The Water-Method Man

He stops, seeing several Hawelka customers observing his excitement. 'Well, where is he?' Trumper asks the man who knows Zorn-Witwers.

'I knew the car, was all I said,' the man answers.

'But you've actually seen him ...' Bogus turns back to the girl.

'Ja, but not in a while,' she says, and the boy she's with gives Bogus an irritated stare.

'How long since you've seen him?' Bogus asks her.

'Look,' the girl says, annoyed. 'I don't know any more about him. I just remember him, is all ...' Her tone silences those around her.

Trumper stares at her, disappointed; perhaps he begins to sway, or else his eyes roll, because a high-bosomed, thick-maned girl with neon-green eyeshadow catches his arm, pulling him down to her table.

She asks, 'You have problems?' He tries to pull away, but she coaxes him more gently. 'No, seriously, what is the problem?' When he doesn't respond, she tries him in English, even though he's spoken German all along. 'You have troubles, do you?' She trills the word 'troubles' in such a way that Bogus sees it floating, like a written word: Tttrrrubbles.

'You need help?' the girl asks, returning to German.

There's a waiter near them now, darting nervously. Trumper remembers that the waiters at the Hawelka always seemed fearful of tttrrrubbles.

'You sick?' the waiter asks. He takes Trumper's arm, causing him to strain against the girl's grip and drop his laden suitcase. It makes an unlikely clank, and the waiter backs off, awaiting the explosion. People nearby eye the suitcase as if it's stolen or lethal, or both.

'Please, just talk to me,' says the neon-green girl. 'You can tell me everything,' she claims. 'It's all right.' But Bogus gathers up his suitcase, looking away from this fierce female ... who would make a fine Den Mother for some Erotic Club.

Everyone stares while Trumper checks to see if his fly is closed. He distinctly remembers removing a condom ...

Then he's out of there, not quite escaping the prophecy of the strange bearded fellow in black near the door. 'It's around the corner,' says the prophet with such conviction that Bogus shudders.

He turns out on the Graben, cutting toward Stephansplatz. It wasn't around that corner, he reassures himself, thinking that the prophet must have been speaking figuratively, which is the safe and sneaky way all prophets speak.

He means to look next for Merrill in the Twelve Apostles' Keller, but he loses his way and ends up in the Hohner Markt, all of whose wooden vegetable and fruit stands are tarpaulined for the night; he imagines the venders asleep under the canvas. The place looks like an outdoor morgue. The Twelve Apostles' Keller always was a bitch to find.

He asks a man for directions, but it's clearly the wrong person to ask; the man just gawks at him.

'Kribf?' he says, or something like that. Trumper doesn't understand. Then the man makes certain odd motions, as if reaching into his pockets for smuggled watches, fake meerschaum pipes, dirty pictures or a gun.

Bogus runs back to Stephansplatz and up the Graben. Finally, he stops under a streetlight to read his watch; it's past midnight, he's sure, but he can't remember how many time zones he's crossed since Iowa, or even if he's thought about this before and already corrected his watch. It says it's two-fifteen.

A well-dressed woman of uncertain age comes toward him on the sidewalk, and he asks her if she has the time.

'Sure,' she says, and stops beside him. She is wearing a rich-looking fur coat, with her hands in a matching muff; and fur boots, with heels, which she shifts. She stares at Trumper, puzzled, then extends her elbow to him. 'It's this way,' she says, a little annoyed that he hasn't taken her arm.

'The time?' he says.

'Time?'

'I asked, "Do you have the time?"'

She stares, shakes her head, then smiles. 'Oh, the time - what time is it?' she says. 'The hour, you mean?'

Then he realizes that she's a whore. He's on the Graben, and the first-district prostitutes cover the little streets off the Graben and the Karntner Strasse at night.

'Uh,' he says, 'I'm sorry. I don't have the money. I just wondered, did you know what time it is?'

'I don't have a watch,' the prostitute tells him, looking both ways along the street; she doesn't want to discourage a potential customer by being seen with Trumper. But no one's around except another prostitute.

'Is there a pension near here?' Bogus asks. 'Not too expensive.'

'Come on,' she says, and walks off ahead of him to the corner of Spiegelgasse. 'Down there,' she points to a blue neon light. 'The Pension Taschy.' Then she walks away, heading down the Graben toward the other prostitute.