Clinch (2 page)

I step inside and lock the door behind us, but quickly turn round to minimise the possibility of a chair being smashed into the back of my head.

Zetterberg has no such plans. He crawls backwards on his elbows a couple of metres, past a little table, a wall-mounted telephone and a tall, gilded hall mirror with an elaborate frame. He likes gold, this bloke.

When I follow him he stands up, and is just about to dart off into the flat when I catch hold of his shirt collar. It’s the detachable type, and for a moment I am left standing there with the collar in my hand before I grab his shirt tails and quickly haul him in.

The mirror beside us rattles when I catapult him into the wall. He opens his mouth. I quickly put my right hand just above his larynx. He makes a croaking sound and tightens his lips moronically. I press. He goes onto his tiptoes. The flank of his body is stretched and exposed. Just the way I want it.

‘In August this year you bought a second-hand car from a farmer named Elofsson in Ovanåker. You put down three hundred kronor when you picked it up and you were supposed to pay another two thousand one hundred a month later. You never did, and now Elofsson is getting browned off.’

Zetterberg gargles by way of an answer. Does he think this is some kind of negotiation? With both hands, he tries to prise away mine from his throat. A classic beginner’s error. I can easily regulate the pressure on his throat as I choose.

For a moment I stare at his fingers. They’re unnaturally thin; pale as Italian stucco. On his right hand is a glittering signet ring with a couple of red stones.

I direct my first left hook to his liver – it’s always been one of my favourite punches. Only an amateur aims for the solar plexus; it’s to the liver or the heart that a solid body blow can do a bit of good. The head says one punch but the body memory says two quick ones. I go along with the latter. You can put the gloves on the shelf but it takes a long time to wash their smell from your knuckles.

Zetterberg twitches uncontrollably. One part of him wants to fold himself double, another wants to get out of my strangulation grip. I lean in so close that I can smell his Aqua Vera cologne, his tobacco and his chest pastilles.

‘There, there,’ I whisper consolingly into his ear. ‘I’ll give you till tomorrow evening to get the bread together.’

My mouth is watering. I release the grip on his throat somewhat and let him catch his breath, only to hit him again as he’s
breathing out. The same hook meets the same surface, but this time I let Zetterberg crumple into a heap on the hall rug.

I step over him and smile at my scarred face in the mirror. I button my suit jacket and take a look at myself. The lapels of my jacket are so wide that they almost cover my whole chest. I should combine the dark beige shirt with the pinstriped chocolate-brown suit more often. I turn up the shirt collar and put on my tie with a double knot. I’m just about ready for another cigar.

Zetterberg is crying. He lies in a foetal position with his arms wrapped around his stomach, trying to catch his breath while at the same time sobbing and slobbering like a child. Not a pretty sight.

‘Tomorrow evening,’ I repeat, softening up my neck with a few side movements.

I look around the hall for something to smash, just to add a bit of urgency to the threat. My eyes come to rest on the wall-mounted telephone, but they move on to the vestibule, where a number of lovely overcoats are hanging in a row. What a pity we’re not the same size. Underneath is an umbrella stand with several walking sticks in it. Too far away.

I grip the hall mirror and tear it down over him. The sound of shattering glass rebounds between the walls of the narrow hall. Zetterberg gives off a shrill little scream but doesn’t move. He stays under the mirror, sobbing.

For a moment I think about fetching one of the sticks and giving him a proper working over, but I give it a miss – it’s important to know when they’ve had enough. A dead bloke doesn’t pay his debts, a badly injured one ends up in hospital. It’s a fine line. In the early days I crossed it a few times, but it’s been years since that happened. These days I know what I’m doing.

The mirror glass crunches under my shoes as I go back to the door. I stop for a moment and run my hand over the overcoats, pausing at an elegant camel hair model. The lock makes a subdued, dry click and then I’m back on the dimly lit landing.

The elevator is coming up, creaking as it goes, and I quickly go down the stairs. The white marble floor looks grey, almost like slate, in the gloom. I push the main door open and look at the black clouds. It’s stopped raining. I dig in my pockets for a cigar. A young man with a pushcart hurries past, the wheels thundering against the paving stones.

