The Mammoth Book Best International Crime

by Maxim Jakubowski

  “Look at him bawling,” said a boy who was in the ninth grade, the grade above him. He continued with baby talk, “Did wittle Wilbur hurt his wittle self? Is wittle Wilbur gonna wun home to his mama and cwy?”

  Everyone had a good laugh. A small crowd had gathered in the corridor to watch the scene unfolding.This was entertainment at its pinnacle.

  Wilbur looked around desperately. All he could see were jean-clad legs and feet in dirty jogging shoes. Sweat running down his forehead, he feverishly gathered up his things, and managed to shoot out through a small hole in the wall of onlookers. This time they let him go, but their laughter followed him all the way to the room for his next class. He carefully tried the door. He was lucky and it was unlocked. He hastily checked the faces around him. No one seemed to be looking as he snuck inside. Thank God. Maybe he’d get to have a few minutes of peace.

  This was his favorite class, not that he would ever admit that to anyone. Liking French was not something that would diminish his “jerk” status. Anyway, he liked it for quite other reasons, as well. Nina, a girl in his grade, also took French. She was the most wonderful creature he had ever seen. She was petite and blonde, with long hair that she often put up in a ponytail. She was so beautiful that it made his heart hurt when he saw her. She wasn’t one of the nasty ones, either. Not that she talked to him nicely, but she was never among those girls who joined in when the boys harassed him. In his world this was something unheard of and fantastic.

  A few minutes later, she was one of the first to come wandering into the room. She didn’t even cast a glance at him, when she sat down in the row in front of him, but that didn’t matter. Now he could study her neck without interruption and drink in the image of her hair where it fell down her back, gathered with a blue band. His heart was beating so hard that he thought everyone in the room must be able to hear it. His mouth felt dry and he had to work to get the saliva to moisten it. He watched her, spellbound, as she got out her books, and turned to the page with her vocabulary homework.

  “Difficult words we got this time, huh?” He couldn’t believe it, himself.The words had just slipped out.Where had he found the courage to speak to her? Time went into slow motion, he watched as she began to turn her body in his direction to answer him – to talk to him! The enormity of it made him gasp for air. But just then some of the others entered the room, and the magic moment came and went. She turned her attention to them and once again he had to be satisfied with staring at her back. In spite of this, he was content. For a fraction of a second she had recognized his existence.The day might not turn out as bad as he had thought.

  He would soon find out how wrong he was.

  The meeting felt like it would never end. Mellberg had droned on and on about how they had to raise their standards, about how they had to be more professional, and about how they mustn’t slacken their pace, or think that they could sashay around just because they lived in a small community. He said he was used to a much higher standard than he had seen at this station, and that he did not plan to tolerate laziness, or sloppiness with the rules.

  Everyone had listened, nodded and strained to look interested. Everyone had pretended, except Ernie Lundgren, who had immediately identified Mellberg as a man who would be susceptible to ass-kissing, and therefore devoted himself eagerly to the job.

  Patrick had spent the meeting contemplating his life as an outsider might. The picture that came to mind was far from uplifting. Things were falling apart at home, and being forced to sit here being lectured by a pompous idiot from Gothenburg, made him wonder, once again, if there was any point to it all.

  “How’re things?” asked Martin Molin, the youngest police officer at the station.

  “Fine, thanks,” answered Patrick, in a way that discouraged further conversation. The kid was pleasant, but still wet behind the ears, and he had no desire to confide either his private, or job-related, worries to him.

  “Ok, ok, I just asked to be polite,” Martin said and went into his office with a wounded expression. Damn it! Patrick thought to himself. He hadn’t meant to take out his frustration on the kid. Martin was green, but he worked hard and didn’t deserve to be snapped at. No. Perhaps the best thing to do, would be to take an hour to go home and grab some lunch, and see how Karen was feeling, at the same time. And if it was necessary for him to apologize for something he had no idea about, it would be worth it, as long as they ended up on good terms again.

  It only took a few minutes to drive to the house he shared with Karen, and park out front. Thinking that she might be sleeping, and not wanting to wake her if that were the case, he crept quietly into the house. The bedroom door was closed, so at first he thought he’d been right, but when he heard voices from inside, he thought she must be lying in bed watching the television. He walked rapidly to the door.

  As he touched the handle, and began to turn it, another thought suddenly occurred to him. When he heard how it abruptly got quiet within, his brain was already working on what was now a certainty. What he saw when the door swung open, only verified what he had come to understand the instant before. So many things cascaded into place. All the small signs he had managed to ignore, were now written with huge letters, impossible to misunderstand, and he couldn’t believe how stupid he had been. All the abruptness, all the withdrawal, all the anger and regret, all the hints she had given him, consciously or unconsciously, were all clearly explained in the sweaty, naked, lusty blend of fondling hands and intertwined legs. He could see that she had opened her mouth to say something, but she must have realized, as he did, that there wasn’t anything to say.

  Patrick carefully re-closed the door. He was completely empty inside. The only thing he wanted, was to breathe fresh air. He fled.

