“That’s odd,” I observe. “I don’t see any police cars or anything.”
Jóa says nothing.
As we walk over to the building and quietly mount the stairs, I feel my heart beating faster. When we reach the landing outside the office I glance at Jóa. She is deathly pale. I put my ear to the door and hear a low rumble of voices inside. I summon up courage, seize the doorknob, and open the door. There’s no one in the reception area. I cautiously enter one step at a time, followed by Jóa.
The door to Ásbjörn’s office is ajar.
“…and that’s how they came to call him Hákon!” Ásbjörn brays with laughter.
“Hahahahaha!” howls the chief of police.
I shove the door open.
Ólafur Gísli and Ásbjörn appear startled by our sudden appearance. They are sitting there in their shirtsleeves, feet up on Ásbjörn’s desk. Rosy-cheeked, they are drinking glasses of Coke-and-something. On the desk is a half-full bottle of vodka. Pal is lying on the floor, snoring.
They make a quick recovery and raise their glasses to us.
“Cheers!” exclaims the chief. “Cheers to the investigative journalist. Welcome to our crime scene.”
“Hahahaha,” giggles Ásbjörn, grasping his jiggling belly. “Ahahahahah!”
Ólafur Gísli smirks. “Just testing your response time.” He glances at his watch. “Four and a half minutes. Not bad.”
“Not bad,” slurs Ásbjörn. “Almost as quick as the emergency services. Hohohoho!”
I look over at Jóa. “Crank call, Jóa. Just these two drunks having a joke at our expense. Let’s get back to HQ.”
Ásbjörn jumps to his feet. A bit too quickly—he sways on his feet. “No, not at all, my dear Einar,” he says, stumbling toward me. “Now, now. We’re just havin’ a relaxin’ drink together, me and my ol’ buddy Ólafur Gisli. We wanna ask you to join us. We thought you’d be all alone.”
“That’s very nice of you,” I reply, as drily as I can manage—the state of the two of them is, I have to admit, a pretty funny sight. Ásbjörn in particular.
“My dear Einar,” rambles Ásbjörn, “you’re nowhere near as bad as I always thought. Really, you’re…you’re…”
He’s looking for the right word. Then his unfocussed eyes light up with an idea. He envelopes me in a hug. The smell of his perspiration wafts up into my nostrils.
“Really, you’re all right. Yes, thass what you are. All right.”
Ásbjörn places his hands on my shoulders, looks at me with unusual affection, and turns to face Ólafur Gísli, who is smirking.
“Ólafur Gísli. Thass what Einar is. He’s absolutely all right.”
I burst out laughing. Jóa too.
“But he keeps it secret,” mumbles Ásbjörn. “Why’s it such a well-kept secret,” he asks me, “how all right you are?”
“Maybe it’s because it sometimes slips my mind that I’m quite all right. Do you suppose that’s it?”
He doesn’t hear me. He’s hugging Jóa now. She makes a grotesque face.
“And you, dear Jóa. My darlin’ Jóa. What would I have done without ya?”
“I don’t know,” answers Jóa.
“What the hell would I have done without ya? Jóa, lemme give you a drop of vodka…” He turns toward me. “I know I can’t offer you a drink, Einar. Wouldn’ be appropriate. You’ve been doin’ so well. Ólafur Gísli, give Jóa a drink, and get a Coke for Einar. And Einar, you know…” He stumbles and almost falls. I hold him by the shoulder. “Look, I’m blind drunk, and you aren’t. You’re stone-cold fucking sober! Einar, my friend…”
Suddenly he is completely serious. “I’m just celebrating with my friend Ólafur Gísli—my very best friend, although you’re really quite all right too, Einar, aren’t you?…I’m celebrating a turning point in my life. A crossroads. A whole new chapter.”
After a dramatic pause, Ásbjörn declaims: “I have a daughter!”
He lifts his glass. He is red-faced and sweaty.
“My dear friends. Share a toast with me. I have a daughter. A beautiful, delightful daughter.”
“Cheers!” we chorus. They toast in triple vodkas. I toast in octuple Coke.
“An’ my darlin’ Karó,” he mumbles, mostly to himself. “Karó, my sweet, dear Karó…”
“Yes, how is Karó taking the news?” asks Jóa.
