.
“Anything more?” Johannes asked.
“Well, not about that, but yes,” Helen went on. “When I got the letter from Lieber, Rummy and I began looking over the contact logs our contractors keep.”
“Why did you do that?” Johannes asked.
“Well, we were wondering about the Man from Bau – you know what I mean by that?”
“You mean the inspectors from IG Bau.”
“Yes. Well, we wondered if the contact logs would tell us anything about who shows up from Bau, and how often. I mean, we thought that if Schellen was pulling something shady, he´d have to have someone from Bau in on it. And don´t forget, Johannes, Theo worked for IG Bau.”
“I know he did. What have you found?”
Rummy said, “We aren´t sure. We have a list of everyone who´s visited our contractors at the site. We eliminated the ones who only came once, the ones we know, or who´re just suppliers or something like that. It´s interesting that, of the remainder, the Man from Bau is always the same guy, and he shows up about twice a week. I think that´s a little more often than usual, and I know it´s unusual for it to be the same guy every time. I´m about to contact our contractors and see what they think, and if they have any more information. And I want to find out if Werner Siegmann got any firm numbers from Dumont.”
“May I have a copy of those lists, please?” Johannes asked.
“Of course,” Helen replied. Rummy began printing out the files.
Johannes went on, “Now, I think that our office will take over…”
“Hold on, Johannes,” Sandy put in, “there´s more. Tell him about the call, Helen.”
“Yes. Johannes, this morning I got a phone call from Paul Dumont. We made a recording of it. Sandy, can you play it for Johannes?”
Sandy took Rummy´s place at the computer, called up the audio file and played it. Johannes asked him to repeat it twice.
“That´s very interesting,” he said. “He contradicts himself twice, according to what you say about your earlier meetings with him. I think we need to look at this a lot more closely.” He looked at Helen. “Why didn´t you tell him who Theo was?”
“I´m not sure. I think I didn´t want to give him anything he didn´t already know.”
“Good thought,” Johannes said, “now…”
“Johannes,” Helen interrupted, “we´ve given you what we know. Now, it´s your turn. How come you´re here? What´s going on?”
Johannes moved his chair back from the table, rose and took a turn around the balcony, looking rather obviously over the walls at either side and over the wall of the balcony itself. He looked up at the balcony wall of the apartments above that were set back the depth of Helen´s balcony, pointed, and looked inquiringly at Helen.
“Upstairs is vacant – actually, the one on the left is where Rummy and Doris are staying. The people on the right are out of town, and there´s no one renting the flats at either side on this floor. Nobody below us can hear anything, anyway. Okay?”
“I guess so. I´ll tell you what I can.” He spoke quietly. “When the KP in Stuttgart re-opened Theo´s case yesterday, they finally sent us the serial number from the gun that killed him. We had a record of it.” He shook his head and waved dismissively as Rummy began a question, and Rummy subsided.
“Helen, I hadn´t known anything about Theo or your relationship with him when we knew each other in Geneva. Nothing. This is all new. But when I discovered your name associated with this matter, I decided to take on the case myself. I spent most of yesterday afternoon and evening doing some research and came up with a few matters of interest.
“The first interesting thing is that we had had a watch on Brechstein, on Theo, because he was so often remotely connected with cases of illegal immigrants and workers.”
“What do you mean, ‘remotely connected? ´” Helen asked.
“I mean that Theo was very often somewhere in the background when we broke up cases of illegal workers. He was often the Man from Bau, but he never managed to detect or turn in these people. It may have been the sympathy thing Dumont mentions.
“But there is one strange thing. About a week before he died, we have an e-mail from him – addressed to a known public interface at Interpol – asking us to arrange a meeting. He said he wanted to discuss some matters involving particular sections of the EU labor statutes, which he mentioned only by number. If you look those up, they deal with illegal workers, penalties and that sort of thing.
“We think he had changed his mind about what he had been doing. In part, it may have been because a couple of weeks earlier, there had been a scandal about some illegal workers being beaten and killed in one of those neo-Nazi things.
“Anyway, he died before we could set anything up. Now, it looks as though we need to look more closely at his ‘suicide´.
“Helen, I want you and Rummy to pay attention to what I´m going to tell you. It looks as though there are people in this who are willing to kill to keep their business going. And, yes, we´re assuming, for the moment that they killed Theo. We don´t know for sure, but after all, we now have opportunity, and motive. The method looks a bit bizarre, but nothing is surprising in the circumstances, and it did serve to confuse us for five years.
