The Bone Man by Wolf Haas

Author:Wolf Haas
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781612191706
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2013-03-25T22:00:00+00:00

Now, Brenner was quite happy that he still had a night in Graz ahead of him. Even though all day long he’d been a little apprehensive about it. Because Löschenkohl’s daughter-in-law’s sister was only of secondary interest for going to Graz. Of primary interest, needless to say: the Horvath exhibit that Palfinger had told him about.

Brenner had only been to an art opening once in his life. The wife of Salzburg’s chief of police did needlepoint, Dutch windmills, and she couldn’t bear to part with her works, but, a charitable cause. Because otherwise, just her husband’s dark past always being dredged up in the newspapers for her windmills to do battle against.

But an art opening, a Vernissage in the proper sense of the word, with expensive works of art, this was Brenner’s first time. The Horvath opening didn’t go all that differently than the chief of police’s salon, though. Because back then, all the young cops were busy kissing the chief’s ass—so much so that the next business day saw Vaseline shares skyrocketing. And here in the Haselsteiner Gallery it looked just about the same, as if everyone had only come to pay court to one man.

This man was the exact opposite of the chief of police, though. Because the chief of police, of course, tall as a tree, wiry build, snow-white hair—you might’ve thought, freshly imported from Argentina. And here in the the Haselsteiner Gallery, a nondescript, forty-year-old man at most, who was so small that you might’ve thought, so this is why starving artists are all hunchbacks, because they’re constantly having to bend down over him.

But I don’t wish to be unfair now—there weren’t only hunchbacks here—no, I should add: Brenner had never before seen so many beautiful and elegant people together in one place as he saw here in the Haselsteiner Gallery. And believe it or not, the most beautiful and elegant of them all first struck Brenner by the way he held his wineglass in front of his nose:

“How do you find Horvath?” Kaspar Krennek asked and pressed the wineglass into Brenner’s hand.

“I’m not looking for him.”

Somehow this answer reminded Kaspar Krennek of his father, the self-opinionated, post-War Hamlet, August Krennek. Needless to say, he didn’t tell Brenner this. Because that was perhaps a topic for the therapist next Tuesday, not for an art opening. And now he just smiled and said, “I’ve already closed on it.”

“You’ve got Horvath?”

“Two, in fact. The pencil drawing over there. And an etching in the other room. Because today I was able to stay in the bidding. In a month, though, the large sculptures that cost a fortune will be sold.”

“But you’ve got to watch out. Because a Horvath can disappear—just like that,” Brenner said and tasted the wine. But compared to the wine at the chief of police’s, this was pure hooch.

“It’s not exactly detrimental to the works that Horvath’s disappeared,” Kaspar Krennek laughed. “Before, I could’ve gotten my two prints for a tenth of the price.”

“That ought to make the collectors who’ve been buying them all along happy.

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