The Usual Santas

by Peter Lovesey

  “Khar. Shut up, you big idiot,” he spat.

  Farshad thrashed around like a drowning man under Taghi’s right arm. Now they heard quick steps on the stairs. The front door opened and slid shut with a quiet click. A moment later a pair of headlights swept over the glass façade. The car took off and the sound died behind the thick triple-glazed windows.

  Taghi slowly removed his hand from Farshad’s mouth. He wasn’t sure that Farshad was completely calm yet, but at least he wasn’t shrieking like an old hag anymore. In the bathroom the woman had begun to groan again. It sounded like she was calling out for someone. She no longer had the strength to crouch, she was rolling on the floor, trying to curl up as the contractions grew stronger. Her lips formed a fluid and nearly silent stream of words, and her long, slim hands clutched at thin air, then grabbed a corner of his sweat-soaked T-shirt.

  “Jacob?”

  Taghi rubbed a hand across his eyes. He needed to think.

  Djo Djo had stepped right up to the window to get a better look at the corpse.

  “What the hell we do now, Taghi? He’s fucking dead. The police will come. They’ll be all over the place and they . . .” Djo Djo spoke slowly, searching for his words, as if the reality of the situation first struck him as he talked about it. “Maybe they’ll think we did it. Then we’re fucked. They’ll throw us out, they’ll kill us.”

  Taghi had been thinking the same thing.

  Their fingerprints were everywhere. Farshad’s gloves dangled from his pants pockets. One in each pocket. Djo Djo hadn’t even brought any. All they had planned on doing was liberating a couple of fucking sinks. That’s not something they’ll nail you for—not seriously, anyway.

  The woman had another contraction. They came every few minutes now. She was pulling him down, as if all she really wanted was someone she could drown with. She was crying.

  “You have to find something to cover him up with.”

  Djo Djo glared silently at Taghi. Then he grabbed Farshad’s shoulder and dragged him toward the door. Farshad stumbled, found his feet again, and trudged off behind Djo Djo, who was as agile as a cat in the dark.

  A second later, Taghi saw the two brothers standing outside the window, struggling with the green tarp from the van. The wind grabbed the tarp, making it look like a dark, flapping sail against the multitude of brightly lit windows on the other side of the canal.

  The woman on the floor loosened her grip on Taghi a bit, and as he straightened up he noticed a thin figure walking their way, leaning into the wind, hands over her face to shield herself from the big wet flakes.

  She had arrived.

  ***

  Nina zipped her down jacket all the way up to her nose before getting out of the car.

  Brave new world. The streetlights’ reflections shimmered in the black water of the canals, and the elevated railway looked like something out of a sci-fi film. Trees and bushes didn’t belong in this vision of the future, the general impression was that organic life forms were unwelcome here. How in the world did an African woman about to give birth end up here? Brahge Living, a big sign said, illuminated by a powerful floodlight. 24 exclusive condominiums—for sale NOW! The colorful, optimistic drawing of the finished development formed a sharp contrast to the muddied mess of construction and the toppled wire fence.

  Brahge, she thought to herself, hitching up her shoulder bag. He was that guy who went broke. One of the most publicized bankruptcies in recent times, because Torsten Brahge had been regarded as one of the best and brightest, having just won some big business award a few weeks earlier. Investor megabucks were in danger of evaporating. She had seen the man’s slightly chubby, Armani-clad figure on the front page and in several self-pitying television interviews, though she couldn’t remember what he had said. She didn’t have a lot of time for wealthy people moaning about the financial crisis and the real estate collapse.

  A battered-looking van was parked beside the fence, and she caught sight of two young men grappling with a green tarp just outside the building. Life in the desert, she thought, and lifted her arm in a stiff, frozen wave

  “Is Taghi here?” she yelled.

  Both of them stared at her as if she were some monster that had crawled out of the canal. But one of them nodded.

  “Yes,” he said. “Are you the doctor lady?”

  “Nurse,” she corrected.

  He shrugged one shoulder, whatever. “He’s inside. Ground floor to the right. You’d better hurry.”

