Shadows

the gift of life

The next morning Hallelujah was freezing a body as his phone rang.

"Yes... oh it's you Peter! Long time. You work at the police station at the west city now... how is it?... Pick up a friend? What do you...? Oh no!... All right I'm coming!"

James looked at the professor as he was leaving. "Bad news?"

"Very bad. I'll be back in a minute."

"We picked him up at Park Lane 12 last night," Peter explained as he opened the door of the drug tank. Hallelujah looked into the little white room. A light stick was making the room look pure and white like a lab. Schulze was sitting on a white bench. He was almost naked.

"What in all the world...?" Hallelujah started reproachful.

"Let me explain. Yesterday I felt like celebrating so I passed the bar on the way home. When I reached the house I knew that Emma wouldn't open, so I undressed to make sure that she opens... But it didn't work."

"It didn't work because you live in house number 21 and not in number 12! What are you going to do next time?"

Slowly Schulze got up and shuffled outside where Peter gave him the clothes he had picked up in the garden.

"If Müller find's that out your license is history," Hallelujah commended as they walked out.

As the puzzling went on many interesting documents were discovered but none showed who was paying for Meyer and Gregson. The accounts didn't even mention those cases.

"But they must be there!" the advocate said almost desperate as Al'Paratschy was apologizing another time.

"Maybe they made tax free?", Al'Paratschy suggested.

"Secret and tax free? No this doesn't go this way. It's far too much risk and now they lost so they are paying the judge too... This won't work."

"But then the whole case must be there!", Schulze screamed.

"Yes it must be... It must have another name! The name of the one who's paying! Al'Paratschy you look for a trial from the 12th to the 23rd of August 2015 and for one from the 2nd till the 7th of October 2015," Müller ordered.

One week later Al'Paratschy returned with a copy of the right paper. But Schulze's happiness passed as he saw the name. The case was named Wilhelm Schneider.

"So we were puzzling for ages...", Schulze told the barkeeper that night, "We puzzled, and puzzled, puzzled and searched and searched and searched. And what for? The man has the most common name in the whole country and probably it is a false name anyway."

"Don't give up. You're right before success."

"One more drink. You're telling this to everyone isn't it?"

"Yes, but isn't it true that who fights can loose and who gives up has already lost?"

"And what if the chance to win is small? What if I can't win?"

"You say that you can't win. You can try..."

"I'm sick of this job. My boss is mad because of the drinking... My wife says that she's leaving - What is good of a life like this?"

Schulze snubbed as he thought of his wife.

"That's how it goes. You love a person for life. You do everything. Then if it gets too much and you feel like drinking they run away..." He started crying.

"Here take a drink...", the barkeeper said to deviate him, nevertheless he was already drunk.

Schulze calmed down and drunk.