Let the right one in (26 page)

"Uh ... no ... you can tell her our plans, right?"

"Uh-huh. See you."

"That you will. Bye."

Oskar put the phone down. Sat there for a little while and imagined how it was going to be. Taking the moped out for a ride. That was fun. Oskar would strap on the mini-skis and they attached a rope to the moped carrier with a stick at the other end. Oskar held the tow rope with both hands and then he motored around the village like a snowborne waterskier. This as well as duck with rowanberry jelly. And only
one
night away from Eli.

He went to his room and packed up his workout gear, plus his knife, since he wasn't coming home before meeting Eli. He had a plan. When he was standing in the hall putting his coat on his mom came out of the kitchen and dried her floury hands on the apron. "So? What did he say?"

"I'm going to his place on Saturday."

"Fine, but what about the other thing?"

"I have to go work out now."

"He didn't say anything else?"

"Ye-es, but I have to go now."

"Where?"

"The pool."

"What pool?"

"The one next to our school. The little one."

"What are you doing there?"

"Working out. I'll be back around half past eight. Or nine. I'm meeting Johan afterwards."

His mom looked dismayed, didn't know what to do with her floury hands and stuck them both in the big pocket on the front of the apron.

"Yes, I see. Be careful. Don't trip on the side of the pool or anything. Do you have your hat with you?" Yes, yes.

"Well, put it on. When you've been in the water, because it's cold out and when your hair is wet and . .."

Oskar took a step forward, kissed her lightly on the cheek and said:

"good-bye," and left. When he came out of the front door to the building he glanced up at his window. His mom was standing there, with her hands still pushed into the big apron pocket. Oskar waved. His mom slowly lifted up a hand and waved back.

He cried half the way to the pool.

+

The gang stood assembled in the stairwell outside Gosta's door. Lacke, Virginia, Morgan, Larry, Karlsson. No one wanted to be the one to ring the doorbell, since this seemed to give the person who rang the responsibility to declare the reason for their visit. Even out in the stairwell you got

a whiff of Gosta. Urine. Morgan poked Karlsson in the side and mumbled something. Karlsson lifted the earmuffs he wore instead of a hat and asked: "What?"

"I said, don't you think you can take those off for once? Makes you look like an idiot."

"That's your opinion."

But he removed the earmuffs, put them in the coat pocket and said:

"It'll have to be you, Larry. You're the one who saw it." Larry sighed and rang the doorbell. An angry yowl from inside and then a soft thud as something landed on the floor. Larry cleared his throat. He didn't like this. Felt like a cop with the whole gang behind him; the only thing missing was the cocked pistols. Shuffled steps came from inside the apartment, then a voice.

"Are you alright, sweetheart?"

The door opened. A wave of urine-stench washed over Larry's face and he struggled for breath. Gosta was standing in the doorway, dressed in a worn shirt, vest, and tie. An orange-and white-striped cat was curled up under one arm.

"Yes?"

"Hi, Gosta. How's it going?"

Gosta's eyes roamed over their faces. He was pretty drunk. Fine.

"So, we're all here because ... do you know what's happened?"

"No."

"Well, you see, they've found Jocke. Today."

"I see. Oh. Yes."

"And then ... you know..."

Larry turned his head, seeking support from his delegation. The only thing he got was an encouraging gesture from Morgan. Larry couldn't handle standing out here like some official representative, presenting his ultimatum. There was only one way, however much he didn't like it. He asked: "Can we come in?"

He had anticipated some kind of resistance. Gosta was hardly used to five people dropping by to see him like this. But Gosta simply nodded and backed up a few steps in the hall to let them in.

Larry hesitated for a moment; the smell emanating from inside the apartment was unbelievable. It hovered in the air like viscous matter. During this moment of hesitation Lacke took a step inside, followed by Virginia. Lacke scratched the cat—still in Gosta's arms—behind the ears.

"Nice cat. What's its name?"

"It's a she. Thisbe."

"Nice name. Do you have a Pyramus as well?"

"No."

