Never Fuck Up: A Novel (40 page)

Dad said, “Do you know what has come to pass with Jamila’s friend? Has he stopped molesting her?”

Mahmud thought he used such old-fashioned Arabic words sometimes. Like, what did
molest
even mean?

“He’s not her friend. He was her boyfriend. I think they broke up and that he doesn’t bother her anymore. I hope so.”

Beshar didn’t know too much about the incident a few months ago when Jamila’s neighbor’d rushed into the apartment and beaten her guy to a pulp. Neither Jamila nor Mahmud wanted to tell him. The dude’d been hospitalized for eight days after he had surgery on his jaw—sucked breakfast/lunch/dinner through a straw. Still, the guy refused to talk to the cops who showed up and wanted to interrogate him. Despite everything he’d done to Jamila—he was a man of honor.

“Do you know what happened to her neighbor?” Beshar asked.

Mahmud had no idea. The guy seemed lethal.

A man with dark, curly hair, a dirty knit sweater, and a mustache was distributing slips of paper. A picture of a little boy in a fetal position. The text:
My brother is still in Romania. He can’t travel. He has a very serious joint disease. He suffers a great deal and needs medical help. My family cannot afford to help him. We ask you for a gift. May God bless you!

Beshar dropped a ten-kronor coin into the beggar’s hand when he passed by collecting the slips of paper again. Mahmud looked at him.

“What are you doing? You can’t give money to one of those.”

Beshar turned to Mahmud.“An honorable man is always generous. That is the only thing I want to teach you, Mahmud. You need to maintain your dignity through life. Act like a man.”

“I do, Dad.”

“No, not when you’re selling those pills and fighting with the police and prosecutors. Will you ever change?”

“I’m on the right track. Really, I am. I’m not doing that stuff anymore. That was before prison.” Mahmud could hardly conceal the disappointment in his voice. When would he be able to start controlling his own life? Be free of all the
sharmutas
who fucked with him. Syriacs, Yugos, the parole office at Hornsfuck.

“You need to act respectfully toward people who deserve it, respect your elders, and always be generous, like toward that poor man we just passed right there. And then you have to take care of your sister. I am too old for that. Just think of all she’s been through. Did you thank her neighbor?”

“Absolutely. I thanked him right after that thing happened. I think it made him happy. But he seems a little weird.”

“That doesn’t matter. Do you know what Allah’s messenger—may blessings and peace be upon him—said about that?”

“About what?”

“About woman.”

Mahmud remembered certain expressions that his dad’d taught him ages ago. “She is a rose.”

“That’s right. You must treat her well. The prophet also said that the best among you are those who treat your wives well. He said only an honorable man honors women. Do you understand? Think of your mother.”

Mahmud thought about his mom. The memories grew hazier with each passing year. Her eyes, her kisses when he was about to go to sleep. The head scarf that she’d stopped wearing during those last years, but that was always hanging in their house like a reminder. Her stories about bandits and caliphs. He wondered who she’d been, really. What would’ve happened if she’d come along to Sweden? Then maybe everything wouldn’t have gone to hell.

They were almost at Jamila’s tanning salon. They passed the indoor subway platform at Mälarhöjden. Beshar moved his prayer beads between thumb and index finger.

Mahmud couldn’t drop the irony of the situation. He’d taken a job with the Yugos in order to escape the Born to Be Hated, to get ahead in life. The result: instead of being chased by Gürhan, he was locked in by Stefanovic. Instead of being free but in debt, he was debt-free but a slave. And Abu was involved both times. They’d popped Wisam.
If Dad found out about Mahmud’s contribution to that mess—shit, he didn’t even want to think about it. Then he might as well just go die in a ditch right away.

Axelsberg, with the usual stores. One ICA grocery store and one video-rental place, an ATM, and a hair salon that looked like it hadn’t changed its window display in thirty years. A newly opened Mexican joint in some old building and a beer dive. Finally: Jamila’s tanning salon. Well, maybe not Jamila’s per se— the Yugos owned the place. But she’d been working there for five years.

