Copenhagen Noir

The rest of the day depressed in the hotel room. I’m on the brink of going back home to Brooklyn, the hell with all this. First I get boiling mad (at Kirsten and at myself), then I’m resigned, apathetic. Then I yell: “Why am I running around here like an idiot playing goddamn DETECTIVE?” I alternate between lying on my side in bed and pacing around the room, punching the wall. Later I’m just plain exhausted. I step out to get something to eat. After wandering around for a half hour, unable to decide, I end up with a slice from the Sicilian pizzeria on the corner of Nansensgade and Ahlefeldtsgade. My pizza is thin and crispy like it should be. I eat at a high table by the window and look out in the dark while listening absent-mindedly to background conversations in Italian. I leaf through the local paper. I stop, then read: The man who was abandoned Thursday outside the emergency room at Bispebjerg Hospital died late yesterday. The deceased has not yet been identified. He was in his late thirties, white but dark-complected, with a distinctive scar twenty centimeters long on his upper chest. Family of the deceased are requested to contact the police. The cooks laugh loudly at something in the kitchen. I look out at the street where a few boys practice wheelies on their bikes. I leave the rest of my pizza behind and stroll down toward Turesensgade. The second-floor windows are dark. But someone has hooked the front door wide open. I can’t stop myself, I walk cautiously up the stairs.

No sound comes from the apartment. After a while I open the mail slot a crack, still no sound, nothing to see, no snoring men, no water running from a faucet; it’s deadly quiet. I pull out my knife from my inside pocket. But the door is unlocked. I hold my breath. It creaks when I push it with my foot. Still nothing happens. I step into the hall. Pitch dark. First I check the living room and bedroom to make sure I’m alone. The light from the street makes it possible to scan the two rooms, both are barren, the furniture cleared out. The kitchen is the same way. All that’s left are dirty dishes, they smell horrendous. The refrigerator door is open, it’s empty too. A small pool of water on the floor from the thawed freezer. In the living room, the stench from the corpse still hangs in the air, even though they have left the window open. But the sack is gone. I can just make out a stain on the floor where it was lying. I think: This was Lucille’s home. She lived here. Here is where she got up and put her clothes on, here is where she went to bed at night.

Back in the dark hall, I fumble around for the frame. It’s there. I take the drawing down and leave the apartment with the door open.