Sun on Fire (30 page)

“I am fully aware that when the police receive this, they will charge me with the murder. But I received my sentence a long time ago—I’m hardly going to worry about the judgment of any court. My health is not up to incarceration, and it’s in no one’s interest to hospitalize me. I think that a fair sentence would be house arrest here in my home until the mortician comes to collect me. It won’t be long now.

“And that is the end of this account.”

The recording was over, and Birkir rewound the cassette. He looked at Rakel. “You know Fabían well, don’t you?” he said.

“Yeah, I guess. Better than most, I think.”

“As witness to his confession, do you think he is physically capable of doing what he describes in this statement?”

Rakel replied, “Fabían has never been capable of any kind of physical exertion. He’s very skinny, the dear boy. But in my profession, working with addicts and mentally ill folks, I have seen the most improbable of wretches take violent action when pushed to the limit. I think that Fabían could have wielded a knife if the occasion really demanded it.”

“Would you feel able to testify to this?”

“Well, of course I didn’t actually witness the deed, but I have confirmed with my signature that Fabían himself wrote this confession of his own free will and of clear mind. He did it the moment he returned from Berlin because he is always so afraid that he might not last the day. He taped this statement after your first visit, and I wrapped up his bloody jacket and shirt and put them in the freezer to preserve the evidence that will prove his story. He couldn’t bear the thought of someone else taking the blame for this.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to disturb him for a bit,” Birkir said.

“Go ahead, then. Actions have consequences, of course. Fabían will have to deal with that.”

Birkir hesitated, and said, “We’re investigating another murder that’s linked to this one. Do you know anything about that?”

“Another murder? No, God forbid. Fabían hasn’t left the house since he came back. He can’t possibly be guilty of that.”

D
o you remember me?”

The voice came from the restroom doorway. Inside, the fat guy rinsed his hands at a shiny steel sink.

“Yeah, we talked earlier this evening,” he replied without looking up.

“Yes, but I mean . . . do you recognize me from the past?”

“Should I?”

“Maybe you can’t, Anton. It was a long time ago—I was only nine years old.”

Anton picked up a clean towel and carefully dried his hands. Then, lifting the towel to his puffy face, he wiped the sweat from his brow.

“Nine, huh,” he said, pausing to check his reflection in the mirror. “That’s a good age.”

After a prolonged silence, the other man said, “That was the last good year of my life.”

Anton studied the man in the doorway. Then his small, deep-set eyes came to life as a hint of a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth.

“Yeah, I remember,” he said. “I kept an eye on you for a few years after our encounter. You were the first one.”

“The first one?” the other man said, almost whispering.

“I remember being kind of clumsy. I might have hurt you a little.”

“You did.”

Anton threw away the towel and walked toward the door. The other man moved aside as Anton stepped into the hallway. At first he headed for the stairs leading to the lower floors, but then he turned back and entered a room directly across from the restroom. The other man followed.

It was an impressive office with a large desk at one end. Anton flicked on the light switch by the door and said, without looking around, “It was impatience and inexperience. I was only eighteen—and much too impetuous the first few times.”

“Yes,” the other said. “I guess you were.”

Anton drew a cigar from his jacket pocket and lit it with an elegant lighter. His jowly cheeks rippled as he puffed a few times to get the glow going.

With his lighter still in hand, he lit two tall candles on a low table nearby and continued: “But it didn’t take me long to figure out how to do it right. Once I did, I never hurt anybody again. Now I know how to make the boys feel good. I even teach them about themselves.”

The men scrutinized each other. Finally the other one broke the silence. “So you are still abusing children?”

Anton shook his head in disdain. “I have never abused anybody. That’s the truth. To say otherwise is just spreading the ignorance and lies of those who have no concept of sincere friendship and tenderness. I merely guide my boys toward maturity. I open them up to new and wonderful dimensions. I allow them to experience their bodies completely for the first time. If I get my hands on them before they’re spoiled by adolescence, I always succeed. They cry with pleasure when we’re done.”

The other man gasped. “Who are these boys? How do you get away with this?” His voice trembled.

“You just need to be careful. People are so prejudiced. I mostly go to Indonesia. The boys there are beautiful.”

“Doesn’t anyone ever press charges?”

“Charges? No, of course not. I pay well, and everything is taken care of. I only do business with the safest houses.”

“Jesus! People are selling these children to you?”

Anton moved across the room and sat down in a large, comfortable chair behind the desk. “The hosts know me. They know how gentle I am. They save the new boys for me because nobody else is as tender with them. Many of the other customers are monsters. Unfeeling trash. They can ruin a boy in ten minutes, frighten them so badly that they shut down forever.”

“You need to be stopped,” the other man said.

Anton went on as if he hadn’t heard. “I have a gentle touch—the kind the boys find soothing. You have to be patient with them.”

After a short silence, the other man firmly said, “Someone has to put a stop to this.”

Digging some change from his jacket pocket, he stacked the coins in a small pile and slid them across the table next to the candlesticks. “Someone has to put a stop to this,” he repeated.

