The Invisible Man from Salem

by Christoffer Carlsson

  The internal investigators were not going to be present in the harbour itself. They were to be stationed in a nearby apartment, and would receive updates from the officer leading the operation. They would then pass this information on to Stockholm. I wondered who was waiting at the other end of the line, how high up this went, and what would happen if something did go wrong.

  The vessel was a small motorboat, unlit, that glided through the night. I was hidden by the building where I’d talked to Lasker a few days earlier. Shadowy figures moved along the quay, and I tried to hear their voices. Members of the firearms unit were waiting at a distance: they were not to intervene until after the goods had changed hands. I was carrying my weapon, although I hadn’t wanted to.

  I saw the boat pull alongside, and then the shadows flitted by, surrounded by darkness. The harbour was deserted. A large jeep emerged from somewhere in the darkness and rolled quietly towards the boat. When it stopped, a figure climbed out and opened the boot. There was the sound of voices — buyers against sellers.

  ‘Let me see,’ said one. ‘Open one of them.’

  ‘We haven’t got time,’ said another voice at his side.

  I recognised that voice: it was Max Lasker.

  ‘Quickly.’

  ‘I want to see,’ the first voice said. ‘Open it.’

  ‘Alright,’ said a third.

  There was the sound of a box opening, followed by no one saying anything for far, far too long.

  ‘Are you taking the piss?’ I heard the first voice say.

  The man holding the box lifted the lid and looked down into it.

  ‘What?’ He stuck his hand into the box and rifled around inside. ‘It … I … I don’t know what …’

  Somewhere behind them a huge floodlight came on, its yellowy-white light illuminating the harbour and the tall silhouettes. Voices behind the floodlight shouted ‘Police’, and that’s how it all started. Everyone, including Lasker, was armed. His movements were fitful and jerky, as though he couldn’t control them. The man who had just looked inside one of the boxes was standing with a pistol in his hand, staring up towards the floodlight, and then he ducked out of the way and behind a car, out of my sight. Suddenly the box fell to the floor. It landed with a heavy thud, and I took my pistol from its holster and held my breath.

  The firearms crew rushed in with their weapons and shields, looking as though they had come to fight a war. I don’t know who, or even which side, fired first, but there was a bang from somewhere. Lasker raised his gun, but was hit in the thigh before he’d had the chance to fire. In the stark light, the smattering drops of blood looked black, and his leg went from under him. His face contorted and he dropped the weapon, grabbing his thigh as he let out a high-pitched squeal.

  Someone started the boat again, perhaps trying to leave the harbour. There was a blare of gunshots, and the sound of glass shattering. From the corner of my eye I saw a police officer fall to the ground; I wondered who it was. Their uniforms made them faceless.

  Further away, blue lights and sirens were switched on, flashing and wailing. I moved out of the shadows, weapon drawn, not knowing what I was going to do. The man who had taken cover behind the car must have spotted me, because something cold and hard whistled past me, forcing me back into the darkness.

  The jeep’s driver’s door opened, and the man climbed in and started the engine. I saw how the interior lights came on before he closed the door and sped away. I watched as it disappeared from view. My hands were shaking.

  The gunfire didn’t stop altogether, but its intensity tailed off. A police car chased the jeep, and I wondered just how many police were there, how many were hiding in the shadows. I went over to Lasker, who was lying very still, grasping his thigh. As I rolled him over, I saw that he had also been shot in the head. His mouth was half open, and his blank stare was fixed on a point just above my shoulder.

  Several police had managed to get on board the boat and disarm those who’d taken refuge in the cabin. The sound of a shot rang out from somewhere — I didn’t know where — and I think I must have panicked, because I fired off a shot towards something moving in the darkness between two stacks of shipping containers.

  I had wounded people before, but had never shot anyone. I was overawed: everything went quiet, and all the receptors in my body were sending their signals and impulses to my hand, to my index finger. The finger that had pulled the trigger was stinging and throbbing as though I’d burnt it.

  My legs pulled me forward. I rushed towards whatever I had hit, and could just make out two heavy boots. Sensing that everything had gone terribly wrong, I pulled out my phone to light up the scene. That’s my strongest recollection now. It was so unnaturally dark there in the harbour. I illuminated the ground in front of me, and saw the blood running in a fat ribbon from his throat, how still he was, and the badge on his shoulder, gleaming blue and gold: POLICE.

  V

  John Grimberg and I became friends, and I started calling him ‘Grim’. We were quite different characters. I realised early on that he was at times full of contradictions, at least on the outside. He claimed to have difficulty coping in social situations. Despite this, he was able to talk his way out of most scenarios if he found himself backed into a corner. He could either come up with an excuse, or simply express regret and then apologise, seeming perfectly sincere. I was much worse at dealing with those situations, and I never worked out how he did it. And he never seemed to have problems talking to people. I asked him how he could be unsociable, as he said, and yet deal with people so effortlessly.

  ‘It’s just like masks, you know,’ he said with a quizzical expression. ‘When someone’s talking to me, I’m not really there.’

  I didn’t know what he was going on about.

