Wolf Hour

10 Rushing Sounds, October 2016

When Bob emerged from the elevator three men from Homicide were standing by the unit’s new coffee machine. Hanson, Joe Kjos and a new guy whose name Bob couldn’t remember.

‘Here’s the wizard,’ said Olav Hanson. ‘Didn’t manage to transport yourself here in twenty minutes after all?’

‘Traffic,’ said Bob over Joe Kjos’s laughter. ‘Where is this guy?’

‘He’s waiting by your desk.’

‘Oh yeah? Who let him in?’

‘Me,’ said Hanson, exchanging looks with the two others. There was an anticipation in their sniggers that made Bob uneasy.

‘It’s a personal matter so I thought it was best if the two of you dealt with it face-to-face.’

‘I see.’

Bob unbuttoned his coat as he headed into the empty office landscape. He heard whispering and knew that the three were following him. He slowed as the person sitting at his desk turned. Even sitting down Bob could see the man was huge. Hanson came up behind Bob.

‘He says you screwed his wife,’ he whispered.

Bob swallowed. ‘Oh yeah? So does that make him your father, Hands-On?’

‘Joke all you like, Aaa-ss, but I think you’re scared. Maybe you want us to call in a SWAT team?’

Low cackles of laughter from behind. Bob felt that familiar rushing sound start up in his head. He walked on, a little faster now. The man in the chair got up.

‘Good evening, I’m Detective Oz,’ said Bob. He walked round his desk and sat down in his chair. Looked up at the man. A weak chin and a feminine mouth. Scar on one cheek. It didn’t have to mean he got in a lot of fights. But he was big. Very, very big. ‘Won’t you sit down again, Mr...?’

‘I’ll stay standing. My name is Tony Stärk.’ He was shaking. His voice, his lips, his whole body. ‘You raped my wife.’

Bob raised his head to meet the man’s gaze.

‘Raped? Jesus. Have you reported this?’

‘More or less raped.’ The man was so angry he was tripping over his own words. ‘Seduced. Persuaded. I don’t know what sort of fucking trick you used but my wife doesn’t do something like that of her own free will. Are you listening, you shitbag? You stay away from her, or I’ll crush you like a... like a...’

As Tony searched for a suitable metaphor, Bob glanced over toward his three colleagues who were following things from four yards away. Kjos was sniggering and Hanson’s face glowed with pleasure at Bob’s uncomfortable predicament. That rushing sound that had started when he was standing on the veranda hadn’t completely subsided. Now it sped up again. This had been a long day. Very long.

‘Louse,’ said Bob Oz.

‘What?’

‘I think the word you’re looking for is “louse”. And for what it’s worth, the description of me as a “shitbag” is pretty accurate. But “pig” would do even better. Because I am a pig. I have no idea who you’re talking about. I don’t recognise the name Stärk, and I’m terrible at first names, so maybe you could describe her for me? Is she dark? blonde?’

Tony’s heart-shaped mouth stayed open. ‘Blonde,’ he said.

‘Aha. Big breasts?’

‘Er, yes.’

By now the rushing sound felt like a large fan going full speed inside Bob’s head. He leaned back in his chair, curved his hand and moved it up and down in large gestures in front of his crotch. ‘Carry on, Stärk, please. Tell me more.’

He heard the sniggering from Kjos stop and glanced over at the three men watching. They looked shocked, even Hanson, whose face no longer reflected pleasure, just disgust.

Bob looked at Tony. Saw his words sinking in and knew he’d managed to pull the man down with him in his delicious, liberating free fall of rage. Tony took a step toward Bob.

‘I’m warning you, Tony,’ said Bob, his voice so quiet it sounded as if he was giving advice to a friend. ‘It will be a long time before you see your children again. You can get up to three years for assaulting a policeman in the performance of his duty.’

‘We have no children,’ said Tony.

‘Oh, but your wife is pregnant,’ said Bob with a smile. ‘I promise you. These little swimmers here...’ He pointed at his crotch.

As Tony leaned across the desk and swung out at him, Bob pushed off with his feet. There was a screeching sound from the wheels of his chair as it spun across the floor. The chair came to a halt against the neighbouring desk, and Tony was coming toward him, teeth bared, right hand ready to swing again. Bob grabbed the handcuffs from the top of the pile of papers so one of the steel brackets covered his knuckles. He stood up, saw the punch coming and dipped his knees so that it struck his forehead instead of full in the face, at the same time reeling backward and lashing out with his right hand. With the difference in height the punch came up from below and there was a crunching sound as the steel crushed the bone in Tony’s nose, followed by a second punch from the same fist that hit him full in the mouth. The man stood there, swaying.

‘My teeth...’ he said, before Bob hit him again. And again. A full storm raging in his head by this time. Blood mist. Acid rain.

Bob was still swinging as Hanson and the two others pulled him off the doubled-over body. Bob saw that the man’s face was covered in blood, with blood coming from every orifice, but that didn’t calm the storm in his head, just the opposite, now was its turn to speak, and it did so in a long, piercing tirade:

‘If you can’t hold on to your wife that’s your own fault, you fucking loser! You pathetic, worthless nothing! Go hang yourself, don’t come here blaming other people! It’s your fault. Your fault!’

I was lying in bed again.

I had made a mistake.

Dante was alive. I’d hit him in the stomach, too low down. How could that have happened? I had made allowances for the fact that I was higher than my target. Was there something about the physics, something in the calculations I had got wrong? Because if that was what had happened, I needed to know. It was important. I had to understand these things. If I didn’t then I’d get it wrong again, and there was no room for that. OK, easy now, the plan was still holding. But I needed to be sharper.

I closed my eyes. Heard a child crying. Knew it was her, Anna.

Two hand grenades underneath the bed. I don’t know why I found the thought so comforting. Maybe it was the certainty that if I couldn’t sleep, all I had to do was squeeze the safety catch on one of them, pull the pin and let go, and it would all be over. Anyway, it calmed me and I felt myself falling asleep. But just as I was about to slip away the other thought came back: that lying there in the hospital he was like that Maserati of his, Marco Dante. Protected. Off-limits. I felt the surge of adrenaline again, cursed silently and turned over on my side. Tried to think about something else. Listened out for the sound of crying.