Slugger

by Martin Holmén

  ‘Kvist took his sweet time.’

  ‘A lot of adjustments.’

  ‘We’ll need to hurry if we’re going to have time to buy a hat and sunglasses and visit Thulin.’

  ‘Like hell, the Prince is around the corner. I need a drink.’

  His eyes narrow, his fingers fasten his single jacket button and his hand touches his shoulder holster. I don’t look away.

  ‘Out in the open. Good luck explaining that to Ma.’

  I turn my back on the erratic git and walk up Biblioteksgatan. Anxiety makes the hairs on my neck stand on end and sets my limbs atremble. My lungs cry out for oxygen but I can’t seem to get any.

  Don’t back down.

  Kvisten never backs down.

  Rushing steps: Nix slides up next to me and I look at him. His face is bright red and sweat gleams on his brow. He is holding his shaking left hand to get control over it. I exhale, duck into Mäster Samuelsgatan and point at the Prince.

  ‘It’s a constant fucking counting game with you boys,’ Nix hisses. ‘When did I have my last nip and when can I get the next? Can I have two and still be in a fit state? The answer is no. A drinker is never in a fit state to get the job done, whether they prefer cheap schnapps or top-shelf whisky.’

  ‘You’re paying,’ I say and open the door to the tobacco smoke, the clatter of porcelain, the boisterous male voices and the spirits vapours that are soon to envelop me in peace.

  *

  The leather of the passenger seat creaks as I stretch my neck and take a look around. To my right is a dispatch counter and Hotel Bellman’s façade signage. To my left is Café Élégance, a beer café that keeps a brightly coloured parrot in a cage and is a favourite haunt among the ladyboys of the city. I know it all too well. The boys have a full set of women’s underwear underneath their suits and perform their dirty deeds much like the girl-whores do, with powder and make-up and God knows what. When the sun has gone down they go traipsing around the neighbourhood, wiggling their arses and making eyes at everyone they meet. I have been here more times than I can count. The parrot is pretty fun too. It can swear like a sailor.

  Nix checks the rear-view mirror. He pulls back the catch on the revolver, flicks the cylinder out with one quick wrist action, flicks it in again and holsters it.

  ‘Does Kvist have his shooter to hand?’

  It’s the first time the bastard has opened his trap since we walked into the Prince. Just as well, I prefer drinking alone, never with shipmates. It’s a rule of survival.

  ‘Course I do.’

  I slur my words, my jaw loose. A drinker, like hell. He should have seen me a decade ago, when a deluge of schnapps couldn’t drown my sorrows, but I gave it a good go, on my travels here and there.

  ‘Farther down the street. The stamp shop.’

  We climb out of the car, and Nix takes another cautious look around as he locks the door. He has every reason to be cautious. Violence reigns here, despite police efforts. The Klara district is neutral ground for the gangster syndicates. Here, on streets that seem to consist solely of gutters, there is a flood of amphetamines, and spirits that taste like fusel oil from the moonshine apparatus of Dalarna, plus the whores are cheaper than on Kungsgatan or in the fashionable dance clubs. There are no laws to take into account, no unwritten rules, no code of honour. Pimps stand outside the plethora of hotels, ready to lure out-of-towners with marked cards. If the conmen fail, along comes a carefully painted decoy to flatter them into a shady alley where a bloke is waiting with baton at the ready.

  I straighten my shoulder holster, glance behind me one more time and follow Nix westward. We pass a couple of people. The vagrants here are more numerous than anywhere else in the city. They have no work and no possibility of escaping the heat of the concrete jungle, so they just amble listlessly around in search of a gig. The wooden soles of the poor men’s boots make a hollow clatter against the pavement. Lundin often refers to this part of the city as ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’.

  Nausea is bubbling in my stomach. I cover my mouth and nose with a handkerchief. Cat piss and rubbish in the gutters have mellowed in the heat, and the sharp odour of sabadilla vinegar reeks out of each and every window, reminding me once again of the poorhouse where I spent several years as a child.

  Tattered sheets flutter like spectres on the washing lines hung between the façades, and their shadows dance on the pavement. Nix and I walk along the row of the hopelessly empty window frames.

