Life Deluxe (44 page)

He was on his way into new territory for Operation Tide, literally and figuratively. An unexpected turn. He was on his way to Thailand, on an assignment for JW.

He rose and squeezed past the other passengers in his row. Stretched. Tried to straighten out his body.

It was a large plane with a set of stairs leading to the upper level, where the first-class people were seated. Hägerström wished he at least could have flown Economy Flex, but that would have aroused suspicion. A former CO simply didn’t pay twenty-five thousand kronor for a trip to Thailand.

He looked out over the rows of seats. Hägerström had flown this route several times in his life. The plane was full of the usual mix of people. Middle-class Swedish families with kids running around and snotting and coughing in the aisles. Guys in groups of three and four who had been a little tipsy ever since check-in. Single men flying in khaki shorts and T-shirts who personified the image of Western pedophilia but might just be businessmen. Finally, there were the Thai women, alone or with children, who were on their way home to visit their families.

He closed his eyes. Tried to sleep. Instead, he started thinking about things he really didn’t want to think about.

After the Police Academy, he had advanced quickly. Police officer, deputy police inspector. He had met guys now and then at gay haunts
like Side Track Bar, Patricia, and Tip Top. He traveled to Amsterdam three times by himself and hung out at the Bent. But he never had any serious relationships. That wouldn’t work. And on a few occasions, he even had sex with girls.

He lived a double life, a secret life, a closet life.

When he turned thirty, he rented out a restaurant and invited fifty people, including his parents and siblings. Had a birthday party. Ninety percent of the speeches were about how he was any mother-in-law’s dream but never settled down. That he could get anyone he wanted but was never satisfied with anything. That he had not had a real relationship with a girl since high school.

He started thinking. His police colleagues moved in with their partners, had kids, got engaged, married. His old friends from childhood did all that but in reverse order: got engaged, married, had kids.

It had taken him a little over a year to understand that he too was longing for children. But he couldn’t talk to anyone about it. Hägerström: former coastal ranger, career-hungry deputy inspector on the cusp of promotion who longed for a kid. That just didn’t jibe. But the thoughts wouldn’t leave him—every single day he thought about how he could meet a girl who it might be okay to be with.

But most of all, he just wanted to get away.

Three months later an offer arrived like a gift from the police gods. He was given the opportunity to take a leave of absence from work in order to accept a job abroad with the Nordic Coordination Unit in Bangkok.

It was a good time in his life. The job wasn’t too intense, but it was interesting. Typical duties related to the extradition of Scandinavians on the run in Thailand and drug and child sex crimes. He learned tolerable Thai, and he learned about the Thai mentality. He hung out with the Scandinavian police officers in the unit and with some Swedes from the consulate. But his social life was, by and large, pretty meager. In his free time, he worked out or took walks around Bangkok. He spent a lot of time alone. Found gay bars and felt free.

When he had less than two months left of his service, he met Anna. She worked as a secretary at the consulate. They met at a cocktail party organized by the coordination unit. She was thirty-two years old, from Tyresö, and had worked previously as an executive secretary. They shared the same longing: children. Other than that, Hägerström wondered if they had ever shared anything at all.

And still, they began to see more and more of each other and actually became good friends. At the end of his service, she seduced him after they had been out for dinner. At the time he liked the idea: to try to start a relationship with someone who was a good friend and who also wanted to have children. Unfortunately, they had a harder time than expected getting pregnant, maybe partly because Hägerström so rarely wanted to try. After four years of agony, they adopted a boy. Thailand felt like the natural choice.

Pravat was about a year old when he came to them. Both Hägerström and Anna experienced the best days in their lives. They had done a lot of research, gone to informational meetings, partaken in discussion groups. He had felt prepared, and he knew he would be a good father. Anna was good too, she really was. The problem was that, other than the child, they didn’t work together for shit. Their shared goal in life—to have a child—had been attained, but there was neither love nor sexual attraction between them.

Back on the plane. Ten rows farther up, a group of inebriated guys were playing loud music on a computer with external speakers. Nine rows up, a Thai woman was trying to ignore those very same guys. Two rows up, a father, whose kid had finally passed out in his arms, was snoring. All the drunk guys were wearing white T-shirts with
NIKE
across the front. Personally, Hägerström traveled in a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He heard his father’s voice in his head:
One always flies in a collar
.

If Göran had been on this flight, he would have forced his son to book Business Class in order to escape the hordes of white trash Swedes. But Father never would have used that expression,
white trash
. He might have called them trailer Svens.

Göran used to joke about airplanes.

“The black box is supposed to be able to handle anything. It’s made so it can survive plane crashes into the ocean, into the desert, or right into the top of a mountain. So why don’t they make the entire plane in the same material?”

That was pure Father humor.

Hägerström missed him.

He sat down. It was nine-thirty at night, Swedish time.

He tore the plastic wrapper off the blanket. It was purple with orange
and yellow lines on it—like everything else on Thai Airways: the seats, the pillows, the carpeting on the floor, the uniforms the stewardesses wore, the logos on the wings of the airplane.

JW had called. He wondered if Hägerström was in the neighborhood, if he would give him a ride to the gym. Their relationship was built on each meeting the other halfway. Hägerström was a fine-familied fellow heading down on the class elevator. JW was a bad seed on his way up.

They cold talked for a while. Right before JW was about to get out, he said, “You know Thai, right?”

“Yes, I told you that, didn’t I? I used to live there.”

“Right, but there are, like, seven million guys who have Thai wives who don’t even speak English.”

