“But don’t you see that’s exactly what you’re giving him? Time to do something. It increases the uncertainty.”
“I want him to know that I’ve won,” said Ane.
“But why? I thought it was enough for you to know he was gone. Don’t you just want to get rid of him so we can live our lives in peace?”
They were sitting in Sving’s kitchen discussing the details of the planned explosion. It was evening. Tina was asleep. They had made love and then got up again. Ane had on her nightgown. Sving wore boxers. They were eating peanuts and drinking water. He studied the tattoo on his right arm. It was supposed to be Mars, the god of war. It was the first tattoo he ever got, back when he was still in the Polish military. These days he hated the sight of that tattoo. The figure looked too much like a devil.
“I do want to get rid of him,” said Ane, tossing back her hair. “But I also want him to realize what’s happening.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“But why does it matter whether he knows or doesn’t know?”
“I just want a clock.”
“That’s stupid. Even if we give him only a few seconds, it makes the whole business less certain.”
“I’m willing to take that chance.”
“There’ll be more to clean up afterward.”
“You said they won’t do a very thorough investigation. They’ll think it was an accident.”
“Not if they find pieces of a clock.”
“But can’t you get it out of there?”
“Maybe.”
“I want to take that chance. I want him to know what’s going on.”
Sving didn’t reply, but he was aware of the doubt that had refused to let go of him after he’d made the decision. Was he doing the right thing? Did he really have any say in the matter anymore?
* * *
He woke up at night and heard voices in the living room. There was no one there. The window stood open, banging back and forth, but he wasn’t the one who’d left it unlatched. Then he heard the door to the basement slam.
Sving dashed as fast as he could to the basement door. He opened it and listened. Was that footsteps he was hearing? He stood there a long time, listening, but all was quiet. Had Sondre come upstairs in the night? Was it really him, or had Sving just imagined the whole thing? He considered going downstairs to check on his son. But he didn’t. If Sondre had come up here, that was a huge step forward. It would be wrong to put any pressure on him. Slowly Sving went back to the living room and closed the window. Why had he opened it? Did he feel the need for fresh air? Sving remembered that ever since Sondre was a little boy, he had occasionally walked in his sleep. And then he would do the strangest things, like peeing in the potted plants. Was that what had happened now? Was he sleepwalking? Had he risen up from his state of eternal torpor to go walking?
Sving paused to think about this, but was unable to come to any conclusion. Then he crawled back in bed.
* * *
After the day shift on the following afternoon, he made two more home visits along with the Lars Brothers.
First they went to see the guy they’d put in the bathtub.
He had actually scraped together twenty-five thousand kroner. He still swore that he’d had nothing to do with the matter, but he would give them the money if they agreed to leave him alone. Sving took the money. He believed the guy, but still promised to come back for more.
Then it was time for number nine on the list.
After ransacking the guy’s apartment, which was in a high-rise on Lade with a wonderful view of the sea, they stripped off his clothes and wrapped his whole body in duct tape. Right up until the moment they reached his head and taped his mouth shut, the guy alternated between cursing them and begging for mercy. He swore that he hadn’t even gone to the party in question. When the Lars Brothers were done, he looked like a gleaming silver mummy.
Short Lars found a pair of nail scissors and cut a neat hole for his nostrils. Then he cut the guy’s right hand free and put the scissors in his palm.
“We’ll be back,” said Sving, stepping over him as he lay on the kitchen floor like a sprawling gray cocoon.
21
One week before it happened …
A few days later they drove to Hitra to talk to Ane’s sister. It was important to fill her in on some of the details of their plan so that she’d know what to say if the police questioned her.
Ane and her sister sat in the kitchen all afternoon while Sving and Tina made a snow fort outside. There was rarely any snow out near the open sea, but at the foot of a hill behind the house enough snow had collected to build an entire defensive barrier.
Sving followed the little girl’s instructions. He was impressed by how detailed her plans were. Emerging from her imagination were doors, tunnels, various-sized rooms, defensive walls, and towers. It was the most beautiful snow fort Sving had ever seen, and the biggest. When they were finally finished, his knees and arms ached, like after a long work day down in the tunnel underneath Trondheim.
“We could move in here,” she said.
It was getting dark. They were sitting on either side of a snow lantern, in the middle of the fort.
“We could be happy here. Nobody would bother us.”
“We’d like that,” said Sving.
He was thinking about how the fort must look from above, picturing the design as seen from the air. They’d done a good job. She’d envisioned the right sort of shapes. It was a well-conceived structure.
