You

Leo bends over Oskar and shakes him. No reaction. Leo slaps him in the face with the palm of his hand. Once, twice, then he steps back. It doesn’t suit him. When Leo takes a step back, it means there’s a problem. You react immediately. Your bodily functions are shutting down. The breathing, the heartbeat. Your blood is flowing slower, your thoughts move like molasses. Reptile, I’m turning into a fucking reptile, you think, when Leo confirms what you were thinking: “He’s gone.”

A few steps and you’re beside Oskar, crouching down in front of him. His skin is pale and shiny in places. It reminds you of dried sushi.

“What’s up with his skin?”

“That’s ice.”

Leo holds his hand out to you; his fingertips are damp.

“He must have frozen to death.”

You want to laugh. It’s over twenty degrees down here, and out there it’s early summer. No one just freezes in the summer, you want to say, but not a word comes out. David comes and stands next to you. You’d rather he kept his distance. It’s your own fault. David is anxious for your acknowledgment, and you aren’t making it easy for him.

“May I?”

You nod, David crouches beside you and taps Oskar’s forehead, there’s a dull tok. David looks for a pulse and then shakes his head.

“Leo’s right. Oskar’s gone.”

You feel Tanner’s and Leo’s eyes on your back, and David is looking at you too. There’s nothing to say, your mind is blank. Oskar deep-frozen on a chair, the vanished merchandise, and then this fucked-up swimming pool. When you can speak again, you say, “I want her to suffer.”

“I’ll see to it,” David replies.

The answer comes too quickly. David wasn’t thinking, even though an order like that doesn’t call for much thinking. He reacted automatically. You hate that. Your men should think and not react.

Both of you get up at the same time; you’re close to one another, so that you can smell his breath.

“David, what did I just say?”

“That she—that she should suffer?”

You grab him between the legs. He tries to move away, thinks better of it and stands still. Only his torso bends slightly forward, that’s all that happens. You press hard.

“What is that, David?”

Sweat appears on his forehead; his answer is a gasp.

“Suffering?”

“No. This isn’t suffering, David. Suffering is when I pull your balls off and let you dive after them in the pool, that would be suffering. Now do you understand what I meant when I said she should suffer?”

“I understand.”

You let go of him. His nostrils are flared, a tear runs down his cheek, his chin is trembling. David is twenty-four, you’re nineteen years older. You understand each other.

“Bring me the boy.”

“But where are we supposed to—”

“Ask Darian,” you interrupt. “He’ll know where you can find him. And David, this is serious. Leave no stone unturned and don’t even think about coming back here without the boy.”

You turn to Tanner.

“Go with him. Leo and I will wait here. You’ve got an hour.”

Tanner nods and leaves with David. You tell Leo to get two chairs. Leo disappears too. At last you’re alone with Oskar, and the tension leaves you and is replaced with a heavy weariness. It should never have come to this, you think, and although you are weary you still want to yell at Oskar and behave like an idiot. He’s gone. Leo couldn’t have put it more appropriately. Once you’re gone, it’s final. It has no beginning, it just has an end. You put your hand on Oskar’s head for a moment. His hair feels greasy; through his scalp you can feel the cold emanating from his body.

What on earth happened to you?

You lift one eyelid as if his gaze might tell you what’s happened here. Come on, talk to me. Nothing. The gaze of a dead man is the gaze of a dead man. It isn’t the first time you’ve seen it. When you let go of the lid again, it closes very slowly.

Leo comes down with the chairs and says, “Christ, it stinks up there.”

