The landscape of gloomy apartment blocks and concrete roads of Marzahn was only one of many souvenirs the DDR had left behind. The buildings, bulky and square, the setting sun reflected in the hundreds of tiny windows, towered imposingly over the tiny Seat as it drove past them. Gilbert leaned back in his chair, half-burned cig in one hand and the other closed so tightly around the keys he could feel his blood pounding through his palm. The key tag was as yellow as the flaking paint on some of the balconies they passed, it was large and square and nearly identical to the one the girl at the restaurant had carried with her. He was unable to stop staring at it, it was almost as if it would burn a hole through his hands. He let out a heavy sigh, listening to it soft tinkly sounds as he clenched and unclenched his hand around it.. He stuck his arm out of the car, feeling the soft summer breeze tickle his fingers as he let the key dangle dangerously off of his index finger. He could still turn back now. His heart stilled in his throat as the car suddenly swerved to the left, the once-cold-now-lukewarm and sweaty key ring slipping out of his grip, only relaxing once he tightly wrapped his hands around it once again, the sharp ridges stinging his palm.
"You wanna kill us, Toni!?" He yelled angrily as the Seat's chassis groaned in misery and the driver of an oncoming car shook his fist at them.
"Oh shut it, Gil. I did not see him coming, I was too distracted by your fidgeting!" Antonio, dressed in lime-green sweatpants and a black tank that showed off his muscled arms, muttered, eyes never leaving the road. "What are you so stressed out about?"
"I already told you, it's nothing." Gilbert snarled, avoiding his friend's eyes, dropping the keys in his lap and raising the cigarette to his lips. "Turn left here."
"Where are we going anyway?" Antonio said curiously. His curly hair stuck to his sweaty forehead, as he had just returned from his dance classes.
"Here, Marzahn." Gilbert replied gloomily, flicking his cigarette, watching as the ashes swirled out of the window before they were dragged down to the cooling concrete.
Antonio let out a surprised laugh, Gilbert could see his raised eyebrows in the car mirror. "Marzahn? Isn't that all just Soviet-style flats and general misery?"
"Well, I'm not here to go sightseeing, Toni." Gilberts voice was a little less sarcastic and a bit more shaky than he would've liked.
"Well, what do you wanna do here?" Antonio mimicked him, the corners of his mouth twitching up just a little. "I kinda want to know what I'm wasting all of this gass for."
There were tiny imprints of the key left in the soft flesh of his palm as he opened his hand to look at it again. He could still turn back, but he knew very well he wouldn't. The half empty pack of Marlboro on his lap proved that he didn't possess much self-control anyway.
"Get cash. I smashed that British fuck's car." He said semi-casually, tossing his cig out of the window.
Antonio nearly steered off the road. "You did what!?"
"Broke his window. 550 bucks or he'll sue me." It was either pissing on a dead man's grave or digging his own. Ludwig's too.
Toni laughed. "Gilbert, you idiot! That car of his is expensive! He spent at least 40 minutes talking about it when I first met him. I'm pretty sure he'll make you repay the entire thing if you don't pay up in time."
"His car and Fran's' next nose-job too, probably." Gilbert said grimly.
Antonio snorted, then composed himself. "Ay amigo, don't be mean." He shook his head, chuckling. "Ahh, Arthur Kirkland. He's a..special man, no?"
"Tell me all about it." Gilbert laughed, reaching for another cigarette. Honestly, if he carried on like this, he had to rob at least five more dead bodies. "Dude's got a stick up his ass bigger than the Eiffel tower. How has Francis not murdered him yet?"
Antonio shrugged. "It's a mystery to me, those two seem like water and fire to me. But hey, that's when Fran is at his happiest, apparently. I mean, we've seen it before." He smiled nostalgically, giving Gilbert a suggestive look, only to frown when Gilbert gave him a disgusted expression.
"Don't even go there, Antonio, I swear to God." He snapped, cheeks flushing red. The sinful explosive mess that used to be his relationship with Francis was the last thing he wanted to think about while he was about to break in to the apartment of his drug dealer who was busy decomposing behind a bush in a park in Pankow.
"According to Google Maps, we should be there in five min-" He was interrupted by the car creaking dangerously. "-minutes. That is, if your 'car' can hold out that long before it collapses."
"Oi!" Antonio said, eyes narrowing. "Careful, Gilly! Everyone who insults my dear old Seat ends up on my list of enemies."
