Life Deluxe (33 page)

Gate-out party for JW. The guy had been out for less than twenty-four hours.

Hägerström could have flashed his police badge and been let in. Then he realized: he didn’t have a police badge anymore.

Instead, he mentioned JW’s name to the bouncer and was waved through immediately. It couldn’t be because JW was particularly well known in this place—after all, the guy had been locked up for over five years. But there were many other ways to put yourself at the head of the line. The premier method spelled out: money talks.

Stureplan: Stockholm’s only real district for the party elite. This place was called Sturecompagniet. It was as far from moderation as you could get, miles away from the realities of ordinary Svens. A place that all Sweden loved to hate, but that everyone under thirty probably dreamed of getting into. It was jet-set-aspirational, glamorous—hetero-normative to the infinite power.

This was where JW had come six years ago in the pursuit of happiness. To become emperor of the silver-spoon-bred, tsar of the brats, flashy king of the Stureplan hill. And how had he done it? By becoming the royal purveyor of cocaine. JW was the high-class dealer everyone had wanted to know, the backslick brat who bathed in Benjamins. And then he fell, flat on his face. The eternal rule could never have been truer: the higher you climb, the harder you fall. Icarus ignites.

Hägerström wondered whom JW could have invited tonight.

The chaos was almost as great beyond the gatekeepers as outside the velvet rope. The place was crawling with people ten years his junior. Boys from the countryside, who had smeared so much gel in their hair that it would take two months to wash it out, were waving their Visa cards in the air—not even Gold Cards—wondering if they could pay the cover. The cashier shook her head. “Cash only, boys. How’d
you
get in, anyway?” Less green dudes from the inner city and the better suburbs
were wearing tight jeans and their shirts unbuttoned. They glided past in the VIP line, pretended to be blue-blooded for real. But their shirts were shiny, and their shoes had rubber soles. Still, the hosts in dark suits and gloved hands ushered them in. Clusters of girls in clownish makeup who were probably underage were giggling relentlessly—so happy to have gotten in. Other chicks with more confident style and purses that cost two monthly police salaries swept past the cash registers with long strides, putting one foot in front of the other as though they were on a catwalk.

He thought about the girls he had tried to meet during his pre-Anna years. As soon as they had wanted to start dating for real or began talking about defining their relationship, he had pulled out. Of course he knew that he was turned on by guys, got hard for guys, even though he had no steady relationships. Instead, he was a regular at the Side Track Bar, the steam room at the S.A.T.S. gym, Zenit-gym on Mäster Samuelsgatan, US Video. He had visited the hill on Långholmen a few times on warm summer nights.

But he hoped he might get turned on by girls yet. It would be easier that way. Still, the thought of a permanent relationship with a woman made him anxious.

Then he thought of JW’s sister. The girl who had hung out at Stureplan so much, the one who had apparently disappeared. Who JW had been looking for. Hägerström wondered what had happened. And how it had all affected JW.

Back to the present. It was Friday night, and Johan “JW” Westlund was celebrating that he had been freed. Gate-out bash for a former prince of Stureplan.

Again: Hägerström wondered who would be there.

He couldn’t find him. Hägerström walked around and around, up and down. The place was larger than he remembered from the last time he had been there. That was eight years ago.

It was late—Hägerström had wanted JW to be good and tanked by the time he got there.

He had to push through the crowd, carefully but forcefully shove aside the teenage girls and men his age who were ogling those very same girls. The scars on his stomach strained even though they had healed beautifully.

The music was pounding, some Eurotechno that Hägerström didn’t know the name of.

The crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling were gigantic.

The strobe lights on the dance floor caught people in photo-flashes.

He thought about Operation Tide.

The break-in into Gustaf Hansén’s house had ended abruptly. When Hägerström fled the scene, he regretted having parked the transport vehicle so far away—for a while, he didn’t think he was going to make it all the way. He might have lost as much as a quart of blood.

But afterward he was happy that the car had been parked where it was; otherwise the assailants would have seen that he fled in a car from the Department of Corrections. If JW had found that out, the whole operation would have been over.