  We stop at an inconspicuous door. Behind the grille in the shop window rows of stamps are displayed on yellowed fabric. Nix knocks: three long, three short and another long.

  I take off my new straw hat and hastily drag a comb through my hair. I would have worn a different shirt if I knew I was going to have my photograph taken. I’m unshaven too. Rickardsson was right: I should have made time for barber Nyström to take care of my beard stubble before rushing off.

  I hear the sound of heavy footsteps, then a bolt is drawn and the doorway is filled with an older, heavy-set bloke. His brown eyes peer out like raisins from a glazed saffron bun. He sticks his plump thumbs inside his braces.

  ‘Ma telephoned and said that you needed a passport and American visa. Is that right?’

  ‘This gentleman is keen to cross the ocean in a hurry,’ Nix replies.

  ‘No need for secrecy. Unfortunately, anyone would know Kvist’s face a mile off. Anyway, follow me.’

  The bloke has full, womanly hips. We come into a dim workshop with a camera on a tripod. It smells of dust, old books and adhesive. On a table under the harsh light of a work lamp, the forger’s tools are all spread out: tweezers, scalpel and small glue brushes. The dust dances in the cone of light.

  Despite his fat fingers, Thulin is renowned as the best forger in the city and is even said to be employed by the police themselves when necessary. I have also heard that he is an expert in safe-deposit boxes and has taught an entire guild of masters.

  Next to a typewriter and a pile of discarded German passports is a large adult tomcat in a cardboard box. He is all black but for a white patch like a shirt front between his forelegs. He immediately begins to purr loudly. The stamp dealer strokes his back.

  ‘This is Beelzebub.’

  I scratch the Prince of Darkness under his chin. His fangs are exposed, and it looks like he is smiling. The purring intensifies. It makes me think of the cat that Nix did in.

  ‘You need Kvist out of the country in a matter of days from what I hear? Not much time.’

  I stop scratching the kitty. My heart lurches. With a little luck I’ll be standing face to face with my daughter this time next week. The idea makes me feel warm inside, but it also clenches my stomach into rebellion. Beelzebub flexes his claws and tentatively paws at my arm.

  ‘We’ll pay whatever it costs.’

  ‘Busy times. The queue is longer than the one for that new escalator at Slussen.’

  Thulin makes a sweeping gesture over the work table. I scoff. I don’t understand what’s so damn special about that escalator. Went on it four times in a row a while ago. Didn’t think there was much to it.

  Nix pulls a thick roll of banknotes from his pocket.

  ‘We’ll pay double the usual fee.’

  ‘Now that’s more like it. Let’s start with the portrait. What name do you want on your new document?’

  ‘Same as now. Easier to remember. Same name, new photograph.’

  I stumble to the side. Maybe one schnapps too many at the Prince after all. The stocky forger squints at me and smiles.

  ‘Kvist lives up to his reputation. If I may say so, I would recommend using another name.’

  ‘You’re the expert.’

  It doesn’t take long. Nix peels the notes from a roll and soon we are standing out on the street again.

  ‘Kvist can find his own way home. I’m sure you appreciate that I’m not keen to drive through Ploman’s territory alone.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘The Grand
restaurant tonight. Half past seven.’ Nix looks me up and down. ‘That should give you enough time for a bath and a shave.’

  I sneer, and something catches my attention that makes my muscles stiffen. Over Nix’s shoulder I see a bloke approaching in worn-out shoes. A wide grin shines out of greying beard stubble. I gesture with my chin and Nix turns around. I take one step forward so that we are standing shoulder to shoulder.

  ‘Get out of here!’

  The man’s voice is barely more than a croak. His clothes are crying out for a scrub and an iron. In his left hand he holds a broken bottle with sharp edges; with his right he pulls a bread knife out of his trouser lining. It has no shaft and the handle is taped on. I see his blood throbbing in a vein under his sparse grey fringe.

  I grunt, move my left foot forward and draw my head in between my shoulders. Nix giggles just like he did in the car. Like a little girl being tickled in the belly.

