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protection money? Anyway, it was something to do with the fact that the building belonged to my home town, and I had a friend in that home town with a place where I could spend thenight and eat, and if some Mafia outfit from somewhere else got a bloody nose from us, it was their own fault!
    So far, so locally patriotic. A few cops I knew would have been surprised. They might even have spoken to me politely for a change.
    But it wasn’t just the management floors lighting Frankfurt up tonight. As we drove past the station and I turned my head to ask Slibulsky if he knew whether there were any flights to the south at this time of night, I saw a red glow in the sky. Roughly in the direction of the Saudade. People sometimes like to say, after the event, that they knew something at a certain moment, although they really just mean they were afraid of it. All the same, I did know. And I felt I had only to reach out my arm and point a finger for Slibulsky to know too. Anyway, he opened his mouth and left it open for the rest of the drive, his gaze becoming more and more fixed. The closer we came to the Saudade the stronger the smell of burning was. When we finally turned into the road where the Brazilian flag had hung on one street corner for the last seven years, flakes of soot flew to meet us, and the blue lights of police cars were circling the place. The street was sealed off, curious onlookers were standing to right and left, and the Saudade was blazing fiercely.
    We stopped the car at the road block and watched the fire-fighters running back and forth among ladders, hoses and pumps. Several jets of water were directed on the flames. The building, an old one with wooden floors and window frames, had four storeys, and the fire had reached the third. Meanwhile the blocks of flats to left and right had been cleared, and a bunch of sleepy children wrapped in blankets, unkempt men in dressing-gowns, and womenwith handbags and carrier bags were spilling out into the street. A tart was arguing with her client about payment for their unfinished business, and a drunk was offering the fire-fighters hurrying past him cans of beer out of a carrier as if he were in charge of a refreshment stop for marathon runners.
    When the flames reached the fourth floor Slibulsky turned his head. ‘Now what?’ he asked.
    I think I meant to shrug my shoulders, but I only succeeded in hunching them even further. Five hours ago we had set out, we’d had a quick drink in a bar, squeezed into Romario’s cupboard, and all things considered we’d been in a pretty relaxed mood. A stupid job, yes, but not one you couldn’t get done with the help of a spot of bad temper and a few moderately funny jokes. I mean, what were two racketeers come for their protection money who never opened their mouths.? Come on, Slibulsky, we can do this standing on our heads, we just have to puff air in their faces and they’ll leave Romario in peace …
    ‘… Do you think he got out?’
    Slibulsky raised his eyebrows. ‘Drunk as he was?’
    I lit myself a cigarette. My hands were trembling. ‘I don’t think I feel well.’
    ‘I told you, they don’t do things by halves.’
    ‘How could they find out what had happened so quickly?’
    ‘Maybe there was a third man in the car.’
    My mouth dropped open, and I goggled at Slibulsky as if he’d just conjured up a whole flock of pigeons or something. Of course! Why hadn’t we thought of that before? And how come I myself hadn’t worked it out?
    ‘What do you think, have we been acting like idiots?’
    ‘Look, we had a couple of dead bodies on our hands! And if there was a third man it wouldn’t have made any difference.’
    ‘But we could have taken Romario with us.’
    ‘We ought to have got that tall bastard to pay them the six grand.’
    That had been Slibulsky’s view all along. Protection money to the Mafia was just taxation, he thought, only you got a better return for your money. He knew what it was all