The Abominable Man (18 page)

The Rump, like Kristiansson and Kvant, emanated from the plains of southern Sweden and knew how to choose his words.

When in addition Kvant happened to call the defendant “the Rump” instead of Carl Fredrik Gustaf Oscar Jönsson-Käck, the day was irretrievably lost. The judge threw the case out and admonished Kvant to avoid the use of doubtful and enigmatic dialectical invective in open court.

And now it was all about to begin again.

Kristiansson looked around surreptitiously and saw nothing but happily expectant or already openly cackling citizens.

To make matters worse, the Rump now extracted an additional pig’s foot from one of his inner pockets.

“This here’s from one of your relatives and buddies who went to his reward the other day,” he shouted. “His last wish was it should go to somebody who’s as big a swine as he was. And that he’d see you soon where every fucking pig winds up. In the big lard bucket in hell.”

Kristiansson’s perplexed blue eyes sought out Kvant, but he was looking the other way, thereby indicating that all of this had little or nothing to do with him.

“You look real good with hoofs, Inspector,” said the Rump. “But it looks like you’re missing your curly tail. Don’t worry, we’ll fix that up.”

He inserted his free hand into his wardrobe.

Cheerful faces were now visible on every side, and some unidentifiable person on the edge of the crowd added his two cents worth in a loud voice.

“Right on,” he said. “Give the bastard what’s coming to him.”

The Rump was troubled by Kristiansson’s obvious uncertainty.

“Fucking cop!” he screeched. “Sow-hole! Hog-prick! Cunt-licker!”

An expectant rustle swelled in the crowd.

Kristiansson stuck out the pig’s foot in order to grab hold of his antagonist. At the same time, he was searching desperately for a way out. He could already hear thousands of copper coins clanking in secret pockets.

“He’s putting his paws on me,” howled the Rump.

With well-feigned anguish.

“On me, a poor invalid. The cock-sucker’s laying hands on an honest peddler, just because I showed him a little human kindness. Let me go, you fucking son of a bitch!”

When it came right down to it, Kristiansson was handicapped by the pig’s foot and unable to carry out any specific act of violence, but the Rump facilitated matters by jerking open the door of the police car and leaping into the back seat before Kristiansson had time to make use of his somewhat inappropriate weapon.

Kvant didn’t even turn his head.

“How the hell could you be such an idiot, Karl?” he
said. “Falling right into his hands like that? This is all your fault.”

He started the motor.

“Jesus,” said Kristiansson, not very constructively.

“Where does he want to go?” Kvant asked furiously.

“Solnavägen ninety-two,” squeaked the prisoner happily.

The Rump was by no means dumb. He asked to be taken to the precinct central station. He was looking forward with ill-concealed delight to getting his coins counted.

“We can’t dump him anywhere in our precinct,” Kvant said. “It’s too risky.”

“Drive me to the station,” the Rump entreated them. “Call them on the radio and tell them we’re coming so they can put on the coffeepot. I can have a cup while you start counting.”

He shook himself to make his point.

And sure enough. An enormous number of copper coins rattled and clattered ominously from a profusion of secret hiding places beneath his clothes.

Searching the Rump was the job of whatever man or men had been foolish enough to bring him in. That was an unwritten but nevertheless inflexible rule.

“Ask him where he wants to go,” Kvant said.

“You just asked him that yourself,” said Kristiansson peevishly.

“I wasn’t the one who picked him up,” Kvant retorted. “I never even saw him till he got in the car.”

One of Kvant’s specialties was seeing nothing and hearing nothing.

Kristiansson knew of only one way to touch the Rump’s human frailty. He rattled the change in his pocket.

“How much?” the Rump asked greedily.

Kristiansson pulled out his change from the ten and looked at it.

“Six fifty at least.”

“That’s bribery,” the prisoner complained.

The strictly legal aspects of this were a mystery to both Kristiansson and Kvant. Had
he
offered
them
money, it would have been a clear attempt to suborn a civil servant. But this was the other way around.

“Anyway, six fifty isn’t enough. I need money for a bottle of Dessert Wine.”

