The Ship

by Stefan Mani

  ‘Do you see that envelope there?’ says Jón Karl, nodding towards the contents of his duffel bag that are scattered over the floor. At the top of the pile is a cream-coloured envelope, still swollen from the million crowns it contained.

  ‘What about it?’ Jeckle says, looking first at the envelope, then at Jón Karl.

  ‘Don’t listen to him!’ says Heckle, stamping his foot.

  ‘Smell the inside of it,’ says Jón Karl, staring calmly into Jeckle’s irresolute eyes.

  ‘Do not smell it,’ says Heckle, determined.

  ‘I know,’ Jeckle rejoins, giving Jón Karl a searching look.

  ‘There were five million crowns in that envelope,’ says Jón Karl, smiling through blood and bruises. ‘Óðin stuck them in his jacket when you weren’t looking. The envelope probably still smells of money. It was all new 5000-crown bills.’

  ‘Why should we believe you?’ Jeckle asks, narrowing his eyes.

  ‘Why should I have an empty envelope?’ Jón Karl leers.

  ‘He’s fucking with us, man. Don’t listen to him!’ Heckle says, then gives Jón Karl a dirty look and addresses him: ‘If you don’t shut up soon, we’ll have to shut you up.’

  ‘He’s not coming back.’ Jón Karl looks paternally into the face of Jeckle, who clearly no longer knows whom to believe. ‘He’s already got what he was looking for. There is no gambling joint. What gambling joint is it supposed to be? Do you know?’

  ‘You know perfectly well what gambling joint!’ says Heckle, his voice trembling with rage and doubt. ‘You do the collecting for them.’

  ‘No, I do not,’ says Jón Karl, sounding upbeat. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Heckle looks at Jeckle, who shrugs and then reaches for the envelope, cautiously smelling it before bunching it up and tossing it away.

  ‘What?’ asks Heckle, sounding irritated.

  ‘Smells of money,’ Jeckle says softly, starting to rock to and fro.

  ‘What did he promise you?’ asks Jón Karl coolly.

  ‘None of your business!’ says Heckle.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ mutters Jeckle, clearing his throat.

  ‘No, it doesn’t matter,’ says Jón Karl with a sneer. ‘’Cause you’re getting zilch, nada, diddly-squat, you idiots.’

  ‘Make him shut up!’ says Heckle to Jeckle.

  ‘Should we wait for Óðin to come back?’ Jeckle says uncertainly.

  ‘Yes, we’re waiting,’ says Heckle, annoyed. ‘I can’t take the risk of believing this clown.’

  ‘Christ, what a pair of pansies!’ Jón Karl spits blood on the floor. ‘That’s what you are.’

  ‘Shut the fucker up,’ says Heckle, groaning with pain.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Jeckle, standing up with the rubber truncheon in one hand and a roll of duct tape in the other. ‘It’s about time.’

  ‘Devil, Lucifer, Prince of Darkness,’ Jón Karl says softly as he grits his teeth and stokes his inner fires of hate, anger and hellish thoughts. ‘Combine in me!’

  Jeckle gives Jón Karl such a blow to the face with the truncheon that blood spurts from Jón Karl’s mouth. Jón Karl jerks, makes a rattling noise in his throat, rolls his eyes up and drops his head on his right shoulder. Jeckle puts down the truncheon and pulls out a good length of tape. He bends over Jón Karl and prepares to stick the silver tape across his mouth.

  Just before the strong-smelling tape is about to touch his lips, Jón Karl opens wild eyes, throws his head forward with his mouth wide opens and fastens his teeth on Jeckle’s left hand.

  ‘No! Help!’ screams Jeckle, dropping the tape and watching the bloody teeth sink into the back of his hand. He hits out with his right hand and jumps on Jón Karl, who snaps backward at the same moment.

  ‘No! No! No!’ screams Heckle, standing up to watch, horrified, as the chair collapses under the combined weight of Jón Karl and Jeckle.

  Jón Karl lands on his back, lets go of the broken hand and manages to kick Jeckle up and over behind him. Then he forces his tied hands down below his butt and to the front of his bent legs and the broken chair legs. He leaps up and jumps on Jeckle, driving him into the floor. Jeckle’s ribs break like uncooked spaghetti, his joints pull apart and his head is crushed so badly that only the bloodshot whites of his eyes can be seen.

