Copenhagen Noir

“One second.” He disappeared down the hall, rustled around in his office, and came back with a thick envelope that, excited now, he handed to me.

I looked. Nothing but large bills, lots of them. I stuck the envelope in my pocket and put the gloves on that I’d pulled out of my leather jacket.

Rützou had poured himself an extra large whiskey, and he drank so it ran down his chin and throat and stained the elegant white shirt under his tux.

“Let’s get it over with, goddamnit,” he gasped.

I started right in. Before any regrets came along. It’s not nearly as easy to strangle someone as you might think. It requires a lot of strength and grisly patience. But that I had! Rützou’s eyes started to bulge, the whites popped out, he gurgled and, I couldn’t believe it, turned an even more ghostly white than before. He put up a little resistance, but most likely that was a natural reflex. For the bastard really wanted to die. Though he wouldn’t be getting his wish, not yet.

“Shhoke harr-er, gaw-dammuh!” he babbled.

“Can you say please?”

“Puh-eeeze.”

His blue tongue hung halfway out of the preposterous, already putrefied chasm of his mouth, his eyes had shifted from white to violently bloodshot, life slowly faded from them; it was a fantastic sight, he hissed and gasped and drooled like a goddamn snake, and then I abruptly dropped my stranglehold.

“Did you really think I’d do it, you idiot?”

Rützou tumbled backward, grabbed his throat, and gasped deeply for breath. He stood and swayed in his ridiculous patent-leather shoes, completely groggy; he’d pissed his pants, I noticed, and I was already celebrating my little stunt when he suddenly threw himself upon me in a rage and bombarded my face with rock-hard punches, his anger apparently increasing his strength because I was starting to see black. Now it was me on the edge of being knocked unconscious. I had no choice but to hit back. I slugged him straight on the chin.

Rützou fell his entire length and banged his head on the sharp corner of the coffee table. It sounded ugly. My knuckles ached in my gloves. Rützou was on the floor, lifeless. I prayed that he was only unconscious, when I saw a thin trickle of blood appear. More of it came, and more, until it was a small, dark lake.

Desperate, I fell to my knees and shook him, but there was no doubt.

Rützou was dead.

The asshole had tricked me after all.

For several minutes I sat and stared into space, unable to think or act. Then I downed a shot and began removing all traces of my fingerprints: I was on file. One of the last things I did before leaving the apartment was to empty my glass and wash it carefully. It was like being in a film, or no, a grainy documentary…

Then I left.

Down the stairs, the wide, red stairs.

And there I sat. It was still pitch dark and incredibly cold. I took my gloves off and fumbled around for the pack of cigarettes, only two left. The moment the flame rose from the lighter, I saw a flash of my gaunt and battered face in the rearview mirror. It was the stupidest possible thing I could do, to sit here smoking; someone might see me. But I really needed that cigarette. The money in the envelope, I’d completely forgotten about it. What had I done with it? Yeah, the money was safe and sound in my pocket, and in a moment I would be gone, headed for the hills, nobody would connect me with his death. I stuck the key in the ignition.

But then another thought hit me, harder than Rützou’s fist. His girlfriend! They’d had a fierce fight earlier that evening. There were conspicuous signs of strangulation on his neck, anyone could see that he hadn’t just fallen down drunk. Suspicion would immediately fall on her. Maybe she had an alibi, maybe not. And if she didn’t, what would I do?

It was her or me. This would never end. Except for the one who was dead.

LAST TRAIN FROMCENTRAL STATION BY GUNNAR STAALESEN

Central Station

(Originally written in Norwegian)

Istedgade lay like a painted corpse as I emerged from Central Station late in the afternoon one Friday in November, the year the U.S.A. elected its first black president and the world immediately looked much brighter than it had the previous eight years.

For a long time, Europe has begun for most Norwegians in Copenhagen, and Central Station is the gateway to the rest of the continent. There you can buy an aquavit in the cafe at eight in the morning, even on Sunday, and you realize at once that you have arrived in another world.