Free A summer with Kim Novak by Håkan Nesser Page B

we started to look for spoons. When we’d finely combed the square we carried on to the rubbish bins outside Pressbyrån by the station and around the other sausage stand in town: Herman’s by the tower block. By midnight we thought we had enough: fifty-three pieces. If you could expect about three balls and one plastic jobbie per go, it would all add up to one hundred and fifty balls and fifty-three jobbies.
    But we couldn’t possibly manage to chew all that gum and there probably wasn’t more than that in Karlesson’s dispenser anyway. We pedalled cautiously south along Mossbanegatan for the last two hundred metres. We didn’t meet a soul. Not so much as a cat crossed our path. It began to drizzle. We could look forward to working undisturbed under the cover of night, no doubt about it. I buzzed with anticipation, and Edmund was giddy with excitement. We braked in front of the slumbering shop.
    There were two handwritten notes on the empty glass container. On one it said ‘Broken’, on the other ‘Not in serviss’. Karlesson wasn’t known for his spelling.
    I stared at the dispenser for a few seconds. Then I saw red. I wasn’t normally one to lose the plot, but I couldn’t contain my rage.
    ‘Bloody fucking Cunt-Karlesson!’ I screamed and then I kicked the iron pole that the glass jar was mounted on with all my might.
    I was only wearing flimsy blue plimsolls and the pain that shot up from the now broken toe was so intense that I thought I was going to faint.
    ‘Calm down,’ Edmund said. ‘You’ll wake the whole town, you nutter.’
    I moaned and slid down the wall of the shop.
    ‘Aw, hell, I think I broke a toe,’ I whined. ‘How the hell can the sodding dispenser be broken tonight of all nights? It hasn’t been broken in three years.’
    ‘Does it hurt?’ Edmund wondered.
    ‘Like the devil.’ I forced the words through my clenched teeth.
    But the first wave of bright white pain was already abating. I pulled off my shoe and tried to wiggle my toes. It didn’t go well.
    ‘God’s finger,’ said Edmund after watching my wiggling for a moment.
    ‘What?’ I said.
    ‘The fact that the dispenser is kaput,’ said Edmund. ‘It must mean that we weren’t supposed to raid it tonight. It wasn’t meant to be, you know. God’s finger. That’s what it’s called.’
    I had a hard time being interested in anyone’s finger with my toe hurting so much, but I suspected that Edmund had a point.
    ‘Is there another dispenser in town?’ he asked.
    I thought about it.
    ‘Not outside. They have one inside Svea’s, I think.’
    ‘Hmm,’ said Edmund. ‘What should we do?’
    I tried to put my shoe back on. I couldn’t, so I shoved it in my rucksack and opened an apple juice instead. Edmund sank down next to me and we each took a sip.
    And then the police car arrived.
    The black-and-white Amazon came to a halt right in front of us and the driver rolled down the window.
    ‘What are you two doing?’
    I was speechless, even more speechless than when I’d stood before Ewa Kaludis in Lackaparken. More speechless than a dead herring. Edmund got up.
    ‘My friend hurt his foot,’ he said. ‘We’re on our way home.’
    ‘Is it serious?’ asked the police.
    ‘No, we’ll be fine,’ said Edmund.
    ‘You can have a lift if you need one.’
    ‘Cheers,’ said Edmund. ‘Maybe another time.’
    I stood up to show that everything was indeed fine.
    ‘All right,’ said the police. ‘Get on home now, it’s late.’
    And then they drove away. We hung back until their red taillights were out of sight. Then, Edmund said: ‘See? God works in mysterious ways. Now tell me, is there another dispenser in Hallsberg?’
    We made off with 166 balls, 45 rings and 20 -something other invaluable plastic thingies from the chewing-gum dispenser by the train station kiosk at Hallsberg. It went smoothly; the clock on the station building read five past two when we were done and my toe didn’t hurt at all any more. It