I like my eggs— fried eggs flipped over just before being served.
She brought pepper and nutmeg. “Another pot of coffee?”
“I'd like one, too, please.” He pulled up a chair and sat down opposite me. I recognized his voice even before he introduced himself as Salger. I only nodded and looked at him. A full face, high forehead, heavy frame, an aura of bourgeois ponderousness. I could imagine him in the gray flannel of a teacher, the dark blue pinstripes of a banker, or even the robes of a judge or pastor. Now he was wearing a leather jacket, flannel pants, and a sweater. He must have been in his midforties. If I had been able to see his eyes, I could have decided if the expression around his mouth indicated pain, irony, or heartburn. But his eyes remained hidden behind mirrored sunglasses.
“I owe you an explanation, Herr Self. I knew you were a good detective, and I should have known that you'd be able to see through my little game of hide-and-seek. I hope you won't hold it against me. It would be terrible if you took all this as a lack of confidence in your competence and integrity. It was more a matter of…” He shook his head. “No, let me put it differently…” The waitress brought two pots of coffee, and he asked her to bring him some honey. He silently added cream and honey to the coffee, stirred it, and sipped it with delight.
“You see, I've known Leonore Salger for many, many years. I can't really say that we grew up together, because of the difference in our ages. It was a kind of big-brother and baby-sister thing, far apart in age but inwardly close—you know the connection I mean? A bitter father, a drunken mother,” he shook his head again. “That made Leo look for the kind of stability in an older brother that one would usually look for in one's parents. Do you know what I mean?”
I didn't say anything. I could take a look in Leo's album later on. If his story was true, I would find pictures of him.
“You could say that I didn't lie to you about my paternal concern for her. I felt, and still feel, the way you experienced me on the phone. Leo disappeared at the beginning of the year, and I'm worried that she has ended up in bad company and a bad situation. I think she needs help, even though she perhaps doesn't know it. I'm really, really worried that—”
“Is it your help she needs?”
Salger demonstrated a penchant for dramatic effect. He leaned back in his chair, slowly raised his right hand, took off his sunglasses, and looked at me calmly. Pain, irony, or heartburn? The look beneath his heavy eyelids didn't tell me more than the expression about his mouth.
“My help, Herr Self, my help. I know Leo, and I also know”—he hesitated—”the situation she might have gotten herself into.”
“What situation?”
“Some of it you know, some of it you might suspect—that is enough. I haven't come here to give information but to get information. Where is Leo?”
“I still don't understand what you want from her. You have also not clarified why you lied to me. You haven't even introduced yourself. Herr Salger? No, that you are not Herr Salger we already know. Herr Lehmann? The grandson who wants to open a gallery where his grandmother barely had enough space to lay out her buttons and threads? And what am I supposed to know or suspect about Leo's dangerous situation? I've had enough of your tactics and lies. I am not demanding when it comes to the extent of the trust between my clients and myself. I don't expect all-out openness. But you will either lay the facts on the table or we will go to the Badische Beamtenbank where you can take back your ten thousand marks and we can say good-bye.”
First he closed his eyes tightly. Then he raised his eyebrows, sighed, smiled, and said: “But Herr Self.” His hand slipped into the pocket of his jacket and reappeared with a business card that he placed before me on the table. Helmut Lehmann, investment consultant, Beethovenstrasse 42, 6000 Frankfurt am Main 1. “I want to speak to Leo. I want to ask her if I can help her, and how I can help her. Is that so difficult to understand? And why the high horse?” His eyes had narrowed again, and his voice was low