The Marco Effect

35

Never had Marco felt the cold as much as he did that night.

He had clung to the side of the sightseeing boat when it put in at Holmen’s Church and Nyhavn, but hadn’t dared let go as long as he was still within the city center where Zola’s people were stationed. For that reason he had allowed himself to be drawn through the icy water across the city’s inner harbor, on through the canal past the Opera House, and didn’t release his grip until when the boat passed the Little Mermaid. There he clambered ashore, so wet and exhausted that a couple of the day’s final tourists tried to grab him, yelling that someone should call an ambulance, while the rest blitzed him with rapid-fire digital cameras as if he were some mythical marine creature. The Little Mermaid herself paled in comparison.

“Go away!” Marco cried, shoving them aside and limping off along the concourse, then on through the Frihavn harbor toward the Svanemølle marina.

This time, finding shelter among the moored boats wasn’t so easy. Another warm May weekend had brought out the sailing fans in force, and a great many watching eyes followed the pathetic, shivering boy as he made his way along the jetties in the twilight. Welcome, he certainly was not.

–

He was still wet when he woke up inside the little covered motorboat, but a warm breeze coupled with bright sunshine was sufficient to coax him forth.

He squinted up at the sun and figured it was still early enough for him to get to Kaj and Eivind’s apartment before they went off to work.

The last twenty-four hours had shaken him up. The two African boys had been so close. If he shut his eyes he could still clearly see the one with the knife in front of him, the other with his yellow-white eyes staring at him under the water.

Now all he wanted was to get away. Away from Copenhagen, away from Denmark. He dare not stay here any longer. He’d take the train to Sweden and try to begin afresh. A country so sparsely populated and so expansive that from north to south was the same distance as from Copenhagen to Rome had to be a place in which it was possible to disappear. He’d often heard the Swedish language on the streets and realized it wasn’t so different from Danish. That, too, he would learn.

The way things had developed the last twenty-four hours, taking revenge on Zola meant less to him now. All he wanted was to survive.

By the time he got to Kaj and Eivind’s flat, he was dry and utterly determined not to leave the place until his money was in his hand. This time, he wasn’t about to let them stop him.

He knocked on the door a couple of times before Eivind came and opened it. He was a changed man, a pale, unshaven shadow of himself, though fortunately not hostile like last time. In fact, his face seemed to light up when he saw who it was.

“Marco, my goodness,” he exclaimed. “Where have you been, my boy? Kaj and I have been worried sick. Look at the state of you, you look dreadful. Come in, I’ll find you some clean clothes.”

Marco felt his body relax a bit. His lips began to quiver. Being here felt so nice, and what a relief it was to hear kind words and to see Eivind smile.

“Guess what, Kaj?” Eivind shouted. “Marco’s come back, can you believe our luck?”

Then he heard the sound of a key being turned in the lock behind him.

Instinctively he wheeled round to see Eivind with the key in his hand and a quite different, threatening look in his eye, his body bent forward as though he were about to charge at him.

Marco turned immediately to make a dash for the kitchen, but was stopped in his tracks by a blow to the head that sent him to the floor in a heap.

“Hold him down, Eivind,” Kaj commanded, getting down on his knees, pulling Marco’s arms toward him and winding something tightly around his wrists.

Marco tried to focus, but inside his head a blitzkrieg of light all but filtered out his surroundings, making them appear blurred and distorted.

Reflexively he tried in vain to draw his arms in toward his body and twist round, only to hear a rush in his ear as a flurry of blows rained down on him.

“Ow!” he cried, and then began sobbing. “Why are you doing this? I haven’t done anything. I’ll go again, don’t worry, I just wanted to fetch…” But the pummeling continued.

Now he felt Eivind’s bony knee digging into his rib cage, making it almost impossible to breathe.

“OK, we’ve got him,” came the sound of Eivind’s voice above him. “Come straightaway, and hurry.”

Marco saw the two men clearly now. Eivind with the mobile in his hand, straddling his midriff, and Kaj crouching in front of his head with a tight grip on his lower arms. Kaj didn’t look well. His face was swollen and battered, with dark bruises fanning out over the delicate skin of his neck.

Marco lay still and felt the tears running down his cheeks as he looked into Eivind’s desperate eyes. Eivind, of whom he had been so fond.

He, too, had abandoned him.