Gilbert blew out a thick cloud of smoke, coughing harshly. "I'm probably on enough lists as it is. This morning a bitch tried to-"
Murder me with a kitchen knife. He paused. If he wanted to keep his old friend out of the mess he was currently getting himself into, it was better not to let Antonio know what had happened to him in the past few days. And while Antonio had disappointed him in some ways, such as not calling him after Francis had kicked him out that horrible night of the reunion to make sure he was even alive, or basically allowing Francis to burn his self-esteem to the ground, he still didn't deserve to get caught up in a murder and the mess surrounding it.
"Never mind, I think we're here."
"Which one is it?" Antonio said curiously.
Gilbert peered at his phone, then out the window. "The building with the blue and white balconies at the corner, Elizabeth apartments, over there."
"Okay I'll park right here then." Antonio said, parking at the side of the road. "Good luck with uh, whatever you're doing. Are you going to get money from a friend?"
Gilbert shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, staring at the keys in his lap. "U-uh, something like that, yeah."
Antonio, oblivious as ever, just beamed at him. "Okay cool! Hooray for the power of friendship, right?"
Gilbert nodded awkwardly. He tried to his best to keep his face neutral, but he must have failed, as Toni's face fell. "Oh Gil, I'm sorry. I know that things with Fran are a bit tense right now, it was inconsiderate of me to mention-"
"It's not that!" Gilbert snapped harshly. Why was it that everybody insisted on speaking to him like he was some sort of pathetic child? "Just drop me off, okay?"
"Yeah sure." Antonio muttered. "I'm still just trying to help amigo, jeez. I got your back. No need for the attitude man."
Gilbert was too stressed out to feel guilty, instead quickly opening the door of the car. "Can you pick me up in an hour or something?"
Antonio gave him a confused look. "You're not sleeping over?" He gestured to the large black sports bag that was perched between Gilbert's legs.
"See. You. In. An. Hour." Gilbert hissed through gritted teeth, slinging the bag over his shoulder as he got out of the car, walking away as quickly as he could without looking back, only slightly relaxing as he heard Toni's car drive away.
His footsteps sounded hollow in the otherwise empty stairwell as Gilbert Beilschmidt climbed towards the site of his first real crime. The setting sun bathed the landscape of Marzahn, bulky towers and straight concrete roads with thin patches of green in between, in an orange glow. Some children were playing football on a playground below, their shrieking laughter could be heard echoing through the galleries. Gilbert tightened his hands around the satchel of his bag, the rough fabric scraping his palms. He counted the numbers, 12..13..14.. Almost there.
The door was made out of metal, appearing as if it hadn't been long ago since it was last painted, dark blue paint looking as if had only just dried. Two white numbers informed him that this was indeed number 16, but otherwise the door bore no remarkable traits. There wasn't even a name tag, which as Gilbert thought about Ned's 'lifestyle' for a moment, seemed kind of logical,
He felt his heart pounding in his throat as he shakily pulled the key out of his pockets. It was as if he watched someone else do it for him as the key smoothly slid into the heavy lock, turning with low gritty noises, the door opening witch a loud click. He hesitated for a moment, breathing heavily.
While he had done some things in his early life that couldn't be considered legal, he'd never gone any further than spray-painting the occasional bus stop or throwing rocks through the windows of his school, and he'd even stopped doing that after he saw Opi's eyes starting to water as he picked Gilbert up from the police station for what felt like the thousandth time. Breaking into someone's apartment, someone who was recently murdered, was a whole other kind of deal.
As he stepped inside, head bowed, shaking hands slamming the door shut behind him with a heavy thud his eyes were drawn to the bare walls, covered in light wooden panels, not a single painting or ornament on them. A bouquet of dead yellow tulips on the kitchen table seemed to be the only decoration in the room.
The entire apartment was obsessively clean and smelt faintly of detergent and pain, from the shiny white tiles in the kitchen to the polished wooden floor, and combined with the light wooden furniture that looked like it had been purchased from IKEA only days ago, it made Gilbert feel as if he were standing inside of a showroom of some American furniture outlet instead of a real person's house, which probably was for the better as he thought about it.
He stood in the middle of the one-room appartment for a few seconds, uncertainly fiddling with one of the strings from his jogging pants before dropping the bag beside him with a dull thud and shutting the blinds before walking straight towards the chest of drawers that was tucked away in a corner of the room, next to the bed, determinedly yanking it open. The first and second drawers were empty but dust-free, the third contained only a few white towels, a menu from an Italian restaurant and a sheet of paper which informed the reader of the house rules of Elizabeth Apartments.
