The Marco Effect

22

When Marco climbed over the fence of the construction site the night before, he first located a direct access route into the building that enabled him to move quickly and inconspicuously between the upper floors and street level. A crucial strategy for any good thief wherever there was a risk of running into guards or guard dogs.

Next, he made note of where equipment, tools, and building materials were concentrated in the various sections of the site so that he knew what places to avoid at the change of shift.

On the fourth floor he found a recess that was sheltered from the wind, gathered layers of cardboard, and made a bed from where he could keep watch through the empty window openings in the concrete walls. Here in this niche, where the lifts would be running in a couple of months, he could remain undiscovered until the morning shift arrived, then make off when they went for their break in the hut below.

Apparently there weren’t many workers on the job outside normal working hours, which gave Marco the considerable advantage of being able to move around relatively freely in the evenings, at night, and on weekends, as long as he made sure not to be discovered by passers-by when he squeezed behind the fencing and climbed up into the building by the Hereford Beefstouw restaurant. In any case the night watchmen and the dogs never ventured all the way up into the concrete landscape to the place in which he had installed himself.

The building was enormous. The facade had been stripped away and the entire interior demolished, so only the staircases, supports, and floors remained. Cold, gray concrete all over, as well as an abundance of temporary elevators, tools, and equipment, bordered by portable offices stacked like Lego blocks.

From here he could look out on the Tivoli Gardens as they awakened to yet another season, Rådhuspladsen and H. C. Andersen’s Boulevard, down the pedestrian street, Strøget, and a good stretch up Vesterbrogade on the other side. It was a perfect spot as long as the weather was reasonably warm, and the best possible surveillance point for keeping an eye on the Zola clan’s thieving and hustling in the city center.

This Tuesday morning the van came at nine as usual, dropping off Zola’s troops. This time it was Miryam, Romeo, Samuel, and six others. For a moment they conferred on the pavement before fanning out into the side streets of Vestergade, Lavendelstræde, and Farvergade, from where they could home in on the various sections of Strøget.

In the hours ahead, numerous unfortunate individuals would be relieved of possessions they failed to look after with due care. Watching his old friends spread out into the city streets like bacteria, Marco felt a growing sense of intense shame at having been a part of such beastliness.

Here, from above, he would consider how best to strike back. Perhaps he should try to win some of the other clan members over so that not all of them went down when he denounced Zola and his father. From this vantage point he could see how he might select a few and try to talk them into leaving. If it worked, they would be able to tell him who Zola had recruited to help track him down, and when they thought the hunt would be called off. Once he felt more secure he would venture out to Eivind and Kaj’s apartment to retrieve his money and get out of Copenhagen. He knew there were other cities, like Århus and Aalborg in Jutland, far enough away and yet big enough and with enough facilities for him to be able to pursue his education and absorption into Danish society.

But all that was a long way off. Now that the police had seen him and the items he’d left behind at the police station in Bellahøj, would they not be looking for him, too? And if they were, what would happen if they found him? Without any ID would he end up in a refugee center? Did he have anything with which to bargain in order to avoid it?

Seemingly not.

The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that he had nothing to offer the police. There was a strong likelihood that William Stark’s body was no longer where he had found it and that Zola’s people had removed all traces of the crime.

He scanned the scene from his concrete hideout, his stomach rumbling, feeling both isolated and abandoned.

–

She was sitting up against the grating outside the Church of the Holy Spirit, typically underplaying her role in such a way that people were neither repelled nor annoyed by the cautiously outstretched hand and exposed, crooked leg extended in front of her. Miryam had the unusual ability to catch people’s eye with a smile and with a single look make them feel like she was their friend. A look that told of suffering but also the will to endure it. That was how she operated. Even the police passed her by without intervening. If she’d had the chance of another profession she would most certainly have made something of herself.

But the warmth in her eyes drained away with her smile when Marco appeared in front of her, his arms spread wide in the hope of detecting some small sign of happiness at seeing him again.

“Just leave, Marco,” she urged. “Everyone’s out looking for you, and they’ll do you harm if they catch you, believe me. I don’t want to talk to you. Just go away, and don’t show up in town again.”

Marco’s arms dropped to his sides. “Won’t you help me, Miryam? I’ll make sure they don’t see us together. If I keep a low profile, all you have to do is give me a signal once you know they’ve called off the search.”