  Nix and I look at each other and grin. For half a second I feel some sort of solidarity with the bastard. His snake eyes narrow in the shade of his hat brim; a drop of sweat shines on the pointy tip of his nose, fat and quivering above his moustache. The tip of his tongue flicks over his top lip, stops in the left corner of his mouth and stays there.

  He knows just as well as I do that we have probably found ourselves on this old man’s section of the pavement. In territories that rarely span more than twenty-odd metres, the street people and sewer rats rule. Thieves, ragamuffins and miscreants can have free passage, but as soon as anyone shows up who could pose a threat, the territory must be defended.

  The old man has stopped a couple of metres in front of us and is swinging his knife and bottle in line with the waist of his trousers, which are secured with a bright girl’s button. Maybe he doesn’t realise who we are. Maybe he has nothing to lose.

  It doesn’t matter. Not to us, nor him. The outcome will be the same.

  I play with the thought of letting Nix take care of the problem by himself. To see what he’s made of, and maybe get him scratched up in the bargain, but no, that could jeopardise the whole plan.

  ‘Get lost.’

  The vagrant takes a step forward as the hoarse words tumble out of his trap. He is slow, run-down by age, schnapps and hunger. I step forward and to the side; better if we approach from different directions.

  A sudden bang, trapped between the buildings, blasts my eardrums. The man flies backwards a metre and lands on his back. The bottle smashes on the paving stones. I leap to the side and take cover.

  Four gleaming grey pigeons flap in the sunshine. As the distinctive smell of burnt gunpowder enters my broken nose, I stand up and immediately pat my pockets for a cigar. A shrill but pitiful wheezing comes from the old man, like the sound little kids with whooping cough make when it’s just a matter of time.

  And from what I can tell this is also just a matter of time. Red-brown blood streams out of his abdomen, taking his life along with it. It was probably the liver that got it.

  Nix is still standing with the smoking revolver at waist height. His mouth is half open, his faces just droops, revealing no emotion, and his eyes are a couple of narrow slits. Then his left hand starts to shake; he opens his jacket, holsters his revolver and grips his trembling hand with his other. I look around. Not a single person remains on the street.

  The old man has rolled over onto his side, drawn his knees into his body and folded his arms around his stomach. The dark blood forms a pool on the paving stones. He opens his mouth to reveal a gaping hole of broken teeth.

  ‘Help,’ he whimpers. ‘Help me.’

  I put the unlit cigar in my mouth and take a step towards the broken heap of a man.

  ‘Not a chance.’ Nix massages his hand. It has stopped shaking. ‘Nothing to be done. That’s why I like shooting in the guts. It’s slow but it works, every time.’

  I stare at Nix, he gestures towards the car and starts to jog to it. I take one more look at the old man, then turn around and trundle after. Every step reverberates ominously between the house fronts.

  ‘Help!’

  Somehow the old man has managed to gasp a breath of air. His hoarse cry rings out along the street as our footsteps quicken. I find my new sunglasses and press them onto my nose. Behind us I hear another pleading cry.

  When we get back to the car I look around. Not a soul, not a cat, not a bird, only the bedlinen on the washing lines flapping in a breeze. The old man has gone quiet in his pool of blood.

  Nix meets my gaze above the white car roof. Both the car’s lacquer and his teeth glint in the sun.

  ‘It’s probably best if I drive Kvist home after all.’ He has stopped smiling and is stroking his moustache. ‘Now that there’s a little static on the line.’

  I stride briskly along the east avenue of Kungsträdgården Park and pass Wahrendorffsgatan, where the smell of burning from the synagogue still hangs thickly in the dog-day evening.

  I take off my sunglasses and try once again to bend the small saddle-shaped plates on the inside. They pinch my nose too tightly and leave a mark.

  I fold them up and put them in the inner pocket of my jacket. This old Herzog suit is still going strong despite repairs following a knife fight in the winter of ’32, and the steel-grey shirt looks rather splendid together with the silver-striped silk tie. I shined the shoes myself with junk-dealer Ström’s oil concoction. Hasse is meeting his girl tonight, apparently.

  A hell of a waste of energy the day before the match.