Over dinner at Fidlarinn I’d recounted the story of the long-lost daughter to Jóa and Heida.
“Karó? Jóa, lemme tell you how Karó’s takin’ it. She’s gonna take Björg like our own daughter, that we haven’t been able to have. Like the daughter we haven’t been able to have! Just think! That’s how Karó’s taking it. Isn’ that wunnerful?”
He dries his eyes. “Yes, it’s quite wonderful,” he answers his own question.
“And where’s Karólína this evening?” I ask.
“She’s popped down to Reykjavík to tell her parents all about it,” replies Ólafur Gísli, who’s been wearing a lopsided smile during his friend’s monologue. He adds, suddenly quite sincere: “Their childlessness became more and more difficult for her to cope with over the years. Ásbjörn was getting deeply concerned about how unhappy she had become. He felt he had nowhere to turn—until Pal joined the family.”
Ásbjörn flops down into his chair, panting for breath.
“We were sitting here swapping jokes before you arrived,” the chief tells us. He swigs from a fresh bottle of vodka. “We’ve made a habit of it since we were in high school.”
Ásbjörn wipes away his tears and sweat and drinks deeply from his glass. “Yes, it’s your turn. Tell us a joke.”
Ólafur Gísli strokes his cheek. “Yeees, let’s see. Now then: A city girl was once sent to the country to spend the summer on a farm. On her first day, she was out in the farmyard with the farmer, who asked her if she knew any country skills. How about milking? he asked. She replied that of course she knew how. She sat on the milking stool by one of the cows and started fiddling with the udders. The farmer felt she was taking a long time and asked her: Aren’t you going to start milking? Then the girl answered: I’m waiting for them to get hard!”
Ásbjörn Grímsson guffaws and rolls about laughing. Ólafur Gísli joins in. I burst out laughing too, at the sight of Jóa trying not to.
Shortly after that we leave the two old buddies to their drinking, at the scene of the crime.
I say to Jóa: “Hannes just mentioned it the other day. I think I managed to convince him that there were plenty of good reasons for you not to return to Reykjavík just yet. I hope so, anyway.”
As we got into my car at the parking lot, Jóa had mentioned her plans for the future.
“I hope so too,” she says. “I really don’t want to leave yet.”
“So is this the Real Thing?” I venture to ask her as I drive down Skipagata toward the square. Young people are out cruising by now, and the town center is crammed with cars.
“I’m in a good place” is all Jóa will say.
And that’s enough, really.
Café Amor on the corner is overflowing with people as we slide slowly past and into Strandgata. Café Akureyri looks much the same.
“What about you?” Jóa asks.
“I’ve been fine. Broadly speaking.”
“But what about the broads? Not so much?”
I look at her out of the corner of my eye, eliciting a smile.
“Broadly, I’d say I’m going through a dry patch.”
“Taking a break there too?”
“I don’t know, Jóa. I just…”
Goddamn! That car’s too close behind us. He seems to be tailgating us.
“I just don’t think I’m ready to get into something that may be too much for me. It’s a full-time job keeping the thirst at bay. One thing at a time, Jóa.”
“You’re awfully averse to commitment, Einar. I think it must be some kind of phobia. Really!”
“Quite possible,” I say.
As I speak, there
’s a bump from the rear of the car.
“What the hell is that?” asks Jóa, glancing back. “Did the bastard rear-end us?”
We’re nearly at the end of Strandgata, passing more nightspots—Vélsmidjan and Oddvitinn. At the corner I pull over without warning and stop the car.
“Son of a bitch!” I exclaim as the car that’s been following us inches past. It’s the same car that I saw when we went into the newspaper offices. The same one that was still there when we came out. Agnar Hansen sneers at us from the open rear window, giving us the finger as he passes by. The black Honda screeches to a halt, the doors are flung open, and Ivo and Gardar jump out.
“Holy shit!” I say, scrambling back into the car and forcing my way out into the passing traffic. I head up Strandgata, back toward the square.
“What is it?” asks Jóa in alarm. “Who were they?”
“It’s the Reydargerdi gang,” I explain. I don’t tell her what Óskar at Hotel Reydargerdi said to me about the threesome being out for revenge in Akureyri.
