‘I’ll be okay.’
‘Like fuck. I’ll carry you. Got an extra pistol under the dashboard.’
Ma snorts out a short laugh and grimaces.
‘The cocaine has made you a touch overconfident.’
She reaches for my hand and I for hers. My fingers feel dry, mealy and sweaty all at the same time. I remember Nix’s words when he shot that tramp in the guts in Klara: ‘It’s slow but it works, every time.’
And it does seem to be working now.
Ma breathes heavily a couple of times.
‘Listen. Kvist, born into whoredom, set on the wrong track from the very beginning, must understand.’ She shuts her eyes. ‘Georg became something of a father to me. Maybe the black-coat in Katarina filled the same void in you.’
Her unpainted lips become a thin line but a whimper escapes them. Conviction hammers in my breast.
‘Never been beaten, never even taken a fucking count,’ I mutter.
Ma’s hand grips mine with a strength that surprises me, and our blue eyes meet.
‘We were united in revenge, you and I. I am proud to have stood by your side.’ Her grip loosens and she sighs: ‘It is over.’
I close my eyes and let her words settle inside me.
It becomes a caress.
It is done.
Ma stares straight up in the half-light that is stubbornly refusing to let night fall. Some delicate whispers, barely more than shapeless breath, escape her lips and I lean in close. She is struggling to breathe but manages to take a breath.
‘People like Kvisten are not made for times of peace.’ She sighs. ‘Look at yourself. For all you lack, you have become a one-man war. Georg was the same.’ She grimaces and speaks through gritted teeth. ‘You don’t bow down to your destiny.’
She coughs blood in something akin to a laugh.
‘In any case I am glad that Kvisten is going west. It’s not just my time that is running out. There is no room for our kind any more. The war that is about to rage is nothing more than death throes. The snake is biting off its own head.’
Then, through the white-foamy corner of her mouth, she says: ‘May you find peace on the other side of the ocean.’
Her ribcage manages two more movements, then stops in the middle of the third. The air escapes her with a hiss.
She has made her journey.
I shut her eyes and wipe the corners of her mouth clean.
I look at her: old and weathered, but fallen in battle. I pull off my shoulder holster, lay the revolvers in her hands and close her fingers around the butts.
She will be spoken of for many years to come.
They will know that she died as she lived.
A rasping sound fills the car as I tear the sleeve off my bloody shirt, spit on the fabric and wipe my face as much as possible. I tie a tourniquet around my head and tug Ploman’s hat down over my forehead. My ribcage aches as I pull on the black suit jacket I have just taken out of my seabag.
I should have thought to pack an extra pair of shoes as well.
The winding streets of the Klara district are still echoing with sirens and I hurry to get the Dodge going. My heart is pounding like a circus monkey on a drum in a harbour town. My blood is choking my veins. I smile widely. The top of my throat is numb and it is hard to swallow.
With the side window down and my elbow outside, I press harder on the accelerator. I drive faster than I should through the winding alleys and make the engine roar as soon as I reach a short straight stretch. I laugh out loud when I think of the Detective Chief Inspector boiling alive in a cloud of steam.
‘Live as a pig, and you’ll squeal like one!’ I hit the steering wheel with my destroyed right hand. It doesn’t hurt. ‘When it comes down to the clinch, old Kvisten will win every time.’
I drive past Brunkebergstorg and peer up at the gigantic telephone tower. I have always been afraid of heights, and memories from last autumn when I was flailing around up there travel like electric currents through my body and make my head spin. Perhaps the blood loss is taking its toll.
The vertigo seems to take hold of my nervous system and a sudden rush flows through my limbs. I push myself down in the driver’s seat in response and turn right onto Hamngatan. The contours of the cobblestones make the car shake and my hand vibrate against the steering wheel. Pain runs as straight as a bargepole through my body. I bend down and root around until I feel the steel contours of the Husqvarna, pull it free and toss it onto the leather seat next to me. I bite the end off a cigar, let go of the steering wheel and strike a match. It occurs to me that maybe Ma’s powder is wearing off. My eyes flit nervously to the rear mirror.