  Grim was good-looking, and his chiselled features, thick blond hair, and crooked smile were straight out of a summertime TV advert. I was taller than him, but lanky and not as broad-shouldered. I tried to keep up at school whereas Grim seemed completely uninterested in the whole business. He was a year older than me, having repeated a year because he hadn’t got the grades he needed to carry on to high school. In spite of that, he skived off less than I did and was much more clever, but perhaps he’d realised that there were more important things to concentrate on than learning stuff. The only conclusion I could come to was that he simply had nowhere else to go. I was much sloppier than him. Grim didn’t really commit to an awful lot, but those few things he did put his mind to he would do properly.

  He had a little video camera, and we started making short films together, which we would then edit on the computers at school. They were simple films, often set around the water tower. We filmed them as we drank booze; wrote scripts, directed, and played all the parts ourselves. He found it easy to get into character, as though he could camouflage himself whenever he needed to. I did get better at that after a while, but I was never as good as Grim.

  THE SKY OVER SALEM was the colour of ink that had been spilled onto a blank page. We had only known each other a couple of weeks. I was carrying a bag full of beer and I was late, on my way to a party. I hurried round our block, past the block where the Grimbergs lived, looking up at the façade and the small square windows. Some were in darkness; many had their lights on. The lights came on behind one of the windows on the top floor, and shortly afterwards someone opened the window and threw something out. It fell in a wide arc before hitting the ground with a plasticky crash. I looked up to the window; the silhouette had disappeared, but the lights were still on. I carried on, but stopped as I heard the heavy front door of the block open and then slam shut with a boom, and someone came out. He ran over to whatever had been thrown, and picked it up. As he looked up, he caught sight of me, standing there under one of the streetlamps.

  ‘Leo?’

  ‘Everything okay?’ I said, taking a couple of steps tow
ards him.

  ‘My Discman.’

  Grim was holding it out in front of him. The lid had almost come off its hinges, and the headphones were hanging limp on their wires.

  ‘I think it’s bust,’ I said.

  ‘Yep.’ Grim scratched his blond hair and pushed a button that was presumably supposed to open the lid. Instead the whole lid flew off, pirouetting in the air before falling to the ground. Grim looked upset. ‘He will fucking pay for this.’

  ‘Who?’

  He pulled the CD out of the smashed player and stuffed it into the back pocket of his baggy jeans. He threw what was left of the device into a bush behind the row of benches running along the front of the block, and noticed the bag in my hand.

  ‘Party?’

  ‘I think so. There’s always a party somewhere around here.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Grim said, deep in thought, and nodded towards the line of benches. ‘Do you want to sit down for a bit?’

  ‘I was actually on my way,’ I said, but when I saw how dejected Grim looked, I nodded, pulled out two cans, and gave one to him.

  ‘A bit of music would’ve been nice,’ he said, sniggering as he opened his can.

  I opened mine after tapping the top twice with my index finger.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Grim said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Tapping the can like that. Why?’

  ‘If there’s a lot of carbon dioxide near the opening, it froths over.’

  ‘And tapping it is going to help is it?’

  ‘I think so. I don’t know.’

  ‘Pointless,’ mumbled Grim and drank some of his beer, and I drank some of mine.

  It was only then it first occurred to me that the only reason I always tapped the can before opening it was that I’d seen my brother do it.

  We sat there talking. After a while we heard music and raucous voices, and on the other side of the road a gang of skinheads went past. One of them had a Swedish flag draped over his shoulders. They were playing Ultima Thule, and seemed to be hoping for a reaction, that someone might confront them. It had been like this for a while; there were even some at Rönninge High School. Several fights had occurred around Salem. A twenty-year-old guy from Macedonia had had his teeth knocked out a few weeks earlier.

  I’d stopped thinking about the party I was supposed to be going to. Grim was easy to be around, maybe because we talked about simple things: music, school, films we’d seen, and rumours we’d heard about older guys from Salem who’d graduated from high school. Some already had kids. Some were working full time; others were out travelling. Others still were studying. A few were in young offenders’ institutions. And one, then, had recently had his teeth knocked out.

  ‘Do you know anyone who’s been in prison?’ I asked.

  ‘Apart from my dad, no.’

  ‘What was he in for?’

  ‘Drunk driving and assault.’ Grim sniggered again, but it was a hollow laugh. ‘He was driving once, drunk, and he nearly ran this guy over. The guy had walked out into the road without looking. Dad stopped the car and started shouting at him. It turned into a row, and my dad ended up smacking him in the face. The guy hit his head on the floor and was knocked out, got concussion.’

  ‘Do you get prison for that?’

  ‘If you’re unlucky. But he only got six months.’

  Grim drank some more beer, and took a packet of fags from his pocket and offered me one. He didn’t smoke himself, but if he ever came across any cigarettes he would save them, just so he could treat me. I took one and lit it, and sat there for a while thinking about what I would have done if my dad had been in prison. I immediately felt restless — felt the need to get moving, to go to that party.

  ‘Here comes Julia,’ Grim said and nodded towards someone walking in our direction in the darkness.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My sister.’