Perhaps it was the tears, or perhaps the fact that Marco seemed so small and helpless, lying beneath the two men. All of a sudden it was as if Eivind saw him for who he was: their boy, whom they had taught to write and speak better Danish and play cards, and to believe that he had a future ahead of him like everyone else.

As this dawned on him, Eivind’s tired features transformed from furrows of anger and frustration to searching eyes and quivering lips. Then, finally, tears burst forth to follow their path through the lines of his aging face.

“I don’t know what you’ve done to them, Marco,” he stammered between sobs. “But if you don’t vanish from our lives for good, they’ll come back again, and we’ll never be able to cope with it. That’s why we have to hand you over to them. I hope to heaven they do you no harm.”

Kaj showed less compassion. “I hope they do to you what they did to me. Do you understand, Marco? They’ve destroyed our lives. We’re too frightened to even go to work anymore and it’s all your fault.”

Marco shook his head. They were mistaken. That wasn’t how it was. It wasn’t like that at all.

He squeezed his eyes shut and wriggled his body slightly so Eivind could tell he would remain still if only he wouldn’t press his knee so hard against his chest.

He knew that in five minutes they would be here because they were all over the neighborhood. Slavs, Balts, Africans, Zola’s people, it didn’t matter which of the gangs came, the result would be the same. Zola had demonstrated with the utmost clarity to what lengths he was prepared to go, and the people working for him certainly had as well.

He turned his head to the side as slowly as he could, his eyes scanning the room for possibilities. They were few.

On the wall above him was a little shelf with a lamp on it, a pair of leather gloves and an oval-shaped bowl containing a few coins and the keys to the storage room in the basement. He knew this shelf well. The cord of the lamp ran up the wall adjacent to his knee, and by his feet were galoshes and the slippers Marco had always worn indoors. Nothing of use to him here.

Now he could tell how Eivind’s position above his body was growing uncomfortable for him because he kept shifting his weight, turning his knees outward until his lower legs were almost resting flat on the floor.

Marco lay quiet as a mouse. Any moment now, Eivind would try to adjust his position once more and then he needed to be ready, for he would have no other chances.

He breathed deeper, and deeper still, tensing his buttocks and abdomen slowly so Eivind wouldn’t notice, and at the same time he cautiously drew his arms inward, prompting Kaj to tighten his grip. Everything depended on Kaj not letting go.

At the same moment the toes of Eivind’s shoes made contact with the floor, Marco thrust his hips upward with all his might and wrenched his arms to his sides. The result was enormous, as was the sound of the two men’s heads colliding above him.

Eivind slumped to the side, toward the shelf, dislodging its contents onto the floor, while Kaj sank backward, his legs buckled beneath him. Both howled with pain, but their wailing did nothing to stop Marco as he kicked Eivind hard in the shoulder, sending him sliding against the baseboard.

Now he was free and leaped to his feet.

Kaj reached out to grab his leg, but Marco kicked his arm back against the wall.

Then he heard a car screech to a halt outside. By the time its door slammed shut he was already in the kitchen. Here, with his heart pounding in his chest, he realized the door to the back stairs was locked and the key wasn’t sitting in the keyhole. So he grabbed a kitchen knife, climbed onto the counter, opened the window onto the backyard, and jumped.

He heard the sound of fists hammering against the front door and Kaj and Eivind’s pitiful attempts to get to their feet and open up.

It was difficult to climb onto the roof of the bike shed with his hands tied and also hold on to the knife. Only when he had crossed through two more backyards and had slipped into the labyrinth of side streets did he dare to stop and sever the bond around his wrists.

He made it precisely twenty meters down the street before he saw the Balts at the other end. They hadn’t seen him yet, but it was only a matter of seconds.

So he ducked into the nearest stairwell where he stood with his back pressed up against the blue-painted door of a massage parlor and kicked at it with his heel.

“Open up, open up, open up,” he repeated silently, in time with each kick.

Now he could sense someone running toward the place where he stood as cries erupted at the other end of the street.

“Open up, please, open up.”

Then he heard a sound behind the door.

“Who is it?” a voice asked, in heavily accented Danish.

“Help me. I’m only a boy and there are people after me,” he whispered.

A moment passed as the thudding feet against pavement flagstones grew ever louder. And then the door opened, so suddenly that he fell backward into the room.

“Close the door, close the door,” he pleaded, lying on his back and looking straight into the sleepy face of an Asian girl without makeup.

She did as he asked, and five seconds later the man outside dashed past.

