Cockroaches

by Jo Nesbo

  “The Cook?” Harry set about the scalding hot spring roll that had arrived at the table.

  “He got the nickname a couple of years back. We had one of Woo’s victims on our hands; I got the case and was present when they started the autopsy. It had been on the slab for a few days and was so bloated with gas that it looked like a black and blue football. The gas is toxic, so the pathologist sent us out of the room, and he wore a gas mask before perforating the stomach. I was watching from the window in the door. The skin flapped when he opened the body and you could see the green tinge of gas as it poured out.”

  Harry put the spring roll back on the plate with a wounded expression, though Liz didn’t notice.

  “But the shock was that he was teeming with life inside. The pathologist backed up against the wall as the black creatures crawled out of the stomach, down onto the floor and darted off into nooks and crannies.” She formed horns with her index fingers against her forehead. “Devil beetles.”

  “Beetles?” Harry pulled a face. “I didn’t think they entered bodies.”

  “The dead man had a plastic tube in his mouth when we found him.”

  “He …”

  “In Chinatown grilled beetles are a delicacy. Woo had force-fed the poor guy.”

  “And skipped the grilling?” Harry pushed away the plate.

  “Amazing creatures, insects,” Liz said. “I mean, how did the beetles survive in the stomach, with the toxic gas and everything?”

  “I’d prefer not to think about it.”

  “Too spicy?”

  It took Harry a second to realize that she meant the food. He had pushed the plate to the edge of the table.

  “You’ll get used to it, Harry. You just have to take it step-by-step. You should take a couple of recipes with you to impress your girlfriend in the kitchen when you get home.”

  Harry coughed.

  “Or your mother,” Liz said.

  Harry shook his head. “Sorry, don’t have one of them, either.”

  “I’m the one who should apologize,” she said, and the conversation died. Woo’s food was on its way.

  She pulled out a black service pistol from her hip holster and released the safety catch.

  “Smith & Wesson 650,” Harry said. “Heavy-duty.”

  “Stay behind me,” Liz said, getting up.

  Woo didn’t bat an eyelid when he looked up and stared into the muzzle of the inspector’s gun. He held the chopsticks in his left hand; the right hand was hidden in his lap. Liz barked something in Thai, but he didn’t seem to hear. Without moving his head, his eyes wandered around the room, registered Nho and Sunthorn before stopping by Harry. A faint smile crossed his lips.

  Liz shouted again, and Harry felt the skin on his neck tingle. The hammer of the gun rose, and Woo’s right hand appeared on the table. Empty. Harry heard Liz breathe out between her teeth. Woo’s gaze still rested on Harry while Nho and Sunthorn attached the handcuffs. As they led him out it looked like a little circus procession with one muscleman and two dwarfs.

  Liz put her gun back in its holster. “I don’t think he likes you,” she said, indicating the chopsticks which had been stuffed into the rice bowl and pointed upward.

  “Really?”

  “It’s an old Thai symbol for wishing you dead.”

  “He’ll have to wait his turn.” Harry remembered he needed to ask to borrow a gun.

  “Let’s see if we can get some action before the night is over,” Liz said.

  * * *

  On their way into the arena they were met by screams from an ecstatic crowd and a trio of men banging and whistling like a school band on acid.

  Two boxers wearing colorful headbands and rags tied around both arms had just entered the ring.

  “That’s our guy Ivan in the blue shorts,” Liz said. Outside the stadium she had relieved Harry of all the notes he had in his pocket and given them to a bookie.

  They found their seats in the front row, behind the referee, and Liz smacked her lips with pleasure. She exchanged a few words with her neighbor.

  “As I thought,” she said. “We haven’t missed anything. If you want to see really good fights you have to go on Tuesdays. Or Thursdays at Lumphini. Otherwise there are lots of … well, you know.”

  “Bouillon matches.”

  “What?”

  “Bouillon matches. That’s what we call them in Norwegian. When two bad skaters are racing against each other.”

  “Bouillon?”

  “Hot soup. That’s when you go and get some.”

