Slugger Read online

  I carefully place my left hand and right foot on the edge of the fence. A board creaks on its nail as I lay my weight on it.

  This is fucking it, Kvisten. Down Ynglingagatan, through Vanadislunden and home. In barely fifteen minutes you will be a wealthy man. The latest Cadillac, lunch at Cecil’s and a Havana in your mouth. I got an intoxicating whiff of wealth for a few weeks around Christmas of ’32.

  It didn’t last.

  I brace myself and leap over the fence. My left foot hooks the edge and I spin around mid-air. I hit the ground heavily like a slaughtered hog cut down after bleeding dry. A gunshot blasts in my ears. An intense pain explodes across my ribcage.

  I turn onto my back. I groan and blink in a cloud of gunpowder. My ears are ringing. I stare dumbfounded at the Husqvarna in my grasp. The shot is still reverberating as a gentle tickling in my hand.

  ‘What the hell?’

  ‘Up on the walkway!’

  I feel my chest but I’m not bleeding. That fucking gold bar must have jammed into my ribcage when I landed. I find a Meteor. I put it in my mouth and get up to my feet with a sigh. I stagger and pat my pockets for a match. The trench coat’s shoulder seam has split and the fabric is flapping like an open wound.

  ‘The fuck did I put them?’ I mutter to myself.

  I bite the end off the cigar and spit it out. I grimace. One rib is broken, maybe several.

  My eyes dart around: the street is a puzzle of grey stone, a dark streak of cloud cuts the moon in two, wilting bluebells are bending in the scorched grass of the roadside verge.

  The ringing in my ears changes frequency. My brain is struggling to re-enter reality. It hurts, as usual. The clearer my head, the more it hurts. I fold over my injured ribcage and whimper, still dizzy and confused.

  Then come the footsteps and the men.

  I hear them now.

  Angry boots beat against the wooden planks of the walkway, orders and shouts ring out from inside the compound. I look up and head for where the street ends in a flight of steps ten metres away. The entrance is shrouded in leafy bushes. I take a few tentative steps and then speed up. The ammunition rattles like marbles in my trouser pocket and the gold bars slam against my thighs. I am dragging a hell of a lot of ballast along with me.

  As I pass the main gate I hear the familiar sound of a barrier being pulled away. I lift my right arm and fire two shots blindly, leaving a bullet hole in either side of the gate. For a moment everything is quiet but for the eternal nagging of the crickets.

  With every step I take the vibrations jolt up into my battered ribcage. I reach the steps just as the gate opens behind me. I turn around.

  Three men: a revolver, a hunting rifle and a machine gun that might be the same model as the one I found in the van.

  I fire another couple of shots. The man with the machine gun flinches, then raises his weapon to waist height.

  I turn around and hurl myself down the steps just as the concert begins and the very air around me explodes. The machine gun chops its monotonous requiem and bullets whistle above my head, raining a torrent of leaves, bark and twigs down on me.

  My broken ribs scream. I reach the first of the staircase’s two landings and collapse to my knees with a groan. The firing has stopped and I hear steps approach from both above and below. I raise the Husqvarna. A solitary leaf lingers in the air, drifting gently down to the steps like a feather. The sound of footsteps is getting louder. From below appears a bowler hat, then a pair of round gold-rimmed glasses; the Husqvarna flashes, the recoil jerks my wrist and strikes my injured chest. One shot remains, no time to reload.

  The round glasses lie gleaming on the landing. The left lens is missing, the right is splashed with blood. I stand up, jump over the corpse that is lying motionless on the stairs and out into the street below. Somewhere above and behind me a pair of tyres screech to a halt. They are going to have to drive around the whole block if they want to catch up with me.

  The sleeve of my trench coat has ripped free and is sagging around my forearm as I run along the middle of the road. My legs are already numb and my lungs are wheezing in protest. The gold bars must weigh thirty kilos each.

  I’m coming up to an intersection when another shot cuts through the night. The dull bang of the elk rifle ripples between the houses. In the same moment there is the sound of screeching brakes and then an engine revving up. More pursuers.

  Getingen stretches out to the left: the vast, brutal district of warehouses, hovels, abandoned cars and all sorts of tramps, which we drove past on Sunday.