  When Jón Karl turns around he finds that Heckle has his revolver in his shaking and bloody right hand. Before he can manage to aim and shoot, Jón Karl head-butts him in the face, kicking him to the floor and taking the gun off him.

  Devil, Lucifer, Prince of Darkness …

  Jón Karl growls and twists around in a frenzy, snorting blood and mucus through flaring nostrils. He still sees only red, still hears the fire roaring in his head, smells ashes and blood. He continues kicking Heckle and Jeckle, has trouble calming himself down to think clearly.

  Combine in me.

  But once the firestorm calms in his head, Jón Karl starts cutting off the plastic bands with his hunting knife. When that’s done he puts the army boots on his bare feet, fastens the ankle holster and gets himself, with difficulty, into his black T-shirt, which has a torn neckline and sleeve. He collects the torn passports and his extra clothes, and shoves his possessions back in the duffel bag – everything except the pistol, which he keeps in his right hand.

  ‘Hey, idiot!’ says Jón Karl, giving Heckle a blow to the head with the handle of his pistol. Heckle jumps, opens his eyes and crawls, snivelling, to a wall.

  ‘What?’ Heckle says tearfully, and then Jón Karl grabs the chance to shove the barrel into his mouth.

  ‘Listen,’ whispers Jón Karl and then puts his finger carefully on the trigger.

  Jón Karl gets the bitter taste of blood in his mouth and the inside of his head heats up, his pupils expand and a buzzing high starts spreading through his veins – an ice-cold high that deadens the pain, fills his mind with a blue glow and cools all emotions.

  But Heckle goes stiff as a corpse, makes a flat-sounding cry, drools down his chin and pisses his pants.

  Click!

  The hammer slams against an empty shell and nothing happens.

  Jón Karl blinks and pulls the wet gun out of the mouth of Heckle, who is crying like a little child.

  ‘That was enough for me,’ says Jón Karl, closing his eyes and drawing a deep breath. He stands up, puts the duffel bag over his left shoulder, turns off the light by breaking the bulb and kicks open the door of the shed.

  The padlock shoots out into the night as the door breaks in two.

  Jón Karl stretches out his right arm, aims the gun at nothing, grits his teeth and walks swiftly out into the dark.

  The shed is up beyond the Vatnsendi neighbourhood, in a dark marsh west of the horse stables. Jón Karl starts running towards the Seljahverfi suburb, all lit up beyond a low hill and gentle slope. He runs across moor, mire and gravel, climbs over a fence, sneaks down between two-storey houses, then walks quickly along a short cul-de-sac down to Jaðarsel Street. There he hides in a bus shelter, where he can catch his breath while keeping an eye on the empty street.

  After a few minutes a car appears to the south. It is going fast and, judging by the loud engine and heavy bass beat, this is a well-equipped sportscar.

  Jón Karl steps into the street, right arm extended. The driver slams on the brakes and stares open mouthed through the windscreen, first at the bloody, swollen face of the black-clad man who is in his way, then at the revolver that same man holds in his right hand, aimed at him.

  ‘Out!’ orders Jón Karl, stepping to the right without taking his eyes off the driver. He opens the driver’s door with his left hand and waits for the deathly pale yuppie to step out of his souped-up Impreza.

  ‘I, I …’ stammers the man, trying to loosen his seatbelt with a trembling hand.

  ‘Out – NOW!’ yells Jón Karl, shoving the barrel of the gun into the left ear of the driver, who starts and manages to loosen his seatbelt.

  J�
�n Karl grabs the driver’s shoulder with his left hand and pulls him out of the car and onto the other side of the road.

  ‘Don’t steal … don’t,’ whines the Impreza’s owner, getting up on his hands and knees.

  ‘Shut up,’ says Jón Karl, tossing his duffel bag into the car before sitting in the driver’s seat and slamming the door. He puts the gun in the passenger seat, turns off the music, steps on the clutch and puts the car in first. Just as he’s about to drive off he hears a deep engine that he recognises immediately and which makes the hairs on the back of his painful neck stand on end.

  He looks in the rear-view mirror and sees a black van appear, like death itself, and approaching at the speed of a tornado.

  ‘Damn!’ Jón Karl shouts and floors the Impreza, spinning the low-profile tyres. He’s hardly started off when the van slams into the back of the car. The Impreza skids, lights break, shards of paint and plastic fly in all directions, blue burnt-rubber smoke swirls and engines scream at each other.