She called herself Marlene, though her name was doubtless something else. She drew him over to a blue-striped sofa beneath a framed price list on the wall itemizing massage services in a variety of languages. She sat him down so he could catch his breath and have a good cry.

A moment later two more girls appeared. Like the first, they were in nightclothes and anything but ready to meet the challenges of a new day.

“What are you running from?” one of them asked, stroking his cheek. She was gentle and engulfed in a heavy scent of perfume, but her face was pockmarked and her body oddly proportioned, with tremendous breasts that defied gravity.

Marco dried his eyes and tried to explain his predicament, but it was obvious they understood little more than that some Eastern Europeans were running around outside and shouting. The information made them visibly uneasy, prompting them to withdraw into a corner, where they huddled together, whispering.

“You listen,” the one who had comforted him eventually said. “You cannot stay here with us. In two hours a man comes for money. He must not find you here, otherwise trouble, not just for you, for us, too.”

“We give you some food,” the third girl added. “You wash, and then you go. You can only go out back door, but we try to get you across the yard and through a apartment to Willemoesgade. Then you on your own.”

He asked them to please call a taxi, but their hospitality would not extend that far. Calls from their mobiles were checked every day by their pimp, to make sure they weren’t freelancing outside opening hours. And who but a john would want a taxi?

Marco felt sorry for them. These were full-grown women living alone here, and yet they were being tormented in the same way as Zola tormented his own. He didn’t understand. Why didn’t they run away as well?

–

The women did as they promised and led him through the yard and up the back stairs, then on to the second floor of the building across the street, where the man lived who had allowed his flat to be used as an escape route. He was just an old customer, the girls explained, who would do anything to help them out.

“Next time, extra loving treatment for you, Benny,” one of the girls promised. So that was probably why. He certainly looked satisfied with the deal.

Marco knew Willemoesgade. Here he had gone from shop to shop without securing work, so at least the proprietors here weren’t hostile, if they even recognized him. The only problem was the Irma supermarket on the corner, where there was a high turnover of young lads managing the bottle return and you never knew where they were from. So Marco crossed the street and continued toward the junction of Østerbrogade.

He was entering dangerous territory indeed. But maybe he could quickly flag down a taxi to take him to the airport train station where he could jump on a train to Sweden and then he’d be free.

He leaned up against a wall and stuck his hand in his pocket. There was just under five thousand kroner left of what he’d taken from Samuel’s shopping bag. A tidy sum that was sure to get him far. Soon it would be summer, and the weather was mild. What more could he ask? Sleeping under the stars was free, and once he’d got farther north, around Dalarna or Jämtland, he knew he would have little trouble finding an abandoned house or an empty summer cottage rarely in use. He’d be all right, though it pained him to think of all the money behind the baseboard in Kaj and Eivind’s apartment. Now he had to start again from the beginning, and who could tell how things would go next time around?

The cabs that passed by were taken, so Marco decided he would walk along Sortedamssøen and then up to Trianglen, where he knew there would be ranks of taxis waiting for customers.

But he never got that far.

Suddenly he saw Chris’s van parked sideways on the pavement some distance farther up the street. Presumably the Balts had alerted Zola’s right-hand man after Eivind had called them, and now the van was there, waiting to pick up its cargo, dead or alive.

That cargo was Marco.

He felt cold inside. If only he had the courage, he would sneak up to the vehicle and slash its tires with Kaj and Eivind’s kitchen knife that he still had concealed under his jersey.

He looked along Sortedam Dossering. Maybe he should run that way, though it could be dangerous if someone blocked his path, with the lake on one side and hardly a single side street on the other. It was not an optimal route. Either he had to go back the way he’d come, or else he would have to stay put and wait for a vacant taxi.

Marco did not let the van out of his sight. Everything evil was symbolized by its presence. How often had they sat on the floor in the back, being led like lambs to slaughter into a life they’d been unable to refuse? How often had he lain there exhausted, dreaming that the drive would never end? But it always did. Every single day they ended up in their prison in Kregme. Eat, sleep, then off again early the next morning, such was their life. How he hated that van.

His chain of thought was broken abruptly. Was that his father coming out of the shop behind the van? And wasn’t that Zola himself right behind him? Were they so keen on finding him that they were now out in person, going from door-to-door? They were insane, there was no other word.

He ducked behind the trees and watched them spitefully as they went into the next shop. People like Zola and his father should never be allowed anywhere near children.