One by one they glided in through the door, tried to breathe through their mouths. After a minute everyone gave up the attempt to keep the stench at bay, relaxed, and got used to it. Cats were shooed out of the couch and armchair, a few chairs were carried out from the kitchen, vodka, grape tonic, and glasses appeared on the table, and after a few minutes of chitchat about cats and the weather Gosta said:

"So, they found Jocke."

Larry downed the last of his drink. His task felt easier with the warmth of the alcohol in his stomach. He poured himself a new glass and said,

"Yes, down by the hospital. His body was frozen into the ice."

"In the ice?"

"Yes. Damned circus down there today. I was down there to see Herbert, don't know if you know him, anyway... when I came out there were cops everywhere and an ambulance and after a while the fire truck came."

"There was a fire?"

"No, but they had to hack him out of the ice. Well, at that point I didn't know it was him but then when they got him up on land I recognized the clothes, because the face ... there had been ice all around it, so you couldn't... but the clothes ..."

Gosta waved his hand in the air as if he was petting a big, invisible dog.

"Wait a minute now... so he drowned?... I mean, I don't understand ..." Larry sipped his drink, wiped his hand over his mouth.

"No, that was what the cops thought at first too. At first. From what I understand. They were mostly standing around up there with their arms folded and the ambulance guys were all busy with some kid who turned up bleeding from his head, so there was ..."

Gosta petted the invisible dog even more energetically, or he was trying to push it away. A little of his drink splashed out of his glass and landed on the rug.

"Hang on a minute . . . now I can't. . . bleeding from his head?" Morgan put down the cat he had been holding on his lap, and brushed off his pants.

"That had nothing to do with it. Come on now, Larry."

"Yes, but then when they got him up on land. And I saw that it was him. And then you also saw that there was a rope like this, see. Tied up. And there were some kind of stones wrapped up in the rope like that. That got the cops going. Started talking into their radios and cordoning off the area with tape and shooing people away and all that. Got really interested all of a sudden. So that... well, turns out someone must have tried to dump his body there, pure and simple."

Gosta leaned back in the couch, holding his hand over his eyes. Virginia, who was sitting between him and Lacke, patted his knee. Morgan filled his glass and said: "The thing is they found Jocke, right? Want some tonic with that? Here. They found Jocke and now they know he was murdered. And that kind of changes things, don't you think?" Karlsson cleared his throat, and said in a commanding tone:

"In the Swedish judicial system there's something called .. ."

"You shut up," Morgan interrupted. "Is it alright if I smoke?" Gosta nodded feebly. While Morgan was taking out his cigarette and lighter Lacke leaned over in the sofa so he could look Gosta in the eye.

"Gosta. You saw what happened. That story should be told."

"Be told. How?"

"By going to the police and telling them what you saw. That's all."

"No . . .
No.'

The room got quiet.

Lacke sighed, poured himself half a glass of vodka and a little dash of tonic, took a big gulp, and closed his eyes as the burning cloud filled his stomach. He didn't want to force him.

Back at the Chinese restaurant Karlsson had ranted about the duty of a witness and legal responsibility but however much Lacke wanted the person who had done this to be caught he had no intention of sending the cops to a friend like some squealer.

A gray-speckled cat pushed its head against his shins. He picked it up into his lap and stroked it absently.
What does it matter?
Jocke was dead, he knew that now for sure. What did the rest matter, anyway?

Morgan got up, walked over to the window with the glass in his hand.

"Was this where you were standing? When you saw it?" ... yes. Morgan nodded, sipped the drink.

"Yes, I get it. You can see everything from here. Great place, actually. Nice view. Yes, I mean apart from ... great view."

A tear ran quietly down Lacke's cheek. Virginia took his hand and squeezed it. Lacke took another big gulp to burn away the pain that was tearing at his chest.

Larry, who for a time had been watching the cats moving around the room in senseless patterns, drummed his fingers against his glass and said:

"What if we simply tipped them off? About the location, I mean. Maybe they can find some fingerprints and .. . whatever else it is they find." Karlsson smiled.