A question that often tormented him again popped into his head. Was it possible for all things to be beautiful? Were there shapes and patterns that might give meaning to any type of material? What about the work he did—the unofficial assignments? Was there a right and a wrong way to carry them out, or was it an ugly business, no matter what? That was the crux of his dilemma. He did the job better than anyone he knew, but he never felt any sense of pride. He was always trying not to think about what he did for Karlstad, but every time he did, it ate him up inside, like flesh-eating bacteria inside his thoughts. But could he really say that what he did had no redeeming qualities from an aesthetic standpoint? The job was carefully thought out and meticulously done. There was a definite pattern to it. And it served the intended purpose. Maybe it was the latter that bothered him the most, the fear of failure, of not being able to do the assignment properly. This fear was worse than the memories of all the bad deeds he’d carried out. For him, nothing was uglier than a failed assignment, an accident, a misplaced blow with the baseball bat. There was never anything moral about what he did, but there was an art to it, a display of craftsmanship and skill and design. The thought of losing that sometimes made him sick.
It’s only when someone actually fails that things get truly ugly, he thought. That’s why the human being is the most anxious creature on earth. We are the only species that can fail at what we do. And that makes us the sole owners of what is most hideous. Everything except human failure is beautiful. And everything beautiful has something good inside. Isn’t that true?
Sving had a tendency to be bombastic at times.
It’s the girl, he thought. She’s making me philosophical.
“Are we going to sleep here tonight?” asked Tina. “We should have brought sleeping bags.”
He was roused from his thoughts.
“Your mother and I probably need to go back home tonight. But you can stay here with your aunt,” he said.
* * *
It was late by the time they got back to Trondheim, but there’s no rest for the wicked, as the saying goes. He dropped Ane off at his apartment.
The Lars Brothers had taken the bus into town, and they were waiting for him near Rosenborg Junior High. They looked like schoolkids, only twice the size, and with contorted and unnatural features. Both of them had broken noses and tattoos that seemed to slide down their faces like charred and sagging skin. They looked like cartoon characters, animated sacks of s
hit, planned and designed by some outside force.
One of them grinned as Sving pulled up to the curb next to them. The other wore a serious expression. They got in, and Sving drove a few hundred yards to the parking lot at the REMA 1000 supermarket on Stadsingeniør Dahls Gate.
Sving grabbed the baseball bat and followed the Lars Brothers between the buildings of Rosenborg Park.
They were on their way to visit number ten on the list. A young law student named Jonas Fredly Holm.
* * *
Sving had softened him up with multiple blows. But all they’d been able to get out of him so far was that he’d been at the party. And he’d brought along a classmate named Knut Andersen Stang. The name wasn’t on the list, but Sving wrote it down in his notebook. Maybe he was somebody Karlstad had overlooked. It’d be worth checking him out if they ended up leaving here empty-handed.
“Hey, look what I found!” Tall Lars grinned as he held up a pet rat. “Can I keep it?”
“No. You need to make yourself useful here,” said Sving.
“Okay, here’s something we can use,” said Tall Lars. He put the rat on the coffee table and took out something from behind the bookcase. A strange contraption made from a piece of garden hose attached to a big container made from a plastic jug split in two.
“What the hell is that?”
Short Lars sounded annoyed. He was in the process of tying the student to a chair. It was hard work. The guy refused to stay upright because he was so dazed after Sving had worked him over with the bat.
“It’s a beer bong.”
“A what?”
“A beer bong. Real popular in the US. Essential for any respectable college party.”
“How do you use it?”
Short Lars finished tying the last knot.
“Put a piece of tape over his mouth and I’ll show you.”
Short Lars did as he was told. Then Tall Lars got out his switchblade and cut a small opening in the tape. He stuck the end of the hose in the hole.
“Hold this. I’ll be right back.”
He handed the contraption to Short Lars and went into the kitchen.
“All I could find in the fridge was Paulaner. German wheat beer. It’ll have to do.”
Then he picked up the homemade bong, holding it lower than the student’s head, and filled it with beer.
“There’s no faster way to empty a half liter,” he said as he raised the bong.
All of them watched as the beer disappeared through the semi-transparent hose. The poor student desperately coughed and gagged, but in the end the only thing he could do was swallow.
“Shit. Those Americans sure think up some stupid things,” said Short Lars.
“You’ve gotta love ’em,” said Tall Lars.
The beer in the hose quickly disappeared, and they felt sure the student had swallowed all of it. So they were surprised when he suddenly started gasping and coughing violently behind the tape. He threw his head back and forth, and his eyes began to bulge. Then his whole face turned red. His neck muscles went rigid.
“Take off the tape!” said Sving.
Tall Lars complied.
The student was foaming at the mouth. A mixture of saliva, beer, and vomit ran down his chin. He started to shake violently, first just his head, then his whole body. He was gasping for air, making shrill gurgling sounds. He might have been trying to say something, but he managed only to gasp and squeal.
Short Lars took out his Sami knife and cut the rope binding him to the chair. The student toppled forward onto the floor. There he stayed, shaking as if having an epileptic fit. Sving and the Lars Brothers exchanged glances, stunned and confused. It was over in less than a minute. The violent spasms gradually ceased. The labored breathing stopped. Now he wasn’t breathing at all. He lay there, lifeless, at their feet.
None of them spoke. They just stood there. The student’s eyes were wide open, staring past them, his gaze unwavering.
Finally, Sving leaned down to feel for a pulse. The guy’s throat was soft and motionless. There was no sign of life inside.