“Jesus, you idiot, what’s got into you? They’ll keep on until they’ve got you. Of course they will, Marco, so get lost now! And if you come near me again I’ll get hold of the others. I might just do that anyway.”

She got to her feet, straightening her bad leg with difficulty, then offered him a handful of coins before she went. But Marco backed away, holding up his hands in front of him. He had anticipated her being reluctant and having her reservations, but not that she would threaten to denounce him or try to stick him thirty pieces of silver. Anyone else, certainly, but not Miryam.

He stood for a moment trying to recall the gentleness in her eyes, the caresses she’d given him when his mother did not.

And then he took off without a word.

Five streets farther down he leaned against a drainpipe and wept. He hadn’t cried since the first time Zola hit him. An unpleasant sensation began surging through his system, as though he had eaten food that had gone bad. His abdomen convulsed as if he was about to vomit. His nose ran faster than his tears. His arms and legs trembled.

Not just the others, but Miryam, too. He would never have believed it.

Most of all he wanted to close his eyes and let the world disappear. Just let himself go and scream out his despair, but he didn’t dare. He wouldn’t let himself be such easy prey. He was no little, simpleminded animal, oblivious to the predator. He knew how things worked.

A woman who was passing by stopped and put a hand on his shoulder, bending down to look him in the eye. “What’s the matter, dear?” she asked. But instead of embracing her and drawing solace from her kindness, he drew back, dried his eyes, and said: “Oh, nothing.”

Later he would wish he had thanked her, but it didn’t occur to him at the time, there being but a single thought in his mind: From now on, any member of the clan is fair game.

He would survive by his animosity toward them. He would no longer steal from ordinary people, but the clan were not ordinary people, so from them he would snatch anything he wanted. And when he had harassed them long enough and filled his pockets and stomach, he would move on in life.

–

He found Romeo and Samuel down in Nyhavn, working over throngs of boisterous, ruddy-cheeked Swedes. So Samuel had been promoted from beggar despite his being a poor earner.

He kept his distance for a while, watching them in their work. The seemingly accidental bumping into people, the swift dips into pockets and bags, the spoils then deftly passed into the other’s hand. They were skillful, and seldom needed to apologize for their clumsiness.

Marco knew their behavior patterns, knew when they would glance to the side or over their shoulders and the exact moment they would home in.

Samuel was the receiver, ambling along behind until Romeo struck. And then he would quickly step forward, sticking his hand through his pocket lining to receive the goods. His large inside pocket was already bulging visibly, so it had been a good day. Before long Samuel would signal to Romeo that it was time for a break so he could stash the spoils. And then Marco would strike.

He followed Samuel to one of the last remaining places in the city besides the central station where a person could leave a bag without being suspected of terrorism. By the revolving entrance doors on the ground floor of the Black Diamond, the modern extension to the Royal Danish Library, were locker areas adjacent to the restrooms, allowing people like Samuel to transfer the contents of their secret pockets into a shopping bag and hide them away in a locker without fear of being discovered.

Marco kept watch from the bookshop in the foyer until Samuel emerged from the restroom, shopping bag in hand. He would wait to see which locker Samuel used, then duck back out of sight. Once Samuel had gone, he would go back and work the lock.

Samuel fumbled in his jacket pocket before finding the key. Most probably he kept it on him at all times, ensuring there would always be a locker at his disposal.

He walked into the locker area, went over to the right-hand wall, bent down to one of the lower boxes, and put his key in the lock.

“Got it,” Marco said to himself, withdrawing into a corner.

A minute later, Samuel was on his way back to Nyhavn.

Romeo and new victims awaited.

–

For students it was study time leading up to exams and the library café was packed with young people hunched over laptops. Outside, beyond the glass walls, people lounged about, enjoying the sun and the harbor. No one here would worry themselves about a boy like Marco in a setting like this.

For a moment he stared at the wall of lockers. As far as he could work out, Samuel’s was number 163. The lock was simple, but he knew from experience that if he tried to force it with an incorrect key, the key would almost certainly snap in two. He had no tools with him by which he could break the lock either, nor did he possess the courage to ask for assistance at the information desk and spin them a tale about having lost his key.