“That means you will have be more careful about personal safety than you have been. Rummy, I´ll take that list you made up, and my people will follow up…”
Rummy broke in, “Johannes, I understand what you´re suggesting, and I think you should follow up this list from the side of the organizations involved: IG Bau for example, and the corporations involved. But, if your people go to my contractors asking questions, they won´t get shit out of them. I can talk to them – they´ll talk to me. And I can do it by phone, if you´re afraid I´ll get hurt.” Rummy grinned at Johannes, his huge shoulders and rugged physique emphasizing his amusement.
Johannes returned Rummy´s look and his grin. “Rummy, you have a point, but bullets stop even rugby players. And you´d look a bit silly wearing heavy Kevlar. You go ahead and talk to your people by phone. Tell them to keep it quiet, not to talk about it to any of their contacts. And keep your field visits to a minimum. You, too, Helen.”
Doris got up from her chair and stood in front of Rummy. She looked up at him and poked her small finger into his solar plexus. “Rummy Harms, you´d better at least think about one of those vests. Or, you´ll deal with me.” She turned and addressed Helen. “That goes for you, too.” She flounced back to her chair and sat down. The orange cat rubbed her shins in agreement.
Johannes grinned at the display of determination. “Now, that´s not a bad idea, either of you. We have to assume that you´ve been attacked once, and that means you´ll likely be attacked again. You can get pretty good protection that won´t be too obvious on a construction site.”
Rummy laughed. “Johannes, you´ve never seen Helen dressed for a site visit. On a hot summer day, the guys will swear they can see everything she´s got. They can´t, of course, but they think they can.”
“I know what you mean, Rummy. Well,” Johannes said, very seriously, “it would be a good idea to change your style for a while, Helen. In any case, try and cut down the number of your site visits. I´m glad that Heliopolis is gated, but of course that won´t prevent people like that from coming in here, either. I understand you can get a day pass quite inexpensively.”
Helen spoke quietly. “Johannes, they´ve already gotten into my home once. I´m going to be very careful.”
.oOo.
They exchanged information and lists, and Johannes prepared to leave. Rummy began his list of calls. Doris asked Sandy, “How about showing me that store of yours?” and off they went, Doris throwing on a minimum of clothing.
“Let me walk you to the gate, Johannes,” Helen said, and turned to Rummy. “You´ll hold the fort for me, won´t you?” Rummy waved his free hand and went on with his conversation. The two of them went out and down the hall.
They walked slowly along the streets busy with spring tourists, at first not talking. Then, Helen took Johannes´s hand. “You said you´re well. Is that so?”
“Yes, the medications are working, the blood levels are excellent. With any luck at all, I should be all right for quite a while.” He looked fondly down at her. “I might even die of old age.”
“I´m so glad. I miss you, Johannes.”
“Me, too. Thanks for staying in touch by e-mail. It helps.”
They walked quietly for a moment, then Helen asked, “How is Jeanne?”
Johannes stopped and turned to look at her. “I´m surprised you asked. Actually, I don´t really know. She´s disappeared, my doctor doesn´t know where, and we think she´s stopped taking her meds. I´m a little worried, but in fact, Helen, if that´s where she´s going, I´m not interested, and I don´t have a lot of sympathy for her.”
“You must be lonely.”
“I am,” he said, “but I´m alive,” and let it go at that.
At the gate, they embraced, and Helen watched him walk off to his car and drive away.
.oOO.
Rummy was making notes when Helen returned to the apartment. The sun had moved on and the balcony was cool. Helen went into her bedroom and changed her tee-shirt for one of her long, wispy dresses. In the other room, she went to Rummy, put an arm around him and hugged. Rummy returned the hug affectionately.
“Any luck with your calls?”
“Some.”
Helen moved the orange cat and sat down on the lounge, one arm across the back, looking up at Rummy. “What about Doris and Sandy?”
“You mean, am I worried they´re having it on? No, not really. I mean, I know that, if Doris takes it into her head, Sandy hasn´t a chance, and I wouldn´t blame him. But what Doris does is her business. I´ll take her as she comes.” He looked at her. “Does it bother you?”
Helen looked at him, disbelieving. “No. I don´t own him, and anyhow I don´t think he´d make pass at Doris. But I didn´t know there were men like you.”
“I imagine Sandy and I aren´t too different. We each have our own rules and we stick with them.” he said, looking at her.
“I guess you know about my men, Rummy. But that was only after Theo died.”
“I´m sure. And, well, you´re discreet, but I do see a lot of you. Of course I know.”
“And you don´t mind?”
“How could I? There´s Doris, for one thing. And for another, it´s your life, not mine. We each take our own way.”
Helen got up and wandered around the apartment. She poured herself water, drank it. Rummy made another phone call. Helen sat down and went over her notes. After some time, she went to where Rummy was standing by the balcony door, finishing a conversation, and put her arms around him again.