“Is he dead?” asked Tall Lars quietly.
Sving nodded.
“Fuck! We weren’t supposed to kill anybody.”
“What happened?” asked Short Lars.
“Anaphylaxis,” said Sving.
“Ana what?” said Short Lars.
“Allergic shock,” said Sving. “There must have been something in the beer that he couldn’t tolerate.”
“Then why the hell was it in his fridge?”
“Hard to say. But it doesn’t matter. We’ve finished him off.”
“What’ll we do now?”
“We get the hell out of here,” said Sving. “Not much else we can do.”
“We’ll put him out on the balcony,” said Tall Lars.
“Why the hell would we do that?” said Short Lars.
“Because he’s going to stink pretty soon.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Corpse stench. It settles in the walls. There’s practically no way to get rid of it. Nobody’s going to buy this apartment if it stinks of death.”
“Lars, look at him. Does he look like he needs a Realtor?”
“No, but somebody’s going to have to sell this place. Maybe his parents.”
“Oh, right, his parents. And they’ll be so grateful if we don’t leave him here to stink up the whole apartment after we killed him. Is that what you’re thinking?”
“Okay, never mind. I just thought that…”
“I told you not to think, you idiot!”
Sving couldn’t believe what he was listening to as he stood there. Then he happened to notice a torn piece of plastic on the floor. Apparently something that had fallen out of one of the cupboards when they were ransacking the apartment.
He bent down and picked it up. He studied it carefully, then licked it. A piece of tape was attached to the plastic.
“I think we’ve actually found something,” he murmured.
Unless he was terribly mistaken, this was a piece of plastic from the packaging Karlstad had used for the dope. He’d seen the package, and this was the same kind of plastic and tape. And unless his tongue was deceiving him, he had tasted traces of cocaine.
He got out his notebook and looked at the name he’d written down:
Knut Andersen Stang.
“Boys,” he said calmly. “I think we need to change the order around a bit. And one more thing. The body? Lars is right.” He pointed to Tall Lars. “It’d be better to put him outdoors. But we’re not going to leave him on the balcony. We’re going to chuck him over the side.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because we want to send a signal. Somebody’s going to find him sooner or later anyway. There’ll be an investigation. There’s really nothing we can do about that. But the way things now stand, I think it would be advantageous for young Jonas Fredly Holm to be in the headlines.”
“Is there somebody you want to send a message to?”
Sving looked again at the name he’d written down. He nodded.
“Let’s get going, boys,” he said.
* * *
“Here’s how we’re going to do it. The two of you go in and render him harmless. Then you exit and leave the rest of the job to me. I don’t want any more fuckups. No more accidents.”
The Lars Brothers nodded.
Sving started the car, and they drove off from Karlstad’s farm at Jonsvatnet. They’d used the main building to regroup, finalize their plans, and take a quick nap. Short Lars had Googled Knut Andersen Stang, and they’d found an address for him in Trondheim, posted in connection with a page regarding orientation for new students. The post was only six months old, so they assumed the address was still valid.
It was early morning. They stopped at the Exxon gas station in Moholt. Sving went inside to buy a newspaper. Just as he’d thought, the headlines were all about the student from last night.
Did I lose control? he asked himself. He wasn’t sure of the answer. But there had to be a way out of the whole mess. And if he found it, he promised himself that he was going to quit this shit. He was going to be the man he once thought he’d be.
“Have you noticed that movies are getting more and more violent?” said Tall Lars from the backseat as Sving took his place behind the wheel again.
“Not now,” said Short Lars, sounding resigned.
“There’s more violence everywhere.”
“So are you going to lecture me on the harmful effects of violence in movies?”
“No, just the opposite,” said Tall Lars. “I was going to say that I don’t think it’s harmful. And I don’t think we enjoy watching those kinds of things because we’re evil people, or because we all have a dark side, and stuff like that. I think we just plain need those kinds of movies because they remind us of our own mortality. They tell us how vulnerable our bodies are, how thin our skin is, literally, and how little it takes to turn us into nothing but gushing blood.”
“And why is it good for us to be reminded of all that?”
“It think it makes us better human beings. I think it’s cleansing.”
“Cleansing? Christ, I can’t believe the stupid things that come out of your mouth. It’s tragic.”
“Life is a tragedy,” said Tall Lars.
“What you need to get cleansed out of you is the meth you smoked earlier.”
Then they drove off to make a house call.
* * *
A couple of days later, Sving went out to Hitra to rig up the equipment. After giving Knut Andersen Stang his best performance that morning, he was positive he was their man. It was just a matter of time before he cracked. And Sving had given him a week. Just to make sure, he’d loaned out another baseball bat he owned. This one was made of aluminum, a present Karlstad had once given him. Sving hadn’t had the heart to tell his friend that he preferred wooden bats. But now he didn’t mind lending the practically new bat to the Lars Brothers so they could give this Stang guy a gentle reminder. Sving wasn’t very pleased when they reported back from the assignment, telling him about using the rat that Tall Lars had taken from the student.
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