  Liz’s eyes became two sparkling narrow slits when she laughed. Harry had discovered he liked to see and hear her laugh.

  The two boxers had removed their headbands, walked around the ring and performed a kind of ritual by resting their heads against the corner posts, kneeling and then doing some simple dance steps.

  “It’s called ran muay,” Liz said. “He’s dancing in honor of his personal kru, guru and guardian angel of Thai boxing.”

  The music stopped and Ivan went to his corner, where he and the trainer leaned toward each other and put their palms together.

  “They’re praying,” Liz said.

  “Does he need to?” Harry asked, worried. He’d had quite a bundle of notes in his pocket.

  “Not if he lives up to his name.”

  “Ivan?”

  “All boxers get to choose their names. Ivan called himself after Ivan Hippolyte, a Dutchman who won a fight at Lumphini Stadium in 1995.”

  “Only one?”

  “He’s the only foreigner to win at Lumphini. Ever.”

  Harry turned to see if her expression came with a wink, but at that moment the gong sounded and the fight started.

  The boxers approached each other with caution, keeping a healthy distance and circling. One swing was easily parried and a counter-kick met thin air. The music increased in volume, as did the cheers from the crowd.

  “They’re just cranking up the temperature,” Liz shouted.

  Then they were at each other. Lightning speed, a whirl of legs and arms. Things happened so fast that Harry didn’t see much, but Liz groaned. Ivan was already bleeding from the nose.

  “He got an elbow chop,” she said.

  “Elbow? Didn’t the ref see?”

  Liz smiled. “It’s not illegal to use your elbows. More like the opposite. Hits with your hands and feet get you points, but it’s generally elbows and knees that get you a knockout.”

  “So their kicking techniques aren’t up to karate standards.”

  “I’d be careful there, Harry. A few years ago Hong Kong sent its five best kung-fu champions to Bangkok to see which style was more effective. The warm-up and the ceremonies took more than an hour, but the five bouts lasted only six and a half minutes. There were five ambulances on the way to the hospital. Guess who was in them?”

  “Well, no danger of that this evening.” Harry yawned demonstratively. “This is— Bloody hell!”

  Ivan had grabbed his opponent by the neck and in one swift movement brought the man’s head down while his right knee catapulted up. The opponent fell backward, but managed to wind his arms around the ropes so that he was hanging directly in front of Liz and Harry. Blood was spurting out and splashing the canvas as if a pipe had sprung a leak somewhere. Harry heard people behind him shouting in protest and discovered it was because he had stood up. Liz pulled him back down.

  “Wow!” she shouted. “Did you see how fast Ivan was? I said he was fun, didn’t I.”

  The boxer in the red shorts had turned his head to one side, so Harry took in his profile. He could see the skin around his eye move as it filled with blood from inside. It was like watching an air bed being pumped up.

  Harry had a strange, nauseous déjà vu feeling as Ivan moved toward his helpless adversary who was no longer aware he was in a boxing ring. Ivan took his time, studied his opponent a bit like a gourmand wondering whether to start by tearing off a chicken wing or a thigh. In the background, bet
ween the boxers, Harry could see the referee. He was watching with his head angled and his arms by his sides. Harry could tell he wasn’t going to do anything, and he felt his heart beating against his ribs. The three-man band no longer sounded like a Norwegian Independence Day procession, it was out of control and blowing and banging in ecstasy.

  Stop, Harry thought, and at that moment heard his own voice: “Hit him!”

  Ivan hit him.

  Harry didn’t follow the countdown. He didn’t see the referee raise Ivan’s hand in the air or the victor’s wai to all four corners of the ring. He was staring at the cracked, wet cement floor in front of his feet where a little insect was struggling to flee from a drop of blood. Caught in a series of events and coincidences, wading in blood up to the knees. He was back in another country, another time, and only came to when a hand hit him between the shoulder blades.

  “We won!” Liz yelled in his ear.

  They were queuing to get their money from the bookmaker when Harry heard a familiar voice speaking Norwegian.

