Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The - Stieg Larsson [129]
“Stop! Stop at once!” She realised that she was shouting and lowered her voice. “Damn it all, you can’t come barging in here as if you owned the place. We don’t even know each other.”
Blomkvist paused, holding a jug and turned to look at her.
“Wrong! You know me better than almost anyone else does. Isn’t that so?”
He turned his back on her and poured the water into the machine. Then he started opening her cupboards in search of coffee. “Speaking of which, I know how you do it. I know your secrets.”
Salander shut her eyes, wishing that the floor would stop pitching under her feet. She was in a state of mental paralysis. She was hung over. This situation was unreal, and her brain was refusing to function. Never had she met one of her subjects face to face. He knows where I live! He was standing in her kitchen. This was impossible. It was outrageous. He knows who I am!
She felt the sheet slipping, and she pulled it tighter around her. He said something, but at first she didn’t understand him. “We have to talk,” he said again. “But I think you’d better take a shower first.”
She tried to speak sensibly. “You listen to me—if you’re thinking of making trouble, I’m not the one you should be talking to. I was just doing a job. You should talk to my boss.”
He held up his hands. A universal sign of peace, or I have no weapon.
“I’ve already talked to Armansky. By the way, he wants you to ring him—you didn’t answer his call last night.”
She did not sense any threat, but she still stepped back a pace when he came closer, took her arm and escorted her to the bathroom door. She disliked having anyone touch her without her leave.
“I don’t want to make trouble,” he said. “But I’m quite anxious to talk to you. After you’re awake, that is. The coffee will be ready by the time you put on some clothes. First, a shower. Vamoose!”
Passively she obeyed. Lisbeth Salander is never passive, she thought.
She leaned against the bathroom door and struggled to collect her thoughts. She was more shaken than she would have thought possible. Gradually she realised that a shower was not only good advice but a necessity after the tumult of the night. When she was done, she slipped into her bedroom and put on jeans, and a T-shirt with the slogan ARMAGEDDON WAS YESTERDAY—TODAY WE HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM.
After pausing for a second, she searched through her leather jacket that was slung over a chair. She took the taser out of the pocket, checked to see that it was loaded, and stuck it in the back pocket of her jeans. The smell of coffee was spreading through the apartment. She took a deep breath and went back to the kitchen.
“Do you never clean up?” he said.
He had filled the sink with dirty dishes and ashtrays; he had put the old milk cartons into a rubbish sack and cleared the table of five weeks of newspapers; he had washed the table clean and put out mugs and—he wasn’t joking after all—bagels. OK, let’s see where this is heading. She sat down opposite him.
“You didn’t answer my question. Roast beef, turkey, or vegetarian?”
“Roast beef.”
“Then I’ll take the turkey.”
They ate in silence, scrutinising each other. When she finished her bagel, she also ate half of the vegetarian one. She picked up a crumpled pack of cigarettes from the windowsill and dug one out.
He broke the silence. “I may not be as good as you at investigations, but at least I’ve found out that you’re not a vegetarian or—as Herr Frode thought—anorexic. I’ll include that information in my report.”
Salander stared at him, but he looked so amused that she gave him a crooked smile. The situation was beyond all rhyme or reason. She sipped her coffee. He had kind eyes. She decided that whatever else he might be, he did not seem to be a malicious person. And there was nothing in