Never Fuck Up: A Novel by Jens Lapidus Read Free Book Online Page B

area. Sirens on the street. Armed policemen in motion. They took pictures of the stairwell, the basement, outside. Asked her to produce identification. Wrote down her telephone number. Later, she saw a wrapped human body being rolled out from the basement on a stretcher.
    She slurped wine between words. Her head hung over the glass. Her poor posture was apparent even when she sat down.
    And then, today, they’d brought her in for questioning. They’d asked all kinds of things. If she had any idea who the dead person could be. Why a murdered man was found in her apartment building. If she’d heard anything, seen anything. If any of the neighbors’d been acting strange lately.
    “Was it scary?”
    “Very. Just imagine. Being interrogated by the police as if you were involved in a murder, or something. They asked over and over again if I knew who it could be. Why would I know that?”
    “So they don’t know who it is?”
    “I have no idea, but I don’t think so. If they did, they wouldn’t have asked so many times, right? It’s so terrible. How can they not know? The police don’t do any good these days.”
    “Did you see the dead guy?”
    “Yes. Or, no, actually. I saw something that could have been a face, but it’d been covered up so much. I don’t know. I think it was a man.”
    “Mom, there’s something I need to ask of you. It might sound strange, but I really want you to think about this. You know, considering my background it would be best if—”
    He interrupted himself. Poured more Coke. It clucked out from the can.
    “ . . . I don’t want you to tell the police about me. Don’t mention that I’m home again. Don’t mention that I was living with you. Can you promise me that?” Niklas looked up at Marie.
    She was sitting in silence. Staring at him.

6

    They stopped for coffee—Thomas and Ljunggren, as usual. Even though it was only four o’clock in the afternoon, Ljunggren was already on his eighth cup of the day. Thomas wondered: Was Ljunggren’s stomach made of steel, or what?
    The café: a taxi joint by Liljeholmen. A TV in one corner playing an Italian league soccer game on high volume. Uncomfortable metal chairs and tables with checked tablecloths. Spread out on the tables: newspapers and housewares catalogs. Perfect place for cops to chill—they were waiting for an assignment worthy of the name.
    Ljunggren’s radio handset was on the table. The calls from dispatch could hardly be heard over the soccer announcer’s excited commentary. Fiorentina was proving that it wanted to join the top of the Italian league and was mopping the floor with Cagliari. The Dane Martin Jørgensen’d just made the 2–1 goal. Well placed. Beautiful.
    They were each reading a newspaper. As always, not much conversation. They nurtured their peaceful rapport.
    But Thomas had trouble focusing. The articles in the newspaper just floated on past. He flipped through it, distracted. Couldn’t stomach the Fiorentina buzz either. He couldn’t drop that basement thing. Normally, he’d forget as soon as he was back at the station. Showered, dried himself off, put on his civilian clothes. Assault, murder, rape—whatever it was—it ran off with the soap. But this was eating away at him. The image of the busted face kept coming back. With every page he turned of the newspaper, he’d see the tatters of flesh; the sunken, broken nose; the swollen eyes. The track marks on the arm. The bloody, peeled fingertips. The empty mouth.
    Thomas thought it was a strange routine for real cops—as soon as things got exciting, the crap was turned over to the house mice. Desk cops—the criminal detectives—dudes who’d crawled off the street and into paper shuffling. They were often older officers with bad backs orknee problems—as if sitting still at a desk all day was going to help your back. Or else they came with other baggage, they’d “burned out,” as they say. Everyone knew that was just baloney. But sometimes: