‘AK is a first name and another first name,’ says Lizard Man. ‘Both are nicknames, both made up by me. Nobody else knows them but me. Not even AK.’
‘That makes finding the exact number rather difficult,’ I admit and glance to the side. AK looks as though he cares neither for our discussion nor for the origins of his name. ‘As I was saying, I’ve been doing some calculations and—’
‘Why didn’t you mention these calculations earlier?’
‘I only calculated them today. I had an idea today. This morning, to be precise.’
‘Right,’ Lizard Man says in that icy voice of his. ‘You suddenly had an idea when an SUV nearly ran you over, AK took you in a headlock and threw you in the back of the car. That’ll give people ideas. I’ve usually heard quite a few ideas by this point in proceedings. I don’t suppose you’ve seen a broad-shouldered man who was supposed to pay you a visit?’
The car arrives at an intersection, then turns onto a smaller, winding road. The streetlamps quickly disappear behind us. Then we continue through the autumnal night.
‘To pay me a visit?’ I ask.
Lizard Man’s eyes leave the surface of the road and glance in the mirror for a second.
‘To remind you of the loan,’ he says. ‘It’s a funny thing. I told the guy to pop round and tell you the same thing we told you at our last meeting, only in a slightly different way. So that you’d really understand. The guy left, then called us on the way, said he wasn’t sure whether it was an amusement park or an adventure park.’
I’m about to tell him it is an adventure park, that the difference is significant and that it is based on this, that and the other, but at the same time I realise this is one conversation I’d rather not prolong. I bite my lip.
‘But since then,’ Lizard Man continues. ‘We haven’t heard a peep out of him. We drove around the park, his car is nowhere to be seen. It seems he’s completely disappeared. So you haven’t seen him either?’
I can see those reptilian eyes in the driver’s mirror, the road ahead lit in the faint moonlight.
‘I don’t remember any particularly broad-shouldered customers,’ is my honest answer. Most of the park’s clientele are distinctly slender.
Lizard Man doesn’t say anything at first. The houses are now fewer and further between.
‘I’ve tried calling him,’ he continues. ‘But it doesn’t connect to his phone. Which makes me a little worried, if you get my drift. Worried something might have happened to him.’
The phone. Of course. It’s at the bottom of the freezer, probably in one of the man’s pockets. I only took his car keys.
‘So I thought I’d better ask you too, ask whether you’d spoken to him, and how that conversation went.’
‘I haven’t spoken to anyone broad-shouldered,’ I tell him, and that too is true. We did not speak at any point.
Lizard Man is silent. He indicates in good time before turning and drives exactly at the speed limit. Our arrival at the turning is exemplary driving. He would be a dream student for any driving instructor. Gravel patters against the bottom of the car. The night is both dark and faintly lit; the moon is like a dimmed projector light. Little by little the car slows. The gravel turns to dirt. The car begins to rock from side to side as the tyres sink into little potholes.
‘I’m offering ten thousand euros,’ I say.
‘The debt is two hundred and twenty thousand.’
‘But that money isn’t for you.’
He says nothing.
‘I’ll pay you, personally, ten thousand euros if you’ll set up a meeting,’ I say.
‘A meeting?’
‘The last time we met, you told me you represent someone.’
‘I did not. I never say things like that.’
‘You used the first-person plural. That provided the parameters for my hypothesis.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
His cold eyes gleam in the mirror. The car is moving very slowly now. We leave the cover of the trees and arrive at the shore of a pond or lake. How long did the drive take? I estimate between thirty and thirty-five minutes. I can’t see a house or cottage on either side of the car. This is nothing but an overgrown shore. The motor is switched off. I’ve read about how challenging it is for start-up companies, how hard it is to get investors fired up over a new idea, how quickly you have to make an impression. But I doubt many people have to pitch their business ideas in the middle of the night by a lake where they will be drowned if the idea doesn’t find the necessary traction. Because now I realise that is precisely what is happening. The clock is ticking.
‘In this context, it means ten thousand euros,’ I say. ‘In cash or as a bank transfer. To your personal account. In exchange for organising a meeting with whoever you’re working for, someone who has the kind of money at his disposal that my brother borrowed from you. I repeat, for organising this meeting, I’ll give you ten thousand euros.’
AK tightens his hold on my wrist. I feel his pincer-like grip, but at the same time my fingers have lost all sensation. That bass is still booming from his headphones. It must be one of the longest songs ever uploaded.
‘First you didn’t have any money,’ says Lizard Man. He sounds less than convinced. ‘Now you want to cough up ten grand just for me to make a phone call.’
‘This is very simple mathematics,’ I explain. ‘I have ten thousand, but I don’t have, say, three hundred thousand. In order to obtain the larger sum, I’m prepared to pay a smaller sum first. And once I have acquired this theoretical three hundred thousand, you’ll have even more.’
‘How much more?’
‘That depends what we decide at the meeting.’
‘Meaning?’
‘The ten thousand requires a certain amount of patience. I’ll tell you at the meeting.’
‘How do I know you’re good for it?’
‘I am an actuary. I don’t make unfounded promises.’
For a moment, everything is motionless. Then Lizard Man raises his hand, points straight ahead. The still water gleams in the moonlight like ice.
‘Do you see that?’
I answer in the affirmative.
‘There’s plenty of room at the bottom for a skinny man like you.’
‘I understand,’ I say but decide against considering out loud the human to cubic-volume ratio or criminological dimensions of the matter.
Again Lizard Man glances in the mirror, then he opens the door and slides himself out of the car. He walks a short distance, and I see him raising a phone to his ear. Then he disappears behind the trees.
I am sitting in a relatively new, high-end, Sino-Swedish vehicle.
AK, a man the size of a mountain, is holding my hand.
In other circumstances, this would be statistically speaking one of the safest ways of travelling anywhere. Tonight it is one of the most perilous. When you turn the equation around, everything changes. At the same time, I think of my surprising calm. This is partly explained by the fact that I’m utterly exhausted and in some form of shock. I can feel it almost like a fever in my muscles, in the agitation of my mind, which must surely have achieved critical mass, crossed a final frontier. As though I have reached the top of a tall mountain: on the one hand, I am being whipped by the wind in all directions, but on the other, at least I can still breathe.
Lizard Man appears from somewhere. He is no longer speaking on the phone, but now his arms swing freely at his sides as he walks. His expression is impossible to read. He gets into the car, closes the door and makes himself comfortable in his seat. This takes a minute. Then he sits there in silence.
I realise his next words will determine whether I will be heading to the nearest cash point or for an extended walk off a very short pier. His iguana eyes appear in the rear-view mirror. I haven’t felt my fingers for some time, and now I can’t feel my other limbs either. I am in mid-air, a single, cold, almighty heartbeat.