  She found them in the apartment’s tiny guest bathroom, the woman on her knees in front of Taghi, clinging to him with both hands. The quiet hope Nina had been nourishing that it might be false labor and a touch of hysterics immediately disappeared. The woman’s coat and skirt were soaked with amniotic fluid. If there are any complications, Nina decided, she’s off to a hospital whether she likes it or not.

  At that moment the woman’s eyes flew open, and she looked straight at Nina.

  “Hi,” Nina said in English, in her most reassuringly professional voice. “My name is Nina, and I’m here to help you. I’m a nurse.”

  “Doctor,” the woman gasped. “Secret okay doctor.”

  “Just say yes,” Taghi said. “I don’t think she understands much English. Her name is Chaltu.” Taghi didn’t look so hot himself, Nina observed. Anxious, nervous, but that wasn’t so surprising, either. She had a good idea what he was doing here. Or anyway, what he would have been doing had a woman giving birth not gotten in the way.

  He tried to stand up, but Chaltu kept clinging to him. “No go,” she said. “Jacob no go.”

  “Sometimes she calls me Jacob,” Taghi said. “Don’t ask me why.”

  Nina touched Chaltu’s arm. Her fingers were bloodless and gray, her skin icy cold. She let go of Taghi with one hand and swatted at Nina, who was trying to see how far she had dilated. “Chaltu,” Nina ventured. “I must look. Look to see if baby is coming.”

  “No baby,” Chaltu groaned. “No baby here. In Sweden. Jag söker asyl.” And she pressed her legs together so hard that her thigh muscles quivered.

  Jesus, Nina said to herself, and took measure of the woman’s desperation. If it was possible to delay a childbirth by will alone, this would turn into a very long night.

  “We have to get her someplace where we can keep warm,” Nina said. “Is that your van?”

  Taghi looked toward the window facing the parking lot, and Nina followed his eyes. She saw the two young men outside, pulling a blue nylon rope through the green tarp’s grommets. A violent gust of wind rammed them. One of them slipped in the mud and lost his grip on the tarp. It flew up, flapping like a bird trying to fly away. Underneath was a dead man.

  It took her only a few seconds to recognize him. The Armani suit had had a terrible day, and the man inside a worse one. There was no doubt, however, that it was the head of Brahge Living lying there, very much dead.

  The two young men got the tarp under control and tied it down, and the well-dressed corpse disappeared from sight. But it was too late. Nina had seen him. And Taghi knew it.

  They stared at each other over Chaltu’s head.

  “We didn’t do it,” Taghi said. “The guy just went flying past us and—wham!”

  Nina nodded. She also stuck her hand in her pocket and began pressing numbers on her cell phone blindly, not bringing it out. But he noticed. He tore away from Chaltu, who screamed in a burst of fright, and suddenly he had a knife in his hand. The blade was barely two inches long. A pocketknife, Nina thought, no murder weapon, and he didn’t hold it as she imagined a murderer would. It looked more as if he were about to sharpen a stick to roast something over a fire.

  All the same. He had a knife.

  “Give me your phone,” he said. “Now!”

  She thought about what was at stake for him if the police came. Everything he stood to lose. She gave
him the phone.

  Chaltu looked back and forth between them with eyes that could hold no further terror. Taghi plopped Nina’s Nokia into the toilet. Then he brought out his own cell phone and punched a few numbers. Through the window she watched one of the young men let go of the tarp and put his hand to his ear. Taghi began to speak, fast and in Farsi. Nina didn’t understand a word. Yet for the first time she felt a jolt of fear.

  ***

  Fucking morons.

  Taghi could barely control his anger. He felt it, warm and throbbing just under his skin. No one had better touch him. No one. Especially not those two idiots standing there fidgeting by the door. Just covering up a body with a green tarp—you would have thought it was a pretty simple job. It wasn’t like he was asking them to perform brain surgery.