Kvant took out his wallet and peeled off another ten. The Rump took it.

“Drop me off at a liquor store,” he said.

“Not here in Solna,” said Kvant. “That’s too much of a risk, dammit.”

“Then take me to Sigtunagatan. They know me there, and I’ve got some buddies in Vasa Park, down by the Johns.”

“We can’t just drop him off right in front of the liquor store, for Christ’s sake,” said Kristiansson anxiously.

They drove south past the post office and Tennstopet and on down Dalagatan.

“I’ll take a swing into the park here,” Kvant said. “Drive in a ways and let him out.”

“Hey, you never paid me for the pig’s feet,” said the Rump.

They didn’t hit him. Their physical superiority was much too obvious, and then too they weren’t in the habit of hitting people, at least not without cause.

Moreover, neither of them was a particularly zealous policeman. Kvant almost always reported whatever he happened to see and hear, but he managed to see and hear exceedingly little. Kristiansson was more an out-and-out slacker who simply ignored everything that might cause complications or unnecessary trouble.

Kvant turned into the park alongside the Eastman Institute. The trees were bare and the park was sad and empty. As soon as he’d made the turn, he stopped.

“Get out here, Karl. I’ll drive on in a ways and drop him off as quietly as I can. If you see anything that looks like trouble, blow your whistle, the usual signal.”

The car smelled, as always, of sweaty feet and old vomit, but even more strongly at the moment of cheap alcohol and body odor from the prisoner.

Kristiansson nodded and got out. He left his newspapers in the back seat but still held the pig’s foot in his right hand.

The car disappeared behind him. He walked up toward the street and at first saw nothing that looked in the least like trouble. But he felt uneasy somehow, and waited impatiently for Kvant to come back with the car so they could retreat to the peace and security of their own precinct. He’d have to listen to Kvant bitch about his wife, her physical inadequacy and her fierce temper, until their watch was over. But he was used to that. For his part, he liked his own wife fine, particularly in regard to this business with the soccer pools, and he seldom mentioned her.

Kvant seemed to be taking his time. He probably didn’t want to risk being seen, or else maybe the Rump had upped the price.

In front of the steps up to the Eastman Institute there was a sort of open space, with a round stone fountain or whatever it was in the middle. On the other side of this stood a black Volkswagen, parked so obviously in violation of the law that not even as lazy a policeman as Kristiansson could avoid reacting.

He wasn’t exactly thinking of doing anything about it, but the minutes were dragging, so he started strolling slowly around the circular basin. He could at least pretend
to be having a look at this car whose owner seemed to think he could park continental-style right in the middle of the capital of Sweden, Land of Prohibitions. Walking up and looking at a parked car doesn’t place you under any obligation after all.

The decorative fountain was about twelve feet in diameter, and as Kristiansson got to the other side he thought he saw the sun dazzle for an instant in a window high up in the building across the street.

A fraction of a second later he heard a short, sharp report and at the same instant something hit him like a hammer in the right knee. The leg seemed to disappear beneath him. He staggered and fell backwards over the stone balustrade and down into the basin of the fountain, the bottom of which, at this time of year, was covered with spruce twigs, rotting leaves and litter.

He lay on his back and heard himself scream.

He was dimly aware of several more echoing explosions, but apparently none of them were aimed at him.

He still held the pig’s foot in one hand and had not succeeded in connecting the muzzle flash with the report, nor with the bullet that had crushed the bone just below his knee.

Gunvald Larsson still had his eyes on the hands of his watch when he heard the second shot. It was followed immediately by at least four more.

Like most watches in the country, his showed common standard Swedish time, that is, fifteen degrees or one hour East Greenwich, and since it was well-cared-for and
neither lost nor gained as much as one second a year, his observations were exact.

The first shot was heard at precisely twelve ten. The next four, possibly five, all came in the course of two seconds, that is, between the fourth and the sixth second from the starting point. Which was twelve ten.

Guided by commendable instinct and a correct assessment of direction and distance, Gunvald Larsson and Kollberg acted together during the next two minutes.