Hägerström had driven away as well as he could. He had held one hand over his stomach. He had been able to make it only a couple hundred yards. Then he had stopped and called for an ambulance.

One day later the doctor came in to see him where he was lying in a bed in Danderyd’s hospital.

The knife-man’s first stab had given him a superficial flesh wound that needed only three stitches. The second stab had cut two inches deep, right below his navel. He had needed six stitches, she said, but he had also been incredibly lucky. A fraction of an inch to the side, and his liver could have been worthless for the rest of his life.

Hägerström was back at Salberga three days later. He told JW he had come down with an acute stomach bug and that was why he hadn’t been able to drive him back to the prison. JW maintained his poker face—maybe he didn’t even know that someone had been inside Hansén’s house.

Unfortunately, the break-in didn’t do much for Operation Tide—not as much as Hägerström and Torsfjäll had hoped. He hadn’t had time to look around long enough before he was attacked. But at least they had come to understand three things. First of all: Gustaf Hansén was somehow connected to JW’s business. Second of all: Gustaf Hansén was a shady person. He wasn’t registered at the house where he appeared to live when he was in Sweden, and he apparently had two sets of alarm systems, one that went to a normal security company, and one that seemed to go to a service that was much more violent by nature.
Third of all: the reminder on Hansén’s computer:
To do today: lunch with JW, call Nippe, call Bladman, dinner with Börje
. Bladman was mentioned. But also two other people: someone named Nippe and someone named Börje. Sure, it was possible that they had nothing to do with anything. But they could also be important.

Every single one of Hägerström’s intuitive antennae were saying that there was more to be found in that house. But Torsfjäll wanted to wait to get an actual search warrant.

After Hägerström saw JW coming out of the house, Torsfjäll had been in touch with Taxi Stockholm and gotten the address where JW and Hansén had been dropped off: Restaurant Gondolen by Slussen. The inspector sent an undercover officer. The cop wasn’t able to get any good photos but could report that the party at the restaurant had consisted of one younger and two middle-aged men who spoke Swedish. The table had been booked by someone named Niklas Creutz. A less-than-educated guess was that Niklas was Nippe.

What’s more, Hägerström knew who he was. His sister, Tin-Tin, knew Nippe’s sister. According to all the conventions, Nippe should not find himself in the same context as a convicted upstart—Nippe belonged to one of Sweden’s wealthiest families. The Creutz clan owned the fifth largest bank, invoice, collection, and currency exchange empire in the country. It was strange.

JW approached Hägerström with open arms.

“Hey screwy, great to see ya.”

Hägerström returned the embrace.

“I’ve got an open tab at the bar. Order whatever you like. This used to be my territory, I was a regular here. I’ve got a lot to make up for.”

There was a table behind JW. On it were two large silver-colored buckets filled with ice. Two magnum bottles in each bucket. Drained champagne glasses. There were also small bottles of tonic water, Coke, and ginger ale, plus two half-empty bottles of vodka.

Eight men and four girls were sitting around the table. Hägerström recognized three of the guys. Crazy Tim and Charlie Nowak were there—both had gated out. They were beaming—as happy as JW was to be breathing free air again. And to even be sitting at a table at a place like this—it was a dream experience of a lifetime for boys like them. Hägerström hoped they would be able to handle having him show up here.

The third face he recognized did not really come as a surprise, not anymore anyway. It was Nippe.

Hägerström leaned over the table, greeted Crazy Tim and Charlie. They didn’t seem to care that a CO was tagging along for the party. Maybe they knew that JW had used Hägerström on the inside.

“Hey, boys, I’m done with Salberga too. Did you know?”

They looked questioningly at him.

“I quit,” Hägerström said.

They laughed. Raised their champagne glasses. Toasted freedom. Toasted their new ability to lock the bathroom door from the inside for the first time in years. Toasted the fact that they were going to take Stockholm by storm.

JW introduced Hägerström to the others. They all seemed to be pen pals, except for Nippe. Hägerström read their half-lazy gazes, their tattoos, their jeans and tight T-shirts. Their style was as out of place here as JW’s backslick had been on the inside. But maybe not, on closer examination. Hägerström scanned the place one more time. Not everyone in here was rocking a bratty style. Many of the men were signaling other affiliations, money that didn’t come from dull finance jobs.