A lonely conscript is standing by Berzelii Park, trying to earn a coin from some lovesick Östermalm gentleman. Loneliness must be carried like a badly chafing seabag wherever a man steers his course. I have rented boys here more times than I can count and got fifteen minutes of respite when I obeyed my body’s desires while emptiness burned holes in my chest.
Enough of that now.
I think of Ma, the bloody heap of a corpse, and am overwhelmed by a violent sorrow. I haven’t felt it until now.
The past catches up with me like a thundering echo, and I hear Gabrielsson’s voice clearly in my mind: ‘Every person you see is a human being doing their best to find their place in the world. Every single one.’
God knows why I am remembering this now. I glance in the rear-view mirror again.
Hell.
I flick open my sunglasses, press them on my nose, reach for the pistol and place it between my legs. All my pores open and sweat runs down my skin.
Where did that bastard come from?
The squad car is five metres behind me. I force myself to slow down and signal left. The fucker is trailing me like a bloodhound.
Falling at the finish line. The occultist’s prophecy. I bite my lower lip.
Gabrielsson. The realisation hits me like a right hook. The proper sort that smacks right on target. He never would have exacted revenge. He had the strength to forgive even the worst transgressions.
I hold the steering wheel with my knees again, and hide the Husqvarna.
Maybe I am more of an Old Testament type. I look up briefly to the heavens. A hoarse whisper fills the car.
‘Just let me get across the pond.’
Just like in Ma’s Cadillac a few days ago, I am haunted by all the innocents I’ve battered throughout the years. They run begging and bleeding through my mind. More often than not my fists moved of their own accord, out of habit and muscle memory, but maybe there were times when I was trying to relive the old days too.
No one applauded.
Once I’m on the other side of the Atlantic, I will finally have the opportunity to start again. I’ll take any labouring job I can find, as long as I can get out of this mess alive. Just as sure as you shed your prison uniform the day you are released. I can work. I’ve done it before. And they say that repentance frees the sinner.
‘You have my word.’
My eyes flit between the street and the side mirror. It’s two young constables. No doubt ambitious, trigger-happy and keen to show off. If I’m unlucky maybe Lundin will see me again, this time as cold as a turtle, with my body a honeycomb of bullet holes.
My foot eases off the accelerator as I force myself to slow down.
Only when I’m up at Östermalmstorg am I able to relax. The police car turns left. With one huge sigh of relief I bend so far forward over the wheel that Ploman’s hat practically touches the Bakelite. I’m close to crying with happiness.
I see Gabrielsson’s bloody corpse and then, like a double exposure, the Reaper’s crushed head.
Not far now.
When I pass Kommendörsgatan I peer up at Ma’s headquarters. I think about how quickly one family can be demolished and how long it can take for another to be reunited.
So damned close now.
I bring my palm to my chest, feel the bumps of the badly healed ribs a
nd the fresh injury.
Somewhere inside there lives a father’s love.
They say that raising children and taking care of them is women’s work. Making sure they are clean behind the ears, free of lice, properly dressed and all that. But even though I was always working or training, a father misses his child – at least as much as a mother, because he is away all the time.
A dozen years, almost to the month.
I turn onto Vallhallavägen, drive past the Olympic Stadium and soon see the luminescent sign of the petrol station. I am late but I think it’ll still be all right. Hope and his word of honour are the last things a poor bastard can lose. My shoeless foot involuntarily pushes harder against the accelerator and I am gripping the steering wheel in convulsive excitement. One last look back: the city is a devastated memory, already relegated into the tangled paths of my brain, ready to be buried.
Everybody knows that America is the land of freedom. You can be who you want to be over there. They don’t care who keeps you warm at night. You can even keep cool on the fire escape platforms in the summer if need be.
