Life Deluxe (40 page)

* * *

That familiar criminal anxiety.

Didn’t help that Jorge was popping Valium, Atarax, benzo, and all kinds of Thai shit he got his hands on.

The criminal anxiety crawled all around him like a cockroach.

He remembered that the Thai customs authority’d photographed everyone who entered the country by the passport control area. He woke up with cold sweats over the fact that they’d been forced to shoot those nasty dogs by the helicopter base—the cops would try to trace the ammo. He nightmared about hand sweat that dripped DNA traces everywhere.

Jorge lost his appetite. Ran to the can seven, eight times a day. Lost weight like a needle junkie.

The criminal anxiety was fucking taking over.

And now: the Russian mafia with their Thai backup boys wanted to squeeze bills out of Mahmud.

Pattaya—he hated the place.

He walked past a beach party. Continued farther along the shore.

A soft breeze in his face. Chilled his nerves.

He knew what they had to do. What they should’ve done a long time ago.

They had to split tomorrow.

He would’ve preferred to wait a few days. But now it was too late.

He thought about Krabi, Koh Phi Phi, maybe Koh Lanta or Phuket.

Him and Mahmud knew the café business. They should be able to run some little joint down there. Become King Jorge Bhumibol instead of Bernadotte?

He turned up onto the boardwalk. Wanted to finish thinking over a glass of something.

A spot farther up. A blue sign: Poppy’s Bar. Didn’t look like a hooker joint. Neither Thai nor Russian girls in there.

A barstool at the bar. He sat down. Ordered a cup of tea. The bartender looked at him like he was a fag.

Next to him were a couple of backpacker chicks who must’ve ended up in the wrong place—Pattaya wasn’t their scene. One had dreadlocks and a T-shirt with text across the chest:
LISBETH SALANDER FOR PRESIDENT
. Maybe she was Swedish.

He thought about his buddy JW. The jet set wannabe from the north. The guy Jorge’d gotten to know when they dealt coke together five years ago. A good friend. He knew he’d gated out a few days ago.

If he and Mahmud wanted to buy a place, they were gonna need help. Normally Tom Lehtimäki would’ve been perfect. But not right now: dude was in shitty shape—addicted to the rush of gambling like a teenager from Malmvägen craved sucking bong. Lehtimäki couldn’t be trusted these days.

And the others? Javier just wanted to go out chasing chicks, with or without dicks. Jimmy was too stupid and was missing his old lady in Sweden too much. Babak was the devil in a pair of flip-flops. Jorge would’ve crushed the Iranian a long time ago—if he hadn’t been sitting on the secret about how J-boy’d ripped off the Finn.

He needed someone else.

He called over the bartender. Asked for the phone number to Poppy’s Bar.

He walked over to the backpacker chicks. Jorge tapped the one with the dreadlocks on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, can I ask you a favor?”

The girl replied in good English. But not good enough.

“Are you Swedish?” he asked.

The chick looked him over. The same reaction he always got down here—the Svens didn’t think you could be on vacation just cause you were a
blatte
.

Jorge said, “I need to send a text to a friend in Sweden, but my phone’s dead. You got a cell phone?”

The chick laughed. “Doesn’t everyone these days?”

“Listen, it’s an emergency. I’ll pay you.”

The chick smiled again. She had nice eyes: hazel, maybe. Hard to say in the blue-red-green lighting in Poppy’s Bar.

She agreed. Her phone was a cheap make. It didn’t matter.

Jorge fired off a text to the number he had for JW:
Yo man, it’s your main Latino. Call 0066-384231433 if you’ve got a minute
.

It was afternoon in Sweden now.

Next morning. Early. It was only ten-thirty. Mahmud oughta be awake—after all, the Arab went to bed before midnight the night before. Jorge’d already packed his stuff.

He walked past the pool.

Mahmud’s bungalow was 150 feet from his. He knocked on the door.

Mahmud’s tired voice from inside: “Who is it?”

“It’s me. Open up.”

It took over five minutes for him to open the door. Boxers and a wife beater. Same paintings in the ceiling as in Jorge’s bungalow. The room behind him was a royal mess. Shit, this could take some time.

“Man, we gotta go. Today, before noon.”

“But fuck man, you said we were gonna pay those ching chong motherfuckers.”

“No fucking way. We’re going. I was thinking Krabi or Phuket. I’ve got ideas in the works,
amigo
.”

Forty minutes later: Jorge’d helped Mahmud pack. The dude seemed to collect tanning oils, bootleg DVDs, and snort straws. But Jorge wanted to bring or toss everything. Not leave any unnecessary traces.

Mahmud didn’t want to ditch the other guys. Jorge tried to talk him into it. Made promises. Assurances.

Guaranteed: “It’s good for us to be apart for a while. There’s just a bunch of bullshit with Babak all the time. Once we’ve established ourselves somewhere, they can join us.”

They brought their suitcases over to the reception in the hotel next door. Ordered a minibus going south. It would depart in two hours. Then they walked back to Queen Hotel to check out.

It was eleven forty-five.

“Man,” Mahmud said. “I’m gonna miss the pussies in the ceiling.”

They were walking over to their Vespas. They had to be returned and paid for. Again: Jorge didn’t want trouble.

He hopped onto his Vespa, started the engine.

Mahmud followed suit.

They drove out onto the main drag.

Ocean on their left. Clear air. Jorge thought:
Mahmud’s probably not been up this early since we got here
.

Dust rose around the Vespas.

At that moment: the screaming of tires.

