They thought they had me. They thought I would surrender, but Kvisten always gets back on his feet, just like in the fight against ‘The Mallet’ Sundström. Half the match against the rope, then it was the last round and I had six broken ribs, a smashed cheekbone and crushed nose. But I fucking floored him.
And I’ll fucking floor you all.
I smirk and quicken my pace. Old man Johnsson is limping out of his bazaar, moving display boxes. There have been no fewer than three occasions when I have had to see him about a debt in the last few years. A strong and obstinate bloke. So I beat him, mainly to see how much punishment he could take. You can’t influence a man like that with kindness. He hasn’t been able to hear properly since and he limps like he has gout.
Johnsson catches sight of me when I am a couple of metres away from him. He drops the box he is holding. A bunch of scrubbing brushes of the cheapest variety spill out onto the dusty street.
I take the bag off my shoulder and help him to pick them up. They have for some reason painted the brushes in the colours of the flag, so that some old dear can feel patriotic as she scrubs the floor on her hands and knees. As if there wasn’t enough filth in the folds of the flag already.
I drop the brushes back down into the box. Johnsson meets my gaze. There is still fear in his eyes, and they dart around more than ever, but he puts on a brave face.
‘Kvist is certainly in a better mood than last time.’
‘I’m not here on business.’
‘Three times you’ve paid a visit.’
Johnsson stands up straight, apparently confusing confidence with strength.
‘I’ve never come across such a stubborn man.’
‘I don’t know. My father was a stubborn man. Didn’t bend for anyone.’
‘Believe me, during my time I have never encountered anyone like you, Johnsson.’
The old man sticks out his chest as if I’m about to pin a medal of honour on him.
‘Mr Kvist is too kind.’
‘Don’t know about that.’ I meet his gaze. In his crossed eyes I see the insatiability of my desire for violence. Nausea is bubbling in my stomach and I breathe deeply to be able to take in all my brutality. ‘Tonight damn it, Johnsson. Tonight is the night.’
‘Certainly is, but it’s an away game against Norrköping. Won’t be easy.’
An old woman comes hobbling along with two zinc buckets of water on a yoke. Three bangs from a rifle roll out from somewhere across the street and I flinch. I look around but don’t see anything. I take the cigar out of my mouth.
‘Kvisten has won a few away matches.’
‘Football’s not like boxing.’
I laugh and touch the brim of my hat.
‘Take care now.’
Johnsson nods, and I heave the sack up on my shoulder and continue along the pavement. A couple of blocks to the west I see my old client Elin Johansson standing and smoking outside Standards clothes boutique.
I cut across Odengatan to avoid her but she has already focused her attention elsewhere. If I managed to stay alive last autumn I can sure as hell survive tonight as well. That time I was in a clinch with more powerful enemies than the Reaper and Detective Chief Inspector Berglund. Plus this time I have Hiccup, Ma and her entourage to help me, instead of a damned clothes shop assistant.
‘Child’s play.’
I put a cigar in the corner of my lips and light it as I peer from under the brim of my hat over at the steps up to the City Library. There is a wall hiding the boy from me. I jog across the road through the light traffic on Sveavägen and reach the other side. I loosen my tie and shirt collar.
Hasse is sitting idly on his wooden stool but he stands to attention when he sees me.
‘Kvist?’
‘Wanted to get my shoes shined one last time.’
‘Last?’
‘Let an old man sit down.’
He offers me the stool and almost trips over his own box when he backs up a couple of steps. After a glance around he picks up one of his rags and bends to one knee by my feet.
‘Dixie is dead.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. She was a good dog.’
He concentrates on his work without looking at me. The bruises on his face are as black as plague spots.
‘Damn it, I told you not to blow your nose after the fight.’
Hasse speeds up his work, rubbing as if he were starting a fire. With a deep breath, I begin. The smell of the nearby tobacco roasters hangs heavy in the warm air.