The petrol station’s gravel yard crunches under the car wheels. I stretch my neck, hold my breath and exhale deeply. Rickardsson is sitting on an upturned suitcase in short sleeves, honouring his promise. My insides are in tumult, but it is not because of my broken ribs, or my cough. My blood rises.
At long last.
I am here now.
I am just about to honk the horn when he catches sight of me. His serious expression melts and his eyes glimmer under his hat brim. He stands up and waves. Judging by the gobs of snuff around the suitcase he has been waiting for a long time. I park at the petrol station, bounce out of the car and lean on the bonnet, trying to play it cool despite my quivering legs.
A bell rings behind me and I tread on my cigar. The attendant rattles around with his equipment.
‘Full tank?’
I nod without turning around.
‘We have a long way to go.’
I hear the attendant unscrew the tank lid and start to pump the petrol. Rickardsson picks up his yellow travel bag with leather-reinforced corners and walks over to me at a leisurely pace. In his cold blue eyes I see no regrets, only expectancy. He moistens his thick lips.
‘Kvisten looks like absolute shit.’
‘You should see the other bloke.’
‘I’m happy to see you here.’
‘I had no fucking idea whether you would come either.’
Rickardsson nods and goes round to stand behind the attendant. I turn around, look at him and smile. The station attendant shakes off the last few drops, Rickardsson takes his blunt-nosed revolver out of his shoulder holster and bashes the butt into his skull. He falls like a pine tree in the forest.
I make a hasty movement forward, then freeze in place and feel my mouth drop open.
Rickardsson isn’t smiling any more; he looks like the killer he is. He turns the revolver on me.
‘Can’t have any witnesses.’ He runs his tongue under his top lip, digs a snuff wad out of his gum, spits it out coolly and pensively. ‘Belzén called on me yesterday afternoon. Wanted to know when you would have the van. He had four men with him. I had no choice.’
I jolt, the way you do when you fall in the treacherous void of sleep. My eyes sweep over the petrol station, see the Swedish– English British Petroleum sign, the road full of advertising placards, the round gauge on top of the fuel tank with its silent pointers: time has stopped again. I gasp for air.
‘You fucking traitor.’
‘You can’t trust anyone in this business. This is the path we chose. We chose violence.’
‘Or the bastard chose us.’
On the other side of the car bonnet, well out of my punching range, Rickardsson cocks the hammer.
I had everything in the fucking bag, but stumbled right before the finish line. As usual. I stare straight into the barrel. The prophecy flashes through my skull: don’t join forces with people you don’t know.
I finally admit it: they were right all along. I am thick as a fucking plank. I think with my fists, heart and cock, or not at all.
Get it over with.
Do it now.
I close my eyes. I can smell myself in a way I couldn’t earlier: sweat and cigars and Fandango pomade. A gentle wind creeps around the car; some distant birds warble goodnight. A couple of lost swallows cut circles in the air with whistling wings. Somewhere far away, a door slams. My heart calms down. It is time. I give up. At a fucking petrol station on Vallhallavägen. Nothing to be done.
Born a loser, always a loser. I can’t take any more.
Get it over with. I am ready. I have been for a long time.
‘Pull the trigger then, you bastard.’
‘You let me wait for a hell of a long time. Can I trust Kvisten?’
An ounce of hope. I lean forward cautiously and put my hands on my knees. My muscles are shaking. I turn my head to the side, spit and peer up at him from under the brim of my hat.
‘We had an agreement. We spat on our hands and shook on it at my place. Only yesterday, for fuck’s sake.’
‘It was supposed to be an ambush of an ambush but I gave Belzén the wrong time. His rubbish trucks would have come to Hiccup’s rescue only once you were finished and both Ploman and the Reaper were dead. By which time Ma and her boys would also be no more than a memory, and the city would be wide open. I ask you again: is Kvisten trustworthy?’
‘You know me. I’m a temperamental bastard. But I’m here, aren’t I?’
