Slugger

by Martin Holmén

  ‘Kvist looks a little pale. Would he like a pinch?’ She nods to the glass jar between us on the seat, but I grunt ‘No’ and she continues, ‘Now where was I?’

  ‘Piggen likes himself some Jewish gold but Ploman wants nothing to do with them.’

  I remember.

  ‘That’s right. However, Ploman got involved when the state monopolised gambling a couple of years ago and established the city’s two biggest casinos. I refer, of course, to Hälsingegatan 3 and the one on Sätertäppan.’

  Her voice is more shrill now and she is speaking faster. It’s the powder. I have seen it before. She seems twenty years younger.

  ‘Mm-hmm.’

  We turn westward towards Vasa Church and drive along Odengatan, the very boundary between the different territories. The traffic is sparse and it is very quiet. Ma replaces her machine gun in the floor cavity and the steel clunks as I put my Tokarev back in the gap in the door. At once it feels easier to breathe.

  ‘Like I was saying, both Piggen and Ploman have gradually advanced their positions in recent years, and now it seems something is going on. On several occasions Belzén’s men have seen a small convoy of vehicles driving across Kungsholmen to Söder in the evening. The question is what these scum are doing there.’

  ‘Why don’t they drive through neutral Klara?’

  ‘That, my dear sir, is the next question. And that’s where you come in.’

  ‘I have nothing to do with those types. Forget it!’

  Ma straightens her gloves as Nix brakes to let a tram pass.

  ‘I know Kvist’s story, just like every other idiot in town, the cause célèbre that marked the end of your boxing career und so weiter. Look at this as a way to redeem yourself, so that the name Kvist is associated with something other than, well, you know what people say…’

  Nix lets out another snigger. He sounds like a snotty little kid. I stare out of the window and resist the urge to curse. In the front seat Svenne Crowbar is going hard at his nails. Shame is throbbing in my blood. A feeling I know all too well.

  I gnash my teeth until they hurt and clench my fists, then the words come spilling out of me, against my will.

  ‘They won’t let me forget so easily. Nobody looks me in the eye. People turn away in disgust.’

  Next to us stands a horse cart. The skinny mare’s head is drooping in the heat. We are so close that I can make out the greasy dust stuck in her mane. She wants to go to the slaughter. I can see it in her eyes.

  ‘It’s not disgust.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pure fear.’

  Ma sniffs slightly.

  ‘It’s because of the darkness lurking behind those blue eyes. It warns of bloodshed for anyone and everyone who gets in your way. They are afraid. Mr Kvist is illuminated by violence, wherever he sits, walks or stands. It follows you like a shadow. That is why you walk alone. Not because of your weakness for men.’

  The nag beside us chews desperately at her bit and the skin of her hindquarters twitches from flies.

  ‘Though your little deviance certainly doesn’t help your cause,’ Ma adds.

  The Vasa bells toll their final chimes. Nix chuckles again, loudly and shrilly, and sets the car into motion. A half whistle sounds through the horse driver’s lips and he flicks the whip, sending the road dust flying from the draught animal’s hot skin.

  Odenplan is quiet and mainly empty in the heat. A shabby man with ulcerated pimples on his face runs out across the hot paving stones of the square. He is dragging something in an old feed bag. A couple of Italian girls are on the prowl with fortunes for sale but there are no customers here. It’s the dog days and it bloody well seems like the local residents have rotted away in the heat.

  When I stretch my neck I see Nix’s face with those dark apertures under his monobrow. He is smirking with one corner of his mouth.

  I screw up my eyes for a moment. Ma’s words have struck a nerve somewhere inside me. Last autumn I could bask in joy and everything felt easy, but since then I have walked with heavy feet and an even heavier heart. Something happened to me, and I can find no peace; I bear my misery in a way no sensible man would. It is as though I am searching for something, but it’s not the sort of civil investigation I am used to. Before, all my other feelings used to stay inert inside me. I preferred it that way.

