CHAPTER 12

The next whole day was so depressing that I took a walk. Passing a coffee house, I went in. I had a feeling I had been followed, but I do have an active imagination. The guy I thought was following me came into the coffee house behind me so I thought to test him by leaving again.

As I neared the door, he stepped in front of me and stopped. He gave me an insolent stare.

“You’re Bobuck?”

He silently opened his jacket to show a badge, I understood at once, the guy was an undercover cop and he whipped out handcuffs.

“What am I supposed to have done?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” he said rudely.

At the police station, two grubby desks with panels hiding the occupants stood facing each other; between them were a couple of rickety chairs; a photograph of the President looked down on a goldfish tank on the window-ledge. Otherwise the room was empty.

“Your name is Charles Bobuck and you are,” he looked at a sheet of paper,” a gem engraver.”

“I restore antiques, specializing in antique jewelry.”

Suddenly the detective was full of warmth, as if he had just heard the most gratifying news. He stretched out both hands towards me and made grotesque attempts to sound harmless.

“Tell me, Mr. Bobuck, since when has your friend, Angelina Bochum, been having this affair with Anton Savioli?” I did not bat an eyelid.

I said I did restoration work for Mrs. Bochum, but knew nothing of her private life.  In spite of that, I had the feeling he could tell whenever I was lying and was inwardly fuming that he had not managed to get anything out of me.

He thought for a moment, “Charles, your late father was my best friend. I want to save you, but you’ll have to tell me everything about Mrs. Bochum. Everything.”

I had no idea what he was talking about. “What do you mean, "my late father?” I asked him.

The detective looked up at me, cleared his throat saying, “We suspect you in the murder of Carl Zottmann.”

I was speechless. The detective also seemed rather taken aback by my legitimate surprise. He could spot truth as easily as he spotted lies.

“I don't know anyone named Carl Zottmann.”

“Are you prepared to repeat that under oath?” My heart missed a beat.

“Yes. Anytime you like.”

The detective took a softer approach, “Tell me, Charles, it was self-defense, wasn’t it?”

“What was self-defense?” I asked, completely mystified.

“ZOTTMANN!” The detective suddenly yelled the name at me, and it struck me like a blow from a dagger.

"This watch”…he produced the battered watch Wasser had left with me.  “Was poor Zottmann still alive when you stole it from him or not?”

I had calmed down now that I understood Wasser’s game of setting me up and simply stated, “Frankie Wasser, gave me that watch to repair.”

The officers snickered.

I was led to another room and a man ordered me to take off all my clothes. He looked through my pockets, taking out everything he found in them.  When he pulled out that iPhone I had taken from Starbucks, I had to smile thinking that I really must return that phone to its rightful owner some day.  He asked me if I had lice. When I said no, he said I could get dressed again.I was taken to a cell, I saw that one bunk was empty, but the other three were occupied by men sitting with their elbows on their knees and their faces in their hands. No one spoke a word. I sat on the empty bunk and waited. Waited. Waited. One hour. Two hours. Three hours.

Whenever I thought I heard a step, I sat up. Each time my hopes were dashed as the sound of the steps faded down the corridor.
 
It was nearing midnight. Behind me I heard snoring. There was only one of the others who seemed unable to sleep. He tossed and turned in the bunk, sometimes moaning softly to himself.

Bit by bit I started to work out what must have happened. Wasser had tricked me into having Zottmann’s watch so that I would be suspected of murder. He must be the murderer himself, or hired someone to do it.
What was obvious was that Wasser had informed against me and was probably in league with the detective. Why else the interrogation about Savioli?

I hoped that the news of my arrest spread. I trusted Seven would help. Wasser could not match that guy’s quick mind. I was certain that the judge would believe me when I tell him the story of the watch and Wasser’s threats. I was sure to be free by tomorrow, and that the court would order Wasser’s arrest on suspicion of murder. I counted the hours, wishing for them to pass more quickly. All the while I stared out into the black murk outside.

Finally the sky began to get lighter.

After a few more hours the door bolts rattled and the guard took me to the examining judge. My knees trembled as we went up and down stairs.

“Do you think it’s possible I might be let out today?” I asked the guard anxiously. I saw him repress his smile, out of pity for me, but he did not speak.

Another bare room and another two desks. In front of one stood a tall, old man with white bushy hair neatly parted down in the middle, thick red lips and creaky shoes.

“You are Charles Bobuck?”

“Yes.”

“Gem engraver?”

“I restore antique jewelry,” I corrected.

“Cell 70?”

“Yes.”

“Held on suspicion of the murder of Carl Zottmann?”

“I’m unsure, I have not been charged with anything.”

“Have you signed a confession?”

“There is nothing to confess, I’m innocent?"

“Have you signed a confession?” he repeated.

“No.”

“Remanded to custody. Guard, take the man out.”

“Please listen to me, your Honor. It is imperative that I get home today. I have important things to do.”

“Guard, take this man out.”

Days crept by, week followed sluggish week, and still I was sitting in my cell. At twelve o’clock every day we were allowed out into the prison courtyard with the other convicts and prisoners on remand to trudge around on the damp earth for twenty minutes. Talking to each other was forbidden.