He saw the cyclist coming from the direction of Trianglen. An ordinary-looking type, though obviously unfamiliar with the bike he was riding.

Marco smiled to himself. That’s not yours, you just stole it, he thought, comparing the bike’s size, age, and color with its rider. Whatever made him think nobody would notice?

Then, all of a sudden, the guy wrenched his front wheel over the curb and headed straight for Marco, who managed to run only a couple of steps before the cyclist sailed right into him.

There were other cyclists on the cycle path who shouted to the man that he should watch where he was going, but Marco knew better, so instinctively he rolled to the side on the ground as the guy tried to grab him. He drew the knife from his jersey by reflex and stabbed his assailant in the ankle. There was a roar of pain as the man recoiled and fell backward. Marco leaped to his feet and legged it as fast as he could.

“Not that way, Marco,” cried a voice from the other side of the street. Marco looked up and saw that almost everyone was staring at him. In the same instant he also saw a man come running around the corner of Ryesgade at full speed and he was now only a hundred and fifty meters away.

Marco glanced around. A taxi from Østerport station with its green for-hire light on was heading toward him. He darted across the road to flag it down as the cyclist got to his feet and his second pursuer closed in.

“There’s one more, Marco!” the voice shouted.

He looked over his shoulder and saw his father standing with his hands cupped to his mouth. He was about to cry out again, but at the same moment Zola came from behind and shoved him so hard that his father lost his footing, stumbled over the cycle path and out into the street.

Marco saw the bus slam on its brakes and swerve. He heard people scream as his father disappeared beneath it, but was immediately compelled to turn and face the new threat bearing down on him. It was a dreadful moment. His father had just been run over, and Marco himself was surrounded on three sides as he stood at the curb, his arms flailing at the oncoming taxi.

An immigrant sat behind the wheel, the kind of taxi driver who didn’t own his own vehicle and wanted to demonstrate how content he was to drive someone else’s, as long as it had a leather interior and a motor powerful enough to leave everything else in its wake.

“Drive!” Marco commanded shrilly, his whole body feeling like it was about to collapse.

Two of his pursuers appeared alongside the taxi, hammering their fists against the window as the driver gave them the finger and floored the accelerator.

They took off so fast that Marco didn’t manage to see his father under the bus, only the blood spreading over the asphalt and the horrified crowd that had gathered on the pavement within seconds.

The last thing he saw before the Skoda Superb shot across Trianglen was the bus driver behind the steering wheel, face buried in his hands. Then his eyes locked on to Zola’s. The man was standing with his head held high, cold as ice amid the tumult of onlookers, none of whom seemed to have noticed what he had done.

That’s what’s in store for you, Zola’s look told him.

“Terrible accident. Happens all too often, if you ask me. People drive like shit.” The taxi driver looked at Marco in the rearview mirror. “Where to?”

Marco sat with his head back, gasping for air. If he leaned forward he knew he would be sick. His father had tried to warn him, and for that Zola had killed him.

His father had tried to save him. His father.

Marco pictured his eyes. They were green-brown and full of warmth. This loving gaze was from a distant time, he realized that. But his father had just tried to warn him, so who cared about the time in between?

Now his father was dead and Zola had got away. And the taxi driver was asking him where he wanted to go.

Only five minutes ago he would have said the airport. Yesterday, he would have said Tilde’s house.

Now, he no longer knew…

Zola had murdered in cold blood, and Marco had seen with his own eyes how he’d done it. The man was completely without feeling, as he must also have been the time he turned Miryam into an invalid. William Stark had been killed just as cynically, and most likely others besides. And it was with that same callousness that Zola would have killed him. Feeling nothing.

“Have you gone deaf, mate, or what? Where do you want to go? You’ve got money, yeah?”

Marco nodded and passed two hundred kroner to the driver.

“OK, two hundred. Think about it for a bit.”

Marco shook his head. He didn’t need to think. Zola’s eyes had decided for him. Marco was staying to complete his mission. Zola was going to pay, no matter what.

“They weren’t half after you, those guys out there. Something to do with drugs, was it? Yeah, I know all about it. As soon as you start doing a bit of business for yourself, they flip totally out, don’t they? It’s a downer. Well, whaddaya say? Found out where you want to go?”

“Do you know the Hereford Beefstouw next to Tivoli Gardens?” Marco asked.

“Sure, I’m a taxi driver, aren’t I? Ask me something I don’t know and you can have your two hundred back.”