Nighmare Asylum-Book One of the Mad Mad World Series

Ohne Dich-Part 3

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.-Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle

::

Richard was late for dinner that night.

Ollie and Till were ten seconds away from strangling him.

The members of Rammstein had begun to pull themselves together from their short vacation before the United States leg of the tour and as tradition, met in a nice, low-key restaurant the night before they would start rehearsals to enjoy themselves before the weeks of hard work would begin. Till had left several messages on Richard's mobile phone and home phone, each message growing a little more irritated than the next. Ollie had left only one, saying "Richard, if you don't call me, Till or anyone else very, very soon, you're going to be Till-hammered by me into a grease spot on the floor. Where the fuck are you?"

Ollie watched Till slowly wrangle a hapless teaspoon into a piece of modern art, hoping that Richard would show up or call before Till turned every piece of flatware on the table into artwork as well. He was keeping his temper pretty well under control but Ollie could tell one more thing and Till was going to go sky high and woe betide the innocent bystander that might be in his way. He passed a hand over his face, grabbed the teaspoon away and snapped, "Till, stop it! What did this poor teaspoon ever do to you?"

Till snatched the mangled spoon back from Ollie, sea-glass green eyes snapping with anger. "I am going to wrap this thing around Richard's neck if he doesn't have a good reason not to be here! I talked to him a few days ago, I think, and if he's locked himself up with some girl and forgot to call anyone, I am going to kill him."

Ollie grabbed the spoon back and shoved a heavy cloth napkin into Till's hands, hiding the spoon under a napkin on the other table. "Wring that, not Richard's neck. Or that spoon. Look, if he doesn't call sooner or later, we'll go ahead with dinner then go 'round to his place afterwards."

Till was practicing knots on the cloth napkin and glaring at his mobile phone where it lay in the middle of the table. The rule between the band was at the beginning of any meal they had together, all mobile phones were put in the middle of the table and were not to be answered unless it was obvious that the call was a serious emergency. Whoever couldn't overcome the urge to grab the phone and fiddle with it had to pay the bill and so far, the only one to fall prey to the siren's call of their phone was Paul. "And it was a bloody sales call at that!" he'd yelled, handing over his credit card that evening and giving his fellow band members the evil eye as they sat around the table and laughed themselves sick at the disgruntled look on his face.

"You're going to set that thing on fire if you keep glaring at it, Till," a soft voice came from over his shoulder. Turning around, he saw Christoph, Flake and Paul coming across the room to the table. He and Ollie stood to pass hugs around and once everyone was seated and phones corralled, Flake asked, "Where's Richard?"

Till began to speak but Ollie grabbed up the knotted napkin and shoved it into Till's mouth. "We haven't heard from Reesh. I left him a message about a half hour ago and Till's left messages that go from 'Hey, where are you?' to "I am going to kill you slowly and painfully if you do not call me back right now.' Have any of you heard from him?"

Paul bit his lip and thought for a moment. "No. Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time I talked to Reesh. It's not more than a couple weeks ago at the most. I got an e-mail from him about the same time but other than that, not a peep. And that's unusual for him, especially with these rehearsals coming up."

"I haven't heard from him either," said Christoph. "I called to tell him that I was going to be doing a drum clinic sometime during the tour and management wanted to let him know that if he wanted to do a clinic, there was more than enough interest. And that was probably two weeks ago. I called him yesterday but his mobile phone went right to voice mail. Same with his home phone."