  They stood there staring at Taghi and the doctor lady and the woman on the floor. Farshad squirmed around like a three-year-old in need of a pee. His eyes shifted uneasily between the doctor lady and Taghi, as if he was trying to figure out what Taghi was thinking. Taghi knew he ought to say something, but he didn’t know what. Plus, he didn’t want to even talk to that idiot. Not right now. They had a problem. The African wouldn’t go to the police, of course. The doctor lady, on the other hand . . .

  Would a Danish woman, a Danish nurse, be able to drive away from here and forget everything about the squashed corpse on the sheetrock outside? Could he let her go?

  His thoughts were broken by Farshad, who again spoke way too fast and way too loudly. “Shouldn’t we . . .” He hesitated and flashed another look at the women in the tiny bathroom. “Shouldn’t we kill her, Taghi? Isn’t that what we should do?”

  Taghi caught Farshad with a whipping blow across the back of the neck. He didn’t want to talk to him, mostly he wanted to hit him again, harder. Farshad’s astonished expression stopped him, and instead he spoke slowly and clearly.

  “No, we are not going to kill her. Ajab olaqi hasti to. You are as stupid as a fucking donkey.” Taghi’s low, tense voice quivered. “Keep your mouth shut while I think.”

  Farshad, clearly hurt, stared at him, then he bowed his head.

  “Taghi.” The doctor lady’s voice sounded like a gunshot in the tense silence. “You’re all going to have to help me hold her. She won’t do anything.”

  Taghi gaped at her. She couldn’t be serious. Did she think they looked like a bunch of midwives? He was about to say something, but he stopped. One glance at the sinewy little figure beside the African woman convinced him that there was no room for discussion at the moment.

  The doctor lady had made a pallet for the woman consisting of Taghi’s down jacket and Djo Djo’s fleece. On top of that she had arranged a layer of clean white towels from the shoulder bag she’d brought along.

  “Sit so you can support her head, and then shut up. Apparently you’re Jacob at the moment, and it works a lot better if you’re not yelling at your cousin.”

  Taghi trudged back into the bathroom, and slid to the floor without another word. He raised the woman’s head and shoulders so she could rest against his thighs. He dared a quick glance at Djo Djo, who was still standing in the kitchen area, his expression an absurd mixture of terror and amusement. A brief, nervous laugh escaped him.

  The eyes of the doctor lady gleamed fierily in the dark. “You two can make yourselves useful and go see if there’s any hot water in the pipes.”

  Djo Djo and Farshad got going too. Taghi heard them swearing beneath their breath at the kitchen sink. There was water, but it was cold. The African woman hunched over and pushed so hard he could see the small veins in her temples standing out in the weak light from the streetlamp. He put a hand on her forehead and sent a quick prayer off to heaven. For her, for the baby, and for the three of them—Djo Djo, Farshad, and himself.

  He turned again and looked at the doctor woman. Nina.

  Her face blazed with a pale, persistent concentration.

  “It’s coming,” she said, glancing up at him with something resembling a weak smile.

  “I know.”

  The African woman opened her eyes and looked directly at him as the next contraction hit. And he thought about what it must be like—to give birth here, among strangers, among men.

  Down between the woman’s legs, the doctor lady reached out with both hands and made a quick turning motion, and Taghi heard the wet sound of the baby slipping out onto the white towels.

  It was a boy, and he was already screaming.

  ***

  “Blessed Virgin, Mary full of grace, free me from this pain, Gaeta, Gaeta, Lord have mercy upon me, may all your saints protect me, and I will honor you . . . honor you . . .” Chaltu had to pause for a moment because God’s fist squeezed the air out of her, but she continued the litany in her head and time disappeared for her; it was the priests’ mass she heard, she thought she could smell the incense and feel the pressure, not from labor but from the crowd, all trying to catch a glimpse of the procession, the long parade of holy men clad in white costumes trimmed in red and gold. “Hoye, hoye,” the children sang, swaying and clapping their hands, and farther forward she could see the Demera, the holy bonfire waiting to be lit. The Meskel festival had arrived in Addis Ababa, and she was a part of it, swaying in rhythm to it, and she felt uplifted, she felt like she could float above the crowds and see over them instead of standing there among backs and thighs and shoulders and legs.