‘I was in there a couple of years ago, you know.’ I nod towards the orange library with its gigantic round pillbox of a roof. ‘Because of Dixie.’
‘They’re nice in there.’
‘Of course I’ve been in there more times than that.’
‘Really?’
‘There was one time I asked up and down Roslagsgatan but no one had ever got a volume B in the encyclopedia’s fucking scam of a subscription. So I came here.’
‘What for?’
‘Always been curious. Have you ever tried looking up the word “schnauzer” in a book where everything begins with S?’
‘’Fraid not.’
‘Well, trust me. It takes a certain type of man.’
‘Sounds tricky.’
‘And did you know that there are three completely different varieties of the same dog? You have the giant schnauzer, the standard schnauzer, and you have Dixie, the smallest.’
‘I don’t really understand what Kvist is getting at.’
‘It’s fundamentally the same dog, but in slightly different sizes and shapes, and with different personalities. It was the Germans who arranged them according to their differences. Hence the fucking spelling.’
‘Sorry, I still don’t understand.’
I laugh and dare to ruffle his hair a little.
‘They’re all schnauzers. No matter what people say.’
An empty ballast lorry chugs past. The clouds aren’t moving, but I think I can hear the noise of an aeroplane. I look down again, seeking out his eyes in vain. No good.
‘Maybe you should take a look in a book sometime too?’ I say.
‘Probably should.’
My lungs ache as I take a deep breath.
‘This time you have to really listen.’
‘I always do.’
‘Well, listen to this, once and for all. It wasn’t your fault. I put you in too early, tried to get you to do my dirty work.’ Hasse looks up as me as he continues his work. I blow smoke out of the corner of my lips. ‘My fight is a different one.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I mean that you have damned fine hooks.’ I take my old boxing gloves off my neck and dangle them in front of him by the laces. ‘Nobody has ever lost wearing these.’
‘I can’t accept those. Kvist has done enough.’
‘I don’t need them where I’m going.’
Hasse changes shoe and carries on working in silence. The gloves land on the pavement with a thud. The hubbub of children playing is coming from the paddling pool in the park on the other side of Restaurant Corso. A bloke is walking along the pavement, kicking a football. I try to recall the sounds of San Francisco from the brief time I spent there. All cities seem to have their own song.
I consider my words. On the other side of the street, the sun is making it look as though the golden bullhead above the butcher’s shop is on fire. A few labourers with overalls stiff from work grime lumber past.
‘Lundin is a peevish bastard.’
‘He seems all right.’
‘Bloody moody.’
‘I like him.’
‘But when you get to know him you will realise that he is a true friend, no matter what. Frank and fair. So stingy that he wipes his nose and arse with the same bit of newspaper. But he still needs an assistant, though he refuses to admit it.’
‘Where is Kvisten going?’
‘I’m not coming back.’
I fan myself with my hat bri
m and look over the boy’s head, down towards Rådmansgatan and Arsehole-Pelle’s scab agency.
Hasse angles up my right foot and works another cloth over it vertically to get a proper sheen. I am going to need a new pair of shoes to go with the suit from Herzog’s but that can wait until I’m on the other side of the Atlantic. The main thing is that Ida isn’t ashamed of her old man, now that he is finally making the crossing. I take my keys from my pocket and jangle them.
‘One is to the funeral parlour and the other is to my flat. It is fully furnished, with gas and wood stoves, and an ice cupboard too. Bed has proper bolsters. Big enough for you and your girl.’
Hasse’s shoulders shake and he hides his face under the brim of his cap. A tear falls down on the tip of my shoe and trembles there, shining like a herring eye in the sunshine, before he wipes it away with the rag. I spit out a gob of dusty phlegm which sucks up even more dust when it hits the pavement.
‘At nine o’clock this evening the final Olympians take the night train to Berlin. Go with Lundin to wave them off.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Then keep your mouth shut.’
I place one hand on his muscular shoulder and give it a firm squeeze. Then I leave him, and walk the short, sweaty stretch to Thulin’s.
