The Jealousy Man and Other Stories
- Автор: Несбё Ю
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Alfred A. Knopf
- ISBN: 978-0-593-32100-3
- Переводчик: Robert Ferguson
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Jealousy Man and Other Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
A detective with a nose for jealousy is on the trail of a man suspected of murdering his twin; a bereaved father must decide whether vengeance has a place in the new world order after a pandemic brings about the collapse of society; a garbage man fresh off a bender tries to piece together what happened the night before; a hired assassin matches wits against his greatest adversary in a dangerous game for survival; and an instantly electric connection between passengers on a flight to London may spell romance, or something more sinister.
With Nesbø’s characteristic gift for outstanding atmosphere and gut-wrenching revelations, The Jealousy Man confirms that he is at the peak of his abilities.
I asked him to write something about himself on the wall while I tightened all the knots and got our rope ready. He wrote in keywords.
Brescia. Grandad blazer factory. Nice house, swimming pool. Men with guns. Daddy Mummy dead. Run. Alone. Doghouse. Dog food. Football. Black car, man in white clothes.
I asked questions. Joined up the dots. He nodded. Large, shiny child’s eyes. I gave him a hug. That warm little chin nestling in the pit of my neck.
Looked at the dog’s head lying on the floor behind him. Dog’s eyes. Child’s eyes. Pig’s eyes. Tick-tock, tick-tock. I closed my eyes.
Opened them again.
‘Oscar,’ I said. ‘Get out the pen. We’re going to try something a bit weird.’
He took out the Montegrappa pen. The kind of beautiful thing they don’t make any more.
Part 3: Endgame
Once Olsen’s queen was off the board and the decision had been taken it was as though Murakami gave his opponent a short breathing space. He could afford it — Olsen was the one running out of time — and it looked as though Murakami, instead of bringing matters to a quick conclusion with a coup de grâce, preferred instead to take the opportunity to show off to his audience, the cat’s last sadistic moments of play with the mouse. The even-tempered and silent Olsen had completely abandoned his bloodied defence of the king and instead moved his black knight to the other end of the board, as though in denial of the grim reality of his situation, a general playing a round of golf as the bombs rain down around him.
‘Don’t be afraid, Oscar. You won’t fall.’
I spoke calmly. Established eye contact. My heart was beating hard, probably as hard as his was. The gut was fastened around his chest in a bowline knot. He’d taken off his outer clothes and we had attached them to the end of the line, and now the half-naked child’s body, still wearing his shoes, was dangling above the cobblestoned street below, his hands holding tight around the balcony railings.
‘Now I’m going to count to three,’ I said, struggling to keep my voice calm. ‘And you let go on three? OK.’
Oscar stared at me, panic in his eyes. He nodded.
‘One, two... three.’
He let go. Brave boy. I stood with one foot braced against the wall by the window and felt his body-weight stretching the intestine downwards. It held. We’d tested it inside the apartment and I knew there was no reason it wouldn’t hold now, just because it was eighteen metres above ground. I’d wrapped the gut around my wrist twice in order to brake, but still I could feel it begin to slip. That was all right — the idea was to lower him down, only it mustn’t happen too fast. I would have to brake when I reached the join with the coat, and if that was too abrupt then the whole gut might snap.
Oscar slipped down and away from me. All the time we kept our eyes on each other.
At the junction with the coat I had to brake and saw how the gut stretched like an elastic band. I was certain it wouldn’t have held my eighty kilos, but the boy can’t have weighed more than twenty-five. I held my breath. The gut swayed and stretched. But it held. I continued paying out the rope, quickly, before it could change its mind. On reaching the last item of clothing, the boy’s blazer, I leaned out as far as I could to make the drop to the street as short as possible for Oscar, holding on to the sleeve with one hand and with the other around a railing.
‘One,’ I said loudly. ‘Two, three.’
I let go.
Oscar landed feet first, I heard his shoes hit the cobblestones. He fell over. Lay there a moment or two, as we had agreed on beforehand, to check that he was uninjured. And then he stood up and waved up at me.
I hauled up the rope and untied his clothes. Dropped them down to him, and he quickly put them on. I saw him checking the blazer pockets to see if everything was there; the pen, the money I had given him, and the key to my apartment. I knew it was a vain hope, but at least that was what it was: a hope.
It didn’t last long.
Two men in black drivers’ suits emerged from the gateway, one of them the big man with no neck. They started chasing Oscar and caught up with him before he reached the security tape. They carried him, jerking and struggling, over to an SUV that stood illegally parked in the pedestrian street.
I didn’t shout. Just watched in silence as the car disappeared.
I had done what I could. At least the boy wouldn’t die breathing in Greco’s hellish gas. He might even let Oscar go. Why not? Once the king has been checkmated, the other pieces can stay there untouched. And drivers — most of them at least — don’t kill just for the sake of it.
I went back inside the apartment, untied my own clothes from the gut and started to dress. The dog’s head looked up at me, one eye gouged, the other one whole.
Did I believe that? That Greco would take pity on Oscar?
No.
I looked at my watch. Twelve minutes to go before the gas came billowing out into the apartment. I sat on the floor and waited for the phone call.
Outside, it was growing dark.
Greco rang two minutes before time was up.
The phone was probably mounted on a tripod and the screen showed what appeared to be his room. Bricks, wood. Large white surfaces. Outside, on a large terrace, a Christmas tree with its lights lit in the evening dark. At the veranda door two armed guards, muscles bulging beneath tight-fitting black drivers’ suits. Greco sat on a white leather sofa, and beside him, legs dangling, was Oscar. His blazer was buttoned up wrong, the Montegrappa pen visible, clipped to the breast pocket. He looked frightened and exhausted from crying. On the coffee table in front of them was a chessboard that looked, from the position, as though it was nearing the endgame. Next to it lay the karambit and the remote control for the release of the mustard gas.
‘Hello again, Lukas. An eventful day, don’t you think? And that’s probably a good thing, since it’s your last.’
Greco rubbed the sleeve of his jacket with a cloth. That bloodstain. He couldn’t seem to get rid of it.
‘I just hope it’s over soon,’ I said.
‘Actually, I had thought of putting our boy here in a bedroom with a bedside lamp and pressing the button. But it was too much... bother. And I like this knife.’ He reached out for the karambit.
‘Don’t you understand how sick you are, Greco?’ My voice was tight and hoarse now. ‘This is a child. An innocent child.’
‘Precisely. That’s why it surprises me you didn’t take your own life while you had the chance. All this—’ he gestured broadly with his hands — ‘would have been completely unnecessary if you’d had the brains and the balls to jump out the window.’
‘But you would have killed the boy anyway.’
He grinned broadly. ‘Why on earth should I do that?’
‘Because you are who you are. You have to win. If by taking my own life I had saved the boy the victory wouldn’t have been yours alone, it would have been a draw.’
‘Now that,’ laughed Greco, ‘is sick. And you are, of course, absolutely right.’
He picked up the knife and turned towards Oscar, who sat with eyes closed, as though the light were too bright, or to shut out the world. Greco put his other hand on the boy’s head. Long S-sound. Then he coughed and began: