Down for the Count

by Martin Holmén

  Ten years ago this story would already have been over, but now I hesitate and back off a few steps. He’s hefty but I’ve got him beat on both technique and speed. I circle him anticlockwise, away from the knife, which always feels awkward, but my old trainer taught me to change position from time to time and go in with my right if necessary.

  It’s necessary now.

  Lundin’s sign slams in the wind, and somewhere behind me a cat hisses. The blood warms my body down my left flank but I daren’t check how bad the damage is. I keep circling and waiting. The murderer leads, I follow.

  We dance a few slow turns in the rain. Over his jagged nose, his ice-blue eyes shine in the darkness, and mine lock with his.

  An opponent with a weapon usually puts all his trust in it. He can’t get it out of his head, which makes him predictable and for this reason vulnerable. I can feel my strength seeping out of the hole in my side, so I decide to make a firmer offer of a dance.

  I move in closer and make a barely perceptible movement of my right shoulder as if I’m about to jab him in the face. A worse boxer wouldn’t have noticed the movement; a better one wouldn’t fall into the trap.

  Straight away the knife comes slicing through the air. I duck the blow, charge forward and breathe out through my nose as I let him have my left over his extended right arm. My swing hits him on the temple. The impact travels down my arm bone and makes my sore shoulder joint jump with pain. He reels.

  I take advantage of my momentum and thunder into him with all my strength. He gasps as he hits the ground with me on top of him. The stiletto clatters over the cobbles and come to rest about a metre away.

  The murderer has his hand in my face and I hold onto his collar as we both desperately reach for the knife. His fingers press the inside of my lips against my teeth and a nail grazes my cheek. The rain-soaked blade, clean of blood, glitters against the dark stone.

  Ten centimetres.

  Five.

  Groaning with exertion I reach the hilt with my fingertips and quickly gather it into my hand. Once I had a bloke on a boat to China, a big bastard cook he was, and he said you shouldn’t make do with any less than ten stabs if you’re looking to kill a man with a knife. The blade doesn’t always go true; it’ll glide off the ribs if you’re not careful. He used to stand without a vest in the hot pantry, and judging by the scars on his massive body he knew what he was talking about.

  I grasp the hilt so that the point of the blade points right down at my opponent. When I straighten my back and raise my arm, his eyes already look dead.

  Ten times.

  I clench my jaw and drive the knife down with all my strength.

  The man in black tries to defend himself with his hands. He grimaces with pain when the point goes into his forearm. He grunts. I pull the knife out and raise it again.

  ‘You don’t know who you’re playing with, you fucking queer.’

  The words wheeze out of his mouth.

  Nine to go.

  This time I find my target, and the blade sinks into his chest. Finally the bastard is yelling. His pupils dilate, as if his brain is trying to savour the last of the light still left to him before death sweeps him into the darkness. A raindrop falls right into his eye. He doesn’t blink it away. His closed lips let out a final sigh. I’m salivating.

  I twist the blade half a turn to the right and then back to the left before raising the knife again.

  Eight.

  Blood spatters up, glistening in the rain. With all my strength I drive the blade down and snatch it back. I hear the cook’s voice.

  Seven more.

  Afterwards I’m left sitting on my arse next to the body. I lean my head against my pulled-up knees and try to get my breathing under control. My coughing comes back, tearing at my wound. I groan with pain, firmly pressing the palm of my hand against my side.

  The rain washes away the blood around the corpse. The knife lies between us, its snapped-off blade buried deep in his belly somewhere.

  ‘Five was enough.’

  I breathe as lightly as I can, to avoid aggravating the coughing reflex. The ice-cold rain falls right down the inside of my collar, runs down my back and slowly brings me back to life. I raise my head and look around. Roslagsgatan lies deserted, but further south I can hear the number 6 tram whining across the siding. There’s not much time.

  I grunt as I get onto my feet and limp over to the door of the funeral parlour. Quickly I find the right key and open the door.

