Slugger

by Martin Holmén

  Hasse looks almost relieved and immediately starts making his way through the assembly. I watch his back before he is swallowed up by the crowd. I can’t figure him out. I turn back to the square.

  The climax of ‘The Internationale’ rings out from the maze of alleyways to the side of the square. It sounds like a half a battalion. They can’t be more than one block away. The snare drum is hammering like a machine gun. There is a smash as an empty bottle flies into the square and explodes on the pavement. The speaker slips down from the rostrum and disappears eastward, flanked by bodyguards.

  Damned coward.

  Music fills the square as the Communist marching band appears on the slope up to Storkyrkan Cathedral opposite me. A hundred young lads gather in front of them, with straight backs and red banners. Some young ruffians among the bystanders rush to join them now that they sense a fight is on its way. The Commies station themselves shoulder to shoulder like beaters in the forest and link arms to form chains.

  For a couple of seconds all is quiet but for the rapid roll of the drums. A few pigeons take off from the Stock Exchange roof-ridge. Berglund takes out his revolver.

  The trumpeters on the slope bring their instruments to their lips again. The vanguard of the counter-demonstration lower their heads and charge against the police. As if on cue the alleys spew out a rain of stones and empty bottles. The music mingles with the sounds of violence, dampened thuds and smashing glass. People scream. The assembly scatters. The air is filled with black blurs as police swing their batons wildly.

  ‘Attack!’

  The Reds let out a collective roar as the police line breaks. They pour out of the alleys like blood from an open wound, rushing forth like stallions in a field. Marlinspikes, straight razors and lifting hooks are revealed from hiding places in jackets. Berglund, the blond man and three constables retreat onto Skomakargatan and I fall back a few metres and hide in a courtyard entrance way so he won’t see me. I take a puff of my cigar and peek out at the commotion. My mouth is watering.

  A man with a broken nose is raging around a few metres into the square. It looks like someone has slapped a plate of steak tartare on his mug. Strings of blood tremble in his goatee. He bends over a hat, stares at it for a second and throws it over his shoulder before staggering on. Berglund brings a whistle to his mouth. The screeching signal fills the square.

  Hooves immediately hurtle across the paving stones and the mounted police charge with riding crops and sabres drawn. The blades flash in the sunlight. Halte Harald has strayed into the square and fallen under the hooves of a brown stallion, which tramples his groin.

  That certainly won’t help his limp.

  Inspector Berglund raises his revolver above his head. The sound of two warning shots cuts through the noise. For a moment things subside; people look around, the trauma of the Ådalen shootings shining in their eyes. A horse rears up. Some of the fighters trickle away down the alleys and the mass in the square thins out.

  Then the noise level rises again. One man strikes another between the eyes. A policeman is dragged backwards from his horse but refuses to release his grip on the reins. The nag shies and tosses its head.

  A young man comes running in my direction. He has a thin, sharp face and narrow shoulders. A leather strap spans his uniform shirt. He is holding a bloody sheath knife in his hand. A couple of Commies are in hot pursuit.

  They surge past Berglund and continue down the street. I take one step from the courtyard entrance way and stretch out my foot.

  A sudden pain: the Nazi’s shin bashes into mine. With a heavy gasp he lands on his back, winded, his limbs splayed. The knife clatters on the street just beyond his reach.

  Damned if I know why I did it.

  The Commies pounce on him like a gang of starved farm cats on an injured baby crow. He gets a work boot in his face. There is a crack. He gets another. And another.

  I stop smiling when I look up straight into Berglund’s eyes.

  ‘Fuck!’

  I swear softly to myself and back into the courtyard entrance way. The brown-clad National Socialist remains lying in front of me like a torn piece of jute fabric. His foot is twitching. Blood is coagulating in the dirt. The Communists disappear into the alleys. I push myself up against the doors and hide my eyes under the brim of my hat.

  The sound of police boots slamming against the pavement seems to drown out everything else. My heart is hammering, making my entire ribcage vibrate with tension. The pimp from Norrmalmstorg comes to mind. I went hard at that devil. Even if I did refrain from putting my post-fight cigar in his eye.