Jóa looks back. “They’re still following us. They’re a few cars back.”
As I reach the corner of Strandgata and Glerárgata, I’m not sure what direction to take. I don’t like the idea of being stuck in the downtown traffic with those lunatics, so I turn right onto Glerárgata. I drive as fast as I can, and before we know it, we’re in the Hlídar district. When we reach my place and Polly’s—which was briefly Jóa’s place too—I park, but not in my usual space. I choose a spot a little farther down.
“Jóa,” I say, trying to light a cigarette with hands that are trembling. “I know Heida’s place is in the other direction, but I don’t think we should tempt fate. Come in with me. Let’s wait and see whether we’ve managed to shake them off.”
Silently we get out of the car and listen. The district is quiet—a dormitory suburb, peacefully asleep.
Then we hurry indoors, close all the curtains, and switch on the bare minimum of lights.
Jóa calls Heida to let her know what’s happened, and I go into the bedroom to check on Polly. She’s asleep with her head under her wing.
“I do envy you, little Polly,” I remark. “You’re so safe and carefree, in your cage.”
You shake it to the left,
and shake it to the right,
resounds from the speakers—a simple but catchy sixties hit, by what wasn’t at that time called a girl band.
Was life ever that simple?
Jóa has dug up from our landlady’s music collection a CD called Girls with Guitars. For some reason that makes me think of Girls with Guns—a very risky juxtaposition. It’s nearly 4:00 a.m. We’ve been sitting talking, listening to music, and completely forgotten the danger we seemed to be in a few hours ago.
Now Jóa’s in her room and I’m alone, reclining on the sofa in the living room, enjoying a cigarette and listening to the girls armed with their guitars.
They are the lonely, sing Pat Powdrill & the Powerdrills. Never heard of them. Good song, though.
I’m not certain, but I think I hear a noise from the room I share with Polly.
No one in this world of confusion
Tries to understand… the girls go on.
Suddenly the bedroom door flies open and Gardar Jónsson is standing over me, lanky and ungainly, wearing his White Power! shirt.
Electrified, I stumble to my feet.
There are those who know
What heartache can bring.
They are the lonely…
Gardar hobbles over to the audio system and switches it off.
“Fucking teenybopper shit you’re listening to, motherfucker,” remarks Agnar Hansen as he enters the room. His hair is tied back in a ponytail, and he’s wearing black leather pants and a matching jacket. He takes a seat in the armchair facing the sofa with a joint in his mouth.
From the bedroom I hear shrieks of terror. Agnar and Gardar share a look of complicity. I’m frozen to the sofa.
Ivo Batorac stands in the doorway, his heavy frame dressed in black as before. His bluish fist is raised, and between his sausage-like fingers a tiny head peeps out. Polly is silent now, but her head is rhythmically bobbing, and her beak is wide open. Ivo and Gardar take up their positions on either side of the seated ringleader.
“So you’re fucking a parrot are you, you little queer?” sneers Agnar. The light gleams on his orthodontic retainer and yellowish teeth.
“You’re right as usual, Mr. Hansen,” I say, willing my voice not to shake, although my heart feels as if it’s going to explode in my chest. “But she’s a girl bird. Polly.”
They cackle with glee. Their dilated pupils and wired posture tell me they’ve taken something other than sedatives tonight.
“Since sex is the first thing you think of when you see a parrot,” I go on, tempting fate, “I’m not surprised you’ve got complexes.”
Gardar charges over to me and kicks me hard in the shin. A current of agony shoots up into my head like a bolt of lightning.
“Come, come,” I say, gritting my teeth against the pain. “Must keep a sense of humor. And it’s nice of you to drop in, boys. The door’s behind you—just as a matter of interest. There’s no need for respectable guests like you to be scrambling in through the window and out again the same way.” I think: They must have got the address from directory assistance. But how could I be so careless as to leave the window open!
“We’ll leave when we want to. And by whatever way we want to,” Gardar replies.
“Why on earth didn’t you ring the doorbell? I’d have invited you in and served up tea and cakes, no trouble at all. I’m quite forgetting my manners. What would you gentlemen like?”