The walk only takes a few minutes, but Thulin’s stamp shop is closed. A slip of paper taped up on the door informs me that the forger will be back soon. I study the stamps in the window and quietly wonder if they are genuine, before stepping into the shadow of the doorway on the other side.
In the grid carved out by the paving stones, in the spot where the tramp bled to death the day before yesterday, rust-red remnants still glisten in the sunlight. I wonder how much blood will spill tonight. I wonder what will happen with Nix, the triggerhappy bastard. Both brothers seem damned temperamental, each in their own way. I notice that I am dancing in place and try to shake off my nerves.
‘Kvisten bloody well knows how to wait.’
I force myself to whistle a tune as I watch two hollow-eyed prostitutes pass on the opposite side of the road. Their worn heels clack against the pavement. It will be nice not to have to run around after them all the time. Even though Central Station, a few blocks south from here, doesn’t spew out farmers’ daughters at quite the same rate as it did during the lean years, the flow continues. Seduced by promises of the city’s splendour, they will soon discover the truth about life in the sludgy bed of this marshy swamp. A drunkard in ill-fitting clothes sways down the street, following the whores. Behind them a man with a bare chest stands on a ladder leaning against a lamp post. His skin is as pink as a piglet. Here too, every fucking square centimetre is fully illuminated, even during the short summer nights. The ones who try to hide in the shadows may as well stand naked in their own miserable doom.
One cigar later I see a driver leading a draught animal by the mane, and waddling along behind it is none other than Thulin. My face breaks into a smile. I throw the butt into the gutter and step out from the cool of the doorway.
Once inside the poky little workshop I get Beelzebub purring with a good scratch under the chin. Thulin hands me the visa and bends down with a sigh in front of his safe.
‘I understand that Kvist is leaving tomorrow?’
The master forger throws the question over his shoulder while he clicks in the code to open the safe. I stop scratching the cat and the purring dies away. The thick door of the safe opens and Thulin roots around among the German–Jewish passports.
‘That’s right.’
The old man finds the right one, turns around and gives me the document.
‘What’s the route?’
‘Norway to Canada via England.’
‘Good luck then, with whatever you are going to do.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re going to need it.’
Fuck. For half a second I get the feeling that this bloke knows too much, but I just nod a short goodbye and turn to leave.
Once I am out on the street I take a deep breath. The oxygen floods through me like a sense of peace. A boy walks past Café Élégance, made up with powder on his face and wearing trousers that are far too short. He nods to me and I tip my hat brim. I think I have seen him somewhere before but I’m not sure where. I take out my passport to appear busy.
Apparently my name is Ola Andersson and I look like a professional criminal in the photograph. But I’ve done my homework. As long as I can answer ‘no’ when they ask me whether I am an anarchist or polygamist at the American border control, I should get into the country without a problem. I for one can’t distinguish the passport from a real one, and from what I’ve heard the Swedish quota isn’t filled yet.
The name has bad associations for me. A few years ago an Ola Andersson had the misfortune of receiving a visit from Kvist. He ended up looking a lot worse than I do in this photo. A pity and a shame. He was a stylish bloke.
‘Better name than Thulin anyway,’ I say into thin air. ‘Who names their child after a make of car?’
With the seabag slung over my shoulder, I walk up to Hötorget with a spring in my step, walk around the concert hall with its new Milles statue that caused such a hubbub at the inauguration and head for NORMA on the other side of the street. Might as well take the opportunity. Who the hell knows when my next meal will be.
After pork sausage, mashed turnips and a couple of Pilsners, I continue down to Stureplanen with its jumble of glittering tram tracks. It is mainly deserted, as if the residents have embraced the Spanish tradition of siesta.
‘Though they’ve got a lot to deal with down there now. Maybe they don’t even have time for it any more.’
A couple of Östermalm fops stroll towards the baths on the other side of the square. I look down towards Three Whores Field, as it is known, and up Birger Jarlsgatan before I cross.
