“Na geh,” said Andreas, batting the flashlight away.
“Should we let him sleep here?” Fernando asked her.
“Not after Beate warned me away. Call him a cab and make sure he gets home.”
Fernando hoisted Andreas by the arm and led him outside. He whistled for a taxi. So loud.
“Oida. Ned so laud! I hob so an Schädl.”
“Oh, you have a headache? I wonder howthathappened,” Fernando said. “Where’s your phone? Unlock it.” He held up Andreas’s phone. “Smile, Officer.”
Andreas grinned, eyes closed, as the camera’s digital shutter clicked.
Fernando tapped the screen.Whoosh. Ding.The taxi pulled up, and Fernando loaded him in, handed the driver cash, and said, “I want proof he arrived safely. Call the Hotel.” He blew Andreas an air kiss. “Bussi, Baba,Detective.”
Andreas awoke the next morning, feeling better than he had in years. Whatever was in Fernando’s magic aspirin had given him boundless energy. He checked his phone.Oida.At three a.m. he’d sent a photo of himself to the bellhop. Not a flattering shot. He was leaning on Fernando’s shoulder outside the Hotel. Sterling’s curvy silhouette was framed behind them, watching through the glass door, light catchingwisps of her red hair. He highlighted the photo and clickedDelete message for all.Then he erased it from his own phone.
A call notification popped up. Beate. He answered.
“I feel like I’m dying. I may already be dead. We’re never doing that again. You must be even worse,” she croaked.
“Actually, I feel fantastic. I’m going for a run. Perk up, you party animal. We have a case to solve!”
— 39 —Neununddreißig
There’s magic in small cities, and when you aren’t looking, they move the sidewalks around. You never know who you might run into.
Early in her courtship with Harry, Sterling learned to maneuver the map in her favor. She’d stopped grocery shopping at the Naschmarkt and switched to a store near St. Stephen’s that was overpriced and inundated with tourists but near the Loos Bar.
The days she’d whiled away in fits of pathetic longing now proved useful. She knew Harry’s schedule in unhealthy detail that loitered at the edge of obsession. Harry arrived a few hours before the bar opened and began her shift arranging outdoor chairs and warming up heat lamps, after which she walked Otis around the block. She stopped by a florist to pick up roses for the counter, pausing before and after to smoke a joint.
Sterling hid in a shop across the street, flipping through a rack ofDirndln. Proper traditional dresses, not cheap costumes tourists wore to Oktoberfest. Through the window, she watched Harry and Otis turn the corner, then hustled outside.
Her trench coat was short enough to reveal the lace band of her thigh-high stockings. Which meant she was fucking freezing. She strutted into the Loos Bar, heels clacking on checkerboard tiles, drawing Lukas’s attention. The assistant barman looked up from the limes he was slicing, his knife glinting.
“We don’t open until—oh, sorry, I thought you were a customer,” he said.
She winked over lowered sunglasses.
Lukas scanned her outfit with tired eyes, the dark circles under them the same color as his chin-length brown curls, a few of which had escaped his ponytail. “Harry will be back in twenty. I haven’t mastered her Sterling martini,” he said, setting down the knife, then drying his hands on the tea towel draped over his shoulder. He reached for an olive jar.
“I’m okay without. Mind if I wait in her office? I have a surprise,” she said, swiveling her leg to show off her stockings, trusting his imagination to fill in the blanks.
“Um, sure,” he said.
He grabbed keys from his back pocket while leading her down spiral stairs to the basement. As they passed the ice machine, sheaccidentallybumped the camera wires with her hip, as Harry described. The cramped halls were dim, and aged photos of celebrities who’d visited the Loos Bar peered from the shadows. Lukas unlocked the office. She slipped past him and wiggled her fingers goodbye as she shut the door. His steps creaked up the stairs and thumped overhead, returning to the bar.
A beaten-up desk sat in front of supply shelves, which were her first target. Harry kept the storage racks meticulous, but her desktop was as disorganized as her love life. Sterling worked her way up from the bottom shelf, picking up each bottle and box, checking it for signs of Nightingale, then replacing it in the same position. Asshe climbed onto the second shelf to reach the top rack, it groaned under her weight. Rude.
Without music playing, every noise in the old building cut through the thin walls, threatening to give her away. She strained and stretched her arm, sliding boxes of turbinado sugar aside. Her fingers grazed the corner of a small cardboard box, already opened. She rose onto her toes and notched it forward until she could grab it. She let out a relieved breath and stepped down, treasure in hand. It was a half-empty box of sugar cubes with the Nightingale logo on them.
That fucker.
Sweat from her hands stained the cardboard. Her already racing heart sped even more when she saw the time on the clock by the door. She sang an old movie-musical tune to cover the shelf’s creaking as she clambered up to restore the cubes to their hiding place.
Harry’s messenger bag hung on a squeaky swivel chair. Anticipating the old chair’s whine, she raised her voice before lifting it. Luckily, her off-key singing prompted Lukas to turn on the radio. Her great-great-great-grandmother had been an opera singer. Her mother could carry a tune. It must have skipped her generation.
She searched through the bag. Dog treats for Otis, bundles of jute rope, a few small toys, oneverythick strap and harness, a half-empty bag of gummy frogs, and a vial of white powder. But Sterling was after something more valuable: Harry’s little black book.