  Still with my hand pressed against my side, I limp back and grab hold of the corpse by the armpits. The bastard weighs a ton. I moan as I drag the body the short distance. The red lights of the number 6 approach in a green rain of electric sparks. I bend over the corpse to avoid hitting the back of my head against the door frame. The bloke’s boot heels thump as we go down the steps and then we’re inside, in the warmth.

  ‘What the hell…?’

  A dazed-looking Lundin is standing in the kitchen doorway with his hair on end. Outside, the number 6 rattles by.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, brother?’

  ‘Shut your mouth and help me before me and this bastard cover the whole foyer in blood.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Dead as a bearskin hat.’

  ‘Chuck him in with the others, then!’

  Lundin opens the door to the cool-room. We grab an arm each and drag the corpse over the floor, while from time to time I groan in agony.

  The cool-room is fully tiled, with a couple of metal bunks for the corpses. Underneath are some large vats, which Lundin keeps filled with ice covered in a layer of wood shavings, to keep the cadavers cold during the summer months. Just as in the stiff-house there’s a sweet smell of decomposition. On one of the bunks is a white coffin, a medium-size model belonging to the lad I picked up this morning. We let the body fall and it thuds against the floor.

  ‘Well, then? What the devil’s going on here?’

  Lundin’s all worked up, flapping his long arms.

  ‘Calm yourself down and I’ll tell you.’

  Grimacing with pain, I take off the uniform jacket while rapidly summarising what happened earlier at Konradsberg: Petrus and the car chase. Hopping from one foot to the other, I fiddle about trying to get my trousers off, and describe the assault in the street. Lundin caresses his big moustache, periodically grunting in response as he listens. Now and then he slaps his legs to get the circulation going.

  When I’ve got my rags off I examine the wound. It’s not especially deep but it’s opened up badly across my ribs.

  ‘That needs stitches.’

  ‘How the hell am I supposed to manage that? Should I just toddle off to the surgery and tell ’em I slipped and fell on a scythe?’

  ‘Jensen, up in Katarina.’

  ‘The abortionist?’

  ‘One and the same.’

  ‘That bastard’s drunk by ten in the morning and now it’s ten at night.’

  ‘Nonetheless… He healeth the broken and bindeth their wounds.’

  ‘The hell’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Just that it’s going to take more than a bit of gauze to patch this one up. I’ll telephone him and check if he can see you.’

  ‘You stitch up men, women and children every day.’

  ‘My left hand’s too shaky and the thread’s too coarse.’

  Lundin goes out to make the telephone call, while I rip the arms off my shirt and strap a temporary pressure bandage around my chest. I can hear Lundin mumbling out in the foyer.

  I examine the sturdy figure on the floor, his short hair and a moustache nearly as impressive as Lundin’s. His cold blue eyes look almost the same in death as in life. He reminds me of old Hindenburg. Maybe that’s why I feel I recognise him.

  Exhaling sharply with pain, I bend down and go through his pockets. He has nothing on him except a pair of car keys, a pack of Negresco and a lighter. I put the keys on the bunk. The car should be parked somewhere in the vicinity.
>
  Lundin comes back with two brimming glasses of aquavit. He hands me one of them. He’s put on his big pigskin apron.

  ‘This one’s on the house.’

  ‘Thank you kindly.’

  We knock them back on the spot.

  ‘The Dane can fit you in.’

  ‘Did he sound sober?’

  ‘Difficult to say.’ He looks down at the body. ‘Damned giant, he is.’

  ‘And what am I supposed to do with him?’

  I give the corpse a little kick with the side of my foot.

  ‘I’ll take care of him; he’ll accompany the boy into the oven tomorrow.’

  ‘You’ll be needing a bigger coffin, then.’

  ‘Or a bone saw, and I have one of those.’

  After conferring for a few minutes, we lift the cadaver onto one of the metal tables. I take Wallin’s dirty uniform under my arm and go through Lundin’s rooms into the stairwell. With one hand on the banister I make my way up to my flat.

  The neighbours have put their copy of Social-Demokraten outside the door: a hint that I might care to share their subscription like I used to. I pick it up with another gasp of pain.