Two muscular tram men with bare torsos sit opposite each other on one of the tram tracks, pulling a plane between them. I drink it in.
A couple of others are standing a little farther away, nailing down a rail with a railway spike. The sledgehammer hits the head with a loud clunk and Gabrielsson’s still, dead face flashes through my mind. Strange that nobody heard the blows from Katarina Church on Saturday morning.
I stop in my tracks. The singing of the hammer sets my limbs aquiver. The Bumpkin witnessed two men, both slim and well dressed. I close my eyes, and recall Detective Chief Inspector Berglund shaking hands with the Reaper down by the Stadsgård wharf as clearly as if they were in front of me.
Fucking turncoat pig.
The cigar crumbles apart in my fingers. I stomp resolutely towards Humlegården and my getaway car. With every step the anger and conviction in my heart intensify. It is time to visit the Bumpkin with the maggots one last time.
As agreed, Nix has parked the car on Sturegatan in Ma’s territory, not far from the pontoon on the south-east corner of Humlegården. It’s a beige two-door Dodge with soft, flowing lines, and dark-brown mudguards. I dig out the keys Ma gave me and unlock the vehicle before walking around it and checking the air in the tyres.
I throw in my seabag. The leather in the driver’s seat creaks under my weight. I pat my clothes to check I have my wallet, passport, visa, cigars and, in my chest pocket, the little cocktail umbrella. In the passenger seat, as promised, is a large unica box with two long-barrelled revolvers and a double shoulder holster. I take out my scrap of green fabric, unfold it and conceal the box.
My fingers fumble for a space under the dashboard by the passenger seat. I take out my Husqvarna and pull a roll of sticky tape out of my bag. I bend down and use a few decent strips of tape to stick the pistol to the bottom right corner of the space.
If life has taught me anything it is to always have a backup plan. Especially when you are dealing with the most powerful gangster syndicates in the city. A backup escape route, a little extra lead in your magazine, a fucking horseshoe in your boxing glove.
Can’t
hurt.
I put on my sunglasses and push down the clutch. The engine roars to life at once. There isn’t enough juice to drive the whole way to Norway but I already know where I’m going to fill up. The petrol station on Valhallavägen stays open in the evenings.
My breath quickens with anticipation just thinking about it.
I place my hand on the gearstick between my knees, click into first and steer towards the neutral Klara district to park the car. The fewer people that know where the car is, the better. And I don’t see eye to eye with that Nix. Can’t trust the bastard. I’ve dealt with Hiccup before, and there’s nothing wrong with Ma, but there is something fishy about the younger son. And the elder for that matter.
As soon as I pass Kungsträdgården I see that the Bumpkin is still in the same place. I park around the corner from the Opera House and crack my knuckles. Whistling ‘Yankee Doodle’, I saunter over to the fisherman. He is standing with his line in the water. His face seems significantly more sunken than on Tuesday. My insides are gripped by the same feeling as when I shadowed that amorous attaché. The thought of that stubborn Evy with her fucking foetus doesn’t help either. It is some sort of flickering conscience.
I pull the elasticated strap off my wallet and take out a fiver. Whether I’ve gone soft or not, there is no need to go at it like a bloody steamroller every time.
The Bumpkin’s eyes are focused on the fishing float and he doesn’t see me coming. I fold the note lengthwise, hold it up between my index and middle fingers and clear my throat.
‘For your good memory.’
The old man looks as though he is about to faint and I haven’t even laid a hand on him. His face twists into a grimace, the fishing rod falls to the ground and he grabs hold of the bridge railing. I wave the fiver.
‘You mentioned two slim, well-dressed blokes last time. You recognised one of them as the Reaper. I am interested in the other one. He had grey hair, didn’t he?’
‘D-dunno. Had a hat.’
‘A white little fucking pointy moustache, right?’
The Bumpkin looks around as if weighing up his chances of escape. I shake my head.
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