‘That no one can really make sense of any of it.’
‘Damn straight.’
‘Do you know why they took my little finger with those pliers that time?’
‘Half the city knows the story.’
‘Maybe so.’
I yawn, light a new cigar from the old and flick the butt out the window.
‘I’ve always had trouble remembering things. Maybe I’ve simply forgotten.’
We eventually swap places and Rickardsson stretches out on the passenger seat. It’s not long before he falls asleep.
It’s him and me now. Runaways from the law. Cut from the same fucking cloth.
If life has taught me anything it is the art of waiting. For hours outside debtors’ doors in all weathers, in suspense when interrogators try to wait me out with silence, for orders from skippers and officers, and in prison, where the days, weeks and years melt into one long stagnation. Maybe all that waiting has led me here.
My thoughts are flitting past as quickly as the Värmland forests and inland lakes outside the window.
I take a look in the rear-view mirror. The new day is dawning. It is beautiful in its way. I make up my mind never to look back again.
‘Thus preaches Kvisten. You can take your nation, your law book and your fucking Word of God and shove them so far up your arse that you choke.’
Rickardsson grunts. I lay my hand on his leg to calm him. It helps. I keep my hand there. There is something special about driving though the night with a snoring man next to you.
I have always liked it.
I was never struck down in all my years in the boxing ring, but if I had been, I know now that I would have got up again.
I lost a father, avenged him and gained a lover in return.
I must have done something right.
When we cross the Norwegian border without a hitch a few hours after dawn, a fine rain finally begins to fall. Rickardsson is still sleeping stretched out on the seat next to me. I brake gently so as not to wake him. I take his revolver and my Husqvarna and step out of the car. It is best not to take them aboard the boat. I sling the guns as far as I can into the forest.
The sun is shining and a gentle breeze spreads a fog-like haze on the wind. It glitters like gold flakes. I take off my hat and stare straight up into the sky to wake myself up. I feel a sense of purity, as if the warm wind is blowing the sun-rain straight through me.
We rattle over the quay paving with a couple of hours to go. Rickardsson laughs and slaps his thigh. We see her in the distance: SS Victoria. I laugh with him.
We park and step out to stretch our legs before departure. The wind cools; the flags whip. I have my jacket slung over my shoulder, and Rickardsson’s thumbs are in his braces. He winks at me and I grin. Soon we will have a private cabin to indulge ourselves. Two dollar-millionaires.
Not bad for a couple of lowlifes.
I tell him the story of a ship’s cook who kept me company the whole way to Shanghai. A big fucker who taught me to fight with a dagger. Neither Rickardsson nor I is fond of knives any more. We think similarly about almost everything.
We look, rather lazily, for a telephone. I show him the cocktail umbrella.
They are waiting for us near customs. Maybe they have been lying in wait for a long time, informed by the Swedish police. Maybe it was Thulin the forger who dobbed us in. They did say that that old bastard was in league with the police.
We are given no warning. Rickardsson takes a bullet to the leg and seeks cover behind a couple of wooden boxes but they don’t offer much protection. The police shoot them and him to pieces. A bullet to the head. His skull bursts open and Rickardsson is no more.
I stick a cigar in my mouth and run. It’s not something I’m proud of. I had imagined this moment differently. The story of a country lad who was tickled to death by two farm maids flashes through my mind.
Or was it three?
Maybe I could have run faster if I wasn’t so ravaged by the past week. And fuck, when I was in my heyday. Ten kilometres in three-quarters of an hour. Can’t bloody well do that any more.
I smell the comforting scent of seawater. I was close. It didn’t go as planned.
This is my lot in life.
This has become my final round.
The first bullet knocks the hat off my head, but it wasn’t even mine to begin with. I hear a rattling winch and a seagull laughing, but I don’t hear the next shots. I feel them hammer into my back. My Meteor flies out of my mouth. I think I fall on my side.
The Viking watch has fallen out of my pocket and the broken glass glistens close to my face. I cough and my mouth fills with blood but it doesn’t hurt. I feel nothing. I think I reach for the photograph in my wallet.
I simply can’t imagine her. Practically a grown woman.
It doesn’t matter any more.
She will never hear news of my death anyway.
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The Murdered Banker
The Mystery of the Three Orchids
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María Angélica Bosco
Death Going Down
Piero Chiara
The Disappearance of Signora Giulia
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Bird in a Cage
The Wicked Go to Hell
Crush
The Executioner Weeps
The King of Fools
The Gravediggers’ Bread
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The Pledge
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Suspicion
The Judge and His Hangman
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Clinch
Down for the Count
Slugger
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Vanish in an Instant
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She Who Was No More
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COPYRIGHT
Pushkin Vertigo
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London WC2H 9JQ
Original text © Martin Holmén 2017
Translation © A.A. Prime 2018
First published as Slugger by
Albert Bonniers Förlag, Stockholm, Sweden
Published in the English language by arrangement with Bonnier Rights, Stockholm, Sweden
First published by Pushkin Vertigo in 2018
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ISBN 978–1–78227–411–7
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Pushkin Press
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