  As soon as I put the key in the lock, I can hear Dixie’s claws against the cork mat inside. In a matter of seconds she’s jumping against my legs. She follows me into the kitchen. I pour her some porter into a bowl, and mash a couple of boiled potatoes in a soup plate with a few scraps from the butcher. While my overjoyed mutt is eating, my thoughts once again return to the subject of Doughboy. In my mind’s eye I see his pale neck with its red flea bites. I close my eyes and I can almost taste his salty tang. As usual, whenever I think of that youth, it sends my blood into a tumult, churning through my ventricles.

  ‘Now then, Kvisten, you bloody rascal, you’ve really made a mess this time. How do you think you’re ever going to get out of this one?’

  Dixie’s cropped ears point towards the sound of my voice. I sigh and walk out of the kitchen and into my walk-in wardrobe. A smell of mothballs and gun oil hits me. I choose a grey shirt that has always fitted me poorly, and a light summer suit, whose cut has gone out of style – just in case I bleed through. I was planning to let Herzog knock me up another one in the spring anyway. On the way out I pick up the box containing the pistol.

  I feed the magazine with shells before slotting it back into the Husqvarna. After checking the mechanism by cocking it, I flick the safety catch with my thumb and drop the gun into my coat pocket. With Dixie tottering along behind me, I go back down to Lundin.

  As we enter the flat I can hear that he’s struck bone. The saw blade is rasping against the skeleton. The undertaker swears so fiercely that his voice bounces between the walls of the cool-room.

  Black clothes stick out of a sugar sack on the floor. The pale pink body is lying on the metal table. It’s fuzzed with fine grey hair, like the bristle of a hog.

  Lundin’s sweaty mug is speckled with red. Blood has spattered onto his leather apron and his lower arms, as if he was an old village butcher. His white hair stands on end, shining like a halo in the light of the ceiling lamp. Sweat is beading on his brow as he struggles to saw off the legs of the corpse just below the knees. He’s already thrown the feet into the open coffin next to him. The bones stick out of the flesh like pale yellow reinforcement rods. Dixie sniffs the air with interest.

  ‘Get me the axe by the cooker, and the shotgun and powder horn in the living room,’ Lundin orders.

  ‘What do you want with that?’

  ‘You said you were going to stay out of Långholmen for a while.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Lundin’s expression is impenetrable. He moves his lips about as if manoeuvring his snuff into position.

  ‘Your place is here.’

  I shake my head but wind Dixie’s lead around the door handle, go into the living room and take down the muzzle-loader from the wall. The old-fashioned gun looks Napoleonic. I grab the axe from the kitchen and take both back to the cool-room.

  ‘Take the clothes with you and get rid of them, there’s not much room in the coffin as it is.’

  I pick up the jute bag of clothes, and loop Dixie’s lead around my wrist. For a moment I wonder whether I might hand in the suit to Herzog to see whether he could alter it for Doughboy, but I resist the thought.

  I walk out of the door. The weight of the Husqvarna bangs against my hip. The wound in my side is throbbing.

  On the way back to the hearse, the ground seems to move underfoot, like when you’ve got a proper concussion from one too many punches.

  The small surgery at the far end of Tjärhovsgatan smells of blood, ether and alcohol. Whether the doctor himself or his equipment smells more of alcohol is difficult to ascertain. Jensen himself is a podgy, red-faced bloke in his fifties. Under his unbuttoned shirt there’s a glimpse of a dirty vest covered in big grease stains. The Dane removes his round spectacles and mops a handkerchief against his sweaty forehead.

  ‘It’s an ugly cut.’

  ‘Get it done.’

  ‘Fifteen kronor for each stitch, that’s what I want for it.’

  I nod, lighting a Meteor. I’m sitting naked to the waist on a scratched table in the centre of the room. Two worn fabric straps hang down from the ceiling, where the ladies can hitch up their legs when they’re lying on their backs. On a small sideboard are a number of instruments: forceps, a stethoscope, a vaginal speculum, an anaesthesia mask and a curette.

  ‘I’ll just go and get a pair of gloves.’