  My best chance. I see three campfires flicker like a series of beacons among warehouses with roofs of corrugated iron, and I head towards them.

  I cut across Norrtullsgatan as a car turns around the corner about ten metres from me. I decide to go for it and fire my final shot. I manage at least to hit the windscreen. The car lurches, the tyres scream, the vehicle skids and stops.

  There is a rhythmical tapping coming from somewhere above me, sort of like when Ström the junk dealer sits at home straightening out nails with his little hammer. Behind me I hear the car doors open and steps drum against the street. My feet kick up dust as I turn the corner of a crumbling wall, wheezing all the while. I’m slowing down. This damn handkerchief isn’t helping my breathing.

  I step on a pallet, but a rotten plank gives in and my foot goes through. I pull my leg out but the bastard pallet wants to come with me. As I try to shake it off jagged splinters tear holes in my wide trousers and scratch my calf but I eventually get free and continue on breathlessly.

  Two tramps are sitting by a fire in an old zinc bucket, each holding a hammer. The flames are licking like mad through a hole in the side of the pail.

  So much madness.

  The vagabonds have a pile of old bricks in a wheelbarrow. Behind them stands a neat stack of chipped-clean bricks. Two pairs of flabbergasted eyes shine out from their bearded faces.

  ‘Stop!’

  The voice comes from a few metres behind me. I take a few steps and jump behind the pile of bricks. Shots ring out, small clouds of pulverised, burnt clay explode like blisters into the night air; the bucket clatters over in a shower of sparks, and the tramps yell hoarsely.

  I take out one of the gold bars, chuck it next to the brick pile to shed some weight and crawl clumsily under a low wall to an abandoned farrier stall. It smells like wet horse. My chest is about to explode with pain.

  In the distance I hear police sirens. I crawl under another wall, come out round the back of the farrier’s, squeeze through a tarpaulin tent packed with rolls of rusty barbed wire, and soon I am making dust fly, stumbling through foliage, dirt and sunscorched tall grass. I emerge on a gravel road and stagger east. My legs are as heavy as iron bars.

  To my right the police car’s flashing lights colour Ynglingagatan’s façades blood-red: more enemies.

  I slow down a little, take out the second gold bar and look around for a place to hide it. It is weighing me down and I can’t carry it much longer.

  The hunting rifle bangs behind me again. Panic sets my muscles on fire. I pick up speed once more.

  ‘Fuck!’

  So damn weak when I need strength.

  I am crying, and my salty tears sting my gasping mouth. There is a bang as the gold bar hits a burnt-out oil barrel. My mouth tastes as if I have a bunch of small screws in my jaw. I pull the handkerchief off my face.

  ‘Fucking hell!’

  Another bullet whistles past my head. I think I can hear someone behind me feeding another cartridge into the rifle. I stumble, drop my hat, and the bullet sails through the summer night, just above my head.

  They are closing in.

  I rush towards Vanadislunden in tatters. Above me the bell of St Stefan’s Church strikes the half-hour, as if ringing in the final act of a tragedy.

  PART TWO

  WEDNESDAY 22 JULY

  ‘Is a man supposed to go bareheaded in this heat? Huh? What sort of infernal notion is that?’


  Dixie sits down on her backside and turns towards my voice. She tilts her head to one side and whimpers.

  ‘It’s just not going to work.’

  Tuesday became Wednesday just an hour ago. I manage to pull Dixie a couple of metres farther along quiet Roslagsgatan before she barks and sits down again. I hear the odd car drive up Vallhallavägen one block to the east. The sound of an engine rises and falls, dies away and returns, as if the city were breathing deeply in its sleep.

  ‘I’d rather walk around with a damned paper cone on my head.’

  My ribcage aches as I look to the north with a sigh. The white beams of the street lights converge into a single point up by the tram turning loop. A breath of wind, lukewarm like a Bengal breeze, becomes trapped between the façades and exhales in my face. I try to remember whether I was stupid enough to mark the lining of my hat with my name.

  Fuck knows.