  ‘Kvist? Well, I’ll be buggered!’

  Shit.

  I look up. Berglund takes a step over the National Socialist who is still lying splayed in the middle of the street. The inspector has three constables with drawn sabres in his entourage. He pulls the handle and one of the doors screeches open.

  ‘In here with him.’

  The constables push me through the door and up against the wall of the courtyard inside. It is rough and slightly damp. The chill caresses my back. A stuffy smell of boiled cabbage lingers in the air.

  The largest one stands closest to me. He is holding my shirt collar in his left hand and his sabre in the right. He has a furrowed face and grey temples under his uniform cap. His chin droops, and his mouth hangs open like a simpleton’s.

  ‘How many times has the slugger done the rounds at Långholmen? Three, four?’

  Berglund is still holding the revolver in his hand. I shrug my shoulders but my belly is a knot of tension. Everybody knows that the Malmö police are the worst in the country but the Stockholm pigs sure have their moments, just as sure as the Detective Chief Inspector is motivated by personal malice more than justice.

  ‘Kvist likes a hefty punishment. Unfortunately for you we just don’t have the time to bring you to court right now.’ Berglund glances through the doorway. ‘Let him have it boys. Thoroughly.’

  I didn’t take beatings well as a child. When the farmer I lived with during those early years took off his belt, I would run and hide in the barn until he had calmed down. I can’t say that I feel differently as a grown man, but a life in the ring has trained me. And now I have no choice. The Bumpkin is within reach and on Thursday Hasse will be in the ring.

  Do what you have to do.

  The gaping-mouthed copper in front of me draws back the handle of his sabre. I manage to clear my throat and gob in his mouth before I push my chin into my chest and shoot my forehead forward. He clocks me with the sabre handle. A bright white light, like an exploding carbide lamp, flashes through my skull. My skin breaks. I fold over a fist in the stomach before getting another in the chest. My mouth fills with viscous iron. I fall through darkness.

  Sailors drown in silence, without the slightest sound, as everyone who has seen it with their own eyes knows.

  A few whimpers escape my split lips, but inside me all is quiet.

  TUESDAY 21 JULY

  I slurp a few sips of coffee through busted lips and run my little finger stump over the stitches Dr Jensen gave me yesterday, counting them. Five stitches. Seventy kronor poorer. Halvfjerds, as they say in Danish.

  You learn something new every day.

  Bloody Danes.

  Lundin is in front of me, reclining in bed with a newspaper. He licks his thumb, turns the page and then wipes the moisture off on the embroidered collar of his nightshirt. We have had breakfast and sucked a morning dram through a sugar cube but the undertaker refuses to get up. Says it’s not worth it.

  ‘Would you rather lie like a dried-up old cow in a barn, starved half to death from eating nothing but old hay and moss?’

  He rustles his newspaper.

  ‘The Olympians are taking the night train to Berlin on Friday. They are encouraging people to come to Central Station and wave them off.’

  ‘I’m off out now, but you have a chamber pot under your bed and water, schnapps and playing cards here.’

  I
point to the bottles on the nightstand. A gentle breath of wind pours in through the open window above the bed and plays in the curtain. Dixie whimpers from the foot of the bed. Her tail beats against the wall.

  ‘Could you help me? We could take a taxi. I want to see if my nephew is part of the team.’

  ‘Maybe, I have a lot to do.’

  ‘Ragnar Lundin, precision pistol.’

  ‘I know. Now, will you be all right?’

  ‘I hope you get your fisherman, brother.’

  I pat the undertaker on the shoulder and get up, scraping the chair against the floor tiles. I pick up the bottle from the nightstand and take a mouthful of schnapps that stings my lips. Halfway out the door Lundin calls to me and I turn around.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Well, I was wondering. What do they say about me?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The tenants. What do they say?’

  ‘They say that you are good about the heating. In the winter. In summer they don’t say anything.’

  The undertaker perks up, nods and strokes his moustache.

  ‘Quite right. I have allowed a grace period on the rent for those who have needed it and I have never taken payment in kind from the women.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Even though Nilsson the tinsmith’s wife tried it on.’

  ‘I’ll be back in the evening.’