Nippe leaned over and introduced himself to Hägerström.

“Hi, I’m Niklas Creutz.”

A different manner of speaking, clear, well-enunciated Swedish. Those distinct upper-class sound markers: the long
a’
s, the slightly nasal voice. It was as far from prison idiom as you could get.

JW leaned over toward Hägerström. “We call him Nippe. He’s an old friend of mine.”

“Nice to meet you. My name is Martin Hägerström.”

“It’s a pleasure,” Nippe said. “Are you Tin-Tin’s big brother?”

“Yes,” Hägerström said. “Do you know her?”

“My older sister is a good friend of hers. Have you met my sister, Hermine?”

Hägerström nodded. Smiled.

They felt a connection. Kinship.

Hägerström identified his goal for the night: to find out how Nippe was involved with JW.

No one else came to JW’s gate-out bash. Hägerström almost felt bad for the guy—he obviously didn’t have a lot of friends. More than five years in prison, and only eight people came to celebrate him—plus Hägerström, of course. But he was fake. Then it struck him that there
might be loads of people who wanted to celebrate JW but didn’t want to be seen with him in public.

Hägerström made his way over to the bar. Tried to push through the crowd. Bumpkins waved their Visa cards around. Flashy guys waved five-hundred-kronor bills. It took him fifteen minutes to get the attention of one of the bartenders. He ordered a bottle of Heineken. Said his name was Johan Westlund and that he needed his card. The bartender flipped through the credit cards that people had left in the bar. Returned. Put the card on the counter.

Hägerström picked it up. Looked it over. Four seconds. Memorized the card number. 3435 9433 2343 3497. MasterCard. Gold. Issued by a bank in the Bahamas: Arner Bank & Trust.

Hägerström gave the card back, then returned to his seat.

It was obvious that JW wanted to connect Hägerström with Nippe. He made conversation. Asked Hägerström questions just to accentuate his background. Martin Hägerström wasn’t some middle-class Sven, that much was certain. He came from the same planet as Nippe. But Nippe had registered as much already after two seconds.

Nippe drank as much as everyone else. Hägerström didn’t understand how he dared sit next to these thugs. If he was mixed up in JW’s business, he ought to want to stay as far away as possible. The table was a stage. Hundreds of spectators were eyeing the lineup of men who were burning tens of thousands of kronor tonight.

Hägerström had gotten Nippe to take four shots, on top of the at least six glasses of champagne and three drinks he had already had. They had made enough small talk. JW was busy, he was talking to two girls. Nippe was drunk enough. It was time.

Hägerström took his chance, leaned over to him. “So, how do you know JW?”

A lucky question. Nippe started bubbling, like the champagne glass in his hand.

“Maybe I shouldn’t be here. JW burned so many bridges. But he’s a damn nice guy, you know.”

“I agree.”

Nippe was slurring his words. “You know, I knew him before he lost control. We used to party around here and stuff. And we went to the Stockholm School of Economics together too. He’s a genius, did you
know that? A mathematical and law genius. He was in the top three on every single exam. He studied law at the same time. He was one of those guys that the British investment banks come courting before they even finish their third semester.”

Hägerström nodded, encouraged Nippe to continue.

“JW wasn’t like the people who just studied in order to pass the exams with high enough grades. He learned stuff in order to use it right away, kind of like the entrepreneurial fucks from the countryside who’re in the process of taking over SSE. The difference is that JW was like one of us, almost.”

Nippe drained his glass. Hägerström sipped his.

He poured more. Thought:
Drink, Nippe, drink
.

Nippe gulped. “He wanted too much, JW. All that drug-dealing stuff was just rotten luck, if you ask me. JW was running a little too fast, you know? But he didn’t mean any harm. So I thought I’d give him a chance. He’s damn smart, and he’s got a good heart. He’s told me that he’s already started loaning money to people in the prison world, guys who need fast cash. I don’t think he should have to spend his time doing things like that.”

Hägerström played along. “No, he’s too good for that. I really like him. You know I worked at the prison, right?”

“Yeah, JW told me. How’d you end up there?”