  Dixie sniffs the air. The sour-sweet smell of sun-warmed refuse seeps from the bins in the courtyard and out across the neighbourhood. The close, musty atmosphere reminds me of prison and the stench spread by fellow inmates, even though everyone can wash at least once a month nowadays.

  I can’t say I am tempted to send a thank-you note, but it occurs to me that this must be the first time the law has ever done me any favours. Just as the police appeared at Getingen, Ploman’s gangsters retreated and allowed me to escape the labyrinth of shacks and storehouses. Staying to find the gold bars was out of the question. The vein in my forehead begins throbbing with rage. I tug Dixie’s leash and mutter to myself.

  ‘Such is the nature of this country: they expect you to toil and sweat, and be grateful for the privilege, while someone else enjoys the fruits of your labour, and you don’t have a hope in hell of receiving Fortuna’s good grace.’

  I light a cigar and force the smoke out my nostrils.

  ‘How in the hell is one lonely man supposed to take on a whole conspiracy of gangsters, coppers and fuck knows what else?’ I shout to Dixie.

  The bitch tilts her head to one side and swishes her tail. The cigar crackles as I take a drag. My ribs are tightly bound with bandages, which makes it difficult to inhale the smoke as deeply as I would like.

  We hobble on while thoughts of the Reaper, Gabrielsson and the crate of gold continue to swirl around my brain. My thoughts have sunk into a hopelessly stagnant backwater, unable to move on. Lundin often says that I am at odds with logic at times, but that is mainly when I am drunk. Emma, my wife, used to tease me by saying I had developed a habit of talking to myself, but I don’t know if it is true.

  ‘Why the hell would anyone pay that much attention to themselves?’

  The darkness has finally defeated the sun. I wait for Dixie, looking at the stars and contemplating the gold bars. I have seen glittering spring whales in the North Atlantic, snake charmers in Bombay and a strike-breaking scab bled dry and swinging from a crane in Cherbourg. Once I saw two Creoles joined at the hip in a circus, and once at the market in Malaga I saw a sailor boxing a bear.

  Still, I don’t think I have ever been as dumbfounded as when I opened that box of Nazi gold.

  Something creaks as I bend down and pat Dixie.

  ‘What the hell do the affairs of the state have to do with us? We’d do best to stay away.’

  Emma was a Social Democrat and tried to trick me into going to the May Day march a few times, and I did go, even though I had to fight the urge to march against the current.

  I haven’t been welcome there either, not since I fell into disrepute. I’ll be damned if I get involved in national politics. Especially if Ploman’s gang is involved.

  Pain shoots along my back when I straighten up. I put the cigar in my mouth, and we hobble farther north.

  Once we have reached Johannes elementary school, I see a stoic old draught animal standing stock-still in front of its cart a couple of metres into the courtyard. The driver is nowhere to be seen. I think it’s Balder or Loke, one of old man Ljung’s more ancient hire horses. For a moment the stationary scene fills me with unease, with some sort of memory, but then I tie Dixie’s leash to a fence and approach the nag. For a moment I think I can see a star glinting in its blue-glazed pupil, but then realise it is only the glowing tip of my cigar.

  The horse shows its yellow gnashers when it snorts but its smile is friendly. I press my cheek against its silky soft nose. Its warm breath caresses my face. I don’t know if the horse’s muzzle is making my face moist or if my own tears are taking me by surprise.

  I sniff, stroke the old beast across the withers and return to Dixie.

  ‘You’ve done enough work for one day. I’ll carry you now.’

  I let a deep puff tear at my lungs, grimace and look around. Rickardsson lives with his family in one of these houses. The memory of our evening spreads hotly inside me and eases my misery. When I was younger I mainly spent time with older men who would take care of me or slip me a coin, but in recent years it has been the other way around. That is how it works: it is practically obligatory. I think about it but can’t remember ever bunking up with someone of my own age. Not for any length of time anyway. Even less with a bloke of a similar coarse calibre. I chew my lips listlessly and turn back towards my shabby home.

  A shooting star scores through space.

  I make my wish.

  The stairwell brings coolness. With Dixie in one hand and the other on the handrail, I lumber up to the flat. Fatigue courses through my body and my skull feels like it weighs a ton. Like when I downed some palm wine laced with poppy buds in Rangoon.