  ‘Do they know I have an Olympian nephew?’

  ‘You can be damned sure they know that.’

  ‘Good luck with the fisherman.’

  Roslagsgatan is bathed in sun. I light a cigar, head south and encounter the screeching number 6 tram. A wild excitement is coursing through my body.

  Farther down the street I see that damned Wång and his pious wife outside the cigar shop in the middle of a scrabble of kids. I watch the captain bend down and poke one of them in the stomach with the shaft of his tobacco pipe. Maybe it’s one of his own. They have a whole bunch, named after biblical characters. One of the lads is said to be some sort of musical genius. He stands out on the street sometimes, in his velvet prodigy outfit, playing the violin, but I can’t see him there now.

  A couple of gunshots resound from up in Vanadislunden Park and I stop in my tracks. The memory of Hiccup doing in those two gangsters judders through me like an electric shock: the bullets blasting into the bodies, the sleet that cleaned off the blood and brain matter. But then I remember that starting from today there is a compassion bounty on offer for hunters who put street dogs out of their misery. I think about the mutt from yesterday. That might have been her meeting her end.

  As I approach the cigar stall Wång disappears inside, but seeing as the tram is going to wait awhile up by the Roslags customs office, I think I’ll give the kids a genuinely entertaining yarn instead of the captain’s lies. I am feeling positive about the day ahead, am in a good mood and feel like taking Wång down a peg or two.

  The chattering crowd in short trousers quietens when I approach. I push back my hat, attempt a smile that comes out crooked and stroke my chin. A little lass with a pink bow in her golden blonde hair squats down. She is red around the mouth from cherries.

  Wång’s devout wife is dressed in a black satin dress buttoned all the way up to the neck. The tight grey knot on her head reminds me of a wasp nest. Her face is wearing that steely expression that religious people get when their Lord has grown tired of their incessant praying and long since stopped listening. I greet her with a nod.

  ‘I hear that the littl’uns like tales of the sea.’ I turn to the children. ‘Isn’t that right kids?’

  My split lip and morning drams make me splutter my words slightly. The brats’ eyes grow wide and they start fidgeting.

  ‘We like the captain’s sweets,’ says a short, chubby boy with an unsightly cowlick on his forehead.

  ‘Well, I don’t have any, but I’ll bet my hat that my stories are more exciting – and true, come to that. Let me tell you about when the Swedish consul had to bail me out in France.’

  The little girl with the bow looks up. Mrs Wång takes the two children standing closest and pulls them in to her. Her nostrils quiver.

  ‘I was loitering around Marseilles drinking in bars. One evening I had a couple too many under my belt, well, to be frank, I was completely cockeyed, and I was drifting around the harbour, when I stumbled upon a rather strange sort of establishment.’ I chew my lips to get the saliva flowing. ‘Fangs were painted around the door as if you were stepping into the mouth of a wild animal, and two blokes were standing outside with their faces hidden behind black cowls. They were chanting in French – a hell of a language that is utterly impossible to understand, even for many natives, or so I hear. Driven by curiosity and booze I decided to go closer and investigate, thinking it was an exotic whorehouse of some sort.’

  Mrs Wång gasps for air, and so do I. God knows when was the last time I talked this much. The little girl stands up and fumbles for the woman’s kirtle. The chubby little thing screws his face up in a sullen frown. I’ll have to pick up the pace or they will lose interest. I move my arms in a swimming motion.

  ‘I enter a narrow corridor with blood-red velvet curtains draped along the walls and get myself tangled up in them. Then suddenly, without warning a terrible creature appears from the curtains, pale as a corpse and with huge fangs in its mouth! Quick as the devil I clout it with a left and smack its sharp fangs clean across the corridor. The vampire collapses to the ground as if staked in the heart.’

  The little girl sniffs. Mrs Wång draws her closer in to her as well, her eyes burning with godly fervour.

  ‘Mr Kvist, I don’t think…’

  I hold up my palm. The best bit is coming up. I need to get to Strömmen and the Bumpkin and don’t have time for any interruptions.