Rickardsson’s revolver trembles in his hand.
‘Devil take you.’
He holsters his shooter and grins.
‘We definitely need to get you a new pair of shoes.’
He lifts the suitcase up onto the bonnet. The lock clicks open and he turns it to show me. There, among the underpants and trousers, glimmers one of the gold bars with the German swastika.
I feel as if I am plunging into darkness and unconsciousness again, but I get a hold of my surroundings, and cling on tight.
‘Well, I’ll be damned. How the fuck did you manage to get that?’
‘You were the one who discovered them. Nicked one for Anna and the kids too.’
Rickardsson picks up a folded and pinned shirt, as red as love and all the fiery demons in hell. He flings it over the car and I catch it. The petrol station attendant is beginning to stir and I hear a few pitiful moans. Time to go. Rickardsson’s case clicks closed again.
‘You look like you need forty winks. I’ll drive the first stretch.’
I nod and we meet in front of the car. For one second we are staring into the depths of each other like two opposing boxers, then I pull him by one of his braces and let it snap back. He smirks, takes me in his hairy arms and kisses me deeply. Our hat brims collide. It has been a long time since someone has taken me like this and I like it. He tastes of snuff and cognac.
For one moment I think I am going to collapse on him. He supports me and then lets me go. I look around, out of habit.
‘Kvisten doesn’t need to worry about that any more.’
‘Always some bastard staring.’
‘Since when do we care what the penal code says?’
Rickardsson moves away, and the sunset blazes over him like gold. I shade my face with my hand and look up at the golden sky. A pigeon shimmers blue as it passes overhead.
‘Might be better in the States.’
He nods and pulls up a cigar from his chest pocket with a smile glittering on his lips.
‘Havana?’
I grin.
‘Maybe for Christmas.’
Rickardsson lets out a hearty laugh. I light the cigar and inspect it.
Not bad.
Time to trade up.
Rickardsson throws his suitcase in the car and I walk around the bonnet, stepping over the petrol station attendant. The blood is still pouring from an open wound on the back of his head but the bloke is already com
ing round and twitching his legs.
He’ll live.
I open the door to the front seat but pause for a moment.
‘Came across Oskar Olsson in Christmas ’32. Runs the state police now.’
‘Corrupt bastard.’
‘Should drop him a word about Ploman’s protection corps.’
‘What the hell does that matter to people like us? A country gets what it deserves. No more, no less.’
‘That’s probably true.’
‘They hang petty thieves like us, but lift their hats to the big ones.’
‘Kvisten doesn’t. Like hell.’
‘Neither do I.’
‘Might make a call though.’
‘From Oslo, before we board.’
We get in the car. The leather creaks as I get comfortable on the passenger seat. Rickardsson revs up the engine.
‘Here we fucking go, lad! Never tell me I can’t make a bloody plan.’
I chuckle and take a deep puff.
‘I don’t even know your damn first name.’
‘I’m not a first name kind of bloke.’
I laugh. Rickardsson puts his hand on the gearstick between his legs. I place my hand on his. Together we click into first and drive away with a tail of smoke behind us.
EPILOGUE
There isn’t much to tell.
We drive all night. We laugh, we bicker, take a fuck break by a forest lake just outside Örebro and get mosquito bites on our arses. We sit listening to the quiet hum of the forest for a long time afterwards. No words are needed. After half an hour we go back to the car.
Rickardsson drives awhile longer. He talks about when he killed a man with a belt strap around the neck and a knee between the shoulder blades. I counter with the story of when I stabbed a copper in the eye with the broken point of a schnapps glass. I win that round.
At times I sit silently and stare at the never-ending brown line of pine trees rushing past. The motor hums and through the open window I can hear gravel crunching underneath the car tyres. Every metre brings me that much closer to my Ida, and Rickardsson farther from his children.
‘Kvisten is still hanging tough.’
‘What did you say?’
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