Copenhagen Noir

pay.”

She scrounged around in her bag, found her cell phone, pecked on it, her nails clicking on the case. She held the display out to him and he saw the rear end of a car: XZ 98754. It looked like an Audi 4.

Friday 12:51 p.m. Abel Cathrines Gade 5, Fifth Floor, 1654 Copenhagen V

Henry stood in the kitchen holding a bag of fresh bread under his arm. His windbreaker was wet and smelled of rain. They had slept in bed with their clothes on, she had dreamed about High Noon, and in the dream she had been Grace Kelly wearing a bonnet and a laced-up, lace-trimmed dress and all the time that song, Do not forsake me… But then she woke up and felt his erection against her back. She lay still and fell asleep again, they had slept way too long. He stood up and smiled at her, and then something snapped inside her. She couldn’t take it, the big friendly face, the same slightly baffled expression as when he came inside her every Friday afternoon, leaving a pathetic little blob of semen in the condom. The punctual little postman with the gray sideburns and the kind eyes-she had the urge to scratch them out and rip that cheap dream apart. She lunged at him, punching him, tugging and pulling at his big square body, she was furious, hammered at his arms and chest.

“What do you want from me? You want me to be your cheap little whore the rest of your life? Is that what you want?” she screamed. “You want me to be your little hole?”

“No. Adina-”

“And all that shit about Australia… and Gary Cooper… and… and… it’s all just a bunch of lies and bullshit!”

She screamed and shouted. But then he grabbed her. Grabbed hard. His arms closed tight around her, clenched her. A brutal look came over his face, a coldness she hadn’t seen before. She was surprised at how strong he was; she pulled and pushed and scratched and bit. He hummed, Adina, Adina, Adina, as if she was a child. He gripped her even tighter as he hummed. The floor fell away under her, and she was sucked down in it.

Friday 3:25 p.m. ColonWelfare, Vognmagergade 11, 1148 Copenhagen K

The owner of XZ 98754, Audi 4, Gregers Ege, walked alongside the impressive instrument with its hoses and buttons, talking about it. Marek had spelled his way through the English version of the questionnaire out in the reception area, and he believed he had checked “yes” to a bloated sensation in stomach area and headache and checked “no” to bleeding ulcer and taking Prednisol. Gregers Ege realized that colon hydrotherapy, colon irrigation with the new hygienic and 100 percent odorless technology, crossed a line of modesty for many patients, but ColonWelfare used the open system, LIBBE, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Marek could insert the funnel-shaped plastic gizmo into his anus himself, Gregers Ege showed him. No one would at any time touch him or see him naked; he would be covered except for the area in question, and he would be lying comfortably on the form-fitting examination table and he could see what came out of the closed tube right there. Gregers turned the plastic gizmo in his hands, lost himself in its small molded end. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. There was a pale outline of a watch and band on his suntanned wrist. Marek grabbed hold of it with his left hand and rammed his right elbow into Gregers Ege’s throat. The man went into shock. Marek maneuvered him down onto the formfitting table, strapped him in securely, grabbed several disposable wipes and stuffed them in his mouth, pulled his white coat up and his pants down, and shoved the plastic gizmo in his anal opening. Marek showed him the photo of Adina, stuck it under his nose. Gregers squirmed and jerked his head around when Marek connected the hose, turned it to the max, all the way up in the red. Gregers’s eyes went wide, and when Marek ungagged him it shot out like a cannon: It was the first time, I’ll never do it again. You want money? Is it those fucking whores…? They take people’s license plates or what? Marek had only one question, Where did you let her off, but first he asked Gregers about something else. How much did you pay to fist-fuck her? He got answers to both questions. Two hundred and fifty kroner in the parking lot at Sj?lor Station. And, the end of Istedgade at Enghave Park and the community building. She staggered along Enghavevej, down by Prima. He saw that she had taken his watch when he looked to see what time it was. Three-fifteen p.m. on his car’s display. It was pouring, and she didn’t have a coat on.

Friday 12:55 p.m. Abel Cathrines Gade 5, Fifth Floor, 1654 Copenhagen V

“Adina, are you okay?”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know what got into me, I…”

“Henry?”

“Yes.”

“When I’m all alone at night, all my customers run together… They turn into hundreds of mouths that moan, snort, scream, slobber, spit in my face. But with you, there was something… a tenderness, I don’t know… And then it ends like this anyway.”

“Adina. Come over here.”

“No. It’s best I leave. We can’t change our lives.”

“You don’t think so?”

“No.”

Pause. “We’re doing it.”

“What?”

“We’re going to Australia. Perth. I’ll empty my account. We’ll leave tonight. Will you go?”

Friday 4:10 p.m. Hawaii Bio, Oehlenschl?gersgade 1, 1620 Copenhagen V

Marek sat in the back room of the Hawaii Bio, wishing he was somewhere else, far away. Yvonne smiled with a cigarette between her lips; one of her eyelids drooped a bit. She held his hand in hers. The knuckles on his right hand were bruised and bloody, his fingers tingled. He couldn’t remember what he had done to his hand. Had he beaten up Gregers Ege, or was it Ludmilla when she’d started screaming and wanted to go home? Why hadn’t he delivered her? He didn’t know why. She had taken some of his Rohypnols and was totally out of it when he’d left her. Just as well. Yvonne brushed the palm of his hand with iodine from a green bottle. Suddenly he felt a tenderness for her. Did she have a life outside of this, did she have a grandkid who would get the ugly little stocking cap with the purple border?

Zdrow bid?, krolu anjelski.

Why was he thinking about that now? He always saw his mother’s face when he thought about that psalm.

He pulled his hand away, raised his fist to the corner of his eye. There was a tiny wet streak on the back of his hand.

He reconstructed Adina’s route. Mysundegade yesterday around noon, Dybbolsbro at two-thirty, Sj?lor Station two-forty-five, Enghavevej three-fifteen. Then: gone. At the most she had a few thousand and a red-hot Rolex. She was still in town.

“Yvonne?”

“Yes, Marek.”

“Did Adina have any regular customers?”

“What do you mean… regular?”

“I mean… did somebody treat her nice? Have you heard of anyone who was nice to her?”

“Nice, I don’t know… Hey. There is this one guy, comes every Friday at four o’clock. Wait a minute… he didn’t come today.”

Friday 4:50 p.m. Abel Cathrines Gade 5, Fifth Floor, 1654 Copenhagen V

Henry had left again. Adina lit up her last cigarette with the next-to-last; she didn’t know what to do with herself. She trudged back and forth between the sofa and the window and ran her fingers through her short hair. Henry had cut it. It felt all wrong.

Kofi was gone. Another African was dealing down on the street, someone she didn’t know.