He checked the cupboards in the kitchen next. Nothing, only tidy stacks of gleaming plates. No envelopes shoved in between the books, no boxes hidden underneath the mattress, nothing behind the tv. After a few minutes of hysterically rummaging through bottles of cleaning detergent and soap in the cabinets beneath the sink he gave up and sat down on the bed, hiding his face in his hands.
"Well, what did you think what was going to happen, ya moron?" He laughed bitterly to himself, his voice sounding hollow bouncing off the walls of Ned's polished wooden dungeon. "Find a giant stack of cash hidden away underneath his tablecloth or something'? Gott, what am I even doing?"
He let himself fall back onto the bed, the springs creaking dangerously, burying his face in an ugly crocheted bedspread that his brother would've loved.
Ned and Ludwig had more in common apparently than their shared tall statures and light blonde hair, Gilbert mused. Aside from their love for ugly and frumpy objects, the two also seemed to share a knack for cleaning until their fingers bled.
Two similar people, two entirely different worlds, Gilbert thought to himself, fingering the lacy rim of the bedspread absent-mindedly. What if Ned was someone's little brother too? He winced, biting his lip. He did not want to think too much about that. Ned's dead already, he tried to console himself, and Ludwig could be if he starves to death because your broke ass got itself caught up in a lawsuit.
"You need to do this for him." Gilbert whispered softly to himself. "For Ludwig. You need to save yourself for Ludwig."
From the corner of his eye he could see something blinking. He sat up and turned his head. The sun had sank a little lower and shone right through the cheap excuses Ned had for blinds onto a silver doorknob, located just a little above the headboard of the bed. Gilbert could slap himself. How had he not seen that before?
A few firm pushes and the bed was off the wall. He quickly opened the door, only to immediately gag at the smell that greeted him, sweaty and heavy, earthy and sickeningly sweet.
It was almost as if he had stepped into a jungle, potted plants almost reaching the ceiling surrounding him with their drooping leaves.
"Jesus Ned.." He breathed softly, pushing aside bushes of leaves to step further into what appeared to be a forest of marihuana.
While the bright lamps were still on, the plants appeared to be dehydrated, their hanging branches catching on Gilbert's hair as he struggled to move through the room. The smell was almost unbearable, sweat glistening on his forehead. It only now occurred to Gilbert that he had entered the lion's den. Only one person had to come by, a housekeeper, a relative, and they would find Gilbert sweating his ass off in a pot farm. He should probably go. He marvelled at the sheer size of Ned's handiwork one more time before moving back towards the door.
It was then that he spotted the suitcase. Greedy hands opened it without a second thought. Bags. Lots and lots of little zip lock bags. One gram, two gram, half a gram. Thousands of grams of crumbly white.
Gilbert could not help but wonder if Ned had wrapped all of that himself. It wasn't that hard to imagine Ned at his rickety IKEA kitchen table, scraping every single little crumb of cocaine into plastic baggies, like the huge autistic fuck he was. Gilbert swallowed heavily.
Cocaine. Cocaine was worth a lot of money. And this was a lot of cocaine, such an incredibly large amount that Gil wondered why Ned was not murdered sooner if he had a habit of leaving stuff like that lying around.
He ran his hands over one of the bags, feeling the powder slip through his fingers as he squeezed it. A dealer would not leave stuff like this lying around, not if there weren't a purpose for it. He slowly reached into his back pocket, pulling out the flip phone. He scrolled through Ned's text messages, searching for something, something that could give him hope. He found it in an unsaved number, the last number Ned had texted, at least via this burner phone.
+49 06 47 38 91 35: come to my place on the 9th. bring ur pearls with u.
Ned: Why yours?
+49 06 47 38 91 35: bullen saw us last time. boetticherstrasse 6. dahlem if u didn't kno. bring all.
Ned: Not sure if that's a good idea.
+49 06 47 38 91 35: Ur goin to make big smack man
Ned: 25 half a pearl.
+49 06 47 38 91 35: ur price racks up every time
Ned: Tough times are coming. Take it or ?
+49 06 47 38 91 35: sure
_ 9th of may _
Ned: Dude on his way rn
Gilbert removed his trembling thumbs from the small keyboard. He'd never tried cocaine, but he would have to now in order to gather the courage to follow through with his plan.
Die Bullen = The police