You sit down opposite Oskar. Leo’s bulk obscures the chair next to you. Eight years ago, he was still in the ring and it was shaming. As a young man Leo had been national champion twice in a row, then the fire went out, and everyone apart from Leo noticed it. He kept going. When a man turns forty, he can stand wherever he wants, just not in the ring. Leo was one of those stubborn guys whose brain can come trickling out of their ears and they just pull back their shoulders and go on boxing. His second passion almost cost him his life. His gambling debts were in six figures, and if it hadn’t been for Tanner, Leo would have had to go on tour—Thailand and Indonesia loved European flesh. Fights without rules, but the money was good. Tanner bought the aging boxer’s freedom and saved him. Since then Leo’s been working for you and he is at the same time Tanner’s shadow. You don’t know what kind of aftereffects boxing left him with. His face is scarred, most of his nerves don’t work, the hands are deformed paws. He is married to a former model. She treats him like a god. You know you can always rely on Leo. He’s loyal and he can take a beating like no one else. And he hardly misses a thing.

“There’s no TV.”

“So?”

Leo points at Oskar.

“If there’s no TV, then how come Oskar’s holding a TV remote?”

You’re surprised; you hadn’t noticed the remote control. It sticks out from his fingers like a black popsicle. Focus—how could you have overlooked something like that? You bend forward and take Oskar’s hand in yours. For his last birthday you gave him three watches and a watch winder. Oskar was allowed to choose the watches, the watch winder was your department. Its frame is covered with black piano lacquer, and as soon as you touch it, four little lights come on inside. You remember Oskar calling you up after his birthday party and telling you he’d spent an hour sitting in front of the box looking at the watches being rocked to sleep.

There were days when Oskar was like a ten-year-old. What he hadn’t been able to experience as a child, he’d more than made up for as a grown-up. And you were always by his side, like a proud uncle with an overflowing billfold.

The watch on Oskar’s wrist cost you ten grand, but it’s still not cold-resistant. The date tells you that Oskar was deep frozen on Saturday. The watch stopped at twenty to twelve.

Leo asks you if you have any idea what might have happened down here.

“Not a clue,” you answer, and let go of Oskar’s hand. “But if we wait till Oskar’s thawed, I’m sure he’ll tell us.”

Leo doesn’t laugh; even though he knows you were making a joke, laughing would be a mistake. You ignore him, just as you ignore the vaulted basement and the swimming pool and stare with a full focus at your brother’s frozen body, as if it could suddenly give you answers to all your questions.

STINK (#ulink_08b3b8ff-8604-5b5c-96cd-6eb786f96b59)

Stink you got from your brother. It’s miles better than Isabell. As if you were like from Spain or something. Not normal. Like that girl in 9C, the one with the braids. Like a hippie, except a techno one. Wall. Why Wall? As if there was something wrong with her. No, you’re Stink and you want to stay that way. The name stuck, even though your brother left school four years ago. You thought they’d give it a rest after that, but that was wrong, everyone went on calling you Stink, so you started getting used to it. Stink’s okay. Nobody ever says anything about toilets or whatever. And why should they. You smell nice. Perfume is a protection against the outside world.

Protection against guys like Eric, who turns around two seats in front of you and looks at you as if you’re naked from top to toe. You shut your eyes, you really don’t want to see him. Hairless ass. Of course you don’t mean his ass, just his dumb shaved head. As if he’s a soldier on the way to the front, acting cool and shaving his head twice a week, though he’s only got fluff on his chin anyway, he’ll never have enough for a goatee. He’d need to drink more coffee. At least that’s what your aunt says. Aunt Sissi. Drink a lot of coffee and you’ll grow a beard. Hormones and crap. Thanks a lot, Auntie. That’s exactly what you don’t need. Hair all over the place. The only thing that works is Epolotion or whatever it’s called. You’re sure Schnappi can spell it, Schnappi’s always up-to-date like a radio station without ads that collects all the important information and feeds it back to you.

“That hair thing doesn’t take a second,” she explained to you all, “a hot needle goes in”—she showed you and poked it around in her wrist. “It goes into your pores, you know? Or you do it with wax, but the hot needle lasts longer, right? So it goes in where the hair is and then burns your roots and it hisses and it hurts like fuck.”

“Ouch!” yelled Ruth, blond, almost transparent and with no visible hairs on her legs.

“Stop wriggling,” you told her and asked Schnappi how long it would keep working.

“A few months.”