  Jón Karl gains control of the sportscar and races towards Breiðholt Road with the black van – a one-eyed mass of dents from the collision – almost glued to his back bumper. He takes a right into Breiðholt Road and reaches 200 kmh before he gets to the South Highway roundabout. The van falls slightly behind, but Jón Karl would prefer to see the ghostly single headlight disappear entirely from his rear-view mirror. It’s uncanny how fast and confidently Óðin is driving that 400-horsepower black box.

  The Impreza speeds counterclockwise through the roundabout and then north along the South Highway, again reaching 200 kmh down the hill towards the Westland Highway. The hard tyres scream at every turn and the brake shoes are glowing behind the open aluminium wheel rims.

  There’s hardly any traffic and nothing to delay Jón Karl. He gains the Westland Highway and floors the sportscar on the wet road, reaching 135 kmh by the Keldur Research Station and keeping that speed right to the first roundabout in Mosfellsbær town.

  Under the bonnet the engine screams at 6000 revolutions; the wipers beat in rhythm with blinking eyes as they battle the icy rain that hammers the windscreen; bloody hands clutch the wheel; the headlights slam into the solid wall of rain as if the car were plummeting at terrifying speed into a bottomless pit; his pupils dilate like black holes in his wide-open eyes, and the rear-view mirror shows only darkness.

  On the north side of Kolla Fjord, Jón Karl gets stuck behind a semitrailer that is creeping forwards at legal speed, dousing the sportscar with dirty rainwater. There are a few cars coming the other way, and when Jón Karl can finally overtake the semi his mirror shows him a single headlight driving at speed over the bridge at the bottom of the fjord.

  ‘The motherfucker,’ mutters Jón Karl, forcing the engine to 7000 revolutions before shifting back up to fifth gear. A moment later he glances at the petrol gauge and sees that the tank is as good as empty.

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ he says, slamming his fist into the instrument panel as he soars at almost 200 kmh down into the mouth of the Whale Fjord tunnel. There the traffic, narrowness and speed cameras force him to slow down.

  When Jón Karl drives up out of the tunnel at the north end the rain has almost stopped. He stops behind a pick-up truck, waits while the driver pays the toll and takes the receipt handed to him from the lit-up toll booth. Then he drives through without paying, overtakes the pick-up, runs quickly through the Impreza’s gears and races east along the Whale Fjord coast. The toll collector will have phoned the police, who will immediately send a car towards him from the next town. If the petrol lasts Jón Karl should, with any luck, still be able to reach the turn-off to Skorra Valley before the police reach him.

  But after driving only three minutes along the dark Whale Fjord coast, the engine starts to sputter, the car loses speed and, about a hundred metres further on, stalls.

  ‘This is incredible,’ says Jón Karl, letting the Impreza roll a few metres onto the verge. He turns off the lights, sticks his gun in the ankle holster, puts the car in neutral, grabs his duffel bag and gets out of the car, which then keeps rolling gently off the verge and sticks its nose in the ditch.

  Jón Karl tosses the bag onto his left shoulder and heads east. He keeps looking over his shoulder, ready to run and hide if the one-eyed car shows up. The excitement of the car chase slowly leaves him, which brings the pain back from its temporary absence. Jón Karl is badly bruised; maybe even has broken bones. His body is on fire with pain, tendons twitching, muscles cramping, bones broadcasting nerve messages and joints grating like rusty iron.

  And the icy wind pushes against him, burning his hands and face like a chill blue flame.

  Suddenly Jón Karl is blinded by a car’s high beams. He shades his eyes and steps onto the verge. A white Jeep approaches from the east, slows down and seems to be stopping. Jón Karl’s heart skips a beat and he expects to see flashing lights at any moment, but when the driver turns off the high beams he sees that this is not a police car but a tired old Cherokee with fog lights and a ski rack on the roof.

  ‘Karl?’ calls the driver, sticking his face and an elbow out the open window.

  ‘Yes?’ answers Jón Karl, staring at the man, who he has never seen before.

  ‘I’m Rúnar, the bosun!’ says the driver, motions Jón Karl to get in. ‘Hop in, man! We’re already late!’

  Too late for what-the-fuck?

  Jón Karl doesn’t know quite what to do or what to think about this stranger who wants him to get in his car, but when he notices a ghostly light approaching from the west, the man’s strange request seems like a great offer.