  She had her dark hair up in a ponytail, and was wearing a white dress under a denim jacket that hung open. A wire ran from the jacket pocket, split in two at her chin, and carried on up to two white earphones. A necklace dangled round her neck. Her legs — black, because of her black tights — were long and thin. Unlike Grim, who had a slightly strange look about him, Julia Grimberg didn’t look like she was going to have any difficulties when she started at Rönninge High that autumn. She was browner than her brother, but had the same thin face and prominent cheekbones, and she smiled as she noticed him.

  ‘Where have you been?’ he asked.

  Julia pulled out the earphones, and I could hear the music and someone singing. She took the CD player out of her jacket pocket and turned it off.

  ‘Out.’

  ‘But where?’

  She shrugged, looking at me.

  ‘Hi.’

  She stretched out her hand, which surprised me. Julia behaved more like a parent than a little sister. She smiled. Her front teeth were big, almost rectangular like a child’s, yet her eyes conveyed that cool distance and scepticism that you only see in adults. I still remember that now, how childlike and grown-up at the same time Julia Grimberg was, and how she could flip from one to the other in the blink of an eye.

  When I held her hand in mine, it was small and warm, yet strong.

  ‘Julia.’

  I took a swig of beer.

  ‘Leo.’

  ‘Is there another beer in that bag?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said and looked hesitantly at Grim, who was gazing at something else and didn’t seem to be listening.

  Julia sat next to me on the bench, with her legs crossed. She had heavy black boots with the laces undone, and she smelt fruity, like shampoo. On the road in front of the Triad, someone walked past wearing a long black trench coat and headphones round his neck. I watched him until he turned off the road and disappeared from view.

  ‘Why don’t we go somewhere?’ said Julia.

  ‘Leo’s on the way to a party.’

  ‘I reckon it’s a bit late for that,’ I lied, and lit another cigarette. ‘It’s probably dying down by now.’

  ‘We could go back to yours, couldn’t we?’ said Grim.

  MY PARENTS WERE AWAY for the weekend, and my brother was out somewhere. That’s the only reason I went along with it. Our flat comprised four rooms and a little kitchen, and although I only rarely brought friends back, this wasn’t the first time. It was, however, the first time I experienced the place through someone else’s senses. I saw the ugly rug in the hall, and noticed the smell of cigarette smoke coming from the arms of the clothes hanging on the hooks inside the door. I heard the hum of the ventilation system, and saw the photo of my grandparents and how wonkily it was hanging above the living-room sofa. The tap in the kitchen sink was dripping, as it always did. Like most things that never change, I’d got so used to it that I no longer noticed it, but that evening it seemed more intrusive and noticeable than usual. My dad drove a forklift truck in a big warehouse in Haninge. He’d been a boxer when he was young, and claimed that was why he’d never studied. He could do physical work, which was better than using your head. He preferred to leave his head in peace, and to concentrate on other things. I liked that way of thinking. My mum worked in reception at a hotel in Södertälje. They were born the same year, met in a pub on Södermalm when they were nineteen, and split when they were twenty-two because they weren’t ready for commitment. They met up again when they were twenty-five, and had my brother when they were twenty-seven. There was something romantic about it all, their splitting up, looking for someone else, only to realise that the person they were looking for had been there all along. He worked days, she often did the night shift, and the flat didn’t get cleaned that often.

  ‘What’s that noise?’ Grim asked.

  ‘The kitchen tap. Can’t turn it off.’r />
  He stepped out of his boots and looked around.

  ‘Which is your door?’

  ‘The one nearest the front door, on the left.’

  My room contained a bed and a bookcase half-filled with CDs, films, and some book a relative had once given me. Opposite the bed was the desk, where I never spent any time. Clothes and shoes were strewn across the floor, and the walls were plastered with posters for Reservoir Dogs and White Men Can’t Jump.

  ‘Lovely,’ said Grim, without going in.

  The three high-rises in the Triad were identical. Their flat was probably exactly the same as ours, possibly a mirror image. I opened another beer and sat down in an armchair in the living room. I had two left, and I put them on the coffee table for Grim and Julia. Grim went to the toilet, and Julia turned on the stereo on the shelf behind me and went looking for a record in my parents’ LP rack. When she didn’t find one, she put the radio on.

  ‘You can put one of mine on instead,’ I said when she sat down on the sofa opposite me. ‘If you find anything you like.’

  ‘I don’t want to go in your room. It feels private,’ she replied.

  ‘It’s fine, I don’t mind.’

  ‘Yeah, but still.’

  When Grim came back from the toilet, he took a seat in the armchair next to mine and we drank beer until we all started laughing at the DJ and mimicked his slow, soporific voice. I put the telly on instead and we watched MTV. When the beer ran out, I went down and got a bottle of spirits from the basement and we drank that, mixed with pop. Julia fell asleep on the sofa after a while. I looked at her as often as I dared to without making Grim suspicious. Her mouth was half open, and her eyes lightly closed. Then she moved, fumbling the bobble out of her hair. I think she did it in her sleep, without waking up.