  “Something tells me our officer has bet wisely and not just trusted his luck. In which case, congratulations.”

  “Well,” Harry said, turning, “Inspector Crumley claims to be an expert, so perhaps that’s not so far from the truth.”

  He introduced the inspector to Jens Brekke.

  “And did you bet as well?” Liz asked.

  “A friend of mine tipped me off that Ivan’s opponent had a bit of a cold. Strange what a huge effect that can have, eh, Miss Crumley?” Brekke beamed and turned to Harry. “I wonder if you could help me out of a fix, Hole. I’ve brought Molnes’s daughter with me and should drive her home, but one of my most important clients in the U.S. has called, and I have to go back to the office. It’s chaos, the dollar’s going through the roof and he’s got to get rid of a couple of busloads of baht.”

  Harry looked in the direction where Brekke had nodded. Leaning against a wall, in a long-sleeved Adidas T-shirt, half hidden behind the crowds hurrying out of the stadium, stood Runa Molnes. Her arms were crossed and she was looking away.

  “When I spotted you I remembered that Hilde Molnes had said you were staying in the embassy’s apartment down by the river. It won’t be such a big detour if you share a taxi. I promised her mother …”

  Brekke waggled a hand to indicate that this kind of maternal concern was of course exaggerated, but nevertheless it would be best if the promise was kept.

  Harry looked at his watch.

  “Of course he can,” Liz said. “Poor girl. It’s no surprise that her mother’s a bit on edge at the moment.”

  “Of course,” Harry said, forcing a smile.

  “Great,” Brekke said. “Oh, one more thing. Could you pick up my winnings as well? That should cover the taxi. If there’s anything left, I suppose there’s a police fund for widows or something.”

  He gave Liz a receipt and was gone. Her eyes widened when she saw the figures.

  “The question is: Are there are enough widows?” she said.

  19

  Monday, January 13

  Runa Molnes did not seem particularly pleased to be accompanied home.

  “Thanks, I can manage,” she said. “Bangkok is about as dangerous as Ørsta village on a Monday night.”

  Harry, who had never been to Ørsta on a Monday night, hailed a taxi and held the door open for her. She clambered in reluctantly, mumbled an address and stared out of the window.

  “I told him to drive to River Garden,” she said after a while. “That’s where you get out, isn’t it?”

  “I think the instructions were that you get dropped first, frøken Molnes.”

  “Frøken?” She laughed and looked at him with her mother’s black eyes. The eyebrows, which were growing together, gave her an elfin appearance. “You sound like my aunt. How old are you anyway?”

  “You’re as old as you feel,” Harry said. “So I reckon I’m about sixty.”

  She looked at him with curiosity now.

  “I’m thirsty,” she said suddenly. “If you buy me a drink you can take me to my door afterward.”

  Harry leaned forward, and started to give the driver Molnes’s address.

  “Forget it,” she said. “I’ll insist on River Garden and he’ll think you’re trying it on. Do you want a scene?”

  Harry tapped the driver on the shoulder, and Runa began to scream and the driver jumped on the brakes, banging Harry’s head against the ceiling. The driver turned, Runa inhaled to scream again and Harry held up his hands in surrender.

  “OK, OK. Where then? Patpong’s on the way, I suppose.”

  “Patpong?” She rolled her eyes. “You are old. Only dirty old men and tourists go there. We’re going to Siam Square.”

  She exchanged a few words with the driver in what to Harry’s ears sounded like flawless Thai.

  “Have you got a girlfriend?” she asked when she had a beer brought to the table, also after threatening a scene.

  They were in a large, outdoor restaurant at the top of a broad, monument-like set of stairs packed with young people—students, Harry presumed—sitting and watching the slow-moving traffic and one another. She had cast a suspicious glance at Harry’s orange juice, but apparently, with her background, she was used to teetotallers. Or perhaps not. Harry had a feeling that not all the unwritten party rules had been observed in the Molnes family.

  “No,” Harry answered, and added: “Why the hell does everyone ask me that?”