  ‘And as if that wasn’t enough, next a hunchback comes shuffling along with eyes like an owl and his hairy hump showing through a hole in his shirt. I clip the bastard with a hard right and he tumbles along the ground like a ball of yarn.’ I take a deep drag on my cigar and grin. ‘I manage to deck another two of these freaks before the police show up and I realise that I wasn’t in a whorehouse at all, but some sort of variety theatre.’ I laugh loudly. The little girl’s tears are now flowing in rivers down her dirty cheeks. I pat her reassuringly on the head. ‘There you are, kids, a real sailor’s story.’

  The brats stand in front of me like a nest of chicks. I get a vague feeling in my gut that I have done something wrong, but I take off my hat and saunter south.

  It was probably the lack of sweets as bribes. Spoilt little toerags. Wång must have told some incredible tall tales if that one didn’t do the trick. Luckily I have a couple of others in store that are far worse.

  I’ll try one of those next time. I’ve always been good with kids.

  Just as the number 6 tram pulls into the stop I see a youth approaching with hasty steps. He is around twenty-five, with a wasp waist and broad shoulders, his hair well trimmed, pomaded and waxed. He has probably wandered too far north and ended up in the wrong part of town. I have neither the time nor the inclination to get distracted by beautiful flesh so I avoid eye contact.

  The tram screeches to a halt. I am about to step on when someone grabs my shoulder and stops me. I smack the arm away with the back of my right hand and turn around. He is so close that I can smell his expensive cologne and camphor oil, and see the shine of sweat on his right cheekbone. Apparently it is so hot that even the upper class have learnt how to sweat.

  My left rams towards his jaw but stops a couple of centimetres from the target. His eyes narrow then widen. He lowers his chin and the bone touches my knuckles. I swallow. His cotton collar is soft and gentle on my hand.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ I mutter.

  I push him back with one hand on his chest. My thumbs leave a decent fingerprint stain on the young man’s white shirt. I force myself into calmness. It is as constrictive as a jacket a size too small.

  ‘
H-harry Kvist, private detective?’ he stutters.

  ‘Don’t have time.’

  ‘Please sir, I beg you, it will only take a minute.’

  ‘Have to find a fisherman.’

  ‘I pay well.’

  ‘Sixty seconds, starting now.’

  Herzog’s mausgrau summer suit flashes through my mind. I take out my timepiece and pretend to watch it. The young man interlaces his slender fingers in front of his body and tries to stand up straight, but it doesn’t take a detective to see that something is weighing him down.

  ‘I am engaged to be married to a Miss Agnes Anfeldt. I work for her father, as an assistant at Anfeldt’s law firm, on account of my difficulties in gaining employment as an engineer, which is my true discipline. Miss Anfeldt and I met at a family event and became engaged last year.’

  ‘Get to the point.’

  ‘There is another gentleman in her life, a childhood friend who has recently moved back to the city after several years as an attaché in Lisbon, and…’

  ‘Tick-tock.’

  ‘My dear sir.’ He throws up his hands. ‘I fear that Miss Anfeldt is having an affair.’

  Hasse’s upcoming taxi ride and that tailored suit: an extra couple of coins wouldn’t go amiss. My old trainer Axel Albertsson taught me that one should always go to a fight in style. I scratch the tip of my nose and peer at the boy from under the brim of my hat.

  ‘You want him roughed up?’

  The youth nods and presses his lips together. I go in hard.

  ‘A hundred kronor, hundred and fifty for both, all in advance.’

  ‘No, for God’s sake, not my Agnes.’

  ‘Write down a description, his name and address.’

  ‘You must understand. I fear that the aforementioned childhood friend is to be found at the lady in question’s house right now. On Sturegatan.’

  The boy flaps his hands around again like a couple of scared little birds and his voice has a certain theatrical quality to it. I grunt.

  ‘He’ll be in hospital by evening.’

  The youth flinches at this but takes my notebook and pen. He manages to scribble down the details and returns the paraphernalia with a couple of crisp notes. His hand is shaking. The upper class often react this way, even though they don’t have to do a damn thing except pay someone else to do their dirty work. That is why 1,000-kronor notes look bloodstained around the edges. I have seen them. In real life and close up. Twice even.