  The haunting eyes of a whole crowd of men rush through my head, scarred for life and so badly injured that they were probably never themselves again. A travelling watch-chain merchant I disfigured beyond recognition. A gouty old man, tangled up in an inheritance dispute, who I was so hard on that the bastard lost his mind. And a young man, up to his ears in debt, with his eyes on the outside of his head like a fucking pike fish. People said he got that way because he was the product of incest. Didn’t make a difference to my visit.

  We continue down Odengatan through the half-dead city in silence, as if Ma is letting her words sink in. A sturdy red-haired woman is smoking outside Standards corner. Elin Johansson, an old client and a real battleaxe of a woman. She has book smarts and street smarts, and is damned determined to get what she wants. I liked her a lot, and she liked me even more, but we ignore each other when we cross paths, out of fear of retaliation from those higher up, even though it was more than six months ago. She looks away and pretends she doesn’t see me, just like everybody else. She could at least give me a little nod of acknowledgement.

  I have no one except Lundin. I brush off my trousers with a swishing sound and clasp my hands together like an obliging little confirmation candidate but regret it immediately and crack my knuckles instead.

  Nix turns right by Johnsson’s Bazaar at the crossroads with my own street. Johnsson is limping around with a broom, hollow-eyed and messed up from beatings. Yet another fucker giving me a bad conscience. Ma’s voice saves me from several more bad memories.

  ‘It is getting harder to hire good crew. I blame the state of the economy. Most men have a job to go to. Meanwhile Kvist can move around freely among the different city districts in a way that none of the rest of us is in a position to do. I’m sure you can appreciate that we would be most interested in knowing what is being transported from Ploman’s headquarters, via Kungsholmen, to Söder or vice versa.’

  Phantom pains shoot through my non-existent little fingertip. I hold what remains of my finger up in the air.

  ‘The last time I got involved with your lot it didn’t go well.’

  Ma laughs hoarsely.

  ‘One day I will tell you the whole story about that finger of yours.’

  I grunt and fumble in vain for a cigar in my sweaty breast pocket. Ma offers me a cigarette and I light it with a match. The soothing smoke: the caress. I cough.

  We drive down Birger Jarlsgatan at high speed and pass Humlegården. I hope Herzog’s is still open. I stare out through the side window. They are showing the heavyweight match between Max Schmeling and Joe Louis at the Sture Picture House. I should take the time to go and see it. Maybe take Hasse with me, the boy I have been training for six months, and see if the Brown Bomber can teach him a thing or two.

  Ma clears her throat.

  ‘It is an incredibly special feeling when one enters a room and everybody stops talking and sits up straight in their chairs. Respect. Yes, you remember what it’s like.’

  I grunt in response as we turn into Biblioteksgatan and drive towards the tailor’s. Fuck knows if the rectory will be open, even though it’s the Lord’s day, now that one of his servants has gone and got murdered. I am struck by a wave of nausea at the memory and swallow back sour bile. I take a deep drag to get rid of the aftertaste and blow the smoke out the corner of my mouth.

  Herzog’s apprentice is outside nailing some wide planks across the broken window. His jaw muscles are working at least as hard as his right arm, and his muscles ripple under his skin. A uniformed policeman is still standing posted outside and sweating in the warmth of the evening.

  I open the car door slightly. />
  ‘Thanks for the ride.’

  ‘You know our place on Kommendörsgatan?’

  ‘It’s a couple of years since I was there.’

  My fling with Doris Steiner, the film star, immediately flashes into my mind. That didn’t end happily either.

  ‘You are welcome to pay us a visit when you have made up your mind.’

  ‘I work alone. I’m busy already.’

  ‘Think it over. It’s a question of redemption, for you and for us. We pay well and we don’t believe the rumour that Kvist has become sentimental and weak with age. I would very much like to have you on my side. You know where we are. À bientôt!’

  The door slams shut and the armoured tank of a car drives away. I am left standing on the pavement with anger gripping my heart. Talked down to by an old crone. Would never have happened before last autumn.

  With my back to the tailor’s I watch the sun devour more and more of the Cadillac’s white lacquer before the car turns left onto Norrmalmstorg.

  Ma’s organisation must really be down on their luck if they are driving around town recruiting has-beens.