  A southerly wind makes the water quiver in the sunshine. It splashes gently at the quayside, and the docked ferry boats creak a lingering, wistful melody. On the roof of the German legation a swastika flag flaps limply on its pole. A bunch of carefree gulls squawk around an overloaded rubbish barge moving through the waves between the National Museum and the oldest parts of the city. I check my Viking timepiece and sidestep a tramp who has gathered up hairpins, matchboxes and other bits of tat found in the gutter, and wrapped them up in a newspaper. I quicken my pace.

  The long-established hotel is enthroned stoutly and majestically on the waterfront, on the west side of its islet with a view over Old Town, the palace and parliament. A black row of tightly packed taxicabs stands outside, clean and shining, each waiting for some liquored-up gentleman or business traveller of means going out on the town.

  A doorman wearing a jacket heavy with gold stands in my way.

  ‘As I am sure you are aware, Monsieur, our least expensive room costs six kronor a night.’

  What in the hell? Doesn’t he see that I’m wearing a straw hat of the very latest style? Can’t he see the careful shave barber Nyström gave me? I washed pretty recently too. I feel a snarl of anger deep inside me.

  ‘Here for the tuck.’

  ‘And who might the gentleman be meeting?’

  The half-hour chimes weakly from Skeppsholmen Church. I stand still for a moment. I don’t know their real names.

  ‘The head of the family is a lady they call Ma.’

  That makes the bastard stand up straight. The glass door opens.

  ‘Certainly. Forgive me, sir. I didn’t recognise you.’

  I give a reserved little nod and walk with my fists still clenched into a foyer filled with stuffed bears. Damned pretentious rubbish. Hang a bunch of metal on a man and he will immediately expect people to bow to him. No doubt the doorman makes a handsome salary with all the twenty-five-öre coins tossed at him in tips, but that is hardly a reason to get cocky.

  Another concierge jackanapes tries to take my hat, but I keep it on out of old-fashioned peasant custom.

  ‘Kvisten doesn’t take his hat off for anyone.’

  ‘Forgive me, sir, but I must insist.’

  Go ahead and insist. But get out of my way.

  ‘Like hell.’

  With jerky, exaggerated gestures and a white cloth over his forearm, the maître d’hôtel leads me to a round table placed out of the way, on the farthest side of the spacious hall. Ma meets my gaz
e and makes a courteous, dainty movement with her hand. She is wearing black gloves up to the elbows. Her fingers glitter with a bunch of gemstones. She is flanked by her sons, and there is a giant bloke sitting with his back to me. He looks about a head taller than Svenne Crowbar.

  A pianist caresses a perfunctory, almost bland melody. The dinner guests stare at me. Fragile, thoroughbred aristocrats, uniformed cavalry officers, suited and booted businessmen with faces red from schnapps, honeymoon couples – they are all craning their necks so hard their heads might come off. As soon as I make eye contact they look intently elsewhere, as if deeply fascinated by the enormous chandeliers, the silverware, the white tablecloths or the arched windows to the street.

  ‘Thus the task of the employers’ association shall be…’

  A man goes silent abruptly in mid-speech and becomes as still as an ice sculpture, holding a brimming schnapps glass by his second waistcoat button.

  I have a mind to put my sunglasses back on. Doris Steiner took me here, and to Cecil and the Continental, but that was years ago. Since then I have only seen the inside of the hourly hotels on Stora Nygatan and Norra Smedjegatan.

  I take a deep breath. The smorgasbord’s aromas of smoked salmon, goose breast and anchovy mingle with expensive perfumes and the thick smoke of Havana cigars. My stomach is growling louder than Thulin’s cat’s purring.

  Svenne Crowbar has already picked up his cutlery and tucked in his napkin like a bib, though the food is yet to be served. Ma extends her hand with palm facing down. It is an awkward handshake.

  ‘Kvist has met Mr Blom before, as I understand it.’

  ‘I certainly have.’

  Hiccup, the cold-blooded murderer of Kungsholmen, extends his giant bear paw of a hand. The last time we shook hands it was over a corpse up in Vanadislunden four years ago. His grip has not softened with the years. Mine has weakened.

  ‘As the transit crosses Kungsholmen, we thought it advisable to involve Belzén of Birka. He was kind enough to loan out Hiccup here.’