Jo Nesbo - The Son

‘Come on in then, you fat fuck!’ Kalle hissed and opened the door.

The African poured in like rising bread dough, spreading his body mass over the threshold and the floor inside. Kalle stared down at his glassy expression. The eyes bulged like the eyes of a freshly caught deep-water fish, his mouth opened and closed.

‘Cassius!’

The only reply he got was a wet smack when a big, pink bubble burst on the African’s lips. Kalle pressed his legs against the wall in an attempt to move the black mountain out of the way so he could close the door again, but it was no use, so he bent down and tried to drag him inside instead. Too heavy. The pistol! Cassius had landed on top of his own arm. Kalle straddled the body, trying desperately to slip his hand under it, but for every roll of fat he passed there was another and still no pistol. He had his arm buried in fat up to his elbow when he heard footsteps outside. He knew what was about to happen, tried to get out of the way, but was too late, the door smacked into his head and he blacked out.

When Kalle opened his eyes, he was lying on his back staring up at a guy in a hoodie, wearing yellow washing-up gloves and pointing a pistol straight down at him. He turned his head, but saw no one else, only Cassius who lay with half his body inside the door. From this angle, Kalle could see the barrel of Cassius’s pistol sticking out from under his stomach.

‘What do you want?’

‘I want you to open the safe. You have seven seconds.’

‘Seven?’

‘I started counting down before you woke up. Six.’

Kalle scrambled to his feet. He was woozy, but he made his way to the safe.

‘Five.’

He turned the combination wheel.

‘Four.’

One more digit and the safe would open and the money would be gone. Money he would personally have to replace, those were the rules.

‘Three.’

He hesitated. What if he could get hold of Cassius’s pistol?

‘Two.’

Would the guy really shoot or was he just bluffing?

‘One.’

The guy had killed two people without batting an eyelid, a third body wouldn’t bother him.

‘OK,’ Kalle said, stepping aside. He couldn’t bear to look at the piles of banknotes and bags of drugs.

‘Put everything into this,’ the guy ordered him and handed him a red sports bag.

Kalle did as he was told. Not slowly or quickly, he simply put the contents into the bag while his brain counted automatically. 200,000 kroner. 200,000. .

When he had finished, the guy told him to toss the bag on the floor in front of him. Again Kalle did as he was told. At that moment he realised that if he was going to get shot, it would be now. Here. The guy no longer needed him. Kalle took two steps towards Cassius. He had to go for the gun.

‘If you don’t do it, then I won’t shoot you,’ the guy said.

What the hell, was he a mind-reader?

‘Put your hands on your head and walk out into the corridor.’

Kalle hesitated. Could this mean that he might let him live? He stepped over Cassius.

‘Lean against the wall with your hands above your head.’

Kalle did what the guy said. He turned his head. Saw that the guy had already picked up Pelvis’s pistol and was now squatting on his haunches with his hand under Cassius, but his eyes on Kalle. He managed to get hold of Cassius’s gun as well.

‘Take out the bullet in the wall over there, would you please?’ said the guy and pointed, and Kalle realised where he had seen him before. By the river, it was the jogger. He must have followed them. Kalle looked up and saw the end of a mangled bullet stuck in the mortar. A fine spray of blood led from the wall to where it had come from: Pelvis’s head. It hadn’t travelled at great speed so Kalle could pick it out with his fingernails.

‘Give it here,’ said the guy, taking the bullet with his free hand. ‘Now I want you to find my other bullet and the two empty shells. You have thirty seconds.’

‘What if the other bullet is inside Cassius?’

‘I don’t think so. Twenty-nine.’

‘Look at that mountain of fat, man!’

‘Twenty-eight.’

Kalle threw himself on his knees and started looking. He cursed himself for not spending more money on stronger light bulbs.

At thirteen he had found four of Cassius’s shells and one of the other guy’s. At seven, he had found the other bullet which the guy had fired at them; it must have gone straight through Cassius and ricocheted off the metal door because the door had a small dent.

When the countdown was over, he still hadn’t found the last shell.

He closed his eyes. Felt how one of the slightly too tight eyelids scraped his cornea while he prayed to God to live one more day. He heard the shot, but felt no pain. He opened his eyes and realised he was still crouching on all fours on the floor.

The guy lifted the barrel of Pelvis’s gun from Cassius.

Christ, the guy had shot Cassius again with Pelvis’s gun to be sure he was dead! And now he went over to Pelvis, held Cassius’s gun in the same place where the first bullet had entered, adjusted the angle. And pulled the trigger.

‘Fuck!’ Kalle screamed and heard the terror in his own voice.

The guy put the others’ two guns in the red sports bag and pointed at Kalle with his own. ‘Come on. Into the lift.’

The lift. The broken glass. It had to be in the lift. He had to attack him in the lift.

They stepped inside and in the light from the corridor Kalle could see that there was more broken glass on the lift floor. He selected a longish piece which looked as if it would be perfect for the job. Once the doors shut it would be completely dark and all he would have to do was bend down, grab the shard and swing it in one flowing movement. He had to. .

The doors closed. The guy stuck his gun into the lining of his trousers. Perfect! It would be like killing a chicken. It grew dark. Kalle bent down. His fingers found the shard of glass. He straightened up. Then found himself paralysed.

Kalle didn’t know what kind of hold it was, only that he was immobilised, he couldn’t even move a finger. He tried shaking himself loose, but it was like pulling at the wrong end of a knot, the grip tightened further and his neck and arms hurt like hell. It had to be some kind of martial art technique.The shard of glass slipped out of his hand. The lift started moving.

The doors opened again, they heard the never-ending thumping bass and the hold loosened. Kalle opened his mouth and drew breath. The gun was pointed at him again and indicated for him to move down the corridor.

Kalle was ordered into one of the empty rehearsal rooms where he was told to sit down on the floor with his back to the radiator. He sat without moving and stared at a bass drum with the name ‘The Young Hopeless’ scrawled across it while the guy tied him to the radiator with a long, black cable. There was no point in fighting back, his attacker didn’t intend to kill him or he would be dead already. And the money and the drugs could be replaced. He would have to pay for them out of his own pocket, of course, but what was foremost in his mind was how to explain to Vera that there was unlikely to be another shopping trip to some cool city in the foreseeable future. The guy took two guitar strings from the floor, tied the thicker one around his head over the bridge of his nose and the thinner one around his chin. He must have tied them to the radiator behind him; Kalle could feel the metal of the thinner string dig into his skin and press against his lower gum.

‘Move your head,’ the guy said. He had to shout over the music coming from further down the corridor. Kalle tried to turn his head, but the guitar strings were too tight.

‘Good.’

The guy put an electric fan on a chair, switched it on and aimed it at Kalle’s face. Kalle closed his eyes against the current of air and felt his sweat dry on his skin. When he opened his eyes again, he could see that the guy had placed one of the unmixed kilo bags of Superboy on the chair in front of the fan and had pulled his hoodie up to cover his nose and mouth. What the hell was he doing? Then Kalle spotted the shard of glass.