Welker was wary. Nägelsbach brought his wife, and Philipp insisted, if we were going to get together at his place, on being present and listening in. Welker looked from one of us to another and then glanced at Philipp’s bedroom door, which stood ajar, revealing the mirror on the ceiling above the water bed. He turned to me and said, “Are you sure that…”

I nodded and began to tell his story. From time to time he added something, finally taking over himself. In the end, he began to cry again. Frau Nägelsbach got up, sat on the armrest of his chair, and hugged him.

“No longer my kind of world,” Nägelsbach said, shaking his head sadly. “Not that everything in my world was right-I wouldn’t have become a policeman if it had been. But money was money, a bank was a bank, and a crime was a crime. Murder was driven by passion, jealousy, or desperation, and if it was driven by greed, it was burning greed. Calculated murder, laundering millions, a bank that’s a madhouse in which the insane have locked up the doctors and nurses-all that is foreign to me.”

“Oh, that’s enough,” Frau Nägelsbach said irritably. “You’ve been talking like this for weeks now. Can’t you forget being grouchy about your retirement and come to grips with it and tell this poor fellow and your friends something that might be useful to them? You were a good policeman. I was always proud of you and want to continue being proud.”

Philipp stepped in. “I understand him. It’s no longer my kind of world, either. I’m not quite sure why: the end of the Cold War, capitalism, globalization, the Internet? Or is it that people no longer have morals?” I must have been staring at him nonplussed. He stared back coolly. “You seem to think that morality isn’t my thing? The fact that I have loved many women doesn’t mean I don’t have any morals. Let’s not forget that wherever money’s being laundered, women are being exploited, too. No, I’m not prepared to give up my world without a fight, and I hope the rest of you aren’t, either.”

Somewhat taken aback, I looked at Philipp, and then at Nägelsbach.

“Without a fight?” Frau Nägelsbach said, shaking her head. “You don’t have to prove to the world that you’re not yet ready for the scrapheap or that you can still show the younger generation a thing or two. Call the police! See to it that they don’t rattle Samarin! You know the right people, Rudi. If Samarin catches on that the game is up, he won’t be stupid enough to harm the children.”

“I don’t think he’d do anything to them, either. But as for being sure-no, I’m not sure. Are you? A culprit might see reason when the game’s up, but he might also lose his reason. So far I haven’t seen Samarin lose his cool. But recently he almost did, and I’m afraid that if he does in fact explode he’d be capable of anything,” I said.

“Of one thing you can be certain,” Welker cut in. “He’s quite capable of exploding. He’s quite capable of murder, too. No, going to the police is not an option. Thank you very much, but I-” Welker stood up.

“Sit down, please,” I said. “We must use what we have: a doctor, an ambulance.”

Philipp nodded.

“A policeman in uniform.”

Nägelsbach laughed. “If I still can squeeze into my uniform-I haven’t worn it in years.”

“We also have the choice of the meeting place. Herr Welker, you need to give a convincing performance over the phone-you must sound so panic-stricken that Samarin will be ready to meet with you wherever you want rather than having you flip out completely. Can you manage that?”

Philipp grinned. “Don’t worry. I can get Herr Welker there.”

“We’ll tell Samarin to come to the Mannheim Water Tower,” Nägelsbach said, sliding an ashtray to the center of the table to represent the water tower. He put a newspaper in front of it to represent the Kaiserring and pointed at it with his pen. “Needless to say, Samarin will position his men around the water tower. If he has four cars, he’ll have them wait by the four streets leading away from the tower. But he can’t have all his men waiting in the cars, and if he…”

Nägelsbach explained his plan, answered questions, and weighed objections, and the venture took shape. Frau Nägelsbach looked at him with pride. I, too, was proud of my friends. I was particularly amazed at Philipp’s calm concentration and authority. Did he plan his surgical operations this way? Did he prepare his colleagues for their roles on the surgical team the way he was preparing Welker for his role on the phone? He talked at him, cross-examined him, ridiculed him, reassured him, and yelled at him, and soon enough he had shaken him so thoroughly that when Welker called Samarin he was on the verge of losing it.

Samarin agreed to the meeting: five o’clock at the water tower. “No police. You and I will talk. You will speak to your children on the cell phone, and then we’ll drive back to Schwetzingen.”

If wishes came true, I would be living in one of the pavilions on top of the two elegant sandstone houses at the corner of Friedrichsplatz and Augusta anlage. I would put a lounger out on the balcony, set up the Zeiss telescope I inherited from my father, and watch what happened from a distance. Instead, I found myself standing by the water tower, where I couldn’t be of any use.

Welker got there well before five. He walked around the water tower, looked into the empty basins, and kept peering from the Rosengarten all the way to the Kunsthalle Museum. He was very nervous. He kept hugging his chest as if he were trying to hold on to himself. He walked too fast, and whenever he stopped he stepped nervously from one foot to the other. Nägelsbach, in his police uniform, sat on a bench, relaxed as if enjoying a break. His wife was sitting next to him.

From the pavilion I would probably also have had all of Samarin’s men in view. I saw the blue Mercedes-it was standing in front of the bus station on the Kaiserring, and a man was sitting at the wheel. I didn’t see the other young men. I didn’t see Samarin, either, until he crossed the Kaiser-ring and came walking toward Welker. He had a heavy, strong gait, as if nothing could sway or stop him. More likely than not, he had inspected the perimeter and had assured himself that everything was fine. If Welker had involved the police, they would not have sent a policeman in uniform to the meeting place and have him sitting next to a woman. Nor would the police have tolerated my presence. Samarin peered at the water tower, shook his head, and chuckled.

Later I forgot to ask Welker what Samarin had said, and what his reply had been. They did not talk for long. We had planned everything blow-by-blow.

The ambulance waited in the Kunststrasse until the light turned green. It drove across the Kaiserring and around the fountain in front of the water tower and turned on its siren and flashing lights a few meters away from Welker and Samarin. Samarin was annoyed. He turned and looked at the ambulance. Philipp, in a white coat, came out from the front, and Füruzan and another nurse hopped out from the back, in uniform and wheeling a stretcher. Then Samarin saw Frau Nägelsbach collapsed in front of the bench, and his annoyance subsided at the very moment Philipp placed a hand on his shoulder and plunged a syringe into his arm. Samarin staggered, and it looked as if Philipp were grabbing hold of him to steady him and prop him up. Then Samarin collapsed onto the stretcher, which in the twinkling of an eye was wheeled into the ambulance. The nurses pulled the doors shut, Philipp jumped into the driver’s seat, and the ambulance sped off along the Friedrichsring. Nägelsbach saw to his wife, who was savoring her role by not regaining consciousness. She came to her senses only once the ambulance’s siren died away in the distance, and Nägelsbach walked her to the taxi stand in front of the Deutsche Bank. Within a minute it was all over.