  As Jensen straightens up he stumbles and grips the table. He mutters something to himself that I can’t hear, then with a certain amount of trouble steers his steps to a cupboard next to a window with closely drawn curtains. I inhale deeply and look around the room. In the corner is a refuse bin filled with blood-soaked rags. There are no diplomas hanging up on the stained walls to testify to the reliability of this doctor.

  Jensen fixes a head-mounted light around his great skull and puts on a pair of long operation gloves. Breathing heavily, he pours some clear liquid into a glass jar and comes back with a rag, which he dips into the jar and hands to me.

  ‘Press this against your wound.’

  I do as I’m told. I might as well have taken a swim in the Dead Sea. I grimace with pain.

  ‘It’s a shame to let the rest go to waste.’

  Jensen takes a good pull at the jar and then offers it to me. I have a mouthful of spirit; it tastes of fusel. Jensen takes the rag from me and throws it towards the refuse basket. He misses by several metres. The rag hits the wall, which explains the rust-red stains in the corner.

  While he’s pinching together the open wound with his fat fingers and putting in the first stitch, he glances at the full-rigger on my chest.

  ‘All seven seas, huh?’

  I grunt and take another mouthful from the jar, while Jensen keeps stitching.

  ‘My brother was a sailor. He drowned when they were torpedoed in the North Sea. Just as well. He never forgave me for what happened to his wife.’

  Jensen puts in another stitch and mutters something else, which can’t be understood. I try to relax, but I keep staring at those bloody rags in the refuse bin and thinking about Petrus.

  Before the funeral tomorrow I’m going to walk around Sibirien until I find the Rolls. I could find something inside it to help me identify the murderer. But if I don’t manage to find it, Hessler should be able to help me with the number plate. That is, if by then I don’t have my hands full dealing with unwanted visitors searching the funeral parlour.

  ‘Ninety kronor,’ mumbles Jensen, who’s now on his sixth stitch.

  I take a deep puff on the cigar, burning my lungs in the process.

  ‘One hundred and five.’

  With a sigh, I exhale a great cloud of greyish-black smoke. My lacerated side has thrown in the towel and become insensible to pain.

  ‘One hundred and thirty. We’re done.’

  The wound tightens when I p
eer down at the stitches. It looks like a blind old woman’s embroidery, but the pink edges of the cut look reasonably clean. I wedge the cigar into my mouth. When I pull on my shirt I near enough bite it in two. But it’s not exactly the first time I’ve been stitched up, and not the first time I’ve been knifed either. I probably have more stitches in me than a patchwork quilt. Injuries of that kind usually heal in two weeks if there are no fists involved. I take the Meteor out of my mouth: ‘What do I owe you?’

  With a grin, Jensen says in his Danish accent:

  ‘A hundred and thirty.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘A hundred and thirty-five.’

  I try to do the calculation myself but I soon give up. A whole heap of blokes have paid good money after I brought their women here when misfortune struck; very likely I’m getting a decent price. I walk into the room at the far end to fetch my wallet from my coat. Dixie whines with excitement and spins around my legs, snapping at my trouser legs as I enter the waiting room. She’s probably in the mood for a porter. I pay the doctor what I owe, using money that I’ve borrowed from Lundin.

  It’s stopped raining. Slowly I drive back in the hearse along Katarinavägen. Behind me, the bells of Gabrielsson’s church strike midnight. Far below, the cresting waves of the black waters of Saltsjön refract the city lights. On Stadsgård quay the cranes stand like emaciated, long-necked animals. A nightwatchman with a torch shines a beam of light across them. I wonder how far Lundin has got with the cadaver at home. The inside of a body is a messy thing. That damned coffin had better not start leaking in transit tomorrow.

  I think about Petrus and I wonder who’d feel compelled to silence a person who couldn’t even speak or hear. My thoughts flit on to Ploman, the boss of Vasastan’s smuggler syndicate. About ten years ago he won a young lass in a game of cards, and as far as I’ve heard he still keeps her. She’s not particularly beautiful but he had her tongue cut out and she’s illiterate, so she can’t easily pass on information. You’d have to look hard for a more cautious bloke than Ploman.