  ‘I’m coming,’ says Jón Karl, limping across the road and getting into the Jeep, which smells as if it’s been used to transport dead animals.

  ‘What in the world happened, man?’ asks Rúnar when he sees the swollen, blood-covered face of Jón Karl, who grits his teeth and dries the sweat from his forehead while Rúnar turns the Jeep around. The one-eyed van is approaching fast and Jón Karl is about to freeze up with pain.

  Hurry, hurry, thinks Jón Karl, leaning up against the passenger door.

  ‘I … just …’ he starts, only to say something, because he has no idea what to really say to this stranger who acts as if he knows him.

  ‘Is that your car?’ asks Rúnar, stopping the Jeep right across the road.

  In the glare of the high beams they can just see the crumpled back end of the Impreza sticking up out of the deep ditch.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ says Jón Karl, tensing up. The black van is still nearing them at speed, only about half a kilometre away now. ‘Shouldn’t we get a move on? Didn’t you say we were late?’

  ‘Yeah, very late,’ answers Rúnar and drives off to the east. ‘What happened? Did someone tail-end you?’

  ‘No, I just … went off the road,’ says Jón Karl quietly, watching the van in the side mirror.

  ‘And are you okay?’ asks Rúnar, signalling right. ‘I mean, are you well enough to sail?’

  What? Sail?

  ‘I’m fine really,’ says Jón Karl, who can see in the mirror that the van stops beside the Impreza. Damn! He’d been hoping Óðin wouldn’t notice the sportscar and would just drive on. Now he’s likely to put two and two together and follow the white Jeep.

  But when Rúnar suddenly slows and turns down the side road towards the ferrosilicon and aluminium plants at Grundartangi, Jón Karl is filled with new worries and doubts.

  ‘What, here … where to?’ says Jón Karl, sure that Óðin will follow them here and get him, because this road almost certainly ends at the lit-up factories which glow under a cloud of yellow smoke like nightmare castles in the pitch-black night.

  ‘They’re waiting for us on the quay,’ says Rúnar, turning right down a steep slope.

  On the quay? Well enough to sail? Very late?

  Jón Karl stares through the windscreen and sees a gloomy-looking freighter rocking ponderously alongside a long quay down by the dark shore. The ship’s bridge is lit
by yellow searchlights, the wind is wailing in the masts and aerials and a greyish layer of salt wreathes the scene in a ghastly aura. And in the side mirror the ghostly headlight draws nearer.

  There are still two shells in his revolver, but Jón Karl is stiff now, confused and exhausted by pain, and Óðin has the reputation of being literally unkillable. Obviously nobody is unkillable, biologically, but when it comes to Óðin R Elsuson, the logic of this world somehow does not apply. He is a living legend, a man who few know, many talk about and everyone fears without really knowing why, and this is why Óðin R Elsuson is more like menace incarnate than a mortal man.

  ‘Well, at least they didn’t leave without us, eh?’ says Rúnar when he catches sight of Sæli standing there, beating his arms to keep warm.

  Jón Karl doesn’t know what he should do; his mouth is dry and his insides all numb. He’s not man enough for any conflict at the moment – that much is clear.

  ‘Your brother-in-law said I could leave the Jeep just anywhere,’ says Rúnar as he stops the car and kills the engine right by the old quay.

  My brother-in-law?

  Jón Karl glances at the petrol gauge, which has a red arrow pointing to the bottom of a red line. He can’t continue his escape in this car.

  Fuck it!

  ‘Let’s go!’ says Rúnar, getting out of the vehicle. Jón Karl does the same. What else can he do? Rúnar locks the car and leads the way to the ship, which pitches by the quay, by turns pulling on its moorings or rubbing against the tyres on the quay, with accompanying screeches. It blows black smoke heavenwards and thrusts up seawater that foams across the concrete pier.

  ‘Hello there – I’m Sæli!’ Sæli offers Jón Karl his sturdy hand.

  ‘Hello.’ Jón Karl shakes his hand loosely, watching with an anxious expression as the black van drives through the gates at the top of the harbour area.

  ‘Whatever happened to you?’ asks Sæli, grinning at Jón Karl.

  ‘I, well …’ Jón Karl hesitates, the salt wind bringing tears to his eyes.

  ‘Not now!’ shouts Rúnar, who has already jumped on board and is holding his left hand out to Jón Karl and hanging on to the railing with his right.