Copenhagen Noir - Bo Tao Michaelis [21]
“You fucking Polacks. Big men, but what are you shooting? Blanks? I want grandchildren, Marek.”
She looked him hatefully in the eyes, but then broke off and walked over to the dresser, put on her large glasses. She brought out a folder. Marek glimpsed a passport and a pile of other papers.
“We have a job for you in Copenhagen. One of our Polish girls has run away. Adina something or other. Olek will tell you everything. Zbigniew has arranged another car.”
“Can’t I take my own car?”
“No. You are escorting another girl. Here are her papers, straight from Moldavia.”
Marek walked past the well-lit bistro. Another hooker job. Do they think I’m worthless? He looked in through the glass. His wife, Irina, stood inside, flushed, red blisters on her body. Five years and nowhere. She was giving orders to a girl who stood trying to keep a tub from spilling. He could feel Reza’s fingernails all the way into his soul.
He walked over to his own car, grabbed the spare tire, 100,000 euros stowed under the rim.
He’d reached 100,000 yesterday. Enough for a new life.
The girl, pale and silent, was already in the car when he plopped down in the driver’s seat.
“Marek,” he said. “I’m Marek.”
The girl began crying.
Thursday, 7:10 p.m. Abel Cathrines Gade 5, Fifth Floor, 1654 Copenhagen V
Henry og Connie Jensen was the name on the oval copper nameplate on the fifth floor. Adina had run and run and run like a deer in a cone of light, she was all in, and it wasn’t until now that she felt how cold she’d been, how scared. She had stood on the bridge above Dybbølsbro Station, wanting to throw herself in front of the train. Better to die than go back to Olek, better to do it herself. But then suddenly she didn’t dare do it, and she remembered Henry. You can come anytime, and I mean it, he had said. He always repeated it: Anytime. It was stupid to hide at a client’s place, impossible, but now he opened the door, welcomed her, stood there with his big furrowed face, the worried eyes, and she fell into his apartment, was sucked into the warm hallway. Henry helped her over the thick wool rug, over to the sofa.
“You need to take your clothes off, Adina,” he said. “I don’t mean that way,” he added, without irony. “I think I still have some of Connie’s clothes. Wait here.”
A brown bureau filled the wall to the right; tiled table, wing-back chair, floor lamps, TV. Christmas plates lined the walls, all the way around. With stiff fingers she lit up a cigarette and searched her bag; a half Rohypnol in foil, two codies, and a Valium. She stuck the pills in her mouth, swallowed them, and slid back on the sofa. She felt nauseous. Henry returned with a pair of much-too-large beige pants and a wool cardigan. He helped her off with her clothes, rolled them off her, the pantyhose, the clammy panties. She sat smoking through it all, it was nice to let someone else take over. He sat at the other end of the sofa and hugged her ankles.
“What happened?”
She didn’t want him sitting there touching her.
“Adina, you have to tell me, or I can’t help.”
“Lenja is dead.” It popped out of her mouth, and she doubled up; she wasn’t going to cry while he was touching her.
“We have to call the police, then.”
“No, no, no, Olek will kill me!”
“Do you want some soup?” he asked suddenly. “I have some broth I can warm.”
A few minutes went by as he rummaged around in the kitchen. Then a bowl of steaming soup was sitting in front of her, and he handed her a spoon. She was insanely hungry.
“Lenja’s the one with the blond hair, right?”
Adina ate with her face in the bowl, three dumplings and four meatballs, she counted them.
“I’ll get out, Henry. I’ll leave in a minute. I just need to lie down a while.”
Friday, 1:30 a.m. Hawaii Bio, Oehlenschlægersgade 1, 1620 Copenhagen V
Just call me Yvonne, said the middle-aged fake blonde at the till in the rear of Hawaii Bio, a twenty-four-hour dive filled with porno films and sex toys at a corner on Vesterbrogade. I’m looking for Olek, Marek replied in English, the language she had spoken. Yvonne turned