I keep my eyes on the dark skies while I’m rooting around for matches. Tomorrow there’ll be a return visit. With such a salubrious address and so many overcoats, there’s nothing to suggest that Zetterberg would be prepared to leave town because of two thousand one hundred kronor. I chuckle, get out my aniline pen, spit on it and write down the figures in my notebook, with my fifteen per cent. Four hundred and fifty kronor for less than an hour’s work. Not bad and very timely. Better paid than any other job this side of Midsummer.

I’m mulling over whether to celebrate a good day’s work at one of the unlicensed dives you can find in more or less every other courtyard in Klara, when I notice that Sonja still hasn’t found herself a punter.

She moves slowly towards me with a timid smile. As she draws closer I notice that she’s a touch bowlegged. I stop her with a gesture, to indicate that I’m heading off in the opposite direction. For some reason she gives me an anxious glance, but she nods, turns round, and then walks back up Kungsgatan.

I whistle Ernst Rolf’s ‘I’m Getting Better Day by Day’ and turn south to catch the number 3 tram back to Odenplan. We also have plenty of drinking dens with smuggled-in vodka
back home in Sibirien. A tram tinkles by on Vasagatan and I look up.

I catch sight of the car right away.

The Mercedes is parked in the pool of light cast by the Carlton sign. The slim youth is smoothing out the creases in his plus fours and leaning against the coachwork. On his head is a big, drooping beret. He’s also wearing a sports jacket, a knitted jumper and white socks. Without any doubt at all the kid has both money and style. He reminds me of someone I used to know. I get the idea he’s been waiting for me. I slow down.

‘Cigarette?’ The boy speaks with a lisp. As he offers me a pack of Stamboul, I notice a gold ring on his little finger. I stop and take the pack out of his hand. With a hint of a smile, the boy sucks his bottom lip between his teeth. I fish out a cigarette, put it in my mouth and hand back the pack.

He offers me a light from a fully automatic gold lighter. I take his hands, hold them in mine and try to protect the flame from the gusting wind. Distractedly I caress the back of his soft, hairless hand. This boy has never done a day’s work in his life. The youth trembles slightly at my touch. The lighter makes a repeated scraping sound.

Finally, with our joint efforts, we manage to get the cigarette going. Before he withdraws his hand, he caresses my cheek from top to bottom. Despite my shaving this morning, his touch makes a swishing sound against my face, like someone sweeping a porch. I know I’ll remember how it feels for a long time.

Someone laughs from the hotel doors behind us. I hear the sound of high heels clattering against the street. The youth doesn’t seem to pay it any mind. For some it’s so easy.

‘Isn’t that car a few sizes too big for you?’ I take two drags, one after the other, and quickly look around.

‘Ah, you’re just jealous.’ He brushes the raindrops from the hood and flicks the water off his hand. He smiles broadly, showing me a wide gap between his front teeth.

‘Can I have a look?’

I lean forwards to examine the fascia panel, made of some light-coloured wood, with chrome gauges.

‘You can even take it for a spin if you like.’

I straighten up and look at the boy. For a few seconds, his chestnut eyes stare right into mine. He’s exactly my taste in terms of age and build. Will I have to pay him something? He clearly has plenty of money, but what else does he want from me?

‘Okay.’

The car responds at once when I give it some juice, and we rumble off at a terrific speed. We travel in silence. For a moment I think he may have that sort of brooding nature you sometimes find among boys of his age with too little to do, but I change my mind when I look at him. His eyes are expressionless. His mouth is half open. I concentrate on the driving. Maybe the kid does this every night. When you have dough everything is obvious and easy. Maybe I just happened to cross his path this evening.

A few moments later we’re turning into my street. The familiar shop signs of Roslagsgatan swish by: Lind’s widow’s cigar shack, Nyström’s barber shop, Ström’s wholesalers, and Bruntell’s general store. A couple of boys aged about ten yell as loud as they can and run after the car for twenty metres or so.

I flinch a little when the youth puts his hand on my gloved knuckles on the gear stick. As if to shake it off, I change down and narrowly manage to overtake one of the grey-painted Epidemic Hospital ambulances. The youth inhales audibly and makes a slight whimpering sound. I’m reminded of why I am sitting here in the car.

Just you wait, my little boy, I think. Kvist will teach you a thing or two.

