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At the tram stop, their starting point for a return trip to poorer districts, they are still talking about an assault. Needless to say they will not commit it to get rich but in order to liberate themselves once and for all. For the entire future. Hans still isn't convinced that he needs to liberate himself. Right now he'd rather be watching a game of te

JUST A MOMENT. Let's not leave this tram in such a hurry. Let's stay on a little while. The crowd on board are all one colour and at first glance you ca

The men are a gloomy uniform grey, working life has out deep furrows in their sexless, barely male faces. You can imagine what they get up to with their wives at home: nothing. Nothing agreeable. But not even anything particularly disagreeable either, they don't have the style for that. The revolting work they do has stripped the hair from one man's head, robbed a second man's mouth of teeth, and put dirt under the fingernails of a third. Inwardly, Hans remains detached from them. This shows visibly in the way he squeezes up into the darkest corner so that he won't be noticed and on no account associated (erroneously) with this herd.

But if a pretty young lady shows up on her own he gives her an inviting wink. This is known as flirting. It is something carefree people do.

Rainer and A

The gap between Hans and the twins widened here where other people were present and could see them. A

If it isn't the airstream squeezing at A

Suddenly some soft mass is resting on A

If they kick up a fuss he'll deny everything. In tones of righteous indignation. And he'll say: what a cheek.

Is this a pointed stick being poked between A

The clerk's weight becomes more of a burden. Courage mounting, it pokes a little further in, the crowd on board grows as they approach the city, the crush is conducive to communication between young and old. Between up top and down below. Usually down below. The woman's place is lying down below, but in this case she is not lying, she is standing in front.

A hand follows, cautiously groping, though no one has summoned it. The hand approaches nonetheless. As if that were where it belonged, it ventures towards the A

As if on command, A

One money-counter hand takes hold of the A

Now! nods A

Hans is still totally dopey but Rainer interpreted that Now! back there correctly. Light as a butterfly he wings into the inside breast pocket of the distracted victim from behind and removes the wallet, which is where right-handed men always have it, in the left pocket. This character wouldn't even notice if you planted a bomb on him. There doesn't seem to be much in it, but we're happy, you can buy several paperbacks with this.

Please squeeze it a bit, kid, rub it, stroke it, be nice, that's good, thank you kindly, my wife back home won't do this any more, and anyway I'm really grateful. May I see you again, fair maiden? A bit closer to the tip, that's right. You do that so well. Though I could teach you to do it even better. You wouldn't have time tomorrow after office hours, would you? Pity.