"And how do we say we got this information? That we just know it?

They're going to be pretty interested in how ... in who we got this infor-mation from."

"We could make an anonymous call. Just to get the information out there."

Gosta mumbled something from the couch. Virginia leaned her head in toward him.

"What did you say?"

Gosta spoke in a very small voice as he stared into his drink.

"Please forgive me. But I'm too scared. I can't."

Morgan turned back from the window, held his arm out.

"That's how it is, then. Nothing more to talk about." He gave Karlsson a sharp look. "We'll have to think of an alternative. Do it some other way. Maybe make a sketch, call, whatever. We'll think of something." He walked over to Gosta and nudged his foot with his own.

"Hey you, now. Pull yourself together. We'll take care of this thing anyway. Take it easy. Gosta? Can you hear me? We'll take care of this. Cheers!"

He stretched out his glass, clinked it against Gosta's and took a sip.

"We'll fix this thing. Won't we?"

+

He had left the others outside the gymnasium and started to head home when he heard her voice coming from the school.

"Psst. Oskar!"

Footsteps on stairs and she emerged from the shadows. She had been sitting there, waiting. Then she heard him say good-bye to the others and how they answered as if he was a completely normal person.

The workout session had been good. He wasn't as weak as he had thought, was able to do more than a couple of the guys who had been there several times before. And his concern that Mr. Avila would interrogate him about what had happened out there on the ice today turned out to be unfounded. Mr. Avila had simply asked: "Do you want to talk about it?" and when Oskar shook his head they left it at that. The gym was another world, separate from school. Mr. Avila was less severe and the other guys left him alone. Micke hadn't been there, of course. Was Micke scared of him now? The thought was enough to make his head spin.

He walked over to meet Eli.

"Hi."

"Hey."

Without saying anything about it they had switched their words of greeting. Eli was wearing a checkered shirt that was much too big for her and she looked ... shriveled again. Her skin was dry and her face thinner. Even yesterday Oskar had seen the first white hairs and tonight there were many more.

When she was healthy Oskar thought she was the cutest girl he had seen. But the way she looked right now she was ... you couldn't compare her to anyone. No one looked like that. Dwarves, maybe. But dwarves weren't thin like that... nothing was. He was grateful she hadn't appeared in front of the others.

"How's it going?" he asked. "So so."

"Want to do something?"

"Of course."

They walked home side by side. Oskar had a plan. They were going to enter into a pact together. If they entered into a pact together, Eli would become healthy. A magical thought, inspired by the books he had read. But magic ... surely there was a little magic in the world. The people who denied the existence of magic, they were the ones that it went badly for.

They walked into the yard. He touched Eli's shoulder.

"Should we check the garbage room?"

"OK."

They walked in through Eli's front door and Oskar unlocked the door to the basement.

"Don't you have a basement key?" he asked.

"I don't think so."

It was pitch black in the basement entrance. The door slammed shut behind them with a heavy sound. They stood still, side by side, breathing. Oskar whispered:

"Eli, you know what? Today . .. Jonny and Micke tried to throw me into the water. Into a hole in the ice."

"No! You—"

"Wait. Do you know what I did? I had a stick, a big stick. I hit Jonny in the head with it so he started to bleed. He got a concussion, went to the hospital. I never ended up in the water. I. . . beat him." Quiet for a few moments. Then Eli said:

"Oskar."

"Yes."

"Yippee."

Oskar stretched his hand to the light switch; he wanted to see her face. Turned it on. She was staring straight into his eyes and he saw her pupils. For a few moments before they got used to the light they looked like those crystals they talked about in physics class, what were they called ... elliptical.

Like a lizard. No. Cats. Cats.

Eli blinked. Her pupils were normal again.

"What is it?"

"Nothing. Come on ..."

Oskar walked over to the bulk item trash room and opened the door. The bag was almost full, hadn't been emptied for a while. Eli squeezed in beside him and they rummaged through the trash. Oskar found a bag with empty bottles that you could get a deposit back on. Eli found a plastic sword, waved it around, said:

"Should we check the one next door?"