They walked in. The tanning booths were hidden behind gray doors. Jamila was mopping the floor. Tanning salons: nasty, sweaty, dirty by default. If you didn’t keep it extra clean, not even the worst tanning addicts would show.

Jamila smiled. Beshar smiled. Mahmud watched them. Jamila reminded him of Mom, intense mood swings but always mad nice to Dad. Never talked back, pampered him. But maybe that was good. He got a flashback: the pig head in the paper bag.

Jivan showed fifteen minutes later. She was stressed out, said she had a ton of homework to do. Mahmud remembered his own school years. Babak, Rob, the others—none of them even knew what homework was.

They walked together to the grocery store. Shopped. Then they walked toward Örnsberg, where Jamila lived. Mahmud carried the bags of groceries. Past a playground, a football field, a wooded area. Past the whole Sven suburb with its advantages and privileges. It wasn’t the fact that there was a park, a field, or a forest—they had all that in Alby too—it was that it all functioned so calmly and flawlessly. Fag fathers and day-care teachers in the park with the kids, no chaos. School teams on the football field, but no fights. Maybe he exaggerated the image of his own hood.

Beshar asked Jamila lots of questions. She talked about buying the tanning salon. Finally. The storefront and the business couldn’t cost more than fifty G’s to take over.

Jivan promised, “I’m gonna be a lawyer. Then I can lend you money.”

They laughed.

Outside Jamila’s house. Some dude was packing stuff into an Audi. At first, Mahmud didn’t recognize the guy. Jamila seemed to want to avoid him, turned her face away. After three seconds: Mahmud realized who it was—the neighbor who’d pummeled her boyfriend.

Mahmud stopped. Called out to the neighbor.

The dude looked up. Responded in Arabic,
“Salaam.”

Niklas walked up to Beshar. “Hi, my name is Niklas and I live on the same floor as Jamila. Is she your daughter?”

Beshar looked confused. A Swede who spoke his language?

“May God protect you,” Beshar said in a quiet voice.

Mahmud thought, Can’t Dad find something better to say?

At the same time: there was something about that neighbor, Niklas. He radiated something. Coolness. Strength. Hardness. Something that Mahmud needed right now.

Left-wing types/anarchist feminists/LGBT socialists/gender Communists. Niklas didn’t care about labels. Didn’t care if they read the same books as he did. Didn’t care what they wrote on their message boards, their blogs, their articles. Didn’t care who they were, why they thought the way they did. Only one thing was clear: he needed more bodies for the attack—and a few of the people on those websites seemed to think like him. Operation Magnum demanded time. More than he could put in on his own. The thought’d been growing lately: he should recruit. And Benjamin wouldn’t do.

Total sleep over the past ten days: less than forty hours. He pursued Mats Strömberg from eight-thirty in the morning until seven-thirty at night, when the guy went home. Most of Niklas’s time was spent in the Audi outside the asshole’s job, an accounting firm in Södermalm. He rented another car for a few days to avoid drawing attention to himself. Used a fake driver’s license that he’d bought online.

He continued to read the right literature—
The Girl and the Guilt,
by Katarina Wennstam,
Under the Pink Comforter,
by Nina Björk—dozed off, drank coffee. The rest of the evenings, he watched over the other apartments. Later at night: changed the tapes in the video cameras, watched the footage, organized his information, practiced with his knife, chatted with the left-wing people. He stopped running, didn’t call his mom, Benjamin, or anyone else. But was there anyone else, really? It’s not like his social calendar’d been crammed since he’d moved back home.

He was learning more and more about Mats Strömberg. The dude followed strict routines. Took the same route to the train every day. Bought a cinnamon bun and a coffee at the same shop every morning. Threw the coffee cup in the exact same garbage bin on the street. Either he left with his colleagues at eleven-thirty or he went by himself and bought something thirty minutes later. Alternated between three different lunch spots. Niklas could see straight into the pig’s office; it
was on the bottom floor. Six people worked at the place. He wondered how much they knew about Mats Strömberg’s home life.