In the middle of the yard was a bare, half-dead tree; an oval picture of the Virgin Mary painted on glass had grown into the bark. Along the walls ran a scraggy privet hedge, its leaves almost black from soot.  All around were the barred windows of our cells from which, occasionally, we could see a putty-colored face with anemic lips looking down at us.

After the twenty minutes it was back up to our living tombs. In all that time I had had only one further interrogation. Sometimes I would throw myself onto the bunk and hold my breath until I almost burst, trying to force my double, my TAR, to appear so that I could send it to find Seven. It did appear beside my bunk one time, but disappeared before I could order it to do anything.

And why no news from my friends? My nails were all torn from biting them, and my hair was a tangled mass. Most of the time I was fighting against nausea because the food was loaded with saltpeter to keep us from getting horny. That seemed largely a failure as best I could tell. I grew so used to seeing my cell mates masturbate that in time I gained the same not-giving-a-shit as them and masturbated openly.

Time passed in awful, grey monotony. There were moments—all of us at some time fell prey to them—when one or another would jump off his bunk and pace up and down for hour after hour like a wild animal. Then collapse back onto his mattress and lie there listlessly waiting—waiting—waiting.

______

The sunshine was as hot as in the middle of summer and the tired tree in the courtyard had put out a few buds. When I asked the guard what the date was, he was silent for a moment, then whispered that it was the fifteenth of May.

The three months I had been in prison without being charged were making me see a lot of things in my life differently! There was something strange in the idea that there were people outside who could do whatever they liked, who could move around and go here or there and yet not feel intoxicated by it. I was no longer capable of imagining that I would ever be in that position again, able to walk through the streets in the sunshine. When I thought back to my former life, it was with the kind of mild sadness that comes when you open a book and find a flower between the pages, a moment from your lost innocence.

My sense of being the victim of a conspiracy grew every day.

The guard shoved a new inmate into the cell. As soon as I saw him, I recognized him as being from the neighborhood. I wanted to start asking him questions right away, but to my astonishment he put a finger to his lips indicating that I should say nothing. Only when the door had been locked and the guard’s steps died away down the corridor did he come to life. My heart was thumping with excitement. What could it mean? Did he know who I was?

“My time is short. Listen to me. My name is Boyd Wenzel and I have a photographic memory,” he formally stated. Then his eyes rolled up and to the right. He paused for a beat.

“Greetings from Seven Coleman,” He cleared his throat.
Then from memory he started reciting:

“Charles,
Week after week I have waited for you to be released, I have tried everything I can think of to collect evidence to prove your innocence, but I could not find any. I begged the examining judge to expedite the proceedings, but every time the reply was that there was nothing he could do, that was the responsibility of the prosecution and not his.
Bureaucrats passing the buck!

But now, only an hour ago, I came across something which looks promising: I learned that Jerome sold Wasser a gold watch which he found in his brother's bed after he was arrested. I suspect that it was Zottmann’s watch.

I talked to Jerome and gave him 300 dollars to testify to that fact.
I had no way of contacting you directly until I heard of the remarkable man from The Residence currently sitting with you.”

Wenzel’s eyes sparkled a bit at that point but he never broke from his speech.

“I have no doubt that Louis committed the murder and that the watch is Zottmann’s. Zottmann was an ongoing john for Rosita and Louis' temper must have gone out of control.  With any luck your release may be quite close now.

Then there is this:
Wasser is dead. The gossip is that Wasser confronted Savoli and in the struggle Wasser was killed. It was ruled self-defence. Ironically, knowing I was his son, he made me his heir because he imagined I was the only person on earth to whom he could make amends.

It turned out that Wasser owned a huge amount of the neighborhood which he had sold to a developer for the construction of a new convention center. I cannot even bring myself to tell you how fucking rich I am. The man I hated, the man who destroyed my mother, has made me one of the wealthiest persons in the country.

My hatred is a hatred that goes beyond the grave though, and I still have my own blood to fight his blood. Every day since they buried his bones I have been sitting beside his grave hoping to resolve this conflict in my mind. We humans are an impure animal, and often it takes weeks of fasting until we can understand the whispering of our soul.

I assure you, Charles, that I will not touch one penny of this goddamn money. I will not be controlled from beyond the grave. I am going to give it all away.

I think that is everything. Goodbye, my dear, dear friend.
With sincere love,

Seven.

Oh yeah, Angelina divorced her husband and she, her daughter and Anton Savioli moved to Canada.”



However happy I was for Angelina’s sake, I felt a sting. All I have suffered for her and now I am forgotten.

Wenzel snapped back from his self-induced trance saying his work was now finished. He had confessed to a crime that never happened so he would soon be tossed out of the cell.

He was right. Wenzel was soon removed and a new prisoner brought in.
The prisoner spoke to me. “Hello, my name is Laponder, Andrew Laponder.”

I turned around. A slightly built and still fairly young man in an expensive looking suit offered his hand to me. He was closely shaven, and there was something intriguing about his large, light-green eyes. However directly they were looking at me, they did not seem to see me; there was something missing. I muttered my name, intending to turn away again immediately, but for a long time I could not take my eyes off him. With his smooth, transparent skin, his narrow, feminine nose and delicate nostrils, he looked almost like a statue of the Buddha sculpted in rose quartz. Andrew Laponder, I thought to myself. ‘What crime can you have committed?’