  I take out the stopped watch. Hammer blows ring out between the house fronts. There is a slight breeze coming down from Nybroviken now. Above my head Herzog’s sign screeches on its rusty hinge.

  Sounds like a rail spike being pulled out of a priest’s corpse.

  *

  Burning in the heat, I walk down towards Norrmalmstorg to take the tram home after visiting Herzog and getting my jacket back. The street is empty but for a youth with a turned-up nose standing and smoking outside the Café Chantant: as flaxen-haired as a little boy, his fringe shiny with oil, a cigarette hanging limply out of the corner of his mouth. He is shielding his face with his hand and leaning his right foot against the wall. When he sees me coming he walks quickly across the street, like the bloke outside Jensen’s yesterday.

  At least that’s something.

  I recall Ma’s words in the car earlier. My thoughts stray to my twin brother who died of whooping cough when we were little. It infected him suddenly and without warning. Grandma read him the Word of God, threw holy fire out the door two Sundays in a row, massaged his chest with oil blessed by the village priest.

  Nothing helped.

  Would my brother have grown up to be a brawler like me if he had lived? The shopkeeper on Roslagsgatan talks about Jews and about how character is carried in the blood. Who the hell knows? Maybe my debaucher of a father was a hothead and it runs in the family. If the root is corrupted and something has grown crooked, you sure as hell can’t straighten it out.

  I turn my head and try to see myself in profile. I’ll talk to Lundin about my musings when I come home. He claims to be able to recognise a criminal physiognomy from the shape of a person’s head. Maybe it’s in my blood and I was born this way.

  I pat around my jacket in search of fresh cigars I had in an inside pocket. I locate one, put it in the corner of my mouth and carry on walking as I look for matches.

  In Norrmalmstorg the criss-crossing tramlines shine green in the sun. It is practically deserted here too and a cooling breeze brings a little respite. Some men in city suits are brooding in the shade of a bus shelter. In the corner by the grandiose bank stands a youth giving out Brand magazine. Despite the heat he is staying true to the anarchist custom of dressing fully in black. Three raucous drunks are staggering around outside Svenska Lifs grey stone palace. It is nice to cool off. Fresh.

  ‘Well, what do you know!’ comes a voice behind me, croaky from schnapps. ‘Isn’t that that fucking sodomite?’

  I stop in my tracks. I turn around.

  ‘Damn, it is him!’

  A wide grin cleaves the red face in two. His shirt and rigid cap are greasy and the sleeves of his jacket are frayed. He is breathing heavily, and his body is steaming from spirits and the heat.

  I know him well. His name is Pålsson, a dirty flesh-pedlar with dozens of street whores working for him. I have stolen one or two from him throughout the years, on a job for the girls’ parents or husbands, and he has never forgiven me. Now the bastard has drunk himself into arrogance. People might cross the street when they see me coming, or pretend to study something in a shop window, but it is still very rare that a bloke has the balls to shout straight in my face.

  The vein in my head starts to throb violently. My heart begins to race. I smile. Does this fucker think that I am one of his wenches to beat at will? Does he think that I have grown weak with the years?

  Behind the pimp, two men stagger into place and smirk. One is a big bloke with a matted beard and booze-induced acne in his sparse oily hair. Probably a lot more muscle than sense. The other is smaller, a pickpocket-type with glazed eyes, shining like those of a small predator in a cone of light. Three against one. The storm troopers of prostitution. I swallow.

  It has been a long day.

  I indulge myself.

  My hand moves towards my shoulder holster, but no, a couple of bullets and death comes too quickly. Besides, my aim is significantly better with my fists. My neck cricks as I warm it up in a sideways stretch. I look around. Not many people.

  First Detective Chief Inspector Berglund’s mocking, then a youth nearly takes my head off with a brick, then Ma’s taunts, and now this gang of tramps. Maybe I have truly lost it. One sign of weakness, and this mob will target it straight away. Maybe it’s the heat and the lice, this stubborn sun that refuses to go down at night. Sleepless nights drive people to madness, make them lose all rhyme and reason.

  Well, I’ll show them. Now it’s my turn. And I’m going to pulverise you into bird feed.