They’re not sure what to make of this.
“Well,” I say, speaking louder. I focus on poor little Polly, who is lying quietly in Ivo’s ham-like fist.
“To what do I owe the honor, and pleasure, of this visit? What can I do for you?”
“We were looking for someone else here in Akureyri,” Agnar informs me. “But we couldn’t find him, so we thought we’d drop in on you.”
“How delightful.”
“Who ratted us out to the cops?” he asks.
“How would I know?”
Gardar Jónsson prepares to whack my leg again, but Agnar stops him with a gesture.
“It’s obvious from your articles that you’ve got contacts. You really ought to tell us what you know. Otherwise you’ll be left with an ex-parrot to fuck.”
They snigger.
I’d like to tell him I’m surprised to hear that he can read. I’d like to point out that people who commit violence against a parrot ought to go back to their usual hobby of tearing the wings off flies.
“Well, I simply assumed it must have been someone who saw you at that party,” I loudly announce, trying to think of the next move in this dangerous game.
“Don’t assume. Just tell us who it was.”
I can’t think of my next move.
“Ivo, squash the bug,” Agnar orders him, his gaze unflinching on me.
Ivo instantly obeys. Polly squawks in pain, or terror. The shrill sound cuts through me like a knife, as if I were the one caught in Ivo’s fist.
“No, no!” I shout. “I’m just trying to remember whether I heard anything about it.”
My raised voice has yielded the desired result. Behind my three unwelcome guests, I see the door to Jóa’s room opening. She stealthily moves down the hall in her stockinged feet.
“Wait, wait,” I stall. “Could it have been that Fridrik Einarsson?”
Jóa silently draws closer.
“No. No way. We own that moron. We own all that crowd.”
“So who—”
Suddenly Ivo and Gardar are thrown off balance as Jóa swings a foot into the back of their knees. She bashes both in the neck, and they collapse in a heap on the floor. Ivo automatically puts out both hands to break his fall, and Polly makes her escape. She flutters up to the curtain rail, whe
re she perches, angrily screeching. Next Jóa turns her attention to Agnar Hansen, sitting lumpenly in his chair. She grabs him by the neck and hauls him out of the chair without any resistance. I jump to my feet to help her. Together we drag Agnar over to the sofa and dump him there. Jóa sits on his head to restrain him. He struggles and kicks, but soon gives up, as his head is held immobile under Jóa’s formidable rear.
Gardar struggles to his feet and over to the window, where he tries to recapture Polly, who is scampering back and forth on the curtain rail. Ivo seems dazed, but he raises himself up to a sitting position. He grasps his pancake face in both hands. I walk over to him and pick up a weighty cut glass ashtray from the table. I hold it threateningly above his shaven head.
“Excellent work, Jóa,” I say.
“Those martial arts courses finally came in handy,” she comments with a broad grin.
“Gardar,” I say in my best laconic drawl, in keeping with the American thriller I seem to be living in at the moment, “stop that. Leave the bird alone. Or I’ll smash your boss’s head into pizza, and spread Ivo’s brain matter on for relish. And then I’ll make you eat it. I think I’ve got some parmesan cheese in the fridge to go with it.”
“OK.” A strangled cry of pain from Agnar. “Back off, guys.”
Gardar stops dead and stands awkwardly at the window. I walk over to him and kick him in the shin. He winces in pain.
“You stay there,” I say to Gardar, then return to Ivo, who is cowering on the floor. I place the ashtray against the back of his head so he can feel the weight of it. The vibration of his tense muscles indicates that he is recovering. “You. Ivo. Cool it.”
I turn back to Jóa, who is sitting on Agnar Hansen with an ironic smile on her lips. I think she’s enjoying this.
“Look out!” she shouts.
At that moment, Ivo reaches up with both hands and grabs me by the throat. I have no option but to slam the ashtray down on his head. He bellows like an elephant and drops to the floor. The ashtray is not broken by the impact, but Ivo is bleeding from a cut to the scalp.
“Cool it, I said,” I scold him. I quickly dash to the bathroom and fetch a towel. Ivo seems to be out of it, but when I place the towel on his head he automatically grasps it.
Season of the Witch Page 25
