Olav Hanson felt his heart stop beating in his chest.
Thirty years.
And it took him only a second and two syllables to recognise the voice.
He had to moisten his mouth before he could answer:
‘Who is this?’
‘I can hear that you know who this is, Milkman. And that you’re afraid. That’s good. It means you’ll listen extra close. One of my guys tells me you’re looking for Lobo.’
Wha? It came out as an a? as Hanson tried to speak at the same time as swallowing. ‘Lobo? But Lobo is... gone.’
‘Evidently not,’ said the voice. ‘MPD are looking for him. Suspicion of attempted murder. Which can only mean he’s got a bit rusty. Anyway, if Lobo really has shown up again then neither you nor I want the MPD to find him. We don’t want him sitting in some interrogation where they suggest a deal that involves him telling them everything he knows. About me. And about you, Milkman. Do you get my drift?’
Olav got it. He understood the nightmare was back. The man at the top, the one they called Die Man, and not just because of the diamonds in his teeth. ‘You want me to...?’
‘Yes, Milkman, I want you to make sure Lobo never gets as far as that interrogation.’
Olav Hanson closed his eyes. He heard something in the background. A woman, no, several women, groaning with exaggerated ecstasy and gasping ‘Oh, fuck, yeah!’ He had never asked Die why he called him Milkman. It could of course be because Olav was pale and blond or because people like him were typical of the Scandinavian farmer class. Or because he milked the gang for money. But it might also have been ironically meant, giving a milk-white name to a dirty cop who had done what was necessary each time investigations of some gangland killing made things hot for Die Man and his people. It hadn’t taken much. He might neglect to pass on information a witness had given him. Or invent something that suggested other perpetrators. Maybe technical evidence was destroyed by something that looked like an unlucky accident. So no, it hadn’t taken much. And they’d paid him well. Very well. All the same he’d quit. Why? It started with the triple homicide that evening thirty years ago. The girl in the wheelchair, the little boy and the mother. It hadn’t been one of Olav’s cases, but he’d managed to send it off in the wrong direction, and yes, he’d had trouble sleeping after that. But not so much that he hadn’t carried on helping Die Man for a while after. But then he’d become a father himself. And Die Man’s security boss Lobo had started massacring gangbangers, and Olav started getting scared of being pulled under himself. He had to get out, wake up from his nightmare. And he’d done it, managed to put it behind him.
Until now.
Because when Olav opened his eyes again the nightmare hadn’t ended.
‘You still there, Milkman?’
‘Yeah yeah,’ said Olav.
‘You know what you have to do?’
Olav thought. Pulled back thirty years in time he began thinking the way he used to think back then, and when he opened his mouth again it was like some familiar and fond old refrain: ‘Sure, but we have to talk about the price.’
For a moment the only sound was the monotonous groaning of those women. Then he heard Die burst out laughing. He laughed long and loud.
‘Nice try, Milkman. But this time let’s say you’re doing it for yourself. Because you don’t want to end up in jail. Especially not somewhere with my boys on the inside.’
‘Listen—’ Hanson began, but the connection went dead.
He stared out across the Mississippi. The river rose here in Minnesota, and the shit floated downriver. With every state it ran through the body count rose, until the bloodwater reached the sea and the chance of ending your life with a bullet was three times what it was here. That must have been why the chance of getting away with murder was higher down there. A cloud passed in front of the moon, the blackness returned and for an instant he felt an almost irresistible urge to throw himself into the water and just drift away. But he didn’t want that. He wanted to survive. That damned survival instinct would be the death of him one day — but not yet. He straightened out his bad knee. He’d worked, and he’d worn himself out, and mostly it had been honest work. He’d been robbed of opportunities before, been overlooked before, life wasn’t fair, death wasn’t either.
Sure, but we have to talk about the price.
Word for word that was what he had said the first time, when he made his choice and let the genie out of the bottle. He spat in the direction of the river and saw the foamy white ball carried off into the darkness. All right then. But this time, he wouldn’t be the one going under.
19
Four Hundred Yards, October 2016
There was a Donald Duck in the store. The noonday sun had cast a strip of shadow across its bill. A target had been drawn on the forehead and he was holding a pistol that was pointing at me. I walked to the counter. The wall behind it was hung with rifles for sale. They stocked magazines and pistol butts and put you in mind of Iraq and Afghanistan rather than deer hunting. An advertising poster hanging on a pillar had a picture of a machine gun and the text: Because sometimes the only thing that is going to make you feel better is shooting a machine gun.
A man wearing a camouflage cap and a T-shirt with TOTAL DEFENSE on it appeared.
‘Welcome to Mitro,’ he said. ‘What can I help you with today, sir?’
‘I have an hour with an instructor booked.’
The man looked down at something on the counter in front of him. ‘Mr... Jones?’
‘That’s right. I have problems with targets that are low down in the terrain.’
‘Yes, that’s what’s noted down here. Is that a rifle you’ve got there?’
I nodded and held up the bubble-wrap package.
‘Then just let me get a little ammo here. Follow me. The name’s Jim.’
‘Tomás.’ It just slipped out. No big deal but I would have to watch out, be on guard for any signs my concentration was slipping. Think. Think. All the time.
Jim took me outside. We passed two standard shooting ranges, one where you shot at clay pigeons and one with targets in the shape of human beings. Three-hundred-yard ranges for standard rifles, Jim told me. Two normal, nice-looking armed teenagers standing on a rise greeted us politely, him wearing a jacket with a Stars and Stripes logo, her in a sweater with PRO-GUN written on it.
‘Hi, Ola. Can you and Sigrid take a coffee break?’
The two nodded and disappeared. Behind the rise, down on the flat, was a wooden wall with ordinary round targets mounted on it.
‘Can you tell me what your specific problem is, Tomás?’
I said again that I couldn’t seem to adjust my sights to correct for the difference in height between myself and my target.
‘I see.’ Jim nodded, serious as a priest who’d just heard my confession. ‘But don’t worry, Tomás, you and me are gonna fix that here today.’
‘Thanks,’ I answered, couldn’t think of any other response.
‘Can I see your shooting position, Tomás?’
I unpacked my rifle and lay flat on one of the two rubber mats.
‘Aim and breathe,’ said Jim. I did as he said. He walked around and behind me, grunting as he used his foot to adjust my position here and there. Then he lay down next to me on the other mat.
‘Right,’ he began, clearing his throat. ‘It’s three hundred yards to those targets and they’re quite a bit lower as you can see. A lot of people protest when I say that even though the target is below you or above you, you’ve got to aim lower than you normally would. They can accept it when as is the case here the target is lower. But not that you have to aim lower even when your target is higher. Their logic protests—’