People yelling all around.

A large pickup, Toyota HiLux, driving too fast.

Straight toward Mahmud.

Mahmud tried to swerve. Drove up onto the sidewalk.

The Toyota was right behind him.

People were throwing themselves out of the way.

Jorge didn’t know what to do.

He sped up, tried to stay close. Follow them.

The car nudged the back of Mahmud’s Vespa.

The Vespa wobbled. Jorge yelled at him to try to drive down onto the beach.

The Vespa wobbled again.

People were running in every direction.

The engine in the enormous Toyota revved louder.

Hit him again. Pounded into the Vespa with full force.

Jorge saw Mahmud: frame by frame.

His buddy flew like a beach ball through the air.

A high arch.

The ocean in the background.

Mahmud hit the ground twenty feet farther away.

Everything died.

Hägerström was in his car, waiting for JW. He had been sitting here for an hour.

It wasn’t the first time. JW had called him several times since the assault after the gate-out party and asked if he could chauffeur him around the city.

JW’s driver’s license had been revoked when he was convicted of possession and intent. And there were no opportunities to get a new license in the pen. That’s how it always was for those just released back out into the wild: not only did they need to readjust to society after years of institutionalization, they were also homeless, had heavy fines to pay with the Enforcement Administration, and had no driver’s license. What’s more, they might not have had the best contact with honest friends and family during their prison years. Add on difficulties finding a job. More and more employers in Sweden were demanding to see an applicant’s criminal record. They weren’t exactly starting over from square one. They were starting at a major disadvantage.

JW swore that he would have a new driver’s license within three months. But until then, there was one problem. He refused to take the subway. “It doesn’t suit someone like me,” he said when Hägerström suggested he buy a subway pass. Hägerström was familiar with the reasoning. His father hadn’t ridden the subway in Stockholm a single time during his entire life. The pleb-way wasn’t for him, as he liked to say.

So that’s why Hägerström was driving JW around when he needed to get somewhere. Often to MB Accounting Consultant’s office, to the gym, to different restaurants. Sometimes JW asked him to wait and sometimes just to sit outside his building and make sure no uninvited guests attempted to pay him a visit. Afterward JW slipped him one or several five-hundred-kronor bills.

It was a continuation of their relationship. A continuation of the infiltration.

And Hägerström had a clear goal: gather hard evidence proving what JW was up to.

He was bored sitting there in the car. Let his thoughts wander. Reminisced. Flipped through the pages of his own history.

He had enrolled in the Police Academy when he was twenty-one years old.

It was a strange time.
Über
-manly tests, homo jokes in the locker rooms, colleagues that he developed close bonds with. He was doing what he had always dreamed of doing: he was becoming a police officer. Meanwhile another secret dream was fulfilled.

After the summer party at the end of the first semester of school, he had boarded the night bus home. He was so drunk that he could hardly fish money out of his pocket to pay his fare. Normally he took a cab, but for some reason he wanted to take the bus tonight. It was four-thirty in the morning. The night bus was almost empty. Sitting in the very front were three giggly girls with wine stains on their white graduation dresses. That was all.

He found a seat farther back. Almost fell asleep. The girls got off at the next stop, and a guy got on. Hägerström was the only person left on the bus. More than forty empty seats, and yet the guy sat down next to him. It was a provocation. Or—Hägerström could usually tell by looking at guys if they were thinking the same thing he was—an invitation.

The guy crossed one leg over the other. He was wearing a parka and white jeans. Hägerström leaned against the window. Pretended to sleep. His body was tense all over. He almost felt sober.

It felt as though the guy were pressing his leg against his.

He hadn’t been able to check the guy out before he sat down, but this just had to be something.

Did he dare do what he wanted to do?

The guy’s leg against his leg. He was sweating.

Hägerström let his hand slip down, sort of fall, until it was next to his leg.

Brushed by the guy’s hand.

Their fingertips met. They gripped each other’s hands.

The guy leaned over and kissed Hägerström.

It was the first time his lips had touched another man’s mouth.

Two stops later they got off. Home to Hägerström’s house.

When he woke up the next day, the guy was gone. Hägerström never learned his name. But he never forgot that kiss on the bus.

He saw JW in the side mirror. He sort of kicked with his legs when he walked. The guy loved Hägerström’s Jaguar. Hägerström noted that two other men also walked out of Riche, the restaurant where JW had been lunching. He made a mental note of their appearance.

JW sat down in the passenger seat.

Said, “Would you drive me to Bladman’s office?”

Hägerström started the engine. “Of course.”

He drove Hamngatan west, past Norrmalmstorg. Large banks and law firms all around. It ought to be time to strike now, he thought. Search Mischa Bladman’s offices and JW’s home. But Torsfjäll wanted to wait. He was certain: “They’ve got some other place where they keep the paperwork—they’d be idiots otherwise. You have to find out where. We need more evidence. You have to figure out where they keep the documents.”

But so far Hägerström had never dropped JW off at any such place.

JW looked calm.

He opened his mouth. “Hägerström, you know a lot of people with money. Do you know the easiest way to launder money?”

Hägerström’s ears pricked up. This was interesting.

“No.”

“Go to the track or to the casino. You ask for someone who’s just won. Everyone who wins gets a receipt, a voucher. Most of the time, you pay a hundred ten or a hundred twenty percent of the voucher’s value. Big Brother is real sweet, handing out receipts for wins. If you run into problems with the cops or the tax man, you just show them the voucher. It shows where you got the money from.”