What’s more: things were happening in one of the single-family homes. Roger Jonsson and Patricia Jacobs—the happy little family without kids. Niklas went through the footage. Realized: the guy was coming home later and later at night. Roger and Patricia were arguing. Obvious: things would blow up soon—he could see it in the man’s eyes. The way he gesticulated at Patricia. Body language that screamed violence.

Other problems: the dirty real-estate fucker’d been in touch. Niklas couldn’t keep living in the apartment. It was just a transitional apartment, as the broker reminded him, and now he’d arranged for a real firsthand rental contract. Ready to go. One hundred and fifty G’s and the contract would belong to Niklas. He’d be in the housing system for real, no more subletting. He had a week to make up his mind. No possibility of prolonging his stay in the pad he had now. Dammit. Getting a firsthand rental contract was a good thing, but he just couldn’t do it right now. His employer was threatening to fire him—Niklas hadn’t gotten a proper doctor’s certificate to explain the days he’d missed. What the fuck was he supposed to do? He needed more people. More money. More time. More weapons. More everything.

Solutions. Within a few days: time to make the hit against Mats Strömberg. When that part was over and done with, a certain amount of time would be freed up. Then he had to shore up his finances, maybe rob a bank. Finally: he was going to make a trip out to Biskops-Arnö Community College—a person he’d chatted with studied there, Felicia. She was studying some bogus thing called Ecology and Global Solidarity. A potential recruit, troop reinforcement, another pair of boots on the ground.

On Monday afternoon, he’d gone to the Black & White Inn to get a weapon. Felt stressed out, wanted to miss as little as possible of Mats Strömberg’s life.

The place was empty. He ordered a mineral water. Sat down at a table. A lone woman behind the bar was readying things for the night. She was slicing lemons. He eyed the menu: drawn with chalk on a blackboard. Plaice with French fries, pork tenderloin with a green pepper sauce. The woman behind the bar ignored him.

After ten minutes, he asked her if Lukic was there.

The woman shook her head. Then she walked over to the pub’s main entrance, turned over the
OPEN
sign hanging in the little window. Turned to Niklas. “You want stuff?” He nodded. Niklas understood the movement she made with her hand: come with me.

Behind the bar. Through the kitchen. A dude was boiling something in there. A hallway on the other side. Peeling yellow paint on the walls. Flashing fluorescent lights. Past a bathroom, a cleaning closet, a walk-in freezer, a locker room. Like some fucking mafia flick. At the very end of the hall was an office. The woman closed the door behind them. Niklas eyed her. Mouse-colored hair down to her shoulders. Bags under her eyes that makeup couldn’t conceal. Still, strength in her gaze. His warrior instinct spoke loud and clear: this is a true fighter.

She unlocked a wooden cabinet. Lifted out a metal suitcase. Hauled it up onto the desk. Turned the coded lock. Opened it. Four fabric-wrapped bundles. She unrolled the contents. Three automatics and one revolver.

He recognized the Beretta immediately. A lot of boys down there used it—the classic 92/96 series, a basic 9-millimeter handgun that came in lots of different models. Chromed steel, camouflage-colored, aluminum frame, even one with real ivory in the grip.

“That is a Beretta.”

“I know. A ninety-two ninety-six. Tell me about the others.”

“Whatever you want. The other three are Russian. First a revolver, Nosorog, nine millimeter. And this one, this is the same caliber, a Gyurza, special for bulletproof vests. For both righties and lefties. Really good. Finally, a Bagira MR-444, a light handgun, also nine millimeter.”

“And the prices?”

“This one and this one, dirty.” She pointed to the Beretta and the Gyurza. “You can have the American for five thousand and the Russian for four. But they’re good.”

“What do you mean, they’re dirty?”

“I can’t say that they haven’t been involved in robberies or other shit.”

“Then you can forget about them. I want a new one, in the box. What do you want for this one?” Niklas didn’t want a revolver. He picked up the Bagira gun. It was really very light, definitely a plus. But how jam-safe was it? He had no experience with the make.