  “Why the hell, eh?” She wriggled on her chair. “I suppose it’s usually girls who ask, is it?”

  He chuckled. “Are you trying to embarrass me? Tell me about your boyfriends.”

  “Which one?” She kept her left hand hidden in her lap and raised her beer glass with her right. With a smile playing on her lips, she leaned back and fixed him with her eyes.

  “I’m not a virgin, if that’s what you think.”

  Harry almost spat a mouthful of juice over the table.

  “Why should I be?” she said, putting the glass to her lips.

  Yes, why should you be? Harry thought.

  “Are you shocked?” She put the beer glass down and assumed a serious expression.

  “Why should I be?” It sounded like an echo, and he hastened to add: “I believe I made my debut at about your age.”

  “Yes, but not when you were thirteen,” she said.

  Harry breathed in, considered her comment carefully and slowly released air through his teeth. He would be happy to drop this subject now. “Really? And how old was he?”

  “That’s a secret.” She had her teasing expression back. “Tell me why you don’t have a girlfriend.”

  He paused for a moment before speaking, an impulse, perhaps to see if he could reciprocate the shock tactics. And tell her that the two women he could say, in all honesty, he had loved were both dead. One by her own hand, the other by a murderer’s.

  “It’s a long story,” he said. “I lost them.”

  “Them? Are there several? I suppose that’s why they dumped you, was it? Two-timing?”

  Harry could hear the childish excitement and laughter in her voice. He was unable to bring himself to ask what kind of relationship she had with Jens Brekke.

  “No,” he said. “I just didn’t pay enough attention.”

  “Now you look serious.”

  “Sorry.”

  They sat in silence. She fiddled with the label on the beer bottle. Glanced at Harry. As if trying to make up her mind. The label came off.

  “Come on,” she said, taking his hand. “I’ll show you something.”

  They went down the steps, between the students, along the pavement and up a narrow footbridge over the broad avenue. In the middle they stopped.

  “Look,” she said. “Isn’t that beautiful?”

  He watched the traffic streaming toward and then away from them. The road stretched as far as the eye could see, and the lights from the lorries, buses, cars, motorbikes and tuk-tuks wer
e like a river of lava thickening into one yellow stripe at the furthest end.

  “It looks like a snake twisting and turning with a luminous pattern on its back, doesn’t it?”

  She leaned over the railing. “Do you know what’s strange? People in Bangkok would happily kill for the little I have in my pockets at this moment. And yet I’ve never been afraid here. In Norway we always went up to our mountain cabin at the weekend. I know the cabin and all the paths blindfold. And every holiday we went to Ørsta where everyone knows everyone and shoplifting is front-page news. And yet this is where I feel safest. Here where I’m surrounded by people on all sides and I don’t know any of them. Isn’t that strange?”

  Harry was unsure how to reply.

  “If I could choose I’d live here for the rest of my life. And then I’d come up here at least once a week and just stand here watching.”

  “Watching the traffic?”

  “Yes, I love the traffic.” She turned abruptly to him. Her eyes were shining. “Don’t you?”

  Harry shook his head. She turned back to the road.

  “Shame. Guess how many cars there are on the roads of Bangkok now? Three million. And the number increases by a thousand every day. A driver in Bangkok spends between two and three hours in a car every day. Have you heard about Comfort 100? You can buy it at petrol stations. It’s a bag to pee in when you’re stuck in a queue. Do you think Eskimos have a word for traffic? Or Maoris?”

  Harry shrugged.

  “Think of all they’re missing,” she said. “Those people who live in places where they can’t be surrounded by crowds like here. Hold your arm up …” She held his hand and lifted it.

  “Can you feel it? The vibration? It’s the energy from everyone around us. It’s in the air. If you’re dying and you think no one can save you, just go out and stretch your arms into the air and absorb some of the energy. You can have eternal life. It’s true!”

  Her eyes were glowing, her whole face was glowing, and she laid Harry’s hand against her cheek.

  “I can feel you’re going to live a long life. Immensely long. Even longer than me.”