Dead Woods - maria c. poets Page 0,74
could find
Franziska Leyhausen?” She looked at him, but he avoided her gaze.
“I assume she’s at work, somewhere around metropolitan Hamburg.
Try reaching her on her cell phone.”
Lina pretended to take notes. Why did the question not surprise
him? He gave the impression that he had expected it.
“When did you talk with her last?” Max asked.
“Sometime last week, I think. Monday or Tuesday.”
“Wasn’t it Wednesday?” Lina asked. “As far as I know, you were
thinking of attending the concert at the Waldschänke with her.”
“True. I completely forgot.” Daniel Vogler looked as if he had
trouble suppressing a yawn. “But it didn’t work out. I had to work
late,” he explained.
“Where do you work?” Max asked.
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“I work at the university, but I’m able to do most of the job from
home. On Thursday night I was logged in at the computer center of the university and worked until almost two in the morning.” He shrugged.
“At night, there’re fewer annoying students asking dumb questions.”
“Are you employed as a computer scientist?”
Daniel Vogler nodded. “As a computer scientist and mathemati-
cian. I’m working on the partial stabilizability of high-dimensional nonergodic Markov network processes which, of course, cannot converge asymptotically to a global equilibrium. What interests me is
whether a virtual stationary distribution—marginal, that is, local—
exists within the dynamics of space and time; whether these local processes converge to t, to infinity, to any measure of probability. This has many connections to output analysis in information technology,” he
explained.
“I see.” Lina hadn’t understood one word and suspected this to be
true for Max as well. She had tried to take notes, but only a few terms, cryptic ones at that, had found their way to the notepad. “And with
such work one makes enough to afford an apartment like this?” she
asked, still floored by his job description.
Vogler laughed and Lina felt like a little child. “Of course not. I
won some money playing poker.”
Lina frowned. Hearing “playing poker” or “winning money” auto-
matically reminded her of the movie The Sting, one of her favorite films. But she didn’t believe Daniel Vogler had sat across from a crime boss in a classy train compartment and outbluffed him. “Where can
one win that much money playing poker?”
Daniel Vogler yawned discreetly. “On the Internet.”
“Gambling for money is prohibited in Germany,” Lina replied.
Vogler laughed out loud, and again it sounded mocking rather
than jovial. “So? Who cares? Besides, poker isn’t gambling, it’s a game of strategy. You don’t believe me? Why don’t you Google it. It’s become the thing to do. And with some idea of math, the whole thing is child’s 187
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play.” He yawned loudly now. “With all the amateurs who are also trying it . . .”
Lina looked at Max and rolled her eyes. Daniel Vogler obviously
considered himself invincible. But who knows. Someone who tackles
nonergodic distribution and asymptotic networks in his job probably
does have plenty of gray matter.
While Lina was doodling on her notepad, Max asked, “Do you
happen to know any other friends of Frau Leyhausen?”
“No, it was always just the two of us when we met. Wait a moment,”
he added. “There’s Barbara. I’ve met her two or three times, but I don’t know her last name.” He covered his mouth and yawned.
Lina pricked up her ears and leaned back on the couch. “So you
aren’t seeing Frau Leyhausen anymore?” she asked, watching Vogler
attentively.
The man gave her an annoyed look. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t
I be?”
“Because you used the past tense. You said, ‘It was always just the
two of us when we met.’”
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
Daniel Vogler shrugged, folded his right leg over his left, and
crossed his arms. “That means nothing. I’m rather more talented in
math than in language usage.”
On the street again, Lina took a deep breath. “Wow, what kind of guy was that?”
“A nerd,” Max said. Then he grinned. “He’d be at least a fifth dan in martial arts.”
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Lina laughed. “Tanja Fischer said he’s a catastrophe in social
settings. Now I know what she meant.” Then she got serious again.
“What’s your impression?”
Max climbed into the passenger seat and put on his seat belt. He
waited for Lina to start the car before he said, “Maybe you should tip off White-Collar Crimes. Gambling for money is illegal.”
“Maybe he got paid for the industrial espionage and he uses poker
to cover it up,” Lina suggested. Something, some inconsistency, gnawed at her, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Replacing one illegal gain with another?” Max shook his head.
“That would be stupid, wouldn’t it?”
“Or, on the contrary, very clever.” Lina looked into the rearview
mirror and signaled. It had stopped raining, but it was still gloomy,