Copenhagen Noir - Bo Tao Michaelis [19]
It was on a night like this that the police caught me. Almost four years ago. I tried to run, but when a big policeman from Jutland cuffed me, it was a relief. I knew it would happen. It had begun a year earlier and it had to end, one way or another.
While everyone else went into job training or the military or found girlfriends who wanted to go to Ikea and buy coffee tables you assemble yourself, and many of them began talking about home entertainment systems with large, flat screens and surround sound, so they could hold each others’ hands and watch I, Robot, I became a dedicated amphetamine abuser. A few months that came back to me in flashes as the indictment was being read. Like emptying the minibar in a hotel room and waking up hung over, then looking at the price list on top of the television.
Nabil enrolled in several areas of training at vo-tech schools, but always stopped after a short while. He talked about becoming a driving instructor. Next time I saw him he wanted to start up a cleaning service.
As quickly as Christian became part of the neighborhood, became one of the natives, he pulled out just as fast. He moved away, went to school. The last I heard he was about to become an auditor or bookkeeper or economist. Something with numbers and lots of money. When I met him he was wearing a polo shirt with a Gucci bag over his shoulder.
Now we’re in the car together. Our reunion.
Nabil guides us. Down this street, make a right ahead. Otherwise no one speaks.
We’re still in Northwest, close to Emdrup. “Here it is,” Nabil says, and points to a redbrick building. I drive by, park the car on the first side street. We get out. Everything happens so slowly, infinitely slowly. Like underwater. Three men, one with a sports bag in his hand. They walk down the street, come to a door. Slowly, slowly. There’s no intercom, one of them opens the door, and they continue up the stairs. So slowly, three men. Though I’m one of them, I’m watching from the outside. Feet climbing the stairway.
Nabil presses the buzzer.
If I hadn’t answered my phone I would be lying on the sofa right now. I would be asleep in front of the film I’d rented, a few empty beer bottles on the coffee table. Tomorrow I’d have woken up, watched the rest of the film while eating breakfast, fed my two birds, and went to work.
The door opens. I recognize him from the video, a sunkenchested young man in a T-shirt and jogging pants. When he sees us he tries to slam the door. He doesn’t stand a chance, the door rams his head. He stumbles back a few steps.
Then I see the knife in his hand. It must have been there in the hall, on the little table under the mirror, ready in case. He smiles for a moment, raises the knife. Then it happens. I wake up. No longer underwater, I feel the blood in my veins again. The world is suddenly hard and sharp. I can feel my hands, feel my legs, feel the air flowing in my nostrils and filling my lungs. I toss the sports bag full of tools in his face. Before he hits the floor Nabil has started hitting him. I was never hooked on amphetamines. At least not only. This was what I needed. What I was trying to snort up, to no avail. Now, in this moment, I know it. When I hear Christian close the door behind us, and we drag the guy through the hall and into the living room.
We’re the boys from the block again. The boys from the high-rise on Swallow Street. We’re together again.
I don’t know how long we keep at it. Not just an hour, a lot longer. With the stereo turned way up. We sweat, we laugh. I lose my sense of time. Remember only short flashes. Postcards of violence. One where I’ve raised the hammer above my head. One where I hold him and Christian sticks the handle of the screwdriver down his throat. One where Nabil jerks the guy’s pants down and reaches for the monkey wrench.
We might have been easier on him, stopped earlier, if the room hadn’t reminded us of the images from the video.
At some point he starts screaming.