Ex-soldier Birmingham-gangster bets his life on luck and illegalities, adroit wit and burning passion streaking his blood-stained fingertips as a dire quarrel commence between himself and the disturbed Dane who purloined his lover.
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SOI-DISANT GANGSTERS
WHEN THE DAY CAME and a childhood friend approached Nikolaj Brogaard he was beyond astonished, a thrill overcoming him before anything else, worrying him not once as it should. This will be fun, he was sure. What bad could come from reuniting with a couple of childhood mates? Although he did hope that they had forgotten how he so awkwardly had to flee subsequent to the murder on his mother's doctor.
A voice close to impossible to misplace for it was one that came from years of smoking resonated, scrubby and hoarse to the likeness of an elderly. This man, however, was one shining in his fourth - or was it fifth - decade, living his best life, acting king of his childhood playgrounds, renowned about the entirety of Scandinavia for his butchering, claiming all goods as the welfare allowed only those fit survival. With the pipe dangling from his mouth, rings of tobacco smoke whirled the air, the youngest of the Butcher Brother's was spoken with tremendous enthusiasm.
"Det var Satans—og her gik jeg og troede du for længst var prællet af." <As I live and breathe—and here I thought you would be rolling in your grave by now.>
His deluding, cold-blooded laughter came all the way from his stomach and Nikolaj approached Bjørn with a great, big smile, dismissing the many hooks penetrating pig carcasses galore around him. The familiar language was like music in Nikolaj's ears. So seldom heard he it spoken and though it ought to bring him nothing but deficient memories, it made his heart splutter and had the butterflies in his stomach sprout their wings. Those wings. "Hvordan har du det min gamle ven?" <How are you, old friend?>
The man to arrange this meeting had been Bjørn Brendtsen himself. As he now had been in this world of gore for some time, he felt confident in meddling with some of his competitors while making friends where needed. It was long ago, sometime in his early age, that his hands had become drenched in blood and due circumstances and corrupted states, he was forced to make drastic changes and how it happened to evolve into a methodical butchering service for those with the money, he did not mind in the slightest. The only thing different from back then was he found himself enjoying this life. Upon shaking hands and accepting a deal on behalf of himself and his brother, Bjørn made peace with the fact that there was no turning back from the Hell they would be entering. This was where the family name went from drenched to stained with blood. Now, they cut human flesh rather than that of an animal.
It was to great surprise that Bjørn learned an old friend of his – perhaps not much of a friend, while definitely an acquaintance – too, had made a name for himself in this gangster business. Shaking Nikolaj Brogaard's hand, Bjørn's eyes showed his marvel rather than the fright they contained. A smile spread and tugged on Nikolaj's lip, seeing right through the facade and he showed his well-cared-for set of teeth, something Bjørn could not relate to.
Nikolaj dug right into it, "hørte du solgte din sjæl til Satan," said he in a husky voice, more of a statement than the question he made it sound like. <Heard you sold your soul to the devil.>