  A powerful odour of cigars seeps out of the flat through the door grate. Dixie stops in the long narrow corridor with her leash trailing behind. With a grimace of pain I bend down and gather up the letters on the floor. The road dust feels like it has penetrated every hinge in my body and all my joints creak in protest.

  The past four days have been taken up with avenging Gabrielsson and I have neglected my work, but the truth is that I am as skint as a louse and need every job I can get if I ever want to release my Herzog suit, or, for that matter, pay next month’s rent. I let my advertisement roll on in the daily newspaper last week. An evening nip and a good night’s sleep and then it’s time to get to work.

  I switch on the lamp and flip through the envelopes. I stop at one marked ‘Sweden’ in faded pencil. For a moment I think my broken rib has pierced straight into my heart. I can’t tell whether the earth is quaking, or if it is just me. I stay standing for a long while until the ground stops shaking and settles beneath my feet.

  The back of the envelope reads:

  Ida Kvist, Grand Forks, North Dakota, USA

  I lie in the dark, tossing and turning, like a farmer in the barn where his only cow is about to calve. Every movement hurts my ribs, but I keep forgetting and repeating the same mistake. I mechanically count the church bells’ quarter, half and hourly tolls.

  The occultist has managed to charm some wanton jazz fan with his trumpet, and for half an hour I hear joyful rutting cries from his flat upstairs. Wonder if Rickardsson and I made such a fucking racket. I think about banging on the ceiling with a broom but change my mind. Let them have their fun. I turn onto my side with a sigh and grope gingerly for the schnapps bottle on the floor. Spirits don’t help a damn on a night like this but I’ll give it a good go.

  I take a mouthful, put the bottle back and pick up the letter. The torn envelope trembles in my hand. I consider reading it, but can’t bring myself to. Not again. There’s no need. The graphite has already etched its way into me: the neat handwriting, the peculiar mix of English and Swedish. I flick bedbugs off my sweaty neck.

  If only these fucking lice would leave me in peace, maybe I could sleep. I am sure I can hear them crawling along the water pipes between the flats.

  I lean back and strike a match. The smoke hurts my ribcage. Through the open windows I hear two yard cats fly at each other. The roller blind claps in the wind. Ma told me Americans were allowed
to take their mattresses out to the fire escape platforms on summer nights. In this poor backwater country we don’t have any fire escapes to help us one way or another.

  ‘Here we just burn to death.’

  Dixie responds with a whimper from the foot of the bed. With no illumination other than the cigar, I lie and stare at the ceiling. I feel like I have a pile of bricks on my shattered chest. Movement murmurs from the shared water closet in the stairwell.

  I try briefly to focus my thoughts on Rickardsson in the hope that self-defilement will give me a few moments of peace, but my mind won’t cooperate. I brush away the cigar ash from the full-rigger tattoo on my chest. I take another swig.

  It is extraordinary how certain memories fade with time while others remain burnt into the mind’s eye everywhere one goes.

  And wherever I look now, I see Emma.

  We met at the Social Democratic Youth Association’s Walpurgis Night dance. It was soon after the war and I had signed off for good. I’ve always been good at footwork, even when I’m drunk, and I could really swing her around.

  The Swedish year should begin on May Day and not in the middle of the grim, cold winter.

  Poverty had only allowed me a second-hand suit with a misshapen waistcoat but Emma couldn’t care less. Her rose-patterned black shawl swirled like a flower garland in the spring night. Now it whips at the mire of my mind.

  I shut my eyes. I can clearly recall the notes of the accordion, the poor people’s shoes slamming against the wooden dance floor, and her exuberant laughter as I took hold of her waist and swung her around, her soft gasp in my sweaty face when my lips, emboldened by booze, first dared to seek out hers.

  The recollections weigh like lead. The city clock tower strikes three, then four, and soon the blackbirds begin to sing from the trees up in Vanadislunden. The sun bleeds through the gaps in the tattered blind and the rubbish man bangs the metal bins in the courtyard. I take the green cloth rag from the desk drawer where I keep newspaper clippings and old memories. I press it hard over my nose and mouth, as if it were drenched in chloroform and could send me to sleep.