If not for pure chance, the incident that Frank Fридмайер had that night wouldn’t have played such a decisive role in his life. Of course, Frank didn’t foresee that at that time his neighbor Gerhardt Holst would pass by on the street. But Holst did, recognized Frank, and everything immediately changed. Yet Frank accepts this—and the other possible consequences. That’s why what happened that night by the wall of the tannery became—both then and in the future—far more important to him than, say, losing his innocence. By the way, that was the first thing that crossed his mind. The comparison amused him and, at the same time, enraged him.
Fred Kromer, his buddy—only he was older; he was already twenty-two—had killed his first person a week earlier, at the exit of the Timo establishment, where Frank had been sitting only a few minutes before hiding by the wall of the tannery…