Snow White Must Die (Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, #4)(42)

“I’m not interested in that anymore, Mother,” he snapped. “It has nothing to do with me.”

“But—” she began, but he didn’t let her finish speaking.

“Leave me alone!” he snarled. “Don’t you get it? I don’t want you to contact me ever again! Just stay away from me, the way you’ve always done.”

With that he turned on his heel and left her standing there. He strode to the escalator that led down to the S-Bahn commuter train station.

* * *



They stood in the garage drinking beer out of the bottle, just like before. Tobias felt uncomfortable, and all the others looked like they did too. Why in the world had he come here? Much to his surprise his old friend J?rg had called that afternoon and invited him over to have a beer along with Felix and a couple of other old pals. In their youth they had often met in the big garage that belonged to J?rg’s uncle to tinker with their motor-assisted bicycles, later with their mopeds, and finally with their cars. J?rg was a gifted auto mechanic who had dreamed since he was a boy of becoming a race-car driver. The garage was just as Tobias remembered it, smelling of motor oil and lacquer, of leather and polish. They sat on the same old workbench, on turned-over beer crates, and on piles of car tires. Nothing around them had changed. Tobias stayed out of the conversation, which had an air of forced camaraderie, no doubt because of his presence. Each of the men had greeted him with a handshake, of course, but the joy of seeing each other again was somewhat constrained. After a while Tobias, J?rg, and Felix found themselves standing together. Felix had become a roofer with his father’s company. Even as a teenager he was powerfully built, and the hard work combined with avid beer consumption over the years had turned him into a colossus. His jovial eyes almost vanished in a layer of fat when he laughed. Tobias was reminded of a raisin bun. J?rg, on the other hand, looked almost the same as he used to, except that his hairline had receded quite a ways.

“So what did Lars wind up doing?” Tobias asked.

“Not what his old man had hoped.” Felix gave a malicious grin. “Even rich people have problems with their kids. In this case one of them is a moron and the other one told his father to f*ck off.”

“Lars has really made a cushy career for himself,” said J?rg. “My mom told me, she heard it from a relative. Investment banking. Big-time money. He’s married with two kids, and he bought a huge villa in Glashütten after he got back from England.”

“I thought he always wanted to study theology and become a pastor,” said Tobias. To his amazement it still hurt to think about his best friend who had disappeared from his life so suddenly.

“Well, I never wanted to be a roofer either.” Felix popped another bottle of beer with the opener on his key chain. “But the army didn’t want me and the police didn’t either, and I gave up on the bakery apprenticeship shortly after … uh … you know…”

He broke off, lowering his eyes in embarrassment.

“And after my accident I could write off my career as a race-car driver,” J?rg hastened to add before the silence got even more awkward. “So I didn’t wind up in the Formula 1, but at the Black Horse instead. You know that my sister married Jagielski, don’t you?”

Tobias nodded. “My father told me.”

“Ah.” J?rg took a swig from the beer bottle. “It seems like none of us got to do what we dreamed of doing.”

“Nathalie did,” Felix countered. “Man, did we ever laugh when she said she wanted to be a famous actress!”

“She always was ambitious,” said J?rg. “The way she used to boss us around. But I never thought she’d turn into such a celebrity.”

“Well, yeah.” Tobias smiled wryly. “Just like I never dreamed I’d learn locksmithing in the joint or study economics.”

His friends hesitated for a moment, embarrassed, but then they laughed. The alcohol was loosening them up. After the fifth bottle of beer Felix turned talkative.

“To this day I blame myself for telling the cops that we’d gone back to your place, man,” he said to Tobias, dropping his hand on his shoulder.

“You guys just told the truth.” Tobias shrugged. “Nobody had any idea what it would all lead to. But it doesn’t matter now. I’m back, and I’m really glad that you guys don’t cross the street when you see me, like most of the people here.”

“Bullshit.” J?rg slapped his other shoulder. “We’re friends, man! Remember how we fixed up that old Opel that my uncle spent a thousand hours restoring? And how we drove the shit out of it? Man, those were the days!”

Tobias remembered, and Felix did too. So now they’d reached the Remember when phase. The party at the Terlindens when the girls got naked and ran around the house wearing Mrs. Terlinden’s furs. Micha’s birthday when the cops showed up. The tests of courage at the cemetery. The trip to Italy with the junior soccer club. The bonfire on St. Martin’s Day that got out of hand because Felix had used a canister of gasoline to get it going. They couldn’t stop laughing and recalling the old days. J?rg had to wipe away tears of laughter.

“Do you guys remember how my sister stole my old man’s key ring and we raced around inside the old airplane hangar? Man, that was cool!”

* * *