  The lesson was finished way too quickly and he looked longingly at her back, as she disappeared through the door. It was an impossible dream.

  Because the first hour had been a free period, it was now time for lunch. Wilbur plodded off to the cafeteria, casting watchful glances in all directions. He felt a wave of relief when he saw that he was the last in line to get his food. In the cafeteria he was usually left alone. Of course, he always sat by himself, but the serving women and the teachers’ watchful eyes did him the favor of allowing him to eat without having to worry about where the next attack would be coming from. Maybe that’s why he missed the signs that something was in the works. The signs he could usually read so well in these situations. He was so looking forward to digging into his large portion of spaghetti and meat sauce, that he didn’t hear the giggling behind him. He also forgot to check his seat before he sat down, something he usually did reflexively.

  The pain he felt was worse than anything he had ever experienced before. It made him howl in desperation and throw his tray of food into the air. Slowly, it and its huge portion of spaghetti, flew across the room. Even in his shock and pain,Wilbur was aware of Nina turning to see what was happening. With a decisively disgusting sound, the plate landed on her, covering her with food. It suddenly got very quiet. Wilbur’s scream had died out and everyone was looking at them, mouths open and eyes sparkling. Then he heard Nina’s voice, as she slowly turned her spaghetti covered self to face him.

  “You, you, you . . . disgusting, God-damned, FATSO!”

  The devastation he felt, as his heart broke, overpowered the pain in his buttocks, caused by all the staples that had jabbed into his skin when he sat down. Short pictures, of various moments, flashed by in his head. His father with a raised fist, the nasty sound of his mother’s head hitting a wall. Himself, alone in his room, the space under his bed filled with candy and empty wrappers. The taste of chocolate that filled his mouth, filled the hole in his heart, and dampened the sound of the beatings and arguments that came from the floor below. One image flew by, and came back, insisting on his attention. His father’s gun cabinet. The hunting rifle his father loved more than he had ever loved Wilbur or his mother.The lessons in the forest in an attempt “to make a man o
f him”.The sound of bullets hitting the body of an animal. The answer to all his problems suddenly seemed so simple.That was exactly what they were to him.Animals.Without feeling, and without intelligence, because they wouldn’t be able to treat him like this if they were human, would they?

  As he ran out of the cafeteria, several staples still painfully stuck in the tender meat of his ass, he had no thought or consciousness. The only thing he felt was pure, red hate. The wish to do something bad, and cause the same kind of pain he had had to go through, day in and day out.

  He ran up the hillside and felt the air burning in his lungs.This didn’t cause his decisiveness to waver, though, just the opposite. But at the bus stop, on the top of the hill, his endurance ran out. He sat down to catch his breath before he ran the rest of the way home. It wasn’t until his heart rate began to slow down, that he realized someone else was already sitting there. A person who looked just about as bad as he felt, himself. His first impulse was to get up and continue on home, to complete the task that was now pounding in his head like a mantra. But just as he was about to stand up, the man beside him spoke.

  “You’ve got it good,” Patrick said to the young man who had sat down beside him at the bus stop. Why he had decided to sit here, after his world had imploded, was a mystery to him. Perhaps it was just that he had nowhere else to go. He couldn’t go to the station, and when he’d be able to go home again, he didn’t know. Hopefully, Karen had enough sense to be packing right now and disappearing somewhere. He had no idea where she’d go, and he didn’t care, either. Just so he never had to see her or her things ever again.

  “Your biggest problem is that you’re not allowed to buy booze, or that you have to be in by ten o’clock instead of eleven. Enjoy it while you can, is all I’m saying. Before you know it, you’ll come home and find your wife in bed with another man.” He laughed bitterly and looked at the young man for the first time. He immediately regretted his outburst. The boy couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen, and was looking at him in shock. Patrick realized at once how he must seem. A grown man who sat at a bus stop, blurting out strange tirades.

  “Oh, God, I’m sorry. I should have enough sense to keep my mouth shut. A few stupid things have happened lately . . .” He quit talking and saw that the kid was looking at him with a weird look in his eyes. Impulsively he stuck out his hand.

  “Patrick Hedstrom.” The boy took his hand, but didn’t say anything, so Patrick decided to help him a little. “And you’re . . .?”

  “Wilbur,” the boy answered without elaboration, but now studied Patrick with a measure of curiosity.

  “Is everything okay?” asked Patrick. He had just seen something in the boy’s eye that had made him ask the question. Wilbur looked aside and laughed an odd, little laugh that made Patrick’s skin crawl.

  “Sure, everything’s just fine.Why wouldn’t it be? I have nothing more to worry about than that I can’t buy booze, or stay up past ten o’clock, isn’t that what you said?” And again the strange, little laugh.

  “Look, I’m really sorry. I apologize,” said Patrick. He felt like such an idiot for having ranted like he had. Great example he set for the neighborhood’s youth. Sitting here like some freaky, old man, mumbling to himself.

  “Oh, it’s okay,” the boy answered, waving away the apology, but something he’d said must have been dumb, because suddenly the boy seemed deflated.