He tapped his knuckles against the locker door. It wasn’t solid, but a kick would merely result in a dent and make a hell of a racket to boot.

So he needed the key.

–

He caught up with Samuel at Kongens Nytorv and figured that if he was to steal the key without the boy noticing, he would have to create a diversion. He chose an extravagantly tattooed hulk of a man walking a couple of steps behind and to the side of Samuel who was heading purposely for the tourist traps and wilting dives of Nyhavn. He was undoubtedly planning on staying there until the day was done and the well-larded wallet protruding tantalizingly from his back pocket was empty. Provided, of course, that he hadn’t the misfortune to run into Romeo first.

Marco slipped silently behind his unsuspecting mark like a heat-seeking missile, flexing the fingers of his left hand to make certain he had full control over them. Then with the ease of a cat he struck, lifting the wallet from the man’s pocket, using his body to shield the move from the pedestrians behind. It was elementary.

He stopped and waited until the man was a few steps ahead before bending down and pretending to pick the wallet up off the pavement, then catching up with him and giving his sleeve a tug.

“Here,” he said, pressing the wallet into the man’s hand. “It was that guy over there who took it off you. He was about to hand it to someone else behind you, but I got it first.”

The big man frowned, then his eyes followed the direction in which Marco was pointing, and within a second he had knocked Samuel to his knees.

Marco didn’t hear what his old friend screamed, but it clearly had little effect because his punishment was meted out so promptly and emphatically that Samuel was forced to crouch down and protect his face with his hands.

It would not be the first time Marco stole from someone lying prone on the ground, often the last dregs of the night’s drunks. This was easy enough, but here he was forced to wait until members of the hooting crowd that had gathered pulled the flailing mastodon away from his hapless victim. It gave Samuel a few seconds to get to his feet and stagger toward safety.

The tattooed roughneck bellowed that the little thief ought to be arrested and thrown in jail, but the onlookers showed mercy and Marco moved in and slipped his hand into Samuel’s jacket pocket as the kid pushed through the throng to get away. Even if he noticed anything, his instinct to flee would overrule all else.

All he wanted was to get away.

The big man was still ranting and raving, and Marco didn’t hang around to be thanked or accept a reward.

The contents of the locker at the Black Diamond were reward enough.

–

Back in his hideout at the House of Industry he emptied the shopping bags onto the concrete floor. For a moment he sat staring at the many items. They seemed so alive in the bleak surroundings, shades of color against the cold, gray concrete. He triumphantly removed the banknotes from the wallets without so much as glancing at credit cards or IDs. A quick count came to more than nine thousand kroner in five different currencies.

The sudden rush he felt sparked a brief outburst of laughter, an expression of relief that echoed gaily against the bare walls until his eyes once again settled on the pile of wallets, mobile phones, and watches in front of him.

Then all at once he became still inside. The dark concrete contours around him towered accusingly above his head. The many lit-up windows of the Palace Hotel and the countless diodes streaming Politiken’s news headlines on the facade across the square felt like reproachful eyes, like stabbing searchlights. Here lay the property of all these people. Leather wallets and purses, mobile phones with greasy finger marks that weren’t his, and no matter who in the first instance had stolen them, he knew at that moment he would be unable to capitalize on Romeo’s and Samuel’s thieving without becoming an accomplice.

It was an ugly feeling, as repulsive as dog mess on the sole of his shoe. At that moment he was a nobody. Just a simple lowdown thief like the rest of them, and though nine thousand kroner was a lot of money and would get him by for a long time, the day would inevitably come when it all ran out and he would have to become a thief again.

Who was he kidding?

Only then did he realize how impossible his life had become.

The hatred that had been latent within him from the first day Zola forced him to steal on the streets now flared up inside, kindling a thirst for vengeance that felt stronger than ever before.

He was a thief and would always be as long as the clan existed. Zola would still have his hooks in him wherever he went.

Marco clenched his fists and stared up at the concrete above his head as he imagined Stark’s corpse with its empty eye sockets, Tilde and her gentle voice, and the policeman called Carl who no doubt wanted to get in touch with him. All these shadows lingering above him and all the nasty ones lurking behind his back could vanish at once if he now did the right thing.

There was no longer any doubt. Zola and his clan had to be eliminated.