When he put his big hand on her back, she snuggled into him. “Thank you, Rummy. You mean a lot to me, you know. And so does Doris. You´ve helped me put myself together, make a good life.” She drew back and looked up at him. “You seem to have gotten over your fear of skin – of my skin, anyway.”
“Well, I think we´ve settled that,” Rummy said into the top of her head. “But you do feel uncommon good. So, now, do you want to talk about those calls?”
Helen chuckled and unwrapped herself and they moved into a working configuration, but without losing the closeness they had found.
Rummy had not gotten much from his conversations, but had alerted all his contacts to the need for discretion without letting on that there was a deeper issue at stake.
“Werner wasn´t there,” he told her, “but I know I´ll get him in the morning. He´s the one who should have something interesting. The rest of them gave me some information, at least. Seems Dumont´s been the rounds, but he´s stopped talking about labor contracts to our subs. And I´ve ticked a lot of people on our list who are probably in the clear. I´ll get more on the rest of them and pass the lot on to Johannes.” He looked at her pensive face. “Now, there´s another good one,” he said.
“Yes, he is. I´m really sorry to lose him.”
“What do you mean, lose him?”
“We were lovers – I guess you know that – but it turns out he´s got HIV. I´m very fond of him, but he´s off my list.” Then, she looked back at Rummy with a rueful smile. “I haven´t lost him, really. Only his body, not his love or affection, or whatever it is. I think I had forgotten that until he showed up here today. I won´t make that mistake again.”
She tossed her head, “I´ve made a lot of mistakes lately, Rummy, but somehow you and Sandy and Doris are helping me keep them from becoming too serious.
“It´s getting late. I´m going to call Sandy and tell them where to meet us for dinner.” She reached for the telephone as Rummy chuckled deeply. As she dialed, she told him, “For some reason nudists dress for dinner, so you´ll have to, too.”
.oOo.
When they met in the seafood restaurant on the ground floor of the Port Ambonne building, Doris wore a light dress and Sandy wore slacks and a polo shirt. Doris went immediately to Rummy and gave him a big kiss and hug.
“Have a good time?” Rummy asked.
“Thanks, love. I really did.” Doris turned to Helen. “You´ll never guess what we found.”
Helen looked blank, shrugged.
“Videos!” Doris caroled. Then, in a mock whisper, “Dirty videos!”
Helen looked at Sandy, who was looking sheepish. “What are you talking about?”
Doris explained. “I asked Sandy to show me how his computer system works. And we found the videos.” Doris´s innocent voice was belied by her knowing wink at Helen. “Sandy, thanks so much for showing them to me.”
Sandy put his arm around Helen´s waist and laughed aloud. “Oh, you´re welcome, I´m sure.”
Helen snuggled up against Sandy until the Maitre d´ seated them. They ordered drinks and starters and Helen turned to him. “What videos? You never showed me any.”
“I didn´t know about them, then.”
“Doris, what´s he talking about? Fill me in.”
Doris chuckled. For a small person, her voice – and her laugh – was deep in her chest. “He´s got these great videos of Astrid and Jean fucking their brains out.”
“What?” Helen turned to Sandy. “Explain yourself, you bastard.”
“Simple, Helen. I have the whole facility wired for surveillance, including the room you´re required to have for ‘medical emergencies´. The one with a bed, you see. And when someone is moving in an area, it triggers the motion sensors and the system records what they´re doing.”
“And Astrid…”
“Look, Helen, the two of them go around all day wearing less than 100 grams of clothing. You know Astrid´s gorgeous…”
“Boy, you can say that again,” Doris exclaimed.
Helen leered at her, “And so is Jean?” She turned to Sandy. “I´ve never seen either of them.”
“Right,” Sandy said, “so, what´s so surprising?”
“Well, I think it´s kind of nasty, taking those videos. Well, you say the system takes them automatically. But saving them, that qualifies you as a dirty old man.”
“I never knew about them, Helen. It was just when I was showing Doris how the system works that I came upon them.”
“He´s telling the truth, I think, Helen,” Doris said. “There was just this whole directory full of files, and when we looked at them, there it was!”
Helen considered for a moment, looking at Sandy. “Just Astrid and Jean?”
A look of consternation struck Sandy. “I´m not sure. I´ll have to check.”
“What´s that about?” Doris asked.
Helen said, “Sandy and I have spent some time together there, too. But upstairs, in his apartment.” Doris laughed heartily.
Rummy leaned toward Doris, “What´s surprising is that you spent so much time looking at videos.”
“Well, we didn´t really, dear. There´s a lot to see there.” Helen thought Doris sounded disingenuous.
“Sandy,” Helen announced in no uncertain terms, “You´re staying with me tonight, and you´d better have something left over.”
“Yes, ma´am,” Sandy replied. “If nothing else, there´s my tongue.”
“Stop that! Now I´ve got goose bumps.”