Read Online Kismet by Jakob Arjouni - Free Book Online

of peace and a regular income, and they were relatively reliable. Those who kicked up a fuss got slapped down, the industrious got an extra thousand in their bank accounts. In addition, the brothers bought their suits off the peg and knew practically everyone in the district by his first name. The new masters with their made-to-measure suits and diamond rings just about knew the name of the city they were in, took percentages when and how they liked, and if they were in a bad mood disposed of the first handy victim to come along. Agreements were worth nothing, and all you could rely on was trouble. The gangs who moved in behind them sometimes had it easier. Once upon a time, if gangsters of some kind had appeared in the district intending a takeover, the Schmitz brothers knew about it within hours and could count on a large body of supporters. Now no one warnedthe gangland bosses, let alone helped them. Far from it: everyone was happy to see them chucked out. And so it went on for seven years. More and more often, increasingly isolated bosses had to vacate the place faster and faster. They came from Germany, Austria, Italy, Albania, Romania, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Russia, Belarus, and a handful of South American countries. You had the feeling that a kind of criminal Olympic Games was going on in the Frankfurt station district. Taking part was what mattered. Some of them stayed in charge for such a short time that they hardly covered their travel expenses. It was said that one grocer, uninformed about the latest coup, had called ‘Adios’, with friendly intent, after a group of hardboiled thugs, only to have his shop wrecked by the insulted Latvians.
    And now, after a year of relative peace, it looked like trouble again. I knew from the restaurant managers and waiters who had spoken to me that all the gangland bosses of the district had been informed about the Army’s venture into extortion, and were planning to join forces against them. For the last two days a watch had been kept round the clock on all the major street corners. So far, however, the Army members had turned up and disappeared again at such speed that the guards posted hardly had time to flip their mobiles open. So from tomorrow there was always to be cars with drivers ready to block each of the main streets leading out of the district. Within a few minutes a kind of roving commando troop was then to storm in and dispose of the silent wearers of those sharp suits.
    Or that was the idea, anyway. In view of last night and the lightning speed with which the Army people hadreached for their pistols, I was pretty sure that a calculation involving several minutes’ leeway was a miscalculation. I knew the boss of the Albanian gang in the station district, and I had his secret phone number. I could have called him and told him how much notice the Army of Reason, in my experience, took of cars blocking their way. Either they’d simply break through or there’d be a bloodbath. But I also knew the Albanian’s employees, and while I rather liked the man himself, because for a gangland boss he could keep his mouth shut and use his brain surprisingly often, I had no wish at all to tangle with his thugs. Not yet, anyway. First I had to find out who or what this Army was – and who it was I’d shot last night.
    It was just before nine when Slibulsky opened the door to me in his dressing gown. Muttering that he was totally done in after last night and then a day of chasing around, he dragged himself back to the bedroom and got into bed. All around him were piles of open biscuit packets, chocolate bars and bags of jelly babies. There was basketball on TV. ‘The sweets are in the kitchen.’
    I fetched the opened bag of sweets, sat down on the bed beside him and unwrapped one.
Orchard Fruits from Germany, Blackcurrant Flavour
, green wording on a black, red and gold background.
    ‘Looks like an ad for the German armed forces. Maybe you’d have felt embarrassed to go to the