“I’m not like that. I lived in Bangkok for over a year. I can speak Thai. Dammit, I know everything there is to know about Thailand. You want to know where the best chicks are, ask me. You want to know where you can buy a nine-millimeter for the best price, ask me. You want to know who you have to talk to in Klong Teuy in order not to end up in trouble, you ask Mr. Martin Hägerström.”

“Great, buddy. I get your point. In that case, I’ve got a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“You help me out, drive me around, make sure I’m feeling good.”

“You know it.”

“Do you have any other job going on right now?”

“No, but I’ve applied for a guard job in Stockholm.”

“And when do you get that?”

“I don’t even know if I’ll get it, but if so, in four weeks.”

“Okay, in that case, I’d like you to go to Thailand for a few weeks. What do you say?”

“Why?”

“I’ve got a buddy there who needs help with some business. He’s wound up in trouble and needs someone who knows Thailand. I’ll cover half the ticket. You understand?”

JW didn’t really have to wonder—this was definitely an order.

Maybe it would lead somewhere. Right now Operation Tide had sort of stalled anyway.

She involved outsiders, for the first time.

Goran and Thomas’d advised her. Or rather, Thomas was the one who’d come up with the name: Gabriel Hanna. On the surface, he was known as a dealer of bulletproof vests, army boots, and paintball guns. Had two stores in Västerås, one in Örebro, and one in Eskilstuna. On top of that: Sweden’s leading Web site for military gear. Bouncers, military fetishists, and cop wannabes loved him. But according to Thomas: in the underworld—Gabriel Hanna was more known as the real thing. Ammo king, dealer of warm metal, hot gear. The go-to source. To put it simply, Gabriel Hanna: the heaviest illegal arms dealer in central Sweden. Maybe in the entire country.

Natalie, Goran, and a young guy with a hoodie were walking down a hallway. A couple of Jack Vegas machines against the black-painted walls. A vending machine for soda. One for snacks and sandwiches. Then a narrow set of stairs leading up. When they reached the first flight up, the guy turned on the lights.

Natalie eyed the room. It was large. Stretched across the entire upstairs of the building. Beams in the ceiling. Linoleum on the floor. White textured wallpaper. There were four large gaming tables covered in green felt, one in each corner of the room. In the middle: a large, round roulette table in dark wood. Around the gaming tables were office chairs that gave off a 1980s feel: black poofy leather and armrests in some wood material. Posters for different online game companies and the magazine
Poker
were tacked up on the walls.

They’d stepped into Västerås Gaming Club. A half-shady gaming club for dudes who wanted to burn cash on poker, roulette, and dice. They should at least try to create a more glamorous feeling—that would benefit the gaming. On the other hand: these were the provinces. Maybe a roulette table was enough to make the country folk feel flashy.

Natalie and Goran sat down at one of the gaming tables. The leather of the chair seats made a whooshing sound like air was coming out of them. The dude spoke bad Swedish. “He come soon.”

“We don’t have all day,” Goran said. “Call him.”

The guy had a tattoo with an eagle with outstretched wings on his right forearm. Natalie knew: that was the standard Assyrian ink job.

The guy put his hands in his pockets. Repeated what he’d just said, “He come soon.”

Then he walked down the stairs.

Goran’d warned her ahead of time. It was a game—who waits for whom. Who bends for whom. Who fucks whom in the ass. And right now they were the ones who wanted information, so they’d have to be the bottom for a while.

Twenty minutes later Gabriel Hanna came up the stairs with the guy in tow. He didn’t look the way Natalie’d imagined. He was well dressed. Close shave. Neatly combed hair parted to the side. Pale blue shirt, dark blue jacket, and pressed chinos. Honestly: Hanna looked like a total lawyer, even reminded her of JW. The only thing that might separate him from the Stockholm style: fat stitching along the side of his shoes. Rubber soles. Above all: the shoes were super pointy. Natalie remembered something Louise liked to say: “You can buy a lot with money, but not taste.”

Hanna grinned. Offered his hand.

“Hi, there. Nice that you could make it all the way here.”

Västerås dialect. Pleasant style. Pleasant tone of voice, despite the dialect. Not exactly what Natalie’d expected from a dealer of something as illegal as weapons.

He sat down. Nodded at his guy, who left the room.

“I’m glad you could meet me,” Natalie said.

She set the pile of papers from the investigation on the gaming table. According to Goran: if anyone in this country knew about illegal weapons, it was Hanna.

The little guy returned with three cans of Coke.

Hanna took them and turned to Natalie. “Would you like one?”

Goran’s can made a popping sound when he opened it.

Gabriel Hanna teased, punned, made Kurd jokes. “Do you know why all Kurds do their homework on the roof?”

Natalie wanted to get right down to business.

Hanna answered his own question: “Because they want to get
high
marks!” He laughed at his own joke.

Then he began reading Natalie’s paperwork. Silence in the Västerås Gaming Club for fifteen minutes.

The runner was playing with his cell phone. Goran was staring straight ahead. Natalie was thinking about Viktor. He also liked to laugh at his own jokes. They hadn’t seen each other in a week. The last time they were together, he talked about his financial crisis and his new business ideas. Mostly Natalie wanted to fuck him. It made her forget all the shit for a while. But then Viktor’d started babbling about how he thought there were people in Thailand who were connected to the murder. That he knew some criminal dudes who’d gone there shortly after the event. Dudes who hadn’t liked Dad.

Hanna flipped through the pages slowly. Held his body at the same angle, like a wax figurine. The weapons dealer was concentrating to the max.

Natalie thought:
Gabriel Hanna is the real stuff, a serious guy
. Professional style spiced with a sense of humor. Social competence, easy to like. She understood why he’d done so well. Maybe they could do business together sometime in the future. She thought about JW—she ought to see him again. He or Bladman had to give her the right information.