  “Chaltu, push. Go on now, push!”

  Hoye, hoye . . . be joyful, for today the true cross is found, praise God Almighty for today all sins are forgiven . . . and Jacob’s eyes gleamed at her, his hands supported her so she didn’t stumble despite all the people around her pushing and shoving. In that moment it made no difference that she hardly knew him, that he was only home for a visit, that he wasn’t the one she was supposed to marry. She loved him, loved the open look in his eye, his rounded upper lip, the way his earlobe attached to his neck. Loved him, and wanted to make love to him. It was as if the holy Eleni herself smiled upon them and promised them that their love would be clean and unsinful. Hoye, hoye. Today life will conquer death.

  But why did it hurt so badly? She no longer understood this pain, no longer remembered the baby, instead she called for Jacob, again and again, but he faded away from her, as did the priests, the singing and clapping children, and the bonfire, the flames of which were supposed to show her the way to salvation.

  God’s hand crushed her, she could neither think nor scream. She could just barely sense that she was surrounded by strangers, and that the arm she was clinging to wasn’t Jacob’s.

  “Look, Chaltu. It’s a boy. You have a son.”

  They laid a tiny, wet creature, a baby bird, on her stomach. Could it really be hers? She knew she should hold it, but her arms felt cold and heavy as stone.

  It took several minutes before she realized that the baby had been born, and that she was still alive. A miracle, it was, and she only slowly began to believe it. For the first time in many days she felt something other than pain and fear. She raised her heavy arm and curled it around the baby-bird child. Breathed in its odor. Began to understand. Hoye, hoye, little one. We are here, both of us. We are alive.

  ***

  Nina regarded Taghi’s tensed-up face. She sensed that the truce was over. The umbilical cord had been cut and tied off. The placenta lay intact and secure in the plastic basin she’d brought along from the clinic. The little boy whimpered in Chaltu’s arms, pale against her dark skin. And Nina’s reign had ended with the birth. Now they were back to the corpse and everything death brought with it.

  Farshad said something or other, his voice catching nervously. Taghi answered him, negatively Nina thought, but she wasn’t sure. How terrifying it was that they could discuss what to do with her without her understanding a word. Taghi had said that they didn’t kill Brahge, and she couldn’t really believe he was a col
d-blooded murderer. They aren’t evil, she told herself, and tried not to think how absolutely normal, unevil people could do horrible things if they were pushed far enough. “Why don’t you just leave?” she said. “You can take Chaltu and the baby with you, and I’ll wait until you’re long gone before I call the police.”

  “Yeah, right,” Djo Djo said, and scratched himself quickly and a bit too roughly on the cheek.

  Taghi said something sharply, obviously an order. Djo Djo protested, and Farshad started to titter nervously, maybe at what Djo Djo had said. But finally the brothers left the apartment. Nina saw them through the window, lifting the tarp-wrapped body and carrying it over to the van.

  All of a sudden they were rushing frantically. They pitched the body in the van, threw themselves into the front seats, and roared off. Seconds later Nina could see why. On the other side of the canal, on Ørestads Boulevard, a police car was approaching slowly, its blue lights flashing.

  ***

  Eggers stopped the patrol car.

  “There’s a building with balconies,” he said. “And that van didn’t waste any time driving off.”

  Janus shrugged. “We’d better check it out, I suppose.” He had his regular black shoes on, not his winter boots. The radio hadn’t mentioned anything about snow when he left the suburbs that morning at a quarter past seven.

  Eggers called in the address. “We’re going in,” he told the shift supervisor. “But it looks peaceful enough.”

  Janus sighed, opened the car door, and lowered his nice, black, totally inadequate shoes into the muddy slush. “Does anyone even live here?” he asked. The place was all mud, with construction-site trash everywhere, for sale signs in most of the windows.

  “At least there’s light,” Eggers growled. “Come on. Let’s get it over with.”

  The street door was open, a bit unusual nowadays. Eggers knocked on the door of one of the ground-floor apartments. After quite a while, a thin dark-haired woman opened the door. She stared at them with an intensity that made Janus uneasy.