  Pålsson takes a couple of steps forward. Barely a metre between us. The others don’t follow. Perhaps a notch smarter than they look after all.

  I bite the end off of my cigar. It is close now, so very close.

  Come on then, you bastard.

  Come to Kvisten.

  The gentle wind caresses the sweat off my neck. Net curtains in the wide-open windows of the surrounding houses flutter like bridal veils. I take a deep breath and can almost feel my lungs fill up with fresh archipelago air. A blackbird is warbling somewhere. To the left of us a kitten meows pitifully.

  My gaze wanders over the whoremonger’s head, up to the ornate façade of Svenska Lifs, and locks onto the clock tower at the top. I think I hear the mechanism tense its muscles in preparation to slash away at another minute of our lives. The gears lock together, forcing time forward, and one moment later the iron hand points straight up into the cloudless sky. It feels as if the ground vibrates as all the clock towers in the city strike the hour, as clearly as the bell that rings in a new round. The vibrations run through me, making my veins ripple and the match in my hand quiver.

  In the boxing ring time stops. Three-minute rounds become a tremulous vacuum, a void, a bit of fucking peace and quiet. I suck in air and bring the Meteor to my lips.

  The grey smoke coils up and away as I puff the cigar into life. I peer at Pålsson from under the brim of my hat. He takes one more step towards me and enters my striking range. I widen my stance.

  ‘Well? Did you hear what I said, you fucking poof?’

  The words put a smile on my face. I never understand people giving me lip before a fight. Better to keep quiet than try to egg yourself on with a load of big words and swagger. Whoever gets the first punch in wins, nine times out of ten.

  With another smirk I flick the burning match towards his face.

  Finally.

  Fire in the hole.

  This bastard’s head is going to jerk one way or the other. Whichever he chooses, my anger is going to flow through my arm and meet his jaw through my fist. Right or left, makes no difference. God knows how many virgins he has desecrated over the years. How many poor little girls like Evy Granér he has forced to sell themselves for a fiver and a smoke.

  He goes left. A breath of gratitude rushes through my muscles. I have smashed up my right hand far too many times. />
  A good blow comes from the whole body. You feel its sting and precision long before the fist hits its target.

  There is nothing more beautiful than violence’s handiwork. Hasse, my boxing protégé, flashes through my mind. Pity he’s not here to see this.

  It is neither a hook nor an uppercut but a mixture of the two that comes up diagonally from below. This isn’t your typical knockout blow that rattles the brain; my aim is to cause as much mess as possible. To break the jawbone and a few molars to boot. Tear the tongue apart with a little luck.

  The concentrated force crashes into the pimp. His face shakes, his head bounces back and forth, a cascade of blood and bits of tooth shoot up into the summer evening. His hat spins away like a flying saucer. I grimace with pain. My bloody shoulder.

  Still, bloody beautiful.

  Pålsson falls heavily onto his back, raising a cloud of dust which then falls back over him like a fine dew. His legs fly up into the air before they thud back down. Both the other lowlifes back up a couple of steps but the rough-cut one stops and then advances again with wild steps. I take the cigar from my mouth and hold up my hand.

  ‘Not ready yet.’ The bloke freezes in place. Deep inside the red, sweaty face blink the eyes of a simpleton. ‘Far from it,’ I add, walking towards the pimp where he is lying on the ground, barely conscious.

  By the time I’m done with this fucker, he’ll spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair in a mental institution.

  Standing here now, I finally feel like myself again.

  An older man and a woman stand about forty metres away. He raises his cane and points. A tram pulls into a stop. No coppers in sight.

  A couple of young ginger cats are play-fighting and tumbling around by a chestnut tree. They turn somersaults with each other, bounce up in the air, hold each other down and fall on their sides. If it weren’t for Dixie I might have taken them home with me. She might be half-blind, deaf and lame but she would probably be able to smell them.

  And she doesn’t like cats.

  Pålsson is lying there whining. I blow on the cigar, jam it in my mouth and straddle his chest. A bubble of blood oozes from his mouth, like the bubbles all these kids are blowing with chewing gum these days. His greasy, slippery hair slides between my fingers but eventually I get a good grip.