They jumped into the nearest car, which happened to be Gunvald Larsson’s red BMW.

Gunvald Larsson hit the starter, peeled some rubber and raced off—not the way he had come, around the central hospital, but past the old heating plant and along the narrow drive that wound up toward Dalagatan between the maternity ward and the Eastman Institute. Then he turned one hundred and eighty degrees to the left and out onto the flagstone court in front of the Institute, braked hard, skidded, and came to a stop with the car slightly at an angle between the fountain and the broad stone steps to the building.

Even before they had time to open the doors and get out, both Gunvald Larsson and Kollberg saw that a uniformed policeman was lying on his back among the spruce branches in the basin. They also saw that he was wounded but alive, and that there were a number of other people in the area. Of these, three were lying on the ground, wounded, dead or trying to find cover, and the rest were standing still, probably wherever they had found themselves when the shots were fired. A patrol car was just coming to a stop on the road up out of Vasa Park. There was a patrolman at the wheel and he started to open the left front door even before the car had come to a halt.

They got out simultaneously, Gunvald Larsson on the left and Kollberg on the right.

Gunvald Larsson didn’t hear the next shot, but he saw his Chinese fur hat leave his head and land on the steps, and he suddenly felt as if someone had drawn a red-hot poker along the hairline from his right temple to a point just above his ear. He hadn’t even had time to straighten up, and now his head was knocked to one side and he heard a shot and a shrill whistling, a dry crack and a whining ricochet, and then in two huge leaps he flung himself up the eight steps and pressed himself against the stone wall to the left of the entranceway with its three rectangular pillars. He put his hand to his cheek and it came away covered with blood. The bullet had plowed a furrow in his scalp. The wound was bleeding copiously and his kid jacket was ruined. Already, and for good.

Kollberg reacted as quickly as Gunvald Larsson. He ducked back into the car and was quick-witted enough to vault over into the back seat. Immediately afterwards, two shots cracked through the roof of the car and burned into the stuffing of the front seat. He could see Gunvald Larsson in the entranceway, flat up against the wall and apparently wounded. He knew he had to get out of the car and up the steps at once, and in an almost reflex action he kicked open the right-hand front door with his foot and at the same time hurled himself out through the left-hand rear. Three shots, all aimed at the right side of the car, but Kollberg was already outside on the left where he grabbed hold of the first of the four iron hand rails, swung himself up the eight steps without even touching them, and landed with his head and right shoulder in Gunvald Larsson’s gut.

Then he took a deep breath, struggled to his feet and
pressed himself against the wall beside Gunvald Larsson, who was grunting oddly, probably from surprise or lack of air.

Nothing happened for several seconds, maybe five or ten. Apparently a brief cease-fire.

The wounded patrolman still lay in the fountain, and his partner stood by the radio car with his pistol in his right hand and looked around dumfoundedly. He probably hadn’t seen Kollberg and Gunvald Larsson and lacked any sort of general view of the situation. But in any case he did see his wounded buddy, twenty-five feet from where he stood, and he started walking toward him, still with a perplexed expression on his face and his service revolver in his fist.

“What in hell are those two blockheads doing here?” muttered Gunvald Larsson.

And then a second later yelled, “Kvant! Stop! Cover!”

Where, Kollberg wondered.

Because there wasn’t any cover.

Gunvald Larsson appeared to have realized the same thing, because he didn’t yell again. And for the moment nothing happened except that the blond patrolman straightened up and stared in the direction of the entranceway and then went on walking. Apparently he couldn’t distinguish the two men in the shadows.

A red double-decker bus drove past headed south on Dalagatan. Someone screamed hysterically for help.

The patrolman had reached the fountain, put one knee on the rim and leaned down over the wounded man.

There was a little ledge on the inside of the stone basin, presumably for small children to sit on during the summer and splash their bare feet in the water. His leather jacket gleamed in the sun as the policeman laid
his pistol on the ledge to free his hands. He turned his broad back upward toward the sky, and the two rifle bullets struck him less than a second apart, the first in the back of the neck and the other directly between his shoulder blades.