Unconcerned with his visitor, Anton picked up the telephone receiver and dialed a long number, reading it from a piece of paper on the desk. After a brief wait, he introduced himself in English. He was speaking to a hotel employee in some city or other, booking a room for a few nights. He read out his credit card number and had to repeat it twice.

Meanwhile, the other man licked his right thumb and index finger and pinched out one of the candle flames.

W
hile consuming his second roll at the Bank Street café, Gunnar tried Birkir’s cell number a few times, but all he got was voice mail, so eventually he called Dóra.

“Get a car and pick me up,” he said.

Dóra protested. She was busy examining evidence related to the murder in the apartment on Austurbrún. “Call a cab and go home and rest,” she said. “You need to give yourself a chance to get better.”

“Please,” Gunnar said. “I have to test a theory. If it works, it’ll lead us to Magnús.”

“Listen, the chief is in charge of that. He’ll send the SWAT team with you if you know something.”

“I don’t know if I know something. It’s just a hunch. I need to check it out. Then I’ll brief the chief. I promise.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I know I’m crazy,” Gunnar said, but Dóra had already said good-bye and hung up.

“Fuck,” Gunnar said, and looked at Emil. “Hey, buddy. You got a driver’s license?”

The writer laughed. “Driving a car is the lowliest activity the human species has ever indulged in. Besides which, I never go outside zip code 101 in this godforsaken city. So, no, I do not have a driver’s license.”

11:20

When Birkir entered his room, Fabían was sitting up in bed, smoking. “Good morning,” he half whispered.

“Good morning,” Birkir replied, and sat himself down in a chair next to the bed. He was silent for a moment, and then said, “Rakel gave me the envelope with your confession and the cassette tape.”

“That’s good. It was beginning to weigh heavily on me. Were you able to listen to the recording?”

“Yes, but I need more detail. Do you feel able to talk?”

“I’ll try.”

Birkir dug out his voice recorder, switched it on, and put it on the nightstand. Having dictated the usual formalities, he said, “Tell me how you found Anton in the ambassador’s office.”

Fabían put his joint in the ashtray. “I’ll attempt to tell you everything that happened. I’ve tried to put that evening out of my mind, but I still remember it pretty clearly.”

He took a tissue from a box on the nightstand and held it against his mouth as he coughed several times, and then wiped blood from his lips and threw the tissue into a wastebasket. When he started speaking, his voice was weaker than before.

“Late that evening in the embassy, I needed to take a leak and empty my colostomy bag. The bathroom on the second floor was occupied, so I went upstairs. I was feeling too weak to walk up the stairs to the third floor, so I took the elevator. Once I was in the elevator, I thought I might as well go on up to the fourth floor, that maybe the bathroom up there would more likely be free. But
I found Anton there. The door was half open and he was washing his hands, just as if everything was fine and dandy, and I was standing there with a full colostomy bag and a cancer eating up my insides, all because of that man. I asked if he recognized me.”

Fabían’s voice trailed off.

“And did he recognize you?” Birkir asked after a while.

“Yes.”

“Did he apologize for what he’d done?”

“No. Admittedly, I didn’t have the stomach to detail the injuries he’d inflicted on me. And he just went on talking, wanting to convince me that what he did to children was a pleasure and satisfaction for them. I couldn’t take it. I visualized scared little boys looking at this fat, disgusting man who didn’t even speak their language or understand when they begged him to leave them alone. For the first time in my life I had the urge to hurt someone. I knew about the knife in Helgi’s candlestick—I’d been there when they’d hidden it, seen how it was done. And I knew which candlestick had the knife in it. Although they look alike, they’re not identical. Anton lit the candles when we moved into the ambassador’s office . . . I’ve no idea why. But once he started rambling on about his kindness and sensitivity, I’d had enough. I took some coins from my pocket and made a little stack of them on the table. Then I snuffed out the candle and wrapped my handkerchief around the candlestick before picking it up.”

Fabían reached for a bottle of water and started to take a sip from it, but then grimaced and put it down, saying, “I can’t keep anything down.”

He resumed his narrative. “Helgi had told us that it would take a certain amount of force to break the base, so I took great care as I banged the candlestick down on to my stack of coins. Anton was talking on the phone and hardly seemed to notice the noise.
When I lifted up the candlestick, the knife lay there on the table, and I picked it up and concealed it with my arm. I moved toward the door, but then turned and approached Anton, who was still on the phone, looking out the window. When I was almost on top of him, he looked up with a weird look of surprise. I grasped the knife with both hands and plunged it into the center of his belly and pulled downward, letting go when I felt something warm splashing my hands. Anton let out a kind of howl and tried to stand up, but I gave him a push and he slumped back down again, staring at his lap as if unable to understand what all this mess was. I saw that this man would not hurt any more children, and all I could feel was relief. I turned away and went to the bathroom. It took me a while to clean up and change my colostomy bag. Also, I tried to clean the sink so as not to leave any evidence. I rinsed my shirt sleeve the best I could, and I scrunched up my jacket. Then I began to feel cold. I went downstairs and told Helgi what I had done. He took charge and got me back to the hotel, where I gave him the whole story. We flew home to Iceland later that day.”