We draw closer to the brick monstrosity at the top of Roslagsgatan, where the number 6 tram turns round. Rickardsson, one of Ploman’s gangsters running the booze smuggling in Vasastan, gawks as we drive by. In my rear-view mirror I see him following us with his eyes.

‘You can stay there till the birds start nesting in your gob.’

‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Tell me!’

‘It was nothing.’

The boy shakes a cigarette out of the blue pack. The sudden flame of the lighter illuminates his face. He puts one arm across his stomach and rests the other against it, holding the cigarette in front of his face without actually smoking it. Suddenly I feel uneasy. I don’t know why.

We pass the rocky knoll with the Epidemic Hospital at the top. Lazily, the boy nods for me to keep going towards Bellevueparken. I slow down and turn into the long alley of bare lime trees that lead into the park. The gravel makes the car’s tyres change tone. We pass a pregnant woman wrapped in a shawl, waddling as she goes up the hill, both hands under her belly. We are close to the mansion of Paschen, the liquor smuggler, which was recently taken over by the workhouse committee. The rolling, leafy terrain of the park with its many large bushes offers several good hiding places, but this shouldn’t be anything to worry about, as no one moves around here after sunset. The workhouse inmates will most likely be staying indoors on a cold December night like this one.

The boy giggles. I stare at him again. I can’t make head nor tail of the kid. I continue towards the highest point of the park.
To the south one can make out the silhouettes of the houses along the ridge of Brunkebergsåsen, as well as the dome of Vasa Church. To the north, through the bare trees, are the black waters of Brunnsviken, empty of sails. I turn off the road and park on a patch of grass.

As soon as I turn off the engine the boy is all over me. He gives me a couple of deep, intense kisses. He tastes of tobacco. Panting and out of step with one another, our wandering hands explore each other’s crotches. The boy is a real man, it seems.

We extract ourselves from the embrace and get out of the car. I slip, drop onto one knee in the drenched ground, and get up again. Hurriedly we squelch through the grass and meet in a clinch in front of the bonnet. The car’s headlamps are still on; he has the beam against his back.

I kneel, open-mouthed, as if to receive the Eucharist from August Gabrielsson, my old confirmation priest. My knees sink into the wet grass and the moisture quickly finds its way up my thighs. I get one of his trouser buttons open. He wears short underpants with an elasticated waist. I push my hat back onto my neck and, in a single movement, wrench his underpants and trousers to his ankles with trembling hands. The headlights of the car send a cascade of light between his legs.

He’s a well-hung boy. We both make panting sounds as my lips envelop him. This is not the average, crappy sort of conscript I usually get to meet. I smack my lips. With my other hand I unbutton my trousers. The icy December night caresses me. I stick out my tongue and swallow him deep into my throat a few times. My eyes fill with tears, the boy pants and groans. He likes that.

I keep working methodically. My jaw muscles are starting to get numb, I’m out of practice, but then I feel a familiar vibration
against the top of my mouth. I pick up the tempo. Hard and wet and fast, that’s how this should be done.

Our loud whimpering blends with the sound of two rats fighting in the nearby bushes, and the youth fills my mouth to overflowing. I resist my first impulse to swallow, spitting into my hand instead and rubbing it into my skin. I stand up, grab him by the scruff of his neck and get him to bend forwards over the bonnet.

‘Now it’s Kvisten’s turn.’

Slowly but confidently I work my way into the boy. It’s warm and cosy, like stepping into the boiler room after a stint of freezing watch duty on deck. He yowls with pain, sobs and slithers, but it’s nothing to be concerned about. Soon enough it gets easier, and his protestations turns to lusty moans. I pick up speed. Young men of this type usually manage to come twice on the trot.

‘That’s right, my boy.’

I hammer him against the black bodywork. He keeps out of the way of the headlights. The radiator badge breaks off with a hollow snap. Our shadows hurtle back and forth across the grass. From Albano, a locomotive makes a shrill whistle. Deep inside I feel a lurking coughing fit.

A drop of his come hangs persistently from the corner of my mouth. I lick it up and press both my hands into the small of his back to make him arch properly, so I can get my whole length into him. The moon peers out from behind the clouds, and the light collides with the beam of the headlights. The boy’s arse is a milky white colour, and for a moment I have the idea that I’m assaulting a Greek statue.