  “Are you sure?” Patrick said, uneasy. “Because I’m a policeman, not some weirdo, or pervert, if that was what you were thinking . . .”

  “Policeman!” said Wilbur, and laughed out loud.

  “What’s so funny about that,” said Patrick a little confounded and insulted that his vocation was seen as something humorous.

  “Nothing, absolutely nothing,” the boy said and got up. “Listen, I have to go now. Good luck with . . . your wife, and all that stuff.”

  “Uh, thanks” said Patrick dumbly, and followed the boy with his eyes, as he strolled across the road. There was something unsettling about the boy, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was probably just his imagination. Patrick looked at his watch.The others were more than likely wondering where he was. Either he could sit here feeling sorry for himself, or he could go back to the station and at least try to do something worthwhile. If he could only, for one instant, convince himself that he made a difference to someone. Everything was meaningless. He didn’t matter. To anyone.

  All the hate had run out of him. The anger was still there, but it was more of the resigned sort. The kind that didn’t act, but more just contemplated and observed. The same anger he was used to. The other anger, the hate, had felt so wonderful for a few minutes, so freeing. But it was the kind that couldn’t stand contemplation, so the talk with Patrick, the policeman, had forced it to slow down, waver and fall apart. In some ways he missed it.

  He found himself feeling a little sorry for that man. Poor bastard. It seemed like he had had an even worse day than he’d had himself, and that gave things, undeniably, another perspective.

  Wilbur plodded home. The days until graduation stretched forever in front of him, but he would have to take them one at a time. Like he always had.

  Patrick rose and walked slowly in the direction of the station. He could still see the boy, a ways in front of him, walking towards a housing development. It was the same neighborhood he lived in, and which Karen was in the process of leaving.

  Something in their talk had worried him, but he finally shook it off. He didn’t have the strength to worry about someone else’s shitty day. He had enough with his own mess.

  Ironically, work was the only thing he had left. The only thing that could give his existence meaning. If only he could have known that he’d made a difference in someone’s life. If only in a small way. He realized the vanity in this hope. He’d never make a difference to anyone.

  Patrick looked for the boy,Wilbur, again, but he was gone.

  Translation by Susan Loyd

  That Fat, Sadistic Bastard

  José Carlos Somoza

  “There’s something you should know,” Karl said to me one morning. “We’re here to kill the woman.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I smiled back.

  “You don’t understand,” he replied, giving his head a shake. “I’m not kidding. It won’t be faked.”

  I looked at him straight. He had a weakness for “funny” jokes whenever he got hungry, but by this time in the morning we’d already filled our stomachs, and this joke besides was weird, even for Karl.

  “Ha, ha,” I said! “I’m splitting my sides. Go jump in the lake.”

  “Listen,” he insisted, “it’s for real. They’ve already shot a test short using another victim. He’s got it in his trailer.”

  Now it was my turn to give my head a shake. Not that I couldn’t believe what Karl was saying, but the guy’s naivety was incredible, every little rumour instantly transformed into gospel. He must have read my mind, as he looked slightly miffed:

  “Come on, Louie, smell the coffee. What d’you think we’ve been hired for? We’re not actors, we’re thugs.What else in God’s name would we be doing on this film?”

  “We’re extras, Karl, walk-on parts, or whatever the fuck they’re called.”

  “That’s what I thought until a short while ago, but Vince and Todd have convinced me it’s not so. They told me all about the short.”

  “Vince and Todd are a couple of idiots who are scared shitless half the time, and I’m surprised you pay them any attention, Karl. We’re here to work, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

  This got me a sceptical glance.

  “You know exactly who we’re working for, Louie, and he’s no normal director. He’s a fat, sadistic bastard . . .”

  “That’s enough, Karl.”

  For a minute neither of us spoke, each nursing his own slight. I’d known Karl a couple of months, and we’d got along fine, although I knew he could be a hothead. I, on the
other hand, was more the icy type, even when we had to do a difficult job with blood all over the place. I warmed to his fiery nature, but didn’t approve the way he used it to torch our director.

  On the other hand, this director was certainly an odd bird. Serious yet jokey, distracted and at the same time completely on the ball; when he looked at you, it was never clear what was going on under that smooth, bald pate. At the same time, he had a certain aura which he wore like one of those royal cloaks with a long train for others to take care of.Yes, he was a big shot all right, obsessed with his own navel (contemplating hardly difficult in his case) – but then what Hollywood director wasn’t?

  I have a certain amount of experience in showbiz, like my father, and since the late fifties have worked in various circuses, festivals, and films, always as an extra. I can confidently assert I’ve known enough bastards and sadists to fill the entire LA phonebook. I’ve also done everything – I mean everything – to please others along the way. But I never killed anyone. Never that.That was murder, and murder is a big word.

  Karl leaned over towards my ear.

  “Tomorrow they’ll continue shooting by the lake, and we’ve got the whole day free. Why don’t we meet up at three-thirty at the director’s trailer?”

  “But what for?”

  “I’ve already told you,” he gave an impatient grimace: “that’s where he keeps the short.”